Seeking Soarer - evidence thread

[esr]

Soarer shared his code under a username that was never concretely tied to a real name or address, so basically anyone could claim to be Soarer for legal purposes, right? If no one knows his identity then how could anyone file a troll lawsuit?

Some people on DT do know his real identity.

[esr]

His name is Robert Paulson

The assertion isn't good enough. On what basis do you assert this?

[Muirium]

They watched Fight Club.

Some people on DT do know his real identity.

I am one of them. And to correct the opening post: it is *not* Harry.

By the way, add that to the previous dodgy claim that he's from West Calder. He's not, never has been, and never said he was. Don't jump to indirect inferences from his old posts. He was as chatty as the worst of us (hi!)

[esr]

Honestly esr I hope you have to explain every single bit of your stupid plan. This is classic fucking 'I'm so smurt' shit, you bang on about wanting to get soarer declared dead, then suddenly it's 'well ACKSHULLY I never wanted to do that! I've only been posting about doing it for 10 pages! you're so fucking retard bad poster!'

I would posit it is in fact you who are the retard bad poster who is constantly moving the goalposts in this thread.

Please point out where I proposed that we needed to have Soarer declared dead.

Oh wait. I didn't, because I was avoiding talking about legal strategy until effectively forced to it. And have only done so in two replies, one of which was to you explaining why it would be a silly idea.

[esr]

I am one of them. And to correct the opening post: it is *not* Harry.

By the way, add that to the previous dodgy claim that he's from West Calder. He's not, never has been, and never said he was. Don't jump to indirect inferences from his old posts. He was as chatty as the worst of us (hi!)

Removed.

[Rayndalf]

Fair enough. I'll lay out my own position here:

• I'd like the community* to reach out to Soarer to seek his permission to give his code (or Arakula's etc.) a licence, once and for all.
• If Soarer cannot be found, we* should work out whether he's alive or dead. There is a world of difference, even in the seemingly trivial matter of open source software development.
• If he really is sadly gone from the world, then we* should use esr's procedure to seek permission from his estate to open source his keyboard converter / controller.

...

Now about those *asterisks! The "we" I'm talking about is NOT this public thread where the whole internet can see everything in the open. The "we" is esr and a handful of us already in possession of such things as Soarer's name and address (yes, I have it from 2013) and indeed Arakula's source code. This is inherently private stuff and should not be shared around in the open. So I agree with you on that specific point.

I think this is a very reasonable approach and I fully trust you to do the right thing. I'm pretty sure Soarer's estate knows nothing about Soarer's hobbiest projects, but I guess trying to follow the law might be a good thing. Unless his estate are dicks about it.

It was posts like:

...
2. Soarer's full name and last known address need to go public. Yes, I understand some people object to this, but we need to make the effort to verify his death and contact his heirs. Not only does the law of both Great Britain and the U.S. permit this, it is effectively required of us in order for his heirs to be able to assert whatever interest they might have in the code. And we need to be seen to have respected their interests!

This is not doxxing, as nobody intends any harm to Soarer or his reputation and the facts create what lawyers call a rebuttable presumption that he is dead. Rather, we wish to honor him and carry forward his work I think it is vanishingly unlikely his heirs will say anything other than "carry on, he clearly would have wanted it that way". But, as I keep pointing out, establishing a public record that demonstrates we tried to do the right thing is the best protection we can have against legal trouble over the decompiled code.
...

and

...

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.

...

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?

That are really hard to read charitably. Esr may have a valid legal strategy, but he is really bad at communicating.
Based on these posts I (and likely many other people) were under the impression that he wanted to make Soarer's information public and that this God forsaken thread is some form of evidence to put before a judge. I have no idea why there would be a "different side" with lawyers (because Soarer wouldn't sue over this, and his estate probably doesn't even know about his hobbiest work).

I don't think this needs to be a legal thing. Soarer's hasn't been developed further not because of legal baggage (no one cares, he made the compiled version free, why would he be otherwise protective of it after developement ceased?) but because in practical terms the new functionality people want to add is for weird edge cases.

The only reason this code needs to be made public domain is if someone is developing a high profile product based on it and wants to mass produce and sell it at a large scale.

[Muirium]

The only reason this code needs to be made public domain is if someone is developing a high profile product based on it and wants to mass produce and sell it at a large scale.

Nope. Much, much more important to me: it needs to be open so we can recompile the hex file for a different architecture once Teensy 2 compatible project boards go the way of the Dodo.

Right now: we're totally screwed if those boards dry up. Portability is key.

[esr]

His name is Robert Paulson

The assertion isn't good enough. On what basis do you assert this?

Also: Street address?

[Muirium]

It's just a dumb joke, esr. Quit it!

[Rayndalf]

The only reason this code needs to be made public domain is if someone is developing a high profile product based on it and wants to mass produce and sell it at a large scale.

Nope. Much, much more important to me: it needs to be open so we can recompile the hex file for a different architecture once Teensy compatible project boards go the way of the Dodo.

