yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] snwman:
I'm sorry but I have to laugh at these threads. These devs do this work for nothing. Sacrifice maybe jobs and family sleep and money to supply these methods for users. 25dollars is nothing if you bought the phone SIM free or even contract
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ashyx:
Absolutely agree, don't bother if you dont want to pay what is imo no different to paying for a network unlock code which is what you will also get with s-off. Do you realise how much hard work goes into things like this?

How often do you offer your services for free?!:rolleyes:

You have a choice, no S-off or stump up and pay the developers a small amount for many many hours of hard work to completely unlock your phone.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] sirio87s:
i've understand and i've decided to relock the phone (the red text is enervating!). the sense is beautiful and the phone work great. peace! ;)
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] ppgregory:
For me was $25 well spent. Decided to do it now because who knows what's to come with updates... Made that mistake before a few years back and got stuck not being able to on a different model after update.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
its because we're so spoiled here on XDA, with all the great roms,tweaks,kernels, and more that are offered to us for free, that some folks freak out when something comes along they actually have to PAY for.

funny how people can come up with 700 dollars for a phone, but if it costs a small fraction of that to buy something that would enhance their experience, and help further the development of their device, they cant do it.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 3lMghraby:
did anyone have tried it with the latest firmware 2.22
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
still waiting for 2.22 firmware to come to my tmobile phone..
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gator9422:
Ok I get it...I think he's right I mean $25 is a lot and since there are tons of people that are buying a m8 and rooting it the devs should of charged $10 max..they are making more than enough off sunshine and tbh it's way more difficult to port roms over with tweaks then to create an s off tool. To be honest fire water should update s off and yes it should be free...s off is basically free for every other phone
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jmoneste:
My 2 cents

I agree that $25 sounds like a lot, maybe they decided to charge that because it works on phones that firewater cannot s-off. who knows... but the real question is, what decides the price of their efforts? Is that the client or the developer? what clause makes you decide that $25 is too much or not? I paid the $25 without hesitation of is too much or not. My motivation was: do I want the stupid red banner go away or not? For me it was a go with the flow and pay.

Comparing $25 to an app that normally rounds no more than $5, yes it is too much but thinking what did they do better and how many hours did they pass thinking, coding, testing, screwing up phones just to make this sw work where firewater didn't? that;s a different story.

Everyone can make their own decisions and I respect them, just don't judge too quickly whether something is too expensive or not as nobody but the developers know what took place to make something work. :good:
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] redpoint73:
I can't blame the devs for wanting to be compensated for their time and effort. Now of course, the issue is that many devs give that time and effort for no fee at all. So to go from "free" all the way up to $25, the sticker shock is understandable. I tend to agree that a $5 or $10 price would have gone over a lot better. Although I don't disagree with your points at all.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
and, I believe they bought a couple of phones to work on, so at 650 each, plus tax and delivery, and suddenly its 1400.00 or more..plus the time to work on it..

makes complaining about 25 bucks seem pretty lame, doesn't it?
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 3484jacks:
Sunshine is the only method that works for all variants of the m8 (apparently). Firewater was developed by the same devs that made sunshine.

IMHO $25 is nothing to achieve S-OFF. Think of it like this (This is probably underestimating this by a butt load but.....)

2 devs have spent (for example) 100 hours each on this. That's 200 man hours. If you charge their time out at $15 per hour that is a sum of $3000 just in their time applied. (personally $15 is very low for the skillset I think but it keeps them in crisps and coffee)

In building this they have killed 4 devices and got it working on the 5th. Thats 5 devices at $650 each (not including tax and shipping I believe)

5 x 650 = $3250

Add this to the $3000 in man hours which comes to $6250. $6250 to develop this!!!!!

If you divide that by the $25 they charge then 250 people have to pay for it just to break even. And like I've said, I'm pretty sure I've underestimated this by loads. Would any of you seriously spend that time and money to develop something like this then dish it out for free? Doubt it.

There's seems to be too many 'I wants' on here now. People who want to mod their phone but don't have the time or patience to let the devs do what they do. It's nothing short of brilliant some of the works that go on on here. I've been here since the HTC magic when rooting the thing took about 3 days. You had to downgrade H-boots, make gold cards etc etc and now there are hundreds of tools FOR FREE that do all this for us but there are still a minority who want more. There will come a time when the devs stop. They will give up because all the joy they got from hacking, sharing exploits and building roms will be sucked out of it by the 'I wants'. No body wants that to happen because of the amazing work they create.

I get that people have their own opinions and that is fine, and I get that $25 is a lot of money to some people, but personally, if you don't like the fact they are charging $25, don't pay it. Its simple. Don't come on here and moan about it!!

