Censorship - old version questions are deleted?

[floppydev]

Hello,

Why are old version requests and discussion about that censored?

I think this should be a forum without censorship.

floppydev

[Jeff]

Hello,

Why are old version requests and discussion about that censored?

I think this should be a forum without censorship.

floppydev

Think about what you are trying to do ...
... and you will know why you are censored.

The project was already copycated in the past.
If you want build your own floppy emulator... create it yourself...

And yes, as already said, the old versions are not available anymore.

[floppydev]

Hello,

Why are old version requests and discussion about that censored?

I think this should be a forum without censorship.

floppydev

Think about what you are trying to do ...
... and you will know why you are censored.

The project was already copycated in the past.
If you want build your own floppy emulator... create it yourself...

And yes, as already said, the old versions are not available anymore.

First, I find the project really cool and I appreciate your work.

I think I made nothing "illiegal" (Why do you think that this is illegal?). I was asking if someone has old versions of the software and/or PCB. A user answered that he has a copy of the software (and that isn't illegal to have a copy of the software, right?). Since I own a bought hardware I wanted to try out an old version to see the improvements of the software (and I don't have the time to copycat the software and to create an own one, I just want to use it).

Old versions are not available anymore from your site but I think you can't avoid that one with an old copy of the software just let's another user get a copy of the old version. And this is done by censorship in the forum. Think about that.

floppydev

[Jeff]

I think I made nothing "illiegal" (Why do you think that this is illegal?). I was asking if someone has old versions of the software and/or PCB. A user answered that he has a copy of the software (and that isn't illegal to have a copy of the software, right?). Since I own a bought hardware I wanted to try out an old version to see the improvements of the software (and I don't have the time to copycat the software and to create an own one, I just want to use it).

"...I was asking if someone has old versions of the software and/or PCB..."
"...Since I own a bought hardware I wanted... "

So why you need the PCB ?

"...try out an old version to see the improvements of the software...".

LOL
Why do you need to try an old software "to see the improvements" ? Really Really strange idea...
All is written into the releases notes...
I think that what you are trying is to crack the protection that's all...

"...I just want to use it..."

In this case all is on the website...

Your motivations are unclear... So beware. If we see something abnormal, we will take all legal possibility to stop you.

Regards,

[floppydev]

I think I made nothing "illiegal" (Why do you think that this is illegal?). I was asking if someone has old versions of the software and/or PCB. A user answered that he has a copy of the software (and that isn't illegal to have a copy of the software, right?). Since I own a bought hardware I wanted to try out an old version to see the improvements of the software (and I don't have the time to copycat the software and to create an own one, I just want to use it).

"...I was asking if someone has old versions of the software and/or PCB..."
"...Since I own a bought hardware I wanted... "

So why you need the PCB ?

"...try out an old version to see the improvements of the software...".

LOL
Why do you need to try an old software "to see the improvements" ? Really Really strange idea...
All is written into the releases notes...
I think that what you are trying is to crack the protection that's all...

"...I just want to use it..."

In this case all is on the website...

Your motivations are unclear... So beware. If we see something abnormal, we will take all legal possibility to stop you.

Regards,

Motivation in general:
A lot of projects and large sites (e.g. geocities) have been disappeared once a day for different reasons (motivation, death, legal actions, etc.). When you shut down your project tomorrow we all have a piece of hardware which is "unsupported" and quite useless. And therefore it is always good to have old versions of a piece of software because a bug might be introduced in a later version and a downgrade to a stable version is possible.
(e.g. for example V1.6.0.0 has a bug in the renaming function with scrambled characters).