Right now: we're totally screwed if those boards dry up. Portability is key.

So uh... where would the uncompiled source come from? Soarer never posted it and the files are likely irrecoverable. Even if the code is opened up development is reliant on reverse engineered crap. Which we already have, and no one really seems to eager to work on it.

Is this thread just meant to convince a crack team of coders to get on that? I think starting a project to improve Soarers would be far more productive than asking a confused guy in a wig if it's ok first.

Why would someone who doesn't own the code (and also can't confirm it's status) try to legally extort money out of the anonymous volunteer devs working on freely shared abandonware?

Just fucking do it. Don't wait for permission you don't need. If no one is developing it then it's for any reason other than "it's illegal"

[Muirium]

Even if the code is opened up development is reliant on reverse engineered crap. Which we already have, and no one really seems to eager to work on it.

Yes, that! No one really wants to touch it, because of this whole doubt about it being ethical, let alone legal to share. It's a proper sticky mess.

Now, if someone built their own equivalent to Soarer's converter (and controller, that bit's really useful too!) as a straightforward firmware to flash, with a similarly solid set of default settings, and let you remap, relayer and macro program it with a web browser instead of command line tools—and publish it all under an explicit OPEN LICENCE—that'd be superb.

But where are they?

[esr]

That are really hard to read charitably. Esr may have a valid legal strategy, but he is really bad at communicating.
Based on these posts I (and likely many other people) were under the impression that he wanted to make Soarer's information public and that this God forsaken thread is some form of evidence to put before a judge.

Yes, that impression is not wrong. I don't see a more effective way to minimize legal risk.

We can't use this thread directly now because so many people crapped all over it. But public discovery is still important, and information harvested from this thread can be useful.

I have no idea why there would be a "different side" with lawyers (because Soarer wouldn't sue over this, and his estate probably doesn't even know about his hobbiest work).

I was told early on (before this thread) that there was a worry about copyright trolls. So I proceeded to plan against a worst-case attack by copyright trolls.

I think it is most likely that Soarer is dead and his heirs have no idea about his projects. I think it is very unlikely that a judge would assess more than de minimis damages. But you don't minimize your legal risk by making comforting assumptions that can turn around and bite you on the ass.

[Muirium]

Indeed.

Soarer may not actually be dead, mind. I was gone a few years myself. Everyone has their reasons… life can be hard. So hard that at least two people who posted in that thread, including ironically its OP, are gone from this world now.

[esr]

So uh... where would the uncompiled source come from? Soarer never posted it and the files are likely irrecoverable. Even if the code is opened up development is reliant on reverse engineered crap. Which we already have, and no one really seems to eager to work on it.

I don't think we're likely to recover Soarer's actual sources either. The best we're likely to be able to do is proceed from something like Arakula's decompilation. Which does have one huge advantage: we can produce a replica of working binary from it.

Maybe the reason nobody is working on the decompiled code is that few people knew it existed before this thread and it's not under an open-source license? If we fix those problems attracting people to work on it get much easier. I've already volunteered the bit I think I'm good for.

Is this thread just meant to convince a crack team of coders to get on that?

No, it's meant to create conditions under which people can do that without worrying about legal exposure.

Why would someone who doesn't own the code (and also can't confirm it's status) try to legally extort money out of the anonymous volunteer devs working on freely shared abandonware?

The worst-case premise is that a copyright troll got the legal rights to Soarer's code from his heirs, knowing that people have been selling products based on it and thus smells sweet, sweet money.

Likely? No. Possible? You better believe it. I spent three years being an expert witness on a multi-billion dollar IP lawsuit in which the attacker had a flimsier cause of action than I'm describing. That's how I know a lot of this stuff.

[Rayndalf]

Yes, that! No one really wants to touch it, because of this whole doubt about it being ethical, let alone legal to share. It's a proper mess.

I really don't think it's ethics holding people back, it's just that most programmers are comfortable with using QMK for the weird stuff. Soarer's is the "old" way of doing things, it still works, and it's feature complete (from what I understand) so it's not worth the effort (at the moment). But like you said, once Atmel pulls the plug it's done.

I don't understand why people would be scared of violating the letter (but not spirit) of a law no one will enforce, especially considering at least a third of us actively pirate media which we actually could pay for.

Yes, that impression is not wrong. I don't see a more effective way to minimize legal risk.

We can't use this thread directly now because so many people crapped all over it. But public discovery is still important, and information harvested from this thread can be useful.

I strongly disagree with this stance. You're slightly reducing your legal risk but opening up Soarer to all kinds of crap. I don't care what's more legal, that's just shitty.

I was told early on (before this thread) that there was a worry about copyright trolls. So I proceeded to plan against a worst-case attack by copyright trolls.

I'm sure all our banter has chummed the waters, but if you aren't selling anything and don't have a physical identity tied to your online presence then how do they send a cease and desist? Do they make a DT account and private message it?

This just sounds like paranoia. If anyone actually cares you can easily make it impossible for them to do anything about it.

