Develop Bugs

The current state of XDA

I've been a fan of this site for a long time. I don't post too much, but I have gained much information here. This site has been an invaluable part of my Android hobby. I own 5 Android phones and a Motorola Xoom tablet, and thanks to XDA they are all rooted with custom roms and I use each one confidently. This site is full of great information and helpful people.
However, as of late, XDA seems to be putting out a bad vibe to many of its users. I personally see this stemming from the fact that users are expecting far too much. Everyone feels entitled to everything, on their own terms. They make demands of developers that will benefit only themselves. Instead of helping new members find the info they are seeking, they'd rather berate and belittle them publicly. The act superior to anyone asking a question. And on and on(trying not to write a book here). I am watching as developers that have contributed so much be treated with little or no respect until they don't even want to be a part of XDA anymore. I am seeing new members being scared off by elitist, rude "veteran" members. Overall, more and more people are wanting to distance themselves from XDA.
We cannot blame the site admin or mods, though i do hope to see them push the site in a different direction soon. It is on our back, the users of XDA. We are XDA. We need to remember that the devs are doing what they do for free, and for Android as a whole, not us as individuals. What happened to the great sense of community with Android. IMO, that was one of the best aspects of being involved with Android. There is much more I could say, but I think the main points are made and you can fill in the blanks. I hope to see Android become a community again, where users help one another, don't expect everything to be tailored to them specifically, and share a bit of both gratitude and empathy.

I agree with you, but sadly I do not see Xda changing for the better anytime soon. Maybe not at all. The majority of the blame does lie with us, the users. But, the admin and mods must also take some of that blame, as they have allowed the current trend to continue as long as it has
sent using a black and Decker toaster oven and two wire coat hangers

abn75 said:
I agree with you, but sadly I do not see Xda changing for the better anytime soon. Maybe not at all. The majority of the blame does lie with us, the users. But, the admin and mods must also take some of that blame, as they have allowed the current trend to continue as long as it has
sent using a black and Decker toaster oven and two wire coat hangers
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Dude we get it, we understand your not happy, we are working on this so give us some time to work through the issues and quit berating us and maybe try helping us by offering solutions to the problems you see.

Ehh, what do you expect with family plans and children with phones? The smart phone demographic over the last 4 years has changed so dramatically. It's no longer just seen as a business tool, but rather the hip new gadget to have. So when you widen the scope and age of users the arrogance and lack of respect is increased and certainly magnified.
good day.

JimmyMcGee said:
Dude we get it, we understand your not happy, we are working on this so give us some time to work through the issues and quit berating us and maybe try helping us by offering solutions to the problems you see.
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Are you a mod or admin? I'm assuming so by the wording in your post. Noone was berating anyone, especially the mod/admins. I said they weren't to blame, and the poster below me said users are most responsible. This was a post to call attention to an issue, and try to get forum members back into a more community oriented manner, and to NOT react like you did by sounding angry, snide, and pointing fingers.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

chopper the dog said:
Ehh, what do you expect with family plans and children with phones? The smart phone demographic over the last 4 years has changed so dramatically. It's no longer just seen as a business tool, but rather the hip new gadget to have. So when you widen the scope and age of users the arrogance and lack of respect is increased and certainly magnified.
good day.
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Good point indeed.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk

andr0id23 said:
Are you a mod or admin? I'm assuming so by the wording in your post. Noone was berating anyone, especially the mod/admins. I said they weren't to blame, and the poster below me said users are most responsible. This was a post to call attention to an issue, and try to get forum members back into a more community oriented manner, and to NOT react like you did by sounding angry, snide, and pointing fingers.
Sent from my Xoom using Tapatalk
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No Sir I appreciate your Post. abn has been complaining about our inaction for a while and we ARE looking to improve and it just gets a little old hearing the same complaint over and over when you are working to make this a Quality Forum everyone, including us, wants it to be. I do apologize for my perhaps over-reaction, but it is hard to be constantly beat up on. Yes, us Mods/Admins do deserve some blame. But we have recognized it and we are trying to resolve the issue.

We all just do our best.
Sent from my LG-P999 using XDA App

you need to consider that back in its earlier days, XDA was all about this lil' group of people with WinMo devices learning to rip their mobile OSes apart. as the site grew in size and popularity, more devs came in along with more end-users who feed upon the products of their kitchen. once the android explosion began, there was no other way around the fact that a multitude of users would flood in where as the number of devs coming in would be far smaller.
i still remember just over a year back when i got to cooking my own WinMo ROM the community was growing but there were still devs around where ever you looked ready to guide and help around but now that the site's more popular than ever people flock here expecting miracles and are not disappointed either. it's so addictive that you have to stick around for more. but sadly the number of devs don't grows as fast as their end-user counterparts. that's why you see this problem today. we need the newer member to be willing to learn on their own, being patient with the progress of other devs and most importantly...READING.
just my two cents.

