If you are sending in your unit for the Legacy Upgrade - PLEASE READ

[willtorres918]

On a side note and just plain old silly on my part not to mention a waste of everyone else's time. I was just wondering if it was legal for Whistler Wendy to use a modified version of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers Company logo while she's representing another company.
Ok, that is all. I'm gonna go back and sit in my corner with my dunce cap on, LOL ;-D


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[DonS]

Your opinion on whether illegal, unethical, or both is contradictory to your statement Cottrell "was extremely careful to never actually "copy" or "decrypt" anything. He knows quite well where the legal line is and he's been very careful to avoid crossing it."

When referring to what Cottrell did, I was referring only to the legal line. He knows it's illegal to distribute copyrighted software - that's why his tool made the user retrieve it. He knows it's illegal to decrypt encrypted software - that's why he didn't "support" version 4.6 until someone else supplied a decrypted file.

When I said "illegal, unethical, or both", I was referring to his users.

Cottrell left any illegal copying to his users. Like copying version 3.8 around before his tool modified Whistler's executable code. Or copying version 4.5 around before someone decrypted and shared version 4.6. And copying decrypted 4.6 around after it was shared.

Similarly, he left illegal decryption (i.e. version 4.6) to others.

The fact that he may have avoided actions that are illegal in the USA doesn't mean everything he did was ethical. If someone encourages or facilitates illegal/unethical behavior, while strictly avoiding illegal activity himself, is he acting ethically?

 

[Fasteddy2]

On a side note and just plain old silly on my part not to mention a waste of everyone else's time. I was just wondering if it was legal for Whistler Wendy to use a modified version of Wendy's Old Fashioned Hamburgers Company logo while she's representing another company.
Ok, that is all. I'm gonna go back and sit in my corner with my dunce cap on, LOL ;-D


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This made my day nice find.

 

[RFI-EMI-GUY]

I blame RADIO SHACK then WHISTLER for not doing something sooner when they sold the subpar Pro-668 scanner with the same hardware inside it as the WS1080 and did not offer or release any updates to it for 2 years. Meanwhile the WS1080 received updates the entire time.....Getting DMR was a bonus, ALL we really wanted was it to scan a receive as well as it is marketed to do right out of the box.

Did Whistler really think in the 21st century that not one person would try and figure out a way to improve the long abandoned PRO-668?

If they did then their business model is flawed....The fact they chose to lock out these 668 scanners is further evidence that it is flawed.

The backlash has just begun.

To be honest. When has anyone expected Radio Shack to provide much support after the sale? You are lucky to find a service manual or schematic on their website (Now probably less so).

Selling an inferior product at a bargain price, or even an inflated one, has always been the way of doing business in this country. Why do you think there are so many UPC codes and Model numbers for the apparently same electronics being sold at different stores? Because when you check the feature set between the products you will find that one is punished for buying a cheaper product at Walmart or Radio Shack rather than directly from the manufacturer. Try buying a car without power windows and you will find that in addition to cheaper, the window winder handle will hit you in the knee when you turn it.

 

[w5rah]

Also I could see where issues between Radio Shack and Whistler may have caused hurdles to Whistler offering upgrades, but I would not have thought the same hurdles would have occurred with the GRE PSR-800 since Whistler bought the rights etc. Agsin don't know all the details of the purchase and it may have had hurdles as well.

 

[DonS]

It is not illegal to write an emulator that allows on piece of hardware to emulate another, such as a Nintendo emulator on a PC that allows one to run game roms, or a program such as Wine to emulate a Windows machine so a Linux PC can run Windows apps. Or a Windows virtual machine on a Mac.

You're right. But it's illegal to share Windows so that someone can run it on Linux under Wine. It's illegal to share arcade game ROMs so that I can run Tempest on my PC under MAME.

To continue that arcade game analogy...

Eric didn't create an emulator like MAME. Nor did he share Tempest ROMs. What Eric did was create and share a utility that converts the executable code in the Tempest ROMs to native x86 code that will run on my Windows PC. Perfectly legal, as long as Eric doesn't actually copy anything. And he doesn't. He relies on others to host/copy/share those Tempest ROMs.

What's illegal is sharing / copying those Tempest ROM files without permission from Atari. That's what Eric's users are doing (with 4.6, at least).

