Notice About Stealing Software, NFSFAN

[DarkLord]

Originally Posted by no2chem

If the "best ROM maker" is using illegal software, we have no choice other than to ban him.

nueUSB took me over 40 hours of work in a few days. It was more than a full time job. In the academic world, you would shunned forever by your peers for plaguarism. In the real world, you would be sued. NFSFAN was lucky to just have got a ban.

This isn't the first time he's done this either. He's stolen both vetvito's and ppckitchen's work, as far as i'm aware of. VetVito, one of the best ROM makers for the vogue, left for this very reason, and I totally understand why.

i get that. believe me. about 10 years ago i wrote a software package for autocad for land surveyors. about a year after i wrote it, a person that worked at the same company i worked at started selling the exact same software. i thought it was different until a friend of mine got a copy of it, shipped it to me and i checked the code. it was mine. 100% of it.

the difference in my case is that i wrote it specifically to make money. and as an FYI, it took a hell of alot longer than 40 hours.

the reason for my little story from down memory lane is simple. if you guys want a professional programmer's site where it's dog eat dog and everyone hates everyone then go create it. otherwise, leave this site to what it's supposed to be. people sharing ideas about ppcs and enjoying what there is to offer here without fighting.

[no2chem]

Originally Posted by rwcj63

i get that. believe me. about 10 years ago i wrote a software package for autocad for land surveyors. about a year after i wrote it, a person that worked at the same company i worked at started selling the exact same software. i thought it was different until a friend of mine got a copy of it, shipped it to me and i checked the code. it was mine. 100% of it.

the difference in my case is that i wrote it specifically to make money. and as an FYI, it took a hell of alot longer than 40 hours.

the reason for my little story from down memory lane is simple. if you guys want a professional programmer's site where it's dog eat dog and everyone hates everyone then go create it. otherwise, leave this site to what it's supposed to be. people sharing ideas about ppcs and enjoying what there is to offer here without fighting.

lets put a little bit of that into perspective;

40 hours / 3 days = 13.3 hrs / day.

I highly doubt you had spent that much time on your "professional land surveying software on a daily basis. nueUSB wasn't the only piece of software I coded. The fact that I didn't charge for it only makes it more offensive: the only reason NFSFAN bothered to edit strings was to take the credit for himself, not to get some kind of restricted functionality.

And it is a SERIOUS problem. If every time I release something that I spent a long time to work on, and it is stolen with someone elses name on it, what reason do I have to continue releasing my stuff.

According to your suggestion, I should just charge for my software, because apparently it is the only method I would have to protect my software.

And yes, we do want a "professional" site, not a site full of warez addicts. This is why these policies must be enforced.

[DarkLord]

Originally Posted by no2chem

lets put a little bit of that into perspective;

40 hours / 3 days = 13.3 hrs / day.

I highly doubt you had spent that much time on your "professional land surveying software on a daily basis. nueUSB wasn't the only piece of software I coded. The fact that I didn't charge for it only makes it more offensive: the only reason NFSFAN bothered to edit strings was to take the credit for himself, not to get some kind of restricted functionality.

And it is a SERIOUS problem. If every time I release something that I spent a long time to work on, and it is stolen with someone elses name on it, what reason do I have to continue releasing my stuff.

According to your suggestion, I should just charge for my software, because apparently it is the only method I would have to protect my software.

And yes, we do want a "professional" site, not a site full of warez addicts. This is why these policies must be enforced.

i know this is serious. i was so pissed about my software i wanted to pinch his head off when i found out.

don't misunderstand what i'm saying here. as a programmer myself (well, in the olden days before "C" was the language of choice), i know what goes into writing code. it just bothers me the direction this site is heading. perhaps some of you upper guys should split off into another site that is only for writing roms and code and leave this one to the people like me that just want to learn about ppcs and how to customize them and make them better.

and as an ending FYI, if i had not already switched to WDM's rom from NFSFAN, i would have stopped using it anyway because of this.

[GT!]

I think I've read most of this thread now. I've used NFSFan's roms in the past (on and off, so I'm not addicted to his roms). I follow the discussions in his rom thread. As a user of his roms, I never assumed he actually coded anything (and I don't recall him ever claiming he did). In fact, it seems to me that most of the chefs do not code - they assemble a rom from the best pieces they can find. Even if they do not write the pieces themselves, putting it all together into a rom that works well is no small feat. He did this very well - and did more for Bell users than most other chefs. Reading this thread you'd think the guy did nothing put steal from others to do his rom (I suppose this could still end up being true, lol).

Should he be giving credit to everyone? Probably. Removing identifying references from code he uses from others? Definitely in poor taste and insulting to the developer since no credit was given. Why would he do it? Normal users like myself do not know the answer because he has been banned and is not given any option to explain himself. Perhaps he removed the references because he knew that others would take apart his rom and he didn't want them to know the components he was using to make his roms work well. Why did he refuse to share "his" components with others? Maybe he knew it was not his work and therefore had no right to share or give others the ok to use it - I think this would have been an even worse thing for him to do.