Open tech forums are always ripe for attrition due to many reasons.
The question here is, do we cater to the users or do we cater to the developers? It's pretty obvious that without developers, XDA wouldn't be much of anything.
It's my opinion that the 'elitist' attitude which you speak of from the senior members is something that SHOULD be done, as their point is to protect the developers from being inundated with trivial questions and not detailed bug reports.
Kyphur, another XDA Moderator, had this to say back in 2008 (in a similar thread) when we were a bit smaller, and it still holds true:
kyphur said:
I think what a lot of people forget is that this is not a "make my phone neat & kewl" place.
As implied by the name this is technically a Developers forum/community.
Now what does that mean? Well first off it means that there is an expectation that if you are here then you want to customize your device but rather than just installing something that someone packaged you want to understand how it works and maybe even enhance it yourself.
When I first came here with a Blue Angel it was a different environment. PDA Phones were not embraced by the general public because of the expense and complexity (I paid over $400 for my BA). A $400 phone 4 years ago was expensive, today the Tilt is $300 after rebates but with inflation & the rise in the cost of other devices and the fact that there are other sources out there giving them away for $150 our neat bit of kit has become popular with mainstream users.
Now we have a flood of new users who are asking not "How can I do this myself" but more like "Give me the quick fix" without caring to understand the process. See if you read the threads then you get to experience the learning process, you see how the issues were investigated and confirmed. Then you get to watch the different attempts at resolution and learn why some failed while others worked. That is called Development.
The NooB backlash is coming from users who have walked in the development shoes and is directed mainly at those who don't care for the journey but just want the end result or destination.
As a Development Forum we are just as much (if not more) about the journey. I've read so many comments like "I don't have time to read all of the threads" or "I don't care how it works, just that it does". These very statements are contrary to the heart & soul of XDA-Devs and that is why the backlash is so strong.
Let me be very clear on this: IF YOU DON'T CARE ABOUT UNDERSTANDING THE JOURNEY THEN YOU PROBABLY SHOULDN'T BE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
XDA-Devs is about developers & hackers helping each other and working together to get the most out of our devices by understanding them better than most.
XDA-Devs is not about helping everyone who wants a "Kewl bit of kit" make their phone better than the guy next to him.
Now do we go kicking users off who never contribute anything, NO. We tolerate it to an extent. Where the toleration ends is when these users start diluting the usefulness of the forum by repeating the same questions over and over again.
You ask us to understand your position. Well if you want to benefit from our experience and time then I think it is only fair that you understand our position.
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I think that there are problems here at XDA that are there partially because of the rather loose rules we have set in place.
Sure, the internet, like most places in our society, is one that is supposed to promote freedom of speech. But there is a monumental difference between debating and being immature. A large proportion of the members here grown adults, but it really, really doesn't seem anything remotely close to that quite a lot of the time. Quite a lot of "you ****ing prick"s and the like being thrown about between members. Quite frankly, it's ridiculous, like a bunch of rather scummy 13 year olds.
Part of that does seem to come from the allowance of swearing on the forums; not saying don't swear, because believe me, I'm the last person who'd say that...but I don't on here, merely because it's not the swearing or inappropriate language itself that causes the problem, but the behaviour that naturally comes with it. Many forums are banning the discussion of provocative topics such as Mac vs. PC, iOS vs Android etc. Obviously, this being a mobile device forum, that can't be done here, but there needs to be some moderator control over that. All because people can't help but be immature about it...
That's the worst bit of it.
As for developer vs. end-user, just look at the market now, as well as what the developers here are doing. Smartphones are now more accesible, and the variety between the OSs at their core is much smaller than it used to be. The developers are working hard to make the process of rooting, jailbreaking, any kind of software modification easier for the more technically inept user.
Developers can't expect this forum to stay a developer community if they are going to make their creations so easy to use So experienced users need to accept that XDA has now moved away from being what it's used to be. They need to try and be accomodating to less technical users.
However, the biggest problem here now are probably newer users. They simply don't read or search. Answers are having to be repeated over and over again, even when everything is in the OP...many users need to spend time reading, and they'll realise that a lot of the answers aren't even technical; just a bit of common sense and logical thinking and you'll get the answers you'll need.
In a way, a simple way of post once, sticky once, force end users to read it, and we'll get somewhere.

A lot of good posts here. I tried to word my OP carefully as to not point fingers. Or at least not to lay blame on any one group of people. And I can't claim to know the whole story as while I own a handful of Android devices, that is only but a small part of this site as a whole. I don't come close to visiting all the forums. I really like XDA. From what I see, it is one of the rare sites where thread, where i frequent, often stay on topic. This is due in part to the mods, and in part to the users directing newer members by telling them this isn't the right place to post, linking to an appropriate thread, or just giving a quick answer. However, it's when people start getting angry and calling other people out for not knowing something, being rude, blah blah blah, that I am seeing more of. If all someone has to say is "use the fu**ing search", or "wrong spot noob", there is really no reason to post anything at all. That isn't helping anyone. There are better ways of going about it.
And I think we all have to admit, the days of only the more technical users rooting and modding are coming to an end. Devs are making it easier, one click methods are popping up all over the place, everything is automated, etc. People no long need to learn what is going on when they root their devices. While I enjoy having that knowledge and using the abd method of rooting when there is a one click available, others certainly will not, and they often don't need to. Maybe this isn't the best decision in many of our eyes, but tt is a reality now. More and more people are hacking/modding/rooting every day, and many of them have not even used a command line. I mean hell, there is even an "adb for dummies program" that will install and set up adb for you in one click now!
Again, not point fingers, but I am saddened to see so many people arguing, so many snide, rude responses, people being so demanding and self-serving, and devs leaving the site. I realize that the site is bigger than ever, and that mods do this for free and don't want to waste time being "rudeness police". I don't have all the answers, just something Ive noticed for awhile now. Glad to hear the mods are working on it as well as they can. I know they don't want to see developers leaving. Let's face it, some of these developers have quite a following! Also, sorry they have to hear the same complaints over and over again, but, as I said, I'm glad they are looking into it(if there is even anything that can be done, and I thanks the mods, admin, devs, and users for making this such a great place to learn and share!

I am one million percent in agreement with this topic, but I think the blame is not xda per se... Now, this is MY OPINION, but the problem is as mentioned before, our current society... I said something similar on aamikam's MikG thread on the Evo forum, this is the result of the 21st century, where technology has made mankind do anything anywhere anytime with only a click, and the kids and teens of today are raised in this world of now, so is in their nature to have that state of mind, "I want this now"; and I know this is not all the world, but in general, this is the new way of life on this century, the age of now...
We can also blame the new parents of this era, the average parent now is in their mid 20s to 30s, low 40s and in general, are allowing their kids more privileges and liberties than they had just because "at your age I couldn't do it, but I'll let you do it, not like your grandpas who didn't allowed me do anything at all" and so on and so forth...
Anyway, just wanted to say something about this, good nite all..!

