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Palm Kills Community Before It Begins
Former Fan of Palm writes to tell us that an enthusiastic, supportive developer community has fallen victim to corporate ineptitude once again. The preDevCamp started as a community-driven effort designed to mirror the iPhoneDevCamp based on the new "Pre" product announced by Palm. Unfortunately, suspicion and legal posturing seems to have gutted the founders of any and all enthusiasm they may have once had. When will corporations realize that community support is the best way to drive success? "As a corporation, I acknowledge that Palm's only responsibility is to its shareholders. There's nothing self serving or evil about that; it's how things work in big business. However there are many keen and willing developers out there, who have been waiting for the arrival of WebOS. A development platform is only a success if it is broadly adopted. Instead of embracing the grassroots upswell of interest in WebOS that preDevCamp fostered, Palm seem to be, at best, oblivious and, at worst, disdainful of the enthusiasm and good will engendered by these folk. I think they are missing a real opportunity to be involved in and to help generate the growth of a vital community."
If I'm reading correctly, Palm hasn't done anything.
It seems they signed some NDAs and had a meeting set up. Then one of the guys posted to Twtiter something about the meeting, and as a result Palm canceled the meeting.
That's it.
Am I missing something? If not, these guys are tards and making a big deal out of nothing.
Windows Mobile?
When it comes down to it...like it or not...Windows Mobile is the most open phone OS.
They are the most supportive for developers. No roadblocks, nothing. I can write a program today, and distribute it over the web without any problems.
Every part of the Phone OS is open to me. My carrier cannot block a single thing from running on my phone.
No reason to lie.
Right action demands serving all people and the most in need first not shareholders. In plain terms a corporation is about the essence of pure evil.
By that logic, if I don't live in a shack and give away all the money I don't absolutely need, I must be an evil, immoral person. Right and wrong are determined by culture and society. In our culture, a business has a duty to maximize shareholder value because shareholders have essentially loaned the corporation the money it needs to operate. If I loan you money, it is correct in our society to pay it back with agreed upon interest; there's very little difference between that and a corporation maximizing shareholder value.
bullshit.
android followed closely by symbian OS is the most open there is.
carriers regularly block GPS capability on windows mobile phones.
Why?
Really all that happened is these guys talked to Palm about setting this up, signed and NDA, got a meeting set up, then some yo yo tweeted about it and probably violated the NDA.
So the meeting got canceled.
No take down notice or anything like that. Now they are all upset and posting about how unfair this is and Slashdot picks it up and runs with it.
Well just what are you going to replace your Tungsten E with then?
Windows Mobil, iPhone, S60 maybe?
Good grief folks get some perspective. Palm my end up sucking but the Pre may be great. Seems way out of line to get bent before the phone is even out yet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
As one of the founders of preDevCamp, I have to counter the OP's ominous analysis of the situation. While this "seems to have gutted the founders of any and all enthusiasm they may have once had", I'd like to assure you that I still am enthusiastic for the platform. I still believe that bringing HTML/JS/CSS into the realm of mobile development will make a great impact on this field. I'm still committed to seeing preDevCamp through and making it the biggest and best DevCamp possible.