Should this site host illegal software like Touch 3D ?

[Mark A Cilenti]

Should the Xperia forum and this site be hosting and promoting the use of illegal software like Touch 3D and Touch 2D ?

Issues

1. Legality

Running Touch 3D on the X1 is illegal
Modding Touch 3D for the x1 is illegal.
Hosting and promoting illegal software by XDA dev is also breaking the law.

2. Financial

If this site is strugglng for funds how can it attract commercial sponsors and donations from Microsoft and HTC etc when users are permitted and encouraged to rip off there products ?

3. Support

Why should Sony , Microsoft or HTC offer support and updates if they percieve users are stealing and misusing there products. We all want firmware updates and new drivers, why should they ?

4. Performance

This is a personal choice, but I say any program that adds hundreds of files to the windows folder, will not be good for its performance. IF the registry is the brain, then the windows folder is the heart of the wm system, and a bloated fatty heart is not healthy.

5. Balance

The x1 forum is top heavy with T3D and most are sticky, which gives the wrong impression for our forum, to allow illegal software to dominate.

Recommendations

Posting of T3D discussion threads limited to forums where running the software is legal.

No hosting of T3D files or mods anywhere on this site.

Personal comments

I say it is time for this great web site and community to step out from the shadows of piracy, there is allot of skill and expertise on this site, we should be proud when the world looks in, not ashamed and disgraced.

Why should the law abiding majority on xda dev be stigmatised by the minority.

Have your say, there is no personal criticism here please stick to the issues.

[nuke1]

Please bring evidence that TouchFlo 3D (not Touch3D) is illegal. This site doesn't operate illegally and prohibits 'warez' and links to it. I'm sure a mod will expand.

What on earth is this person talking about? Shadows of piracy and all :rolleyes:. Geez!

Oh, and on that note, I say we ban anything to do with Panels and mods linked to it, since that would be illegal for the vast majority of other phones supported by this website. I mean, 'why should the law abiding majority be stigmatised by the minority'?

[SquidgyB]

It's fair to say that it's a touchy subject, but I think it can boil down to the fact that TF3D, and most if not all of the modded software that is available on this site is indeed taken from one phone and ported (read: hacked) onto other phones.

The fine line xda seems to walk along is that the software that is taken from other phones is not available for purchase seperately, but is considered by many to be superior to the applications available on the devices as they come as standard. Any application that is available for purchase seperately, if modified to work on a particular phone should be purchased by the end user and the component files modified to work on said device. Much along the lines that old abandonware games take: if you have the original software, then you can, through modification, use them to your own end.

TF3D, modification of panels, hell, if you look into it that deeply, ANY modification of the roms and software supplied on the devices is technically illegal and would certainly void any warranty you have on the device. I think that if you took such a hard line stance as Mark has suggested, xda would not exist as we know it. It's not just an X1 issue, but runs through every modification and practically every forum and thread on xda, and so would nullify the whole ethos of xda.

I don't think what we (or at least the more talented people here) are doing constitutes such a heavy handed approach. We're just trying to get the most out of our phones, and where possible, we will certainly pay for software where it is available to be bought.

It's true that Sony, HTC, Samsung, Google and all the other manufacturers don't quite agree with some of the mods being made through this site, but I doubt it will stifle any updates or developments coming from these companies.

We're not children, and can (and do) self regulate to an extent, by banning/removing ANY links to pirated and "really" illegal software. I simply don't think that what we are doing here is so wrong, and like I mentioned before, what exactly would we be doing here if not modifying the operating system and software available for the devices to get them to work better/faster?

[DaveShaw]

Moved to the About Xda Forum.

To the best of my knowledge, at no point has any of the administration or owners of this site been contacted by HTC with regards to the legallity of the Touch Flo 3D or 2D. What is your basis for this accusation?

This site has a Zero Tollerance policy on Warez, Piracy and any illegal activity that could land us in trouble with any authorities (i.e. IMEI Changing).
If this had been brought up as an issue then the offending material would be removed or an agreement would have been reached with HTC.

And who says the site is struggling for funds? The recent outages are Technical faults, nothing more, if that is what this assumption is based on.

