[Android Software Development] guitardedhero:
No doubt about it, that is one thing that never made any sense to me. What seems to be the accepted form of ownership is being the first to find or use someone else's property, like Sony, HTC, and similar files and content on trademarked hardware. Furthermore, it seems that a minimum combination of content qualifies as ownership as well. It's the grayest of gray areas I've ever encountered in anything I've witnessed.

I avoided this ambiguity entirely by making the ViPER|Audio™ series freely to use in any way from day one with one simple request to credit those that I credited as it is their work that made the included content possible to use.

Planning and starting the ARISE project and team brought many intricacies and nuances that seemed to manifest themselves as progress was made, as well as some glaring deficiencies in myself that I am noticing more and more these last few weeks.

The objective to source everything one file at a time of fresh and never used content easily created an entitlement attitude for me, compounded by the team atmosphere that will naturally grow slightly more and more aggressive of what we feel is ours and worth protecting, at times, to the detriment of innocent bystanders. The more we grow and the larger we become, the more critical it is to be reasonable, level headed, and focused on why we grouped and started this in the first place.

As the figurehead and assumed face of the team, I take a responsibility for the team as a whole and for myself. I've said many, many times that the worst mistakes in life are those that are not maximized and used to better yourself and make future mistakes less severe. I'm not trying to wear you guys out with these breaking news flashes as of late, I am simply at a point where I need to reevaluate everything and how I am conducting team operations and providing a coherent and clear project plan.

This is absolutely a community and a team project and I don't ever want to make impactful decisions without including all of your input. I am really glad you posted what you posted because it is nonsense in its fundamental form and I do not want to emanate a stubborn and unmoving vibe and culture. I am seriously considering making the entire Exodus sound system free to use that does not have the ARISE stamp on it. That consists of audio_effects.conf files and version info.txt. Obviously, that doesn't amount to much of anything and should be an eye opener as to what we are essentially doing by holding on to this sourced content as ours and ours only.

The ARISE project never was going to be a single sound system project. It was never going to be a continuous evolution of sound systems either. I have the confidence to start a sound system from scratch over and over again. To promote the positive vibe that we started with, I have a proposal that I want everyone to consider and voice a thought regarding this plan I have:

Once a sound system is out of its testing phase and becomes official, it is open for free use with the usual, requested credits we are accustomed to expecting. A sound system in testing phase is made available for testing and providing feedback only and is not perceived as a finished, static product that can be manipulated, sourced, or dissected in order to maintain the most efficiency in getting this sound system out of testing phase for everyone to benefit from in an assortment of ways and not limited to those that have enough /system space available.

If we believe in what we do and the excellence of our work then this benefits so many outside of this community and will push us to keep pumping better and better audio enhancement products out of the ARISE Sound Systems factory.

No pressure, but I can not find a single flaw in this proposal. It will eliminate almost all of the distractions that we faced while preparing Exodus which certainly lead to better and quicker output. It will almost eliminate the Us vs. Them mindset that I honestly never expected might happen. In fact, I expect to see many popping in to the thread encouraging us and finding way to help the sound system reach completion so that it can be used in a number of way. A finished sound system that is free to use also means that our work and our mark will reach further than it possibly could otherwise.

This is not a decision that has to be made as soon as possible. I encourage you all to think of all the possibilities, to provide input and ideas, as I intend to have an official stance on this entitlement declaration by the time Exodus is one week old at the latest.

I cannot thank you all enough for the support and I just hope that you have enough faith and confidence in me and the project that this will always be something you are very proud to be a part of.

It's Saturday night, go have an awesome time and enjoy your Exodus sound system, and don't let anyone highjack the Bluetooth speaker unless their phone's got dat a.s.s.!! :highfive: