Legal to hack oscilloscope? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / beginners

author: testtube44
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 am
content: Is it legal to hack an oscilloscope's bandwidth? If it's a federal/criminal offense I won't do it.

author: tautech
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:47:32 am
content: Quote from: testtube44 on January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 amIf you own it do what you want.It's better if you can reverse any hack if there's an issue during the warranty period and you need to return it for repairs.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:51:26 am
content: Quote from: testtube44 on January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 amOnly in the USA would they make something like that a criminal offence...

author: Old Printer
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:27:08 am
content: Quote from: testtube44 on January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 amRight, best not risk it

author: Howardlong
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:17:48 am
content: There seems to be a consensus that enabling deliberately crippled features for your own use is fairly common and even seemingly encouraged by some manufacturers like Rigol as a marketing ruse, but re-selling with those features enabled is likely to get your collar felt by means of a civil cease and desist notice.To my mind there is no difference between a hardware fiddle (e.g. adding/removing resistor/diode links) and a software liberation, as long as it doesn’t involve the exchange of copyrighted material. It would be difficult to claim that unique keys based on serial numbers are copyright for example. Claiming that generic encryption keys are copyright doesn’t seem to stop civil claims from heavy handed lawyers from big boys like Sony or MPAA, although I am not sure if there is case law for this.There may be reverse engineering restrictions in the EULA but that would be a civil and not a criminal issue.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 09:34:45 am
content: Technically with software it all come down to the license. If the software has 100 features and you only bought a license to use 1 of them, then you hack it or use an illegal keygen to unlock the remaining 99 you are using unlicensed software. In the UK this would be a civil offence and it's very unlikely anything would come of it for an individual basis.If you were a large organisation with 1000 installs of this software then the company are likely to take you to court for lost revenue.If you are selling the hacked licenses or hacked devices to unlock software that was unpaid for and unlicensed, then they may raise it with criminal authorities as software piracy. If caught and prosecuted for piracy you could serve a double digit sentence.If you are a small scale vendor the company is likely to send you a solicitor's letter first with a "cease and desist" notice as a warning. If they can threaten you to stop with a letter it works out cheaper. If you persist then they notify the authorities or start civil proceedings.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 12:49:28 pm
content: In order for an EULA to be valid, the purchaser would need to agree to it, before the transaction occurs, otherwise the only thing which protects the software is standard copyright law, which says making copies is prohibited, other than for backup purposes.When installing software, it displays the EULA on the screen, saying that the purchaser has the right to return it, in an exchange for a refund, if they disagree with it. The problem is, in the UK, software isn't covered by the distance selling regulations, which say the purchaser has the right to return the goods and get refunded if they're unhappy with them and many shops refuse returns on software, unless the media is damaged, presumably to guard against piracy. I haven't heard of any legal cases of someone returning software because they disagree with the EULA and the shop refusing to refund them.There was a big flamewar about this awhile ago. I'll search for it and update this post, unless anyone finds it before me.EDIT: Here's the link:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/reasons-for-hacking-dsos/

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 01:05:52 pm
content: Quote from: testtube44 on January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 amYou bought it, you can do whatever you want to it in the privacy of your own home.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 01:21:10 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on January 01, 2018, 12:49:28 pmThis happens in the US too. There was a large rally protesting about laptops being sold with Microsoft Windows. A very large number of people clicked "NO" to the EULA and returned to the shop and asked for a refund for the windows license. They were refused. They held a rally in protest and (IIRC) a LOT of people showed up. For PR Microsoft sent a rep who basically said, "Sorry be bone you, but tough shit, no refund."I don't know how they get away with it, but basically as the retailer installs the OS OEM style as part of the package they will not partially refund it you just can't get your money back even if you don't accept the license. You can return the laptop of "Faulty" of course, but if it's not faulty they have the right to return it to you with no refund.They did for a while (not sure if they still do) use EULA bags on software which basically says if you break the seal you accept the license.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 02:47:55 pm
content: Be careful, because in the US, they might be even swatting you for hacking your scope.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 02:59:13 pm
content: More info on the windows OEM licensing for the curious:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bundling_of_Microsoft_WindowsIt really is a bit dodgy, especially the Windows 8 and 10 secure boot locking. This effectively means the boot block on the hard disk is signed and the laptop will not load the boot block unless it has matching keys. So if you use a Linux boot disc to install linux the laptop will not boot it. Unless the vendor of the laptop is willing to give you the keys and you are savy enough to sign the linux boot loader accordingly, you are a bit boned.I believe there are funky work arounds using the windows bootloader to chain load the linux one and similar hacks.I have yet to encounter this, but my laptop is pre-lock out Windows 8 and I had no trouble installing Windows 7 and Ubuntu on it.Something to be aware of if you are intending on buying a recent laptop to install Linux on. Best read up and work out if you can or not.Anti-competitive anyone?

author: Dino KL0S
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 03:06:02 pm
content: The transaction between the user and the manufacturer appears to be:"I'll buy your gadget and expect you to support it with hardware repair and possibly firmware upgrades during the agreed to warranty period".And on the manufacturer's side:"We'll sell you this gadget with the expectation that you will use it within the constraints imposed in our agreement".If you violate those constraints then you can't have the expectation that the manufacturer then has the obligation to continue their support.IMHO the bottom line is that you can do whatever you want to your scope (or for the most part just about anything else) BUT if in doing so you do something that you then want the manufacturer to fix for you without cost (i.e. bricking it) you may be SOL. It's all a matter of risk management on your part.

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 03:38:31 pm
content: This is why open source hardware and software is preferable to closed, IMHO.

author: taydin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 03:48:45 pm
content: Any agreement that you make with the manufacturer is subject to the laws of your country. In the agreement signed, you might have promised the manufacturer to not reverse engineer their product or to not hack it, but if reverse engineering or hacking the device is not a crime in your country, that signed agreement will be void.The USA has the most fascist laws in this respect. The DMCA, and software patents, means you can be subject to a lawsuits by another company by doing the above things. And when that happens, whoever has more money will win.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 03:53:57 pm
content: Quote from: cdev on January 01, 2018, 03:38:31 pmYes, but a lot of traditional companies don't understand how to monetise it because open sourcing forces you to be honest. You can't get away with selling something worth £1 for £100 because someone will just use your design to clone it and sell it for £1. Ala Adafruit.The downside is you can't recoup your R&D costs from the product as someone will produce it at cost and sell it undercutting you. But the idea of open source is that a community provides the R&D in the first place, so in theory that part should be "FREE(tm)".Most companies don't understand this and in fairness with the chinese market as cheap as it is it makes things difficult for open source hardware companies like Adafruit and Arduino, trying to convince people to buy their originals when the clones are 1/10th the price.Most companies then be like:

author: xygor
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 04:00:54 pm
content: Do you rip the tags off seat cushions?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 04:27:21 pm
content: I don’t have enough fucks to give on this matter. They got the sale because it could be hacked and only because it could be hacked in my case.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 04:48:57 pm
content: I would think the practice is questionable if anybody wanted to ask the question. But nobody is going to ask!Do you think for one minute that Rigol, a company that now OWNS the entry level scope business, isn't aware that this is going on? Of course they know! It costs them nothing, really, because it is a matter of a filter capacitor one way or the other. If they had really wanted to differentiate the 50 MHz and 100 MHz versions, they wouldn't have included two capacitors in the design. Then we would all be using hot air tools to hack the scope.As to the features, the only reason anybody is buying the scope at any bandwidth is the availability of features. Decoding is a particularly good reason to buy the scope, 4 channels is another.If Rigol was concerned about OWNING the entry level scope market by way of this 'upgrade process', they would have changed the encryption a long time back.I wouldn't be surprised to find that the DS1054Z sells in larger volume than ALL other scopes combined. Companies only dream about this kind of success. They aren't going to do anything to limit it.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:01:33 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 01:21:10 pmHere in the UK, that isn't an issue for goods bought online, as the distance selling regulations apply to hardware, such as laptops, so it's possible to returned it for a refund in that case, irrespective of whether it's faulty or not. Buying from a physical shop might be different though.The issue I was referring to was to when software is bought alone, without the associated hardware, as it's not covered by the distance selling regulations.Quote from: taydin on January 01, 2018, 03:48:45 pmQuote from: Dino KL0S on January 01, 2018, 03:06:02 pmWhat singed agreement? I've never ever had to sign any such agreement, when buying a piece of test equipment.I agree that modifying the software or hardware will void any warranty, but that's often not required. In some case just entering in a key unlocks features, which you'd otherwise have to pay for. When I bought my Rigol oscilloscope, I didn't have to read any end user licence agreement, at any point in the transaction and there wasn't any mention of it, when I booted the oscilloscope for the first time.

