Guru ROM Sellers Rant

[SpeedGeek]

"Here is the much requested 4th batch (and also most likely the last one)."

OK, I have been asked many times via PM from those who declared interest (next in line) and even a few who did not declare interest, to do a new batch and give them some advanced notice of when the next batch will be posted.

I tried to be as fair as possible about this for all Amibay members and that's why nobody was given any advance notice of the next batch.

You all know the rules for Amibay For Sale threads and that next in line means exactly that and only for the thread you are next in line on.

I never offered or implied to build and sell enough to satisfy everyone and I have already sold more in 6 months than you will likely see in 6 years here on Amibay!

Aside from the fact that this project has already taken up to much of my time and most of the demand is from international buyers. A small voice has been growing louder which each new batch which says:

"You've been damn lucky with international shipping but if you keep rolling the dice some bad sh*t will happen". My feedback rating is still good now and I would like it to stay that way.

Another disappointment for me was that much of this unexpected demand is from GVP owners rather than A2091/A590 owners. It's quite obvious who benefited most from this upgrade version and I'm left with the feeling A2091/A590 owners were cheated in some way. Some of the GVP owners didn't even bother to try the 4.15 ROM upgrade or any software workarounds before assuming a Guru ROM would solve all of their problems.

...and so I hope this detailed Rant/Explanation will save me from some of the PMs I really don't want to answer.

 

[wmsteele]

I'm one of the GVP owners, that couldn't be bothered (also have an A590, but you didn't know that), thanks very much. Report the PMs, simple, then make the next batch A2091 specific, job done.

 

[RichyV]

Have to admit, I too do not understand the attitude here - yes PM's are wrong and should be reported, but are you really complaining about the buyers not being the ones you wanted?!?

 

[SpeedGeek]

Have to admit, I too do not understand the attitude here - yes PM's are wrong and should be reported, but are you really complaining about the buyers not being the ones you wanted?!?

What PMs are to be reported here? It's not silent bidding to request advance notice of a possible For Sale thread which has not even been (or may never be) posted.

The attitude is:

"...and so I hope this detailed Rant/Explanation will save me from some of the PMs I really don't want to answer."

It's not so much about the buyers I wanted as the time and effort required to satisfy demand from GVP owners when the previous GVP version (which are far greater in number than the A2091 version) can do that just as well.

EDIT:
My humble apologies to wmsteele...

 

[tbtorro]

Forgive me SpeedGeek but personally I've never heard before of a seller complaining about demand being too high for something he sells, and about anything "taking up too much of someones time", I mean it's a sales thread not a favor..

I'm not sure what is your agreement with 'Mr. Babel', but there is a very simple way to ease your burden, release the PCB layout and the logic content of the GAL on the adapter board. The software itself is already free to use from Ralph's website, it's only the adapter board that is needed to get this working, and I've never understood of not releasing that design to the public with the argument of "some Amiga dealers still sell Guru ROM adapters" which is quite a nonsense, as no official Guru kits were sold in any of the known Amiga shops (Amigakit, Vesalia etc..) for years. So I can only assume that Ralph Babel licenses the design sometimes and takes a cut, which would be an ENTIRELY different argument.

Another option would be to sell these as kits. I'm certain that a high number of people on this forum could build this themselves, and the few who can't could pick up the limited numbers you build yourself. So posting kits would take much less of your time. Everyone happy.

 

[SpeedGeek]

Forgive me SpeedGeek but personally I've never heard before of a seller complaining about demand being too high for something he sells, and about anything "taking up too much of someones time", I mean it's a sales thread not a favor..

Your point is well taken on the sales thread matter. However, each sale thread did state "I have only a limited amount of time...". The complaint was really more to do with some of the PMs I received and the rest was really just a more detailed explanation of why I don't want to continue with this project.

I'm not sure what is your agreement with 'Mr. Babel', but there is a very simple way to ease your burden, release the PCB layout and the logic content of the GAL on the adapter board. The software itself is already free to use from Ralph's website, it's only the adapter board that is needed to get this working, and I've never understood of not releasing that design to the public with the argument of "some Amiga dealers still sell Guru ROM adapters" which is quite a nonsense, as no official Guru kits were sold in any of the known Amiga shops (Amigakit, Vesalia etc..) for years. So I can only assume that Ralph Babel licenses the design sometimes and takes a cut, which would be an ENTIRELY different argument.

Another option would be to sell these as kits. I'm certain that a high number of people on this forum could build this themselves, and the few who can't could pick up the limited numbers you build yourself. So posting kits would take much less of your time. Everyone happy.

Sorry, but the permission was only for me to build and sell a limited number and Ralph wanted the new Adapter design (including the GAL) protected. It took a great deal of time and effort for me to get this permission and I never intended to be designer, manufacturer and (worldwide) distributor for this project. It simply worked out that way due to a lack of people he could trust with this project.

