Hi Everybody,
We noticed that there is some confusion when it comes to posting sensitive material on xda-developers.com and mostly about what can and can't be posted.
We would like to clarify our point of view through this post.
Since the start of xda-developers this has always been a site that once in while has some sensitive material online, through the years this site has grown so big it's no longer possible to check every file on our servers or every post on the board, we also feel it wouldn't benefit the community if we did.
However with increased popularity comes an increased amount of legal complaints when sensitive material is found on our servers. Which is the reason why we have been more careful lately. Recently some sensitive material has shown up on the servers and we received legal complaints from companies who have the copyrights for this material, although we all feel this is very interesting and valuable material we cannot risk the future of xda-developers by ignoring the legal requests we receive, therefore this material has been taken offline.
We understand that maintaining the balance between legal and illegal is sometimes confusing and/or difficult but that is unfortunately how it works.
When it comes to posting sensitive material there are a couple suggestions we can make:
- if possible do not post the files on the xda-developers servers.
- use your common sense (if you feel something might not be legal it probably isn't).
- always keep in mind when posting software of any kind, that we will take it offline if there is a legal complaint from the copyright owner.
Warez is in no way accepted and will be removed upon discovery.
I hope this post will serve as a clear and valuable guideline.
Greetz,
Flar
Site admin.
P.s. When you have any questions you can always contact me or one of the moderators.
anyone can contact me also if they have any questions about any files you want to post.. i apparently have no life and spend way to much time on the boards, so you should get a timely response!
I totally agree
It is very important to keep safe a site with so many knowledge and so many resources online. xda-dev and all of its users have done a lot for the community, and I think that if it wasn't for this site, windows mobile devices wouldn't have been so successful.
I agree also. I think you guys do a great job and as members of this family we need to do our part
actually whenever a person types words such as "crack" or "keygen", they should be automatically eliminated or turn into something like "i am a loser".
we've been getting way too much of thieves here recently
I'm still curious about the Dutty Kaiser WM6.1 Rom Link that got removed.
Was that just a link to A rapidshare/megaupload?
Or was that on XDA servers.
Have there been anymore legal complaints about wm6.1 Roms from Kaiser 5.2.19.199 Build now heavily available on many other devices?
need your opinion
hi,
i'm doing this 'directory' for dummies for prophet users.
i made it just because want to make it as easier as it can be to be understand by the beginners.
--> prophet directory for dummies
if you or any other moderators found it is not relevant, do inform PM me.
hoping that this thread can be sticky.
regards..
It's a very tenuous and risky fine line this whole Forum draws when you really look at it.
Every cooked ROM can be looked at as a hack! using proprietory software as its basis.
Every HardSPL can be looked at as a crack! unlocking a device that is specifically locked by a manufacturer.
A keygen is developed as a standalone piece of SW that generates a code that the user decides how he alone will use.
It's all very nice to say HTC "allow" this to happen for developement while not looking anyone directly in the eyes.
Realistically, this site should only contain SW actually and completely written line-by-line by the individual...
We are all guilty in one way or another as everyone here is an accomplice after the fact!
only HTC... ??
An observation ...
This site should be open to other device that HTC.
I had 4 devices HTC, and whenever quality has declined. I believe that the next device will no longer be an HTC.
The manufacturer is rude with its customers (problem of video drivers on Kaiser and Cruise, etc.). HTC does not respond to e-mails. I was a fan of this brand. My next machine will probably be the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia, which I hope the quality higher than the lasts touchphones HTC ...
It would be really pleasant-XDA Developers focuses on the characteristics of this Samsung Omnia ... and that we produce some new ROM test for this new phone.
But this site is perhaps subsidized by HTC?
Excuse me for my bad English (I only speak french)
well if i may interject myself,
the site should be open to all devices carried that are or will be carried by XDA. Thats the name, and thats how it ought to be. Anachronistic, but elegantly interesting
jeannot61 said:
An observation ...
This site should be open to other device that HTC.
I had 4 devices HTC, and whenever quality has declined. I believe that the next device will no longer be an HTC.
The manufacturer is rude with its customers (problem of video drivers on Kaiser and Cruise, etc.). HTC does not respond to e-mails. I was a fan of this brand. My next machine will probably be the Samsung SGH-i900 Omnia, which I hope the quality higher than the lasts touchphones HTC ...
It would be really pleasant-XDA Developers focuses on the characteristics of this Samsung Omnia ... and that we produce some new ROM test for this new phone.
But this site is perhaps subsidized by HTC?
Excuse me for my bad English (I only speak french)
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If HTC Phones where perfect, well there would prolly be less of XDA
But at least Samsung understands what the word Samera Means.
And there is some Unlocking and Cooking going on for a few Non HTC hardware Based phones out there. (Unless i'm wrong and they are HTC hardware base anyway)
But sort of back to the subject.... How about some people selling ROM's made by anyone but themselves on Amazon and whatnot?
That is beyond unsensitive.
If people are doing this. They prolly do this because they can make money of of it.
arent all roms illegal? i mean the phone statment "sorry t be so blatent forgot the actual statment name" but dealing with cellphones the statment, protects people allowing them to return the phones to there original state but not to modify the programing? just wondering probably isnt, hope it was relevant
This thread has aually raised a few questions in my mind.
what is the legality of cooking roms. Obviously cooking an ubuntu mobile rom or an android rom is perfectly legal since that software is under GPL. But my tilt has windows mobile 6 on it with no current upgrade path to winmo 6.1, other than custom cooked roms.
Since at&t has not licsensed winmo6.1 for the tilt yet (or at least hasnt offered it to the public yet) are we basically pirating software it seams likes its the same thing as having a copy of winXP and upgrading with your friends vista disk and a crack.
As far as using SPL cell phone co's have to unlock your phone on request so i dont think theres any issue with that.
I am really looking forward to the new nvidia phones coming out, im hoping they have a big user base like HTC. I must say love my kaiser but its a bit slugish an unfunctional compared to the dell axim i30 i have from 03.
Yes i can imagine as the site has grown it can be harder to keep on top of everything flying around the servers.
Plus with files like you say companies can warn you it it breaches copyright.
I will add again here i am thankful to the mods and members on xda, a very top world website.
Noonski said:
If HTC Phones where perfect, well there would prolly be less of XDA .
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I am sorry just thought i would point out the spelling mistake, I'll let you edit it.
I have quite good spelling and see some horrible spelling on some websites, not your little spelling mistake but some really bad stuff. I sometimes do the odd mistake more so when i am very tired.
I'm with boorishid on this one
If someone could make this a tab bit clearer to me I would be very appreciative.
Just don't understand where the line is drawn??
In all of the international conventions/treaties as well as demestic laws from various countries regarding the protection of copy rights and intellectual property rights, EXCEPTIONS are always outlined. And always For Educational & Research Puppose is one of the top exceptions.
As far as I understand, Xda-Devs site is mainly a platform for developers to exchange research information. But seems we are lack of DISCLAIMERS to make it clear on nessecary cases.
Certainly 'common sence' is important for every poster to decide what to do.
What I have found out during my stay here is, well basically everything is allowed except cracks / warez.
Anyway M$ knows about this site and has not complained, that means ....
Can chefs add warez / cracks in their ROMs ???
Some how I feel they can!
Check this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=531181
Although I don't know whether SPB Mobile shell / coreplayer come as standard package with Hermes or not
Addicted2xda said:
Can chefs add warez / cracks in their ROMs ???
Some how I feel they can!
Check this:
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=531181
Although I don't know whether SPB Mobile shell / coreplayer come as standard package with Hermes or not
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No,
I've Removed the links and sent a PM.
Dave
Knowing this site and seeing the rules as they are I know the site wouldn't allow pirated software on the site. You guys don't even allow talking about it.
Well, when I told a friend I got WM6 for my phone he is swearing up and down with me that it is pirated and that I am in Denial (which makes no sense). I honestly can't explain how it isn't illegal, so I figured I would let you guys tell me how to explain this.
You can't explain it because it is a form of piracy. Unless you put exactly the same version of software back on your phone with at most a few things removed, it's a pirated version. If you've put anything on it that isn't freely given out in the rom that you didn't have before than it's pirated.
This site doesn't condone warez or illegal distribution of applications.The difference is that in order to make use of these rom changes, you have to OWN a device purchased with the microsoft software to begin with.
So why would MS take the time to contact the site to remove some Roms and not all or these?
I would have also assumed pirated if it wasn't for the post to people asking for warez. If they allow one and not the other that isn't right, so I figured it was totally legal to have WM6. Maybe the same way I had Windows Longhorn (vista) back in the development days legally.
Our goal here is to make the software that you legally purchased with your $700 device actually work the way it was intended to work. We don't offer apps that aren't prepackaged with these devices. You purchased a WindowsMobile license when you purchased your device.
There's a complex relationship between m$, device manufacturers and Operators. Each makes changes to these devices. Consider XDA-Developers to be somewhere between the device manufacturer and the Operator level.
yeah, technically you paid for a microsoft license when you bought your phone. Still, copying these WM6 cooked ROMs ARE a form of piracy. But it does'nt really matter seeing as HTC is planning to Release a WM6 update anyway. we just got it a bit early.
Our phones came with WM5 not WM6
but.. HTC released WM6 for their devices but our phone carriers may never release them to us
Come on guys this ROMs are not Paireted as they are not sold off the shelf... this is not windos XP Pro or Vista... this is a per loaded software on the devices and most of the or at least HTC is giving free upgrade....
but the ROM upgrade VOID's your hardware Warranty... as its stated in your Warranty terms...
So basically the terms of use for mobile phones is not the same as desktop software because you have no choice but to purchase a legit license for WM when you buy the phone?
truffle1234 said:
Come on guys this ROMs are not Paireted as they are not sold off the shelf.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So then, a movie leaked on the Internet before it's actual release date is not pirated?
todd_jg said:
So then, a movie leaked on the Internet before it's actual release date is not pirated?
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is not the point. The line, though a thin one, seems to be over whether you would normally have to PAY for the software. Thus depriving someone/corporation of revenue it would normally receive.
WM6 will not be charged for. So within those parameters does not fall within the the strict term "Piracy".
That's pretty close Wam7. Operators and/or hardware developers pay licensing fees to m$ for every device they sell. That cost is supposedly subsidized in the price we pay. Therefore, as you say, revenues aren't decreased by our work here. With Warez, this isn't the case as the hacker deprives the author of revenue with every hacked version that gets used.
This is why we don't tolerate Warez here.
Mcrosoft Offering Windows Mobile 6 Free
In this article:
http://www.palminfocenter.com/news/...ws-mobile-6-upgrade-for-device-manufacturers/
It is apparent that Windows Mobile 6 is being offered as a free upgrade to device manufacturers. In reality, what we early adopters are doing is beta testing the OS prior to final release. Microsoft, with their droves of legal experts, may wish to twist this into some sort of piracy, ip, rights issue to save face or just to be a$$hole$, and carriers may wish to add and take away what they want as well (I believe it was Cingular that whined to M$ about XDA-Developers), but the REALITY is that nobody here is doing anything more than unauthorized beta testing of an OS that has been released FOR FREE to device manufacturers. It may be more of a gray area when it comes to the addon applications that sometimes come bundled with the cooked ROMS, or as separate addons (i.e. Cyberon Voice Command), but only if the device you purchased did not originally include the same software. I am NOT a lawyer, and I am sure a lawyer could argue against my point just as easily as they could argue that a child molester is a victim of society. Nonetheless, I do not feel like I am doing anything wrong, and, in fact, I felt very annoyed at Cingular when they refused to give me a refund for my 8525 after I decided it was unusable 45 days after getting one (30 days is the policy for returns). My 8525 sat in a drawer for months, until I decided to flash with a WM6 ROM from this site. Suddenly, it worked! No more freezing, no more bluetooth bullcrap, no more missed calls. I agree with sleuth 100% when he says that what we are trying to do is get our devices to work as they should (stable, fast, trouble free). Despite the constant whining that some of the geeks on this site continue doing about petty bullcrap, bless them for stepping up and delivering a working product to those of us that would otherwise have to sit and wait for a bloated crapware ROM from Cingular with that POS "Get Express Mail" and "Get Telenav" cooked into it, and bless the power users who truly beta test the product to help make a better ROM.