author: Cyberdragon
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:02:59 pm
content: QuoteUnless it's Lenovo. Remember when Louis poured a bottle of water on his laptop and sent it in for repairs and they fixed itUNDER WARRANTY!

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:06:41 pm
content: Rigor surely expects the scopes to be hacked. Why else would they include four expensive 500MHz probes with the 100MHz scopes in the 4000 series?

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:07:22 pm
content: C'mon guys & gals ... the OP is just asking a simple question and expecting answer either YES or NO.Reason is quite obvious, he/she is in the middle hesitation and unclear what to decide.To OP .. here my answer ...Quote from: testtube44 on January 01, 2018, 06:39:43 amYES !

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:20:10 pm
content: Quote from: Cyberdragon on January 01, 2018, 05:02:59 pmThey did this with my X201 when I poured a cup of coffee in it and wrecked the screen. In fact they sent a replacement out and asked me to swap the disks and put the return one in the box. Bear in mind the only side effect from pouring a whole cup of coffee in it was a dull section of the LCD screen!

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:23:03 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 05:20:10 pmMany manufactures will go above and beyond their legal obligations, in order to keep customers, Still be careful with your laptop. Don't try pulling this one too often, otherwise they might stop being so nice.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:25:44 pm
content: indeed. Paid off for them as we bought 200x T420’s on the back of that event.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 05:35:50 pm
content: Did you agree to any sort of license when you bought it ? if not, there is no contract or licence that you can be bound to.AIUI DMCA refers specifically to defeating copy protection, which doesn't apply here, and it is also questionable whether it could apply to a device like a scope which is not primarily a computer system.TL;DR Hack away - nobody is going to come after you.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:11:06 pm
content: Quote from: BravoV on January 01, 2018, 05:07:22 pmAre you a lawyer?Are you certain that hacking test equipment to unlock features, is legal worldwide?I'm not a lawyer. I'm pretty sure that unlocking an oscilloscope for private, non-commercial, use will not get you in trouble because of the practicalities of the manufacture finding out and pursuing you.Morally speaking, I have no problem with unlocking an oscilloscope, whether it be for private, commercial use, or to resell. I think the manufacturer is immoral, if they actively cripple their product. Of course, this is totally different to what the law might permit: for example, if you do it on a large scale, it's quite likely the manufacturer will pursue you.Note that I can't speak for others, as far as the moral argument is concerned. There are those with the total opposite view, who see hacking an oscilloscope to access features one hasn't paid for, as immoral. Then there are those who think hacking is fine for non-commercial purposes. Not to mention many other various viewpoints intbetween There's no point in discussing whether hacking an oscilloscope is moral or not. It's like arguing about religion. Again I refer to the flame thread:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/reasons-for-hacking-dsos/

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:32:02 pm
content: Interesting read:https://uk.practicallaw.thomsonreuters.com/2-598-3565?transitionType=Default&contextData=(sc.Default)&firstPage=true&bhcp=1Note the section on "Circumventing effective technological measures" is widely open to interpretation.Again though I don't expect anything would come to an end user for hacking his or her scope/game system. They will however seek people who are hacking them and then selling them, or selling hacking kits.Ridol ARE losing out. Assuming they sell the higher spec scope for a higher price, then by buying the lower spec'ed model and hacking it they lose out on revenue that you would have spent on the higher model.There was a classic case of this a few decades back when Windows NT came out. It came in two editions. NT Server and NT Workstation. When someone discovered that the software was identical but the price vastly different and there was a single bit flag which switched the server edition into being a workstation they tried to complain. I can't remember if they actually took Microsoft to court, but it was put to bed anyway with Microsoft rightly claiming they can sell you partly disabled software for cheaper price if they wish. This is a very common practice today.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:32:59 pm
content: Quote from: Hero999 on January 01, 2018, 06:11:06 pmCan anyone point to some specific legislation that would make it illegal ?There is probably a distinction to be made in some cases between enabling software functionality (decodes etc.) and removing hardware crippling (bandwidth, memory)In the case of equipment you own which has been hacked - even if it was illegal how can anyone prove who did it?I doubt anyone could find a situation where ownership of a hacked scope is illegal.There maight be other classes of equipment where this could be the case in some countries ( RF sources, eavesdropping receivers, jammers etc.).

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:34:30 pm
content: When you buy a product you own it. You can do whatever you want. If you can find a way to make it work better, good for you.You can even make this knowledge public (at least in EU). You can even make money from the ?quired knowledge by making other peoples product work better.I think the American automotive industry are pushing for legislation that the end user will own a car except from the firmware.Alexander.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:36:56 pm
content: Quote from: mikeselectricstuff on January 01, 2018, 06:32:59 pmSee my post regards UK EU. The test case related to hacking a game system to play other regions games normally administratively disabled.This used to be common on DVD players too at first. Initially DVD players were single region, so if you had a UK DVD and inserted a US disc, it would not play it. To make them easier to ship internationally they inserted a fuse switch allowing retailers to configure them. They they allowed multiple changes, so you could switch to US if you moved there, you could switch back to UK if you returned, but you only have 3-5 goes and then it locked.Today you can legally buy "regionless" or "multi-region" DVD players. Usually for PC drives. I think actual BlueRay and DVD still use region fuses.I'm not sure if there are test cases for this instance, but I expect that selling region hacked Blueray players would get you attention of the law.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:38:29 pm
content: Quote from: firewalker on January 01, 2018, 06:34:30 pmNo, this is were you will get the attention of the law. Certainly a civil case from the manufacturer. As in the linked Nintendo case. Technically though they were selling the mod chip.

author: mikeselectricstuff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:42:32 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 06:36:56 pmThat was about selling circumvention devices, not using them

author: FlyingHacker
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:47:38 pm
content: It is very likely illegal in the US, as the access code you enter to unlock the extra features is a protection measure, protecting the copyrighted code.When you circumvent this you are likely violating the Digital Millennium Copyright Act signed by Bill Clinton.Now, I sincerely doubt anyone will do anything about it, but I bet it is illegal in the US.I am not a lawyer....