Thanks
Dave

[kyphur]

1. Legality

Running Touch 3D on the X1 is illegal
Modding Touch 3D for the x1 is illegal.
Hosting and promoting illegal software by XDA dev is also breaking the law.
You are aware of Microsoft's Official Stance on Rom Cooking, right?

XDA-Devs considers any application that is avaliable for sale to be WAREZ if posted here (regardless of KeyGen or not). See Microsoft Voice Command for clarification. While it is included in at&t Roms now we still don't permit stand alone Cabs to be posted as it is considered commercial.

By your definition of "Illegal Software" all of the dialers, comm Managers, HTC Home, HTC GPS Tool, Quick GPS etc Cabs & OEM Packages are illegal and should be removed.

Another good example is TomTom. There was a time when TomTom was considered Warez. Lately though they give away the Application and you pay for the maps so the App is no longer Warez unless it is including maps.

2. Financial

If this site is strugglng for funds how can it attarct commercial sponsoors and donations from Microsoft and HTC etc when users are permitted and encouraged to rip off there products?
See my respone to #1.

BTW, I doubt Microsoft or HTC would ever donate to XDA-Devs despite the fact that this site has saved and even generated countless sales for both ompanies.

3. Support

Why should sony , microsoft or HTC offer support and updates if they percieve users are stealing and misusing there products. We all want updates new drivers, why should they?
Now I know you're a comedian (or Company Plant). Rom Updates are few & far in between not because they are cheesed that I have a better version of TouchFlo 3D on my device than they provided. No the reason is revenue stream. They benefit little (in their minds) by supporting the device you bought last year. Instead they want you to buy the one they're released next month.

4. Performance

This is a personal choice, but I say any program that hundreds of files to the windows folder, will not be good for its performance. IF the registry is the brain, then the windows folder is the heart of the wm system, and a bloated fatty heart is not healthy.
Irrelavent to your statement.

5. Balance

The x1 forum is top heeavy with T3D and most are sticky, which gives the wrong impression for our forum, to allow illegal software to dominate.
Totally different issue. If there are too many TouchFlo 3D stickies then suggest to a Mod that they create a "Master List of Touch Flo 3D Threads (or better yet a TF3D Wiki Page) and sticky a single TF3D Reference Thread with important links.

[NotATreoFan]

Let us also remember that TouchFLO 3D was created using open source code. Look in the Manila package folder in any kitchen, and you will see HTC's text document stating this.

[tamock]

Lets face it: without XDA community and modded/ported/hacked/cooked works, all the HTC phones were just another fuking boring brick (for me). Normally they update the phone ROMs once a year, if any; Here their ROMs are updated weekly. So why would HTC care if this site help them in selling more phones and gaining more customers?

[Gandhi70]

without this community and without all these ported apps, i would have never bought my xperia, or my kaiser before.

[el_lo]

Lots of things about legality
Hey you're redistributing the Ati drivers in your other thread. Did you ask the permission to Ati ? Maybe it's illegal :eek:
You're going too far and shooting yourself in the foot I think...

[Junner2003]

Hey you're redistributing the Ati drivers in your other thread. Did you ask the permission to Ati ? Maybe it's illegal :eek:
You're going too far and shooting yourself in the foot I think...

People, get real!

Any modification on the WM ROM would violate a number of copyrights, so, what is your point?

What do you care about ATI's permission? And in case if you care: why do you even bother to come to this site? :rolleyes:

As long as we are only talking about modification, I do not see anything wrong with it! I even hacked my INTEL drivers on my netbook to support a standard screen resolution of 1280x768 rather than 1024x600, so, did I violate any copyrights or did I only sudtomize my device? :confused:

As long as no WAREZ or other illegal / commercial stuff will be shared here, XDA Developers is a good place! Otherwise I doubt that Microsoft wouldn't have suit the site owner(s) already and enforced the downtake of XDA Developers.

The only movement in development of hardware / software is only archived by the users and pioneers who are willing to take something already existing to the next level. Since everything is under copyright, we see only a slow motion in development of new technologies - this is the downside we got from the copyright. On the other hand, I can understand the need of copyrights too since I wouldn't like either that my own hard work just gets taken and commercialized by someone else ... !

