You are totally and absolutely right.

There is no way the ends justifies the means.

I VERY much appreciate your wake-up call, because I needed it badly. I hope that an upcoming blog post will help make amends.

On the other hand, how respectable is it to be *just* a drug user?

Let’s continue the analogy of software piracy = drug use and look at the whole picture.

You are a speaker presenting on the topic of marijuana and it’s benefits (it’s legal but only in rare instances). After discussing the topic at length, one of the participants asks, “You’ve convinced me, I’d like to get high as soon as possible, where can I get some drugs.” Immediately you find yourself between a rock and a hard place. You know that drugs (including marijuana) can really mess a person up and that there is no legal option that you can answer with. So you pull a stash of crack-cocaine out of your pocket and explain, “I am a user who likes to get high, but I’m not about to become a dealer or tell others how to commit such a crime.” Then you light your crack pipe and take a hit.

I think the better answer would have been to explain that the only legal option is to wait until its official release and keep your illegal warez to yourself.

Not that it would help your integrity more…a person of integrity does what is right even when nobody else is looking. So to install a pirate rom kills your integrity whether you advertise that fact or not.

So yes, I respect your decision and attitude to have “more” integrity by not pointing the way towards illegal software use. But I hope you can understand why you have lost some level of respect from some people.

Chris “The Snotty Know It All Look Down On You Cause You Are Lowly” dude. AHAHAHAHHAHHAH you’re kidding right? More people should be as honest, smart and community minded as Chris and I’m talking also real community!!!!!!!! Like helping less fortunate, disabled and challenged people as well as enivornmentally minded.

Those two people missed the point and need to get to know the real Chris. Sad to see people like Chris being crucified for trying to help people and not lose their business. Its not funny.

My guess is one of those gus is a very well respected MVP and I think that person didn’t sit back and think about it or he/she would have not bothered saying anythng at all.

Kevin

I don’t understand how a guy that uses classic comic book exclamations in mid sentence can be seen as elitist. Being an MVP isn’t as easy as one would think. Knowing and doing in advance I suppose does have some elitist qualities but as an MVP you are recognized as a leader. It probably would have been best not to mention your cellphone but you did say it was illegal. I think that’s enough. It was illegal for you and it would have been illegal for them too.

I have the exact same policy on software piracy. Zero tolerance. When we encounter a client that doesn’t have legal licesning…if it is already installed we’ll support it but we won’t install it. And we won’t work with a client that isn’t interested in getting legal.

I also wouldn’t hire a anyone that was running illegal software at home. There’s simply no reason.

I think you did the right thing.

To answer the direct question, “No”.
I “knew” you through this blog before we ever met in person, and I’ve never read anything that I thought had any kind of smug or elitist tone to it - in fact just the opposite, you’re always quick to praise others and humble in your personal assessments.

I’d go back to my comments above: If someone wants to do something questionable on their own time to their own stuff, figure it out on your own, but don’t ask someone else to be an accomplice as such, especially in a public forum. And if others took your refusal to directly answer the question as being holier-than-thou, then hopefully they just didn’t understand your reasoning and will read this and realize they’re wrong, or they’re probably someone who hasn’t or won’t work as hard as you to achieve the personal and professional successes you have and is one of those people who always take shots at those who’ve achieved more to make themselves feel better.

No need to buy me beer, but I’d love to share one with you next chance we get!

Hey man, THANKS THANKS THANKS for posting that. I definitely learned a couple of new things about the entirety of the Windows Mobile dev process that didn’t know about. Redmond, July. Beer on me!

@ Everyone…

For those who don’t know who Loke Uei is, besides have one of the coolest looking names on the planet, he is a Program Manager with the Windows Mobile team. He graciously allows me to stalk him, bugging him from time to time about WM stuff.

As usual, Microsoft will not support the use of cooked ROMs, use at your own risk. nobody will help you unbrick them either.

That said, we understand the issue that everyone is facing here. We all need to have our OS updated from time to time, have the ability to upgrade minor version changes and provide a migration upgrade to a major version release. similar to what we do on the desktop. trust me, we want the same thing too.

Issue is how we build and ship ROMs. When we’re done with a ROM, we ship a vanilla ROM image to our OEMs, who will then pile on their custom drivers (for custom hardware) and additional software and build a BSP image for their target hardware. Once they’re done, they ship that image to Operators or Retail distributors who will then pile on additional software (sometimes called bloatware) for providing additional value added services to customers).

This whole entire process can take anywhere from 6months to a year. That’s why actual devices ship much later after the announcement is made.

So looking at this release chain, everytime we make an update to the OS, we have to follow the chain of events by shipping changes to OEMs, who would need to test/make changes to their customizations, the ship to Operators who will do the same.

That takes time, resources and money. Operators and OEMs need valid commercial reasons to provide this upgrade.

Moving forward, we’d like to be able to provide OS updates as we wish but yet be able to support OEMs and operators as well. Let me know if you have any suggestions as to how this should be handled.

Regards,
Allen (700p)

You do not KNOW how much your comment means to me. If you are planning on going to any tech/SMB conferences this year…let me know and we’ll arrange a meet. I am buying you a beer or 3 as thanks.

Seriously man…I needed to hear that in the worst way.