[Bada Software and Hacking General] k8500:
Hi everyone,

I started this on Sammobile yesterday (where it is already a sticky). Also, german site Badania has wrote about it now, too. The petition is not started yet, this is only for collecting ideas and knowing about your opinions. Recently there was some 'news' saying that the Wave 3 source code was made open source, which turned out to be untrue (the file released by Samsung was only 130kB big). Big letdown for many of us, and Wave 1/2 source codes were not even mentioned.

The current situation

The thing is, at least the Wave 1/2 users desperately need an open source release to continue enjoying their devices. Both devices are great hardware, they have a big community and developers willing to put in some ellbow grease, but, we don't have the means to fix certain stuff, only Samsung has. You might think about the trouble upgrading Samsung Apps and the trouble with push and SHP in general that many Wave users have experienced in the last few weeks and months. You might think about all the small annoyances that you users ask us CFW developers to fix everyday (but we can't). You may also think of the BadaDroid project, and the tons of work put into developing a working modem driver, still with nothing to show to the public until now.

The last official Wave 1 FW is from July (with little to none improvements over the January XXLA1 release), the last official Wave 2 FW is even older. Some of you think (and with a reason) that Samsung themselves are not willing to do any more updates or fixes for these two devices. They have, more or less officialy, abandoned these devices and are not willing to put in any more work. We, as a community, on the other hand are willing to work on these - without pay even -, but our hands and feet are bound behind our backs due to the Wave 1/2 being closed source. Don't be fooled by our recent successes (design changes, ported chinese keyboard and quickpanel) - reverse engineering is like stumbling through the dark in an unknown environment, and eventually we will come to a standstill. With Bada being closed source, we will always lag behind the likes of Android.

Samsung themselves are no strangers to the idea of openness. They plan to make Tizen an open source project, they also develop highly succesfull Android devices and they also did at least say that they are interested in releasing the Wave 3 source code. Also, they are just now planning a big company image overhaul, with a new logo and a new policy of more openness. But, if nothing is done, they will just forget about the 'old' Wave 1/2 devices - guaranteed.

So, what now?

This is where you, the users, the developers, the mods, the bloggers, everyone in the Bada community come in. I've been playing around for a while with the idea of starting a petition for exactly this: To ask Samsung to release in full the Wave 1/2/3 (or for even more Wave devices) source codes. But wait, don't rush things now!

We need a big, coordinated effort, spanning all the Bada sites around the globe.

We need the petition to operate from a site that's easy to use for everyone (that means no complicated signup and no shady stuff), and we need the petition's text to be multi-lingual, translated in all the languages of all Bada countries: german, turkish, azerbaijani, arabic, polish, czech, french, italian, spanish, and a lot that I have forgotten about. We need a great, short text (not as long as this one) for the petition, so that everyone knows even from a quick glance the why's and the uses of such a petition.

We also need supporters, people willinng to spread the word on other sites, especially the big ones such as XDA or Bada-Turkiye, but also the smaller ones. We need every voice, and we need as many people in this as possible.

We need to give Samsung the choice to either publicly let down thousands of customers, or just, finally, give us the source code that we have been waiting for for so long.

Further proceeding - my suggestion

Now, this is what I suggest now:

Don't rush things - we should be collecting ideas for at least a week until we even think about actually starting a petition.

If you're willing to support this case, spread the word or even find more supporters, let us know here.

Double points if you're also a member of some non-english-speaking Bada community :).

If you have any additional ideas or concerns, also let us know - this is what this thread is for, to collect ideas and coordinate this.

We need a good short english text for the petition itself (I may come up with something later myself).

We need translations for this text in as many languages as possible. And, no, I'm not thinking about Google translations, but about the good old manual ones.

Looking forward to your opinions!