share my iPhone develop cert with others

Question

I plan to share my personal iPhone develop certificate with some people. ( 99 USD from apple)

I am not sure if this is good place to ask this question. But there are a lot iPhone developers here,and maybe they can give me some helps.

My questions are:

1) What should I do to share others to use my developer certificate , and my privacy get protected ?

2) Any other potential security issues ?

Thanks for your time.

Answer 1

Apple does not allow you to share your developer program account with anybody else.

Answer 2

You need to have a company and register that with the Apple Developer Program to be able to share your certificate. It basically gives you the ability to create development teams. If you have registered as an individual sadly you cannot do this.

For any other purpose you should not SHARE your developer license.

Apple iPhone Developer Program

Answer 3

As other said, you should not share your developer certificate, as this will violate the agreement you signed with Apple. Whether you like the price or not, you have agreed to their terms out of your own will, when you paid the price.

That said, there's nothing hat actually prevents you from giving others your developer certificate. However, there are certain problems with that:

• Once they have your certificate, they can actually sign any code with your name, and you are legally responsible for that code.
• In order for them to distribute their code, they also need a development or a distribution profile. That one is tied to your Apple ID account, and unless you give them the username and password, you have to be the one to get it from Apple for them.
• Anything that's submitted to Apple store, is tied to your account and any violation on other people behalf will reflect upon your relationship with Apple. If Apple decides to terminate your developer certificate due to violations, your "friends" still have the choice to sign up for the developer program, but for you getting another one might be harder.
• Income from iAds or from AppStore sales is also tied to your developer account, so you will be responsible for all taxes, and for distributing of that income to others. While the latter might seem lucrative (especially if you insist on a cut from their income, as it's your cert they are using), the former can bite you in the behind badly.

Just something to think about. Yes, sharing the initial investment seems like a smart move at the beginning, but unless you have strictly defined (in writing) business relationship that spells all the legal details around that arrangement, I'd strongly advise against it.

And if you still want to do it, I'd advice to actually splurge for the team developer program and sign a contract with any other that you will act as their representative to Apple. This would allow you to get separate development certificate for everyone to a limited number, of course), and to delegate some of the provisioning portal functions to other Apple ID accounts, yet will leave you in control of the final provisioning profiles and the submissions to the AppStore. Which you do want, seeing how it's going to be your name on anything signed with this certificate.