just thought a new thread would be better... but here is the first part of my e-mail with freescale:

i have removed e-mails to prevent spam bots from getting them
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Hi

My english is limited, but i will try to explain what I want with my request.

Me and a group of Empeg owners, want to continue development on the software that is in the player.

And since no company has used the rights - for the source behind the software - for the last 7 years (i might be off by 1 or 2 years), we where wondering if it was possible to obtain the rights?

I hope that freescale are open to discuss this matter.. It would help the community a lot, since we would now be able to fix bugs and add new features.

There is no plan to make money of this work and we have talked about and GPL license...

Maybe, in the feature we would also like to make a limted production of an upgraded version of the player, but there is absolute no plan for this as i write


Best Regards

Bo Herrmannsen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Taylor Jack-R61933"
To: "Bo Herrmannsen"
Cc: "Weisman Dale-R62632"
Sent: Friday, February 20, 2009 8:34 AM
Subject: RE: Empeg, Riocar


Bo

We are looking into it

Can you advise as to the context of your request?

Jack Taylor

-----Original Message-----
From: Bo Herrmannsen
Sent: Thursday, February 19, 2009 10:35 AM
To: Taylor Jack-R61933
Subject: Empeg, Riocar

Hi

It has come to my knowledge that freescale should be the owner of the
rights to the software that is used on the Empeg/Riocar player

I did some tracking and this is what i found out:

Rio bought Empeg
DNNA bought Rio
Sigmatel bought the Empeg bits from DNNA Freescale bought Sigmatel


Can you confirm this?

Regards

Bo Herrmannsen

It's a start, I'll be curious to see where this goes.

Regardless of the outcome, thanks for pursuing this.

well... i will hunt this down.. either they say yes or no... or i will mail all their offcies once a week

Interesting that Freescale (nee Motorola) ended up with the empeg rights.

Mr. Klein

I'm just a private individual who are also a memeber of a forum page (http://empegbbs.com)

My interest in the software is mainly to be able to continue the development and bug fixing the software

There are no plans to make money on the software and we hope that we can get the software on a GPL license, and of course also any releases we make will be under GPL and frre of charge, that's what i have understood the rest of the forum/board would like

We have not made any plans to relaese another piece of hardware, but would Freescale mind if we did that in the future?

Also do you know the product that the software are made for?


Best regards

Bo Herrmannsen

----- Original Message -----
From: "Klein Kevin-RZAT60"
To: bo herrmannsen
Sent: Monday, February 23, 2009 3:47 PM
Subject: RE: Empeg, Riocar



Mr. Herrmannsen,

Your inquiry was forwarded to me by our public relations folks.

We have bought Sigmatel and the associated intellectual property,
although I'm not familiar with the entire trail and what software rights
made it through all the transitions you outline below.

Can you help me understand what organization you represent and your
specific interest in the software rights to help better answer your
question?

Regards,

Kevin

Nice to see that this is moving up the ladder.

well i just hope that they say yes

but if they do.. will mark blend hijack and the software to one piece?

Just a suggestion, you may want someone whose first language is English to look over your responses, just to make sure you don't miss anything.

And no...the player and the kernel will most likely always remain separate. In fact, the kernel will probably get lighter weight as features that should have been in the player are added where they should be.

Thanks for doing this.

I too knew this had been discussed many many times - but I had no idea it had never been pursued <blush>.

I hold out little (but some) hope since I think there are two problems:
* legal - and Boelle is doing something about this
* practical - the source code is simply not available

If anyone had a copy of the source then I think it would have leaked out by now - and I think someone would have gone chasing Freescale for permission to cover ourselves.

However - could any of those who *may* know of the last location of the source see if there is *anything* that could be released given permission?
That way Boelle has a clearer request:
"Dear Mr Freescale, if we find a copy of the code for this 10 year old obsolete car stereo, can we submit it to you in order that you can license it under the GPL."

Otherwise we're asking for rights to something that may not exist and possibly asking Freescale to actually go searching for the code. The less we ask for the better our chances.

Bo, I (personally) think it may be better to be more discrete - saying
"We have not made any plans to relaese another piece of hardware, but would Freescale mind if we did that in the future?"
sounds like it would raise alarm bells. Keep focused on the software.

We need to ask Freescale to go searching for the code. (They probably wouldn't have to search very far -- it was all still on Sigmatel's SVN server when Sigmatel closed the Cambridge office at the end of 2007, so presumably it was also still there when Freescale bought Sigmatel a few months later.) Even suggesting that the code might exist anywhere else would damage our case IMO -- and not merely because it doesn't!

