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Author Topic: Soarer desparately needed!  (Read 2138 times)

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Offline arakula

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Soarer desparately needed!
« on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 12:43:05 »
Does anybody know where he is and/or can point him here?

I'm in a rather big dilemma at the moment and would need a word with him ...

because, you see, I've reverse-engineered his converter. 100%.
I would like to publish the source and/or the binary images, because it's already at a state where it's (a) readable, (b) smaller and (c) a little bit more powerful than the original (OK, the "powerful" is an exaggeration - it can use all 5 Aux keys, and the second LED on a Pro Micro clone can blink whenever a key stroke comes in from the keyboard. Just a little gimmick). I just can't test it under every possible condition, so I'd need beta testers as well.

As long as I keep it to myself, I'm on the safe side with the laws of my country (reverse engineering just for the fun of it isn't prohibited) - but once I upload anything, however, things start to look quite different. So I'd need Soarer's consent, or a "cease and desist, you scumbag!", or ... anything. An official word from him, anyway.

So, please, if anybody knows where to find him, let him know.
« Last Edit: Thu, 04 December 2014, 00:28:00 by arakula »
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Offline fohat.digs

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:03:51 »
Soarer seems to have been missing in action since last spring.

I keep hoping that he got a new girlfriend and went off the grid in Tonga.
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Offline MOZ

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #2 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:16:37 »
Under what license is Soarer's converter's code released?
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Offline JPG

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:21:53 »
Well, it's a good news in itself since it means if we ever have an incompatibility problem with a new OS there would be a way around with this new converter were the code would be accessible.


But he has been missing for a while so it's hard to say.


Also, I know nothing of the laws, but if you coded it from scratch I don't know how illegal it would be since the concept of his converter in itself ain't really new as far as I know, but he applied it to something that was not done before. Anyway, it's good to ask him first out of respect for his awesome work.


But I am glad that there would be an alternative if one day his code becomes problematic under some circumstances. At least we also now have the option of changing the controller itself which is another great news!


I have not see your converter in action (duh) but I still congratulate you on your work!
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Offline E TwentyNine

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #4 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:38:04 »
Quote from: MOZ on Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:16:37
Under what license is Soarer's converter's code released?

Soarer's code is closed source, he had been talking about open sourcing it for a while, right up to the time he vanished last year.

I don't know how many people would find it useful to have the source, there's not many people working at that layer anyway, and Hasu's stuff is open source ( https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard ) and likely full of useful information.
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Offline mkawa

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #5 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:43:58 »
Soarer disappeared so suddenly that I and others I know are a bit worried about his well being. If anyone at all has a way to contact him out of band and at least confirm that he's OK, I would definitely feel better about his disappearance.

We can speculate all we want about his intended licensing model, but as log as he's well, he should have an answer to the question, and if he's not well, licensing of his code is a second order concern.
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Offline SpAmRaY

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #6 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:53:32 »
I forget if it was here are at DT but someone had posted they had contact with Soarer in the last couple of months, as in between the time he stopped posting and now and he was really busy. But for the life of me I can't find that post now.
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Offline fohat.digs

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #7 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 15:28:09 »
Quote from: SpAmRaY on Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:53:32
I forget if it was here are at DT but someone had posted they had contact with Soarer in the last couple of months, as in between the time he stopped posting and now and he was really busy. But for the life of me I can't find that post now.

My recollection is that there has been no contact with anyone since late spring, but that somebody on DT said that there was activity under his account into the summer.

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Offline jacobolus

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #8 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 15:32:16 »
I think he was logged into IRC until 3–4 months ago, but not actively saying anything for a while before that.
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Offline arakula

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #9 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 17:44:05 »
Quote from: fohat.digs on Wed, 03 December 2014, 15:28:09
My recollection is that there has been no contact with anyone since late spring, but that somebody on DT said that there was activity under his account into the summer.
Soarer's profile here:
https://geekhack.org/index.php?action=profile;u=4274
"Last active: Sun, 31 August 2014, 03:28:36"
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #10 on: Wed, 03 December 2014, 22:10:51 »
I had tried to find people with his contact info a while ago. After this development I've turned up a few who say they will try to mail him.

Hopefully we'll hear back in a few days.
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Offline arakula

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #11 on: Thu, 04 December 2014, 00:07:15 »
Thank you!
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Offline arakula

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #12 on: Thu, 04 December 2014, 00:24:25 »
Quote from: JPG on Wed, 03 December 2014, 14:21:53
Also, I know nothing of the laws, but if you coded it from scratch I don't know how illegal it would be since the concept of his converter in itself ain't really new as far as I know, but he applied it to something that was not done before. Anyway, it's good to ask him first out of respect for his awesome work.
If I had written a completely new thing that just borrows the concept of storing layouts in the EEPROM, I wouldn't bother to ask ... but I didn't code it from scratch. I disassembled his code, then recreated the original high-level language algorithms from that. That's something completely different.
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Offline Vizir

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Re: Soarer desparately needed!
« Reply #13 on: Thu, 04 December 2014, 09:55:05 »
I'd be quite interested in this code. I have also been waiting for Soarer to return (hoping he's alright!). Going to keep an eye on this.
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