Firehawkns said:
Knowing this site and seeing the rules as they are I know the site wouldn't allow pirated software on the site. You guys don't even allow talking about it.
Well, when I told a friend I got WM6 for my phone he is swearing up and down with me that it is pirated and that I am in Denial (which makes no sense). I honestly can't explain how it isn't illegal, so I figured I would let you guys tell me how to explain this.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Who cares, MS is not going out of business, nor will the price of XP/Vista or my next HTC phone go down if I paid for WM6. I dont see Bill Gates eating in a soup kitchen.....oh and the fact that WM6 will be given free as an upgrade can make all the others feel warm and not dirty about themselves.
You see though why it still is piracy, at least right now. For every device running this wm6 software microsoft should have received a payment. If for some reason cingular decides not to upgrade these afterall (I'm just using this as hypothetical) then microsoft is in fact loosing some money. WM6 is not a free upgrade, that misprint was shot down by several new articles after it came out. The reason this form of piracy is accepted is because the end user has no possible way to PAY for the software legally, you have zero options to legally aquire the newer OS. Thus your pirating it becomes a "gray" area of the law.
This is no different than the canadians stealing DTV's signal from the US. They could not legally aquire the signal, their payment would not be accepted, thus they turned to the only other way to get it. That's of course all changed recently.
wpbear said:
Who cares, MS is not going out of business, nor will the price of XP/Vista or my next HTC phone go down if I paid for WM6. I dont see Bill Gates eating in a soup kitchen.....oh and the fact that WM6 will be given free as an upgrade can make all the others feel warm and not dirty about themselves.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Oh trust me I don't care. I have 3 pirated XP pro machines running at my house. We just got in a discussion about it so I wanted to see what the answer was. It all started because of all the hell he gives me for my software habbits.
Hey, where is the EULA that I supposedly agreed to? I don't see one anywhere.
and since when do we have pirated beta software? Man, we're been risking our precious device to beta test WM6 for them.
Hmmm.... Well, I think that Microsoft may disagree with that.
http://www.brighthand.com/default.asp?newsID=12837
Similarly, other boards have taken a different view.
http://www.phonenews.com/blog/content/view/133/11/
upgrade the Cingular 8125 from Windows Mobile 5 to Windows Mobile 6. That would be a product upgrade and not a product update, and would require a new license from Microsoft
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Also, the argument could be well made that putting WM6 on a device for which it was not intended DECREASES the sales of the devices it is supposed to go on - limiting upgrades. This would most definitely cut revenue - for the device manufacturers, M$ and the carriers who leverage the upgrades for contract extensions.
That said, I agree that it is a very fine line and that both sides of the argument can be made. However, in a courtroom fight, my money is on M$.
Back in the day when direct tv hacking was very easy the canadian government said this.
If you can't buy it, its not stealing.
Same thing applies here in my opinion based on software.
going back to direct tv hacking they also said if it falls in your backyard then its owned by you. What did direct tv do? They made it harder to decrypt their signals. Solved their piracy problem, even if it was legal in some countries.
I like this thread - I hope people don't mind this philosophical discussion and that they take it as a fun mental exercise, not an argument.
exstatica said:
canadian government said this.
If you can't buy it, its not stealing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
So, then you would not mind if I came to your house and took your refrigerator, which is not currently for sale? Not sure about that one - seems overly simplistic. The fact that it is not currently "on the market" is not the same as saying that it has no monetary value.
they also said if it falls in your backyard then its owned by you.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I don't think that this argument would apply here. Surely the signals from DirecTV were being blasted down into your yard by a satellite. I think they Internet is quite different. Hmmm.... interesting though.
Hi,
Please participate to petition, otherwise it becomes soon boringly here.
XDA Developers Petition
MfG
S64
Not much info in this post, but the link is to the petition to allow XDA-Developers to host ROMs again. MS banned them from hosting them a while back, and all it did was make people use File-Sharing websites instead.
Personally, I think having them held on XDA-Dev and moderated is a much more secure method than having to store them on file sharing.
If you want XDA-Dev to be able to host ROMs, sign the petition. If you don't, don't!
Thanks Stu for clarifying this thread! Interesting petition...I'll check it out.
thanks sign and put in sig
perhaps a better name for this petition would be "Dear Microsoft, my name's XXX and I like stealing your software"
That does not have to steal only change nothing also.
Everyone, which any HTC of the telephones possesses, the software already paid.
Hoping are not still more people of your opinion.
We all profit from forums like this.
Everyone that that does not please, can dissolve its account here.
I have absolutely nothing against xda-developers's roms, i've used many of them and I think they're great.
I do, however. think that it's slightly naive to tell a notoriously litigious company that you enjoy stealing their products.
Onto my soapbox
I do not, and never have, considered what XDA Dev does to be stealing. We take released ROMs, and make the best ones we can from the best bits. To my mind, it's very similar to taking a load of Ford cars (say) and making a car with the best bits - so some ROMs have the space of a people carrier (Dutty), some have the performance of a GT (TNT) and some have the customisability of a Focus ST (Pandora). Ford have then come along and told us we cannot hold these finished cars on our yard, so we're making them and distributing them via all the local dealerships!
To my mind, it's much easier to keep dangerous ROMs off the streets (and hence lower "warranty" claims) if we're just allowed to host the ROMs again. That'll give the chefs and mods a lot more control and simplify the current stupid situation of having to use file sharing sites.
Apologies for the analogy (and I know everyone will disagree with the cars/manufacturer/ROMs parrallels, but it was only a hastily thrown together example) but this is just my two cents worth.
unfortunately software is not like a car, it is one of those lovely bits of intangible IP that allows the manufacturer to have enduring rights over it - it doesn't matter what we consider to be stealing, it's not our consideration to make.
tbh i think that xda-devs would be a great help to certain phone companies (just look how awful the first vario II rom was compared to some of the roms that have come out of here), but you may as well petition the RIAA to allow you to download music for free because you're really good at remixing
I do not understand your point. We do not "ask for free music" we already paid for it. As far as i know, our hermes came with a valid licence no? And as far as i know, htc is giving us the ability to download wm6 without paying once more for it...
