yashsingh1/xdaforums huggingface dataset:
[Windows Mobile Software Development] ndn715:
oh man you are going to get bent over for this one...

in all fairness, you do have some valid points, however:

too bad. olinex is one of the reasons we are able to do what we do with our devices. his work was provided free of charge for a LONG time. if anyone else wants/can replicate what he's done, go for it, but i have never seen anyone able to...

he asks for a _small_ donation. yes, it essentially payware, but he cuts a break and provides it for free to longtime members and those who contribute to this forum. the fee is there for a little compensation for all his work from those that would leech everything they can and rarely if ever donate to chefs as well.

i doubt anyone here is getting rich from their work given the amount of time it takes to produce the things we love...

so... take a chill pill and understand that we get almost everything for free. a few bucks to an instrumental hacker is the least we can do. and always throw a bit to the chefs. anyone that's cooked a ROM and supported it, knows how much time it takes and how trollers don't appreciate your hard work.

p.s. yes you will get bi*** slapped for this post, but i do appreciate your detail and general cordial nature. that's more than almost all that rant about a topic. however, posting 16 times and having joined in April doesn't make you much of a contributing member. please think about what you can do to help, this is a community. even something as simple as providing mirrors and sending a PM to the chef can be useful. everyone here has something worthwhile that can do to help out.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] joeyhewitt:
Thanks for your cordial reply, and yeah, I'm sure it will be one of the nicer ones I get. ;)

People seem to be able to replicate it on other hardware. (Now that OliNex have figured out how to do it and have to a small degree documented how, I doubt it would be that hard for someone else to do it, but once someone else's got a solid solution, why bother with the risk of bricking your device, or worse, someone else's, to develop another solution. I would attempt to replicate their work on the Topaz, and could even stand to sacrifice a few of my own devices to that cause, but mostly the fear of bricking someone else's phone stops me.) Maybe those others are only willing to do it for free because they're newer than Olipro and Cmonex. Maybe a human can only provide a certain amount of underappreciated free work before they start charging. Of course your ability to extract money out of "freeloaders" is proportional to the difficulty, uniqueness, etc., of your work.

So, if now Olipro and Cmonex are providing it free only to contributing members (I don't remember seeing that announced, but I know they have such a policy for SIM unlocks), it is payware, which is against the rules. Honestly, I would hate to see the mods immediately remove it (obviously unlikely.) I would rather find a compromise.

I know pof once posted about his income, and said he'd spent more than that income on hardware. I agree that nobody's getting rich, and most are under-appreciated.

I'm not so much opposed to paying 4GBP (it was like 6.5 USD) for an unlock, as I am to the unlock being posted on a free community site, specifically telling me it will be free for my first phone, and then being forced into so-called "donating", just to get something that was supposed to be free. If I could do it again, I guess I'd get my SIM unlocked by them, since I had to pay someone else almost the same amount for that. Then I would get HardSPL as a free bonus (at least that's how I understand it works.)

Yeah, I know I'm new. For what it's worth, I have been contributing where I can since I've joined, and actually the straw that broke the camel's back was having to tell someone on the Topaz HardSPL thread for the umpteenth time that the "error" they were getting was probably only solvable by waiting a long time or paying money (in some cases a combination.) I think non-native-English users probably just see that an error message has popped up, and don't read or don't understand the text about a support ticket or donation. Some of our fellow community members don't even have an easy way to pay in their country, even if they are perfectly fine with a small donation.

P.S. If a mod decides this is a personal attack on Olipro/Cmonex or will stir up too much unfriendly feelings or whatever, delete it, and I'll drop it.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
joeyhewitt, there's a valid counterpoint for almost every point you have appealed to, so you'll probably see a lot of bashing and hardly any sympathy here, especially when it concerns someone as influential as OliNex.

IMO, this community has commercialized big time in the past few years. It's driven more and more by profit and less and less by pure enthusiasm. It's a shame many great contributors jumped onto that bandwagon, but they have their rationale and it's hard to blame them for taking that path...

If you really want to make a difference, make an SPL patch yourself and distribute it for free without any limitations. You are a lot more likely to succeed in that than in changing the way OliNex distribute and support their work.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] retsam88:
Oh hell, that's what i have thought. Also:

"If you wan't me to update ROM/APP/POO please donate."