Peter

Should also ditch the GPL idea -- that's also scary to suits. Perhaps leave it to them to ask for a license suggestion, then bring it up.

To fix/improve the code on the existing platform, a much more restrictive license would do fine.

Cheers

I would also try to point out to freescale that we represent a community of open source developers that have kept a 10-year-old product alive by continuous improvements, despite being hampered by lack of source.

np mate.. and yes i should let some correct my respons, but i guess most will understand and if not ask me what i mean

i will do when i get a response back, but at least i have them a link to the bbs

I agree on this one, the proper way to do this is to ask them first and let them look for the source..

it might be that they come back nd say" we can give you the rights, but we cant find the source" then a reply could be "is it ok if we search for the source and get back to you if we locate it"

just a thought

just confused here.... is the kernel the same as hijack ?

Bear in mind that one of the things Freescale will not be allowed, by their contracts with third-parties, to give us, is the MP3 decoder. If there was a release, we would need to then integrate an open-source one (or put up with Vorbis, FLAC and WAV only). This in turn means that whatever licence they picked would need to be LGPL-compatible (for mpg123) or, preferably, GPL-compatible (for madplay).

Peter

If anything does come up where they want to meet with someone in person, I'm willing to do so if they are in the Austin area. I know Freescale has a large presence here, as did Sigmatel. Showing them in person what we are talking about might help.

yeah, but is there any practical difference ? i mean an opensource one could even be better.. but might be wrong

thanks mate... i dont know if they have any office in denmark... and i cant afford to travel.. i just started this because i thought e-mail could do it for starters.. never thought that they would reply

Boelle, here are some words I've just jotted down that you should feel free to reuse any or all of in your correspondence with Freescale:



Peter

thanks a lot peter... i could not do it better myself... i think i will mail them that one also...hmm... just need to think if i should start the e-mail like this: Here is what the community of the Empeg car-player have in mind....

Yes. Sort of.
You have the choice to use the standard configuration OS as supplied with the empeg or the Mark Lord modified OS (nicknamed 'Hijack").

Yes. Hijack is a modified version of the original empeg kernel. The original empeg kernel, is a modified version of Debian Linux. All of those things are open-source.

It's the closed-source player application and its subcomponents that you're talking about with Freescale.

yep... but why not take the best from the car player and hijack and make a new kernel based on that?

Mark is already doing the best possible work on the kernel.

In fact, many of the features Mark is adding to the kernel would work better is they were put into the player software. Mark is doing a lot of "tricks" that allow the kernel to handle special features that you'd normally do inside a piece of application software.

I would predict that if we could get the player software code open-sourced, then Mark would move a lot of his kernel features back into the player software where they belong.

Because good Linux development practices mean that there are some sorts of things that it's most robust and elegant to have in the kernel, and other sorts of things in "userland" (the player code). Many of the differences between Hijack and the stock kernel, perhaps most of them, are ingenious but sometimes slightly ad-hoc solutions to problems that could possibly be solved more elegantly in a modified player.

Peter

I think what Peter and I are both trying to say, is that if we can get the player code open-sourced, then of COURSE we (and by we I mean Mark probably) will be making changes to the kernel, too. New ways of doing things will become available to the empeg community when that happens.

that was what i had in mind... of course we need the source to do this

well... here is freescales answer:

Mr. Herrmannsen,

Thanks for your suggestion but unfortunately we are not interested in pursuing this.

Regards,

Kevin

Perhaps Peter could try again, via a more direct internal contact..

he is more than welcome

Just how long is a software copyright good for these days?

i think it's like either a patent around 10 years.... or forever... just hope it's 10 years

If only there were some way of finding out for certain, we wouldn't have to idly speculate...

Patents last too long for "waiting for expiry" to be a useful strategy for hardware or software, most of the time; copyrights last even longer. And even a copyright expiry doesn't help you if you don't actually have the source-code in question; related reasoning was behind the original stipulation in the UK that copyright was only granted on printed matter if copies were deposited at the British Library, Oxford, and Cambridge -- but the Berne Convention essentially outlawed such restrictions.

Peter

damn.... seems like a dead end then.. or might there still be some hope?

of course we could pay for the rights.. but sure that will be very expensive

This (which someone on Riovolution found in the Wikipedia "Freescale" article) is unsourced but horribly plausible as a reason why Freescale/Sigmatel might have other things on their mind at about that time:


Peter

urgh - any chance of making contact through an old colleague before the lights go out?

