Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 14, 2007 Report Share Posted February 14, 2007 http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=294142 No surprise there really. I think the Crossbow leaks were the nail in the coffin of that one, and they were lucky to get away with it for so long. Of course, chances are it'll just mean ROMs switching to torrents instead I imagine... P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted February 15, 2007 Report Share Posted February 15, 2007 Often wondered how it wasn't closed down long ago. Shame though :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest dannzeman Posted February 16, 2007 Report Share Posted February 16, 2007 Just quoting what Helmi_C posted. If you like your Custom ROMs and want more, more upgrades, more development........than PLEASE sign this petition to help save XDA and all others. So that we may be able to post our Customs so that the masses can download. Thanks for the help and support! ~Mike Paul, could you please make this a sticky, or pin it across the boards just for the next few days so we can get as many signatures on it as possible? I and a lot of other people would really appreciate it. Thanks, -dannzeman Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 16, 2007 Report Share Posted February 16, 2007 It's not that I don't support the cause, but I am 100% certain it's a losing battle. Now that this is out in the public eye, there's absolutely no way MS can back down, for their own reasons or due to their partners. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest abu_gaby Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 well microsoft recently sent a letter to XDA-Dev to remove all the roms official and unofficial from their forum which is making us hell there as we all think of this as injust as we all paid for our software and updates when we purchased our phones and are entitled to fix and upgrade them to the way we see fit what do u think of this? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Doctor Posted February 18, 2007 Report Share Posted February 18, 2007 (edited) well microsoft recently sent a letter to XDA-Dev to remove all the roms official and unofficial from their forum which is making us hell there as we all think of this as injust as we all paid for our software and updates when we purchased our phones and are entitled to fix and upgrade them to the way we see fit what do u think of this? You can see where microsoft is coming from but IMHO theyve completely blown it out of proportion, the rom archive was an invaluable resource to everybody, not just the developers, but also consumers looking to get more from their phones. I have signed the web petition to KEEP the ROM archive as I have used it many times in the past as a source of hard to find updates for various devices I have lying around, also the work do over there, some of it is brilliant such as pof's free hermes unlocker, the 'virtual' bootloader facility that saves you having to actually flash your own test bootloader, and also the up and coming GPS/Hermes/Breeze/Trinity GPS development. All in all a great loss and I think there will be more than some VERY unhappy users Phil Edited February 19, 2007 by The Doctor Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Doctor Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 It's not that I don't support the cause, but I am 100% certain it's a losing battle. Now that this is out in the public eye, there's absolutely no way MS can back down, for their own reasons or due to their partners. P XDA-Developers have the backing of 3600+ signatures now :D I'm standing there proudly at number 555 :) Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MECX Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I see where Microsoft are coming from and I bet they get a lot of complaints from Operators about having to support other ROMS But..... If XDA-devs wasnt there I would and I think many other people would have switched to other types of phones by now, as standard WM2003 and WM5 devices are buggy as hell. I have been using these devices from the start with the very first SPV and have stayed with them because of the people in these communities, whats next Microsoft you gonna stop freeware applications and kill off your business all together. ROM images dont stop people buying phones........... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest abu_gaby Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I see where Microsoft are coming from and I bet they get a lot of complaints from Operators about having to support other ROMS But..... If XDA-devs wasn't there I would and I think many other people would have switched to other types of phones by now, as standard WM2003 and WM5 devices are buggy as hell. I have been using these devices from the start with the very first SPV and have stayed with them because of the people in these communities, whats next Microsoft you gonna stop free ware applications and kill off your business all together. ROM images don't stop people buying phones........... well i'm definitely going to switch there is no use having WM phone if i can't fix its bug or develop on it as i see fit i paid for the software as well as the hardware and all the phone manufacturers will not update our devices with latest softwares available for example I have an I-mate JasJar for a while now and the last update on it from i-mate was about a year ago then they stopped comon if i haven't found a decent rom on xda-dev i would have thrown the device to the trash long time ago its my passion to modify things i learned a lot there Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Confucious Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I didn't know about this- have just nipped over there to