Just to clear things up, at PalmSource 99 we had a very simple license that
people could fill out to get a cd with 6 pre-beta rom images of Palm OS
software v3.5, the matching SDK, etc. It is excellent and very exciting
and great for the developer community that we got to seed the rom and sdk
so early, and I want to continue that as much as possible.
I guess it is a bit of an assumption that the illegal postings came from
the PalmSource attendees, but seeing as there weren't any postings AFAIK
before PalmSource, and just days afterwards there are, well...
Don't get me wrong: I'm totally happy for developers to have the info and
software. But breaking license agreements (i.e. promises) isn't the way to
do it.
And I don't believe for a second that if we gave out more info, less would
be spread around. We've had many experiences over the past few months that
unfortunately indicate that the info or software is redistributed within
hours of when we tell the developer community, even when we request
otherwise.
This isn't a terribly surprising thing: if you tell 20,000 people
something, it isn't a secret. But it does explain why product teams don't
want to divulge their plans except in very small groups. Being an idealist
just doesn't work :-)
-David Fedor
Palm Developer Support