The xda book, why we should pay it?

for sure you have heard about the new "XDA Developers' Android Hacker's Toolkit"
It is certainly a good idea to regroup all the forums method inside a book,wrote by hackers and geek.
the only thing I think is strange is that XDA focused on idea sharing and hacker philosopy.
So why do we have to pay for this book? It should be free, because it is not "original", all of us in some way wrote it...I don't want to pay it not because i don't want to spend money, but because I think it should respect the hacker philosopy.
what do you think?

meccaandroid said:
for sure you have heard about the new "XDA Developers' Android Hacker's Toolkit"
It is certainly a good idea to regroup all the forums method inside a book,wrote by hackers and geek.
the only thing I think is strange is that XDA focused on idea sharing and hacker philosopy.
So why do we have to pay for this book? It should be free, because it is not "original", all of us in some way wrote it...I don't want to pay it not because i don't want to spend money, but because I think it should respect the hacker philosopy.
what do you think?
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I think that XDA provide us with a great place to come and learn and share our knowledge. In order to achive this their is going to be costs and if they can make some extra money from selling a book. To then use the said money to make this service even better, i can only see it as a good thing. Also a lot of people find it easier to read from a book than a computer screen.
Edit - I have just read the portal artical, and all the profits are going to the EFF, although the money is not going directly into XDA, it will directly help and benifit XDA, as they have done in the past.
All revenue earned through purchases of the book on Amazon will be donated to the EFF, which has given assistance to members of our community in the past. It’s available in both physical and eBook formats. Without further ado, here’s where you can get it right now:
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Profits go to a good cause.
Don't want to pay, just read the forums instead.
Simple.

conantroutman said:
Profits go to a good cause.
Don't want to pay, just read the forums instead.
Simple.
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Yes the profits are going to a very good cause. And to be honest with you I don't have any problem spending the $23 USD plus tax for the book. I really don't see why anyone would have a problem with it. But you just can not please all of the people no matter how hard you try.

I ordered mine in October, 2011. After many delays (like the Galaxy S3) I received my copy from amazon on Tuesday. I will use this weekend to read it. Learn some pointers.

As mentioned, profits from Amazon sales are donated to EFF.
All other profits (as anyone knows that has worked with a publisher), will be minuscule. We didn't do this to earn revenue, but to give people a great way to learn about Android development.
Keep on eye on the Portal...we'll be giving away a batch of free copies in the near future.

svetius said:
As mentioned, profits from Amazon sales are donated to EFF.
All other profits (as anyone knows that has worked with a publisher), will be minuscule. We didn't do this to earn revenue, but to give people a great way to learn about Android development.
Keep on eye on the Portal...we'll be giving away a batch of free copies in the near future.
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Thanks for the tip, another good reason to go to the portal besides when the forums are down for maintenance.

svetius said:
As mentioned, profits from Amazon sales are donated to EFF.
All other profits (as anyone knows that has worked with a publisher), will be minuscule. We didn't do this to earn revenue, but to give people a great way to learn about Android development.
Keep on eye on the Portal...we'll be giving away a batch of free copies in the near future.
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Thanks for the tip, i will keep an eye out for that, stay at home dad = Poor

Good things come at a price..'nuff said.

[Q] BOUNTY, why doesn't XDA make a holding?

Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..

Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.

Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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Bingo!

XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.

This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.

ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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That's what I always say. I donate if/when it happens and donate/support the dev of the ROM that I use the most.

ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
I'm not going to make a pledge for root. I'll just pay the person who succeeds when they succeed. The whole idea of a bounty is a joke. I've contributed to lots of devs (Chainfire has earned a nice chunk off me) in the past and don't intend to stop now....But I don't need a pledge to be a nice person.
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What you say makes perfect sense to me, and most of others here. however not everyone thinks the say way.

insang-droid said:
Just wondering, sorry if this questions has been asked, but i couldn't find an answer.
I see all these posts about people saying only about 10% of the people pay out on their BOUNTY pledges, why doesn't XDA create a holding that pays out when bounty is met? if there is a timed deadline.. (something reasonable like 6 months). that will at least give the developer confidence he will get some reward for working on it. Also it will set a realistic dollar figure.
frankly, rep is one thing, but getting pay for hard work is whole different animal. If i worked hard for days on delivering a solution, you can bet I want to get paid.
I think this will help with growth of XDA too...
sorry just ranting..
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Because of all of these:
Android300ZX said:
Agreed but I'm assuming liability issues.
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JasonJoel said:
XDA is not a bank, and that would be a horrendously complicated thing to administer (especially if refunds have to be given at some point).
If I were XDA, I wouldn't touch that with a 10 foot pole.
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ExtremeRyno said:
This is a community, not a bank. It's not the responsibility of XDA to take care of monies and I doubt this would -ever- happen. If this was a device specific forum, it might, but not here.
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AND because XDA BARELY tolerates Bounty threads and only under very specific conditions. Have you seen how many devices XDA has forums for? Do you know how many bounties are still unclaimed and threads open? How many people would be patient and wait after giving up their money? Then what about time limits? What if it never happens? What about individuals deciding they waited too long and want their money back? What if all money is refunded and it happens right after? There are sites made just for these kinds of things, XDA is not one of them.

[Q] Another way to S-OFF, without Sunshine?

OMG. I unlocked and rooted my Lollipop M8 today, but i only see Sunshine for making S-OFF, and it isnt free. Another way to get S-OFF one m8?
Man WTF the 25$?! I can live 5 days with 25$, so bull****.
And if there's no way, what i lose stuck on S-ON? I have international M8.

