Seeking Soarer - evidence thread

[zrrion]

This thread honestly feels like all those "I want to remake blue alps" threads where the OP doesn't actually have any product to show and doesn't actually want to do the work to get to that point either. I'm not really sure why anyone is surprised this thread isn't going well.

If you aren't willing to try and even build a windows version of available code yourself why would Alice or Bob even need to bring you into the project? They are clearly not only capable of running a windows dev environment but of also preforming a successful clean room, it sounds like they really don't need anyone else involved in the project. "But I can submit a patch request to an ongoing project!" Sure, but so can anyone else and if you were interested in that you could already assist with something like QMK. What can you specifically do that is 100% required for Alice and Bob to get started and might actually get this project going instead of generating the sort of mess you've cultivated in this thread?

[zrrion]

@zrrion what is non binary for "bro"?

Bro is cool actually so you're on the right track

Edit: just saw they/them comment, its a good habit to form IMO but I don't think too many people will get upset about not doing it unless you're being g a dick intentionally. Some folks obviously will get mad at honest mistakes but some people just like to be mad I think so that's whatever.

[Redmaus]

This thread honestly feels like all those "I want to remake blue alps" threads where the OP doesn't actually have any product to show and doesn't actually want to do the work to get to that point either. I'm not really sure why anyone is surprised this thread isn't going well.

If you aren't willing to try and even build a windows version of available code yourself why would Alice or Bob even need to bring you into the project? They are clearly not only capable of running a windows dev environment but of also preforming a successful clean room, it sounds like they really don't need anyone else involved in the project. "But I can submit a patch request to an ongoing project!" Sure, but so can anyone else and if you were interested in that you could already assist with something like QMK. What can you specifically do that is 100% required for Alice and Bob to get started and might actually get this project going instead of generating the sort of mess you've cultivated in this thread?

My thoughts exactly. It seems like OP just wants to tell others what to do while citing his years of open source projects and whatnot as an appeal to authority.

[headphone_jack]

Can we fork the forum? I wanna be able to ban folk for life, as a matter of interface usability.

heh

[mode1ace]

@zrrion what is non binary for "bro"?

"Fam"

British grime slang is actually very progressive.

[__red__]

My thoughts exactly. It seems like OP just wants to tell others what to do while citing his years of open source projects and whatnot as an appeal to authority.

Well, he is an authority and his knowledge and access to resources are what make him well suited to this particular endeavour if it's a route that the community want to take.

The following comment is a reflection of the entire thread and not the individual I quoted above:

There were plenty of ways this conversation could have gone which would have communicated "thanks, but no thanks" - but instead it was populated by people who apparently just enjoy being assholes. If any thread in this board's history was ever ripe for moderation it was this one.

I guess as a forum we have shed the reputation of being the most mature of the keyboard communities. It's disappointing.

[Bjerrk]

There were plenty of ways this conversation could have gone which would have communicated "thanks, but no thanks" - but instead it was populated by people who apparently just enjoy being assholes. If any thread in this board's history was ever ripe for moderation it was this one.

I guess as a forum we have shed the reputation of being the most mature of the keyboard communities. It's disappointing.

It really is. I have to say, I am somewhat disheartened by the whole ordeal.

I have a policy of stepping back when a thread devolves into mudslinging. But it's sad to see, even from the sideline.

[headphone_jack]

There were plenty of ways this conversation could have gone which would have communicated "thanks, but no thanks" - but instead it was populated by people who apparently just enjoy being assholes. If any thread in this board's history was ever ripe for moderation it was this one.

I guess as a forum we have shed the reputation of being the most mature of the keyboard communities. It's disappointing.

It really is. I have to say, I am somewhat disheartened by the whole ordeal.

I have a policy of stepping back when a thread devolves into mudslinging. But it's sad to see, even from the sideline.

