Photo by Rebecca Bollwitt

WordCamp Vancouver is finally coming to a close. We’re here in Granville at the Tap Room, taking in the social. It’s been a long day again, and Duane and I will burn some midnight oil trying to put the finishing touches on WPtouch 2.0 Pro tonight and tomorrow.

What a pleasure to be a part of an event where attendees, organizers, speakers and sponsors all so elegantly carried out a tremendous conference and shared their passion for WordPress.

Thanks to organizers Rebecca Bollwitt, John Bollwitt, Duane, Kulpreet Singh, John Biehler for their work in organizing the event.

Lately we’ve discovered more than a handful of sites using modified versions of our WPtouch mobile plugin, with our byline removed and no mention of us or WPtouch whatsoever. As a couple of guys who’ve put countless hours (and that’s not an exaggeration, really there’s no way we could count!) into this project, it’s a kick in the teeth to find out that someone else has entirely stolen your work, which you’ve offered for free to the open source community.

What’s GPL?

From the GPL preamble:

The GNU General Public License is a free, copyleft license for software and other kinds of works.

The licenses for most software and other practical works are designed to take away your freedom to share and change the works. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change all versions of a program–to make sure it remains free software for all its users. We, the Free Software Foundation, use the GNU General Public License for most of our software; it applies also to any other work released this way by its authors.

You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for them if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to prevent others from denying you these rights or asking you to surrender the rights. Therefore, you have certain responsibilities if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it: responsibilities to respect the freedom of others.

Now, when I speak of others’ modifications of WPtouch, I’m not speaking of it in the sense of a derivative work, or something whereby pieces of the code were used to construct something entirely different. What I’m beefing about is the simple removal of the byline in the footer of WPtouch— the line that gives credit to WordPress (the open source publishing platform) and WPtouch.

These kinds of modifications to us are perceived as methods to infer or imply the ownership of the work(s). To me, there’s no way they could not be inferred as such. Some people think that to visibly show you’ve used someone’s else work on your website or blog is a bad thing. We think that’s pure, 100% bullocks, and a very disingenuous approach. If an author of a GPL project has expressly placed a byline, and wishes for it to stay there, the least you can do in using the product is keep it there.

There’s plenty of people who openly and proudly trumpet using Web 2.0 tools on their sites, and for good reason- it allows others who may be interested in using something similar to find out more by clicking a byline link.

In our case we don’t sell these plugins, they’re (and always will be) free to all and licensed under GPL. What we sell is ourselves; we sell (by proxy the plugins and their craftsmanship)— our web design and development skills.

In visiting our site people have the opportunity to review this and if interested, consider us for a web project they may have in mind. WPtouch (and every other plugin we’ve ever made) were however never created with this intention— it’s simply that Duane came up with a few of the plugins, we’ve worked together on a few plugins, and BraveNewCode was borne out of our relationship.

I think it’s important to note that there are many ways in which the ‘free’ moniker which has cloaked almost everything related to the internet (from file sharing to the models which newspapers have resorted to). It’s an epic tale all unto itself, but the perception that everything on the web should be inherently free really stems from the adhoc, hacker & grassroots origins, qualities & makeup of the World Wide Web.

It’s in this genealogy that we can understand how many view the internet almost as a virtual ‘garage sale’ where the price tags read $0 and everyone’s free to mix and match, barter and re-engineer. But there’s a great deal of hypocrisy instead, with many sites and blogs grabbing items at the garage sale, but using them in their own bake sales, turning profits.

One such site is using WPtouch to sell iPhone-related jailbroken apps. Another is using WPtouch as a means to collect people for a mobile-based conference. There’s probably hundreds of scenarios where our work is being using in conjuction with a commerical aim, and we don’t take exception to this directly, but rather that it’s being done without any mention or credit to us. The trouble with free in this case is that its inferred to mean “free to be mine” by those with the inclinations to perceive it this way.

The worst part of course is that we’ve worked tirelessly to improve and expand upon our offerings for everyone, and ask very little in return: credit for what we gave. All of this said, the vast majority of users have overwhelmingly been incredibly supportive, and hundreds upon hundreds of blog posts and reviews with credit and praise have been written, more than making up for the bad apples in the bunch.

In closing, if you’re not sure about whether or not you can remove bylines or other credit to a creator of a work, simply mail them and ask. In some cases you’ll find some might ask for a donation to do so, some may be fine with it, and others make decisions on a case by case scenario. In general, as a rule, if there’s a byline or other credit visibly displayed within a work it’s there for a reason, and the very little you can do in using the free work is keep it there.

If you would have asked me a few weeks ago whether or not I was going to get an iPhone, I would have laughed and said absolutely not. The original plans offered by Rogers wireless in Canada were, in a word, pathetic. Not only were they asking customers to lock into a three year contract, but they also didn’t offer an unlimited data plan, something nearly every carrier in the entire world has offered with the iPhone.