-that simply drives me mad. It should be "I am doing this by free will, if you like my work, please donate, but I'm going to continue nevertheless"
[Windows Mobile Software Development] joeyhewitt:
Yeah, you're probably right about the arguments against me, and I don't mind; my intent wasn't to start an argument. I think we're on the same page now as far as how and why the community is becoming more commercial. It may be a sad reality, but it's reality, and there's only so much we can do to change that.

Maybe I will. :) I have some questions, mostly addressed to whomever enforces the rules.

Mere dependency can't really be the issue, or else all the authors of RUU flashers and ROM images would be in trouble for directing their users to download someone else's work. Packaging those works together could be a problem, though, if one or the other wasn't OK with it.

So, if someone were able to generate licenses for OliNex HardSPL, independent of modifying the HardSPL files themselves or using the HardSPL servers, would they be allowed to post that on XDA? I.e., the solution is two packages: a "licensing" program; and the original HardSPL files, downloaded from the official thread. It could be worked out so that, to be pedantic, HardSPL would be using that work, not that work using HardSPL. (I know that creating a certain file with the correct contents and placing it on a device would allow the "stock" HardSPL to proceed as if it had been licensed, so it would be HardSPL using the new work, not the new work using or being based on HardSPL.) And since HardSPL is (ostensibly) not a commercial product, it wouldn't be warez, right?

Yeah, it's a little underhanded, but really, isn't the whole community pretty much based on reverse-engineering someone else's work and making your own replacements or improvements? Sure, we have rules to try to be nice to other members of the community by disallowing easy 5-minute ripoffs of someone else's stuff where you hexedit your name over theirs, and I'm fine with that, so I'm asking, just where is the line of separation between my work and someone else's? How are the phrases "based on" and "using", from the rule above, defined, in this context?

If the above approach wouldn't be allowed, what about a solution that, with no data taken from the original HardSPL, re-invented a way for HardSPL (or perhaps any unsigned SPL) to be flashed, and had users get the original HardSPL image from the official sources?

Or what about instructing the user how to use the original HardSPL files and hexedit and/or run them in a debugger so that the licensing is skipped? It might even be possible to boil it down into a patch against the original files, which the user himself applies. Obviously not user-friendly, but if it's the only way...
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
I hate to beat that dead horse again, but do you know what lies in the foundation of Olipro's first HardSPL? Direct and immediate violation of the rule #12 you quoted. Maybe there wasn't such a rule at the time, but it was utterly unethical to refuse proper credit for SPL patching to its original author Des, especially when he demanded an acknowledgement.

Cracking HSPL licensing is as unethical and it's not going to be very productive as there's probably a fairly strong cryptographic foundation. Cracking HSPL binaries to accept forged license sounds more feasible, but then it means violation of the rules you are so adamant about. Either way, you'd learn more about cracking than about making SPL patch, is it really what you are after? Like in politics, the rules sometimes do not apply to the "untouchables", but you are sure to be banned if you go that path, as cracks/warez are not welcome here.

There's nothing wrong with applying the same concepts to another solution though. It's not patented or copyrighted in any way and there's plenty of discussion around it, so it should be possible to figure out what it takes to make it happen. Even if the result is essentially the same as HardSPL, you still deserve respect if you manage to produce it yourself without hijacking others' work.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
Can't agree more. IMO, if one wants to make it a profitable business, then he should treat the users as customers (provide updates and support) and legalize (register a business and pay taxes to his governement).

But then demand drives supply, not vice versa. If people weren't willing to donate, even if the donations are kinda forced, they wouldn't have donated. That's why I'm not blaming the developers for this commercialization, consumers and not contributers are responsible for it.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] joeyhewitt:
Heh, yeah, I think I read that little interchange. I think there may be some GPL violations going on, too, but maybe that's just par for the course.

Well, in a way, I wouldn't care, since all I'm "after" is allowing people to flash whatever they want for free. But, despite my best attempts to rationalize ;), releasing a crack of an influential developer's work would still be warez (if we're going to admit licensed products on XDA as a reality), and would probably go over even worse than cracking a commercial product. And, yeah, learning anything would be fun and useful, but I would rather learn how to patch an SPL.