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:48:51 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 06:38:29 pmThey where selling something that bypassed a security feature?I think that if you could send them the hole unit and take it but they would be fine.There was a car tunning company in Greece that had reverse engineered the ECU of a specific brand of cars and was selling remapping services. The company tried to stop them but they could not. According to the law they had not violated anything.Alexander.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 06:51:51 pm
content: Entering a code from a keygen is not hacking. Although someone can claim that he hack the way on his own.Alexander.

author: firewalker
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:02:49 pm
content: A company was selling power supplies for HAM users. 12 volts @ 5 amps and 12 volts @ 10 amps. If there was an ovecurrent situation the psu would shutdown. I noticed that both psu were identical except the 5 Amp version was one output power transistor short.So, I added a power transistor, changed the output fuse to 15 amps and set a trimmer of the opamp for the over current protection.The 10 amps version was 50% more expensive. Was my doing illegal?Alexander.

author: rstofer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:06:40 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 06:32:02 pmMaybe not... Who would have bought the higher model? In what volume? As it is, Rigol OWNS the entry level scope business. If they didn't have the expanded features at the existing price point, they would be just another manufacturer among the herd. Why is the DS1054Z the most recommended entry level scope on this forum? Price and features. A good balance after the scope is unlocked. The scope is nearly useless without unlocking. The 50 MHz bandwidth is too limiting and without decoding, it's just another bottom end scope. No reason to buy the Rigol version.In my view, Siglent had the opportunity to take over the entry level segment with the SDS1204X-E - essentially nothing more than a Rigol DS1054Z with 200 MHz bandwidth. But, no, they priced the scope at near $760 and that will be limiting how many units they sell. There are a lot of 'gee whiz' differences between the two scopes but the only significant improvement is bandwidth. So, they make a 100 MHz and 200 MHz version and price them wildly different. The 100 MHz version is just another 'me too' priced $100+ more than the DS1054Z and the 200 MHz version is just too expensive.There are economic models of price versus volume and we have to assume that manufacturers know all that stuff. They are perfectly happy with their pricing strategy and recognize all aspects of their markets.

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:39:16 pm
content: This is a complicated issue. Consider these methods of hacking more memory into a theoretical test instrument.1. Replace RAM chip with a larger RAM chip.2. Add more RAM chips in already populated sockets.3. Add more RAM chips in unpopulated section of board.4. Reverse engineer expansion port, design and build RAM board, plug in RAM board.5. Move link to enable more of existing RAM chip.6. Hack firmware to enable more of the existing RAM chip.7. Generate hacked license code to enable more of the existing RAM chip.8. Copy config memory from another test instrument to enable more of the existing RAM chip.What is legal to do at home?What is legal to help others do?What is legal to sell help for?To make it even more complicated, adding RAM might enable additional software functions you don't have a license for.Now think about different countries ...

author: testtube44
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:46:45 pm
content: I have decided this: If you sell it to me, I have all the rights to modify it.Thank you for your input, but I have decided that I am just being a pussy here. I am going to buy a 50Mhz scope and hack it to 100Mhz, wish me luck!

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:52:41 pm
content: Just to note when you buy it, all options are enabled for 30 hours or so anyway.From the moral point of view if this was a car and you bought it and it did 100mph but after 30 hours it only did 50mph unless you bought the go faster pack, what would you do?

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 07:53:34 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 09:34:45 amCopyright law only covers copying and public performance. The copying bit is relatively clear; what public performance means in terms of software is none too clear.It's hard to see how unlocking features involves either copying or public performance, though. Meanwhile patents, although probably not involved here anyway, only pertain to commercial usage of innovations.As for computer software, it's obvious that many of the usage restrictions imposed by vendors such as Microsoftfarexceed their remit under copyright. Their supporting argument for this, is that you had to agree to a EULA when you installed or first used the software. The difficulty there is proof that you did actually agree to it. In many cases it is possible to build a 'sysprepped' image of software which installs automatically without asking any questions at all. Since there is no way of telling if that was how it was installed, it cannot be assumed that you did in fact agree to the EULA.The lowdown here is that most of this stuff has never been tested at court, and the reason it hasn't is that most businesses just aren't prepared to go through the process of a possibly lengthy and expensive court case. It is rather a worrying situation, and you have to ask yourself how different these sorts of tactics are from piracy. If people are been intimidated into complying with restrictions which have no basis in law, then thatispiracy by any other name.Sooner or later it's bound to happen though, and when it does it could be a legal bombshell for the software giants. In most jurisdictions only one test case is needed to set a precedent. For example, they would have to present a case as to why, for example, copyright law allows them to restrict the number of people who log on to a server. Or, why an OEM computer owner can replace the HD, which contains the copyrighted software, but cannot replace the motherboard, which does not. If they cannot satisfy a judge (or more likely a panel of judges) that this makes sense, then all such restrictions which do not involve 'copying or public performance' would have to be removed.I suspect that if the likelihood of such a case arose, the vendor in question would just back down rather than risk being ruled against, because that would be an unmitigated disaster for their business model. Imagine if a 10,000-user site only had to buy a copy of Windows Server for each server, to be legitimate?

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:25:53 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 07:52:41 pmI'm really surprised it's tolerated on test equipment. In the IT industry this kind of time-bombing of paid items is heavily frowned upon. It sometimes arises with trial versions installed on home computers. Most businesses insist that nothing of that kind is installed, though. The danger is of becoming dependent on it, and it then stopping working.One of my most embarrassing incidents was loading-up a couple of laptops for use on a North Sea platform. I overlooked that damned 42-day password expiry which Microsoft put in. The job was delayed, the passwords expired in the shipping crate and when the laptops were uncrated they would not work. I had to talk someone through a workaround using a heaven-knows-what-cost-a-minute Inmarsat link. The boss was furious.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:33:57 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on January 01, 2018, 07:53:34 pmThat is technically against the Microsoft license. That has been tested in court. A charity was setting up and planning on donating recycled PCs to schools in Africa. Microsoft intervened and stopped them as windows was still installed and as an absolutely minimum to transfer the license the install needed resys-prepped to display the EULA screen at next restart (an option on the sysprep command). It turned out that employing engineers to sys prep all the PCs would cost the charity too much money and made the scheme unworkable and it was scrapped.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:39:48 pm
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 08:33:57 pmThat may have been because the install was from a volume license allocated to one specific business. I doubt if it would apply to a retail product. (Copyright law allows you to assign usage rights to a specific individual so that would be within the scope of copyright)

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:49:07 pm
content: I work in software. Sometimes in a position that would be equivalent to "buyer" in retail. ie. the person who chooses what software to use in a dev stack or whether to use a library or component in a solution.Licensing is taken very seriously. Single projects can generate multi-million pounds from a single customer.If you are doing it in your bedroom or home lab, nobody will really care. If however you accidentally use a piece of software which has a commercial use clause in it's license within a million pound commercial solution, you can get stung pretty badly. Suddenly what appeared to be a "FREE" code library turns into a not-very-free-at-all library. Of course you don't notice, your multi-million pound software ships to your customers and nothing happens until a letter arrives with your legal team claiming tens of thousands of pounds in license fees, pay or we take you to court.The larger the company the more seriously this gets taken as the larger the company the more likely a software vendor is to sue them. In small start ups usually it would be someone like me alone making the decision. In medium sized ventures it will be a legal team who analyse different licenses and approve or disapprove them. Developers have an approved license list, anything else they need legal approval for. In very large organisations like banks, every single piece of software, development environment and code library must be pass through approval. You are literally prevented from installing that software beyond your dev environment. Try using a random download library and your build will most likely fail. Sneak in a static lib and someone will find it in an audit and come hunting your head.Then there is the debacle of "viral licenses" if you miss use an open source license there are rare cases where your whole product has to open source. This is mostly scare mongering as it doesn't stand up to scrutiny of logical thought. There have been cases though and they were very costly for the vendors in question. An example might have been Linksys and one of their router OSes ended up having to be open source published.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 08:52:06 pm
content: This incidentally why open source is winnng in some areas: no one wants to fuck around with licensing.As someone who has been on the end of license audit a couple of times from MSFT, you can’t be compliant however hard you try. Last time it cost us a fair whack of cash because of a technicality in where something was installed.Ergo we ported it to Postgres and python on CentOS+AWS and shelved the £80k in licenses to run the turd.