Rogers received an incredible amount of negative publicity regarding their price plans, and was covered by most of the major news outlets (only those, of course, that weren’t owned by Rogers Communications). An online petition quickly formed that received over 50,000 signatures, all protesting the price gouging by Rogers. And thankfully, at nearly the 11th hour, Rogers caved in to pressure and decided to offer a 6GB/month data plan for $30/mo, which for all intents and purposes, is unlimited.

Understand that the iPhone is not a typical cell phone. If anything, it is a powerful internet device that just happens to have a phone on it. That is why having a reasonable data plan with the phone was absolutely necessary.

Shortly after Roger’s change of heart, I found myself in a line in front of the Rogers store on Davie street last Friday. Truthfully, I actually only swung by so I could grab a few photos of all the crazies standing in line for my Flickr account. But once I realized they actually had enough units for everyone in the line, I decided to join the party.

The iPhone launch that day was a worldwide debacle. Not only did Apple’s activation servers go offline for the better part of the day, but Roger’s entire computer backbone also fell down dead due to the sheer volume of people trying to activate their new iPhones. In addition, the free breakfast that Rogers promised everyone at their Broadway store in Vancouver turned out to be Presidents Choice drink boxes along with a bin of granola bars. Way to go all out for the launch, Rogers.

It only took me 45 minutes or so to get from the back of the line and into the store, but I spent another four and a half hours on a chair waiting for the computers to come back online long enough to activate my phone.

For those of you wondering about the specifics of the iPhone 3G, here they are. Rogers originally offered a few plans that started at $60/mo. These plans had very few airtime minutes for phone calls, and offered only a measly 400MB of data transfer a month. After their change of heart the other day, they decided that you could pick and choose any plan from their current repertoire (most of which are reasonable), and simply couple it with the $30/mo 6GB/mo data plan, which is basically what every single person in the line-up ended up doing.

The 6GB/mo data plan is only available up until August 31st, after which (presumably) it will disappear, leaving only the original (insufficient) data plans that Rogers originally offered. For those of you on existing Rogers plans, you should be able to simply add the $30/mo plan to your phone and keep your current telephone rates and packages. For new users, you can walk into a store and choose which plan and extras (voice mail, caller ID, etc). you want, and then add the data package to it. One thing I’d recommend is splurging the extra $4/month and getting the visual voice mail. Most voice mail systems work by having you call in to receive a message. The visual voice mail system on the iPhone actually just has an icon on the phone that shows when you have a voice mail. If you click it, you can see a full listing of every voice mail you have right on your iPhone, and simply click the desired entry to listen to a MP3 of the call. No more calling in to retrieve a message.

I’ve been using my iPhone 3G since Friday, and it’s truly an amazing device. It’s a strange thing to be able to access the internet from basically anywhere. I was at the beach the other day wondering if the tide was coming in or out. Instead of wondering, I simply fired up the iPhone and a did a quick Google search in Safari for the appropriate tide chart. Thirty seconds later I knew exactly when high and low tide would occur.

Also released at the same time is Apple’s new Mobile Me service. It effectively replaces the old .Mac service, and adds a host of features (Email, Calendar, Contacts, etc) similar to Google’s Gmail and Calendar offerings. The coolest part about it in my opinion is that it supports PUSH email. Most email systems (IMAP, POP, etc) all use polling to figure out when a new message arrives. For example, I have my iPhone configured to access my Gmail account. To determine whether or not I have a new message, my iPhone will access Gmail every 15 minutes and check. With Mobile Me, the service actually contacts your phone the moment a new message comes in. So you basically get new mail the very instant it’s sent to you. I tested this a few times, and it takes about three seconds from the time I click send in gmail until the time my iPhone chirps letting me know there’s a new Mobile Me message on it. In addition, Mobile Me will also synchronize your contacts and data between all your Apple computers and devices, using PUSH when it can.

There’s also built in GPS on the unit, so you can simply press a button to see exactly where you are using Google maps. It sure makes navigating a breeze. Once a few more applications are released, I wouldn’t be surprised if you can simply SMS your GPS coordinates to a friend, and have them magically show up for a beer at the bar you are at. No more having to explain to someone how to find you.

So, while it’s not the cheapest toy in the world, it really is a revolutionary device. I’ve only just scratched the surface with what it can do, but I think it’s a fairly good primer for those of you looking to get one. I picked one up on Friday, and Dale got his today. Hopefully Matt’s not far behind.

I‘ve been messing around with the iPhone 3G pretty much non-stop for the last 24 hours. For the most part, it has exceeded my expectations.

First, being able to check your email or surf the web from any location is a pretty awesome feature. For example, today I was at the beach with some friends and we noticed that the tide was slowly creeping up the shore. I quickly fired up Safari, did a Google search for “Vancouver Tide Table”, and determined that high tide was in about two hours.

As most people know, the iPhone 2.0 firmware brings with it the iPhone application store. I’ve already purchased two applications, the premium Twitterific app and the Flickr app. The Twitterific app is a bit more polished, but the Flickr app is fully functional and will probably make life with Flickr that much easier.

