Seeking Soarer - evidence thread

[mode1ace]

FWIW, I have a shallot prototype, it's good and I have no doubts about her endeavour.

[shallot]

in short, once again: piss your pants.

[jmaynard]

I am not doing this because of jumped-up free software ideals, I am doing this because there are a cadre of people selling pisstake 20 minute soldering jobs for absurd profit, lazily flashing bajillion year out of date firmware and taking advantage of people who don't have the knowledge or the time to go anywhere else. Hasu is the only exception to this, and nobody mentions his brilliant converter firmwares because they're too busy idolizing Soarer's. I'm merely taking the time to extend this already solid work so that it has all of those nice quality of life features.

Great! More power to you. I wish you every success, and I mean that sincerely.

Just one minor quibble: Making money is not evil.

indeed, linuxmans at all.

...said on a medium, and using massive amounts of technology, that would not exist if it was not for those same "dinosaur linuxmans"...

My point being we all contribute in different ways, and all of those contributions are valuable and to be celebrated.

Don't get me wrong. If Shallot does produce a usable project, that will be great, and I will happily support his endeavor.

Case in point re: dinosaur thinking. Not all developers are men. Of course, your mate thinks me and my fellow vagowners are out to pin him on sexual harassment suits, so I'm kind of not surprised you'd make this kind of assumption.

I use "his" in the classic English sense when an non-sex-specific third person pronoun is called for. You're female? Great! More power to you!

There is enough work that needs doing that we can't afford to get in the way of anyone willing to pitch in and help. But getting butthurt over others being insufficiently woke is not the way to get the work done.

[Rayndalf]

In my opinion (fuck legal precedent) doxxing somebody is worse than reverse engineering something they freely distributed.

You may not be interested in legal precedent, but legal precedent is interested in you. In particular, that they freely distributed the binary is not in and of itself sufficient to prove they intended to freely distribute the source, or that any source reverse engineered from those binaries should be freely distributed.

Who would pursue international software copyright infringement for 7 year old abandonware?

And didn't you already establish that a cease and desist was a $200 fine or nothing if you went on and ceased? Which is it?

[shallot]

Exploiting people who have no other option is completely contrary to my moral code, and permitting that is evil for me.

So no, I won't sHoW yOu ThE CoDe.

And "insufficiently woke"? Mate, I think expecting all women to be sexual harassement trolls is pure insanity, not an 'omg those damn wokes' issue. Misogyny in the classic sense. (Nice weasel btw).

[kelvinhall05]

That definition is rather lacking, as the malicious intent is not a "typical" but a fundamental part of it.

Then what do you consider posting someone's full, legal name and home address on a public forum without their permission?

Well, was it done with malicious intent?

Irrelevant. Posting someone's name and address without their explicit permission is doxxing. End of story.

[shallot]

also:

@esr
@jmaynard

your mum.

[ifohancroft]

in short, once again: piss your pants.

When we were kids, we used to commonly use as an insult: Пикай и са лъзгай. Which is I guess a colloquial to say Пикай и се пързаляй, which translates to Piss and slide. The idea being I presume that you are supposed to piss on the ground and then slide on it using your own urine as lubrication.

Just thought you'd appreciate it

[Rayndalf]

Then what do you consider posting someone's full, legal name and home address on a public forum without their permission?

Well, was it done with malicious intent?

Irrelevant. Posting someone's name and address without their explicit permission is doxxing. End of story.

That's the problem with doxxing, that information once publicly available poses a threat to someone's safety.

Any why would that info need to be publicized for any reason anyway?

[shallot]

in short, once again: piss your pants.

When we were kids, we used to commonly use as an insult: Пикай и са лъзгай. Which is I guess a colloquial to say Пикай и се пързаляй, which translates to Piss and slide. The idea being I presume that you are supposed to piss on the ground and then slide on it using your own urine as lubrication.

Just thought you'd appreciate it

beautiful

[depletedvespene]

As many people have said
………
this kind of assumption.

You may want to consider that some people won't want to use your software exclusively because of the {dickish|cunty} toxic behaviour you have displayed in this thread.

If you don't like Soarer's Converter, that's fine. If you think your alternative is superior, that's fine. But, as many things in the mechanical keyboard hobby are, this is a matter of personal preference, and the usage of one does not preclude the other (heck, I myself use Soarer's, QMK and TMK).

So don't go around trashing Soarer's software, or at least refrain from complaining if someone else trashes YOUR stuff after you've released it.

[shallot]

As many people have said
………
this kind of assumption.

You may want to consider that some people won't want to use your software exclusively because of the {dickish|cunty} toxic behaviour you have displayed in this thread.