I think if I made my own installation method for the standard HardSPL image, that would be fair enough, right? I think a few people have even said that's harder (on modern hardware, at least) than creating a HardSPL in the first place. Anyone know why OliNex's soft SPL is based on an MFG SPL (on Topaz, at least)? Is it because all MFGs can flash unsigned images?, or they're easier to hack to flash unsigned stuff? But then, it doesn't make sense that the hard SPL seems to be based on a stock image. Maybe the MFG was easier to relocate into RAM. Anyone know where MFG SPLs can be found, or do you have to be a special member of the community to get those? (Soon enough, you'll have to pay someone for it?) Other options could be flashing from within WinMo, or even a HaRET'd Android/Linux, but that seems a little risky unless there's already really good, safe flash support there. XdaUtils/itsutils has a pnewbootloader.exe, but apparently it's only for the Wallaby and/or specific versions of WinMo. Anybody know about writing flash from the OS? I assume if it were better or easier, we might be bypassing the SPL altogether to flash unsigned ROMs, but maybe there's something to look into.

Part of the problem with things being commercialized is that there's very little documentation (or, it's outdated -- just found a few old posts on SPL patching from stepw ;)) on this magic stuff people are selling, which is a shame when the whole reason the forum is here is to share ideas, knowledge, techniques, and open tools for hacking our devices. :(
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
MFG SPL has many more commands than shipping/production SPL, so it's a natural choice for any kind of vendor protection circumvention.

SPL patch to allow unsigned image flashing is fairly simple, the real challenge is soft-loading SPL or making another bootloader/flasher work reliably.

Soft-loading a flasher is not all that risky, for as long as it doesn't alter critical flash content (SPL, NVRAM). If OS doesn't boot, but SPL does, there's a way to restore an official ROM (provided one is available with correct CID) and start all over.

Adapting SPL by patching is a lot less time consuming than making a flasher from ground up, although the latter is possible too. A Linux based soft-flasher capable of flashing images in native RUU format via USB or from SD could be a real breakthrough... I wasn't following the progress with Android on natively WinMo devices, but if MTD is functional, then NAND interface is there.
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
Cotulla's MAGLDR sounds like a great new development, it includes a recovery kernel with MTD, USB, SD and basic IO support. If it can be built for Topaz, sofltoad it and flash anything you want (subject to MTD driver patching for OOB compatible with the intended OS).
[Windows Mobile Software Development] joeyhewitt:
So if I were to develop a soft-loaded patched SPL, I'd want to first try flashing some unsigned non-crucial thing like a splash screen or maybe cooked ROM, and see if that broke anything. Even if it did, as long as the SPL in flash was still bootable and I had a signed stock image, I could always fix things.

As I understand it, most modern devices have got the SPL region protected so that you'll have to relocate the image to be able to execute it in RAM. I've only seen references to this, and about how it's sometimes impossible to remap the MMU to avoid relocation (if the pagesize is not granular enough you may split up a buffer or something), and possibly that you must not relocate certain structures the MMU uses. (source) Feel free to let me do my own research, but anyone have a good tutorial on relocation? (Maybe I'll write one if I figure it out.) Or at least any other tips, about what constraints you have to account for and maybe pitfalls you could encounter, would be nice. I need to learn more about the ARM instruction set, how memory is laid out, and how the MMU works, in any case.

By the way, this looks to be a pretty good thread for an overview of how to hard SPL (possibly the most informational single thread I've found so far.) I've actually been researching this for a month or so (before I started this thread), and had read only the first post (which has a good collection of links) before, but now I see the whole thing is a good summary of the issues involved. The first several pages after that drop some tool names and convey an overview of the process.

...speaking of flashers (or entire bootloaders) built from the ground up. Cool, I'll have to look into this! :)

Thanks a lot for the pointers! I'm not sure when I'll have time to actually get serious, so maybe this thread will amount to nothing other than a collection of basic information about running unsigned code, but even so, that should be good for XDA. ;)
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
There are bits and pieces of information around this forum and on various Internet sites, I just googled a decent (although somewhat obsolete) ARM MMU summary in 2 minutes: http://www.renan.org/ARM/doc/MMSAAN.pdf

Good luck!

