XMOD Use Agreement (no legal garbage)

[Tao]

See, if you really wanted to get into it, because the software was posted for download with no restrictions and no required pricing vehicle (i.e., you didn't need to pay anything before you were able to download), the software was free for public consumption. Lornecash was selling the means to take the openly downloaded software and put it on your gun.

It's roughly analogous to going to a frat party; when you walk up, you pay $5 and get a cup, not the beer. As such, you are buying the means with which to drink beer which is provided free and is otherwise unable to be consumed. Kinda.

Further, Lornecash, will you be paying taxes on any proceeds? Schedule C is calling.

True. However, anyone who bought the programmer have it in their contract of purchase that they may not use their programmer to flash other peoples guns. The people who have are in breach of contract.
People who have their own programmers can install at will...

But yeah I hope poeple will donate since he put alot of work into it. Hopefully lorne will come out with a 1.9 which you will need a license for and perhaps he can do it in a way he will get paid for it, rather than scrapping it altogether...

[going_home]

See, if you really wanted to get into it, because the software was posted for download with no restrictions and no required pricing vehicle (i.e., you didn't need to pay anything before you were able to download), the software was free for public consumption. Lornecash was selling the means to take the openly downloaded software and put it on your gun.
Further, Lornecash, will you be paying taxes on any proceeds? Schedule C is calling.

Bingo, he gets it.

Nice try Bman.
The link I posted is an auction thats 1.5 days old.
Thats the best you can do ?
Thats here and now like this thread.
After two years of free unrestricted downloads it means zip, zero, zilch, nada.
But you go ahead on because:
1) I'm not going to agree with you and you arent going to agree with me so further discourse is pointless
2) I dont have an Emag and likely never will again so its a mute point as far as I'm concerned

You have a wonderful day now !

[devildog]

Guys you are missing the point. He is not threatening anybody with licensing agreements and legal action. He is asking for the kindness of ao to help him out. If you don't want to, you don't have to. Why is everyone getting so defensive about this?

[robertsr1811]

It's because they know they're in the wrong.

[phatty123]

If the cable and or software did't come with a user agreement stating the rules of use, well then their is nothing that can be said. People can flash as many guns as they want. I doubt you can make a user agreement retroactive. Should of thought about the long run.


my two cents

-barry

[Phaelynar]

It's because they know they're in the wrong.

If you bought the coolest and newest software for a Blackberry that allowed you to install it on unlimited amounts of other people's phones with no restrictions at the time of purchase, then whoever created the software retroactively created an "agreement" (that no one ever agreed upon) demanding $200 for every phone you've sold in the past with the software on it, you'd do it?

I'm going to say nope. They wouldn't see a cent from anyone. That's the cost of doing business my friend. If he was out to make money he should have made this the original agreement at date of purchase or refuse to sell programmers and flash boards himself for a nominal fee. Instead, he chose to make money through selling the programmers. The only person's fault that is, is his. No one is morally wrong for handing out free flashes, selling the programmer and keeping their flashes, or whatever else they feel like doing with the programmer or his software as it was never stated that it was wrong to do so originally.

If it wasn't illegal to download/pirate/film a movie in the theater/etc would the people who did it feel morally wrong? Nope. People (I'd say the majority of) do it today when it's illegal and they don't feel wrong about it.

So in other words: It's not morally wrong if there were no morals regarding the use of the programmers originally.

[Looper]

I work in the IT industry and I can tell you that what you have here on AO is software piracy.

For all of you that bought the programmer; you had to install "AVR Studio 4" and USB drivers onto your PC for the programmer. How was this accomplished? By reading a XMod users guide that was nicely constructed and very informative. It was so informative that it had a License agreement in the very beginning. It would be real interested in know how many people, with programmers, where able to get their emags flashed with out reading the XMod users guide.

Shrink wrap contracts are license agreements or other terms and conditions of a (putatively) contractual nature which can only be read and accepted by the consumer after opening the product. The term describes the shrinkwrap plastic wrapping used to coat software boxes, though these contracts are not limited to the software industry. Web-wrap, click-wrap and browse-wrap are related terms which refer to license agreements in software which is downloaded or used over the internet.