author: glarsson
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 09:06:32 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 08:52:06 pmPractically all open source is licensed (e.g. the L in GPL stands for License). You still have to check if the license is compatible with your use case and that the license is understood and accepted by your lawyers.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 09:16:01 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 08:52:06 pmTrue, but there are gotchas, both actual gotchas and implied scar mongering that freaks out the legal team.The GPL for example is banned in a lot of companies and the scaremongering campaign (probably funded by Microsoft et. al.) was effective in scaring legal teams into believing that even dynamically linking to a GPL code library could be interpreted a "creating a derived work" and requiring you to open source the rest of your project.Most of this is non-sense and the FSF (Free software federation) have multiple articles debunking this myth. However it has happened. I believe it was Linksys who modified the Linux kernel to create the base for a router OS. The FSF asked them to publish the code modification and they refused. It went through court and as the kernel version in the Linksys OS was indeed a derived work based on the GPL linux code it has to be open sourced. Linksys took a big hit, but turned it around. They embraced it and published the code and even made easily flash-able versions of the router allowing others to customise the OS further. The popularity of that router platform exploded and Linksys made their money.Microsoft has had to publish a few bits of Internet Explorer code because it incorporated the GPL GZip library code. Note that MS did not have to open source IE. I don't think anyone could take seeing that code anyway.The GPL issue was addressed with dozens of derived open source licenses which reword and redefine the concept of "derived work". The Lesser GPL, MIT License, and many others were launched or specifically re-versioned to make the terms clearer.I personally have walked this fine line a few times. Modifying open source code to create a solution for a customer. It's a fine line because the open source licenses supports creating customisation for a specific project or customer without releasing the code as long as the software is not distributed. However if you in future distribute that software more generally then you must publish the complete code. Of course then you get into a legal argument over which bits you are required to release. If you customised an open source web application and distributed it (and does putting it online constitute distribution?), you might have to release the code for your modifications, but would you need to release your whole product including back end scripts and other components? My test for this is to ask... if you ran that web application on Microsoft IIS would it need to open source too? Which is obviously ridiculous.

author: Muttley Snickers
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 09:51:31 pm
content: I don't know about this particular user enhancement being against the law or illegal and I don't ever recall Rigol or its distributors releasing a formal statement indicating to users that they may be in breach of some peculiar agreement. My concern would be that the device recorded a change in a system log file which could then be retrieved by a repair center to indicate an unauthorised modification had been made thus voiding any remaining warranty.What is criminal though it appears that TEquipment is charging twenty five bucks US to send an email for the individual options license key as indicated on their Ebay page.TEquipment Ebay Page.https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Rigol-SA-DS1000Z-Options/262579398039?TEquipment Rigol Options Page.https://www.tequipment.net/search/?F_Keyword=DS1000Z%20Option

author: amirm
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 01, 2018, 11:20:21 pm
content: The best sign that the manufacturer doesn't like such hacking and intents to litigate is to go after this forum! This is where it starts with the information on how to do it. To the extent they are not doing it so, then the chances of going after individuals is next to zero.

author: BravoV
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 12:07:44 am
content: Quote from: Hero999 on January 01, 2018, 06:11:06 pmStop beating around the bush will ya ?What does my status as a lawyer or not, has to do with this ? If I am, would you shut up ? Unlikely right ?Also now you brought out the moral word ?To me, morally, after your many-many-many posts here, you still owe the OP the answer, just plain YES or NO.And once you've answered, then you can start making noises about your answer.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 01:29:49 am
content: IANAL and this is probably tl;dr for many.There is hacking and there is hacking. Circumventing software restrictions is commonly illegal as a result of US pressure. So enabling license options without authorization is illegal. Rigol clearly does not care. In a commercial setting, no calibration facility is going to calibrate a DS1054Z as a DS1104Z. But hobbyists don't do regular calibrations unless they also maintain suitable calibration gear. Moreover, the lower spec models give the OEMs a market for higher end units that fail testing. That is probably only an issue when a new model is introduced, but it can save a lot of money by avoiding rework.However, it would require a *very* creative lawyer to successfully argue that removing the software from a product you owned and replacing it was illegal.The GPL is intended to allow users the ability to fix and modify items that they own. It was motivated by RMS' frustration with a printer bug that the OEM would not fix.I don't know if Rigol is using an embedded Gnu/Linux toolchain. There are very good commercial alternatives such as QNX. But other T&M OEMs are. Rohde & Schwartz uses GPL'd code in the RTB2000 line. Unlike the Chinese, they mention this in the manual with instructions on how to get the source code for the GPL parts.Rather obviously, there is a lot more to a scope than the OS and related utilities. But it is the infrastructure upon which the instruments are built. There are numerous Gnu/Linux embedded development environments. Every major chip OEM has one. Most, and probably all, Zynq based scopes use the Xilinx supported environment. It would be a very hard sell to convince management to fund developing a bespoke development environment to build low end T&M gear. Even Keysight does not do such things. Initially they used Windows. And Keysight routinely designs and manufactures their own ASICs instead of using COTS FPGAs.The GPL does not require that the GPL's source be given to all and sundry. Only that it be given to persons who own something that uses that software. So there is no legal basis for demanding the GPL'd source for something you do not own. However, there is no restriction on your giving the software to other persons.Hacking a scope that uses GPL'd software in the sense of modifying and replacing the existing software is entirely legal. That was the intent of the GPL. The first step to such an endeavor is to get the GPL's code and put together the infrastructure to compile the available source and combine it with the binary only parts. After that milestone has been met, one can address replacing the non-open source pieces of code.I have an Instek MSO-2204EA. While I'm reasonably happy with the hardware, I don't like the software. My intent is to make it possible to add or modify features as was RMS' intent. I recently had the good fortune of acquiring a GDS-2072E from Amazon at 1/3 regular list specifically for testing and development work. I'm not about to risk bricking my MSO-2204EA testing a modification. It also means I have a GDS-2000E I can easily probe with my MSO.This is already way too long, so if you're interested please look here:https://www.eevblog.com/forum/testgear/gw-instek-gds-2000e-released/msg1388999/#msg1388999

