guys,
please read the text below and let me know what you think about it...
although people try to mask the situation by giving it good names the truth is that this is happening and something has to be done before things get worse.
some folks are using this forum to sell what they call 'their' products. they get these ROMs, they make changes to it by adding or removing software. then they publish it as if they are 'sharing' their 'work' but, strangely, they do it in a very commercial way by naming their 'work' with appealing words to get attention.
when these ROMs go published, they often take a few first posts of the thread as they have a lot of information to add..... and screenshots to publish..... and donations to 'suggest'...... and donors' names to publish.
sometimes it will happen that a few folks who are trying these home cooked ROMs with applications that are less likely to be used by most people will end up having serious problems that eventually will get fixed by the 'chef' .... on a new version.
the principle of sharing a piece of work entirely made by yourself is that it cannot be asked anything in exchange otherwise, even if slightly suggested, it's nothing but a sale and by getting copyrighted software, making changes to it, 'sharing' and suggesting donations from the testers, well.... i'm pretty sure this isn't completely nice.... and either legal.
although i never really bothered to look into these roms to see what's really inside them (even flashing them on my phones sometimes) i decided to do it earlier this week. the funny thing you see when you dump these roms. they are not being shared with other folks, they are being sold, and they should not be touched.
another interesting thing is that if you look into the other subforums carefully you'll see that the same chefs often publish roms for more than one handset which gets me thinking two things: 1) do they really have all these handsets they publish ROMs for? 2) if so, are these roms really tested before they go online?
i don't want to be seen as a troublemaker cause it seems that these folks have made a living out of this cooked rom thing and they appear to have gotten themselves a pretty nice bunch of fans too. however, what i want with this thread is to raise a debate and the reason is that i really like this forum and i'm concerned about something that is happening and i completely disagree.
So what is your main concern?
That the chefs would like to have donations?
Or that someone takes a pile of code and alters it not according to the original programmer?
abe
big people talk about idea..
small people talk about other people..
You have a point with "selling someone else's code, slightly altered and selling it as your own", but I think the ROM cookers only like donations for the work they do tuning the original roms and most of the time adding functionality to the device. A lot of the "better known" chefs have gathered testers around them, so most of the bugs are gone before a release.
What exactly is the debate? Where are the facts/proof that this is occuring? you cant make such a statement without backing it up with some evidence.
I know some chefs actually put ALOT of time and effort into cooking a rom, testing it and informing the community about any errors found.
I've cooked a Rom or two myself and am working on a driver set for MSM devices. It takes ALOT of my time to do so and it's not only for my own benefit. Thank God there are people out there who help me with that. (you know who you are, if you're reading this)
I'm not saying that it's right to pass your ROMs off as your own, but I do know some chefs are better in making the devices perform alot better than HTC's programmers do. And if people want to reward them for their time and effort through donations, who am I to question that?
On the other hand, I find the "lack" of community more disturbing. Some people aren't sharing their knowledge for the common good, but for getting credited or donations. I believe that's the discussion here.
Just my 2 cents.
Well, I think that if they "invest" lot of their time (and they do), it is ok to have donation button. Nobody if forceing you to pay for rom. If you like it you can donate. Fair deal if you ask me!
SlakerBoi said:
guys,
the funny thing you see when you dump these roms. they are not being shared with other folks, they are being sold, and they should not be touched.
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This part I don't like. I think that they shouldn't do that, because in that case, like you said, roms are in some way being sold. That is not in the spirit of xda.
I think what he may be referring to is some members that take the ROM's from a known cook and post it with screenshots in other forums and other language forums with potential to gain off someone else work. I know of 1 instance where a Link to a ROM for only a beta test ended up with more than 500 downloads when intended for less than 10. It was found posted around in different forums.
To reward someone for there hard work in customization is up to the community. I think most people know the ROM's are not the property of the cooks, but just the cooks work in rearranging, adding, deleting, and customizing. I for one can tell you the amount of donations most cooks receive is very small and in most cases would barely cover a unlimited account for downloads. I myself think of it as I'm cooking for myself and if other people like then that's ok too.
Hi
If I use HTC mobiles is because the cooked roms...
Iosu
NeoS2007 said:
On the other hand, I find the "lack" of community more disturbing. Some people aren't sharing their knowledge for the common good, but for getting credited or donations. I believe that's the discussion here.
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For me the first thing to do in order to solve this "problem" is to prohibit any "protected" ROM. I think its not fair to take official ressources, work with tools, which can be found in this forums, and then "protect" the ROM, claiming that its your own choice.