I think you both need a good helping of French toast. French toast is a classis that I absolutely love to make – especially on a lazy weekend morning. There’s just something special about this rich and delicious French Toast drizzled with warm maple syrup! And I’ve been making it for so long that I’ve perfected the steps so that it is so easy. Whether I’m making it for a crowd of weekend guests or for just the three of us, I can have it on the table in minutes! French toast just has such a way of starting the morning off in the best way. Paired with a bowl of fresh fruit, a few slices of bacon, and drizzle of maple syrup, and this will be a meal that will fill your spirits as much as your bodies!

[dkarguth]

The whole concept of this thread is stupid. Let me get this straight:
- you are trying to find soarer in order to get his permission to modify a piece of software he released freely online
- this thread is supposed to serve as a legal documentation of the search as evidence of a good faith effort to contact the owner of the code
- supposedly the only way to make it such is to publish his address publicly

But... Why? Why not keep a private record of this search, or hire someone to find the guy? There are people who specialize in doing this type of thing legally without doxxing people (and whether you believe it or not, it is doxxing. Posting someone's name/address publicly without their permission is doxxing regardless of intent)

Once that info is online, it can't really be taken back. He'll be most likely picked up by all nature of trolls, bots, and idiots trying to harass him one way or another. Nobody is saying you're wrong to try to ask for permission to use the guy's code, but doing a public manhunt style info search is a bad way to go about it.

If I were soarer and I saw the way you were behaving here I wouldn't want to come back either. TBH I probably would explicitly deny you permission to use my code.

In conclusion: this thread is a joke and you should be ashamed of yourselves

[Redmaus]

Well, he is an authority and his knowledge and access to resources are what make him well suited to this particular endeavour if it's a route that the community want to take.

Which most people agreed upon would solve little, would be a waste of time, and would only serve to harass soarer or his family.

There were plenty of ways this conversation could have gone which would have communicated "thanks, but no thanks" - but instead it was populated by people who apparently just enjoy being assholes. If any thread in this board's history was ever ripe for moderation it was this one.

I guess as a forum we have shed the reputation of being the most mature of the keyboard communities. It's disappointing.

Not really, when you have someone who has never shown up before and wants to essentially coerce part of the forum into doing his bidding when he could easily decompile the source himself or use TMK it's hard to take seriously.

Especially when he tries to force the thread into doing what he wants:

TMK/QMK requires reflashing the firmware every time you want to make a change and soarers easy and robust macro support

Please do not answer off-topic questions here, it raises the noise level.

Clean room=OK argument aside, I'm interested in what the value of reversing the code is? Given that TMK/QMK support pretty much everything that Soarer's does, why not just focus the effort on implementing the little bit of missing functionality?

This is not the appropriate thread to discuss that.

Or when he for some odd reason suggests people should decompile the source and do all the work for him when he is perfectly capable of doing so himself. If he wants to boast about all the development he has done over the years and how accomplished he is blah blah blah he is capable of installing windows and the appropriate dev tools.

I spoke too soon. This public version of Arakula's code has no license (I'll call it the "Antonizoon" code).

However, for those of you who think tracking down Soarer would be some sort of ultimate crime, here is now a possible way forward that doesn't involve that.

1. Someone (call her Alice) verifies that compiling the Antonizoon source produces a hex blob that is a drop-in-replacement for Soarer's. Can't be me as I don't have a Windows machine or the Windows dev tools.

2. Someone else (call him Bob) then writes an implementation based on what Alice tells him about the Antonizoon code's interfaces and assumptions. It should go to Github or Gitlab or some other public open source repository.

3. Dammit, get the licensing right this time! I recommend 2-clause BSD or equivalent. Include it in your first commit so the community doesn't get stuck like this again.

When the Bob implementation is verified to produce a working controller I'm willing to pitch in to develop a build and firmware-load procedure for Linux - also I'm pretty sure I could improve the rather scanty documentation.

You guys say it's disheartening and baseless mudslinging, I say it's the appropriate response from a forum where free-thought and debate is encouraged. If you can't take a little bit of banter, maybe reddit is more your speed.