This is a real pity. Maybe they're just not interested because they don't want to spend the time/money on finding it and working through the legal issues, particularly right now. Sounds like they're holding ship just long enough until they can abandon everything they've inherited. Would be a crying shame for the empeg code to get tossed because no one there had the inclination to do anything with it!!

On the other hand... if the company owning the code no longer exists, who will complain if somehow a pirated copy of the code makes it into the public domain?

tanstaafl.

Ahh.. but the problem now is, we've alerted them to its existence (and nobody will actually confess to having a copy of the source).

Well if there is a copy of it floating around, I tend to agree with tanstaafl. Why bother pursuing a copyright infringement (expensive) on software that longer makes you money and that you weren't bothered to do anything with in the first place...

Then again it is an assumption that they don't have Big Plans for it.

maybe if they got some money for it? but who is interested in chipping in on this?

I guess that the amount would have to be quite high for them to be interested, but I could put in some money. But maybe, since we have this recession, that the amount wouldn't be as high as it would have been without it.

Stig

I hate to think how much it would be just to cover the lawyer's fees they'd have to run up just giving it to us for free.

I'd give money for it! I'm sure many would, all depending on how much. It probably wouldn't be enough to interest a corporate though.

Perhaps a forum poll is in order?

Talking money is, IMHO, a complete waste of time - we may be able to pull together $1000 but any commercial solution is going to be orders of magnitude larger.


If we seriously want anything to happen then the only way we're going to get it is through people's contacts - and realistically I think that means Peter and co

So if you want a poll then I think it should be more along the lines of "Who's willing to buy Peter (or anyone else who even contributes to getting the source) a pint at every empeg meet ever again?"

Now if there is *anything* - monetary or otherwise - that Peter can delegate then I'd be more than happy to support the effort.

Heh.. not that he needs another one, but.. I'll donate a working Mk2a empeg to Peter if he pulls this off. Spares can be handy.

He can keep/use it himself, or as a bribe for some other key individual if need be.

This is US employment law we're talking about -- Texan employment law, at that. AFAICT the lights went out the same day.

Peter

*sigh* why the *biip* do they not want to pursue this? i think they at least should say why... and they havent used the source for the last 7 years.

hell if they want their name mentioned for free i guess that would be in order since they help us with this one



huh? i did not get that one

You're asking why a bunch of people who've never worked on this code, might be disinclined to spend time and money on putting together a release in order to give it away for nothing, for the benefit of a group of at most about 4,000 people -- and for a product that's been EOL for eight years and never contained any Sigmatel or Freescale parts in the first place?

I would have been as delighted as anyone else if they'd decided to make a release, which is why I offered you the help I did -- but there's a reason that the sort of arrangement we proposed has never, ever happened before for any product in the entire history of consumer electronics.


Someone suggested that we should get in touch with the remaining contacts there before they actually left -- but (unlike what would happen in the UK) they actually left on the day the redundancies were announced.

Peter

Anyone know a producer at 60 Minuets?

Hi,

I'll donate one with dual 250GB drives as well, plus a cash contribution if it would help.

Thanks,

Ross

why? takeing this to the media i think is a very bad choice, but i might be wrong

the problem is that someone sure has a copy of the source, but they will not say so to avoid beeing overrun with requests for a copy.

next problem is for them to say we have other plans for the source or to say we dont have plans but it will take to much time for us to write an license..

I have asked mr klein at freescale why they dont want to go ahead.. but i guess i will get no answer.. a rude way to behave if you ask me. at least they could say excatly why so everyone knows why, it will also stop the guesswork.

I would be inclined to agree - they will either be wanting no money, or a commerically sensible amount, which I imagine would be more than a couple of thousand.

I was thinking of the whole topic of gadgetry with abandoned software support. The Empeg being an example.

well.. mr klein at freescale does not respond... not even when money is mentioned... a big a**hole if you ask me

Because calling him that on a public forum is going help him reconsider?

i have given up on it and are just telling plain out how i feel about him. after 3-4 email which he have read with no response i jst had it.. how can a firm stat alive with that way of doing things?

This deal wouldn't generate much if any money for them against the costs involved in making it able to be released.

You need somebody to locate the code, clean it up, remove anything that can't be released, package it and then run it past the lawyers. That all costs $$$ and time.

Presumably the people who could do that more efficiently than anyone else are the Blue folks on here?

Not that it's ever likely to happen but is there a precedent for anything like this?