Much of commentary on Ralph's website is 10 years or more old (and he knows this) but he doesn't have much time for updating the site.

 

[tbtorro]

Fair enough - if it's your own design then I perfectly understand that you want to recover the time invested in it.

But still, wouldn't you be happier (and somewhat wealthier) if you sold them as kits? To know that your design will be actually used by as many Amigans as possible?

I'm sure people would buy it for only a somewhat lower price even, (I - for one - would be more than happy) and the GAL can be encrypted - so no risk of anyone taking your design. It would take less than 5 minutes to pack one kit up. Everyone wins..

 

[Deleted member 14264]

If there are enough takers for the GVP ROM 4.15, I will open a thread to sell these...

 

[SpeedGeek]

If there are enough takers for the GVP ROM 4.15, I will open a thread to sell these...

Ralph has only authorized the use of the GVP 4.15 ROM image "For your personal use only". So you will need to get his permission if you want to sell them.

 

[Deleted member 14264]

Ralph has only authorized the use of the GVP 4.15 ROM image "For your personal use only". So you will need to get his permission if you want to sell them.

This claim assumes everyone who wants to use this ROM image "for ... personal use only" has an EPROM burner which is most definitely not the case.

For this type of service I usually charge 4$US which includes the price of the chip and a small fee for the time it took to do the job. There is no actual profit on the code involved. I charge the same to people who provide me with their own data to burn on a 27C256.

Also, I visited Ralph's page; if he wants to prevent people from making/selling copies of the information (which I did not get from his page) he has to make it official by indicating the information is effectively ©(year) - (legal owner of the intellectual property).

Saying "hello I am (first name only) and I allow you to copy this data for your own use only" is not legally binding - and it looks very suspicious.

IMHO, you indicating you're not interested in selling anymore Guru ROM to GVP SCSI controller owners as well as warning off potential distributors of low cost replicas of GVP ROM 4.15 amounts to a form of stranglehold applied to GVP SCSI controllers owners.

Added edit:
The honest thing to do for Ralph (if indeed he is the legit owner of the intellectual property discussed here) would be:
1. Make the ROM data freely available to everyone and let owners of EPROM burners free to compete for the lowest price to burn the data and better quality chips
OR
2. Make the data unavailable and designate a person who is in charge of selling burned (E)PROMs with the data on it

Otherwise what he is doing is equivalent to a public library making a very important book available to borrow for free and tell people they are free to make photocopies for themselves of specific pages but they can't bring the book to a photocopy shop because the shop would make a profit from the information in the book. The consequence is the only way to make the photocopies is to buy your own scanner or photocopier. Not much sense here...

 

[Sardine]

Ralph has only authorized the use of the GVP 4.15 ROM image "For your personal use only". So you will need to get his permission if you want to sell them.

This claim assumes everyone who wants to use this ROM image "for ... personal use only" has an EPROM burner which is most definitely not the case.

For this type of service I usually charge 4$US which includes the price of the chip and a small fee for the time it took to do the job. There is no actual profit on the code involved. I charge the same to people who provide me with their own data to burn on a 27C256.

Also, I visited Ralph's page; if he wants to prevent people from making/selling copies of the information (which I did not get from his page) he has to make it official by indicating the information is effectively ©(year) - (legal owner of the intellectual property).

Saying "hello I am (first name only) and I allow you to copy this data for your own use only" is not legally binding - and it looks very suspicious.

IMHO, you indicating you're not interested in selling anymore Guru ROM to GVP SCSI controller owners as well as warning off potential distributors of low cost replicas of GVP ROM 4.15 amounts to a form of stranglehold applied to GVP SCSI controllers owners.

and as much as you want to sell these permission will be required (no matter how little you charge),, if you try and sell these here without Ralph's permission you will be asked to leave Amibay or banned, this is a nonprofit site that respects all member wishes.

simply stating "law" etc in regards to copyright in an effort to bypass a members wishes is not allowed, Ralph does not have to (official indicate the information is effectively ©(year) - (legal owner of the intellectual property). he has clearly stated "your own use only"

 

[Deleted member 14264]

simply stating "law" etc in regards to copyright in an effort to bypass a members wishes is not allowed, Ralph does not have to (official indicate the information is effectively ©(year) - (legal owner of the intellectual property). he has clearly stated "your own use only"

Then anyone who can simply provide their 1st name, claim they own the intellectual property to anything (wether it's true or false) and force anyone to pay up.

The isn't proof anywhere this person actual has any right to tell you you can or cannot this or that with said data. The ROM data for GVP ROM 4.15 is available in many other places.