I don't think that this is the right way to go, as other (new) cookers could learn a lot from these ROMs.
But, I don't think that this is the "problem" that SlakerBoi is talking about, is it?
As these discussions tend to come and go every now and then ...
Indeed it costs a huge amount of time in the first place. And a lot of users appreciate the work all cooks are doing overhere. Besides the cooking giving people advise. I can tell you that most cooks share their knowledge. Not always visible to everyone but most of them have contact and help each other. Furthermore, is offering your rom for dumping without any guidance the best way to share?
Everyone that asks for a package, help or guidance in any way is supported in the cooking thread. Some did publish a very nice rom after some time. In my opinion it is a far better contribution then offering an open rom without any support.
The reason I cook my own roms the way I do is for speed purpose. If you have another opinion that is fine with me. But tolerate each other on having a different approach. These kind of statements in threads only give xda a bad vibe. Open your mind, when you want or need something ask for it. It's not supposed to be a tv diner anyway.
I quote you , my friend!
Well this is how it goes for a long time. I think if you don't like it, go somehwere else.
What will you get from debating??
SlakerBoi my first question for you is "have you every cooked a ROM?" i am sure your answer will be "No" because i know how much time n effords need to be put. When i cooked my first rom it took me 4 sleepless night to build a basic beta quality rom. After such a hard work someone reward you by donating. That feeling can't be said in words SlakerBoi. So please stop raising this type of question.
One more thing most of the ROM developers buy new phone with the donations they go so it's not a issue if they release rom for many devices.
Please don't continue this decisions so that this post will go to some corner.
MOD this post hurts lot of ppl feeling so please delete it.
before the flame wars starts
i am going to close this....as these questions will cause fighting.
if you have a problem with someone...contact them....don't post like this
you know this is only going to end in fighting.
thread closed.
As a chef, and a moderator (chef came first), I'll add my thoughts.
I started into cooking when AT&T released their official WM6.1 ROM for the Kaiser. I always liked the design of AT&T ROMs, but not all of the bloat they included... most of which could not be uninstalled. I had the very "simple" goal of removing the bloat in an attempt to speed up the ROM, and increase storage space.
Once I downloaded the ROM, and extracted it using KaiserKitchen, I immediately realized that I was in over my head. I am a very good with PC and Mac computers in the professional/personal world, but I had never looked at the contents of a decompiled WM ROM. There are hundreds of folders, 10,000+ files, and no real explanation of what you're looking at... that is where XDA-Developers came in.
Within 1 week of public release, I was ready with a ROM that could be considered "extreme beta". It worked, and it was fast, but it had quite a few glitches that could not have been discovered without a public release, and a few dozen people testing the ROM. One thing in the background, that is never seen, is the number of hours spent just flashing our phones (I am NOT counting the cooking process) with numerous revisions testing all the bugs/issues reported. My Tilt was flashed no less then 1000 times in it's life, and my Fuze has been through over 500 so far.
I consider myself to be a pretty good ROM chef. But I also know that I am far from the best, and that most of my knowledge came from the very large XDA-Developers community. Some ROM chefs do not share information about the inner workings of their ROM in the ROM thread itself, but a simple email/PM will usually get you the information you seek. Look at it this way: If someone uses a ROM as released, and has no desire to modify it, then why should the thread be clogged with hundreds of questions/answers relating to how this was done, or how that was done.
My ROMs are "protected" using RaphaelKitchen, but it wasn't always this way. It has been shown that merging the RGU/DSM files into one large file speeds up the ROM because you now have several hundred less files sitting on the device. In addition, I also release my kitchen, in it's complete form, when I release a new ROM version. People are free to download the kitchen, extract it to their computer, and fully customize my ROMs. I know this is a popular route, because my Fuze and Touch Pro kitchens have been downloaded over 100 times since v4.7 of my ROM came out last month.
On to donations... I have a donation link in my signature for people who wish to appreciate the amount of work/hours poured into creating custom WM ROMs. Just as my signature says, I never require monetary compensation, but I also accept whatever people give, because it allows me to improve my work. For example, I purchased WinCE CAB Creator with some of my donations, so that I could create CAB files of items removed from the ROM. I also maintain a Rapidshare Premium account so that I never have to delete any file uploaded to XDA. Another form of donation I received was web hosting on a fast server that provided an alternative to Rapidshare.
