OpenWrt Forum Archive

Topic: Unbelievable (Sveasoft)

The content of this topic has been archived between 8 Oct 2015 and 29 Apr 2018. There are no obvious gaps in this topic, but there may still be some posts missing at the end.

vincentfox wrote:

The problem is, as Eric Raymond says, most people incorrectly think of software as something that comes in a box.  Most companies all the way up to IBM who are successful in the software biz, sell their service and support, not the CD in a box.

Originally, this was a pretty strong point with the sveasoft website.  There were a ton of knowledgeable people on the board, as well as the developers, to answer support questions in a timely and professional manner. 

vincentfox wrote:

I don't think that James Ewing actually had such a terrible idea of a paid subscription for a support forum.

Me neither.  However, since the golden days have passed, it seems that the user base is increasing at the same time that the number of knowledgeable people is decreasing.  It seem to be happening pretty frequently now that james doesn't reply to posts just due to their sheer volume.  Given that he has framed this as "you're not paying for the firmware, but but for the support," is seems like my $20 is being spent on having other subscribers answer my questions.

Another misconception is, that when you put your own code under GPL that you loose any copyright of it.
(and that other's think they can do whatever they want to do with it)
You can still use it in commercial programs.

And yes, you can mix GPL PROGRAMS  and not so open/commercial programs  - Suses YaST was an example for that (now also open source).
For example, you can take openwrt and write a commercial closed source GUI  for it. Thats ok, as long as you don't use any GPL code in your program.
(i hope it wasn't a mistake to make that example wink
Another example: you can use an open source html/text editor for your work, but that doesn't mean, that the text or code you wrote with it, must be licensed under GPL.

(Last edited by cabo on 21 Mar 2006, 11:35)

Well at least some of the semi-knowledgable people just moved other places.  As I said, I don't even mind the idea of paying for a support forum. Providing a place with a useful roof over your head implies rent. If occasionally the owner drops in and provides help too that's nice. I used SveaSoft on about a dozen WRT in a community Wisp for quite a while.  I paid the $20 subscription fee. The software was pretty cool, and the forums were useful.  I used to post a lot there, helping the n00bs, as repayment that some of them had helped me out with my issues.

Around the time of Talisman first release, I dared to question James one day about why his download site was down for 3 days without notice, he called if flaming and booted me. All I said was it didn't seem very professional to have the site down but refuse to comment on what's going on. He would log onto forums, answer other questions but ignore any questions about the download site.  I work in a datacenter and within minutes of any service being down we post notices everywhere about system status.  It avoids a lot of pestering and it's professional. He doesn't believe in that sort of thing. First I was threatened with a terse email, then I noticed some of my posts deleted and one that mentioned DD-WRT had "an Alchemy fork" substituted in the text. Very childish. Then I was booted entirely when I refused to agree to be silent about it.

The trick in doing a good organization, is to have someone sharp and personable at the front of it like Linus. They don't have to answer every question or personally DO all that much. But they have to attract the kind of people who can make it all work. As the example of the kind of person you do NOT want at the center of a community that judges people based on merit and their cooperative nature, I would name James Ewing. The thing succeeded so well for a while not because of him, but in spite of him. There are many people who have neat ideas.  Sometimes those people are ill-suited for the task of running the show.

(Last edited by vincentfox on 21 Mar 2006, 00:19)

tamerlane wrote:

it seems that the user base is increasing at the same time that the number of knowledgeable people is decreasing.

Just curious where you come up with this stat. 

It would seem like to me that it would be difficult to continue to increase the userbase now that there are so many decent alternatives to sveasoft, as opposed to a few years ago when the options were far fewer and openwrt was not mature enough (imho) for primetime due to not having a developed gui (amongst other things) required by the windows using masses.

Ydef wrote:

Just curious where you come up with this stat.

Okay, I admit I haven't performed a statistical analysis, but there is a noticeable dilution of knowledge within the forums.  The "smart" people are seem to be leaving at a faster rate than the new guys who are signing up.  Who knows why people keep coming, but considering how frequently some new subscriber asks if the firmware will work on their v5 wrt54g, its probably not because they researched all the options first...

They probably saw the big ad for SveaSoft on Amazon.

There's probably a fair percentage that will drop out without bothering with a refund. Much like companies rely on the fact that a fair percentage of people buy things because of rebate prices, then never file the rebate form.