*sigh*
No, Sunshine is the only way

turko9999 said:
OMG. I unlocked and rooted my Lollipop M8 today, but i only see Sunshine for making S-OFF, and it isnt free. Another way to get S-OFF one m8?
Man WTF the 25$?! I can live 5 days with 25$, so bull****.
And if there's no way, what i lose stuck on S-ON? I have international M8.
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$25 is nothing compared to how much it cost the creators of sunshine, they destroyed loads of phones whist creating sunshine, obviously you need to test it before you release it to the public, and in the beginning it didn't always work, each phone at $500+ a pop isn't cheap, and they didn't all survive testing, so $25 is nothing.
You loose the ability to back flash, convert your phone to another version, jump around with firmware, s-on allows only current firmware flash and next step up, HBOOT flashing, modified firmware flashes, radio flashing, CID and MID changes, all sorts, I cant live without s-off myself.
you can pretty much rest assured that now you've rooted and possibly flashed a custom recovery, unlocked and flashed a custom rom, you've lost the ability to get any further updates from HTC, unless there is an RUU about for your phone to return it to full stock condition, it possible with s-on, but can be a nightmare.
Before you do anything with your phone, first learn how to fix it.

Sell the device for 500, and live for another 100 days
But thats of course not how we should see it !? Weird world we live in.........
Seanie280672 said:
you can pretty much rest assured that now you've rooted and possibly flashed a custom recovery, unlocked and flashed a custom rom, you've lost the ability to get any further updates from HTC, unless there is an RUU about for your phone to return it to full stock condition, it possible with s-on, but can be a nightmare.
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Disagree for a bit on this, there are many stock backups here in the M8 forum. The general section has a topic about that stickied and there is also a thread here in the Q&A section that holds lots of them.
Even the owners own stock backup is more than enough. Restore the stock nandroid and flash the stock recovery from the new ota, apply the update and voila.....stock updated. I'm not sure why many people always want to rely on RUU's ?

haha, the only reason I needed S off was to sim unlock...was way too easy to just Call T-mobile and get my code!!!

I can't believe threads like this are getting closed left and right on XDA. I think Sunshine charging $25 is a very important topic to discuss on XDA, and there should be a proper place to discuss it.
I have seen root-ninja say he is willing to PM people his expenses to S-Off which were in the few thousands. So what... the number of people that have S-Offed is multiple hundreds easy if not 1000's, and he is making $25 off each of them. That means he has earned his money back and a few years worth of salary on top of that, all for 1 weeks work and a $2000 investment. Great for him, as an individual developer I am happy to see him get some cash. I wish he would realize how he is severely hurting/violating the spirit of hacking.
This is software, hacking software. It should be free and open-source with a donation link. This is a place of learning, so please, teach how it was done. If more devs go down this road it will be very sad for XDA and the entire phone-hacking scene. Less devs will learn, all things will be kept secret and cost money, instead of turning to XDA because we cannot trust carriers and mfgs, we will not be able to trust XDA.
Sad days ahead if we don't as a group complain, boycott, and chastise this sort of bad behavior.
PS: Is anyone at all concerned about the list of permissions the app uses. Sure it is "needed" for hacking, but what else could it be used for???

if i could pay the twenty five dollars i would....
im 16
i dont have a credit card and my parents aren't exactly the most willing to allow me to use twenty five dollars on sunshine.....
im pretty sure the devs who worked on sunshine have got their money back and more...
this is a great place of learning. it hurts when some of us cant do anything about this.
its been a year since ive been hoping they drop the payment or they add a free method for s-off.
so far none.
this only slows down dev work and hurts dev culture
leaving things open source would help everyone.....
secrets have their costs......

Just think about what happens when they stop the development on s-off, i dont think anybody else comes along and get it done for free. Because there is still up till now no other dev who dared to gain s-off.
Nobody ever complained when s-off was free ...... of course not it was FREE ! But now they ask for a price. Yes for some a big amount. But people who complain about that should not even think about s-off. S-off is not even needed to flash custom roms or run custom kernels.
And then the complaint about the 2000 investment , also nonsense because they messed up many devices. Not only the M8 ! Think about that before saying things like that. The team behind s-off goes many years back already. I frankly doubt that a year salary would make up for it !!!
And the rights and permissions s-off needs.....if you are scared or worried ? DON'T USE IT
Nobody is forcing anybody to use it. Stay safe.....stay stock
This all has nothing to do with xda, xda has no rights whatsoever on s-off + the involved development
Take it or leave it ! Right @beaups !!!

rpmccormick said:
I can't believe threads like this are getting closed left and right on XDA. I think Sunshine charging $25 is a very important topic to discuss on XDA, and there should be a proper place to discuss it.
I have seen root-ninja say he is willing to PM people his expenses to S-Off which were in the few thousands. So what... the number of people that have S-Offed is multiple hundreds easy if not 1000's, and he is making $25 off each of them. That means he has earned his money back and a few years worth of salary on top of that, all for 1 weeks work and a $2000 investment. Great for him, as an individual developer I am happy to see him get some cash. I wish he would realize how he is severely hurting/violating the spirit of hacking.
This is software, hacking software. It should be free and open-source with a donation link. This is a place of learning, so please, teach how it was done. If more devs go down this road it will be very sad for XDA and the entire phone-hacking scene. Less devs will learn, all things will be kept secret and cost money, instead of turning to XDA because we cannot trust carriers and mfgs, we will not be able to trust XDA.
Sad days ahead if we don't as a group complain, boycott, and chastise this sort of bad behavior.
PS: Is anyone at all concerned about the list of permissions the app uses. Sure it is "needed" for hacking, but what else could it be used for???
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1.) Permissions are declared for fun, and as a learning experience for users. For you, as a "developer", you should know that as a root exploit we can get whatever permissions we want without declarations.
2.) We've covered the costs and our pricing strategy time and time again. If you think the price is unfair, don't buy it. If you think it should be free, and everything on XDA should be free, then spend the time yourself and develop another solution, and then provide it and support it for free. It should only take you a week, right?
These things take a lot of time, and money. a LOT of time. How many unlocks are being released for other devices lately? Where can I paid or free Samsung bootloader unlock on a blocked device? How about Motorola? LG? Sony?.....
The simple fact is this: f we weren't able to charge for SunShine, we would not have been able to dedicate the resources to develop it., and you'd have no s-off today.

