[Magisk] Chainfire:
Ah, some Chainfire bashing, I hope it is not too late for me to exercise additional villainy.

First, let me make clear I have nothing against [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION], nor against Magisk. Magisk is an interesting project and it certainly displays [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION] ingenuity and persistence. I don't doubt we will see more interesting things from his hands.

-------------------------

What has happened here is not all that dark and complicated, from either end. I returned from holidays, and someone pointed me at Magisk. My first thought: interesting!

Among other things, the thread lists some issues with SuperSU, which in combination with the phrase The developer also requests users to not bug Chainfire with compatibility requests for SuperSU with Magisk from the portal article, raised my left eyebrow by nigh half an inch. The popular systemless xposed mod is apparently now based on it, and apparently it now no longer works with SuperSU, and apparently I'm not supposed to fix that, nor any of the other found issues. I found that a bit weird. So yes, I have told [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION] that I was a bit surprised he was posting about issues with SuperSU without notifying me about them (I can't fix or help fix issues I'm not aware of, after all).

He's also spreading a modified version of the SuperSU package, which is not all that uncommon, nor necessarily a problem. I have not looked into what he modified, I only ran a few quick tests on one of my devices, and found some commonly used commands run as root to be broken. I have informed him of this as well.

It appears the tool of choice for Magisk is phh's Superuser, because of some of the mentioned issues with SuperSU. That's fine by itself, but fixing issues in that superuser by incorporating SuperSU's binaries into it is a somewhat questionable practise. After all, SuperSU is a commercial closed-source package that helps pay for my dinner, and superuser is a direct competitor. I have informed him that I was surprised he did this without asking for permission. I have expressed similar surprise on him spreading a modified version of LiveBoot (which helps pay for a snack now and then).

[MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION] has also stated that Magisk's scripts are largely influenced by mine (I have not checked). Scripts based on mine are used all over the place on XDA, some people have crafted amazing things based on them, I have never made an issue of this (otherwise I would have just made them binaries). But yes, I have also stated to him that I don't think it's very nice to base something on one program, and then using that to (almost exclusively) push something directly competing with that program.

tl;dr Towards [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION], I have:

- expressed surprise he has issues getting Magisk to work with SuperSU, and has chosen not to inform me about those

- expressed surprise he is using SuperSU binaries in a competing superuser without permission

- expressed surprise he is posting a modified LiveBoot without permission

- informed him of issues with the modified SuperSU he has posted

- let him know I thought it wasn't very nice to be applying my scripts to benefit seemingly exclusively that same competing superuser

To be crystal clear:

- I have not asked for an apology

- I have not asked for Magisk to be abandoned, neither the root hiding nor systemless module parts, and certainly not systemless xposed

- I have not made an issue of any of this anywhere, until this post

- I have not even specifically asked for anything to be taken down (though obviously in my opinion the other superuser package mixed with SuperSU's binaries, as well as the LiveBoot package, should go)

- I have not reported this thread to XDA moderators for copyright violations or otherwise

While my conversation with [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION] may not win any awards for being friendly (though it may win some for brevity), I think all things considered my response has been rather mild. To be perfectly honest, until the apology post, I thought this was over with already. I think the apology post was triggered because I haven't replied to his last PM for a while - I was in the zone, it happens.

To emphasize again, I have nothing against [MENTION=4470081]topjohnwu[/MENTION], Magisk, or systemless xposed, and it is certainly not my goal to see any of them go. If it can be made to work together with SuperSU, great.

I get it though: you think of something, you want to see if you can make it work, you finally get it to work, you publish it, it takes off - enthusiasm gets the better of you. Maybe in the rush some mistakes are made. That doesn't mean you have to just drop it and run. None of my stuff would make it past 0.1 if I stopped at the first big mistake :)

Aside from said being in the zone coding, I usually regret actually responding to these sort of things the day after, which has made me hesitant to reply. Surprise me.