> That is, they include their own "open source" software within the SDK
> itself, so I think they would have a hard time to argue that other open
> source software violates their licence.
I know, I've read the license over and over to make sure I wasn't
hearing things.. but it directly contradicts some 'noise' they were spouting
at Palmsource 2000 when I asked them about supporting VFS in open source
projects, specifically pilot-link.
They guy I spoke with (I have his card here somewhere) said that if
we tried to use the code in the 4.0 SDK or the CDK to add VFS support to an
open source project, or 'circumvent their licensing' by using code in POSE
to do it, they'd have to 'secure a conversation with their attorneys...'
Didn't sit well with me. I basically said "Well, if we can't use the
SDK, but the support exists in POSE, a GPL'd project, we'll just borrow code
from there, and use that instead, I suppose." (on a microphone stand in the
middle of a room of about 400 people). He dodged my question, and evaded
with this counter-attack of lawyers and licensing. I then brought up the
fact that if that was true, they'd have to persue, and shut down every
single open source Palm project, developer, and website out there. He
ignored me and called out the next question from someone else waiting in
line. Gar.
At a later session where they were talking about tools, there was a
conversation had at the podium with myself, jpr, and some head of tool
development. They said they were interested in what we were doing, but that
their intent was focused on 'collapsing the external alternatives'. One of
their pdf slides in their tracks (I'll find the exact slide, I have them all
here) mentioned that they're positioning themselves to be the ONLY provider
of tools to develop PalmOS applications through. They're already doing it
with the CDK's now with hidden classes and APIs in the DLLs. Even their
Upgrade/Installer now, when executed, will export a small handful of DLLs
into the C:\Palm directory, use them, then delete them when finished. Sneaky
tactics.
They've made a concerted effort to pull in all the external (open
source) tools, including: prc-tools (John Marshall, ex Palm employee),
Kenneth Albanowski (pilot-link, Palm employee), POSE (formerly copilot, then
xcopilot; Keith Rollin, Palm employee), pilrc (Aaron Ardiri, not yet a Palm
employee, though has been courted by them for a job), and others. It's
scary.
It's clear that they're scrambling though, since they've been doing
some very stupid things lately. These are 4th generation devices (m505's for
example) and they're STILL shipping with 8 megs. The very first Palmsource I
went to, there was a guy there at one of the pods with a 12-meg PalmIII
device. 3 years later and not even Palm is selling a device with 12 megs.
The iPAQ, by comparison, is just over a year old, and it's already
got 3 screen options, 4 memory options, and several dozen add-ons to it. By
Christmas, the 400Mhz version will be out with 128 megs of onboard storage.
The m505 has made every single option incompatible with it's earlier
brother device, the Palm V/Vx devices. Even down to the stylus rail slot
being 2mm shorter than the V/Vx ones. WHY?! All cases, stylii, clip-on
devices, keyboards, slot adapters, modems, and cradles are completely
incompatible with this device, forcing Palm users to scrap their entire
adapter/addon collections and re-purchase the new ones for the PalmVx, and
people like me who have both devices have to now purchase two of everything.
I talked to some people at Landware (they make/resell addons for the
Palm devices) and they implied that they aren't even going to be making any
m505 supported devices because Palm keeps changing the hardware so fast,
they can't even make up their investment in supporting them. Pathetic.
It's really not in their favor to go to these great lengths to push
us away (open source developers of Palm support applications), but it
appears they don't value us as a large enough market. Sure, we may only be
10% of their entire profit stream, but when 10% leave en masse, because
their device isn't supported under OS/2, Macintosh, Linux... more will
follow.
Ok, this diverged way off topic here, but you understand my point.
Fighting them at every turn, reverse-engineering their protocols
under threats from them in person, and chasing them around for
documentation, is proving very very tiring. All they have to do is extend a
hand and help us, but instead, they threaten us. I've never been paid by
Palm, I've never gotten any free hardware from Palm (though I've spent close
to $5k in devices and add-ons for their hardware out of my own pocket), and
we support their devices and users in our spare time.. with nothing from
them but closed doors and tightening of their policies and licensing.
I've recently had a couple of emails come my way basically telling
me to 'be careful' now that I've exposed their "security" in PalmOS4 with
the md5sum of the user's password, which is used nowhere but to initiate the
sync between Palm and desktop. Easily exploitable. Judd and I found 3 or 4
exploits that were possible now because of this weak implementation. Now
there's talk of them coming at me for exposing it.
Grrr.
/d