[headphone_jack]

I think you all need to calm down and discuss this over OJ and some thick cut, batter basted Texas toast with pecans.

[depletedvespene]

…………… I say it's the appropriate response from a forum where free-thought and debate is encouraged. If you can't take a little bit of banter, maybe reddit is more your speed.

Debate. Debate. DEBATE.

The shitshow that happened here yesterday was FAR from a debate.

[esr]

If you aren't willing to try and even build a windows version of available code yourself why would Alice or Bob even need to bring you into the project?

I don't have any actual need to be on the project at all. And don't want to be on it enough to run a closed-source operating system.

Muirium asked me to map out a solution to the Soarer problem that has acceptably low legal risk, and that's what I've been doing - strictly speaking, my job is done when you guys have a workable plan. I want the results so I can hack the code in my converter, but I don't need to be on on the clean-room project for that.

On the other hand, if Alice and Bob would like to have a Linux build procedure I'm certainly willing to help with that. And documentation - I'm good at documentation.

[esr]

My thoughts exactly. It seems like OP just wants to tell others what to do while citing his years of open source projects and whatnot as an appeal to authority.

I am not capable of telling anybody what to do. You are all free agents, and I wouldn't have it any other way.

What Muirium asked me to do was develop a plan that would allow us to revive Soarer's code with an acceptably low level of legal risk. I've been doing that. If you don't like that plan, neither I nor anyone else can compel you to be part of it.

As they say in the U.S. military: "Lead, follow, or get out of the way."

[Easy_Spinach]

There's a 4th option dingus. Actively sabotaging it.

[esr]

But... Why? Why not keep a private record of this search, or hire someone to find the guy?

Are you willing to spend the money to hire a private investigator? Because sure, if you are, that changes the constraints round the plan. But if you aren't willing to spend that money, your proposal is nothing but a distraction from what we can do with the resources we actually have - which is basically a bunch of people with keyboards and search engines.

[esr]

But... Why? Why not keep a private record of this search, or hire someone to find the guy?

Are you willing to spend the money to hire a private investigator? Because sure, if you are, that changes the constraints round the plan. But if you aren't willing to spend that money, your proposal is nothing but a distraction from what we can do with the resources we actually have - which is basically a bunch of people with keyboards and search engines.

Remember, we have to show a good faith effort and we need to have it on record for a court.

[esr]

Ooops. Those stuttered messaged were a botched edit attempt, sorry.

[vincent]

But... Why? Why not keep a private record of this search, or hire someone to find the guy?

Are you willing to spend the money to hire a private investigator? Because sure, if you are, that changes the constraints round the plan. But if you aren't willing to spend that money, your proposal is nothing but a distraction from what we can do with the resources we actually have - which is basically a bunch of people with keyboards and search engines.

Remember, we have to show a good faith effort and we need to have it on record for a court.

esr, you should consider starting an interest check for a group buy of a private investigator.

I can see it already:

"[IC][GB] Hire private investigator to track down Soarer or next of kin"

Edit: Also:

"The gang hires a private investigator"

[shallot]

Just out of interest, I decided to check the relevant legislation for getting someone registered as presumed dead in the UK.

(3) The court has jurisdiction to hear and determine an application under this
section only if—
(a) the missing person was domiciled in England and Wales on the day on
which he or she was last known to be alive,
(b) the missing person had been habitually resident in England and Wales
throughout the period of 1 year ending with that day, or
(c) subsection (4) is satisfied.
(4) This subsection is satisfied if the application is made by the spouse or civil
partner of the missing person and—
(a) the applicant is domiciled in England and Wales on the day on which
the application is made, or
(b) the applicant has been habitually resident in England and Wales
throughout the period of 1 year ending with that day.
(5) The court must refuse to hear an application under this section if—
(a) the application is made by someone other than the missing person’s
spouse, civil partner, parent, child or sibling, and
(b) the court considers that the applicant does not have a sufficient interest
in the determination of the application.

