BlogNot the First Time…
This is not the first time we’ve butted heads with an independent developer over consumer rights. WMWifiRouter is a great program, but developers do not get to change the rules of the game after a particular version has been released.
The WMWifiRouter incident (and I call it that loosely), is really much ado about nothing. The vast majority of negative comments stand from a campaign on other sites to ask people to come in here and attack PhoneNews.com in the comments. That’s the price we pay for letting people post anonymously in our comments.
What was the first time? Let’s go back in time, way back. No, not PhoneNews.com, not even PCS Intel which preceeded it… let’s go all the way back to Sprint PCS Info, the first real ancestor of what became PhoneNews.com.
Back then, using your phone as a modem was a brave new world. The Treo 600 was the new kid on the street. And, an independent developer offered a program called Wireless Modem for Treo. Now, this was a two part solution, it consisted of a free application for your Mac, and a for-pay program that ran on your Treo. The app on the Treo hurdled the connection to the Mac, and the free driver for the Mac took it from there.
Now, with the Treo 600, we found a debug code that enabled Tethering mode. Palm had built the same functionality as the Treo application, right into the firmware. We, put two and two together, and figured out you could use this free driver with your Treo 600, by dialing ##TETHERED.
The developer of the driver and Treo app, promptly freaked out. He demanded we remove the free driver. We refused, because the driver was free, and redistribution was not prohibited. He argued that the driver was intended to be used with the free app, and got really angry. He raged on other web sites attacking us, and using some not-so-polite language against us. Finally, he threatened to sue us, but of course… never did.
The developer came out with a version 2.0 of the driver, which locked it down… we still offered version 1.0 for download. Ultimately, the product died… it wasn’t needed now that Palm had moved in and taken things over.
Did we kill the product? No, I don’t think so. Palm did that by replicating the functionality that was crucial inside the application.
Will the same happen for WMWifiRouter, now that it (by all external appearances) is about to go commercial? Yes, I think it will. Considering it’s just a bunch of Windows Mobile hacks, I think that Microsoft will no longer falsely bar the door… and enable this functionality in Windows Mobile 7.
The point of all this, is, know your market. Know what you’re developing for, and ask yourself if someone can come along and kill your market completely. Great companies diversify their way out of this problem… unfortunately, for smaller companies, they get angry when the writing is on the wall… rather than innovating their way out of an untimely demise.
I would like to add one more thing. An insight as to why we did this. Despite some of our detractor’s claims, it’s not an insatiable want for attention. I will quote a paragraph from an email that was part of the internal discussion on this:
We really do respect WMWifiRouter’s, but we also respect consumers that bought $600 devices just so they could use WMWifiRouter. The absence of that product has some emailing us in emotional distress. They bought devices that now have no use to them (over the phone they had previously), just so they could sling a Wi-Fi connection. I personally did that myself, I wouldn’t have Windows Mobile in my pocket today except to use WMWifiRouter to feed 3G to my iPhone. With WMWifiRouter offline, users are financially impacted, and so we have to balance the rights (that WMWifiRouter now wants to amend/levy), with the consumer outcry from the loss of their device solution. We feel we have to side with the consumer in this matter.
yep thats what microsoft is famous for; taking other people’s software / ideas and integrating them into windows while driving the other person out of business. if the author wanted to create a commercial app. and make money he should have done that from day one. not all of a sudden cross the line. can’t have it both ways. but, i think that even if this way a commercial application from the start, and managed to gain popularity, microsoft would still enable this functionality themselves. so really the outcome is going to be the same no matter what happens / could have happened.
so you think the developer of WMWifiRouter owes you something do you? get real idiot.
Pretty slick, denying a authors request to keep his own program offline when his original download enforced his right to do so. Furthermore, you have no idea why, you are only speculating at cause. The only thing you are doing is making less authors give so freely.
Shadowmite, I see nowhere in the download that says that redistribution is prohibited. The downloaded application’s about box only states that the application is “free for personal, non-commercial use”.
Price,
Does the downloaded application’s about box say “free for personal, non-commercial distribution”? No it doesn\’t and anyone with a conscience would either contact the developer and ask for permission to distribute his work OR look at the way he distributed it in the first place. Chaifire offered his work through his own domains.
Your last bit on consumers buying $600 devices to run WMWiFiRouter is the most ridiculous excuse for unethical behaviour I have ever come across.
PS Unless you close commenting, deleting my comment again will not prevent me from posting another one.
So, I am not sure what all the complaints are for about this. I currently own a htc touch. I have WMWifi router on it and have not paid a dime. Since the phone runs on the all so famous and “secure” microsft software, it can be changed to do anything you want. Again, I have the HTC Touch which now has gps and rev a, along with TONS of other programs the shouldn’t be able to run on this device but do.
And yes, NOBODY buys a $600 phone JUST for the WMWifiRouter. If you wanted 3G network on your phone you SHOULDN’T have bought an IPhone. These phones are probably the worst laid out phones EVER. Slow network, no video, no streaming, just crap.
P.S. DeleteMe, keep up the good posts.
Devin, lots of people purchased iPod touch units, just to connect to their 3G phone with WMWifiRouter. It has been well documented, and there are clear advantages to doing that.
I’m sorry you don’t like Apple’s devices, but that doesn’t mean those that purchased them don’t have a legitimate interest.