You can download and read the XMod users guide without buying the software so all the complaints about not seeing the agreement before you bought a programmer has no argument to stand on.

The ultimate question is, what kind of a person do you want to be know as... One who uses others or one that respects others.... Remember Karma....

If you do not like what is happing maybe you should have your XMod firmware removed out of protest.

[B-Pow]

Why is everyone getting so defensive about this?

Because as a whole paintballers who are mature and have been around for a while...and remeber what has happened in the past.....are jaded. Once bitten twice shy...it wasn't lorne who burned us in the past....but you'd be nieve to believe that we haven't been burned...several times.

[Looper]

I dont have an Emag and likely never will again so its a mute point as far as I'm concerned

So tell me again, why are you here?

[devildog]

Because as a whole paintballers who are mature and have been around for a while...and remeber what has happened in the past.....are jaded. Once bitten twice shy...it wasn't lorne who burned us in the past....but you'd be nieve to believe that we haven't been burned...several times.

How is he burning you? He is REQUESTING donations, if you dont want to, you dont have to. So where is the burn?

To phaelynar- he is not demanding money from anyone, especially not from markers sold in the past like you said in your example.

[robnix]

I work in the IT industry and I can tell you that what you have here on AO is software piracy.

For all of you that bought the programmer; you had to install "AVR Studio 4" and USB drivers onto your PC for the programmer. How was this accomplished? By reading a XMod users guide that was nicely constructed and very informative. It was so informative that it had a License agreement in the very beginning. It would be real interested in know how many people, with programmers, where able to get their emags flashed with out reading the XMod users guide.

You can download and read the XMod users guide without buying the software so all the complaints about not seeing the agreement before you bought a programmer has no argument to stand on.

Not quite.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Specht_...nications_Corp.

The court ruled that the software license agreement was not binding because a binding contract means that both parties know of the terms and agree to them. The Smart Download license agreement was not binding because 1) the user did not have to click on an icon or link to indicate assent before downloading and using the software 2) the text near where the user can download the application merely indicated an invitation to view the license agreement not a strong condition that the user must agree to the agreement before using the software 3) the full text of the license agreement was only visible if the user clicked on a text next to the download button.

Klocek v. Gateway, Inc., et al.

http://www.internetlibrary.com/cases/lib_case209.cfm

The court held that the transaction at issue was governed by the Uniform Commercial Code ("UCC"). It held further that, for the purpose of this motion, "plaintiff offered to purchase the computer (either in person or through catalog order) and that Gateway accepted plaintiff's offer (either by completing the sales transaction in person or by agreeing to ship and/or shipping the computer to plaintiff)."

The Standard Terms are either "an expression of acceptance or written confirmation" of plaintiff's offer, governed by Section 2-207 of the UCC. Under that section, to the extent the Standard Terms contain terms contrary or additional to those contained in plaintiff's initial offer (such as the mandatory arbitration clause at issue), they only become binding upon the plaintiff if expressly accepted by him.

At one time you could download the AVR software by following a link from Lorne's site. There was no need for the manual, and regardless, unless you have or can build your own programmer, there's no agreement to terms before the purchase of the hardware necessary to do the flash.

[LorneCash]

...will you be paying taxes on any proceeds?

I have paid taxes on all my ebay profits for the past 2 years now... (since the projecet started)

I appreciate some of the more noble people on AO chiming in here... and no this isn't an "I wanna make some money thread" it wasn't meant to be an arguement either all I wanted to do was state what I wanted as clearly as I could since apparently there was some questions about that.

As I said before I'm not going to be comming after anyone legally or otherwise so it really doesn't matter whether I "have a leg to stand on". I'm not forcing anything I'm ASKING the AO comunity to respect what I have done. I don't ever post on PB Nation I think we all know what's there and I don't really want any part of that... I'm simply trying to be clear on what I expect to the people that will listen and in my mind many have. Agreed there will always be those that don't and no amount of Legal written verbal or other agreement will stop them from copying anything. The only way to stop that would have been to never give the ability to flash a gun to the public but I did choose to do that knowing full well there would be turds out there that steal even when I'm trying to help the comunity.