It seems that paranoia never ends. My access to sveasoft site has been completly denied. It seems he is silently droping any connection atempt from my static ip address. As if there are no dial-ip, dynamic dsl ip addresses, and anonymizers anymore .....
If only he used all that time programming and supporting subscribers instead of chasing ghosts .... :-) James, James ... did I treat you so badly? I think not. Don't you know that you shouldn't do things to others which you don't wan't others to do to you?!

Ydef wrote:

I do think there is a place for a profit model since there is a certain faction what prefers a subscription model because of the support they provide.  Not everyone has a linux background, or even the impetus to want to pick up what they need to in order to run openwrt.  There's enough people that run windows out there that imo would easily fall into this group

You hit it on the head.  The customer service and handholding is what you sell when you're in a business that has open source software at its core.  It's added value, especially for those who don't know much about computers or networking.  But the software itself cannot be sold or licensed for money.  You got it for nothing and the only string attached is if you re-distribute it in any manner you have to release your code too.  IBM, for one, is showing this model can work on a large scale.

Ydef wrote:

I'm just against the massive backlash that i have seen a great deal of regarding his profiting from from software written in linux.  Had the code been original, I think that such production should be encouraged rather than causing him to be ostracized as he has

Well duh!  And if the queen had balls she'd be the king.

The backlash isn't because the software runs on Linux (it's not written in Linux; Linux is not a programming language), it's precisely because it's NOT his original work.  He has taken the work of others and profited from it in contravention of the terms under which he already agreed to.  It's called copyright violation and it's illegal.  Had it been all original code he would be a hero.  You're trivializing this a bit I think.  There's NO WAY a one-man show could ever produce all that software in one lifetime.  From the compilers to the operating system to the application code, it's all being distributed in violation of the copyright holders' rights.

When you distribute software you've obtained under the GPL you explicitly agree to its terms.  When you turn around and blatantly violate those terms the license you were granted under the GPL automatically terminates.  In this case, distribution without a licens amounts to copyright violation.  It sickens many of us to see him get away with it.  That's where the outrage and backlash comes from.  That and him being an arrogant little prick with a bad attitude.

(Last edited by Craven on 21 Mar 2006, 10:55)

Craven wrote:

But the software itself cannot be sold or licensed for money.

Wrong. He can sell his software and he can add his own proprietary bits, just as long as these parts are not derived from GPL code.
The reason that his license has been terminated is not because he's selling the software, it's because he's not distributing the modified sources to the GPL'd parts of his software.
See http://forum.openwrt.org/viewtopic.php?pid=23317#p23317 for more information.

By the way, he did post an offer to give the sources to subscribers, but I really don't believe that it's sincere, since so many people claim that they have been refused access.
And by the way, the GPL says that this offer has to be valid for anyone, not just his own customers...

(Last edited by nbd on 21 Mar 2006, 11:08)

nbd wrote:

By the way, he did post an offer to give the sources to subscribers, but I really don't believe that it's sincere, since so many people claim that they have been refused access.
And by the way, the GPL says that this offer has to be valid for anyone, not just his own customers...

I've been one of his customers that asked for Talisman's source code; he promised and never released it. More than one year ago I took out all sveasoft's firmwares from my network and started again with OpenWrt.
They made a nice firmware (a bit buggy but features rich and effective) but he is a liar and a thief and it is better for all the people to not have anything to do with this kind of men.
By adding the web interface to OpenWrt, there's no more need of Sveasoft; just keep working and leave Svesoft boil in their soup... IMHO

Regards

Wallace

Congratulations to sveasoft. Our management read this announcement, and sveasoft as result will loose one of serious contracts. We do not agree to pay for software, which break GPL, or any kind of license.

The solution to comply with GPL and keep his source code to him self seems rather simple.  Release all the GPL affected code as required and give access to the proprietary binaries through subscription. 

Seems like most of what he's developing is web interfaces and configuration tools.  If the source code doesn't have the web interface it isn't going to affect his market one bit.  Most of the buyers want a simple drop in firmware to do more with their router. 

With this approach the profit model is still there, he can sit on his code all he wants and comply with the GPL.  Instead he choses to piss on the GPL and risk the whole business.

Craven wrote:

But the software itself cannot be sold or licensed for money.  You got it for nothing and the only string attached is if you re-distribute it in any manner you have to release your code too.