There is also a reason for long term archiving: I want to archive my old home computer floppy disks. Therefore there might be bugs in the software emulation which might make my floppy images useless in the future. Kryoflux (http://www.kryoflux.com/) for example has the policy for "long term archiving" and I already ordered that one (and I think I will archive my floppy disks with Kryoflux therefore)

In general the project seems to be "inconsistent" regarding openess and closeness: very open on the one hand (which is good) but very closed on the other side (e.g. you said that there seems to be a copy protection included):
So the open things are:
1.) You provide software at no cost
2.) You provide the source code of the PC software
3.) You provide the source files of the firmware/FPGA for the USB version
4.) You provide PCB layout at not cost for homebrew PCBs
5.) You provide good documentation and support

The close things are:
1.) No old versions available and censorship for one who asked for that and the user is even threatened with legal actions when asking
2.) Copy protection (Why do you need copy protection? Hardware selling? Motivation very unclear)

In general a lot of projects go today the open, community based way (even for hardware projects) and I think a lot of people (as me) could contribute on an open source basis on the hardware and software side.

That are my 2 cents.

floppydev

[Jeff]

Motivation in general:
A lot of projects and large sites (e.g. geocities) have been disappeared once a day for different reasons (motivation, death, legal actions, etc.). When you shut down your project tomorrow we all have a piece of hardware which is "unsupported" and quite useless.

Did you know that the SDCard (standard & SDHC) will disappears of the market in some years (4 years max) ? The harware will be obsolete not because there are no more update on the software but cause of the "planned obsolescence".

And therefore it is always good to have old versions of a piece of software because a bug might be introduced in a later version and a downgrade to a stable version is possible.
(e.g. for example V1.6.0.0 has a bug in the renaming function with scrambled characters).

Very bad, this doesn't help the project, and i want to avoid this.
Why didn't you report this before ?

There is also a reason for long term archiving: I want to archive my old home computer floppy disks. Therefore there might be bugs in the software emulation which might make my floppy images useless in the future. Kryoflux (http://www.kryoflux.com/) for example has the policy for "long term archiving" and I already ordered that one (and I think I will archive my floppy disks with Kryoflux therefore)

Yes but i suppose that you already know that the IPF format is closed as all the hardware and software of the kryoflux

In general the project seems to be "inconsistent" regarding openess and closeness: very open on the one hand (which is good) but very closed on the other side (e.g. you said that there seems to be a copy protection included):
So the open things are:
1.) You provide software at no cost
2.) You provide the source code of the PC software
3.) You provide the source files of the firmware/FPGA for the USB version

True and false : The software is useless without the hardware, the hardware isn't free.
The source code is available for Linux & MacOsX support.
The USB version come from the time when this was an "homebrew"/DIY project.

4.) You provide PCB layout at not cost for homebrew PCBs

Wrong, where did you see this ?

5.) You provide good documentation and support

There are no point with the open/close subject: Support are also provided on very closed product... And generally the support is better..

The close things are:
1.) No old versions available and censorship for one who asked for that and the user is even threatened with legal actions when asking

This is your behaviour on the forum the problem, not the old version asking...
And I don't see any reason to back to an older version. If there a problem just report it here or by mail.

2.) Copy protection (Why do you need copy protection? Hardware selling? Motivation very unclear)

I will show you why :

The project have already some copycat from the time it was "more open" :

Example 1 :
Have a look to this :
http://www.floppyemulator.com/Contactus.html
http://www.floppyemulator.com/Products.html
The hardware and the software come from the prototype HxC Floppy Emulator... This is now sold at 295$... (what a joke...)
I received a mail in 2008 from them asking for help with the pic and the mfm protocol ...
Of course there are no mention to this on the "TheFloppyEmulatorTeam" website...

Example 2:
Here a new Turkish floppy emulator:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37593
Well.... In fact No, this is a CopyCat of the HxC prototype... (read the thread this is "funny"...)
Again the lamer (its nick is Emrez) removed all credit about the HxC Floppy Emulator...
I had to go on a Turkish Amiga forum to explain this...

Example 3:
Vtrucco... This guy made a Copycat of the device (the prototype one...), without credit again...
I had to spam it's youtube video and mail to get some credit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3Y9yz4deg
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=516056
The funny thing is that i got some email exchange with this guy some month before...

