[M10Tools] M10Tools is going OpenSource, helpers needed

---

Hey guys,

today I come to you with good and bad news.

Bad news first: Flemmard decided finally, that he hasn't got enough time anymore to support and develop M10Tools fulltime.
That means, he is quitting the main development. This is very unfortunate because Flemmard and I are the only two person who actually know how to reverse engineere the *.m10 format.

Therefore I am searching a new developer now, who can take Flemmard's part over.
And here comes the good news: The next version is going to be OpenSource (most likely some kind of GPL).
(This doesn't include the upcoming Virtuous Ten Studio, only the decoder/encoder for the m10 files itself)

Now let's get to the actual search. The requirements are quite hard:

We search (Flemmard will be still here as some kind of help) one or two very experienced C# or C++ developers with the following requirements:

• Very good experience in C# and/or C++
• Windows dev of course
• Experience with reading/writing binary data would be helpful
• Experience with reverse engineering file formats would be also helpful
• Good spoken english required (German would be nice too)
• Communication is done via either IRC or Skype
• Development uses SVN, so knowledge about SVN and how it works is quite helpful
• Having a HTC phone with a sense 3.0/3.5 ROM is strongly advised. You don't totally need it, but it helps a lot

Now lets come to the tasks that needs to be done and the usual workflow

• We do know everything important about the m10 file format, so the hard work is already done
• But you still WILL be starring at your hexeditor four hours (no joke here), so if you don't like digging through hexcodes you are totally wrong here
• This is not a halftime job. Writing such a decider/encoder requires quite a bit of spare time
• Once I explained you most of the things we know about m10 formats, YOU will start writing a parser for those files. This is much trial and error.
• The time will come where you understand the basics of the format. Then you need to finish that decoder/encoder and start working on the addtional things (mainly image decoding/encoding)
• Image decoding: The images saved in m10 have different special file formats. We do know how to decode them. There is just ONE format that needs further research.
• One last thing: Flemmard won't give out his current source code. We have to accept that.

As I am too lazy to put up another G-Forms thing, I'd just like you to answer here in that post if you are interested in becoming a main m10tools dev.

Flemmard and me had a great time developing this tool, so I guess this will repeat with the new guy(s).

Did you ever speak to THIS guy?

Originally Posted by Dunc001

Did you ever speak to THIS guy?

Nope, everyone should have a chance of getting in here if he is still interested, he can just post here

This is sad for our HTCs , I used to build some themes but HTC new m10 files are as bad as locking the bootloader!
Why the hell do they play like that?

Unfortunate that flemmard can't keep putting his time on this but we all understand that all devs do what they do here out of their passion and hobby not because they have to do it.

That being said, I will more than happy to help you guys here. I have been a c# developer since .net 1.0 and work with svn day in and day out. As far as reverse engineering goes, I haven't worked with hex editor much but I'm pretty comfortable with IL. Though I know we cant compare binaries with IL. Please pm me if you would like to know anything else.

Originally Posted by vegetaleb

This is sad for our HTCs , I used to build some themes but HTC new m10 files are as bad as locking the bootloader!
Why the hell do they play like that?

because they hate people like us, messing with their files prolly

I'd say : it's as bad as a locked bootloader AND closed source camera drivers

HTC is taking a piss out of Android and open source, unfortunatly their phones have the best build quality, otherwise i would own a sony or samsung phone ...

I have a large experience on C++, and free time too

---------- Post added at 01:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------

i lack on those three requirements
Experience with reading/writing binary data would be helpful
Experience with reverse engineering file formats would be also helpful
Having a HTC phone with a sense 3.0/3.5 ROM is strongly advised. You don't totally need it, but it helps a lot

Originally Posted by traduz

I have a large experience on C++, and free time too

---------- Post added at 01:42 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:36 PM ----------

i lack on those three requirements
Experience with reading/writing binary data would be helpful
Experience with reverse engineering file formats would be also helpful
Having a HTC phone with a sense 3.0/3.5 ROM is strongly advised. You don't totally need it, but it helps a lot

Can you please come to IRC? (#vts-dev on Freenode)

im a windows dev with some spare time but i cant make any promises.
i have experience reading/writing binary data but not with reversing file format.
and a spare desire z

i have been following your dev work on irc for a while

I am hoping to help!

Come to #vts-dev and #m10tools on freenode irc!