Wrong.  The software itself can be sold or licensed for money, as long as it doesn't include code in the GPL.  You're making a common misperception of the GPL.

Craven wrote:

The backlash isn't because the software runs on Linux (it's not written in Linux; Linux is not a programming language), it's precisely because it's NOT his original work.  He has taken the work of others and profited from it in contravention of the terms under which he already agreed to.  It's called copyright violation and it's illegal.  Had it been all original code he would be a hero.  You're trivializing this a bit I think.  There's NO WAY a one-man show could ever produce all that software in one lifetime.  From the compilers to the operating system to the application code, it's all being distributed in violation of the copyright holders' rights.
When you distribute software you've obtained under the GPL you explicitly agree to its terms.  When you turn around and blatantly violate those terms the license you were granted under the GPL automatically terminates.  In this case, distribution without a licens amounts to copyright violation.  It sickens many of us to see him get away with it.  That's where the outrage and backlash comes from.  That and him being an arrogant little prick with a bad attitude.

Actually, far from trivializing it, I'm merely pointing out his right if it were in fact his original code.  Again, you're completely missing the point that in NO WAY does a one man show have to produce all that software in order to profit off of software he's written that works with GPL licensed software, as long as no GPL code is used in his code.  If you read my original statement you'll see i made the disclaimer that since I don't know what code was or wasn't in his code, I'm not qualified to judge whether he violated anything ... my statements came from generally speaking.  Please read more carefully when going off on a rant to make sure you don't miss the point completely, as is the case here.

And when I was referring to software written in linux, that's exactly what I meant.  I've seen flames thrown because people assume that due to the GPL nature of most of the software written for linux, especially of the distros which act as the user environment, that such is goto jail card for anyone that tries to profit from software written for it, for which you seem to have similar biases.  This is simply not the case.  FYI, linux is also a development environment, so it's perfectly legitimate to say something has been written in linux.  Please think these things through more carefully before attempting to correct someone on semantics to make sure you don't misunderstand entirely, as is the case here.

(Last edited by Ydef on 21 Mar 2006, 20:39)

Ydef wrote:

Wrong.  The software itself can be sold or licensed for money, as long as it doesn't include code in the GPL.  You're making a common misperception of the GPL.

Actually, you can even sell GPL'd software, the only problem is that you might only make one sale -- as soon as they have the software they're free to redistribute it.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html

This thread meanders all over....

SveaSoft wrote:

The GPL itself is an "all or nothing" license based on the economic and political theories of Karl Marx.
....................
Hopefully a US court will decide the validity and legal reach of the GPL sometime soon (GNU is a US-based organization).

I wonder if the Wallace vs. FSF GPL case being tossed out today, counts as validation? The word "reach" could have several meanings, not certain what is meant.

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?stor … 0201540127

(Last edited by vincentfox on 21 Mar 2006, 21:42)

Ydef wrote:

Wrong.  The software itself can be sold or licensed for money, as long as it doesn't include code in the GPL.  You're making a common misperception of the GPL.

You are right, of course, as are others who pointed this out.  And to touch on what mbm said, when you are dealing with businesses, they are loathe to buy something and then share it with others.  You don't see big companies like HP or Schlund or Oracle buying (licensing) software and then turning around and giving copies to IBM and Toyota for free.

At the scale we operate on here, small cheap router firmware, the people interested in it are mainly hobbyists or enthusiasts, many of whom don't mind sharing their software with or without a license (although in this case there is indeed a valid license).  James is afraid people will duplicate the Sveasoft firmware and give it away.  Which they would as is their right under the GPL.  His fears are well founded and the only way he can make any money on the deal is by denying the code to others.  He violates the GPL by doing so but it's not hard to understand why he does it.  He thinks he's special and in order to make a buck he's going to break the rules as he pleases.

The fact that nobody has stepped up to the plate to stop him angers me as much as, if not more than, his lowlife behavior in the first place.

Ydef wrote:

Actually, far from trivializing it, I'm merely pointing out his right if it were in fact his original code.

Perhaps.  Still, you pose a hypothetical circumstance that has little bearing on the subject at hand.

Ydef wrote:

Again, you're completely missing the point that in NO WAY does a one man show have to produce all that software in order to profit off of software he's written that works with GPL licensed software, as long as no GPL code is used in his code.

No kidding.