Example 4:
http://members.fortunecity.it/blackvisi ... fdd_en.htm
This emulator use the same floppy disk interface as the prototype SD HxC Floppy Emulator...without credit again...

And there are probably others examples... And all of this in less than a year... (2008-2009)

That is the reason why i closed the hardware part of the project late 2009.
As you can see there are lot of scammers around the world (professionnal scammers and Amateur scammers ), and i don't want to make the life of this kind of people easy...
And by your behaviour, you seems to be one of them...

The "funny" thing is that all this guys made a copycat of the prototype version. But this version have some serious design problems, for example into the floppy interface (bus driving problem...).

All of this make me very suspicious when someone ask for the source code or for "an older version". "mmhh to do what exactly?"...

In general a lot of projects go today the open, community based way (even for hardware projects) and I think a lot of people (as me) could contribute on an open source basis on the hardware and software side.

Sorry but i have tried in the past, but now i don't believe anymore that the "full open" policy is unefficient expectaly in hardware projects... On the contrary this is dangerous...

So for me the things are clear : The hardware/firmware part of the SD HxC Floppy Emulator is closed.

[floppydev]

Motivation in general:
A lot of projects and large sites (e.g. geocities) have been disappeared once a day for different reasons (motivation, death, legal actions, etc.). When you shut down your project tomorrow we all have a piece of hardware which is "unsupported" and quite useless.

Did you know that the SDCard (standard & SDHC) will disappears of the market in some years (4 years max) ? The harware will be obsolete not because there are no more update on the software but cause of the "planned obsolescence".

Yes, SDHC technology will be obsolete (as floppy is already now). But at least one could fix bugs, when software would be open.

And therefore it is always good to have old versions of a piece of software because a bug might be introduced in a later version and a downgrade to a stable version is possible.
(e.g. for example V1.6.0.0 has a bug in the renaming function with scrambled characters).

Very bad, this doesn't help the project, and i want to avoid this.
Why didn't you report this before ?

Because information is "brand new".

There is also a reason for long term archiving: I want to archive my old home computer floppy disks. Therefore there might be bugs in the software emulation which might make my floppy images useless in the future. Kryoflux (http://www.kryoflux.com/) for example has the policy for "long term archiving" and I already ordered that one (and I think I will archive my floppy disks with Kryoflux therefore)

Yes but i suppose that you already know that the IPF format is closed as all the hardware and software of the kryoflux

But there are statements that they will also release the source code when they are out of beta status.

In general the project seems to be "inconsistent" regarding openess and closeness: very open on the one hand (which is good) but very closed on the other side (e.g. you said that there seems to be a copy protection included):
So the open things are:
1.) You provide software at no cost
2.) You provide the source code of the PC software
3.) You provide the source files of the firmware/FPGA for the USB version

True and false : The software is useless without the hardware, the hardware isn't free.
The source code is available for Linux & MacOsX support.
The USB version come from the time when this was an "homebrew"/DIY project.

4.) You provide PCB layout at not cost for homebrew PCBs

Wrong, where did you see this ?

https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulator/index.html
You can downlead the Schematic / PCB Layout / BOM of the revision B & C board here !
https://hxc2001.com/floppy_drive_emulat ... or_PCB.zip

5.) You provide good documentation and support

There are no point with the open/close subject: Support are also provided on very closed product... And generally the support is better..

Good support is also a form of "openess" (and also the open source companies like redhat make profit with this, see below).

The close things are:
1.) No old versions available and censorship for one who asked for that and the user is even threatened with legal actions when asking

This is your behaviour on the forum the problem, not the old version asking...
And I don't see any reason to back to an older version. If there a problem just report it here or by mail.

2.) Copy protection (Why do you need copy protection? Hardware selling? Motivation very unclear)

I will show you why :

The project have already some copycat from the time it was "more open" :

Example 1 :
Have a look to this :
http://www.floppyemulator.com/Contactus.html
http://www.floppyemulator.com/Products.html
The hardware and the software come from the prototype HxC Floppy Emulator... This is now sold at 295$... (what a joke...)
I received a mail in 2008 from them asking for help with the pic and the mfm protocol ...
Of course there are no mention to this on the "TheFloppyEmulatorTeam" website...