Just my two cents like.....
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] jconradb:
I paid the $25 and it's worth it, worked perfect and now S off. I'm a pensioner and you all complain about $25
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] redpoint73:
There are plenty of developers that put forth the same effort, and don't "charge" a penny. Time per hour is one way to think of it (and time is certainly a valuable commodity), but also remember that many devs put in the time because they love to do it and don't expect or want to be paid.

Bricking multiple devices in the process makes the cost a little more understandable. But again, other "amateur" devs have bricked devices in their efforts as well. And when I use the term "amateur" I don't mean it as someone with less skill (as the term is sometimes used to imply), but someone who engages in an activity purely for their love/passion of it, not for money.

Not arguing or complaining. Personally, $25 is not a unreasonable price to pay. But I can understand folks that don't like it, or choose not to pay it. IMO both sides of the discussion have valid points, and its just a matter of opinion and point of view.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] 3484jacks:
Absolutely mate. Putting a 'time per hour' spin on it probably is a bit off course but it was to illustrate a point more than anything . Your right, most do it for love and its brilliant they do, it just grates me a bit when the minority complain about stuff their getting for nothing (apart from this obviously). And having just done it today, it is without doubt the most pain free S-OFF procedure I've ever done. Well worth the money.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] richteralan:
As a person who earns a living by doing what I love, now this is an absolutely absurd thing to say.

Whether a person love what he/she is doing does not mean they don't want to be paid. By saying this it undervalues the actual work they have done.

I can't think of a more condescending thing to say like "ah since you love what you do so you should offer your work for free."

Now carry on with the discussion.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] redpoint73:
You misinterpret what I was saying. I never meant it to be mutually exclusive, and my apologies if it was not clear.

Yes, you can love your work and be paid for it.

My point is that an amateur does it

purely

for love/enjoyment and doesn't

expect

payment.

---------- Post added at 11:27 AM ---------- Previous post was at 11:25 AM ----------

Well, I never said or implied that.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
Black and White

I agree with both sides of this... I mean the " should be free " and "should be paid for" aspects, but I honestly thing one out weighs the other...

Why I think it should be free:

-As a member of XDA for about 5 years, I have never seen anyone charge so much for a tool which in technicality, is not hard to make.

-HTC is KNOWN for their huge open doors for modding and development, giving us a lot of FREE tools to unlock our bootloaders , and etc,

so for someone to make a command-line program ( meaning it could easily be made in notepad...) that's FOCUSED on HTC which offer free tools, is against the very nature of HTC.....

- I think a lot of you are missing a simple fact... The devs DIDN'T make this to sell it......They made it essentially so they could......S-Off their phones... (shocker right) , then it was free, then they realized they could make some money off of donations... Then when that wasn't enough, the REINFORCED , what I would say is over charging people for something that they actually didn't even plan on selling.

-SURE " you can buy a $700 phone, but can't afford $25?" ... YEAH NO.... $700 is a lot of money in the first place... some of us had work pretty damn hard just to reach $700 to essentially " blow " , so $25 ( about 2 hours of average work ) is actually a pretty big slap in the face... It would be like spending all your time idk... leveling a character in a MMO to wear a certain item that you paid for, just to find out, when you reach that level, that they patched the item, and you now need to also pay / level up further to wear it..

- This is just a monopoly really...

-THIS IS ANDROIIIIIIID WTF

Why they should charge:

They spent their time and effort into developing a program, which benefits A LOT of people, so I could understand why they would want compensation...... BUT after all.... This is XDA , this IS Open Source, this IS HTC. , so they shouldn't expect people to pay realistically.....

I know if I made an unlocking tool, or just ANYTHING that people really NEED and WANT, that I most likely wouldn't charge for it, and if I did... I would at least have a GUI.....And it would probably be like .... $1 ... IF anything.... I'd rather be known as that dude that helped out a lot of people but didn't take clear advantage over them...... They should have just put the donations into a pot that would cover the " development costs " , then not release the tool until a criteria was reached... Makes much more sense to me.... They don't waste money, and everyone is happy..... Unless of course..... Nothing but money makes the devs happy... which in that case, I wouldn't wanna support them with $25 anyways
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
Hey, I am not a big fan of paying 25 bucks for a phone app either, but when the time comes that I want to S-Off, then I will have to suck it up and pay for it. As far as being known as the "dude that helped out alot of people", you say you've been a member here for about 5 years, did you bother to see how many THANKS that Beanup and JCase have to their credit? These guys have helped others THOUSANDS of times in their time here..How many thanks do YOU have?