Several people have commented and said they didn't realize that's what I wanted both by PM and by posting... If you flashed peoples guns in the past not knowing it was against my wishes and now you choose not to that's great that's all I'm asking. Whatever you did in the past is in the past I'm just tryin gto be clear for the future.

This whole thread actually started over Ruler_Mark... he was freely flashing guns he serviced to XMOD if his customers wanted it. We now have an agreement and all I will do is ask that he and everyone else follows it too since apparently it wasn't clearly stated before.

Hopefully by now it's crystal for everyone and it's up to you what to do next. If you want to send me $50 as a thank you great if not that's your business.

Here's some facts for you though:

Total I ordered 200 programmers 50 in my initial order 100 in my second order and 50 in my last order... I have 20ish left I sold them for $100 up until the last order when the cost to me was increased due to the dollar vs euro and stuff. Now I sell them for $120

The first year I sold XMOD I my gross income from it was the highest but my net was actually negative after you counted all the fees and equipment I bought, boards I fried in the process, and the additional gun I bought for development ONLY.

This past year I made a couple thousand profit and I hope to sell the last couple for a couple thousand profit since right now I have that investment I made sitting in my closet collecting dust.

Now you may think oh that's great you made a few thousand bucks but now lets consider the ammount of time I've spent... the best I can figure I spent close to 1000hrs developing this software and dozens maybe hundreds of hours supporting it. I had a guy (older guy) who bought a programmer in Canada who was probably the most computer ignorant person on the planet... He was worried about this when he purchased it and I gave him my cell number and told him I would walk him through it. He got the programmer and while we were talking I could tell that he still wasn't comfortable with it so I connected to him via a GoTo meeting similar to a webex... had him give me control of his keyboard and mouse and did the whole computer part for him... all I asked him to do was connect the USB to his computer and the cable to his gun.... My whole point is yea a made some money but I've put so much time in that the money I've gained is FAR less than minimum wage.

I've never posted that stuff before and really only shared it with my close friends. I'm not begging for anything just letting the community know so that hopefully I can sell of the remaining programmers and be done.

[devildog]

where do we send the 50 to?

[LorneCash]

where do we send the 50 to?

Donations can be sent Paypal to [email protected]

[FiXeL]

Well the software was freely available for download on your site, and the programmer costs a fair amount of $ for what it is. You could have earned alot of money if people didnt sell the programmer on after flashing their gun. As noble of some of the AO users are, there are alot out there that are currently lauching their behind off because you are asking a fee for the software use...

And i'm one of them. Not because i don't want to support Xmod, but you dared to ask $50 shipping when i tried to buy a programmer from you and you refused to ship it any other way than UPS.

But i was reading this topic yesterday and it gave me an idea today... Xmod 1.8 has been out for quite some time, and yes it does wonders to a e/xmag but what about version 2.0? But this time instead of giving people the .hex files, make a licenced software compiler that enables users to make their own custom .hex files for their gun, something like nero for CD/DVD burning.

The Atmel chip on the board has only 2K memory inside, and there could be alot of other things crammed on there if some things were left from the Xmod 1.8 hex file that the user won't use. I don't see any use for some of the firemodes, but i would like to set the pbs when ramping kicks in, if using it. With the current version you will have to reflash the gun, and custom boot messages have to be compiled by you.

You could make a compiler that uses a menu with all the things you would want to put inside the Atmel chip, with a bar like nero to indicate the total hex size. Users can than put new things in, and leave things they won't use out.

New things could be:

- Custom boot messages
- Battery voltage indicator (possible?)
- Set bps when ramping kicks in
- Shot counter (either total shots like the AGD software, or total after power on)
- Blinking pixel to indicate the gun is on
- All options currently available in Xmod 1.8
- All options available with AGD software

I don't know much about programming chips or software, and i take this would be a large challenge to make without a large customer base, but i would surely buy something like this if it was available. You could make the software in a way it has to check the licence online to be functional. This however will not prevent one user flashing guns for others tho.

My 2 cents.