In an example of rolling over in the name of “good relationships,” the Pre Dev Wiki has shut down their tethering page because “Sprint could get angry.” This is in stark contrast with iPhone devs who couldn’t give two squirts about “good relationships” and instead produce interesting technical content including unlocked phones.
“We have been politely cautioned by Palm that any discussion of tethering during the Sprint exclusivity period (and perhaps beyond—we don’t know yet) will probably cause Sprint to complain to Palm, and if that happened then Palm would be forced to react against the people running the IRC channel and this wiki.
We want to retain a good relationship with Palm, hence we are not allowing discussion of tethering on the IRC channel, or in this wiki.
Note that Sprint does not have a plan available for use with the Pre which allows tethering under the Terms Of Service.
Once there is a version of the Pre available for a carrier that does allow tethering, or an unlocked GSM version, then we may be able to change this policy.”
Interestingly, this was only “discussion” of Pre tethering and not actual tethering instructions, a delightful chilling effect that I suspect will backfire once the same folks who were working on the Dev Wiki move to somewhere more conducive to intellectual inquiry like this, which I put up in about five minutes.
I don’t want to get all “freedom of speech” on this but the futility of the action – by both Palm and the devs – is touching. WebOS is now hackable and they’re already working on homebrew software. It will literally be a matter of two or three weeks before someone figures out tethering and then all that stands between Pre owners and the Interwebs is Sprint’s 5GB cap on “unlimited” Internet. Someone will do it and now it’s not the Pre Dev Wiki. They’ve frightened themselves out of relevance.
UPDATE – Just noticed the Dev wiki’s motto: “Let’s open this beast up.” Not so much, it seems.
No rss feed?
Yeah, THERE’s an consumer-friendly company. Sprint just gets more and more pathetic. And Palm caving like that? This is the Blackberry killer?
and really, who gives an f about sprint’s feelings? just about as much as they care about ours, that’s for sure. oh, but let’s save their precious sensibilities, because it raises the likelihood that tethering will be less than $20/mo once they eventually enable it.
palm should have picked a provider that could, you know, provide. this spat is between sprint and palm and has nothing to do with the devs and users. smart developers will ignore it to their own benefit.
Isn’t this sort of thing standard practice? Apple shuts down every site that mentions the word “hackintosh” and it just makes sense that the official developer site would censor something that involves hacking the hardware to do something the carrier does not want you to do?
I mean, I hate it as much as the next guy, but I’m not going to complain that the msft site doesn’t have a developer wiki on hacking the 360…
Eric: Correct, and correct. Both Sprint and Palm should be ashamed for the disservice done to their customers by this.
Is it also a disservice that the iphone does not allow for tethering and that apple censors sites that talk about jailbreaking the iphone?
This is an industry-wide problem that has existed for many years. To trash Palm for this is shortsighted (and somewhat irresponsible journalism).
my issue is that the pre dev’s caved, not that palm is doing this. palm can send all sorts of letters to anyone it wants. the issue is whether to heed them for fear of “angering” a company.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but don’t the devs always cave when big-expensive lawyers show up in their mailbox? I’d love to see an example of a dev community standing up and fighting that fight. Usually they just comply and that sort of dev moves underground.
Also its a bit myopic to see this site representing all Pre “devs” or that they caved by shutting the site down. I would be willing to put money on a tether hack being released within the month via other channels. This stuff is always a bit of a cat-and-mouse game..
It could be seen as quite helpful as well to maintain a good working relationship with Palm.
I’m sure other groups will pop up that won’t be quite so friendly but if one site/group wants to take that approach, whats the problem?
At least Palm isn’t trying to shut down ANYTHING that has to do with the homebrew scene, just one thing they wanted taken down because it would put pressure on Palm to react to them.
Funny that you even mention freedom of speech as it has NOTHING to do with this, no relevance at all, no one is being forced, it was a polite letter and the other party agreed to it.
Now… wheres that article about Apple allowing a homebrew community to continue on without issue?
John: Maybe the devs caved because Palm may be allowing them access to certain things in return? Who knows, really. But I know that if Palm is still willing to let end-users hack the OS and build emulators, custom code, and other tricks .. they are seeming somewhat open to the concept.
They aren’t shutting the entire thing down, it’s just one small cog in the machine.
Yes, because all of the other smartphone providers are cool with you hacking their hardware to do things they don’t want you to do. And they never shut down sites which talk about hacking their hardware.
(off to tether my iphone)
Why do so many people sign a terms of service agreement and then act offended when it is suggested they should keep their word? Amazing how few people care about integrity. I look forward to tethering my pre some day like next guy, but I also want to respect other people…and abide by the agreement I signed up for.
As much as I want to love the the iPhone or Pre, is shenanigans such as this that prevent me from getting either. Mainly the US carriers being complete Dicks.
On that note, you can tether the Palm using a lanyard. I don’t see why it’s such a big dea – *ducks thrown objects*
Bunch of pu**ies ;).
They should have released the info on how to enable tethering. As long as it’s only instructions, it’s protected by free speech!
You meant PUSSIES, right?
Wow, look, more negative press about the Pre from TechCrunch. Who would have ever imagined that!