get crossbow for my Exec which is away for repair. There are some very knowledgeable people there and they share - typical big brother approach whicj IMHO can only harm the smartphone/ppc market Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest The Doctor Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I didn't know about this- have just nipped over there to get crossbow for my Exec which is away for repair. There are some very knowledgeable people there and they share - typical big brother approach whicj IMHO can only harm the smartphone/ppc market The key word in there being SHARE Microsoft :) Phil Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 Do you honestly think it will do any good tho? P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 I didn't know about this- have just nipped over there to get crossbow for my Exec which is away for repair. Nice tho that may be, you're using illegal software Confucious... P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest peekie Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 Think myself its bad news as at least the roms were in one place , now they feature on pirate web forums where software developers will be hit the biggest as its not only roms but software as well , it wont take long for people to find the sites a bad move , if it was only the wm6 roms then i can understand microsofts action for just those to be removed but all is stupid , nokias are looking better now ( n73 ) is it time to switch :) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ingvarr Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 (edited) I think the whole root of problem is extreme closeness of WM hardware and OS. So people seek for desperate measures to upgrade their (still perfectly capable) hardware to new OS without buing the new devices. I think if MS would *sell* new WM versions or operators will sell upgrades for a new devices, many people will happily buy them, and "custom ROM" scene will be almost not needed. But instead of that, they prefer to going the way of increasing restrictions while keeping it as static and unchanging as possible. p.s. Nokias are no better. Actually they even little more closed and unfriendly in terms of OS, firmware and upgrades. Edited February 19, 2007 by Ingvarr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jimbouk Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 As has been said before, the majority of devices are supplied by the networks. They have to support the devices. It is impossible for them to do so if the devices' OS's can be freely changed by anyone. Having said that I don't agree with MS's approach... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ingvarr Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 As has been said before, the majority of devices are supplied by the networks. They have to support the devices. It is impossible for them to do so if the devices' OS's can be freely changed by anyone. Huh? And how its not impossible, say, for suppliers of notebooks to support the devices? After all, their OS too can be "freely changed by anyone". How its not impossible for suppliers of ordinary PCs? Dont fall to their excuses. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest jimbouk Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 Huh? And how its not impossible, say, for suppliers of notebooks to support the devices? After all, their OS too can be "freely changed by anyone". How its not impossible for suppliers of ordinary PCs? Dont fall to their excuses. People do not ring laptop suppliers with the same frequency that smartphone users call O or T etc for technical support when their phone goes wrong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Confucious Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 Nice tho that may be, you're using illegal software Confucious... P I know. I do my best to remain legal And any software I use on anything like a regular basis I have legal, paid for copies of. But in this case you can't get a legal version. When I first started messing with computers I use to have to get illegal copies of software so I could see what it did to get my company to buy it - until they realised that whenever i recomended s/ware it improved efficiance and/or saved them money when they gave me carte blanche to go and buy any s/ware I wanted for testing purposes. Software hoses sold a lot of software they otherwise wouldn't have done had I not used pirated software and I guess I still have that mentality - I know it's illegal and I should probabl;y be sent to prison for life for it but hey! :) As for the tech suport question - anyone who's using the "wrong" ROM know's what they are doing and shouldn't be calling tech suport! Just my opinion - feel free to flame :D BTW I fully support Modaco's stance on illegal software. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ingvarr Posted February 19, 2007 Report Share Posted February 19, 2007 (edited) People do not ring laptop suppliers with the same frequency that smartphone users call O or T etc for technical support when their phone goes wrong. Of course. And know why is that? Because they ring right to software support, not to hardware support that have little to do with software anyway. Its like you will be bugging your ISP support if something wrong with your office software. But in WM world its considered perfectly normal when something go wrong with OS, you ring your cell phone operator, they pass your issue to device manufacturer, and, finally, manufacturer passes it to MS, which actually can do something about it. Then resolution it goes other way. Talk about "effectiveness". Btw, have you even wondered why there are a lot more problems with complex embedded devices? Because some vital programming (adapting OS to particular