PS If you need answers for specific questions, try IRC #xda-devs and #htc-linux, there are plenty of knowledgeable people hanging out there...
[Windows Mobile Software Development] stepw:
Great progress there, joeyhewitt!

Personally I never used JumpSPL and cmonex'es variant always seemed a bit convoluted to me, but perhaps that's what it takes to run it from under WinMo. After a lot of playing with it, I was able to achieve reliable results with the following (albeit only on Blackstone and running from within SPL, not from WinMo, and I never tried this on any other devices as I don't own any):

.code 32

NOP

# Disable interrupts (FIQ/IRQ)
MRS R0, CPSR
ORR R0, R0, #0xC0
MSR CPSR_c, R0

# Invalidate i-cache and d-cache
MOV R0, #0
MCR p15, 0, R0,c7,c5
MCR p15, 0, PC,c7,c14
MCR p15, 0, R0,c7,c10, 4

# Load jump address
ADR	R0, _jump
# Reset MMU
MOV	R1, #0x70
MCR p15, 0, R1,c1,c0
NOP
MOV	PC, R0

# This is executed from physical address
_jump:
MOV	R0, #0
# Invalidate TLBs
MCR p15, 0, R0,c8,c7
# Jump to loader
LDR	R0, _loader
MOV	PC, R0

# This should be physical address
_loader:	.int	0x00000000

Once MMU is reset and execution continues from physical address, Windows should not interfere with JumpSPL in any way, as it runs in virtual space that's invalidated with MMU reset.

I think a relatively easy way to test how far the process goes is to add code to blink a led via GPIOs and then place it in your softspl. If you can blink from HaRET or XDAndroid, then should be doable from softspl too.

G'luck!
[Windows Mobile Software Development] orb3000:
OliNex also do offer free HardSPL´s to contributor XDA members, it´s like an exchange, if you have not contributed to the community you can always contribute with a very very tiny small donation fee
[Windows Mobile Software Development] CRACING:
Hello,

Been waiting for one free hardspl licence for my topaz. Posted ticket in OliNex website and also sent pm to cmonex 3 weeks back but yet no responses. :(

And I don't know what to do next but have very interest in cooking roms for it too.

These ppl made the most important thing which starts 'custom ROM upgrade' and so users can have latest stuffs and gave developers and/or ROM chefs an approach to cook custom roms and enjoy.

Although these ppl worked very very hard since many years, an better support is essential yet. Mostly on the payable things. I see there is no support for topaz hardspl, no matter its free or payable or atleast it was better if you could release free hardspl for topaz like other devices. :o

Thanks...

Best Regards
[Windows Mobile Software Development] joeyhewitt:
OK, I haven't worked on this for awhile, and I don't think it's likely I'll finish anything. In addition Cmonex asked that I not release a patched SPL, which is fair since she was nice enough to share some insights with me, too. Perhaps when I'm in the mood for low-level stuff again, I can finish it for my own fun, or I could release some more general-purpose tools. For now I will post what I have that could be useful to others.

I found that the SPL area in RAM can be unprotected with these HaRET commands:

pfw 0xA8250800 1 0

pfw 0xA8240800 1 0

(source)

(Actually I think only the first one is necessary to enable writing to physical address 0. I don't know what size of memory is affected.) These apparently correspond with the AXIGS and AXIGE (subtract 0x800 to get a base address), which I don't really know about, but you can probably learn more about by reading (XD)Android source or htc-linux logs, etc.

I had hoped this would allow me to soft-boot an unmodified SPL, but it seems besides relocation, there are some hardware-initialization patches that need to be made to allow the SPL to work with the hardware as it is after a complete WinMo bootup (cmonex confirmed this.) I couldn't get anything with GPIOs working for debugging my patched SPL; not sure why. (They worked in HaRET, but not in the SPL. And I think was using the SPL's virtual addresses correctly.)

