Hacking How many people want to see the custom Firmwares back in development?

[Joey90]

So, with the fall of AKAIO and Bliss, how many people want them continued?

(This is almost like a petition rather than a poll...)

 

[Minox]

I really wanted the release of AKAIO for Ak2.

 

[Cermage]

can't there be an "all" option? ==" i would like to see all if not more custom firmware devolped. one can never have too many options right?

 

[Destructobot]

Normmatt and Smiths should do what they want to do, not what a bunch of Acekard owners want them to do. As for Bliss, if he wants to be a drama queen, steal ideas and code without credit and not release his source code in an open source project, I can do without him. Unless he changes his ways he will be more of a problem than an asset to the Acekard open source "scene", so IMO his departure is for the best.

It's the Acekard team that should be more focused on improving their product, not the general public. Leaving it up to volunteers is not acceptable in a market as competitive as this one.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

gelu is still keeping up his work - http://code.google.com/p/acekard-3in1/downloads/list#

 

[tufty]

I don't know Bliss, and don't know the full story about why, but there is no doubt that his work will be missed - I certainly appreciated it.

What Bliss has provided is a better AK interface, and I hope that the official AK team can see the community demand for this and borrow his ideas if not his code.

 

[Bri]

Since Bliss appears to be out of the game, does that satisfy Normmatt and Smiths? Will they release AKAIO now?

-Bri

 

[amgupt01]

Since Bliss appears to be out of the game, does that satisfy Normmatt and Smiths? Will they release AKAIO now?

-Bri

Probably not; as soon as AKAIO gets back in development, I think that Bliss will start back up (to try to get attention) and get everyone mad (again).

 

[Bri]

I doubt it, since he claims he deleted his source code. Even if he didn't really delete his source code, it sounds like Bliss is out of it for good.

-Bri

 

[seren]

I don't understand why everyone is so negative. The AKRPG is still open source and afaik Normatt and Smith have released their code. So some eager coder can pick up where they left of.

Both the AKAIO Dev team and Bliss must have made a difficult decision to quit coding for the AK after putting in so much time into it already. We should all respect their decision.

The only things missing from the AK2 is RTS, slow motion and ingame menus. Nice features, but not really vital features. The current software for the AK2 is good, no one is taking anything away from it and you can continue to use it.

I don't know the reason you purchased an AK2, but for me it still does what I intended it for.

 

[Bri]

seren, no offense but I don't think you've been following the discussion very closely. Neither the Bliss nor AKAIO source code can be released for the AK2.

Both Bliss and the AKAIO team have quit developing their respective menus, not because they "made the difficult decision to do so," but because they think they are somehow hurting the other by doing so. AKAIO is apparently within a day or two of running on the AK2, but apparently won't be released as some sort of punishment to Bliss (although I'm not exactly sure how it punishes him). Bliss has not only stopped development on his menu, but has (so he says) deleted all the source code as some sort of punishment to the AKAIO team (again, I'm not exactly sure how it punishes them).

The argument between them could probably have been worked out (it sounds like it's just a matter of Bliss giving credit for the code he's using although difficult to tell without knowing both sides of the story).

At this point Bliss has apparently given in and deleted his source code, so he has no intention of continuing development. The AKAIO team therefore got what they wanted, and could easily go ahead and continue development of AKAIO unimpeded. But it seems that neither side is done "punishing" the other -- in actuality punishing the users and hoping that the other side feels guilty about it (which is entirely unlikely).

-Bri

 

[seren]

AKRPG is though, and once your trusted enough with Acekard, I'm sure they'll give you the source for it and you can create a port.

 

[gratefulbuddy]

The AKRPG is still open source and afaik Normatt and Smith have released their code. So some eager coder can pick up where they left of.


QUOTE(Bri @ Jul 8 2008, 02:31 PM) seren, no offense but I don't think you've been following the discussion very closely. Neither the Bliss nor AKAIO source code can be released for the AK2.

-Bri

Bri-
For the same reasons those coders were able to "port" over their RPG OS menu to the AK2, someone/group can do it again.

 

[Bri]

gratefulbuddy, I'm sure someone could reproduce the extensive work already done if they spent the time and effort to do so. It's unlikely that anyone will spend the time and effort to do so any time soon.

The point here is that both Bliss and the AKAIO team have quit because of petty bickering, not because they made a "difficult decision to end development" for any real reason. AKAIO was only a day or two from being released according to Normmatt. And now that Bliss has given in, there's no reason left not to release it.

-Bri

 

[gratefulbuddy]

gratefulbuddy, I'm sure someone could reproduce the extensive work already done if they spent the time and effort to do so. It's unlikely that anyone will spend the time and effort to do so any time soon.

-Bri

Not entirely necessary:
QUOTEThis is custom osmenu for acekard2. It has almost same feature with custom osmenu for acekard r.p.g by me.
I cannot open source code about acekard2, because It's all rights reserved by acekard team.
But you can always see source code about my change. my change is not different with acekard r.p.g's.
-Bliss

 

[Bri]

gratefulbuddy:

If you're going to quote it, quote the whole thing (from the README file):

This is customized osmenu for acekard2. It has almost same feature with custom osmenu for acekard r.p.g by me.
I cannot open source code about acekard2, because It's all rights reserved by acekard team.
But you can always see source code about my change. my change is not different with acekard r.p.g's.

Update Info:
[4.0.7.FIN]
I'm sorry, this is my final AK2 release. I have already removed full source code of ak2 & akrpg from my hdd.
So, I cannot fix even if there are any bugs.
Thanks a Lot.