What's unethical is encouraging / facilitating the theft of Atari's code. What's also unethical is using that stolen code.

Thus, I think that what Eric's doing is unethical. I think that what Eric's users are doing is unethical, illegal, or both.

Years ago, before some of you were born, IBM went to court to stop the sale of clones, and lost.

Because the clone manufacturers hired engineers and had them write a BIOS from scratch, without any information about how the IBM BIOS worked.

If you want to apply that concept to the current situation - someone could "copy" the Whistler WS1080 hardware and write their own firmware for it, without ever seeing Whistler's source or object code. And that would be perfectly legal. Where that someone would run into legal problems is if they took Whistler's binary files and put them on their own hardware.

 

[Fasteddy2]

You're right. But it's illegal to share Windows so that someone can run it on Linux under Wine. It's illegal to share arcade game ROMs so that I can run Tempest on my PC under MAME.

To continue that arcade game analogy...

Eric didn't create an emulator like MAME. Nor did he share Tempest ROMs. What Eric did was create and share a utility that converts the executable code in the Tempest ROMs to native x86 code that will run on my Windows PC. Perfectly legal, as long as Eric doesn't actually copy anything. And he doesn't. He relies on others to host/copy/share those Tempest ROMs.

What's illegal is sharing / copying those Tempest ROM files without permission from Atari. That's what Eric's users are doing (with 4.6, at least).

What's unethical is encouraging / facilitating the theft of Atari's code. What's also unethical is using that stolen code.

Thus, I think that what Eric's doing is unethical. I think that what Eric's users are doing is unethical, illegal, or both.


Because the clone manufacturers hired engineers and had them write a BIOS from scratch, without any information about how the IBM BIOS worked.

If you want to apply that concept to the current situation - someone could "copy" the Whistler WS1080 hardware and write their own firmware for it, without ever seeing Whistler's source or object code. And that would be perfectly legal. Where that someone would run into legal problems is if they took Whistler's binary files and put them on their own hardware.

Why should I thank WHISTLER for not not letting me up grade?DON you need to go to bed now.

 

[DonS]

Something I haven't seen mentioned (at least, not given the importance it might deserve)...

Whistler does not own the vocoder. Whistler pays DVSI for the use of their vocoder.

It's conceivable (read: likely) that GRE and Whistler paid DVSI some amount per unit for P25 decoding - that would cover the PSR-800, PRO-18, and PRO-668. It would also cover the first revs of the WS1080/88.

Now Whistler says "we'd like to support DMR on the WS1080/88". DVSI says "well, you're going to have to pay us an additional $X for each such unit". Whistler says "that's fine, here's how many WS1080/88 units we've sold".

Whistler releases DMR code for the WS1080/88, users download it, DVSI gets paid, and everyone's happy.

December 2016: anyone with a PSR-800, PRO-18, or PRO-668 can now decode DMR. DVSI gives Whistler a call and says "Hey, you know all of those scanners going back to the PSR-800? Yeah, well, we're going to need that same $X for all of those units." And, pursuant to Whistler's contract with DVSI, Whistler has to submit an accounting of every unit imported into the USA - whether made by GRE or Whistler - and cut DVSI a big fat check.

Radio Shack isn't paying for that.
Eric Cottrell isn't paying for that.
All the PSR-800, PRO-18, and PRO-668 users aren't paying for that.

Who does that leave?

 

[AtlasFBG2]

DonS

In your personal opinion do you think Whistler will upgrade scanners with 4.6 firmware in the future at an additional cost?

 

[DonS]

Why should I thank WHISTLER for not not letting me up grade?DON you need to go to bed now.

Where did I suggest you should thank Whistler for anything?

 

[DonS]

DonS

In your personal opinion do you think Whistler will upgrade scanners with 4.6 firmware in the future at an additional cost?

I have no idea. I seem to recall an idea floated around months (years?) ago where Whistler was considering letting users upgrade old units (PSR-800, PRO-18, PRO-668). I think the idea was that you'd send in your old scanner along with some level of payment, and you'd get the latest and greatest Whistler scanner in return.

I don't know what, if anything, ever came of that. I don't know which scanner was "latest and greatest" at the time. I don't know how much the extra payment would have been.