Sorry no, you are telling half truths, and flat out lies. I have no idea why you would do this.
No, I offered to let someone take over the financial responsibility and re-release for free, I didn't offer to PM expenses of a "few thousands". Few thousand is what was spent in the first week of April. Few weeks? SunShine has been in development for well over a year .Few years of salary, your kidding.
Taking your word that you are a developer, you should know very well something like this doesn't magically appear in one week. As a developer, you are well aware that a root app does not need to really declare any permissions. I could add them on the fly, I mean the app is running as root. So why all the permissions, just to raise awareness of permissions. Do you want me to remove all permissions and just add them on the fly without alerting you? Its a pretty trivial thing to do, and you would never know.
We are far from the only ones doing this, we are just the cheapest, and safest, yet we are the only ones attacked over it.
Offer still stands, commit to taking over full financial requirements of our development, and we can re-release for free.
rpmccormick said:
I can't believe threads like this are getting closed left and right on XDA. I think Sunshine charging $25 is a very important topic to discuss on XDA, and there should be a proper place to discuss it.
I have seen root-ninja say he is willing to PM people his expenses to S-Off which were in the few thousands. So what... the number of people that have S-Offed is multiple hundreds easy if not 1000's, and he is making $25 off each of them. That means he has earned his money back and a few years worth of salary on top of that, all for 1 weeks work and a $2000 investment. Great for him, as an individual developer I am happy to see him get some cash. I wish he would realize how he is severely hurting/violating the spirit of hacking.
This is software, hacking software. It should be free and open-source with a donation link. This is a place of learning, so please, teach how it was done. If more devs go down this road it will be very sad for XDA and the entire phone-hacking scene. Less devs will learn, all things will be kept secret and cost money, instead of turning to XDA because we cannot trust carriers and mfgs, we will not be able to trust XDA.
Sad days ahead if we don't as a group complain, boycott, and chastise this sort of bad behavior.
PS: Is anyone at all concerned about the list of permissions the app uses. Sure it is "needed" for hacking, but what else could it be used for???
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

I am coming from the perspective of M9, not M8... I posted here because the M9 thread was closed.
You said yourself you bought 4 M9's and I thought you said you had S-Off in a week, no? I am a dev, hardware and software, but not a super-star like you, and though I truly believe I could get S-off, it would probably take me a year of my life that I cannot devote.
I have great respect for you man, and for the XDA community at large. The core of me truly believes that forcing a charge on modders is wrong. Well, if you want to charge for your do it all for you app that is not wrong, but you should also post clear instructions on what your app does so that others could easily do the same, themselves, for free. Knowledge should be free. You are hoarding your knowledge in order to increase profits for your app. I do not mean to offend, just to share my opinion, which is that your tactics are immoral. Please take that statement with a grain of salt, as I do not mean to offend, I am sure you do not believe they are immoral, and I also believe that paying for any form of Knowledge or Art is immoral. I do realize I am in the minority there.
EDIT: Are there others doing it for more money? Who? Do you really just make enough to keep up with your dev-expenses? or if 1% of the people that paid donated, would that cover your dev expenses and the other 99% is just cash on top? Maybe my scales-of-economy are way off here, but it seems to me by the number of people with S-Offed M8's and M9's, that you should be rolling in it at $25/head, no?

rpmccormick said:
I am coming from the perspective of M9, not M8... I posted here because the M9 thread was closed.
You said yourself you bought 4 M9's and I thought you said you had S-Off in a week, no? I am a dev, hardware and software, but not a super-star like you, and though I truly believe I could get S-off, it would probably take me a year of my life that I cannot devote.
I have great respect for you man, and for the XDA community at large. The core of me truly believes that forcing a charge on modders is wrong. Well, if you want to charge for your do it all for you app that is not wrong, but you should also post clear instructions on what your app does so that others could easily do the same, themselves, for free. Knowledge should be free. You are hoarding your knowledge in order to increase profits for your app. I do not mean to offend, just to share my opinion, which is that your tactics are immoral. Please take that statement with a grain of salt, as I do not mean to offend, I am sure you do not believe they are immoral, and I also believe that paying for any form of Knowledge or Art is immoral. I do realize I am in the minority there.
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Click to collapse
It took 24hours once the device was in hand, that doesn't mean we didnt buy other ARM64 devices over the last year, nor that we haven't spent months learning the architecture, nor changes in Android 5.x, nor writing new tools.
We don't force a charge, nor do we hold a monopoly on the subject, yet we are the only ones facing personal attacks for it.
Knowledge does not come to us for free, we invest heavily into gaining that knowledge. I do find it ironic that you are lecturing me on this, considering I have open sourced more Android exploits than any other person, and that I've posted my training material (from a $3500 per person session) for free online. Why should I have to pay for all these things, but you shouldn't? This kind of attitude and attack makes me regret contributing as much as I have, and still do.

