@ Iggmoe - absolutely true, i have been on both sides, ripped off several times and also had a millions claim above my head for what other people thought was piracy (not guilty in the end…)
So it’s not always so black and white
In this case, there is no way for any to say what kind of grey we are facing here (imho).
To avoid this i use a escrow agreement on all my subcontractors, it cost like 500$ a year but everything is agreed and regulated in case of problems.
Off course you only start doing this after being in trouble
@ Iggmoe - We live in less than a sane world today. Just read the latest news from Boston.
If a regular on the forum asks a question, which might seen suspicious, I would try to get a better understanding of the context of the question, with the intent to try to provide assistance. It is a completely different situation when a new person on the forum asks how to copy a program from a device.
it’s a great debate, and one that I think, unfortunately, we’ll never be in a position to understand fully. The OP is not a “known” person to anyone, so nobody here could personally vouch for what is said. It’s unlikely that we’ll ever find out the other side of the story from the developer.
I love the suggestion by @ David@ Emrol, of using an escrow service, but that also requires a two-way street. I can see how a contractor might upload a version of the code at a point in time, but still leave the “final” release version outside that; perhaps another equally valid approach here is requiring source code control in your own repository and knowing the code is checked in. I know, hindsight is a wonderful thing. But unfortunately in this case, the horse has bolted, the gate was open, and now us cowboys just get to chatter around the (empty) hitching post.
Just for the record, while I personally chose not to respond to the OP’s question, I am perfectly OK with Dejan doing so, since we’re all thinking individuals and can make up our own minds. Imagine a forum where people are tight-lipped and cagey by default until a new user has proven his/her worth. That model would work great for secret societies, but I don’t think it would be healthy or particularly fun for this one.
That has been tried, I don’t think there was enough collective interest (or enough interest in how it was going to be embroidered or something - memory is a bit vague of that thread but it’s around). So YES if you want to, feel free… I’ll just tell you I am wearing mine !
Actually, I’ve heard rumors of a super-secret, “inside” group. Supposedly, you have to gather something called “points” to be able to join . . . . But it’s just a rumor, after all!
Theoretically, unless the memory had been read-protected at the hardware level, you should be able to read it using a JTAG debugger. Segger probably makes the most popular cheap ones – look at the J-Link line. Once you have the JTAG debugger plugged into the board properly, you should be able to read the entire memory into a BIN file, which you can then use to program additional devices using the same J-Link device.
For all intents and purposes: no. I mean, theoretically, the .NET assemblies are stored somewhere in the firmware, but you’d have to figure out where they were, and then decompile them.
If you want to make any changes to the code, you’ll have to get the source code.
I’ll just tell you I am wearing mine !