[-PiLoT-]

i dont think anything that is done winmo is illegal as far as hacking goes because technically you pay the license thats all the companies want. after that its in you court if you screw up try hard resetting. then sit down. have a cup od coffee and an oreo then think why oh why do i join a site that creates such a helpful communities and help people do cool things with there phones (by the way have you not downloaded anything here at all?)
and then complain about an issue thats beyond you understand

talk bout biting the hand that feed

ungrateful is the word

[Mark A Cilenti]

I have read your replies, and tried to understand the reasoning behind how normally intelligent law abiding people, can get behind the wheel of a phone, and think its great to break the law and justify and promote it to others, remember there are kids on this thread that may not apprecaite the fine line, they may just see

" hack and steal gets me a meal."

Not one single member has replied to my question.

Is it legal to run Touch 2D, 3D, IT, You Tube cab etc on the X1 ?

It is a simple yes or no, is there no one man enough, or woman enough to admit the truth ?



If it is indeed illegal, the fact that you may not ever get caught is irrelevant, it needs to be dealt with, for the health of this site and the developemnt of WM in general. An analogy I view this as a fight agianst a cancer rotting the soul of once proud WM devices.

Touch 3D is for sale, it is commercial, you have to buy it with the Diamond or the Touch HD, end of discussion on that one.

Touch 3D is commercially tended software, it is an integral part of the phone package. Unless they were givin out Touch HD for free.

I have also read comments about XDA DEV ethos, that if users were not allowed to steal and rip commericially tended software the community would break down, and XDA would cease to exist.

Heres another analogy I can see a difference, between garages that offer tune-ups, and Modifications, and a chop shop, which just hacks cars to pieces and flogs the bits for sale on different vehicles.

To conclude my responses, it is a fundamnetal question and right for WM users to know that the things they do with there phones are legal.

This is the moment of truth for WM and sites like XDA Devs, there is the slow painful move out of the dark ages and the law of jungle, eat what we catch, into a civilised society, a propserous society, a society with a future, or degenerate backwards into a rag tag bunch of pirates.

And we have the warning at the door, I sell the iphone, it out performs the XDA in almost every respect, except camera and video, and customers like it, businessess llike it, software houses like it, the BBC like it, everybody is scrambling hand over fist to make software for iphone, becuase creative and intellectual properties are protected and its legal.

As there are laws in technology, there is also morality in technology.

Promoting the use of Touch 3D, on none sanstioned devices, is legally and morally indefensible !

And for those who think I am a company stooge, I also think Touch 3D is crap, it bloates windows, cuases more crashed, freezes and glitches that any other software I have ever used, briefely, and regretably.

( PS since you have kindly told me that using the ati and samsung drivers on the X1 is illegal, I will hack them out of my threads and posts, sorry for this, now I know the truth I will try and live by it. )

[-PiLoT-]

ur missing the point the ati driver issue was to point out your contradiction

if it were not legal a mod would have told you

touchflo 3d isnt commercial, is provided in the rom which is covered by a liscence that built in to the cost of the device and as notatreofan says. its created using open source codes so it has to be shared and made widely available

[davey33]

bet hes using a cooked rom with touch flo on it what a prat:eek:

[Noonski]

I will not get myself be lured into this discussion.

Enjoy your time here on XDA developers i hope you enjoy the time people have put into Making HTC Devices including the HTC manufactured X1 better.

I would like to ask everyone that wants to react to think and reread their post before submitting. Stay respectful even if you don't agree.

Good Luck, Cheerz

[davey33]

yeah ok point taken noonski sorry but think this thread should be removed as its winding too many people up:(

[-PiLoT-]

2nd that


10 lettrs or more

[Cal-El]

I will not get myself be lured into this discussion.

Enjoy your time here on XDA developers i hope you enjoy the time people have put into Making HTC Devices including the HTC manufactured X1 better.

I would like to ask everyone that wants to react to think and reread their post before submitting. Stay respectful even if you don't agree.