HTC pay M$ for a license to allow them to create device specific roms, these roms are either distributed to people who bought direct from HTC or are distributed via providers such as tmobile (who license the software from HTC/M$ and develop it further). Similarly, a person who wished to cover or remix a song must obtain the right to do it from the original creator/owner of the intellectual property that is the music/words/etc.
HTC and providers try to protect the money they have paid for licenses by making it necessary to enter IMEI/serial numbers in order to download rom updates and provide them only for their customers.
Xda developers do not license the right to develop roms from M$ or HTC
Umm, You all do know that you're quite a few months late on this whole spreading the word on the petition thing...right?
I did sign the petition...long ago, but myself..I don't see what the fuss is about, Im sure I have missed a couple posts, but so far in this wm6 section, I have only seen one person with a bogus ROM they had got, and were asking about, also Im pretty sure they said that came from a torrent.
The ftp here isn't known to be the cleanest, as far as bogus files etc, and yes I know there is a locked down section..once the file is approved or whatever the word used in this case might be, but that requires mod's to constantly stay ontop of, and files are shared before they get there.
Also, I don't know how fat the pipe is here, but all this hosting on the fileshare sites has to be helping..I would think, cause the number of HTC devices increases, along with the numbers of cooked ROM's, Im sure even now, the number of downloads for all the cooked roms just in this section has to be outrageous.
Hello all,
I'm posting about unfair practices I observe from OliNex with their HardSPL packages. I'm most-acquainted with the Topaz variety, but I know they have licensing built into their installers for some of the other devices, which licensing suffers from the same problems the Topaz HardSPL does, so I post it in a general forum.
Now, don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to OliNex and to all the other hackers, cooks, etc., for the work they do. I'm enjoying a cooked ROM on my Topaz right now, I've donated to OliNex (of my own will, not because I was compelled to get an unlock), and will probably donate to a ROM cook(s) sometime. Thank you to everyone who has contributed, and continues to contribute, to this community and the phones it supports.
But, I feel OliNex is abusing this community, and this is why I post.
[Edit 10 Oct 2010: Having had a few weeks to cool down, I'll admit it wasn't fair to assume I know OliNex's motives and situation. I won't edit my comments because it seems silly to "censor" myself, and because the facts I presented haven't changed. However, I hope whatever may come later in the thread can continue to be constructive discussion about running or flashing unsigned code, instead of just bashing others for the solutions they've given.]
There are dozens of posts in the Topaz HardSPL thread (and at least a few for other devices) from people complaining about how long their "support" requests are taking -- at least a month. I wouldn't expect grade-A technical support from a volunteer-based community of people who have normal jobs (many of which jobs are probably sometimes discouragingly similar to what they do for free on XDA), but what is more infuriating is that this huge burden on OliNex for "support" is totally unnecessary. Most of these XDA members are only asking for "support" because they've been denied access to HardSPL, being told that “Hard-SPL is for non-commercial purposes only, [OliNex] have detected that you appear to already have unlocked another device." Yeah, I guess they could all be lying and they're greedy leeches unlocking bunches of phones and re-selling them with alternate ROMs that increase their value... but since I got this message unlocking my first and only phone, I'm inclined to believe they’re just everyday XDA members unlocking their first, maybe second or third phone, in the course of normal upgrades and/or phones for their sister/father/significant other. The opening post of the Topaz HardSPL thread informs and assures us, "each user gets 1 license, or perhaps 2-3 on request if needed (which is valid forever and all this works as transparently as possible, so won't be a problem at all)" but, skim several random pages of the thread, and all evidence points to the contrary -- this is anything BUT transparent and non-problematic.
Another annoying thing about this so-called "error message" about commercial use, is that support for it clouds up the threads (at least the Topaz one) here at XDA, diminishing the resources to help people who are having legitimate technical issues like sync problems, unsupported Windows OS, antivirus/firewall conflicts (heck, I don't think HardSPL should even be packed, which causes all the antivirus false-positives, but that's a bit of another issue.)
I think OliNex's HardSPLs are essentially payware. I think they have intentionally made a lot of false-positives of "commercial usage" so that people are compelled to either "donate" or file "support" tickets. (If I'm wrong, I'm sorry, and please post your response to the things I'm writing.) I think OliNex have convenient excuses for why the support tickets take so long, but really it's just to get them money from forced donations. I presume there is no real validation of these "support" tickets, other than the assumption that anyone willing to go through this stupid system and wait at least a month must not be a business user.
And if OliNex's HardSPLs are payware, are they paying part of their usage fees to pof and Esteve Espuña Sargatal for JumpSPL (it's only fair if the authors of HaRET get in too, since JumpSPL is based on that), as well as every other XDA member whose collective, for-free (and sometimes GPL'd) work has made their HardSPL possible? I imagine they freely received the MFG SPL image from someone in the community; he should get a cut, too.
Payware doesn't belong on XDA, as per Forum Rule #11. OliNex have real jobs to make money, and XDA doesn't exist to be a free advertising platform for their additional commercial endeavors. I don't know if there's a resolution to this that's fair to everyone; part of why I'm posting is to see what we can come up with together. As I'm pretty ticked about this, right now the only options coming to my mind are:
OliNex release license-free versions of their HardSPLs,
OliNex submit to the XDA community hacking their HardSPLs to be license-free, or at least licensed by XDA itself,
Improve your licensing scheme to not detect as much "commercial usage" (but you'll always have to err to being too restrictive or too permissive; there is no perfect DRM),
or; OliNex retract HardSPL from XDA altogether (perhaps making their already-existing SIM-unlock purchase the only way to get their HardSPLs)
The last option is less than ideal as it may decrease the availability of HardSPL (there is the occasional person who posts that they actually got a free unlock), but it would almost be preferable to me, because I'm sick of this supposedly-free solution that, for a large portion of the community, actually costs time and/or money, and for no apparent reason other than to make OliNex some money. If we have to pay, you can't advertise it here. If you insist on charging and can ethically reconcile that with the facts presented earlier about how you can't even claim the entirety as your own work, then you ought to also give us something we're accustomed to paying for, such as a SIM unlock. Plenty of the other providers of HardSPLs aren't charging for their solution, so why do OliNex get to? In fact, do ANY of them have licensing but OliNex?