Ydef wrote:

If you read my original statement you'll see i made the disclaimer that since I don't know what code was or wasn't in his code, I'm not qualified to judge whether he violated anything...

You admit you don't know what you're talking about.  Thanks for clearing that up.  Over 90% of what Sveasoft distributes was written by others.  Does that make it easier for you?


Ydef wrote:

And when I was referring to software written in linux, that's exactly what I meant. ... so it's perfectly legitimate to say something has been written in linux.

That is one of the funniest and most ignorant statements I've read in a long time.  Only a truly ignorant person would make such a claim.  I have never ever heard anybody use the phrase "written in Linux".

You're living in your own little dream world.  You invent hypothetical arguments and whine about it when someone points out that both your assumptions and conclusions are wrong.  Written in Linux.  LOL

(Last edited by Craven on 21 Mar 2006, 23:26)

Craven wrote:

James is afraid people will duplicate the Sveasoft firmware and give it away.  Which they would as is their right under the GPL.  His fears are well founded and the only way he can make any money on the deal is by denying the code to others.  He violates the GPL by doing so but it's not hard to understand why he does it.  He thinks he's special and in order to make a buck he's going to break the rules as he pleases.

The GPL only gives you the right to redistribute software licensed under the GPL. While the firmware does contain several pieces of GPL software, you can't jump to the conclusion that "everything within the firmware must be GPL", this is one of the mistakes that lead James to incorrectly cite Marxism. The software only becomes GPL when it's linked into existing GPL'd software, either by code reuse, static linking or in some cases dynamic linking.

I understand that.  With things like proprietary binary-only kernel modules and drivers some companies escape having to release their source code.  I don't like it but they're not violating the GPL by doing it.  My response to that is more disappointment than anger and I tend to shy away from those companies when I'm looking to buy something.  Unfortunately with wireless chipsets you can't tell up front what you're getting when you buy wireless NICs.

I imagine custom scripts and web pages you develop on your own that don't incorporate any other GPL code would also qualify.

Craven wrote:

Perhaps.  Still, you pose a hypothetical circumstance that has little bearing on the subject at hand.

sigh.  Again, you're missing the point, and it's pretty obvious that you'll never get the point. 

Ydef wrote:

Again, you're completely missing the point that in NO WAY does a one man show have to produce all that software in order to profit off of software he's written that works with GPL licensed software, as long as no GPL code is used in his code.

Craven wrote:

No kidding.

So you admit that YOU don't know what you're talking about because if you had any sense you would see that the statement you're agreeing to is completely contradictory to what you originally said. 

Ydef wrote:

If you read my original statement you'll see i made the disclaimer that since I don't know what code was or wasn't in his code, I'm not qualified to judge whether he violated anything...

Craven wrote:

You admit you don't know what you're talking about.  Thanks for clearing that up.  Over 90% of what Sveasoft distributes was written by others.  Does that make it easier for you?

You obviously still don't get it.  I never had any intention about commenting on what sveasoft distributes and doesn't distribute.  It does make it easier for me to ID you as a troll though.



Craven wrote:

That is one of the funniest and most ignorant statements I've read in a long time.  Only a truly ignorant person would make such a claim.  I have never ever heard anybody use the phrase "written in Linux".

You're living in your own little dream world.  You invent hypothetical arguments and whine about it when someone points out that both your assumptions and conclusions are wrong.  Written in Linux.  LOL

And despite others here already pointing out how your statements are nothing short of wrong, you continue resort to flaming me as if I care.  I have never resorted to flaming you, I only asked you to please think through your statements a little more carefully.  But when its pointed out you are wrong by myself and others, you lash out and accuse others instead of acknowledge your own obvious shortcomings.  As if I care what some troll thinks.  I find you amusing though. smile

(Last edited by Ydef on 22 Mar 2006, 03:33)

Must we start secondary flame-war in the midst of this thread? I suppose it's inevitable.....

Suggest an agree-to-disagree and let's move on.

vincentfox wrote:

Must we start secondary flame-war in the midst of this thread? I suppose it's inevitable.....

Suggest an agree-to-disagree and let's move on.

Oh, it appears that things are progressing quite nicely wink

- Flamewar...  check!
- Flamewar-within-a-flamewar... check!
- Flamewar-within-a-flamewar-within-a-flamewar... in progress
- Violation of Godwin's Law... on hold

tamerlane wrote:

Violation of Godwin's Law... on hold

Does mention of "Marx" qualify (sort of an anti-Godwin's law)?

