Danger relaxes SDK terms, still getting it wrong

By Cory Doctorow at 6:51 am Friday, Mar 21

Danger has relaxed its terms-of-service for downloaders of the Hiptop SDK, but they're still layering on restrictions that, IMO, endanger the long-term health of the device, since it's only by creating a space for innovation without permission that Danger can hope to have real, killer apps emerge.

People have said that the restrictions are necessary to keep apps from sucking too much bandwidth or to prevent malware from being installed on users' devices -- but these are the same risks borne by ISPs that allow anyone to connect any PC, with any software, to their network. What's more, it discounts the possibility that apps could be developed that reduce the bandwidth sucked by a device (for example, a mailer that allows me to specify that mail with a high enough SpamAssasin score in the header shouldn't be downloaded, or a browser that uses the Google API to fetch sections of pages that are relevant to my search-terms, rather than the whole page). Likewise, it discounts the possibility that users can distinguish between good and malicious software, say, by installing software released or recommended by people they trust.

It forecloses on the possibility of someone building a Danger PIM-syncher (right now, you can put your calendar, contact, memo and to-do info into your SideKick, but you can't ever get it out of it, and if you stop being a T-Mobile customer, they'll remove all the data from your device, so your calendar only exists so long as you're a T-Mobile customer) (this is why I'm not using my SideKick as a calendar -- and carrying an extra PIM device).

In the end, Danger needs to decide if they're shipping an Internet device, one that's end-to-end and allows users to define their own services; or a telephone device that can only run the services approved by the phone-company -- and if they choose the latter, it's only a matter of time before they're displaced by someone building the former. Meanwhile, this thread on the Danger Developer Forum clarifies it still more fully: right now, the only apps that can be installed on a SideKick are the apps that Danger signs off on.

Wake up Danger and T-Mobile: this is my device: I paid $250 for it. It's contemptuous of your customers to restrict how we can use our lawfully acquired property. Link Discuss (Thanks, Katrus!, and via Hack the Planet)