Thanks for reading,
Joey Hewitt
oh man you are going to get bent over for this one...
in all fairness, you do have some valid points, however:
too bad. olinex is one of the reasons we are able to do what we do with our devices. his work was provided free of charge for a LONG time. if anyone else wants/can replicate what he's done, go for it, but i have never seen anyone able to...
he asks for a _small_ donation. yes, it essentially payware, but he cuts a break and provides it for free to longtime members and those who contribute to this forum. the fee is there for a little compensation for all his work from those that would leech everything they can and rarely if ever donate to chefs as well.
i doubt anyone here is getting rich from their work given the amount of time it takes to produce the things we love...
so... take a chill pill and understand that we get almost everything for free. a few bucks to an instrumental hacker is the least we can do. and always throw a bit to the chefs. anyone that's cooked a ROM and supported it, knows how much time it takes and how trollers don't appreciate your hard work.
p.s. yes you will get bi*** slapped for this post, but i do appreciate your detail and general cordial nature. that's more than almost all that rant about a topic. however, posting 16 times and having joined in April doesn't make you much of a contributing member. please think about what you can do to help, this is a community. even something as simple as providing mirrors and sending a PM to the chef can be useful. everyone here has something worthwhile that can do to help out.
ndn715 said:
oh man you are going to get bent over for this one...
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Click to collapse
Thanks for your cordial reply, and yeah, I'm sure it will be one of the nicer ones I get.
ndn715 said:
in all fairness, you do have some valid points, however:
too bad. olinex is one of the reasons we are able to do what we do with our devices. his work was provided free of charge for a LONG time. if anyone else wants/can replicate what he's done, go for it, but i have never seen anyone able to...
he asks for a _small_ donation. yes, it essentially payware, but he cuts a break and provides it for free to longtime members and those who contribute to this forum. the fee is there for a little compensation for all his work from those that would leech everything they can and rarely if ever donate to chefs as well.
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People seem to be able to replicate it on other hardware. (Now that OliNex have figured out how to do it and have to a small degree documented how, I doubt it would be that hard for someone else to do it, but once someone else's got a solid solution, why bother with the risk of bricking your device, or worse, someone else's, to develop another solution. I would attempt to replicate their work on the Topaz, and could even stand to sacrifice a few of my own devices to that cause, but mostly the fear of bricking someone else's phone stops me.) Maybe those others are only willing to do it for free because they're newer than Olipro and Cmonex. Maybe a human can only provide a certain amount of underappreciated free work before they start charging. Of course your ability to extract money out of "freeloaders" is proportional to the difficulty, uniqueness, etc., of your work.
So, if now Olipro and Cmonex are providing it free only to contributing members (I don't remember seeing that announced, but I know they have such a policy for SIM unlocks), it is payware, which is against the rules. Honestly, I would hate to see the mods immediately remove it (obviously unlikely.) I would rather find a compromise.
ndn715 said:
i doubt anyone here is getting rich from their work given the amount of time it takes to produce the things we love...
so... take a chill pill and understand that we get almost everything for free. a few bucks to an instrumental hacker is the least we can do. and always throw a bit to the chefs. anyone that's cooked a ROM and supported it, knows how much time it takes and how trollers don't appreciate your hard work.
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I know pof once posted about his income, and said he'd spent more than that income on hardware. I agree that nobody's getting rich, and most are under-appreciated.
I'm not so much opposed to paying 4GBP (it was like 6.5 USD) for an unlock, as I am to the unlock being posted on a free community site, specifically telling me it will be free for my first phone, and then being forced into so-called "donating", just to get something that was supposed to be free. If I could do it again, I guess I'd get my SIM unlocked by them, since I had to pay someone else almost the same amount for that. Then I would get HardSPL as a free bonus (at least that's how I understand it works.)
ndn715 said:
p.s. yes you will get bi*** slapped for this post, but i do appreciate your detail and general cordial nature. that's more than almost all that rant about a topic. however, posting 16 times and having joined in April doesn't make you much of a contributing member. please think about what you can do to help, this is a community. even something as simple as providing mirrors and sending a PM to the chef can be useful. everyone here has something worthwhile that can do to help out.
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Yeah, I know I'm new. For what it's worth, I have been contributing where I can since I've joined, and actually the straw that broke the camel's back was having to tell someone on the Topaz HardSPL thread for the umpteenth time that the "error" they were getting was probably only solvable by waiting a long time or paying money (in some cases a combination.) I think non-native-English users probably just see that an error message has popped up, and don't read or don't understand the text about a support ticket or donation. Some of our fellow community members don't even have an easy way to pay in their country, even if they are perfectly fine with a small donation.
P.S. If a mod decides this is a personal attack on Olipro/Cmonex or will stir up too much unfriendly feelings or whatever, delete it, and I'll drop it.
joeyhewitt, there's a valid counterpoint for almost every point you have appealed to, so you'll probably see a lot of bashing and hardly any sympathy here, especially when it concerns someone as influential as OliNex.
IMO, this community has commercialized big time in the past few years. It's driven more and more by profit and less and less by pure enthusiasm. It's a shame many great contributors jumped onto that bandwagon, but they have their rationale and it's hard to blame them for taking that path...
If you really want to make a difference, make an SPL patch yourself and distribute it for free without any limitations. You are a lot more likely to succeed in that than in changing the way OliNex distribute and support their work.
IMO, this community has commercialized big time in the past few years. It's driven more and more by profit and less and less by pure enthusiasm.
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Oh hell, that's what i have thought. Also:
"If you wan't me to update ROM/APP/POO please donate."
-that simply drives me mad. It should be "I am doing this by free will, if you like my work, please donate, but I'm going to continue nevertheless"
stepw said:
joeyhewitt, there's a valid counterpoint for almost every point you have appealed to, so you'll probably see a lot of bashing and hardly any sympathy here, especially when it concerns someone as influential as OliNex.
IMO, this community has commercialized big time in the past few years. It's driven more and more by profit and less and less by pure enthusiasm. It's a shame many great contributors jumped onto that bandwagon, but they have their rationale and it's hard to blame them for taking that path...
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Yeah, you're probably right about the arguments against me, and I don't mind; my intent wasn't to start an argument. I think we're on the same page now as far as how and why the community is becoming more commercial. It may be a sad reality, but it's reality, and there's only so much we can do to change that.
stepw said:
If you really want to make a difference, make an SPL patch yourself and distribute it for free without any limitations. You are a lot more likely to succeed in that than in changing the way OliNex distribute and support their work.