Maybe he's been made redundant and nobody deleted his mailbox?

If you're going to deal with big companies you'll have to get used to people not answering your emails if they aren't interested in what you're saying.

I think you're being rather naive here. Just saying you're willing to pay is awfully vague. Are you expecting him to accept Paypal?

I've pinged a contact who is (hopefully) still at Freescale about this. No promises but who knows....

Hugo

There's also the fact that a hastily-written email can get you into legal trouble, or at least trouble with your boss, absent an MoU or NDA, so it's often better to simply not bother.

I can't think of one. I suppose hardware abandonware isn't usually a problem because all the units eventually die... the Empeg seems to have been blessed with both unusually long-lived hardware, and unusually short-lived parent companies...

Peter

Heh. Two things:

1. Big companies can be insanely slow at responding to anything. I've been dealing with one particular large company for the past two years -- where they pay for my time to do things for them -- and any email to them takes between 2 and 4 *weeks* for them to respond. Even for the simplest of things. Now *that* is insanity.

2. As someone else pointed out earlier in this thread, you appear to have applied a self-centered approach to this: "release the code because I/we want it". Rather than, "here's how releasing the code will benefit youi". And if a case cannot be built for the latter, then there's simply no point.

Companies need to be presented with good reasons for them to *do* things, as they already begin with more reasons not to do them. If there are no or insufficient benefits to the company, then they simply won't be interested. I don't see where the current approach has even attempted to persuade them otherwise.

Cheers

I have a few questions about this situation for Hugo, Peter, or anyone else in blue who might have insight.

1. How much effort do you think/guess would be involved in redacting all of the IP the parent company could possibly care about?
2. What portions (other than the aforementioned MP3 decoder) are the most likely to require removal/cleanup?
3. Assuming the company simply goes dark and we never hear from them again, and sufficient time elapses that we all agree the code is abandoned and nobody will care what we do with it, do you guys still have a source tree lying around somewhere that we could work with? I promise that your answer to this question will not cause me to begin surveillance of your home/workplace.

That was answered earlier in this thread, with a resounding no (post #319668). Whether we believe that or not is irrelevant, as nobody is going to steal somebody elses property (the code) and brag about it here.

Cheers

This is an easy promise to keep, we already know you've started following them

If Freescale is anything like the place I used to work, even showing up with a decent list of benefits and a small suitcase with $50K won't get the ball moving very quickly nor very far. Once the sum reaches $100k then some eyes begin to open. At $250k+ you may get some workable steam and semi-firm commitments.

You also can't forget that most of the time, the people you'll be talking to are going to have to spend some brain power on any proposals. And it's not something they're going to get paid any additional sums to do. Some people have their official responsibilities and accounts and that's all they want to deal with. Money in the company's pocket isn't necessarily money in their pocket, so until such time as you can get the information to other people with perhaps more pull/power and make the financial reward significant, you may see no traction.

then they could just name a price.. i have even asked what amount of money that would interest them

but again.. i'm on the sideline from now on. One benefit is that i do less damage to the couse in that way

They'd have to spend time and money just coming up with a price, even if it was just the time and money working out what code you were asking for.

Well.. then there is still some hope, i still belive that it could benefit all of us to get the source

Maybe a webpage, one that hold all info eg. in one place? (just another crazy thought)

And no one here disagrees with you, we'd all like legal access to use the source.

I don't think my approach would result in the source being available to everyone - rather it'd be a small group of NDA'ed people. More than that is rather a lot to hope for from a commercial concern.

Hugo

Actually, anyone taken a look at the stuff freescale currently offer?

The i.MX515 is kinda tasty:

http://www.freescale.com/files/32bit/doc/fact_sheet/IMX515FS.pdf?fpsp=1

1GHz Cortex A8, ATA-6, Ethernet, multiple high speed USB2.0 host controllers. Heck, they even have one variant of the ARM11 based one which is for automotive (still has ATA/Ethernet/USB2 but adds CAN fwiw... http://www.freescale.com/webapp/sps/site/prod_summary.jsp?code=i.MX356&nodeId=0162468rH31143ZrDR )

Now, wouldn't that make a nice new empeg main board, running empeg software... mmm....

Hugo

Tease

Better than nothing, and potentially a stepping stone to motivate open sourcing it in future...

At this stage I feel it would be worth putting in a lot of effort just to ensure the source is accessible to *someone* and to keep dreams alive...

well.... i just hope that they give us an reply some way or the other

was there any luck?

What do you think.