OliNex's HardSPLs are payware (and, What are our options for free HardSPLs?)

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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:

1. OliNex release license-free versions of their HardSPLs,
2. OliNex submit to the XDA community hacking their HardSPLs to be license-free, or at least licensed by XDA itself,
3. 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),
4. 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.

Originally Posted by ndn715

oh man you are going to get bent over for this one...

Thanks for your cordial reply, and yeah, I'm sure it will be one of the nicer ones I get.

Originally Posted by ndn715

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.

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.

Originally Posted by ndn715

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.

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.)

Originally Posted by ndn715

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.

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.

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"

Originally Posted by stepw

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...

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.

Originally Posted by stepw

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.

Originally Posted by ndn715

if anyone else wants/can replicate what he's done, go for it, but i have never seen anyone able to...

Maybe I will. I have some questions, mostly addressed to whomever enforces the rules.

Originally Posted by XDA-Developers Forum Rules, Rule 12

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.

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.

Originally Posted by retsam88

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"

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.

Originally Posted by stepw

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.

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.

Originally Posted by stepw

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.

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.

Originally Posted by stepw

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.

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.