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ndn715 said:
if anyone else wants/can replicate what he's done, go for it, but i have never seen anyone able to...
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Maybe I will. I have some questions, mostly addressed to whomever enforces the rules.
XDA-Developers Forum Rules said:
Using the work of others. If you are developing something that is based on the work of another Member, you MUST first seek their permission, and you must give credit to the member whose work you used. If a dispute occurs about who developed / created a piece of work, first try to settle the matter by private message and NOT in open forum. If this fails then you may contact a moderator with clear evidence that the work was created by you.
Convincing evidence will result in copied work being removed. If there is no clear evidence you created the work then in the spirit of sharing all work will remain posted on the forums.
These rules apply to all software posted on XDA unless that software comes with a license that waives these rules.
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Mere dependency can't really be the issue, or else all the authors of RUU flashers and ROM images would be in trouble for directing their users to download someone else's work. Packaging those works together could be a problem, though, if one or the other wasn't OK with it.
So, if someone were able to generate licenses for OliNex HardSPL, independent of modifying the HardSPL files themselves or using the HardSPL servers, would they be allowed to post that on XDA? I.e., the solution is two packages: a "licensing" program; and the original HardSPL files, downloaded from the official thread. It could be worked out so that, to be pedantic, HardSPL would be using that work, not that work using HardSPL. (I know that creating a certain file with the correct contents and placing it on a device would allow the "stock" HardSPL to proceed as if it had been licensed, so it would be HardSPL using the new work, not the new work using or being based on HardSPL.) And since HardSPL is (ostensibly) not a commercial product, it wouldn't be warez, right?
Yeah, it's a little underhanded, but really, isn't the whole community pretty much based on reverse-engineering someone else's work and making your own replacements or improvements? Sure, we have rules to try to be nice to other members of the community by disallowing easy 5-minute ripoffs of someone else's stuff where you hexedit your name over theirs, and I'm fine with that, so I'm asking, just where is the line of separation between my work and someone else's? How are the phrases "based on" and "using", from the rule above, defined, in this context?
If the above approach wouldn't be allowed, what about a solution that, with no data taken from the original HardSPL, re-invented a way for HardSPL (or perhaps any unsigned SPL) to be flashed, and had users get the original HardSPL image from the official sources?
Or what about instructing the user how to use the original HardSPL files and hexedit and/or run them in a debugger so that the licensing is skipped? It might even be possible to boil it down into a patch against the original files, which the user himself applies. Obviously not user-friendly, but if it's the only way...
I hate to beat that dead horse again, but do you know what lies in the foundation of Olipro's first HardSPL? Direct and immediate violation of the rule #12 you quoted. Maybe there wasn't such a rule at the time, but it was utterly unethical to refuse proper credit for SPL patching to its original author Des, especially when he demanded an acknowledgement.
Cracking HSPL licensing is as unethical and it's not going to be very productive as there's probably a fairly strong cryptographic foundation. Cracking HSPL binaries to accept forged license sounds more feasible, but then it means violation of the rules you are so adamant about. Either way, you'd learn more about cracking than about making SPL patch, is it really what you are after? Like in politics, the rules sometimes do not apply to the "untouchables", but you are sure to be banned if you go that path, as cracks/warez are not welcome here.
There's nothing wrong with applying the same concepts to another solution though. It's not patented or copyrighted in any way and there's plenty of discussion around it, so it should be possible to figure out what it takes to make it happen. Even if the result is essentially the same as HardSPL, you still deserve respect if you manage to produce it yourself without hijacking others' work.
retsam88 said:
Oh hell, that's what i have thought. Also:
"If you wan't me to update ROM/APP/POO please donate."
-that simply drives me mad. It should be "I am doing this by free will, if you like my work, please donate, but I'm going to continue nevertheless"
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Click to collapse
Can't agree more. IMO, if one wants to make it a profitable business, then he should treat the users as customers (provide updates and support) and legalize (register a business and pay taxes to his governement).
But then demand drives supply, not vice versa. If people weren't willing to donate, even if the donations are kinda forced, they wouldn't have donated. That's why I'm not blaming the developers for this commercialization, consumers and not contributers are responsible for it.
stepw said:
I hate to beat that dead horse again, but do you know what lies in the foundation of Olipro's first HardSPL? Direct and immediate violation of the rule #12 you quoted. Maybe there wasn't such a rule at the time, but it was utterly unethical to refuse proper credit for SPL patching to its original author Des, especially when he demanded an acknowledgement.
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Heh, yeah, I think I read that little interchange. I think there may be some GPL violations going on, too, but maybe that's just par for the course.
stepw said:
Cracking HSPL licensing is as unethical and it's not going to be very productive as there's probably a fairly strong cryptographic foundation. Cracking HSPL binaries to accept forged license sounds more feasible, but then it means violation of the rules you are so adamant about. Either way, you'd learn more about cracking than about making SPL patch, is it really what you are after? Like in politics, the rules sometimes do not apply to the "untouchables", but you are sure to be banned if you go that path, as cracks/warez are not welcome here.
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Well, in a way, I wouldn't care, since all I'm "after" is allowing people to flash whatever they want for free. But, despite my best attempts to rationalize , releasing a crack of an influential developer's work would still be warez (if we're going to admit licensed products on XDA as a reality), and would probably go over even worse than cracking a commercial product. And, yeah, learning anything would be fun and useful, but I would rather learn how to patch an SPL.
stepw said:
There's nothing wrong with applying the same concepts to another solution though. It's not patented or copyrighted in any way and there's plenty of discussion around it, so it should be possible to figure out what it takes to make it happen. Even if the result is essentially the same as HardSPL, you still deserve respect if you manage to produce it yourself without hijacking others' work.