I was disabling protection using the above in HaRET, executing the attached HitBLKey.exe, and using JumpSPL. HitBLKey.exe is HTC's enterbootloader.exe patched to only set whatever magic flag it does to signal that the bootloader be entered, but not to reboot the phone. (Pretty easy to make if you have a disassembler, the little bit trickier part was un-signing the executable so that it will run even though modified.) (Getting my SPL working at all was higher priority than having it enter the tri-colour screen automatically. I think this method also has advantages when your patched SPL is likely to hang or reboot; you'll always go through the stock tri-colour screen so you'll be more certain about what happened.)

I don't have many specifics about using Android, other than to say I was able to read NAND by inserting the MTD module into the XDAndroid kernel, and passing an "mtd_partition" (I think) parameter describing the partition layout as gathered from either itsutils or with an info command in the SPL. I wasn't able to reliably determine the offset of anything specific (like the SPL), and I never tried writing to flash.

Edit: I'm also attaching a dummy .exe header that helped me in disassembling SPLs in the demo version of IDA Pro. Prepend it to the beginning of a .nb file, name with .exe as the extension, and load into IDA as a Windows Mobile application.
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] Dreh4christ:
Do anyone know how to find out how many satellite your gps is picking up?
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] demo23019:
download "gps test" from market
[Vibrant Q&A, Help & Troubleshooting] gravis86:
^^

Or open Dialer and type *#*#1472365#*#* to open LbsTestMode and press "Get Position Test"
[Epic 4G Themes] casual864:
Hello,

This is a custom touchwiz 3.0 launcher. In order to use this you must delete the original touchwiz launcher.

Features:

- Allows you to edit the bottom docks.

- Add or remove home screens.

- Organize the Apps in the menu.

- Clear bottom dock in the home screen.

Download the Sdx App Remover:

http://www.multiupload.com/C6SOOBI7NN

- Install the Sdx App Remover with a File Browser such as Astro or Estrong.

1. Open Sdx App Remover and search for TouchWiz30Launcher.apk.

2. Back up the file and then delete it. (The backups are in the sdx folder on your sdcard)

Download the Touchwiz 3.0 launcher:

http://www.multiupload.com/6EWLT61C14

- Install the App with a File Browser such as Astro or Estrong.

1. Press the home button and it will list the Touchwiz as a home option.

*Known Issues*

- Samsung Widgets do not work.

- Google search widget is oversized.

- The launcher does not allow you to delete apps in the app menu.

Credits

Thanks to whomever ported this over from the Evo forum. I thought I would share this to the Epic community. Since the Epic's touchwiz launcher is crap.
[Epic 4G Themes] <3me:
endless FC for me

any ideas why im using

tha boss rom with the mixup custom kernel and black class theme
[Epic 4G Themes] bsnyder217:
Works fine for me
[Epic 4G Themes] casual864:
I had the issue with the fc's on a different touchwiz launcher. I deleted it and reinstalled it. Then rebooted my phone. If it doesn't work go into clockwork and delete your cache.
[Epic 4G Themes] ericizzy1:
got it. sorry
[Epic 4G Themes] <3me:
I deleted it and re installed it and it worked thanks I really like it I have been waiting for this since I got my epic

25 dollar donation if you can get the puzzle lock screen for me:-)

It would be more but I'm poor sorry
[Epic 4G Themes] <3me:
Hit the apps button then menu then edit you can move them around too:-)
[Epic 4G Themes] Bowsa2511:
all I need is the samsung music 3.0 tw app, and the captivate phone app
[Epic 4G Themes] casual864:
Bubby is actually working on the puzzle lock screen.

http://xdaforums.com/showthread.php?t=788150

You should donate to him whenever he's done with the lock screen. :)
[Epic 4G Themes] Dameon87:
Works well =]

What is so special about this music app and this puzzle lockscreen ? I keep hearing things about them, but no idea what makes them so desired after.
[Epic 4G Themes] Bowsa2511:
The Samsung Music player is extremely sexy, integrated with the notification bar, has a great ui, and a 5.1 channel surround sound virtualizer.
[Epic 4G Themes] Dameon87:
Oh wow. Then I think I will join the brigade :P
[Epic 4G Themes] ericizzy1:
installed it, so far so good, love it. thank you