Could a standards body force the iTunes-Pre issue?

Palm's plea to the USB Implementers Forum -- the nonprofit group organized by the companies that developed the USB spec -- is an interesting but potentially dangerous gambit for the Pre's home team.

Engineers at Palm re-established via a firmware upgrade the Pre's ability to connect to iTunes late Thursday evening, to the continued annoyance of Apple's closed-source partisans -- especially, no doubt, since Palm's John Traynor made a point of prefacing the news with Steve Jobs' "and one more thing" catchphrase. As it did in the previous workaround, the Pre's firmware now passes to iTunes a Vendor ID indicating it's an Apple device, allowing the phone to download content legally purchased by its user.

Palm also said on Thursday that this isn't just about tricking one machine with another; it's a standards issue, and they're taking their case to the USB IF. Company spokesperson Lynn Fox cited the rules (PDF available) laid down by the organization and said, essentially, that Apple's violating the USB standard by treating its assigned Vendor ID as a digital rights management (DRM) mechanism.

Gutsy, especially since some observers think Palm is itself in violation of the USB rules when it spoofs Apple's ID. The workaround, according to multiple sources, involves the Pre telling iTunes that it is an Apple-made mass storage device (with the ID 0x05ac), rather than a device from Palm (vendor ID 0x083). Though the company may believe that "openness and interoperability offer better experiences for users by allowing them the freedom to use the content they own without interference across devices and services," as Fox put it, this could be an expensive way of putting Elevation Partners' money where their mouth is.

The online reaction has been predictably tumultuous, with a monotone chorus of "we could have told you so"'s from the Linux and open-source communities countered by high-pitched squawking from Macolytes, some of whom seem so personally put out as to be incoherent. "But isn't it Apple's right to keep iTunes exclusive?" fumed blogger "ccjames" at Tech Tribe news. "How long have they been developing it, keeping it available, free, and working on iPod/iPhone features? One of the iPhone's major selling points is that everything syncs with iTunes." ("Everything" in this context meaning, perhaps, everything in the blogger's Trapper Keeper.)

Six companies are represented on USB IF (HP, Intel, LSI, Microsoft, NEC and ST-Ericsson). The organization has -- probably wisely -- made no comment to date on the situation.