hardware, drivers etc) currently must be done by hardware engineers - they brilliant with chips and oscilloscopes, but they absolutely horrible programmers. Anybody who seen enough share of actual embedded code, this is absolute truth (no wonder it usually closed very tightly, not to guard any "trade secrets" as you can guess, but mostly to avoid embarassment :) ). Edited February 19, 2007 by Ingvarr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MECX Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 Nice tho that may be, you're using illegal software Confucious... P Im confused on what law he is breaking? Is it because the ROM was stolen from somewhere? or that his device is only licensed for WM5? I have no idea what the license agreement is for pre-installed software like this Also what about me running an Imate ROM on an Orange phone, is this against the law as I have a license for WM5 so it shouldnt matter what ROM I run on it? Its not like the ROMS are being sold, I can (and people have) modified Windows XP (tinyxp) and as long as you have a license for Windows XP you can legally use it. I also dont think that someone having WM6 is going to stop them from upgading their phone, at the minute the Phone hardware out paces the OS by a long way, and its not like microsoft sell the software seperately so they are not loosing money that way either. madness... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Paul (MVP) Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 Yes MECX, it's a far from ideal situation, but it doesn't take a genius to work out that downloading and installing leaked software onto your device is illegal. If I were to 'get hold of a copy' of, say, 'Office 2009' and install it on my PC, it wouldn't be legal just because I have Office 2007. It'd probably be illegal on a bunch of levels, as I suspect putting WM6 on a Universal is. I'm not a legal expert of course, but XDA-Devs didn't remove the WM6 ROM from their site for nothing. "at the minute the Phone hardware out paces the OS by a long way" - not sure that's really true when you get down to the nitty gritty. P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Ingvarr Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 (edited) Technically Microsoft can even hunt for person who made the leak, and punish them. Because he/she broke NDA, and penalties for that is nothing to be joking about. And of course Microsoft have every right to enforce the usage policy of own software. Actually when you use "unofficial" ROM, you have no permission (license) from Microsoft, therefore, its illegal. The only way now for it to be legal, is to get OS as a part of hardware device firmware - this is the only current distribution model for Windows Mobile. People just try to extrapolate PC OS distribution model "because its looks like", but this assumption is wrong. Yes, it can technically be made the same distribution/sale model as for PCs, but Microsoft decided to use distinctly different one. While I would agree with you that this is wrong, but they make the software and they have every right to to with it what they want. Edited February 20, 2007 by Ingvarr Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest MECX Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 Technically Microsoft can even hunt for person who made the leak, and punish them. Because he/she broke NDA, and penalties for that is nothing to be joking about. And of course Microsoft have every right to enforce the usage policy of own software. Actually when you use "unofficial" ROM, you have no permission (license) from Microsoft, therefore, its illegal. The only way now for it to be legal, is to get OS as a part of hardware device firmware - this is the only current distribution model for Windows Mobile. People just try to extrapolate PC OS distribution model "because its looks like", but this assumption is wrong. Yes, it can technically be made the same distribution/sale model as for PCs, but Microsoft decided to use distinctly different one. While I would agree with you that this is wrong, but they make the software and they have every right to to with it what they want. Agreed on the WM6 front, if its leaked then the person who signed the NDA should be punshied and Microsoft have the right to ask for it to be removed, so as a user it would be like using stolen property. (didnt really know where the original WM6 software came from) And of course Microsoft have every right to enforce the usage policy of own software. Actually when you use "unofficial" ROM, you have no permission (license) from Microsoft, therefore, its illegal As far as using another operators WM5 ROM on a device I dont think Microsoft would have a leg to stand on if they tried to take a "user" to court over it, as by buying the device you do own a license to the WM5 software, I think the operators who have modified the OS could potentially have a case. Hopefully this will all end with the release of WM6 as it will contain a "Windows update" feature that will take away the operator from having to release AKU updates etc... This should make it like any other phone with the operator just customising the original look and feel of the phone as well as specific settings. Very interesting Situation anyway......... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest awarner (MVP) Posted February 20, 2007 Report Share Posted February 20, 2007 As for the tech suport question - anyone who's using the "wrong" ROM know's what they are doing and shouldn't be calling tech suport! Not everyone knows what they are doing, this is why we see all the posts asking for help when someone has nucked their phone because they saw a "upgrade" for their phone. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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