Good Luck, Cheerz
I think this is the best post in this thread! Respect others and think before you post! :D

[looby]

An interesting and immotive topic. There seems to be a conflict between that which Manufacturas give you and what people want. Henry Ford once said you can have it any colour you like as long as it is black. Are we allowed to respray it? I know we must not use the 'W' word here but when Companies supply Navigation systems locked to a micro sd card with no spare storage room so you have to hot-swap the cards or you cannot have the Navigation of your choice on the Diamond is it not surprising someone fills the gap.
Take another issue. There are alot of unhappy bunnies out there due to the clicks when playing music with WMP on HTC devices. If someone here finds the answer they will create alot of happy bunnies and helping HTC at the same time. It's up to the manufacturas to listen and study their Customers needs more and come up with the goods if they want people's hard earned cash. Here's to XDA and 'W' and HTC

[scotchua]

Is it legal to run Touch 2D, 3D, IT, You Tube cab etc on the X1 ?

Answer - There is no definitive legal opinion on the matter, and as HTC and Microsoft have chosen not to even ask us to remove any of the software we have not. Should they choose to make a formal request for us to remove it then it will most likely be removed while the legal ramifications are more extensively considered. The plain and simple truth is that you can't just ask "is it legal" because XDA-Developers is a worldwide forum with users from across the globe with software developed from across the globe, hosted on servers from across the globe. I'm sure you are aware that there is no real uniformity in intellectual property right laws. So plain and simple, you won't get a completely "yes" or "no" answer because this, as with many legal issues does not have a concensus or authoritative opinon.

That being said, if you don't feel it's ethical to operate in a legal grey area for recreation, then feel free to not participate.

As there are laws in technology, there is also morality in technology.

Promoting the use of Touch 3D, on none sanstioned devices, is legally and morally indefensible !

As stated above, there are not clearly defined laws regarding technology, and i have not seen you site any case law which would suggest it is illegal. My suspicion is that if you were in fact a legal authority, then you would have formulated a more well documented argument.

As for the issue of "morality in technology", I think you're confusing the issue of morality and ethics. Morals define a persons character, while ethics stress a social system in which those morals are applied. XDA-Developers has attempted to at ethically in all our dealings, and should we find that we are operating on the wrong side of the law then I have faith that we will adjust accordingly. If you disagree, then feel free to act accordingly, but be very careful about questioning the integrity of others who may simply have come to a different conclusion on a complicated issue that you did.

[satchef1]

Not one single member has replied to my question.

Is it legal to run Touch 2D, 3D, IT, You Tube cab etc on the X1 ?

It is a simple yes or no, is there no one man enough, or woman enough to admit the truth ?

The simple answer is that nobody here has the answer. XDA Devs don't host ANY software which is being sold stand-alone because that is DEFINITELY illegal. Touchflo 3D is a lot more complicated, the legality of it is very grey. As a result the policy is simple; carry on using it until HTC tell us to stop.

There is a yes or no answer somewhere, but nobody here has the time/patience to read around the subject enough to find out. If you want to work it out for yourself rather than giving the rest of us flak then be my guest, but i guarantee you it'll take months of emails and phone calls for you to get the definitive answer and NOBODY (not even the lisence holders) will thank you for it.

If you have any sense then you'll drop it, get on with your life and let HTC do all the paperwork (if they're offended by this practice). The worst this site will get is an email asking them to remove TF3D stuff from forums based on non-HTC branded phones.


As for the morality argument; that one is personal choice. Everyone is different and some people will run and hide from anything that could possibly, maybe be even remotely illegal. They're usually the ones who get stopped by police for doing 20mph in a 40 zone :rolleyes:

[JimmyMcGee]

http://img150.imageshack.us/img150/835/dontfeedthetrollwh7.jpg
and
http://img98.imageshack.us/img98/408/arguingzv2.jpg

[denco7]

Since you have already demonstrated your hipocrasy ( ati drivers, which you are now furiously backpedeling on ) one has to wonder what is the basis of this (manufactured) moral epithany ? As stated,you obviously have no facts or legal precedents at hand, so we are left with the self righteous ramblings of what ? . Someone with more time than, well thought out and fact based opinions on hand.