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 01:38:22 am
content: Quote from: rhb on January 02, 2018, 01:29:49 amI think the word "Public" in the GPL says otherwise. It does require that the software be made available to all and sundry. There is no concept of "ownership" in copy left, only maintainer-ship and "authoring". Always, always preserve the original and subsequent authors credits.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 01:53:24 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 01:44:14 amThis doesn't make sense. There are already many IPC communication protocols that will let you poke about in a running programs memory (with the right privileges, ie. root).You can open the whole memory of a running process using the "PROC" interface in Linux. You can access and read/write all of it's file descriptors. As root. Accessing it's private memory might be read only though. Accessing it's shared memory isn't and that is what it will be using for IPC.The reason this doesn't work is because the process itself is concurrently accessing the writing to that memory. Your ability to hack around concurrently will be limited. Unless you reverse engineer all of the IPC being done by the original program and interface with it for monitor access via it's locks it's a fools game and.. doing that reverse engineering is on a par with disassembling the code.It would be like trying to reverse engineer a dozen micro-controller system with a logic analyser.Anyway, there is no need. If open source software provides an API which allows you to use it without modifying it's source code, the license does NOT transfer. Your code can remain closed source while using open source libraries. libdl (Lib Dynamic Load) is perfectly supported without license transfer. It is only the scaremongering that has drawn this into question and it has never been tested in court as it's bonkers. It would make EVERYTHING open source if true.Your webapp uses PHP. PHP is open source GPL, so does that make your web app open source? PHP can access Microsoft SQL Server, does that make Microsoft SQL Server open source? Microsoft release "Tools for Unix" which runs on Linux and links against glibc which is GPL, does that make Microsoft Tools for Unix open source. Of course not.The way it is meant to work is that when an opensource service or API does NOT quite provide what you need in your product and you modify it to support the features you need, you are obliged to release those changes to the open source community, to put back in when you can, so that everyone benefits from your modifications. You don't need to open source your whole product to do that. If you code requires a customised function in LibMySQL then you should give it back.Case in point. My ADC/DAC trials today with the AdaFriut library and finding some short comings and resolving them. I should/could release those changes back to Adafriut maintainers. Even though I could use them in my product. I wouldn't need to opensource my project because I modify the library I use.Simple things matter more than you think. About 10 years ago I was using a KDE application called "KGet" to download things. It had a sys tray icon and it annoyed me greatly that when you hovered your mouse over it it didn't show you a tooltip with download stats. However the main GUI window showed those stats. It annoyed me that much that I checked out the code, added the tool tip with Total upload, Total download and submitted the patch to the KDE dev branch. It was accepted and released in the next version. My code has been adaptor, extended, moved, and probably completely dropped by now, but millions benefited for it. That makes me feel good, but all I did was solve MY problem and figured others would enjoy those changes too.

author: orin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:22:53 am
content: Quote from: paulca on January 02, 2018, 01:53:24 amThat is true of LGPL, but is NOT true of GPL. If you link to a GPL library that does not have an exception for linking to it, then you are creating a derivative work and your code must be open source.The same restrictions can make it impossible to link to a non-open source library from GPL code unless the GPL code has an exception for linking to the library in question. There was an incredible fuss with the openocd library where a contributor was threatening lawsuits because someone posted a compiled version that linked to a non-open source ftdi dll.Quoteglibc is not a pure GPL license and specifically allows linking by closed source applications. Compilers and interpreters also normally have exceptions to the license to allow such use, though data processed by an open source license is not affected by the license and that is what a PHP program would be anyway.What people misunderstand about GPL is that it cannot attach to any closed source third party code that you link to. However, if you link to both GPL and closed source code (and release it publicly),youwould be in violation of the GPL. Neither you nor GPL can force a third party to be open source. If you are in the US, statutory damages for copyright violation are not pretty.So, at work, I treat pure GPL licensed software aspure poisonas far as linking to it is concerned. Their loss, not mine. LGPL licenses are usually OK, MIT licenses are usually OK.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:27:16 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 02:05:13 amPHP is (can be) a static linked module inside the apache httpd binary. The open source MSSQL driver can be statically linked into the apache/php binary. They form what is argued to be a "combined or derived work" under the scaremongering tactics.Granted the MSSQL lib is just a TCP/IP wrapper to the MSSQL network protocol, I doubt it supports native windows COM or similar sockets. The driver is probably not provided by Microsoft but is a reverse engineered open source entity.The more prime example is a commercial application running on Linux, such as any number of high value closed source applications. including Salsae Logic software. These all MUST at some point link with the basic GNU/GPL core libraries such as glibc which is 100% pure GPL. You cannot create a native Linux application beyond assembler without linking to glibc. GLibc provides functions like "printf" and all the C std io lib functionality. To link to it you will need to use the header files when compiling, these includes bare the GNU/GPL copyleft header. It is this that the scaremongering viral license proponents warn about, linking to GPL code, but clearly it's bollox. There are applications written for Linux by IBM, Microsoft, Apple which are definitely NOT open source that link to glibc. If I could be bothered I'm sure there are a few on my system right now. I can ldd them and find a dozen GPL libraries dynamically or even statically linked. None of these projects have been forced open source.So if that is allowed, why not just use it that way, the way it was intended. If your legal department is paranoid, then pacify them with a LGPL variant if you have to.The other way around, allowing open source applications to probe into and take control of proprietary applications is in essence the definition of "cracking", popularised as "hacking" in pop culture.

author: orin
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:31:15 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 02:05:13 amYou might get away with that if the GPL code is in a separate process and there is no shared memory at the user level. You are going to get in trouble with the definition of 'linking' if the the server process containing the GPL code is any more tightly bound to your client code. Better do your legal research and consult an PI lawyer before selling anything based on that idea though - and be prepared to defend it in court if some open source zealot takes a dislike to it.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:36:06 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 02:33:35 amHere is the output of the linking required by "Logic" from saleae:Code:paul@localhost ~/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit) $ ldd Logiclinux-vdso.so.1 (0x00007ffd4a7ce000)libAnalyzer.so => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libAnalyzer.so (0x00007fedea304000)libQt5Network.so.5 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libQt5Network.so.5 (0x00007fede9fa4000)libQt5Sql.so.5 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libQt5Sql.so.5 (0x00007fede9d5c000)libQt5Widgets.so.5 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libQt5Widgets.so.5 (0x00007fede950c000)libdl.so.2 => /lib64/libdl.so.2 (0x00007fede9304000)libpthread.so.0 => /lib64/libpthread.so.0 (0x00007fede90e4000)librt.so.1 => /lib64/librt.so.1 (0x00007fede8edc000)libQt5Gui.so.5 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libQt5Gui.so.5 (0x00007fede8734000)libQt5Core.so.5 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libQt5Core.so.5 (0x00007fede8014000)libstdc++.so.6 => /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/6.4.0/libstdc++.so.6 (0x00007fede7c14000)libm.so.6 => /lib64/libm.so.6 (0x00007fede790c000)libgcc_s.so.1 => /usr/lib/gcc/x86_64-pc-linux-gnu/6.4.0/libgcc_s.so.1 (0x00007fede76f4000)libc.so.6 => /lib64/libc.so.6 (0x00007fede7344000)libz.so.1 => /lib64/libz.so.1 (0x00007fede712c000)libGL.so.1 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGL.so.1 (0x00007fede6e84000)/lib64/ld-linux-x86-64.so.2 (0x00007fedea5cc000)libicui18n.so.56 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libicui18n.so.56 (0x00007fede69e4000)libicuuc.so.56 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libicuuc.so.56 (0x00007fede662c000)libicudata.so.56 => /home/paul/devel/logic_analyser/Logic 1.2.17 (64-bit)/libicudata.so.56 (0x00007fede4c44000)libgthread-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libgthread-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fede4a3c000)libglib-2.0.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libglib-2.0.so.0 (0x00007fede4724000)libGLX.so.0 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGLX.so.0 (0x00007fede44f4000)libGLdispatch.so.0 => /usr/lib64/opengl/nvidia/lib/libGLdispatch.so.0 (0x00007fede4224000)libpcre.so.1 => /lib64/libpcre.so.1 (0x00007fede3fac000)libX11.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libX11.so.6 (0x00007fede3c6c000)libXext.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXext.so.6 (0x00007fede3a54000)libxcb.so.1 => /usr/lib64/libxcb.so.1 (0x00007fede3824000)libXau.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXau.so.6 (0x00007fede361c000)libXdmcp.so.6 => /usr/lib64/libXdmcp.so.6 (0x00007fede3414000)libbsd.so.0 => /usr/lib64/libbsd.so.0 (0x00007fede31fc000)I'm fairly sure most of those are GPL libraries. You will get similar results for most commercial applications on Linux. Can you provide an example of the FSF taking anyone to court for linking creating a derived work?I note they are shipping the QT Runtimes. These are not GPL, they are usually a lot worse. The QT license is weird. I can't remember why but it was flagged on several legal license reports I seen.