Example 2:
Here a new Turkish floppy emulator:
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?t=37593
Well.... In fact No, this is a CopyCat of the HxC prototype... (read the thread this is "funny"...)
Again the lamer (its nick is Emrez) removed all credit about the HxC Floppy Emulator...
I had to go on a Turkish Amiga forum to explain this...

Example 3:
Vtrucco... This guy made a Copycat of the device (the prototype one...), without credit again...
I had to spam it's youtube video and mail to get some credit...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qU3Y9yz4deg
http://www.amiga.org/forums/showthread.php?p=516056
The funny thing is that i got some email exchange with this guy some month before...

Example 4:
http://members.fortunecity.it/blackvisi ... fdd_en.htm
This emulator use the same floppy disk interface as the prototype SD HxC Floppy Emulator...without credit again...

And there are probably others examples... And all of this in less than a year... (2008-2009)

That is the reason why i closed the hardware part of the project late 2009.
As you can see there are lot of scammers around the world (professionnal scammers and Amateur scammers ), and i don't want to make the life of this kind of people easy...
And by your behaviour, you seems to be one of them...

The "funny" thing is that all this guys made a copycat of the prototype version. But this version have some serious design problems, for example into the floppy interface (bus driving problem...).

All of this make me very suspicious when someone ask for the source code or for "an older version". "mmhh to do what exactly?"...

In general a lot of projects go today the open, community based way (even for hardware projects) and I think a lot of people (as me) could contribute on an open source basis on the hardware and software side.

Sorry but i have tried in the past, but now i don't believe anymore that the "full open" policy is unefficient expectaly in hardware projects... On the contrary this is dangerous...

So for me the things are clear : The hardware/firmware part of the SD HxC Floppy Emulator is closed.

Main problem is that there are no licenses stated (at least for the hardware and firmware part) at all.

Copycats and "non open" copies can be avoided by just choosing a best fitting license. If you want to keep a project open (and want to avoid copycats which aren't open) GPL license is the license of your choise (That can be done for hardware and for software). And it is legally proven that the GPL license is valid (for example I know that for germany). You could also do dual licensing. I'm pretty familiar with the licenses so I could consult. See also: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... e_hardware

So I guess your motivation is selling hardware to keep it closed source and to avoid copy cats for hardware selling. But I think this can also be solved by stating such things in a software/hardware license. I have done about ~20 PCBs in my life but due to the time factor I would also (and I've bought) a ready to use & soldered PCB. Because when it costs <100 EUR all the effort costs more than 100 EUR when just ordering ...
But with some chosen license (or modified license) you could just define what you want to achieve.
But to be honest: I would prefer to pay even more for open source projects (e.g. the hardware) than for closed source ones. Reason is that I can contribute and that even for "unsupported" hardware/software one can fix it by yourself. That such models work where you can make money even with open source is proven (e.g. Redhat with Linux, DD-WRT: http://www.dd-wrt.com/shop/catalog/)

Regarding Examples:
Example 1-3: When code/hardware would be GPL also their derived work (hardware and software) must be released under the GPL, so it is guaranteed that your work will stay "open". And you can sue and will obviously win.
At least for Example 4 I don't see any copying at all from the outside (hardware looks very different, hardware floppy interfacing is publically available http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml).

In general: At least the hardware part is trivial (just use a microcontroller, a PIC, sdcard slot, display, etc.) but more complexity is in the firmware part.

I'm a fan of open source and I think you would even sell more hardware when you would "open" the project. (e.g. I would buy 3-4 more when it would be open source, none if it would stay closed).

Hope I could show you some options for more business and more openess.

And the times as student are over where I could make just "hardware" projects and solder for days on 240 pin small devices

floppydev

[Jeff]

Main problem is that there are no licenses stated (at least for the hardware and firmware part) at all.