If you don't like Soarer's Converter, that's fine. If you think your alternative is superior, that's fine. But, as many things in the mechanical keyboard hobby are, this is a matter of personal preference, and the usage of one does not preclude the other (heck, I myself use Soarer's, QMK and TMK).

So don't go around trashing Soarer's software, or at least refrain from complaining if someone else trashes YOUR stuff after you've released it.

Your choice your sacrifice, I don't care. Not gonna pretend to respect this batshit insane endeavour. Need I remind that the stated goal of this thread is to dox someone who might be dead over a keyboard converter. I will happily ridicule the shit out of this.

[ifohancroft]

I don't know if this needs to be explicitly said, I guess I am just trying to figure out how we are about to proceed, established next steps sort of things, but:

Why doesn't someone contact him and try to find out what happened?

Report back the finding here in the forum. If he is alive and well - awesome, also report what he said about us using and releasing his code.

If what we fear might have happened, have happened, say so and if his next of kin have allowed use and release of his source, awesome.

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

[Rayndalf]

So don't go around trashing Soarer's software, or at least refrain from complaining if someone else trashes YOUR stuff after you've released it.

I think it's more of a "why would you threaten Soarer's current wellbeing for some old code he made 7 years ago".

Soarer's convertor was and still is important and it's totally viable, but it's not worth doxxing him. It was ahead of it's time, but it's not magic or irreplaceable.

[kelvinhall05]

I don't know if this needs to be explicitly said, I guess I am just trying to figure out how we are about to proceed, established next steps sort of things, but:

Why doesn't someone contact him and try to find out what happened?

Report back the finding here in the forum. If he is alive and well - awesome, also report what he said about us using and releasing his code.

If what we fear might have happened, have happened, say so and if his next of kin have allowed use and release of his source, awesome.

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

Afaik many people have tried to contact him in many different ways in the last 8 years or whenever since he disappeared, and all got no response. I don't think extreme measures such as doxxing him would help at all and as I've said several times in this thread already, it's disgusting anyone would even consider that. I don't know why a judge is being brought into this either. You really want to make a court case out of a keyboard converter?

[ifohancroft]

I don't know if this needs to be explicitly said, I guess I am just trying to figure out how we are about to proceed, established next steps sort of things, but:

Why doesn't someone contact him and try to find out what happened?

Report back the finding here in the forum. If he is alive and well - awesome, also report what he said about us using and releasing his code.

If what we fear might have happened, have happened, say so and if his next of kin have allowed use and release of his source, awesome.

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

Afaik many people have tried to contact him in many different ways in the last 8 years or whenever since he disappeared, and all got no response. I don't think extreme measures such as doxxing him would help at all and as I've said several times in this thread already, it's disgusting anyone would even consider that. I don't know why a judge is being brought into this either. You really want to make a court case out of a keyboard converter?

I also know people have tried to contact him, I was thinking more of like asking the local police for a wellness check.

The whole judge idea, from what I understand is in-case there can be no contact made or he is deceased and his reverse engineered code is released and the person releasing it gets sued by someone else at a later point, to be able to prove that there has been an attempt to access the code in a legal way and that turned out impossible and the code can now be considered abandonware of sorts.

P.S. I don't think we should dox him. My point was that if his address is released it should only be done if legally necessary if he is found to be deceased.

[Rayndalf]

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

I have no idea why this would ever be necessary. Who would take legal action? And why?

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable. If he sold the rights to his convertor then why hasn't the buyer used it for anything?

A patent troll for 7 year old abandonware seems so unlikely as to be not worth worrying about, especially since it would likely be international as well.

[tinnie]

bunch of middle age men arguing on the internet is the best thing ever happend to mankind.

[Myoth]

I don't care. Not gonna pretend to respect this batshit insane endeavour.

Proceeds to trainwreck an entire thread LOL

bruv, u bein a bit rich ?

[jmaynard]

I think it's more of a "why would you threaten Soarer's current wellbeing for some old code he made 7 years ago".

Soarer's convertor was and still is important and it's totally viable, but it's not worth doxxing him. It was ahead of it's time, but it's not magic or irreplaceable.

If Soarer is still among the living, I completely agree with you.

If Soarer is dead, he's beyond caring.

@ifohancroft has the right approach, and as far as I know, it is the one planning to be followed.

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable.

There's a big difference between releasing a binary for free and releasing the source code.

[ifohancroft]

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

I have no idea why this would ever be necessary. Who would take legal action? And why?

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable. If he sold the rights to his convertor then why hasn't the buyer used it for anything?

A patent troll for 7 year old abandonware seems so unlikely as to be not worth worrying about, especially since it would likely be international as well.