Please don't regret, I am trying to have a discussion, not attack you. I have great respect for you.
EDIT: Great point on root apps and permissions. I am a sheep like the rest of them, I take risks and I even paid you against my own morals, but honestly the entire community needs to change their way of thinking... no one should ever run any root app that is not open source.
PS: I have open-sourced much in my life as well, but I am sure not half as much, as good, or as important as you have. I truly do not mean to disrespect you, just change the way the community thinks about ALL non-OS things.
PPS: It is mfgs/big4 that are immoral by not giving us all the option to S-Off, to carrier unlock, to flash a non-branded RUU, and to change the HBOOT logo. You are our greatest soldiers against their oppression. Keep up the good work, and make it easy for others to learn how to do the same. Thank you.

jcase said:
It took 24hours once the device was in hand, that doesn't mean we didnt buy other ARM64 devices over the last year, nor that we haven't spent months learning the architecture, nor changes in Android 5.x, nor writing new tools.
We don't force a charge, nor do we hold a monopoly on the subject, yet we are the only ones facing personal attacks for it.
Knowledge does not come to us for free, we invest heavily into gaining that knowledge. I do find it ironic that you are lecturing me on this, considering I have open sourced more Android exploits than any other person, and that I've posted my training material (from a $3500 per person session) for free online. Why should I have to pay for all these things, but you shouldn't? This kind of attitude and attack makes me regret contributing as much as I have, and still do.
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Click to collapse
Jcase, don't listen to the haters. Everyone in the world thinks they are entitled to everything. If they can't afford it then they should either work harder so they can afford it or find their own way. I say congrats for coming up with a niche product and making some money on it. This world would be a better place if people spent less time complaining and more time working hard to make a better life for them and their families.
Sent from my HTC One_M8 using XDA Free mobile app

I really wish people would knock it off with this mess. There are few phones left that can be made truly open, and it's only because of Sunshine that the HTC One M7/8/9 phones are on that list. What do people want? No phones that can be turned into developer phones?
Seriously guys, the next time you are thinking of whining about $25, consider that for many phones, there is no solution. Want to do anything more than root a Samsung Galaxy S6? Good luck with that.
Maybe we need to add a section with pricing for JTAG services or S-off SD-cards. I recall for a while there was a pool of people who went in to buy one of those factory service cards for well over $1000, and split the cost between them. I wonder what that worked out to per S-off.
At $25, Sunshine is a steal. Even if you get unlucky, and up shelling out $50, it's a good deal. If you are truly stupid, and shell out $75, you still at least have a developer phone.
I just hope jcase and beaups don't get tired of the crap and decide to go do something else with their time, as I have really enjoyed my M8 with S-off, and I would like to think they will still be around when the M10 comes out.

Wow, a while since I've posted in here and cannot believe the attitude of a so called dev on another dev.
It's deeply ungrateful and uncalled for to attack a handful of devs that, aside from the money, have obviously put a lot of time and effort into bringing such an exploit to the masses. Not just for this one thing, but also for gaining the knowledge to do it.
Anyone who declares he/she is a dev, should understand the time and effort that goes into these things.
I myself do understand as I have developed a few projects myself.
What's wrong with charging a perfectly reasonable sum? Do people complain to the networks when they have to pay for unlock codes?
What about paid apps on Google play, should they all be free?
No they shouldn't because at the end of the day it's up to the user if they want to pay or not. Nobody forces anyone's hand in their pocket.
So what if what has been recouped is so many times the cost? Does it matter if they made a dollar or a million? It just goes to show how many people desperately wanted it if that is the case.
The other alternative is nothing then there would be bountys flying about begging for someone to do it.
These guys took it upon themselves to provide a product, laid it on the table and said take it or leave it.
Don't get upset about it, don't moan about the cost, don't attack the provider of the product.
Quite simply sit back, think of the value it will bring to you, if you don't think its worth it, leave it alone and go and find an alternative solution.
Good day.

jshamlet said:
I really wish people would knock it off with this mess. There are few phones left that can be made truly open, and it's only because of Sunshine that the HTC One M7/8/9 phones are on that list. What do people want? No phones that can be turned into developer phones?
Seriously guys, the next time you are thinking of whining about $25, consider that for many phones, there is no solution. Want to do anything more than root a Samsung Galaxy S6? Good luck with that.
Maybe we need to add a section with pricing for JTAG services or S-off SD-cards. I recall for a while there was a pool of people who went in to buy one of those factory service cards for well over $1000, and split the cost between them. I wonder what that worked out to per S-off.
At $25, Sunshine is a steal. Even if you get unlucky, and up shelling out $50, it's a good deal. If you are truly stupid, and shell out $75, you still at least have a developer phone.
I just hope jcase and beaups don't get tired of the crap and decide to go do something else with their time, as I have really enjoyed my M8 with S-off, and I would like to think they will still be around when the M10 comes out.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
+1 on this
I dare anyone of these guys complaining, to go and try and create an s-off tool, see how many 1000's of dollars of phones you destory before you get it right and all of your time spent on it, then give it away for free ????? really, I wouldnt.
When I was using my M7, and firewater was still alive, it used to fail, no matter what combination of rom's and kernals I used, now this was before sunshine was created, I used a shop in the UK based in sheffield, thankfully, an area I visit on a regular basis, they s-off HTC phones by java card for a price of £15 GBP, funny enough thats $25 ish http://www.fonefunshop.co.uk/Unlocking/htc_s-off_service.htm
the day I got home with my new M8, about 2 months ago, I unlocked it, flashed a custom recovery, rooted it, this was all before its first ever boot, I then booted it for the first time and ran sunshine through it, the stock rom and stock firmware never stood a chance.
Stop your complaining or live with s-on.