As a user of roms I'm also disappointed by this turn of events. I see people posting in this thread who are obviously happy that this has happened, and I don't see this as anything but a loss for everyone. It shows that there are problems in the rom-development community. Those of you who are openly or secretly happy this has happened should take a moment to reflect on all of this.

-GT

[jakdillard]

Originally Posted by GT!

I think I've read most of this thread now. I've used NFSFan's roms in the past (on and off, so I'm not addicted to his roms). I follow the discussions in his rom thread. As a user of his roms, I never assumed he actually coded anything (and I don't recall him ever claiming he did). In fact, it seems to me that most of the chefs do not code - they assemble a rom from the best pieces they can find. Even if they do not write the pieces themselves, putting it all together into a rom that works well is no small feat. He did this very well - and did more for Bell users than most other chefs. Reading this thread you'd think the guy did nothing put steal from others to do his rom (I suppose this could still end up being true, lol).

Should he be giving credit to everyone? Probably. Removing identifying references from code he uses from others? Definitely in poor taste and insulting to the developer since no credit was given. Why would he do it? Normal users like myself do not know the answer because he has been banned and is not given any option to explain himself. Perhaps he removed the references because he knew that others would take apart his rom and he didn't want them to know the components he was using to make his roms work well. Why did he refuse to share "his" components with others? Maybe he knew it was not his work and therefore had no right to share or give others the ok to use it - I think this would have been an even worse thing for him to do.

As a user of roms I'm also disappointed by this turn of events. I see people posting in this thread who are obviously happy that this has happened, and I don't see this as anything but a loss for everyone. It shows that there are problems in the rom-development community. Those of you who are openly or secretly happy this has happened should take a moment to reflect on all of this.

-GT

bottom line

NFSFAN's Usb2PC= NueMass storage

NFSFAN's Rom Protection = Bepe's Allpackagestoone tool

its app theft man

[GT!]

Originally Posted by jakdillard

bottom line

NFSFAN's Usb2PC= NueMass storage

NFSFAN's Rom Protection = Bepe's Allpackagestoone tool

its app theft man

I don't think it is as simple as that. Isn't the code is released to the developer community for them to use and include in their roms? I've looked at the nueUSB package that is distributed on xda and don't see anywhere a) a reference to who wrote it b) a requirement to give credit for using it c) restrictions to modifying the code. Perhaps I didn't come across the right posts to find this, but then perhaps NFSFan didn't either. I think calling it theft is a bit strong.

Please don't make me defend him anymore. I don't agree with what he has done either, I'm just trying to provide some balance to this thread.

-GT

[no2chem]

Originally Posted by GT!

I don't think it is as simple as that. Isn't the code is released to the developer community for them to use and include in their roms? I've looked at the nueUSB package that is distributed on xda and don't see anywhere a) a reference to who wrote it b) a requirement to give credit for using it c) restrictions to modifying the code. Perhaps I didn't come across the right posts to find this, but then perhaps NFSFan didn't either. I think calling it theft is a bit strong.

Please don't make me defend him anymore. I don't agree with what he has done either, I'm just trying to provide some balance to this thread.

-GT

Please cite where this is on XDA so I can have it removed. Thank you. This application is closed source, and after this turn of events I am very happy that I did NOT make my code open source. There is NO CODE released to the developer community and (b) and (c) are supposed to be included in the license agreement

also it is a component of nueROM so it falls under any included license agreement there, the license clearly specifies commercial distribution is illegal, the license includes an attribution requirement.

[AceszHigh]

Aside from that, why in the world would someone take the time to EDIT THE CODE for the sole purpose of REMOVING the author's name?!?

Originally Posted by GT!

I don't think it is as simple as that. Isn't the code is released to the developer community for them to use and include in their roms? I've looked at the nueUSB package that is distributed on xda and don't see anywhere a) a reference to who wrote it b) a requirement to give credit for using it c) restrictions to modifying the code. Perhaps I didn't come across the right posts to find this, but then perhaps NFSFan didn't either. I think calling it theft is a bit strong.

Please don't make me defend him anymore. I don't agree with what he has done either, I'm just trying to provide some balance to this thread.

-GT

[portenio]

...REALLY... No one is going to say this... gguruusa stired the s**t and NFSFan is banned.. and more importantly his good work that brought many members day in and day out to this forum...
NFSFan banned but gguruusa still "quoting" around...
One thing I have to point out to you gguruusa, you came into NFSFan thread with one mission in mind, to shut it down.. Congrats, you achieved it... (Your irc buddy must be really happy)...Too bad MODS do not realize this or perhaps they choose not to...(Who knows?) Nevertheless UNFAIR is what you want to take away from this post...
Well done MODS... Kudos... Real nice...

Edit: At least does anybody know where can I find NFSFan..?

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by GT!

In fact, it seems to me that most of the chefs do not code - they assemble a rom from the best pieces they can find. Even if they do not write the pieces themselves, putting it all together into a rom that works well is no small feat.

have you tried it? It probably isn't as hard as you think. It's far from mystical.