Copycats and "non open" copies can be avoided by just choosing a best fitting license. If you want to keep a project open (and want to avoid copycats which

aren't open) GPL license is the license of your choise (That can be done for hardware and for software). And it is legally proven that the GPL license is

valid (for example I know that for germany). You could also do dual licensing. I'm pretty familiar with the licenses so I could consult. See also:

https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/ ... e_hardware

The true is very different... Have a look to my previous post, you have 4 examples that prove the opposite.
There was an GPL license on this hardware, but as you can see this not a problem to make a copycat...

So I guess your motivation is selling hardware to keep it closed source and to avoid copy cats for hardware selling. But I think this can also be solved by stating such things in a software/hardware license. I have done about ~20 PCBs in my life but due to the time factor I would also (and I've bought) a ready to use & soldered PCB. Because when it costs <100 EUR all the effort costs more than 100 EUR when just ordering ...

No, my motivation is to avoid that some others people make profit with my work and also to be sure that the hardware provided will work.
There were some small productions batchs done by differents peoples of the USB board in the past, the quality was very different between the people making the boards. And even worse, there were competitions between sellers...
At the end the buyers came here for the support with defective boards (of course for free since nothing was donate for the project...).
Very bad...

But with some chosen license (or modified license) you could just define what you want to achieve.
But to be honest: I would prefer to pay even more for open source projects (e.g. the hardware) than for closed source ones. Reason is that I can contribute and that even for "unsupported" hardware/software one can fix it by yourself. That such models work where you can make money even with open source is proven
(e.g. Redhat with Linux, DD-WRT: http://www.dd-wrt.com/shop/catalog/)

Regarding Examples:
Example 1-3: When code/hardware would be GPL also their derived work (hardware and software) must be released under the GPL, so it is guaranteed that your work will stay "open". And you can sue and will obviously win.
At least for Example 4 I don't see any copying at all from the outside (hardware looks very different, hardware floppy interfacing is publically available http://pinouts.ru/Storage/InternalDisk_pinout.shtml).

Linux (Redhat/IBM ...) have some good lawers and lot of money for lot of lawsuits during the year... (on google : redhat lawsuit)
I don't have too much time and money to make 4 (or more ?) sue against foreign company and people ...

Regarding the Example 4, the guy wrote me to ask me an link to his website on the hxc project site, and told me that he used some part of the project...

The project was 100% open during 1/2 years... No external contribution during this period... Late 2009 the project was almost dead...
Once the project was producted (and closed...) things getting better and better.
Have a look to the releases notes...
In fact this was the reborn of the project...
Lot of things have been rewritten/redesigned thanks to a true availability of the board (something that can be buy by everyone, everywhere...) because i got lots of feedbacks from differents kind of users (old computers users, musicians, manufacturers...). These feedbacks help me to enhanced the device to answer to the users need.

For me this is more important and more "Open" than let some sources files on a server...

In general: At least the hardware part is trivial (just use a microcontroller, a PIC, sdcard slot, display, etc.) but more complexity is in the firmware part.

I'm a fan of open source and I think you would even sell more hardware when you would "open" the project. (e.g. I would buy 3-4 more when it would be open source, none if it would stay closed).

Keeping open for what ?
Let everyone making/selling boards "for free", without support, without warranty about the quality/the price and the working state of the board ?
Have X versions and forks of the project/firmware ?
Have copycats done by some company/lamers ?
Make lawsuits during all the year ?

No, this doesn't interest me, sorry.

However, it is possible that in the future, i will reopen the project, but this will mean that i stop to develop on it (no development/no support anymore...).

And don't forget than most parts of the project are already open .

[lotharek]

i just wanted to say that any unleageal copycat activity will prosecuted with my aid of my attorney ( he acts worldwide ) - sorry to say that - but this project took Jeff hundreds of hours, me almost the same.

prototype version comparing to VER c - it is the same like comparing between :





and




the same FIAT 500 ?? no ??? hmmm...