Complaining about this issue is not going to change the price of admission; either find a way to pay for it, or develop one of your own. Its really just that simple..
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
It's not hard to make, but I don't know the programming language that android uses enough to safely develop something like this, but trust me when I tell you , that it was probably one of the first few things I learned in programming classes.

And I know this , because why else would someone do this? It's probably what happened, they needed S-OFF, same way a lot of us do... Devs are humans too... They don't get pre S-OFF'd phones, so if they wanted one, they had to make it themselves.

And lolol , you couldn't have said it better yourself, imagine having to pay every time you charged your phone... LOL no thx...

And how many of those apps are relevant to this? You can't say because angry birds is $2.99 , that this has to be....

But yeah I get we need to spend $25... I'm just not going to yet cause I'm convinced something else will be coming out soon enough, + hey, if I can backwards engineer either Firewater or SunShine, then I can make work , and 100% make it free.

Again, if I developed android API based commands, I would be more than happy to develope something like this, but I just don't know Android API enough... But believe me when I tell you that I have made programs almost exactly the same , except they don't work on Android platforms.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mikereidis:
No, offense, and don't mean to "pick" on you specifically.... :)

But I've seen this type of statement too many times....

Someone says "It's easy..." .... "You just..." .....

Then they say "But I don't have the needed experience in this area to do it....." or something like that to explain why they can't do this so called "easy" thing.

Doing something that causes skilled professionals to brick 5 phones is not EASY.

If it was easy, someone else would have done it by now*, and be giving it away free, or for $5, $10, or whatever.

*It's always possible somebody will stumble upon an easy method at some point; could be tomorrow, who knows.

Nobody is stopping anybody from trying to find an alternate S-Off method they can give away or sell themselves.

Some people think I'm a greedy dev because they think I ask too much for my apps. First I make a good deal less than I have with "normal" jobs (and yes I've price experimented), and second Nobody is holding a gun to their holds forcing them to use my apps.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] richteralan:
Yes there are tons of "free" tools written by very skillful and smart devs here on XDA.

The correct mentality is:

1. Be thankful of the devs who made their tools free of charge.

2. Do NOT take this for granted.

3. Be ready to contribute either or both your money and effort when needed.

4. Do not ***** about some projects which need your contribution.

OK I'm done with this OT talk.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
I'm already working on it :p , was actually a lot similar to languages I already know ( basic C++ / UNIX ) Hopefully I can get something like this finished and released before someone else does! In all honesty it really isn't that difficult if you knew programming, Idealy I just need to figure out the exact differences from let's the verizon phone and bell phone for example, which I know Firewater doesn't work on bell but does on Verizion, so that tells me that it's either a minor hardware change ( which is usually not the case because that has a manufacture cost) or a minor software change, I'm sure you see people say "bleh I can do it" all the time, but I'm actually doing that :p

onnnnnnn a side not, the source code to firewater would be amazing, what are your guys thoughts? Should a dev that already stated that they won't help if it doesn't work on your device but released something for free also give out the source code? I mean, he isn't really charging for it, and he would be doing nothing but leading more people to learn how to program!
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] andreasyeah:
LOL it's much more than a simple tool and much more complicated than developing a whole ROM. BTW Sunshine is brought to you by the same developers of firewater.

AND you can remove the red text if you want without relocking. There are many threads about this. Use the Search button
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] :
I paid and used sunshine, so I didn't have to directly let htc know I unlocked my bootloader and keep my warranty.

Worth it to me. ?
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Razor64:
Agree with EddyOS 100 percent!
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Heisenberg420:
They don't release the source code. The changes from firewater and sunshine are most likely very simple but that's where we are. Firewater no longer being updated and they're making bank off sunshine.

I can say this because I've already 'donated' but 25$ is straight up robbery.

And while I applaud your mindset to find another way to get s-off, the m8 is one of the most active devices for community development and I'm sure your not the first to try. If it were easy there would be other options!
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
I don't really know if I should be talking about this or not LOL... BUTTTT I have already found a way to modify already * existing * unlock methods to start to work with the M8, just having some minor issues at the moment , but I have already lost multiple hours of sleep, and I just started yesterday :P
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] :
It's paid software... Sunshine any way, and even tho their site is not affiliated with XDA, I'm not sure how this would be received. It's their original work. If someone cloned it and distributed it free or paid, they're would be a big uproar I'm sure.

I don't know a thing about copyright, but it seems like hacked warez to me.

