While EFF believes Apple's withdrawal against OdioWorks came because of EFF's legal threats, Apple attorney Sadik Huseny of the law firm Latham and Watkins said the code discussed on BluWiki is no longer an issue.

"Apple has stopped utilizing the code in question, rendering the code obsolete for the purposes at issue in this action," Huseny wrote in a letter to the EFF.

"While we are glad that Apple retracted its baseless legal threats, we are disappointed that it only came after seven months of censorship and a lawsuit," said EFF senior attorney Fred von Lohmann. "We hope Apple has learned its lesson here, and will give those online discussions a wide berth in the future."

Discussions Triggered Feud

The legal feud began after Apple learned that BluWiki was hosting discussions on how to sync iPods and iPhones without using iTunes and instead using other software, including Songbird and Winap.

Last November, Apple threatened BluWiki with legal action, saying the discussions were violations of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act's anti-circumvention provisions. In response, BluWiki took down the wiki pages in question.

Five months later, defending the rights of OdioWorks, owner of BluWiki, the EFF and the San Francisco law firm of Keker and Van Nest, representing OdioWorks, asked a court to reject Apple's claims and allow BluWiki to restore the discussions.

They said the discussions weren't illegal because no information was posted on how to actually circumvent iTunes.

OdioWorks's owner, 24-year-old Sam Odio, said he takes the free-speech rights of BluWiki users very seriously and Apple should not be able to censor online discussions by threatening services that host those discussions.

"I'm relieved this whole ordeal is over," Odio said in an interview with us. "As the owner of a noncommercial wiki, the thought of a prolonged legal battle was very intimidating. It's unfortunate that we didn't get a chance to prove our case in court, but at least the site hasn't had to go offline."

Blocking Interoperability

While the threat against OdioWorks has been dropped, the EFF believes so long as Apple keeps a stronghold on its software and code, engineers will continue to push for a more open and interoperable environment.

"Apple continues to use technical measures to lock iPod touch and iPhone owners into using Apple's iTunes software," von Lohmann said.

Last week, Apple showed it will protect its code by locking out the new Palm Pre smartphone from iTunes. Palm had built a function in the Pre to sync with iTunes.

The block wasn't a surprise, as Apple had earlier said it would not provide syncing functionality for non-Apple media players.

"In light of these developments, you can be sure that perfectly legal efforts to reverse-engineer Apple products will continue in order to foster interoperability," von Lohmann said.