Seanie280672 said:
$25 is nothing compared to how much it cost the creators of sunshine, they destroyed loads of phones whist creating sunshine, obviously you need to test it before you release it to the public, and in the beginning it didn't always work, each phone at $500+ a pop isn't cheap, and they didn't all survive testing, so $25 is nothing.
You loose the ability to back flash, convert your phone to another version, jump around with firmware, s-on allows only current firmware flash and next step up, HBOOT flashing, modified firmware flashes, radio flashing, CID and MID changes, all sorts, I cant live without s-off myself.
you can pretty much rest assured that now you've rooted and possibly flashed a custom recovery, unlocked and flashed a custom rom, you've lost the ability to get any further updates from HTC, unless there is an RUU about for your phone to return it to full stock condition, it possible with s-on, but can be a nightmare.
Before you do anything with your phone, first learn how to fix it.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I understand but i believe they have made greater amounts of profit than just getting back the money for the phones they wasted. Not saying that it should be free but 25$ is a bit a lot for the ones living in the third world countries and the developers of sunshine overlooked that completely when deciding the cost.

shad0wboss said:
I understand but i believe they have made greater amounts of profit than just getting back the money for the phones they wasted. Not saying that it should be free but 25$ is a bit a lot for the ones living in the third world countries and the developers of sunshine overlooked that completely when deciding the cost.
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Click to collapse
ok I understand, so lets say they gave it away for free now, how do you think all the people that paid would react ? id be P*VIST, its a no win situation, and developoment on it is continuious with each new release of a new version of android. ie Lollipop, it took a couple of weeks for sunshine to work on the newer HBOOT 1.61, before that sunshine only supported upto HBOOT 1.57.

Seanie280672 said:
ok I understand, so lets say they gave it away for free now, how do you think all the people that paid would react ? id be P*VIST, its a no win situation, and developoment on it is continuious with each new release of a new version of android. ie Lollipop, it took a couple of weeks for sunshine to work on the newer HBOOT 1.61, before that sunshine only supported upto HBOOT 1.57.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
THat's why I said it shouldn't be "free" but the price should be reduced. This tool shouldn't only be for the people from the west but for everyone around the world. The price has been unfairly defined for this product for everyone. And for the people who paid 25$, they did because they could, so it doesn't sound "unfair" to me.

Why cant we s-off without that app? No Bashing! Just a Question

So its been a while since i had an htc.
The last one i had was so easy to root s-off super cid.
when it wasnt, i always loved the challenge.
If i recall you had to extract a file called mmcblk0p4 and modify it. Or just modify it with a hex editor right on your phone and place it back with a root explorer. actually i still have it in an old folder.
What is the problem here? How did htc fix that exploit? Why cant we figure it out?
Not that i dont appreciate an awesome app that does it for you. But i always loved doing it myself.
Not trying to bash or start a debate over moralities. Just an interesting and informative convo.

where there is a will there is a way!

Well actually I guess because the people who were discovering the exploits actually created sunshine and are distributing methods via this app only.

There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.

myphonesbetter said:
There's nobody that can use the app to figure out how the actual app does it?
Maybe I am thinking its more simple than it is. I know i sure as hell cant.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.

Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
computerslayer said:
It's an old discussion, but if you look up the Sunshine app thread you'll come across the explanation of why they decided to charge and what went into achieving S-OFF. Short answer: it's really hard.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.

You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
myphonesbetter said:
Been about a year since i logged in apparently.
That is the perfect answer. it really hard.
its because some people are lazy and others are greedy thats why.
Honestly paying for an app to just do everything takes the fun out of it. Im not a coder or anything but most of what i have learned is from flashing phones and modding video games lol. Just dont have quite enough of an obsessive personality to be a full on mr robot.
I can see making a payed version that does the work for you and takes away the risk of bricking your phone. for the people who just want want want.
This im sure would make more than enough to cover costs. especially if the dev was in india or something.
Used phones with cracked screens or broken headphone jacks are a dime a dozen.
Or how about someone just reverse engineer the sunshine app. Or FIND AN EXPLOIT. and release it to the forums.
FAIR GAME right?
This team spent 100s of dollars and 100s accumulative hours to exploit something that costs 100's of millions of dollars and who knows how many hours to create and distribute.
The development thread seems so commercial now. Wouldn't be surprised if most of them were making money data mining selling info to advertisers.
Isnt that where the real money is these days.
I cant pay for it for the same reason i cant pay money for the better gun in a video game. Just pay to win. doesn't feel the same.
Also android is open source and free.
It blows my mind that only this one group of people can figure out how to do this.
Seems like the fact that there is money to be made would encourage more guy fawkes' to create some friendly compotish.
Plus if more "exploiters" could start from there then eventually it could end up so much more refined. Just like everything else on these forums.
Anyways sunshine is free and along with water gives life to the entire planet. I think they got the name wrong.
walmart mod group. buy out all other "developers" (hackers) and charge the people that keep this whole thing going.
I can appreciate and even envy the business sense and intelligence it takes to do what they do. cant say if i was in their shoes i wouldnt do everything i could to monetize it. But its just sad to the the community go down the toilet. This forum used to be so much more exciting. it seems like it used to create developers now you just pick a rom and move on. mother ****ing sad face.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Sunshine has been about since the HTC One M7 days, I paid and used it on my M7 and M8 and about to use it on 2 x M9's, me personally, I really dont have a problem paying the $25 for it to do what it does, personally I think its dead cheap for what these guys did to get around HTCs so called fixes.
Now on to why it even costs in the first place, imagine whilst developing an app to this level, how many phones you had to buy and destroy along the way, this app isnt just for pretty much every HTC made since the M7, of course you are going to want some of it back, if you didnt, you'd be bankrupt in 2 days, with every release of firmware or every new phone release, the app needs to be modified and updated, Hell, you pay $200 for Microsoft Windows for the same reasons.

