deskthority

The worst-case premise is that a copyright troll got the legal rights to Soarer's code from his heirs, knowing that people have been selling products based on it and thus smells sweet, sweet money. Likely? No. Possible? You better believe it. I spent three years being an expert witness on a multi-b...

Yes, that! No one really wants to touch it, because of this whole doubt about it being ethical, let alone legal to share. It's a proper mess. I really don't think it's ethics holding people back, it's just that most programmers are comfortable with using QMK for the weird stuff. Soarer's is the "ol...

I like old mice. I replaced the ball in a Logitech M-S43 with a 3360 a while ago, the wiring was filthy but it mostly worked until my stupid scroll wheel solution broke again. I prefer old mice in a lot of ways. Easy to take apart (often only one screw, not hidden under feet), durable (no rubber coa...

The only reason this code needs to be made public domain is if someone is developing a high profile product based on it and wants to mass produce and sell it at a large scale. Nope. Much, much more important to me: it needs to be open so we can recompile the hex file for a different architecture on...

Fair enough. I'll lay out my own position here: I'd like the community* to reach out to Soarer to seek his permission to give his code (or Arakula's etc.) a licence , once and for all. If Soarer cannot be found, we* should work out whether he's alive or dead. There is a world of difference, even in...

Those stems look some much stronger than the terribly brittle stackpole ones.

I don't think attempting to doxx a former member counts as being kind to one another. A straw man argument the like of that bollocks certainly isn't kind. I agree with most of what you've said, but that's not a strawman, esr has explicitly called on members post Soarer's real name or address. Just ...

https://ultrasonicmachines.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/06/cleaning-keyboard-1.jpg Don't you think water boarding is going a bit far? Just a random thought that contributes nothing: Soarer shared his code under a username that was never concretely tied to a real name or address, so basically anyone ...

Muirium wrote: ↑

28 May 2021, 10:34

Those space invader caps come off real easy. You are warned!

Luckily(?) this doesn't really seem to be the case. Those caps are holding on for dear life, ready to pull the stem out instead letting go.

I don't think you want any springs getting lost down there though.

Guys just release the source. Like who cares, you really think some guy who is either dead or left the community all the sudden is going to care if soarer's is decompiled??? A few years ago, I ragequit an SF flash fiction writing community when I decided I sucked donkey balls at the whole thing, an...

Aside from that I would also say if the goal of tracking down Soarer's personal info and finding his widow is to merely get permission to expand on his work, I don't think there's much of a point. If soarer died it would be better not to bother his family or bring more attention to him irl William ...

ifohancroft wrote: ↑

27 May 2021, 17:04

P.S. Who's tron guy?

Jmaynard's username is a reference to this guy, he was a meme at some point for his groovy Tron suit.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jay_Maynard

Soarer released his convertor for free so waiting 7 years to sue someone seems extremely improbable. There's a big difference between releasing a binary for free and releasing the source code. But exactly who would do anything about it? Copyright just gives the holder the right to pursue legal acti...

If there hasn't been any resolution about the use of his code, but he is no longer amongst us, and it's absolutely necessary to post his name and address so it can be proven in-front of a judge that there has been an attempt to contact him, do so only then. I have no idea why this would ever be nec...

So don't go around trashing Soarer's software, or at least refrain from complaining if someone else trashes YOUR stuff after you've released it. I think it's more of a "why would you threaten Soarer's current wellbeing for some old code he made 7 years ago". Soarer's convertor was and still is impo...

Then what do you consider posting someone's full, legal name and home address on a public forum without their permission? Well, was it done with malicious intent? Irrelevant. Posting someone's name and address without their explicit permission is doxxing. End of story. That's the problem with doxxi...

In my opinion (fuck legal precedent) doxxing somebody is worse than reverse engineering something they freely distributed. You may not be interested in legal precedent, but legal precedent is interested in you. In particular, that they freely distributed the binary is not in and of itself sufficien...

This is not doxxing, as nobody intends any harm to Soarer or his reputation and the facts create what lawyers call a rebuttable presumption that he is dead. Rather, we wish to honor him and carry forward his work I think it is vanishingly unlikely his heirs will say anything other than "carry on, h...

So you know the code has been reverse engineered in the past, and you likely have access to that code and Soarer is gone and others sell things based on his work?
Just take that "$200" gamble and do it.

No need for it to be "legal". Either improve existing open source solutions or steal Soarer's.

Durgod Taurus K320 I have been using one of these as my main keyboard for a year and can attest to its quality. I bought the one with Cherry MX Silent Reds. I planned to desolder the delivered switches, replacing them with Zeal Sakurio switches, but I have yet to do so. My one disappointment with t...

Hansung TFG Art (and associated models) costs a little more but it's really nice from what I've seen.

I don't think the strange-looking PCB design is a result of cutting corners, but more of the designer's (lack of) style ... I've never heard about any problems leading from the ugly routing though. My accusations of cost cutting mostly come from the quality of machine work. They used too large a cu...

Then you'll just be repeating Linus' opinion and can talk about how IBM keyboards are factually superior no problem and not worry about any of these obscure small potatoes like the "Maltron" and "das keyboard" and "topre". The first das keyboard was a custom order G80-3000 with blank keycaps. I'd a...

I was thinking of the Drop CTRL, which by every report I have is quite good. Though I've never used one myself. I'm not saying it isn't a good keyboard, it's the part about "Drop" being in the same sentence as "honourable" that I think people could have objections to ... because of drama . :lol: BT...

This is undoubtedly the area where my knowledge is weakest. If you had to recommend three vendors who are pushing towards better typing ergonomics, who would be? Maltron (~1977), Kinesis (~1991, Advantage and associated boards), and the Keyboardio (2017, Model 01). Open source projects such as the ...

The caps will look good as new with soap + warm water and a damp cloth should get the case really clean. After that all you might need are new cork feet and a converter. If the board is in one piece then don't bother with new foam. F XT cases are really easy to take apart, just remove two screws and...

I’m surprised we’re not doing this over BBS, Usenet, or something equally antiquated but delightful… I have a BTX board but I'm missing the machine (and in the US where the infrastructure for it never existed). I really need to learn about internet communication. I know very little about anything t...

IRC is hard to use on phones? my experience with it was pretty hassle free from what I remember. I might just be a fool who assumed it was difficult. IRC is probably straightforward, but I've never tried it. I first used Discord because the Teamspeak server my friends and I used to squat in was rep...

raoulduke-esq wrote: ↑

18 May 2021, 03:24

That newfangled thing all the youths are using to share tentacle porn and to replace IRC?

Pretty much. It's IRC for dummies that's easier to access use on a phone.
I think a lot of people just use it as an alternative to a group text that also works as VOIP.

Maybe put all this stuff up in an invite-only auction on ebay? International shipping would be handled by them. I was hoping for a US distributor to pick up a batch. I’d happily pay a price that covers the board, international shipping, US shipping, and the distributor’s time, but it’s not worth th...