I've said all of this before, but it's been awhile, and I cannot find the post. In closing, I don't see anything wrong with the items you pointed out. We've had issues in the past with members who used donations as a way to obtain a piece of software (ROM or otherwise), and as soon as it was brought to our attention, it was dealt with.
i remember when i used to have to google to find things for phones, and make all sorts of account for different sites, and then i found XDA and thats all i needed.
recently, for some reason- a good amount of stuff is turning into links to multiple other website- wouldn't it be easier if everything was hosted here again? so we could get expert help from the community and download files directly instead of logging into yet another site.
sorry if this seems like venting, but i just don't want to see XDA change
IIRC - XDA received a Cease and Desist order from Microsoft regarding hosting ROMs.
Vent away regardless - just aim it in the right direction.
-Daniel
dweidman said:
IIRC - XDA received a Cease and Desist order from Microsoft regarding hosting ROMs.
Vent away regardless - just aim it in the right direction.
-Daniel
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I was always under the impression that small cabs and what not were acceptable, but that ROMs should be hosted off-site due to their size and the load it place on XDA servers. Never really read that anywhere, just kinda made that assumption, as ROMs have always been off-site as far back as I can remember.
Anyway, that's besides the point. I don't think he means ROMs, but a lot of the cabs, tweaks, programs, etc that are being hosted more and more off-site. Personally, I hate logging into other sites just to download something, and agree that it would be nicer if more were hosted here. That said, I hate the slow servers and waiting forever for a page to load. Let that **** happen somewhere else, I say.
OP, I hear what you're saying. The more is hosted here, the worse the server loads will be, the slower pages will load, the more likely you'll end up at another site looking for the answer. Personally, I'm grateful to guys that put up their own site just to have files readily available (TPC did this for a minute, not sure if he got his site back up). Unfortunately, disk space and bandwidth isn't unlimited, nor is it free!
dweidman said:
IIRC - XDA received a Cease and Desist order from Microsoft regarding hosting ROMs.
Vent away regardless - just aim it in the right direction.
-Daniel
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when did this happen? i've not been on in a couple weeks, have to get caught back up on things.
msd24200 said:
when did this happen? i've not been on in a couple weeks, have to get caught back up on things.
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That happened back in '07. You can find the original thread concerning that here, if you're interested.
sorry, i mispoke- i meant that ROMs used to be directly linked from here to free no username sites such as megaupload, rapidshare, and my favorite 4shared
nowayadays i have to log into other forums like htcpedia and go through their threads for links to uploads or download straight from that server- i love xda, and i don't want it to start filling up with links to other forums and eventually have to switch just to avoid all the hassle(i would never consider it by the way, this place rocks)
Hey,
Essentially, I'm looking for more web-developing experience as I've only made a few sites. I wanted to ask if any developers who don't make sites themselves would want a site made for their project at no charge. The domain/hosting would be at your charge (or donations! ) but I would love to help someone by making them a site. It would likely be used for ROM/software information (change-log, etc.), download links, screenshots, and more. I typically use Wordpress, but am proficient in a few other languages as well.
There's really no catch, because I need experience and you may need a site. Again, the hosting/domain would be at your cost. If there is more demand than I expect, I would prefer developers who don't know how to make a site themselves, however unlikely that may be...
Tagged for 3 weeks from now - will need a site then, for dev projects, and don't want to lose this thread.
No time to dev while on the road if working on a site, so definitely intend to take you up on this. This definitely would solve a problem for me.
I'll get ahold of you once I get hosting set up, and thanks in advance!
Sent from a digital distance.
Hi folks. As many of the ROMs and related files linked from various mod tutorials in this forum used to be hosted on goo.im, and the service is now shut down, is there any way the OPs of the various mod threads could please update us as to any new hosting locations? None of the linked files on goo.im are reachable anymore.
Unfortunately, as of this time, the main portions of goo.im have been disabled. Due to a finance issue, our CDN account has been suspended, and all files stored on it are effectively non-accessible. Due to some RL issues on my(Alexander)'s part, once goo started actively losing money 6 months ago, I had changed jobs a bit to help support goo. Unfortunately, this wasn't enough combined with some other issues that crept up on me. Due to this, I'm formally shutting down Goo. There is an offer in to take over the files and hosting from a generous sponsor, however, until the financial issues are sorted out, they are unable to adsorb Goo. It's been my pleasure to serve files for you all for the past couple of years, and I wish everyone good luck into the future.
-- Snipa/Alexander Blair
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EDIT: sorry mods, I missed the 'no questions' topic and I don't know how to move this to the Q&A forum.