jcase said:
You do realize, if it was trivial and cheap to do, the dozens of people who come complain would have done it sometime in the last three years.
We even publish detailed write ups, and source code snippets to parts of sunshine, including vulnerabilities and exploits. We get people 90% of the way there.
Even with use giving away critical parts of the project, people still don't release free versions. Why? because it isn't easy, and it isn't cheap. You are going to ruin a lot of phones along the way, and your work on the "cheap ones" doesn't apply to the new expensive ones, you are starting over from scratch with each generation, often with each firmware release.
We don't sell data to anyone, no ads on our sites or apps, even the numerous free apps like weaksauce and depixel8 have no ads, nor do their associated websites (not counting the thieves that rehost them with ads, thats not us).
We bought out no one, we pay no one to develop for us. We reinvest funds into more phone and equipment, sometimes some booze, and often into charity. Even google called us out for our charity work on their VRP blog.
Good luck on your endeavors, I encourage you to make a free alternative, to invest the money and time we did out of your own pocket. Neither of us are educated in security or computer scienece, we picked it up along the way when trying to hack on phones. No excuses! Anyone complaining should be working on an alternative. Don't expect much donations, or if you put a price on it don't expect much money from it, it isn't there.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
thanks for the response. It would be nice to get a response on the actual q i posted lol. (different thread)
I guess its easier when its trivial.
Its good to hear you guys donate some of it. and that youve release the majority of the code. i guess people are just lazy.
Honestly you dont need s-off. The main reason i would want it is incase i need to go back to stock for warranty reasons. In which case the money would be worth it. still more fun do follow a write and learn about what i am doing in the process.
As far as data mining im talking about some of the more popular roms and apps out there. not just in the htc forum. Just a thought. why wouldn't they.
And the question isn't why its $25. I get that. It is totally worth it. Its so easy to use. I used to spend hours troubleshooting to get my phones s-off'd and running smooth on all the roms. now you can do it in seconds. these days i just pick one that works better than stock and stick with it. seems like stock updates kill the phones now.
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
I guess it dragged a little deeper than i wanted. But every time someone asks these questions it turns into insult matches or just the copy pasted comment of i don't think $25 is too much. if you cant afford that then blah blah . then all credibility is lost and people are persuaded to think as the majority of commenters think. Mouthbreathers will be mouthbreathers. But they are the ones that make this consumer based economy function properly.
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.

myphonesbetter said:
Its why hasn't anybody exploited sunshine or made a completely different app that does the same thing. Or even better a write up on how to do it yourself.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Many people have tried to crack sunshine, I'm unaware of anyone being successful. It is actually pretty funny seeing how many hours people put into cracking SunShine, it is an worthless endeavor considering that most of the calculations are done server side, cracking the app doesn't get you anything as it is done server side. They would need to hack our WAN facing server, proxy through it and then hack the "offline" box we do the work on. This would be a felony on many levels. I like to think most people are honest, and don't go committing felony violations of CFAA over the fact that an app isn't free.
As far as a different app, it is hard, it is expensive, and most people with the skillset or drive, are tackling bigger problems.
Far as a writeup, we make plenty of them, where are your technical write ups?
myphonesbetter said:
To say its expensive on the older phones is a stretch and to say its too hard is eh.
I couldn't do it but you guys did (very quickly). so that means there is some 8 year old that could do it in his sleep.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
None of this is "very fast", it all has years of research behind it. Research we did, we put the time and money into. Yes even on old phones it is expensive, the software we use (IDA Pro and Jeb) alone are $1000s a year in licensing fees. Considering each person needs a license, its very costly. And yes, we are not thieves, we actually have licenses in our names. Many models we have spent money on, never sell more than a couple licenses. So the more popular models also fund the work done on models that don't make any sales. Sure we could just not add support for oddball models sold in only one country, but what fun is that.
myphonesbetter said:
And to say its out of pocket is a stretch when its a payed service. Most business endeavors or charities require some sort of investment.
And you can make a large chunk of the money back selling a bricked phone for parts. especially if its the latest model.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
The investment would be the out of pocket part, money to start projects doesnt just magically show up. New HTC u11 is what $600 bucks? One we fried the soc and mmc on? What $50 if we are selling it honestly (cause that thing wont EVER be repaired, and screen is about the only part re-usable)? Plus we run the risk of our debug builds leaking if someone is able to extract memory from the device, no thanks, not reselling a burned phone for $50(or even $300) and risk losing everything we have worked on for the last few years.
myphonesbetter said:
Why don't you guys release the code for free when you once you pay yourselves back. If more people started out where you left off (much like how you guys started) then the next generation would take no effort. If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
We have released plenty of free training material, white papers and example source code for people to start off of. Those resources would be much better than starting off with SunShine source code. As we have said, when SunShine is done, we will open source it. Considering no one does anything with what we do release, I have doubts anyone would do anything with everything we don't release. We were sure we would get 0 sales on Droid Turbo after publishing that write up, we thought someone would have a free exploit written that day. It has been years, nothing so far.
myphonesbetter said:
If there were a thousand people testing and communicating and working together then the cost and time would be nothing.
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LOL. People don't contribute to most mobile OSS projects, go look at copperhead, look at their commit history. I'm even guilty of it, my contributions besides projects I helped started are minimal (even my commits to AOSP are few).
myphonesbetter said:
There is nowhere to start anymore. there used to be all kinds of write ups that forced you to learn more about how everything works. then naturally some people figure out what they are actually doing are inspired to improve on it (sunshine for example). but now its just seems so overwhelming. Like nobody is there to help out when you get stuck.
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All of our write ups are still up, and we still publish more each year, I don't know what the heck you are going on about here. Please take the time to look rather than just make such claims.
myphonesbetter said:
Again, not trying to bash the people that put their time into this. More so trying to spark thoughts in people's minds who would normally just follow suit. Highlight different perspectives.
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Again, feel free to use the free resources we have and continue to provide to the community for free to build your own. We DO NOT discourage people from doing so, we actively encourage it by publishing a fair bit of our work for free. I even traveled on my own dime (not sunshine money, not someone else's money, but from my paycheck) without reimbursement to Las Vegas with Tim Strazzere and Caleb Fenton to provide trading FOR FREE. We over filled the maximum occupancy for the room. We were not allowed to take any more people.
In reality, and not to be insulting, it is pretty obvious you didn't properly research all of this.