New Campaign Seeks Help To Fund An iOS 7 Jailbreak Reward

At this point, I think it's safe to say that many of us are getting antsy waiting for an iOS 7 jailbreak. Considering that iOS 7 has such a high adoption rate, I'm sure that a lot of devices jailbroken on iOS 6, were eventually updated to iOS 7 to take advantage of new features. Hopefully, we don't have to be stuck with a locked down filesystem forever. A new website (www.isios7jailbrokenyet.com) has put together a crowdfunding campaign to gather a reward for the individual that successfully creates an open source iOS 7 jailbreak. As reported by iDownloadBlog, the site is using Stripe to accept online donations which are being put towards the iOS 7 jailbreak reward. Here's why they're doing it:

We strongly believe that users should have the freedom to control their devices. We wanted an open source jailbreak for iOS 7, giving users the capability to install what they want on their own devices and the ability to audit the code they're using to do so. Jailbreaking is also critical to ensuring that the disabled are able to use their mobile devices as easily as possible. So we started a prize for the first people who can do it.

Currently, the website has collected a little over $3,200, and along with the donations, it has also brought some controversy to the table. Cydia creator, Saurik, has taken his thoughts to Reddit citing the site's terms and conditions. The third party company powering the website's platform will be taking a five percent commission from the total donation amount, and in Saurik's opinion, it changes the dynamics behind developing an iOS 7 jailbreak. If you'd like to take a look, there's a large debate happening here on Reddit. Like I mentioned, one of the requirements to be eligible for the reward is that the jailbreak needs to be open source. Along with that, the jailbreak must:

• Work for iPhones (including 4S, 5, 5c, 5s) running iOS 7.
• Support the latest current version of iOS (7.04).
• Be untethered and accessible to the average user.
• Be publicly released and available free of charge.
• Be released under one of the OSI-approved licenses.

Here are the terms and conditions:

The contributions will be split as follows: 90% of the prize fund will be paid out to the winning submission. 10% will go toward payment processing (2.9% + 30¢ for credit cards), Threshold platform fees (5%), and donations to EFF and Public Knowledge (remainder). If no one claims the prize within 18 months, we will contact all donors and provide instructions as to how to receive a refund. Any remaining funds will be donated to PK and EFF.

Chris Maury is the founder of this idea and is working alongside Cory Doctorow (Co-editor of Boing Boing), Kyle Wiens (Co-founder and CEO, iFixit), and Biella Coleman (Professor and Author of Coding Freedom). The jailbreak will be judged, and if it meets the requirements, the reward will be given to its developer. Saurik makes a solid argument against the website's idea:

The primary problem I have with this website is that it attempts to change the dynamics from one of "people who do things that are fun to make devices more open" to one of "people who do things to win cash prizes". Meanwhile, it changes the dynamics in the minds of the people contributing: normally, people contribute after the fact to the teams that built something that they found of value; under the model of this website, people contribute ahead of time, and then hope that the thing that is released works for their specific device (or even "runs on their computer", etc.), and if it doesn't they are kind of out of luck.

I'm not entirely against this idea. The outcome would be the same for the community. We will all have the ability to liberate our iOS 7 devices, and at the same time, automatically reward the person responsible, but on the other hand, I do agree with Saurik's statement. I think the website has good intentions, and it seems like a lot of other people do as well. The reward amount has significantly risen within the time it took me to write this article. What do you think about this idea? Does it really alter the motivation behind developing a jailbreak, or is this no different than a Kickstarter campaign? For more information visit www.isios7jailbrokenyet.com.

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