author: llkiwi2006
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:41:22 am
content: Quote from: paulca on January 02, 2018, 02:36:06 amQT is LGPL, so it is perfectly fine that they have dynamically linked to it. I don't actually see a GPL'ed library in that list.EDIT: see herehttps://www.qt.io/licensing-comparison/

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:52:16 am
content: Quote from: llkiwi2006 on January 02, 2018, 02:41:22 amIt seems my information is out of date. That and the amount of work done to passify the GPL scaremongers with LGPL etc. The libraries I spot checked in the list are indeed non-GPL and use quite a range of different licenses.Still I have read articles by Stallman etc. stating that the dynamic linking "derived work" was never the intention of the GPL. I believe the article did concede that "legally" it could be interrupted as such. I might look up the article.QT is now version 5, it's been a long time since I remember there being problems. Something about commercial use/release requiring a specific a license. That could date back a while though.

author: rhb
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 02:58:14 am
content: Crikey! I wish I'd never posted to this thread.From the GPL:QuoteIf you write a client - server model program using any form of IPC, it doesn't matter how the other end is licensed.From Wikipedia:QuoteI'm simply trying to make the point that you do *not* have to design hardware to have open source instruments. One need only rewrite the proprietary parts. And chip OEMs like Xilinx provide a lot of example code. What do you think the chances are that a 20 something programmer in China is *not* going to use those code examples as the starting point for writing the FPGA code? And contrary to the currently popular opinion in certain circles, *most* people do not get stupider with age. So difficult for a 20 something is commonly easy for someone older.No one is forced by the GPL to give up *their* source code. The point I was *trying* to make is once you have the framework, connecting the dots is a *lot* easier than starting from scratch.But please, forget I ever said anything.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 03:24:21 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 03:02:36 amAs I said. I'm a bit out of date in my licenses, but the reason why LGPL and most of the other licenses used exist comes down to the legal interpretation of the GPL. A lot of those libraries where originally GPL. The scare mongering campaign funded by the likes of Microsoft created a turmoil putting people and mostly legal teams right off open source, that was averted by re-licensing things as LGPL, berkley, mit etc. To make things clearer and pacify the legal teams.

author: EEVblog
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 08:28:01 am
content: Quote from: taydin on January 01, 2018, 03:48:45 pmDoesn't matter what country you are in, you can be sued at any time for any thing under the sun. Doesn't matter if they don't stand a chance in hell of winning, expensive lawyers can tie you up until you go bankrupt.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 08:42:41 am
content: This. Stay off the radar. Violate licenses silently and without fanfareOn the subject of open source licenses, anything I’ve provided is either BSD, MIT or Apache 2 license. If we ship code it has to be one of those licenses or internally written. On our own SaaS stuff, doesn’t matter. It’s only distribution that GPL gives an ass ache on.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 08:58:35 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 08:52:06 pmHaving a serious effect on my business, as the effort in sorting out the licensing insanity for even a single Windows server can involve more work than actually deploying it. It's not only the cost, but the wasted time involved. It also causes security and operability issues, for example we can't allow remote access to Windows 7/10 virtual machines without a special license so we have to allow remote access to hardware instead.The latest licensing moves are threatening to virtually end the market for third party Windows server software. For example you can now no longer deploy a mailserver on Windows unless the server has a CAL for every email account. When you consider there is no legal basis whatsoever for these restrictions, it really is getting past a joke.I too would rather deploy open source, but not all clients want to go that way.I'm wondering if an approach to Donald Tump might be productive in putting an end to this. He's demonstrated a zero tolerance attitude to nonsense of similar kinds. Perhaps a petition?

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 09:11:15 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 02, 2018, 08:42:41 amBasically says that if you ship derivative works you must provide access to the source code on request. Also you cannot place restrictions on usage, other than that it must also be under the same license.Doesn't place any restrictions on selling the derivative work, and does not apply to support agreements, so you can still require that six deployments require six support contracts, for example. Most commercial outfits want support (even if they never use it) so the business model is not very different from closed source."..tell them to talk to your Glock" Unfortunately in the UK, my pointed stick is not so effective a deterrent.

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 09:44:32 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 09:14:55 amI was referring to GPL/LGPL specifically. The advantage of GPL is that Microsoft could in principle take a popular 'permissive license' product and start selling a restrictive license version, without seeking permission. They can't do that with a GPL product. Reprofiler is possibly a case in point since I don't think Redmond has any equivalent utility even now. There is also nothing in the GPL that prevents the author from releasing a closed source derivative provided that it contains no third party GPL code.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 10:05:38 am
content: Quote from: paulca on January 01, 2018, 06:32:02 pmThis of course makes the assumption that the purchaser would have been prepared to have paid for the higher spec'ed model. If they were already towards the top end of their budget, then they simply wouldn't buy the higher priced unit.Rigol might not be losing out at all. They could be gaining customers who know they can hack the 'scope to a better model, rather than going to one of their competitors and pay much more.QuoteThat case just deals with software. Some of the Rigol hacks are just to access extra hardware, such as more memory, which probably not covered by copyright law. It's questionable, whether all aspects of software are copyrightable, since algorithms are not covered by copyright, only patents and there are a limited ways of implementing the same algorithm. This question came up in the other thread I referred to earlier, when a printer company attempted to use a software lock out to prevent refilled/third party cartridges from being used.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 10:06:21 am
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on January 02, 2018, 08:58:35 amMicrosoft are only pulling this because the CAL and Windows License model is DEAD. Completely rotten and DEAD. The only way they can succeed now is to go with the subscription model i.e. Office 365 and total AD integration. Then you end up with a company full of dumb terminals with local capital cost with a monthly fee.And you know what? That's fine......That is until you stop paying or they fuck up (which does happen regularly) and all the spinning plates come crashing down and you have no control over your own data's demise.Quote from: IanMacdonald on January 02, 2018, 09:44:32 amI'm not sure that's an advantage of the GPL. A lot of us active OSS developers are fine with derivative works and our code being sold. In fact we're paid to write open source stuff some of the time. Really, if I write something I want it out there being used. That's the joy of the MIT/Apache2/BSD license. Go forth and do what you please with it, as long as you don't hold us liable for any problems and maintain acknowledgement. That's fine. Consequentially, you'll find my name in a few large commercial products which are listed on my CV which allows me to screw employers hard for stable incomeThe travesty of the licensing situation is that lots of paranoia leeches have popped up selling license compliance software. Comedically, we found one of them actually violated licenses and shipped insecure software (another product function it was supposed to protect us against).Sigh, its all shit. Bob Pease was right:

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 10:29:48 am
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 10:14:05 amYeah it's definitely horrible. I personally don't use any formats and tools that aren't entirely platform portable. I've been burned a few times before with exit costs. This means actively avoiding getting into an ecosystem such as Altium's. I'll use kicad over it even if it means more effort and some fights on the way. I've just done two RF boards with Kicad full cycle and it's not that bad really. I'm nor sure I'd pay for Altium unless I was doing something far more difficult (like laying out high speed digital and microwave stuff) and then someone would pay for it for me anyway. Same with LabVIEW and automation software; I'll write my own. Talking to SCPI/LXI devices isn't difficult.Just to back this up exit costs, I had a wonderful job many years ago to fix an ERP product. This was a big expensive bit of software that ran on Windows 2000 and used JET Blue as the storage engine (the same thing MS Exchange and a few other things proprietary to MSFT uses). Vendor went down the shitter and it won't work on anything after Windows 2000 due to various windows incompatibilities. No one bothered to pay for source escrow. It took 3 months and about £50k (most of which went in my pocket - hahaha) to get the data out and into another ERP product.The same thing applies to people who have tried to exit Office 365. Getting large swathes of data out is a really difficult task even with the tooling present to do it. I've seen people just give up and run GSuite side by side for a couple of months then delete what is in office 365. The vendors are relying on people's apathy to get hooked and then never leave. It works pretty well as humans are lazy and short sighted generally.