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I think if I made my own installation method for the standard HardSPL image, that would be fair enough, right? I think a few people have even said that's harder (on modern hardware, at least) than creating a HardSPL in the first place. Anyone know why OliNex's soft SPL is based on an MFG SPL (on Topaz, at least)? Is it because all MFGs can flash unsigned images?, or they're easier to hack to flash unsigned stuff? But then, it doesn't make sense that the hard SPL seems to be based on a stock image. Maybe the MFG was easier to relocate into RAM. Anyone know where MFG SPLs can be found, or do you have to be a special member of the community to get those? (Soon enough, you'll have to pay someone for it?) Other options could be flashing from within WinMo, or even a HaRET'd Android/Linux, but that seems a little risky unless there's already really good, safe flash support there. XdaUtils/itsutils has a pnewbootloader.exe, but apparently it's only for the Wallaby and/or specific versions of WinMo. Anybody know about writing flash from the OS? I assume if it were better or easier, we might be bypassing the SPL altogether to flash unsigned ROMs, but maybe there's something to look into.
Part of the problem with things being commercialized is that there's very little documentation (or, it's outdated -- just found a few old posts on SPL patching from stepw ) on this magic stuff people are selling, which is a shame when the whole reason the forum is here is to share ideas, knowledge, techniques, and open tools for hacking our devices.
MFG SPL has many more commands than shipping/production SPL, so it's a natural choice for any kind of vendor protection circumvention.
SPL patch to allow unsigned image flashing is fairly simple, the real challenge is soft-loading SPL or making another bootloader/flasher work reliably.
Soft-loading a flasher is not all that risky, for as long as it doesn't alter critical flash content (SPL, NVRAM). If OS doesn't boot, but SPL does, there's a way to restore an official ROM (provided one is available with correct CID) and start all over.
Adapting SPL by patching is a lot less time consuming than making a flasher from ground up, although the latter is possible too. A Linux based soft-flasher capable of flashing images in native RUU format via USB or from SD could be a real breakthrough... I wasn't following the progress with Android on natively WinMo devices, but if MTD is functional, then NAND interface is there.
Cotulla's MAGLDR sounds like a great new development, it includes a recovery kernel with MTD, USB, SD and basic IO support. If it can be built for Topaz, sofltoad it and flash anything you want (subject to MTD driver patching for OOB compatible with the intended OS).
stepw said:
Soft-loading a flasher is not all that risky, for as long as it doesn't alter critical flash content (SPL, NVRAM). If OS doesn't boot, but SPL does, there's a way to restore an official ROM (provided one is available with correct CID) and start all over.
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So if I were to develop a soft-loaded patched SPL, I'd want to first try flashing some unsigned non-crucial thing like a splash screen or maybe cooked ROM, and see if that broke anything. Even if it did, as long as the SPL in flash was still bootable and I had a signed stock image, I could always fix things.
As I understand it, most modern devices have got the SPL region protected so that you'll have to relocate the image to be able to execute it in RAM. I've only seen references to this, and about how it's sometimes impossible to remap the MMU to avoid relocation (if the pagesize is not granular enough you may split up a buffer or something), and possibly that you must not relocate certain structures the MMU uses. (source) Feel free to let me do my own research, but anyone have a good tutorial on relocation? (Maybe I'll write one if I figure it out.) Or at least any other tips, about what constraints you have to account for and maybe pitfalls you could encounter, would be nice. I need to learn more about the ARM instruction set, how memory is laid out, and how the MMU works, in any case.
By the way, this looks to be a pretty good thread for an overview of how to hard SPL (possibly the most informational single thread I've found so far.) I've actually been researching this for a month or so (before I started this thread), and had read only the first post (which has a good collection of links) before, but now I see the whole thing is a good summary of the issues involved. The first several pages after that drop some tool names and convey an overview of the process.
stepw said:
Adapting SPL by patching is a lot less time consuming than making a flasher from ground up, although the latter is possible too. A Linux based soft-flasher capable of flashing images in native RUU format via USB or from SD could be a real breakthrough... I wasn't following the progress with Android on natively WinMo devices, but if MTD is functional, then NAND interface is there.
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stepw said:
Cotulla's MAGLDR sounds like a great new development, it includes a recovery kernel with MTD, USB, SD and basic IO support. If it can be built for Topaz, sofltoad it and flash anything you want (subject to MTD driver patching for OOB compatible with the intended OS).
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...speaking of flashers (or entire bootloaders) built from the ground up. Cool, I'll have to look into this!
Thanks a lot for the pointers! I'm not sure when I'll have time to actually get serious, so maybe this thread will amount to nothing other than a collection of basic information about running unsigned code, but even so, that should be good for XDA.
There are bits and pieces of information around this forum and on various Internet sites, I just googled a decent (although somewhat obsolete) ARM MMU summary in 2 minutes: http://www.renan.org/ARM/doc/MMSAAN.pdf
Good luck!
PS If you need answers for specific questions, try IRC #xda-devs and #htc-linux, there are plenty of knowledgeable people hanging out there...
I don't know if anyone is following this, but if you are, here's an update on my experiments, and some questions if anyone knows/cares to share the answers.
1) (MAGLDR appears to be closed-source and only supports one device, so I didn't look into it very far.) There is some MTD functionality in XDAndroid 2.2 for the Topaz (and probably other XDAndroid varieties.) After what seemed like an eternity of poking around with the terminal and the soft keyboard, I got telnet set up and was able to modprobe the mtd modules and dump portions of the NAND. There weren't any partitions (or, there was only one partition that appeared to be the full NAND bank), so I wonder if that will be a problem. If I remember correctly, I found a "dd" command that dumped a segment of NAND containing the SPL, however it was hard to consistently seek through NAND, so I either don't understand how the offsets and sizes for "dd" work, or something strange was going on. There was no included nandwrite tool, so I haven't tried flashing anything yet. I may not, because I'm unsure of the safety and merits of an Android-based flasher. It would probably be safest to boot into a dedicated barebones environment for this, and most versatile to have it be independent of a PC and ideally even an SD card -- is there enough terminal support in the kernel to have a limited UI? (Perhaps just to choose which file to flash, or confirm the flash.) It would be cool to flash native unsigned RUU files from a general-purpose Linux tool, but would it really be helpful? For new devices coming out, I imagine the SPL is patched before a Linux port is stable enough to flash unsigned ROMs. For current devices, the SPL is already there and a safer choice. Any thoughts?
