The Pre Dev Wiki webOS developer community information resource said it will honor a request from Pre manufacturer Palm and cease all discussion concerning tethering the smartphone to laptops for mobile wireless Internet access, explaining that such talk risks upsetting the device maker's relationship with operator partner Sprint.
"We have been politely cautioned by Palm (in private, and not by any legal team) 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," reads an uncredited posting on the Pre Dev Wiki site. "There has been no legal action of any sort...We want to retain a good relationship with Palm, since we believe that will be better for the whole developer ecosystem in the long run. For that reason, we are not allowing discussion of tethering on the IRC channel, or in this wiki. There is no secret agreement with Palm, and the IRC channel and this wiki receive no special access to any information from Palm that is not publicly available already. This development group has simply decided to take a stand and do things the right way instead of violating legal agreements."
In late March, Google agreed to remove all tethering apps from its Android Market application storefront--operator partner T-Mobile USA's terms of service do not allow tethering. "Carriers have a delicate balancing act between the desire for more data and services revenue and the fact that their networks can't handle huge increases in data usage," mobile developer Jason Grigsby tells ReadWriteWeb. "Everything is a compromise in this space."
For more on the Pre tethering controversy:
- read this ReadWriteWeb article
Related articles:
Where are all the Palm Pre apps?
Can webOS reignite the Palm developer community?