[Rayndalf]

The worst-case premise is that a copyright troll got the legal rights to Soarer's code from his heirs, knowing that people have been selling products based on it and thus smells sweet, sweet money.

Likely? No. Possible? You better believe it. I spent three years being an expert witness on a multi-billion dollar IP lawsuit in which the attacker had a flimsier cause of action than I'm describing. That's how I know a lot of this stuff.

Surely talking about any of this is just increase the risk of that (or not, most of us don't even know who he is). I strongly suspect that Soarer's "heirs" don't even know his username was Soarer.

I'm just not worried about such improbable possibilities. I eat cold cuts and drive a car, and those things kill people every day, the risk of a troll suit being filed against anonymous computer people who don't even sell it is hilariously small.

[Muirium]

Okay. Well when someone does deliver on that outline I posted above for a next gen Soarer's converter, be sure to ping me. I want to be right there at the second coming!

[webwit]

This is all very nice, but ffs esr, when you are going to flaunt your boards?

[esr]

I'm sure all our banter has chummed the waters, but if you aren't selling anything and don't have a physical identity tied to your online presence then how do they send a cease and desist? Do they make a DT account and private message it?

The goal is to create conditions under which Arakula's decompiled source or something like it can be put on GitLab with a BSD or equivalent license.

The problem is, once you do that you've surfaced the identity of the project owner and all contributors. They could be sued for copyright infringement and their GitLab identities tied back to meatspace, There's also orihalcon, who is a pretty fat target having made actual money using Soarer's hex blobs.

This triggers a rant I can no longer refrain from issuing...

DT people have what by my standards is a very weird culture. Anonymous developers? Shipping hex blobs with no licenses? That's...bizarre. In the hacker culture I come from, we assume that disclosed source code is the only thing that can be trusted, and people will stand behind their work with their meatspace identities if required. Everyone is accountable, development is transparent, and you make legal cover for cooperation with proper grants of rights from the get-go.

We didn't evolve those customs by accident. We spent 40 years learning how you get screwed if you don't do that process right, in ways that start with the kind of mess Soarer left behind and get worse when the stakes are higher. Happens I wrote down some of our rules - not that I invented them, mind you, I just noticed why they worked and made us more conscious of them.

In terms of my culture, Soarer did all of you wrong by failing to publish source and license it properly, creating a maintenance nightmare and legal vulnerability that never should have existed. In terms of my culture he damn well ought to be tracked down and if he's still alive slapped upside the head for being dangerously sloppy and careless. You people may not see it that way, but it's because you don't have the norms we do in hacker culture that Soarer's converter will go poof if the particular hardware he built blobs for gets end-of-lifed - and, orihalcon is in some danger of being fined for all the profits he's made and punitive damages on top of that.

You can't have it both ways. You can't have sustainable development practices combined with anonymity backed by a taboo against "doxxing". That DOESN'T FUCKING WORK. If you want to produce quality code you have to put the project first, not the project owner - disclosed source and transparency all the way down is how you build development communities that trust each other and last.

I can't make your choices for you. I can tell you that if you don't clean up your practice, fuckups like this will happen again. And again. And again. And again.

[shallot]

this keyboard forum is not your masturbatory libertarian linux wankfest.

[shallot]

also, really finding it hard to confabulate the following:

200 dollar damages most

and

orihalcon is in danger of being RUINED (as if i care, dickhead is ripping people off hard)

[depletedvespene]

this keyboard forum is not your masturbatory libertarian linux wankfest.

The horse is dead. Have some sense of decency and stop beating it.

[shallot]

this keyboard forum is not your masturbatory libertarian linux wankfest.

The horse is dead. Have some sense of decency and stop beating it.

lol, nah, soz mate. if, as you say, i've ruined everyone's perception of me here, i've nothing left to lose, and i will harangue esr on every post he makes, because he a prick, man

[Easy_Spinach]

thanks for posting my recipe Moerkedal

Very welcome

[depletedvespene]

Neither is the AEK2.

They're worth a little work if starting from a good point. But that board's switches were trashed. I recall you advising a rolling Matias upgrade. Something like that sounds a nightmare. A mediocre board that keeps on breaking. Excellence indeed.

Yeah, this is the kind of pretentious garbage elitism I'm on about. I might be a prick but at least I don't actively try to discourage people from doing the hobby we're all here to do.

"Stop using Soarer's Converter!!!" is the central message of your crap. WAY to "encourage" people to do their hobby.

Why webwit refrains from suspending you reflects poorly ONLY on webwit.

[Muirium]

Orihalcon's fiddly cables are quality stuff. Go compete with him on the open market if you're so sure, Challot.

[depletedvespene]

nothing about this thread brings me pleasure. if this forum had active mods it would be long gone.

You are CLEARLY deriving pleasure of giving free rein to your abusive manners. Don't add "continuous lying" to the list of defects you have unequivocally shown in this shitshow of a thread.

[Easy_Spinach]

I hate this community so much

[Easy_Spinach]

I hate this community so much

[Easy_Spinach]

I hate this community so much