May Express Signing become free for freeware?

2008-04-13T09:14:31+03:00

I think about one possibility to improve Symbian Signed process.

All we know, what Symbian Signed support freeware developer’s community with Submit freeware. Frankly, I never use it, but that process definitely has lots of issues, so developers prefer to publish unsigned applications. What Cellmania do? It's provided access to Cellmania PubId and performs testing (taking risks to sign spyware etc). That's all.

Now let's see on PubId owners. That’s privileged and controllable category of developers completely hasn’t support for freeware development. PubId owners don’t need Cellmania, because they can take risks for signed app for self.

So if I’m a freeware coder, then I haven’t any reason even try to get PubId, because it's not give me any benefits, and I still have to use Cellmania process. On other side, if I’m PubId owner and I want to sign freeware application for free, then I have no any advantages of owning PubId, and forced to use Cellmania process again. Of course, thats force to publish unsigned applications.

That’s kind of *supporting* freeware development looks a bit ugly.
I think Symbian Signed can make it better. Symbian Signed can make Express Signed free for freeware applications.

That will have some advantages and disadvantages. Let’s clear up what that give to us:

Real freeware development support at least for PubId owners. That allows developer to sign freeware application immediately. So PubId owners get more motivation to publish their apps as freeware.
That can help with unsigned applications distribution problem.
That’s make PubId more desired for developers. So freeware developer may prefer to buy PubId.

Issues:

Who know, is it really freeware application? User can trick Symbian Signed to save 20$.
Risk to sign malware.

Let’s look closely at our issues. First one is a biggest problem. But it's can be solved well. First of all — PubId owners is vulnerable in compare with other developers. Symbian Signed have good way to penalty irresponsible developer — block its PubId or write off its TC Ids. And as more desired PubId looks for developer as more he don't want to lose it. That’s why PubId owners more responsible. Second — developer should mark it's submission as freeware before signing, so that kind of submissions is easy to track. Then Symbian Signed can use old technique of submissions random checking to find shareware apps which signed as freeware. If that still looks risky for Symbian Signed, they can implement more severe method: Developer should have enough TC TrustCenter IDs before signing freeware. Those IDs can be locked until Symbian Signed will check submission and confirm its freeware.

What about malware? 20$ is not a big price for signing malware. Moreover, if someone try to sign malware for free, he's prefer to send it to CellMania then to use PubId which allow to find his real name and firm details. So making Open Signed free for freeware doesn’t open the door for malware.

Now let's be honest: Symbian Signed will lose some profit (TC Id's), but such kind of freeware support looks much better then existing one.

Aleksandr Trufanov's Forum Nokia Blog

May Express Signing become free for freeware?