If you’re of the jailbreak persuasion and know your way around the world of coding, then you may be interested to know that a new website has been opened to the public that aims to make the collaboration of jailbreak creators an easier process than it previously was.
OpenJailbreak.org is the brainchild of popular and indeed prolific jailbreak creator Joshua Hill. Also known as P0sixninja, Hill has been responsible for many a jailbreak over the years, and while the man himself has been keeping something of a low profile of late, Hill is now once again trying to make the jailbreak community into something much more cohesive than it has been in the past.
Speaking at today’s WWJC event, Hill himself explained that he believes there are five different types of jailbreak users; average users, fanboys/girls, developers, security researchers and jailbreak creators. OpenJailbreak.org is aimed at the last three, as well as anyone who wants to learn more about how jailbreaks are created from the ground up. The target is to have one central space where all jailbreak development can have a home, making it easier for everyone concerned to manage the code required to make the magic happen.
Long term, Hill hopes that the site, as well as offshoot projects, will be able to keep jailbreaking sustainable for years to come.
The most important thing to remember? OpenJailbreak.org is not a jailbreak!
Currently, jailbreak developers and creators are often spread across the globe and are left to make their own way in the process of creating the jailbreaking exploits that we all use to hack our iOS devices. Often these developers band together to form groups, but the whole thing is much less organized than it could be. Hill’s OpenJailbreak aims to make collaboration easier by offering a central repository for jailbreaking code that, as of today, is open to everyone. It’s built on the Redmine project management application, so will look very familiar to those of the application development world. If you’ve ever used Github, you’ll probably be right at home.
The ultimate aim of OpenJailbreak is probably to help make an iOS 7 jailbreak available as soon as possible. Apple’s latest and greatest version of the iPhone, iPad and iPod touch operating system is only a few weeks away from its expected release, and as soon as that day comes the calls for a jailbreak will no doubt begin. Screenshots have already emerged of what appears to be a jailbreak injected onto an iOS 7-powered device, but as we all know that doesn’t necessarily mean anything, for now that is. With so many changes under the hood of the seventh iteration of iOS, there are sure to be some unique challenges to making an iOS 7 jailbreak a reality.
Hopefully OpenJailbreak can make the transition to iOS 7 a little easier for all of us. All we can do is wait and see what the hard working devs have in store for us.
To learn more about OpenJailbreak, check out Hill’s presentation slides from here.
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