It's possible that Whistler might do something like that in the future. Keep in mind that this is a sales/marketing thing and, even if I had any influence on what Whistler does, my influence wouldn't extend into those departments.

 

[slicerwizard]

When I said "illegal, unethical, or both", I was referring to his users.

Are you suggesting that whatever his users have done wasn't also done by Eric? So users are executing a procedure that was never tested? Logic fail.


So...

- Whistler didn't communicate with Eric

- Whistler didn't communicate with owners

- Whistler knew this wouldn't go over well with owners / prospective customers and did it anyway

- any sales/PR hit is ok - they'll ride it out

- owners who are now locked out? **** THEM.

 

[willtorres918]

Something I haven't seen mentioned (at least, not given the importance it might deserve)...

Whistler does not own the vocoder. Whistler pays DVSI for the use of their vocoder.

It's conceivable (read: likely) that GRE and Whistler paid DVSI some amount per unit for P25 decoding - that would cover the PSR-800, PRO-18, and PRO-668. It would also cover the first revs of the WS1080/88.

Now Whistler says "we'd like to support DMR on the WS1080/88". DVSI says "well, you're going to have to pay us an additional $X for each such unit". Whistler says "that's fine, here's how many WS1080/88 units we've sold".

Whistler releases DMR code for the WS1080/88, users download it, DVSI gets paid, and everyone's happy.

December 2016: anyone with a PSR-800, PRO-18, or PRO-668 can now decode DMR. DVSI gives Whistler a call and says "Hey, you know all of those scanners going back to the PSR-800? Yeah, well, we're going to need that same $X for all of those units." And, pursuant to Whistler's contract with DVSI, Whistler has to submit an accounting of every unit imported into the USA - whether made by GRE or Whistler - and cut DVSI a big fat check.

Radio Shack isn't paying for that.
Eric Cottrell isn't paying for that.
All the PSR-800, PRO-18, and PRO-668 users aren't paying for that.

Who does that leave?

Forgive me if I'm wrong but this comes off as speculation. Is this fact or just a possibility?

Also, would you happen to know if when Whistler Wendy referred to locked radios was she referring to the scanners that are stuck on 4.6 and 3.1 or if it's another form of locked such as a password? I've never played with the password feature so I don't really know much about it and what it's able to lock down.

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[willtorres918]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but this comes off as speculation. Is this fact or just a possibility?

Also, would you happen to know if when Whistler Wendy referred to locked radios was she referring to the scanners that are stuck on 4.6 and 3.1 or if it's another form of locked such as a password? I've never played with the password feature so I don't really know much about it and what it's able to lock down.

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Nevermind. I found the answers to my own questions. Amazing what a little bit of reading would do for a person. Thank you.

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[SCPD]

You know exactly what I mean

My factual PMs to you Were obviously dismissed. You know this is like the occupy movement, complete insanity, give me my free stuff while we destroy everything. Thanks for backing me up Don. Nothing here makes sense, all emotion and no listening, reading, understanding or contemplating what has been typed. Reminds me of the phases of a project: Praise the guilty and punish the innocent.

 

[willtorres918]

Why this is so personal to you is disturbing.

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[SCPD]

Why should I thank WHISTLER for not not letting me up grade?DON you need to go to bed now.

When there is no logical argument the response becomes ad hominem. Like this morning I needed a warm glass of milk and now Don needs to go to bed. Can't say that I ever thought I'd be attacked like this for trying to bring sense to a situation which should be obvious to any reasonable person with a minimal moral compass and IQ considering all that was posted. it's a sad time we live in.

 

[willtorres918]

When everyone else is being reckless, sometimes staying in your lane is a good idea. Less likely to be attacked.

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[SteveSimpkin]

Forgive me if I'm wrong but this comes off as speculation. Is this fact or just a possibility?

Paying DVSI a per unit sold license fee (in addition to an upfront license/engineering support fee) is one of their common licensing models.

 

[SCPD]

Why this is so personal to you is disturbing.

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Go read my posts and also in the probably the now idle GRE radio yahoo groups under cpu_nut. It is personal because I gave a good part of my health to give every one here what they enjoy. Makes me wonder why I worked the twelve hour days and did right for you and this hobby. Am getting too old for this Bravo Sierra. Does that mean you and the others win. Completely to the contrary.