2) After more thought than it should have took , I figured out a quick-and-dirty way to do relocation. I just replaced every 32-bit value in the SPL binary that fell between the virtual SPL base address and the end (which I'm not sure how far to extend, but am working with 1MB right now), with the rebased value. (Excluding the base address given in the MMU table.) There were about 2,500 occurrences, and I wonder if some of them weren't actually offsets. I'll have to think about a way to automatically detect this, or manually verify that each rebased value in the disassembly is actually an offset. For now, my goal is just to see a soft-loaded tri-colour screen, so I didn't worry too much about whether I rebased things that shouldn't have been. (I guess the tricky part is I may never see that screen if I relocated something wrong.)
After some time trying to debug this, I discovered that JumpSPL seems to be flaky, which would make development a nightmare. The same binary will do different things (like hang in WinMo, hang with screen blacked-out, reboot into stock SPL) on successive runs. Some of this is likely due to an incompletely relocated binary, and intentional hangs or reboots that I was adding to try to diagnose what was going on (writing to the framebuffer didn't seem to work; maybe I have the wrong address), but even with a known-good binary (OliNex's SSPL), JumpSPL won't consistently launch it. I can only guess that's because it was written on the assumption that Windows wouldn't touch the memory it was loading into (historically 0x00000000 -- but does Windows really not use that? if the memory is MPU'd Windows obviously can't write to it, but what about when JumpSPL was originally written?) I can't be entirely certain yet (I only tried 2 or 3 times so far), but it looks like the JumpSPL variant bundled with the HardSPL installers is more stable. I patched in my soft SPL overtop theirs and was getting more consistent results. Any thoughts on JumpSPL'ing a relocated SPL?
I've also tried just patching the MMU table instead of relocating, with no success; possibly due in part to JumpSPL not always working. Cmonex has mentioned this won't work in some cases, though, so I'm not going to invest a lot of time.
Great progress there, joeyhewitt!
Personally I never used JumpSPL and cmonex'es variant always seemed a bit convoluted to me, but perhaps that's what it takes to run it from under WinMo. After a lot of playing with it, I was able to achieve reliable results with the following (albeit only on Blackstone and running from within SPL, not from WinMo, and I never tried this on any other devices as I don't own any):
Code:
.code 32
NOP
# Disable interrupts (FIQ/IRQ)
MRS R0, CPSR
ORR R0, R0, #0xC0
MSR CPSR_c, R0
# Invalidate i-cache and d-cache
MOV R0, #0
MCR p15, 0, R0,c7,c5
MCR p15, 0, PC,c7,c14
MCR p15, 0, R0,c7,c10, 4
# Load jump address
ADR R0, _jump
# Reset MMU
MOV R1, #0x70
MCR p15, 0, R1,c1,c0
NOP
MOV PC, R0
# This is executed from physical address
_jump:
MOV R0, #0
# Invalidate TLBs
MCR p15, 0, R0,c8,c7
# Jump to loader
LDR R0, _loader
MOV PC, R0
# This should be physical address
_loader: .int 0x00000000
Once MMU is reset and execution continues from physical address, Windows should not interfere with JumpSPL in any way, as it runs in virtual space that's invalidated with MMU reset.
I think a relatively easy way to test how far the process goes is to add code to blink a led via GPIOs and then place it in your softspl. If you can blink from HaRET or XDAndroid, then should be doable from softspl too.
G'luck!
OliNex also do offer free HardSPL´s to contributor XDA members, it´s like an exchange, if you have not contributed to the community you can always contribute with a very very tiny small donation fee
Hello,
Been waiting for one free hardspl licence for my topaz. Posted ticket in OliNex website and also sent pm to cmonex 3 weeks back but yet no responses.
And I don't know what to do next but have very interest in cooking roms for it too.
These ppl made the most important thing which starts 'custom ROM upgrade' and so users can have latest stuffs and gave developers and/or ROM chefs an approach to cook custom roms and enjoy.
Although these ppl worked very very hard since many years, an better support is essential yet. Mostly on the payable things. I see there is no support for topaz hardspl, no matter its free or payable or atleast it was better if you could release free hardspl for topaz like other devices.
Thanks...
Best Regards
OK, I haven't worked on this for awhile, and I don't think it's likely I'll finish anything. In addition Cmonex asked that I not release a patched SPL, which is fair since she was nice enough to share some insights with me, too. Perhaps when I'm in the mood for low-level stuff again, I can finish it for my own fun, or I could release some more general-purpose tools. For now I will post what I have that could be useful to others.
I found that the SPL area in RAM can be unprotected with these HaRET commands:
pfw 0xA8250800 1 0
pfw 0xA8240800 1 0
(source)
(Actually I think only the first one is necessary to enable writing to physical address 0. I don't know what size of memory is affected.) These apparently correspond with the AXIGS and AXIGE (subtract 0x800 to get a base address), which I don't really know about, but you can probably learn more about by reading (XD)Android source or htc-linux logs, etc.
I had hoped this would allow me to soft-boot an unmodified SPL, but it seems besides relocation, there are some hardware-initialization patches that need to be made to allow the SPL to work with the hardware as it is after a complete WinMo bootup (cmonex confirmed this.) I couldn't get anything with GPIOs working for debugging my patched SPL; not sure why. (They worked in HaRET, but not in the SPL. And I think was using the SPL's virtual addresses correctly.)
I was disabling protection using the above in HaRET, executing the attached HitBLKey.exe, and using JumpSPL. HitBLKey.exe is HTC's enterbootloader.exe patched to only set whatever magic flag it does to signal that the bootloader be entered, but not to reboot the phone. (Pretty easy to make if you have a disassembler, the little bit trickier part was un-signing the executable so that it will run even though modified.) (Getting my SPL working at all was higher priority than having it enter the tri-colour screen automatically. I think this method also has advantages when your patched SPL is likely to hang or reboot; you'll always go through the stock tri-colour screen so you'll be more certain about what happened.)
I don't have many specifics about using Android, other than to say I was able to read NAND by inserting the MTD module into the XDAndroid kernel, and passing an "mtd_partition" (I think) parameter describing the partition layout as gathered from either itsutils or with an info command in the SPL. I wasn't able to reliably determine the offset of anything specific (like the SPL), and I never tried writing to flash.
Edit: I'm also attaching a dummy .exe header that helped me in disassembling SPLs in the demo version of IDA Pro. Prepend it to the beginning of a .nb file, name with .exe as the extension, and load into IDA as a Windows Mobile application.