-Bri

 

[gratefulbuddy]

gratefulbuddy:

If you're going to quote it, quote the whole thing (from the README file):

Don't really see the need. Do you think that because he deletes it that is the end of it? Don't you think that at least one person has d'led the source before/recently?

 

[Bri]

Well, I hope you're right, gratefulbuddy, that someone will get a copy of the source, figure out how to port it to the AK2, and maintain and update it.

Somehow I doubt that Bliss has actually deleted the source code himself (it sounds like hot air to me), but he has made his intention not to continue development of his menu quite clear. Which means that the AKAIO team no longer has reason not to continue their development, now that their reason for stopping has apparently removed himself from the equation.

ETA: The README file (at least for version k10a) gives credit to many people, including:

2. fixed conflict MIC & Acekard2's special option(softreset,cheat) in "mario party ds" (used gelu's patch)
3. improved gbasleep and gbapatcher as gelu's final work.
1. fixed cheatmenu for 2byte character. (thanks to kzat3)
2. fixed 0xED problem in libfat. ( thanks to kzat3)
3. You can use dynamic size font as year/month. ( thanks to Normmatt )
3. fixed for home homebrew. ex) nesDS (thanks to gelu)

So I'm just not sure what the spat is/was about to begin with.

-Bri

 

[Smiths]

I wanted to chime in on this thing, since I really appreciate the comments but do not want people shit-flinging at others they have no reason to fling shit at.
And this is entirely from me, not representative of Normmatt or anyone else.

There was never any desire to see bliss stop his firmware. This was not about "competition" with me.
Honestly, I still love my RPG and think gelu should be nominated for an award because he's made it his goal to fix all the screw-ups of the AK team. gelu, from the start, has been working on the RPG in a "backdoor" sense. He did a lot of 3-in-1 work, but really he focused tons on fixing the loaders, soft-reset, etc... basically the general garbage the AK team should have prioritized in the first place.

My issue with bliss was just general code-liftings (common among programmers; we're all guilty of it) and a very minor thing that highlighted it was the whole "more" arrows in the cheat window. I know this is a small feature, but unfortunately the algorithm of the cheat window was so weird at that point with all the mods to it from Norm, me, bliss, kzat, etc. that it just was nuts to figure out just WTF was needed to trigger a "more" arrow to display. So yes, even the most minor of things can take an hour or two or 3 to put in. This feature was immediately put into bliss' firmware without credit (and it was obviously just a copy and paste, as the arrow locations were relative to the newly-enlarged cheat window, which he failed to implement.. so the arrows were too far to the right).
Hey, that happens, we all copy and paste whatever. My problem was the fact I called him out on not citing me in his list of updates and it was never rectified... I PM'd and posted publicly. So I just was sick of working hours and having things lifted without mention (even shortcut deletion, etc.).
Again, we're all guilty of it.

bliss was not the main reason I got tired. I got tired of seeing every other card manufacturer releasing update after update of their closed-source software with better and better features while the AceKard team simply abandoned the RPG.
That was my fear upon the initial announcement of the RPG, and I believe I cited it in my review of it for Emuholic (or at least discussed with the site admin on numerous occasions). I believed initially that the time we were all spending programming would lead to AceKard just using it all in a combined firmware and thus they would be the ones using it and hosting the source tree, etc... I did not particularly enjoy the fact users were looking to me and others to keep features up-to-date and add basic things other cards had.

I still use my M3 Simply more than any other card, and if I still had my SC DSOne I would definitely be using that the most. It comes down to how I feel a product is being treated by the people who make it.
All I gathered from the RPG's treatment was that AceKard was interested in having us make features they would then just put into the AK2, which was the "true" card they wanted to make.

I am not trashing the AceKard team; they have been supportive and communicative and polite through everything. I just eventually got burned the hell out on putting everything in, not seeing it implemented officially (not that anyone ever promised to do so, just kinda was thinking that was the whole 'open-source' idea), and -- yes -- seeing bliss lift my work without source code postings then using the excuse "my SVN has a problem" for months.
If it was that bad, he should have set up a google code repository.

Hell, Norm and I I think have used a total of 5 different repositories during this whole development.

Also, I believe you *will* see at least 1 release of the AIO software. I don't think Norm or I ever wanted to not release it. There's far too many hours invested into it to just go "screw bliss and AK, so no one gets it!" That's just petty as hell.

The AK2 garbage was annoying with the fact they could never get their korean copy protection code running on our firmware. I think the rectification is simply AIO removes Korean font support.

Sorry for the rant and remember these are just my opinions and nothing in this is an official announcement or promise. I just don't want people flinging shit.

 

[Bri]

Smiths,

Thank you for taking the time to clarify. Your feelings are certainly justified, and I do think that Bliss should have done a better job of acknowledging the code he used. I also think that Acekard hasn't so far done a very good job of updating the official menu (although it does look like they're working on fixing some of the problems with the AK2 loader which is a good thing).

I do hope that now that Bliss is no longer working on his menu, the problems with him are now moot (he won't be using anyone else's code and hence his not giving credit isn't an issue).

Your other main concern seems to be at least partially addressed here: http://gbatemp.net/index.php?s=&showto...t&p=1261370

Apparently, someone on the Acekard forum contacted Acekard and got a response concerning Bliss, and they responded that they would be updating their menus with many of the features, so perhaps the non-official menu code you have been working on so diligently will eventually make it into the official menus.

Anyway, I for one appreciate your hard work and hope that you'll release AKAIO and continue to update it. I'm fairly certain that a lot of others feel the same way. As nice as the official menu is, it doesn't have all the features it should have. Without your efforts, Acekard users would be missing out, that's for sure!

-Bri