I am beginning to see it now. This story is trashing Pre devs for caving to big, expensive lawyers and for not getting in an ugly legal fight which they would have lost anyway based on precedent in this country.
I just don’t get it — do developers usually stand up and fight this fight? I’d love to see some sort of comparison. It seems to me that the smart thing to do is to cave in publicly and continue development somewhere where big brother isn’t watching? Isn’t this what everyone does?
It’s another palm pilot.
Nobody needs another palm pilot.
EOF
John Biggs if you had hung out in the irc channel for any amount of time, you would find that there are a few people from Palm watching and giving hints as to how things work. I would assume this was a compromise so that dev work could continue and awesome hacks can be brought forward. But hey why don’t you just throw the devs under a bus.
I agree with your sentiment here. It is useful to maintain a positive relationship with Palm, and I therefore see the logic of acquiescing to their requests. However – there’s also quite a bit to be said for an open development environment. Why not create a parallel Wiki that mirrors content from the “official’ish” Pre Dev Wiki, but without the restrictions of making Palm/Sprint happy? Make it a real source for information?
Hell, why don’t I do that? Well, because I don’t have the time. But, I should.
As a longtime Sprint customer, and one who went thru a lot of crap with Sprint recently because of tethering on my BB, let me contribute a little piece of data that Sprint doesn’t want anyone to know:
They have no way of controlling the data flowing in or out of your cell.
The 5GB limit is just crap. When Sprint received a data request from a mobile phone, their current infrastructure is unable to know if that request comes from the actual mobule unit or from a laptop tethering on the device. The Sprint network only sees a port80 or port 443 request.
That’s why they are restricting this data plans and the tethering. If you have the $99 everything included plan, that does not include tethering. You need to “downgrade” to another plan, add the tethering and then you get the 5GB unreal limit.
The $99 Simply Everything plan does allow tethering — I’ve done it on my Mogul since day 1 and there was nothing in my agreement prohibiting it. This is where the problem lies for me: if I switch from Mogul to Pre, tethering disappears. I’d then be paying the same per month for less value. This is why the “integrity” comment here is baseless. Sprint will be *taking* value from me if I buy a Pre. Therefore I have zero compunction about a hacked tether solution.
lol “allow tethering.”
It’s a computer with a hole in it that you can plug a cable into. And it has a 3G radio. Whine all you like, Sprint, I can make tethering happen.
Trying to stop the spread of knowledge about tethering with idle threats is like trying to stop the spread of music with encryption (if I can hear it I can transcode it).
Wow!!!! Your new wiki is jampacked with members!!!
Ever stopped to think that maybe the PreDevsWiki were appreciative of the manner in which they were approached by Palm, and that maybe they have been given certain assurances that were enough to satiate them (for the time being)??
Your snotty, know-it-all style of writing could do with some more detailed research and investigative journalism to truly determine what is happening by the PreDevsWiki site.
they posted what happened and it sounds like rolling over to a C&D rather than an effort at true exploration. more power to them. my wiki isn’t meant to compete – it’s to show how irrelevant Palm or Apple’s or Samsung’s or anyone’s efforts are in a case like this.
Did you try and reach out to one of the predev members to see if they were indeed rolling over to a C&D? Or did you decide to just form your own opinion and attack in the process?
irc.freenode.net #webos-internals
Ask them first.
point is moot, as I said it would be:
http://www.mobilecrunch.com/2009/06/15/palm-pre-now-tether-friendly-depending-on-your-definition-of-friendly/
just popped into the room. they wouldn’t talk about it.
In these situations, you have to throw caution to the wind otherwise you hamper innovation.
Case in point: iPhone App Store. A bunch of hackers opened the OS so you could install whatever you want and do things that weren’t allowed on non-jailbreaked phones like tethering.
Result? Apple realized the demand for apps and functionality like tethering. They created the legitimate app store and the ability to tether (now only if AT&T didn’t suck).
What’s surprising is that the typical attitude of hackers is to do things now and ask questions later. Otherwise, what’s the point? You’re not really much of a “hacker” if you’re going to color within the lines like all the other developers.
It really sounds like you did little to no research on the issue before posting this. Palm has, thus far, been very helpful to the development community essentially providing an easy way to root the Pre. Compare that to other unnamed phone providers that blatantly attempt to squash any such talk. Their explanation even says “We have been POLITELY CAUTIONED by Palm” — there’s no talk of a C&D or any other legal demands, so really we have no clue what was said to the dev admins. Even more, Palm employees have been spending time assisting the dev community on their efforts. Does the beloved Apple dev community get the same kind of assistance?
So Sprint doesn’t want to provide free tethering. Good for them — they’re a business, they need to make money. Bandwidth over mobile networks isn’t cheap for them. The data part of the Simply Everything plan is for PHONE DATA, not for some device you connect to your phone. Will Sprint open up paid tethering in the future? I wouldn’t be shocked if they do. But that’s a side point.
In the end, the dev community made the right choice. Give up a little something for continued open support direct from Palm.
Jesus, more in the absurd “We didn’t get a Pre, waaaaah!” CrunchTirade. Give it up already, Arrington