Someone out to get a few hearts beating and pulses racing, I agree with Noonski , if you want us to get sucked into an intelligent moral and ethical debate you will have to come back with more than legally unsubstantiated,empty, baseless, and factually devoid accusations. I too do not wish to waste my time in an empty debate.

[Mark A Cilenti]

" That being said, if you don't feel it's ethical to operate in a legal grey area for recreation, then feel free to not participate. "

I agree people are voting with there feet and there wallets.

[molesaied88]

i think what you seem to be missing here, is that laws must change with the times, not the other way around. Did you know that at one time sodomy was illegal? To have anal intercourse with your wife, or life partner (if you swing that way) could get you a hefty fine or even jail time? There are many laws out there that were written before the technology we have today was thought of, let alone taken into account. I am not a lawyer, in fact i am an engineering student, and i know that there's no such thing as true innovation anymore. Everything is built off the back of the previous generation. It is through this re-visioning of out dated technology that we get what we now take for granted. I am sure that Microsoft could hire engineers and programmers to do all that has been done by individuals on this site, but why would they spend money on a product that would in the end loose them money. If you truly think us wrong for pioneering on our own free time to improve our own, and other members of this site experience with their hardware, than maybe you should not be here. Let me make an analogy, GSK (Glaxo Smith Kline) is for those of you that don't know a vast multi-billion dollar conglomerate that deals in all kinds of drugs, one of them being the medicine used to help treat (not cure or vaccinate) AIDS. Now with your apparent logic, you feel that because that territory has already been staked by GSK, no one should try to discover a cure for AIDS. You may feel that they are two different things, but in truth, they are the same seed but to different proportions.

[kdj67f]

Who is to say that HTC and Microsoft programmers and techs do not read these forums and use the info to better their products and/or tailor development for new devices to the general publics preference?

[Junner2003]

I guess it is time to close this topic!
Nearly everything that can be said is said already, so, coming up with new arguements won't change the view of the reader, so, everyone should make up his mind based on what is said!

[SquidgyB]

At the risk of feeding the troll...

" That being said, if you don't feel it's ethical to operate in a legal grey area for recreation, then feel free to not participate. "

I agree people are voting with there feet and there wallets.

...and buying iphones?

Good for them. I don't like the iphone personally, but then I won't post in an apple forum berating the site and the users and calling for them to come out of the "dark ages and the /snip/law of jungle/snip/ locked down world they live in". Have you subscribed to any Apple jailbreaking forums and posted threads politely asking them to stop what they're doing because they're besmirching the good name of the device (many people) know and love? :rolleyes:

It's quite simple, if you don't like what's being done to the "once proud WM", then don't frequent a site where the main topic of discussion on every forum and sub forum is the modification of the operating system and/or software. There's no point going on a Mary Whitehouse tirade against the "cancer" that you see here.

I'm still not entirely sure what you expect xda to be doing, if not what we currently do... :o

I'm not trying to antagonise, and I apologise if that's the tone that comes through in this post. I'm just trying to point out that there are many different points of view, and that running head first into a forum full of people who think in a particular way, and asking them to wholly change their ways of thinking to yours is an ambitious feat, and one that is in the end doomed to failure.

[ibeqa]

"

Why do you bother us, why wont you just leave (xda-developers forever)?

[DaveShaw]

Jimmy said it best. Now I'm closing this thread.

Ta
Dave

[Noonski]

Closing this thread untill this is discussed with Site administration.

Everyone's been great in their replies.

And it only proves that starting a thread like this might have been a bad idea in the first place.

Please have patience for Moderators and Site admin to discuss this during these busy new year server troubled times.

Ha great Timing Dave

Still got some good info from some users about ATI.


There is not issue with this, Driverheaven has been modding the original drivers from ati to work on other devices for a few years with the ok from ATI. But we know for a fact ATI does not bother with the pettiness of modding their drivers...ie, omega drivers,
http://www.omegadrivers.net/nvidia.php ...which is affiliated with driverheaven, NGO, http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=F...t&dwn_cat_id=9 (http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=Files&go=cat&dwn_cat_id=9) .