If you think "i want source code for a keyboard converter" would be considered sufficient interest, and wouldn't get you laughed out of court, then lmfao honestly. Unless it turns out you're married to Soarer or something

I know you're a very artistic dude but really, lawyer bigmanning without even reading casually into actual legislation in the relevant jurisdiction is just stupid.

[dkarguth]

But... Why? Why not keep a private record of this search, or hire someone to find the guy?

Are you willing to spend the money to hire a private investigator? Because sure, if you are, that changes the constraints round the plan. But if you aren't willing to spend that money, your proposal is nothing but a distraction from what we can do with the resources we actually have - which is basically a bunch of people with keyboards and search engines.

Remember, we have to show a good faith effort and we need to have it on record for a court.

A record of a good faith effort does not have to be on a public forum. Notice I said "private record". There is no legal reason you have to include his real name or address in any of your posts. Keep a private record of it in the form of dated emails to your lawyer (you can afford a lawyer but not a PI?) or simply make a journal. Sensitive information like names, phone numbers, and addresses should be sent in PMs or emails, not on forum threads. There's nothing wrong with trying to find the guy, but do it in a way that doesn't dox him.

Also, are you new to the internet or something? I'm not sure why you're so surprised your thread got bombed with trolling when you started off trying to act like a forum moderator and policing chat messages that weren't what you wanted to hear.

[ntv242ver2]

Dont you know this community is owned by murium so just a few chat with him surely suffice. And if it backfires spectacularly on the face, just call people children instead of owning your mistakes. For the bonus, make sure to express your disappointment at everyone who did not think that doxxing a guy and harassing his kin are proper way of honoring his work.
“Hey my wife would be proud if people contact her about my work so definitely soarer’s ought to feel the same”

Then proceed to cry over the trolling, when at the start, any reasonable attempts for a good explanation of why digging the corpse of a 8yrs dead firmware MUST be done, were shot down with the most arrogant attitude ever.

[Bass]

This thread, or rather the entire saga revolved around Soarer's converter and disappearance, is starting to remind me of one of those types of epic mystery or conspiracy videos I see on youtube like this:

[esr]

If you think "i want source code for a keyboard converter" would be considered sufficient interest, and wouldn't get you laughed out of court, then lmfao honestly. Unless it turns out you're married to Soarer or something

Well, as it happens, requesting a declaration of presumptive death wasn't part of my plan. You are quite right, that would have been doomed, and I did know that.

Pointing out in a brief that sufficient time had passed for a declaration of presumptive death might still be.

If you don't understand this, it's because you don't know how judges in the Anglo-American common-law systems reach for conservative precedents and analogies when they have to decide cases with novel aspects. They're trained to reach for anything handy that looks like stare decisis; thus the "seven years and a day" deadline can have some weight even though the rest of the predicates for a formal declaration of presumptive death are not met.

[Weezer]

Wonder where keyboardjoy went, this thread certainly seems like it needs an admin. Probably crying in the corner that we wouldn't generate content for his blogs.

lmao

[jmaynard]

a 8yrs dead firmware MUST be done

*looks over at his roommate's desk, with an M122 with newly purchased Soarer's converter on it*

It's not dead. It's not even pining for the fjords. No matter how much some folks here might wish it to be, it's still very much alive and kicking and making people's lives better, right here, right now.

were shot down with the most arrogant attitude ever.

"Hello, Mr. Kettle. I'm Mr. Pot. You're black."

Those on the other side of the firefight were not exactly lacking in arrogance, either.

[esr]

A record of a good faith effort does not have to be on a public forum. Notice I said "private record". There is no legal reason you have to include his real name or address in any of your posts. Keep a private record of it in the form of dated emails to your lawyer (you can afford a lawyer but not a PI?) or simply make a journal. Sensitive information like names, phone numbers, and addresses should be sent in PMs or emails, not on forum threads. There's nothing wrong with trying to find the guy, but do it in a way that doesn't dox him.

In theory. And believe me, I did consider this.

