Notice About Stealing Software, NFSFAN

[dmdsoftware]

Originally Posted by gguruusa

I'm open to suggestion. I haven't come up with another scenario that fits the facts, and I've had plenty of time to think about it. It'd be nice to think he isn't that stupid, but the present facts are very compelling.

Ever notice how you view other people as basically being like yourself? Anyone remember what NFSfan accused various people of a couple weeks back based on ZERO facts? Interesting coincidence.

I recall there were other people suggesting he was ripping their work, without credit as well. In particular the startup screens etc.

[TheIgster]

Well, that sucks. Being in software myself, I certainly don't want to support someone who steals from other people.

Now what ROM am I going to use for my Touch...

[[sammich]]

Regarding the whole DMCA thing...

I completely agree that the developer has every right to protect his software. However, since PPCGeeks was not knowingly supporting the distribution of plagiarized software, I highly doubt you'd be able to close the site.

Now, I do know that it is not advisable to say this to an agry person [and mod]. And frankly, I would just keep my mouth shut especially when it comes to n2c. But the DMCA just really fu%king pisses me off in so many ways, so I have to say this.

The furthest you could go with a DMCA takedown notice is to have the offending site remove the content. And the rules are a bit different in a forum than sites because a mod has to remove the content. The site technically is not responsible for NFSFAN's blatant disregard for morals [Legally yes, but any decent lawyer could explain to a judge and jury how the site can't possible go through and examine the code of all things uploaded]

Ugh.. I'll probably remove this in a bit because I realize how stupid it is to say anything. And n2c, please don't view this as being against you. I just REALLY HATE THE DMCA... like more than you'd think a person is capable of.

Oh, and to be clear I in NO way think ANYTHING NFS did was right.

[NexVision]

Originally Posted by saumaun

Regarding the whole DMCA thing...

I completely agree that the developer has every right to protect his software. However, since PPCGeeks was not knowingly supporting the distribution of plagiarized software, I highly doubt you'd be able to close the site.

Now, I do know that it is not advisable to say this to an agry person [and mod]. And frankly, I would just keep my mouth shut especially when it comes to n2c. But the DMCA just really fu%king pisses me off in so many ways, so I have to say this.

The furthest you could go with a DMCA takedown notice is to have the offending site remove the content. And the rules are a bit different in a forum than sites because a mod has to remove the content. The site technically is not responsible for NFSFAN's blatant disregard for morals [Legally yes, but any decent lawyer could explain to a judge and jury how the site can't possible go through and examine the code of all things uploaded]

Ugh.. I'll probably remove this in a bit because I realize how stupid it is to say anything. And n2c, please don't view this as being against you. I just REALLY HATE THE DMCA... like more than you'd think a person is capable of.

Partially accurate. They will go straight to the host about it and depending on the relationship that Mike has with the host they can take the site down untill the content is removed it is in no way a permanent item but will take it down for a couple hours at minimum....

[thejinx0r]

Originally Posted by TheIgster

Well, that sucks. Being in software myself, I certainly don't want to support someone who steals from other people.

Now what ROM am I going to use for my Touch...

I might switch to vetvito's rom. Nothing looks as good as tbat.

[DHarvey]

Is it really necessary to continue to discuss this publicly where everyone can see it? He admitted what he did, he's paying the consequences. I think this thread should be removed personally but who am I to say...

[AceszHigh]

And this guy had the nerve to cry about it when people were "taking down" his roms from the FTP, and throw a donation button on his sig!

Those who follow this site know that No2Chem has put many hours into development of his software, ROMs and help with PPCKitchen as well. His clean ROM bases have been used by many. He's very generous with his work.

Anyone who is defending NFSFAN or is saying it was a "mistake" clearly does not understand. You can't mistakenly steal or edit someone else's code. Banning him is not harsh, it is completely justified.

All he had to do was give credit where credit was due....

Originally Posted by no2chem

I don't usually post in this forum, but it has come to my attention that my work is being stolen. Now, it is one thing to put my work without crediting me, but it is yet another thing to delete all references to me and replace them with generic strings.

In particular, the user I'm referring to is NFSFAN. I recently took a look at his rom, and found nueUSB present. However, among other things "nueUSB" was edited out to say "USB2PC". See:



I was shocked when I saw this, as nueUSB took many hours of coding and understanding how HTC's code to change the active USB driver worked. To make sure that it was actually my code, I took a look at the hex dump:



Notice how the string "Wei Enterprises" is present in unicode, and the path to the program debug database (pdb) on my computer is present in ASCII.

I also checked NFSFAN's post for his change log where I found:



I also found


For those who don't know, nueUSB was something I coded up for use with the mass storage driver that is compatible with MSM7500 devices. I'm not sure who rmarshll is, but from what I've seen, only cmonex and myself currently even know how to do the "1% battery fix", and indeed, the battery.dll is a one-for-one hex match with the version that I released several months ago.

In his entire post, I find not a single mention of "no2chem". Normally, I would not have a big problem with this, except to feel that he wasn't being courteous, but the fact that he took the time to edit out any reference to me in my own software is stealing. Again, software isn't coded out of thin air, especially this type of software for which there is no documented API for. I don't charge for my software because I feel that it is for the benefit of the community that I distribute it freely. I only ask for donations, and offer donators access to some "bleeding edge" beta releases. These beta releases are eventually marked ready for public consumption, and released with full features to the public.

In short, the only reason anyone would ever have to edit attribution out of my programs is a greedy, selfish need to attribute software to themselves, work that they did not do. Here, NFSFAN has done exactly that: he has taken one of my programs, edited out the attribution and taken credit for the work himself. "Added USB to PC Popup, Added serial Support [..]. Fixed USB to PC Error" does make it sound like he did the work, and editing the program only compounds the evidence. This is a clear violation of my license agreement, and NFSFAN did NOT obtain my written agreement prior to editing my software in this manner.

Before this, I did not have a personal problem with NFSFAN. I would not have had a problem if he included my software and left it untouched. I do not have a requirement that you credit me, only that you ask me. Indeed, he has asked for help from me several times, and I have helped him out. Although he did not credit me for the help, I certainly did not have a problem with it.

However, I must now regrettably enforce the consequences. Although the forum recommends an instant-ban for this type of offense, as it is "warez", It appears that a discussion between moderators have reached the consensus to be lenient, and that the appropriate consequence for this type of offense is 2-week ban for regular users, 3-weeks for "those who should have known better". Effective immediately, NFSFAN's ROMS have been pulled due to their illegal content, and all users who post content of this nature will be banned for 3-weeks. This is of course, acceptable to the alternative, a DMCA takedown notice sent to PPCGeeks.

Understand that I am not doing this to be a jerk, but to protect my own software. If I fail to vigorously defend my rights, then I have lost them. I understand many contributors to the community are in the same boat as me, for example A_C, who develops S2U2 and S2P recently pulled his software for a similar situation. I ask that all developers, especially those who practically give their software away for free, be given credit when due. It is especially disappointing to find the work that you spend hours and days on "renamed" in someone else's ROM.

Of course, if you find any other sites that contain this type of content, please let me know, as I will be more than happy to send their host a DMCA takedown notice.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by jakdillard

big G calm down man ..... you're a mod now gotta watch what you say before you have to ban yourself lol

lol - tool was too much? You should have seen the rough draft. Attitudes like his spur software developers to spend insane amounts of time adding DRM instead of enhancements.

[gguruusa]

Originally Posted by thejinx0r

I might switch to vetvito's rom. Nothing looks as good as tbat.

Now theres an excellent chef.

[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.