- DL

nbd/Felix Fietkau and I had an email discussion where I informed him that any Sveasoft subscriber can request subscriber-only source via a PM to me on our forums and that no one has ever been told "no".

I also offered to immediately build a tarball for whatever release rridley/Ephraim claimed he had asked for and was told "no". (He didn't ask and was never told "no", though he was banned from the forums for flamebaiting and threatening me in PM's).

Though I had asked nbd/Felix Fietkau to a) keep the discussion private and b) we were willing to make any reasonable changes to keep him happy nbd cut off the discussion without offering ay compromise, with no conditions he wanted met so could eliminate whatever issue he sees as our "violation" of the GPL, without accepting a source tarball for his personal approval so we could end this matter with rridley/Ephraim, in short the exchange was simply used to fan this flame thread. So there is no where to go with this from our viewpoint. No one is seeking a solution. This is simply public showboating.

And let's be completely frank - the real issue is that the GNU culture does not want anyone charging for software or profiting from software development.

Should anyone from OpenWRT actually want to solve this issue I am all ears.

-----------------------

Anyone who wants full source code to public firmware, please see the Downloads link on our forums. The full Alchemy source has been there for months. You can also find most of this source in any DD-WRT source tarball.

Any subscriber who wants a buildable source tarball that will build the exact same firmware image he/she can download as a binary from our Downloads server please PM me on our forums.

The next Sveasoft subscriber-only firmware release will occur concommitment with the release of our online source build system, which will automate source tarball creation. Source tarballs will build the *exact* binary downloaded by a subscriber - auth system and all. Some non-GPL parts will be binary only most non-GPL and all GPL components will be released with full source.

----------------------------

The Sveasoft forums are a place where politeness and respect for others are not optional. Generally anyone who is posting abusive, flame, or flamebaiting posts is warned once, then shown the door. 99% of the time I also send a full refund of their $20, even though they may have downloaded firmware multiple times and received support for many months. In those few instances a refund is not sent it is because the poster knowingly violated our posting guidelines after a warning with the express intent of a confrontation - as in rridley/Ephraim's case

----------------------------

Oh, and - Nazis!

Godwin - check

(Last edited by sveasoft on 22 Mar 2006, 12:08)

sveasoft wrote:

Though I had asked nbd/Felix Fietkau to a) keep the discussion private and b) we were willing to make any reasonable changes to keep him happy nbd cut off the discussion without offering ay compromise, with no conditions he wanted met so could eliminate whatever issue he sees as our "violation" of the GPL, without accepting a source tarball for his personal approval so we could end this matter with rridley/Ephraim, in short the exchange was simply used to fan this flame thread. So there is no where to go with this from our viewpoint. No one is seeking a solution. This is simply public showboating.

Interesting that you mention me cutting off the discussion, when it was you who added me to your ignore list smile
I do admit that this ignore was due to me making a joke here in this thread. But I was only trying out a different way to get the point across which you had been ignoring in our private discussion the whole time.

sveasoft wrote:

And let's be completely frank - the real issue is that the GNU culture does not want anyone charging for software or profiting from software development.

BAAD COMMIES! REALLY BAD COMMIES!! smile

sveasoft wrote:

Anyone who wants full source code to public firmware, please see the Downloads link on our forums. The full Alchemy source has been there for months. You can also find most of this source in any DD-WRT source tarball.

Who cares about the old sources? Put up some new ones...

sveasoft wrote:

The next Sveasoft subscriber-only firmware release will occur concommitment with the release of our online source build system, which will automate source tarball creation. Source tarballs will be the *exact* binary downloaded by a subscriber - auth system and all. Some non-GPL parts will be binary only.

Well, that would change a lot, if you actually did it this time. You've been announcing it over and over again in the last months...

sveasoft wrote:

Oh, and - Nazis!
Godwin - check

To quote from Wikipedia:

There is a tradition in many Usenet newsgroups that once such a comparison is made, the thread in which the comment was posted is over and whoever mentioned the Nazis has automatically lost whatever debate was in progress.

To wit -

Should anyone from OpenWRT actually want to solve this issue I am all ears.

Any takers? No? Ok, - "Nazi's". I lost. Oj vey. Godwin save me.

(Last edited by sveasoft on 22 Mar 2006, 12:06)