Just my 2 cents.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
Oh no not at all like that haha, I'm just pretty much kiddie scripting, looking at what all unlock methods already do and writing my own , just using already existing ones as a point of reference, if anything it's going to be based off of Firewater 99% more than SunShine , sunshine is more just like, that 1 piece of info I might need to refer to.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Sky93:
All of these people justifying 25 dollars for a command line program that only works on one device are crazy. If this was 5 or even 10 dollars is be all over this but 25 is just too much. I'm a college student working a crappy college student job earning minimum wage, so just getting sunshine would take 4 hours from my paycheck. That's the equivalent of about 3 meals. And on top of that, I had to save for this phone to upgrade (off contract) from my HTC Thunderbolt using said crappy job and after all of that was finished I still have to pay my bills. Now I'm no stranger to working for my s-off, but there's no option for that. I'm totally willing to do the roundabout difficult S off, but there is no option for that, only pay 25 dollars or stay stock (especially for me on vzw). Now I'm not saying that I'm a cheapo and just want everything free, but 25 dollars doesn't justify only one device. What if I drop my phone in the pool or I leave it on the table and it gets struck by a meteorite and have to get a replacement? I guess they just want you to be out 50 dollars.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
then you wont be getting s-off..

life is tough; get used to it..things like this are part of the incentive to better yourself in life

you seem to allude that for some reason you are "entitled" to things like this, even if you can't afford it.

that's not how it works..
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] egcthree:
Then don't buy it and quit complaining. You have three options at the moment, buy it, figure it out for yourself, or be quiet.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mikereidis:
Then I look forward to seeing your S-Off method. :)

Can you give an ETA ? Eg if you haven't found a method within 1-2 months, can we come back here and say "I guess you were too optimistic about the ease" or at least "I guess you didn't have the time you thought you would" ?

The same can be said for any app that is "free" and for which source code is not available.

If I give certain versions of my app away for "free", am I somehow "being mean" if I keep the source code to myself ? (Source code that's required me to spend 10,000 hours over 3.5 years to get to it's current point, and for which I've so far made about 20% of what someone in my field should make ?)
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] mikereidis:
HAD to save for this phone ? That almost makes it sound like someone held a gun to your head and forced you to buy it.

HTC One M8 is still an expensive flagship IMO. If your financial resources are that thin, I might question your decision to buy it in the first place. People selling apps etc are not responsible for your decision, nor for your economic circumstances, nor should they be responsible for giving you a price break because of these things.

A "poor" person who buys a Mercedes (on credit no doubt) is not entitled to cheaper service from the Mercedes dealer.

Do you really think they are evil people only out to separate you from your money ?

No, IMO they want to be paid for the work they've done. Allowing everybody 2 or more phones would result in people pooling their purchases. Yeah, it's a drag that we could end up paying twice if our phone breaks, but I don't think there's any good method to avoid that which won't result in pooling abuses.

And what the heck do you all NEED S-Off for ? I just got my M8, to add to my collection of 30 phones I use for testing my apps*.

I now see that kernels and custom ROMs can be used (and easily installed via recovery) without S-Off, unlike almost every other HTC phone I've bought. I guess S-Off on M8 is mostly for radios, super CID and undetectably relocking phones so we feel less nervous about warranty ???

*BTW, buying phones is one of my biggest expenses; I've spent well over $12,000 on phones now and that's just one of the reasons I can't give my apps away for free as if we are living in some socialist paradise**.

**I'm Canadian and very left of center, but there is no such thing as a viable "socialist paradise".
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tutchthesky7:
Never said not releasing a source code is a bad thing, but if it's going to be free in the long run, why not? Doesn't do anything but get the community involved + lets people add onto your ideas, even if you spent 1000000 hours writing it, and are giving it away for free, what's the big difference really? That's how I see it. You're already giving your work away for free, what major difference is it if it's the complete package, or a build your own so to speak.

And in terms of an ETA, I honestly have no idea as I have never tackled anything like this before, it's going to be a steep learning curve for me for sure, but I have nothing better to do at the moment anyways ( so far ) , and I see no shame in saying it was harder than I thought, I truly believe it's not that complicated, guess I'll just have to see for myself.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] fatalfury:
here is my ordeal for phone techs like us 25.00 per device seems likes alot.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] tee00max:
I didnt think it was too much because I can go to a bar and spend $25 on a round of drinks, so I might as well spend $25 to get what I need done.....
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Saga3282:
If you afford to get an HTC One M8 then you can pay for that too. Remeber all this is possible to developers and all their hard work. It's worth it!!
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] edlee:
is it possible that after first 1000 purchases sunshine will become free, or reduced to $5, or even after 6 months from the time it was released?

I do not need s-off that badly, but I dont want "tampered" in bootloader by the time I try to sell this phone next year.
[One (M8) Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] wase4711:
you should ask that in the Sunshine thread, but, I doubt that would happen, since it would aggravate all those that paid 25 dollars for it..