Rhodes 2.0 to be MIT licensed

RhoMobile has announced Rhodes 2.0, the latest version of its platform for building native applications for Android, Symbian, iPhone and iPad, BlackBerry and Windows Mobile devices. One major change is that the framework will be under an MIT licence rather than dual licensed as a GPL version and a commercial version. Adam Blum, CEO of Rhomobile said "Rhodes 2.0 is faster, more powerful and now, through the MIT license, is completely free". The new version also includes support for bi-directional HD audio and video streaming and a metadata framework to make developing with customised or changing database schemas easier. Rhodes 2.0 is currently available as a public beta release and the full release is due later this month.

Rhodes allows developers to write Ruby applications with a close to native look and feel which can access geolocation, PIM contacts, camera, mapping and the RIM and iPhone push SDKs and make use of a MVC framework with an Object Relational Manager (ORM) to handle database access. Rhomobile is not, though, open sourcing it's RhoSync server used for offline data synchronisation, which starts at $5,000 for a single app with 100 users. RhoMobile believe that applications created with the framework will be compatible with the controversial iPhone OS 4.0 SDK rules which limit the languages Apple allow developers to use to create iPhone applications.

(djwm)