author: tszaboo
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 10:42:32 am
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 02, 2018, 08:28:01 amNope. Not all countries have British type jurisdiction. For example, where I'm from, the accusing party have to file an indictment, which is first valued. If you had no wrongdoing, you dont even hear about the indictment.And there isnt a trial by jury. And for example you cannot sue someone for falling on your butt on the ice in front of a store, or killing a cat in the microwave. Since no law or contract was broken. You dont sign a contract when buying a scope. The judge will just send you to play with your little toys, not with the court.To be hones, I find the USA (and similar) legal system an absurd joke.

author: Zero999
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 11:34:31 am
content: Quote from: BravoV on January 02, 2018, 12:07:44 am1) If you were a lawyer I would listen more, but take into account that your knowledge would be limited to the jurisdiction you studied/practised law in.2) I owe the original poster nothing. No one has a right to an answer to their question, especially when they've not paid for any advice.3) In this case a yes/no answer is not applicable, since no one is aware of any test cases and it will depend on the local legal system.

author: CJay
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 07:20:21 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on January 01, 2018, 05:25:44 pmOoh, unlucky, they were the ones that had major BGA problems weren't they?

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: January 02, 2018, 09:43:15 pm
content: We only had an 8% failure rate in 2 years before the next hardware cycle which is about what we expected so not sure really. About 50% of the failures were user inflicted.

author: WattSekunde
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2018, 02:25:57 pm
content: Quote from: EEVblog on January 01, 2018, 01:05:52 pmRight! You maybe loose your warranty. But now the problem shifts to another level. What's with modding tipps and reverse engineered information you pass to the public. I would say that's no problem. But I'm not sure in this aspect.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 09, 2018, 02:30:08 pm
content: In a lot of places it's not allowed to void a warranty because of an unrelated issue. This means that altering the software has no effect on the warranty of other components. Of course, there's grey area there and getting what's rightfully yours is another thing, but losing your warranty because you damaged a sticker isn't going to fly.

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 09, 2018, 03:06:58 pm
content: Quote from: glarsson on January 01, 2018, 05:06:41 pmI don't think they *expect* them to be hacked. But, on the other hand, I guess they don't mind if a small business or a hobbyist does it. I hacked my DS1074Z. Did they lose any money? I don't think so.However, the hacking phenomenon is self limiting. If you use an electronic instrument for a serious purpose, be it some industrial application or research, you cannot use a hacked instrument. What happens if your final product has some serious safety issue and it comes down to the fact that you used non certified test equipment to perform some critical measurements?When you buy test equipment you are not only buying a piece of hardware and software. You are buying trust. What happens if Rigol claims that there is no warranty that a DS1054Z can work well at 100 MHz? All of this has happened before. I remember when people bought Pentium CPUs rated for a clock speed and overclocked them. Turned out that a large portion of the low speed parts could work perfectly at higher frequencies, but they weren't tested at the factory. Testing isn't free, so Intel just tested for high clock frequencies as many processors as required to fulfill orders. Of the rest, untested, and sold as low frequency parts, a large percentage just worked. But of course there was no warranty.So I guess it's not so dramatic for Rigol. They have made sales to hobbyists that a few years ago didn't imagine they would be able to afford a brand new scope, getting Nth hand boat anchors instead. Siglent's policy with the X-E series is a good example. No software options. And I think it's a goodpolicy.

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 09, 2018, 03:18:55 pm
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on January 02, 2018, 09:44:32 amEverything depends on your goals. If you are on a mission to try and make all software free, GPL is great. If not, well, GPL doesn't offer any special advantage. If you are the author of a GPL licensed program you still won't earn anything out of products from other manufacturers using your code. The benefit (or not) of GPL is in derivative code and forcing to share it with the community. Nothing else.However, I think that the BSD license (so despised by "free software" diehards) has been tremendously beneficial for the community. It has helped spread the TCP/IP protocol stack and it has helped interoperability a lot.Juniper routers (many used in large Internet backbones) have an operating system that is basicly FreeBSD, for example. Does it mean that FreeBSD ceased to exist? Not at all, and as far as I know both Juniper and Apple have contributed code back to the project.On the other hand, some of the claims of the "free software" movement (I mean the members of the Holy Church of the GPL Licenciology) are plain stupid, giving too much value to plain source code. What is truly important isopen standards. I don't care that a city council uses MS Word to write documents. But I want to be able to open those files with other editors thanks to freely available specifications that allow other developers to work with those files. That's what matters. But, Windows source code? I don't think there's much value in the source code of that turd.Also, source code without documentation is useless. How much excellent software is there today that, sadly, is almost useless because you have to bang your head against a wall due to absolutely crappy documentation? The latest fashionable "installation documentation" in the Linux world is something like...wgethttp://program-instructions.com| bashDo you have special requirements? Abandon all hope or get ready to waste countless hours investigating stupid stuff that could be simply written on a README file.

author: skillz21
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 06:07:18 am
content: That's actually such a smart idea.....

author: cdev
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 09:00:53 pm
content: FreeBSD gets a lot of support these days from Apple, but to the best of my knowledge, Apple is not giving that support with strings attached.-----------Ive been weighing the pros and cons of getting a Rigol scope. So far the logic of not getting it has won out. I've still not maxed out on my current equipment's capabilities, so I can put off getting a new scope until I find I cant do what I need to do with what I have got.Because you have to pay extra to turn on options, I either would buy it with those options all enabled, or not at all.For me, personally, it would be essential that it come with all the options turned on.If a product doesn't come with all its functionality in the box, or it being clear that when I buy the hardware, I can do whatever I want with it, I won't buy it.The model of selling a product with big chunks of it turned off bugs me.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 10, 2018, 09:41:53 pm
content: I just downgraded my hacked DS1054Z.It's now a 1974 Tek 465. It's quieter, the user interface is better, it has about 60% function coverage of the DS1054Z for 8.6% of the cost, the probes aren't made of gnat hair, there is a service manual and no moral dilemmas on licensing included. Plus there's a button I can pull out if I want 20MHz of artifically limited bandwidthOh and fuck GNU. Just because.

author: David Hess
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 04:17:08 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 10, 2018, 09:41:53 pmI am not sure if you are serious but if you do not want to give up having storage capability, consider a Tektronix 2232 or if cash is short, 2230.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 08:57:13 am
content: 100% serious. The tek is a far better machine. For the use cases I have it’s actually “good enough” and that’s what is important really.As for storage I have an HP 54602B as well now which handles the storage stuff I was doing considerably better (all very low sweep speed like watching PLL locks and X-Y plots). Well it will do when I’ve fixed it

author: IanMacdonald
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 09:34:17 am
content: I can see the advantage to Microsoft of the subscription model. Many sites use very old Office software, for example there are even some copies of Office 97 still in use. Hence they only get paid once in a decade or two by such people. Subs mean the customers have to keep upgrading, and paying for the latest.That, and a per-user per-month figure sounds cheaper than paying upfront until you get out the calculator and see how costly it actually is.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 09:59:23 am
content: It's likely cheaper over time and allows you to scale your company up and down without ending up with dead licenses. Look at us: try getting capital expenditure for say 370x £1000 office seat license up front past the bean counters? On a subscription model you can keep that as a regular operational cost and crank that down on a monthly basis if we lose a few tens of people without having to basically have watched the cash burn on dead licenses.For businesses, this is good. Plus no upgrade treadmill. Boil the users like frogs, not give them a new machine every 6 years.Single user: I'm paying £7.99 a month for 5 seats. Two kids laptops, wife's laptop, my laptop. Meh pocket money