My belief is that since we're asking for what amounts of a waiver of the fail-closed rule on copyrights on behalf of a community of interest, that community needs to be visibly involved in find Soarer and establishing the status of the code. Otherwise, a skeptical judge might well ask: "You claim that a 'community' has suffered harm, but I don't see a community here. I see a couple of people snooping around on the quiet."

That sort of thing doesn't dispose judges to be friendly. In fact, it's likely to make them wonder if a ploy to convert Soarer's property for monetary advantage is going on using the supposedly injured "community" as a blind. And I worry more about this because there is at least one person selling Soarer's Converters on eBay for money. Using, I might add, hex blobs that were published without a legally binding license or grant of rights.

Legally orihalcon is in a dubious position if Soarer's heirs or assigns choose to push it. And the worst case I was asked to plan against is that some copyright troll shows up with the rights to Soarer's source and a bunch of attack lawyers.

So, now you know one of the reasons I wanted to collect evidence on a public thread. If we ever had to persuade a judge, I wanted to be able to show a public process in which a bunch of people with nothing to hide collaborated to address a problem of interest to all of them.

Even hiring a PI to find Soarer would look a little whiffy - judges tend to think that if somebody spends money like that, there has to be material gain in it for them and maybe something sordid going on. And if the hypothetical trolls ask for statutory damage, one thing we do not want the judge thinking is "Well, defendants had money to hire a PI..."

The best way to look like you're honest and have nothing to hide is to hide nothing. Do everything in public. And every finding goes on a public record.

When statutory damages are on the table, you want to look honest and broke. The somewhat ironic term of art is "judgment-proof".

And now you've effectively forced me to disclose that strategy. I was trying to avoid that, because you never tip your hand in a legal matter until you have to. Doing so is too likely to create handles for the other side's lawyers.

And the more any of you force me to explain the plan, the worse that problem gets. Are you happy now?

[Easy_Spinach]

viewtopic.php?f=2&t=25785&p=486286#p486286

Am I getting this right...?
You went from joining this place trying to buy a soarer converter to this in just two weeks? Take your meds bro, chill tf out.

[Redmaus]

A record of a good faith effort does not have to be on a public forum. Notice I said "private record". There is no legal reason you have to include his real name or address in any of your posts. Keep a private record of it in the form of dated emails to your lawyer (you can afford a lawyer but not a PI?) or simply make a journal. Sensitive information like names, phone numbers, and addresses should be sent in PMs or emails, not on forum threads. There's nothing wrong with trying to find the guy, but do it in a way that doesn't dox him.

In theory. And believe me, I did consider this.

My belief is that since we're asking for what amounts of a waiver of the fail-closed rule on copyrights on behalf of a community of interest, that community needs to be visibly involved in find Soarer and establishing the status of the code. Otherwise, a skeptical judge might well ask: "You claim that a 'community' has suffered harm, but I don't see a community here. I see a couple of people snooping around on the quiet."

You are overthinking this whole thing wayyy too much man. The only way a lawyer or judge will be involved is if soarer or his family start getting harassed by strangers on the internet.

That sort of thing doesn't dispose judges to be friendly. In fact, it's likely to make them wonder if a ploy to convert Soarer's property for monetary advantage is going on using the supposedly injured "community" as a blind. And I worry more about this because there is at least one person selling Soarer's Converters on eBay for money. Using, I might add, hex blobs that were published without a legally binding license or grant of rights.

Legally orihalcon is in a dubious position if Soarer's heirs or assigns choose to push it. And the worst case I was asked to plan against is that some copyright troll shows up with the rights to Soarer's source and a bunch of attack lawyers.

Exactly my point actually. Orihalcon has been selling his converters for over half a decade and nothing has happened to him.

Well, except fat stacks of cash.

[esr]

The only way a lawyer or judge will be involved is if soarer or his family start getting harassed by strangers on the internet.

You are completely - and dangerously - wrong about this.

And every public explanation of why you are wrong that you pry out of me increases and broadens the risk.