I don't know if it's necessary. Honestly, I feel like the law works weird sometimes and at some places, it may actually be necessary to prove that there has been an attempt to contact him and stuff. Who knows?

I agree about the patent troll, but who knows. Although if I do understood the whole part of the infridgement fine being $200 at most, I feel like it's worth the risk releasing the source, if he can't be contacted.

[shallot]

Just one minor quibble: Making money is not evil.

I should really reiterate this point, linuxman ideology is virulent libertarianism and doesn't give a shit about whether people get exploited for not having the ability or time to do dev stuff. This kind of holier-than-thou bullshit fake meritocratic bullshit is some of the worst mind cancer out there. Yes, software should be free. No, it shouldn't be used to drain the pockets of people who can't get on with doing the gruntwork.

Allowing this fake-ethical brain poison into an already heavily exploited hobby is a recipe for disaster.

[shallot]

I don't care. Not gonna pretend to respect this batshit insane endeavour.

Proceeds to trainwreck an entire thread LOL

bruv, u bein a bit rich ?

Doing some shitposts on a forum vs doxxing someone hmhmhm

[ifohancroft]

I feel like I should say that we can disagree without insulting each other and that we will be more productive if we just discuss where we disagree and how each thinks we should proceed, but then we won't get gems like: piss your pants and get banned from a theater
So I guess go at it, but also get shit done

P.S. Who's tron guy?

[Rayndalf]

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable.

There's a big difference between releasing a binary for free and releasing the source code.

But exactly who would do anything about it? Copyright just gives the holder the right to pursue legal action, it isn't just automagically enforced, right?

I guess what I'm saying is stop complaining and go do crime, no one will stop you.

[Redmaus]

First off I just wanna say I love DT. Seeing threads get derailed like this warms my heart.

But in all seriousness I would consider Soarer's converter deprecated at this point. When I have tried to use it with modern operating systems(windows 10 for example) I run into all sorts of problems. For instance my F122 with Orihalcon's soarer converter starts freaking out and outputting random scancodes after half an hour of using it. Doesn't happen with any of my TMK converters. I definitely agree with the people in this thread stating we should move on from soarers. TMK already does everything soarers did, aside from the Wyseverter.

Aside from that I would also say if the goal of tracking down Soarer's personal info and finding his widow is to merely get permission to expand on his work, I don't think there's much of a point. If soarer died it would be better not to bother his family or bring more attention to him irl. If soarer just left the community(possible he put so much time into forums and keyboards he realized that his life had become too focused on one particular niche hobby) and cut all ties with everything I don't think he would care of people starting expanding on his work. In either case the idea of tracking him down and trying to settle all this in court for a keyboard converter seems asinine to me.

Also as for esr's personal beliefs, I don't really think they are relevant to this discussion. So the guy thinks politically different than you. For all you know that could be most people on this forum.

[shallot]

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

I have no idea why this would ever be necessary. Who would take legal action? And why?

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable. If he sold the rights to his convertor then why hasn't the buyer used it for anything?

A patent troll for 7 year old abandonware seems so unlikely as to be not worth worrying about, especially since it would likely be international as well.

Yeah this whole "we need to post his name and address on deskthority dot net" shit is mental. Even if you decided to go down this process, why would you not contract a professional entity, for example, one that immediately comes to mind, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, to do what they do as a job, which is tracing people in the UK?

This is just insane. If you wanted to do this properly and not be super creepy weirdos, you'd do it the way that credit referencing agencies and real proper institutions do it.

[Rayndalf]

P.S. Who's tron guy?

Jmaynard's username is a reference to this guy, he was a meme at some point for his groovy Tron suit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Maynard

[webwit]

Got his real name and last address when I sent him something. Searched for it. I'd say he values his privacy and would hate to see those details published on the Internet.

[ifohancroft]

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then.

I have no idea why this would ever be necessary. Who would take legal action? And why?

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable. If he sold the rights to his convertor then why hasn't the buyer used it for anything?

A patent troll for 7 year old abandonware seems so unlikely as to be not worth worrying about, especially since it would likely be international as well.

Yeah this whole "we need to post his name and address on deskthority dot net" shit is mental. Even if you decided to go down this process, why would you not contract a professional entity, for example, one that immediately comes to mind, LexisNexis Risk Solutions, to do what they do as a job, which is tracing people in the UK?

This is just insane. If you wanted to do this properly and not be super creepy weirdos, you'd do it the way that credit referencing agencies and real proper institutions do it.

As far as I know, this is the idea (doing it properly). At least my idea. Also, making sure we legally can release the source.