One application that is notably missing is something to share your current location with your friends. The AGPS system in the iPhone works surprisingly well with the Google maps application, but I have yet to have it work well with anything else. I updated my location in Twitter today using the Twitterific application, only to realize that it was about 2 or 3 miles off when someone viewed the location from my Twitter profile. Ideally, I want a way to send my GPS coordinates to someone so they can find me. I was trying to tell John Biehler how to get to the beach we were at today, when I really should have been able to fire him off a URL of where I was and have him walk right up to me. Perhaps that functionality is buried in the iPhone somewhere, but I haven’t found it yet.

I was pretty worried with the battery life yesterday after I picked it up. It was 50% full when I purchased it, and I nearly ran it down to 0 by the time I got home. I gave it a full charge overnight, and was relieved when I got home tonight and it was still nearly full. So battery life seems to at least be good enough to do a full day or random calling and surfing.

One disappointing aspect is that the iPhone 3G doesn’t appear to work with my iPod dock. The current dock I have has worked for three generations of iPods (the original, the nano and the touch), so I was disappointed when I plugged it into my stereo dock as night only to be told by the iPhone that it wasn’t compatible. I can’t really imagine a scenario where Apple couldn’t make it work with the old dock if they wanted to (the pin configurations are the same), so I can only conclude that the purposefully broke it so people would be forced to buy new docks for the iPhone 3G.

I also signed up for a trial Mobile Me account tonight. Mobile Me is Apple’s new web-based service that can synchronize content between Mac devices in real-time. One nice thing about the Mobile Me service is that it operates off a PUSH delivery system, which means that it automatically sends data to all devices immediately after the data is changed. The opposite of that is a PULL system (often called polling or fetching), where each device periodically checks for updates, even if none exist. The PUSH system is obviously far more efficient, and ultimately uses less battery life (since no data is transferred when no updates are available). I have to say, it’s pretty cool seeing your iPhone chirp about 3 seconds after you send an email to your Mobile Me address. I also updated a pile of contacts on my Laptop to see what would happen on my iPhone. Without any intervention, the contacts on my iPhone automatically changed as well within about 15 seconds of finishing synchronizing them on my laptop. Pretty cool.

Unfortunately, the Mobile Me website seems borked right now, and it won’t let me log in using my credentials. Until then, I won’t be able to see how it compares against Google’s suite of products.

In terms of data usage, it would seem I haven’t used all that much. In the 36 hours or so that I’ve had the device, I’ve only used 40MB worth of data. I would consider myself in the “power user” category, and I’m actually a bit surprised that it’s so low. I imagine once I start uploading photos routinely it will climb, but at my current rate I’ll barely hit 1GB worth of data this month.

One thing I have noticed however is that the user interface seems a bit sluggist on the iPhone 3G compared to my iPod touch. I played around with John Biehler’s device today, and although it seemed slightly snappier, you can see a slight delay when bouncing between contacts or adding new ones. I’ve been told that the original iPhone firmwares also had speed issues, and slowly improved with each iteration. So hopefully the next version of the 3G firmware will make the UI a bit peppier.

All in all, I’m extremely happy with my purchase, and would definitely recommend it to anyone looking for a mobile computing device. Surprisingly, I haven’t really made that many calls with it since I’ve gotten it. In fact, I consider the ability to surf and interact wirelessly over 3G the device’s main selling point.

** Update – Also, the iPhone 3G doesn’t appear to support the 802.11n. That’s pretty disappointing considering every Mac product in my house is using it, including my new Airport base station. The only way I can make my iPod touch work with it is to reconfigure my router to do a+b as well as n, but that means I can’t use the 802.11n in wide mode. Maybe I’ll bridge my router at home with another 802.11b router I have, but that’s a huge pain in the ass. I’m really surprised 802.11n isn’t supported on the iPhone 3G.

The day is upon us. Reports have been flying in from everywhere telling of horrendous wait times and downed iTunes servers all trying to cope with the onslaught worldwide of waves of new iPhone 3G owners.

I didn’t think anyone here @ BraveNewCode would be one of them at day’s end, I know I certainly wasn’t going to be one- I’m running a first-gen model right now and didn’t see any need to wait in line for hours to get borked up the rear by Rogers. But I have been now clearly shown to be wrong…

After talking at length with Duane about whether or not to pick up an iPhone 3G over the last little while, it seemed to me that he was going to pass and wait off on it… but I was dead wrong, it seems. Around 6pm this afternoon I got this e-mail today, CC’d to everyone on his contact list, from Duane:

Hey guys,

I picked up the new iPhone 3G today. I had to get a new phone #. My new phone # is [...]. None of my old phone numbers work, so use this one from now on.

Also, I had most of your numbers in my old phone which no longer works, so please forward me your phone numbers or SMS me real quick.

Thanks,
Duane

So, Duane’s the first BraveNewCoder with a 3G. No word yet on which model he picked up. Congrats buddy on duping me huge into thinking you could resist the dark forces of Steve’s reality distortion field and hold off for more than 24 hours.

I’m sure he’ll have some nice Flickr shots up soon, and maybe a post about his new girlfriend.

Looks like our ‘write-offs’ just got a boost from Storey.