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 10:17:39 am
content: Quote from: IanMacdonald on February 12, 2018, 09:34:17 amThat advantage to Microsoft translates directly into a disadvantage for the customer. The benefit of making yourself much more dependent on the whims of another party is an added bonus. Being critically dependent on a whole assortment of suppliers who can just decide to pull the plug from one day to the next or go bankrupt with the same result doesn't seem to be a good business practice at all. That can happen now too, but production shouldn't suddenly grind to a halt overnight.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 10:42:23 am
content: Realistically that's the status quo though forallbusinesses. If you find somewhere that you can create profit efficiently which doesn't rely on a supply chain I'm interested.At best it's a cost trade-off. It's cheaper to subcontract that out than deal with the complexity. For that you have to rely on trust a little bit.Please note that I have two distinct personalities: capitalist bastard, Marxist. I'd like to be the latter but I live in a world of the former.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 11:48:00 am
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 12, 2018, 10:42:23 amDepending on supply chains isn't the problem. These being critical to everyday operations and them potentially being gone from one day to the next is. Migrating your systems from one developer to the next can be painful and potentially company ending, but as soon as you can't continue to operate without doing so your chances of success are slim to none. Whether it's your IT infrastructure or stuffing all of your IP into a CAD cloud, things can go wrong very quickly. The more parties you depend on, the more likely it is this will happen sooner or later.Your margin of error becomes much slimmer and factors outside your control are added. Doing business is all about avoiding risks as much as possible, and taking them where there's gains to be had in an as controlled as possible manner.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 11:57:38 am
content: If that is a worry, and it should be, then you should always plan to fail. Unfortunately that is extremely costly which makes the business entirely not viable to start. Ergo, most of what you do running a business is merely limiting personal liability. If it does fail, then you have a personal exit plan as a director.Also lets not forget the "negative marketing ransom" that clients have over companies. You can turn a supplier into a pile of ash with social media these days overnight. I have done it.

author: paulca
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 12:04:24 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 12, 2018, 11:57:38 amThere is not enough education (for obvious reasons) that capitalism is democratic. You vote with your wallet.If a supplier fails you, don't buy from them again. Spread the word.So many people whine about company X or Y and then go out and buy their products.Granted there are many instances of "boxing in", especially in software. Get your products into the roots of a business and spread and entwine them so deep it's impossibly to remove them. Then start ramping up the price. keep an eye on the cost for your victims to get back out and price accordingly to be just about cheaper. Microsoft. Apple are doing the same to consumers.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 12:07:10 pm
content: Yep exactly.Microsoft volume licensing is exactly as you describe. It's cheaper to rent their shit via the cloud and O365 than deal with VLK and audits which is what both sides really want. I have no problem with it really.

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 12:23:16 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 12, 2018, 11:57:38 amHmm. Not so easy these days with so much noise and so-called "influences" in Twitter.I remember an experience with Hewlett Packard in 1992 or so. I was developing storage management software for a multi channel voice recorder and I needed documentation on their DDS tape units. HP Spain was a dead end. There was no way to contact anyone able to supply documentation.So I decided to write a post on a CompuServe board complaining about it. Something like "software developer needs technical manuals in order to write a driver for a storage management application, HP Spain hasn't answered in a month despite repeated attempts through all possible channels". I didn't need to post a silly picture of a sad cat or something like that. Nor a horse head on a bedKnow what? In 6 hours I had a written apology on the forum (I wrote the complaint while USA was in bed) and a private message asking for a mailing address. In 48 hours there was a full package of manuals on my desk.(I have to say Quantum was much more diligent, I called their Spanish office, they told me to call a number in Switzerland, the guy in Switzerland just asked for a mailing address and in 24 hours I had the technical manuals for the DLT drives).

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 12:49:46 pm
content: The slight irony there is that I contacted Keysight recently to get a spare part and was directed to an office in Spain.

author: CharlieEcho
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:17:52 pm
content: It's cheaper to rent their shit via the cloud and O365 than deal with VLK and audits which is what both sides really want.Not to mention that by 2013 no SMB wanted to keep throwing money at Exchange server disk arrays (I remember someone trying to sell me NetApp for a twelve person office just to deal with Exchange bloat), and MS didn't want to support everyone's particular edge-case of HW/SW integration and legacy data. Now at least it's all in their environment and the HW is abstracted away.I'm skeptical of overselling 'cloud services' but O365 and AWS are the big exceptions.

author: CharlieEcho
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:24:40 pm
content: And to the OP's question -- the legality is a grey area. There are some things that would definitely create civil (monetary) liability -- and potentially criminal liability, depending on whose laws you're talking about -- like "hacking" the units (which is, in reality and in the eyes of the law, just pirating the upgrade keys) and then re-selling them.But the availability of the keygen website is the canary here. So long as Rigol isn't moving heaven and earth to get that taken down they're not going to be coming after hobbyists.And it seems clear that they're about to release a new series anyway. They're mining the hackability of the 1K series for brand goodwill.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:26:22 pm
content: Quote from: CharlieEcho on February 12, 2018, 02:17:52 pmHaha yeah we are there. 120TiB NetApp full of shit

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:31:38 pm
content: It's not as if Microsoft hasn't made a concious effort to make anything that's not related to their cloud services incrementally terrible. Not giving people the more traditional options will cause a backlash, so they just discourage people into submission. The problem is that some services can benefit from going the cloud route, but that others not very suitable are forced into the cloud mould too. If you have a problem and ask Microsoft for a solution, they have on offer cloud, cloud, Azure and cloud.

author: CharlieEcho
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:32:46 pm
content: 120TiB NetApp full of shitUgh. I understand the requirement but around here NetApp isconsidered harmful.Why would I want to pay all that money to lock myself into a proprietary RAID5/6 write-hole? It's the worst of every world....

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:39:15 pm
content: Wasn't my decision unfortunately. Completely agree though. They sold it to the CTO who invariably got a nice dinner out of it before we got our eyes on it.It did replace NT DFS which was marginally worse so I can see the motivation to, using an analogy, drink urine instead of diarrhea.

author: CharlieEcho
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:45:05 pm
content: TBH I'd feel better with DFS on RAID10. (Disk is pretty cheap these days...) I really dislike NetApp. And the integrators that try to sell it like it isn't warmed over obsolescent crap. WAFL indeed: waaaaaah + awful.

author: bd139
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 02:53:32 pm
content: Yeah it's going back to a simpler solution. Two big HP DL boxes with SOFS and 120TiB SSD DAS on each node. Plus we can back a few Hyper-V and SQL instances on that.And still have change for a booze up after not paying netApp any cash

author: borjam
author_rank: Unknown
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 04:19:39 pm
content: Quote from: bd139 on February 12, 2018, 12:49:46 pmThat's Daniel's mischief, I'm sure!

author: Bassman59
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: February 12, 2018, 08:18:43 pm
content: Quote from: blueskull on January 02, 2018, 09:07:54 amIf you pull the Glock, you had best be prepared to use it. And if you murder someone over a disagreement about a software license, you'll be convicted and jailed.All of this "Talk to the Glock" Internet puffery. Jeez, listen to yourself.