As I said:
The honest thing to do for Ralph (if indeed he is the legit owner of the intellectual property discussed here) would be:
1. Make the ROM data freely available to everyone and let owners of EPROM burners free to compete for the lowest price to burn the data and better quality chips
OR
2. Make the data unavailable and designate a person who is in charge of selling burned (E)PROMs with the data on it

Otherwise what he is doing is equivalent to a public library making a very important book available to borrow for free and tell people they are free to make photocopies for themselves of specific pages but they can't bring the book to a photocopy shop because the shop would make a profit from the information in the book. The consequence is the only way to make the photocopies is to buy your own scanner or photocopier. Not much sense here...

 

[Sardine]

Then anyone who can simply provide their 1st name, claim they own the intellectual property to anything (wether it's true or false) and force anyone to pay up.

hes not asking you to pay anything, hes just asking for you to not make profit from his work.

The isn't proof anywhere this person actual has any right to tell you you can or cannot this or that with said data. The ROM data for GVP ROM 4.15 is available in many other places.

then get it elsewhere and not from him

As I said:
The honest thing to do for Ralph (if indeed he is the legit owner of the intellectual property discussed here) would be:
1. Make the ROM data freely available to everyone and let owners of EPROM burners free to compete for the lowest price to burn the data and better quality chips

hes doesn't have to do anything.

OR
2. Make the data unavailable and designate a person who is in charge of selling burned (E)PROMs with the data on it

I thought that's the reason for this rant

Otherwise what he is doing is equivalent to a public library making a very important book available to borrow for free and tell people they are free to make photocopies for themselves of specific pages but they can't bring the book to a photocopy shop because the shop would make a profit from the information in the book. The consequence is the only way to make the photocopies is to buy your own scanner or photocopier. Not much sense here...

make perfect sense, if you dont have the tools thats not his fault.

just use common sense no need to cause a drama.,

simply he doesn't want 50 of these on eBay for $xx each, << making a profit

burning one for a friend for his/her GVP is ok as thats NOT MAKING A PROFIT.

saying "I will do this at cost PLUS A SMALL FEE FOR MY TIME" < making a profit no matter how small. you must do it for free or not at all.

 

[SpeedGeek]

The isn't proof anywhere this person actual has any right to tell you you can or cannot this or that with said data. The ROM data for GVP ROM 4.15 is available in many other places.

The version, full name and copyright date are shown in the attached image. Now, where do you think these other sites and eBay sellers got the ROM data in the first place?

This issue here is that Amibay does recognize Ralph's copyright and terms of use even if you do not. You also agreed to follow the Amibay selling rules when you joined the site.

What you may do on another forum is between you and the Admins of that forum but if you ignore the Amibay rules and moderator warnings you won't last long here on Amibay.

 

[Deleted member 14264]

The version, full name and copyright date are shown in the attached image.

Good enough. The name is Ralph Babel and ©1993 is legally binding.

This issue here is that Amibay does recognize Ralph's copyright and terms of use even if you do not. You also agreed to follow the Amibay selling rules when you joined the site.

The rules of Amibay do not allow Roger Ramjet or just anyone at large to make claims to whatever intellectual property might be out there.

What you may do on another forum is between you and the Admins of that forum but if you ignore the Amibay rules and moderator warnings you won't last long here on Amibay.

Also, Amibay itself may make all sorts of rules but they are not above the law. This is precisely the kind of situation where Amibay could become an unwitting accomplice to fraud by blindly enforcing such rules.

Let me give you a very real cautionary tale...

Between 2004 and 2009, Maurice Randall who owned the business CMDRKey was supposed to be the sole authorized distributor of JiffyDOS and many other CMD products. Unfortunately, wether you paid him or not, he would simply never deliver on what you ordered. If you paid him then you just lost your money.

For all these years he had all sales of JiffyDOS items advertised on eBay shut down with the claim he was the only one authorized to sell these products. In reality Mark Fellows owns the IP to JiffyDOS and almost everything Randall offered for sale. Mark Fellows couldn't care less at that point in time that everyone in the world made millions of copies of JiffyDOS because he didn't receive any royalties from Randall.

Randall simply held a fraudulent stranglehold on the market for JiffyDOS to ensure prices would go up and sent dozens of SuperCPUs, FD-2000 drives, RAMlinks and other CMD products to a canadian friend (not me I assure you) to liquidate on eBay for about triple the usual price. Randall even intimidated other legitimate sellers of JiffyDOS products into stopping their sales.

Randall HAD ABSOLUTELY NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO SHUT DOWN THE sales of copies of any JiffyDOS products on eBay or anywhere else at ALL - the only person who could do that at that point in time was Mark Fellows and he couldn't care less. What Randall did was just plain fraud. eBay was eventually warned about Maurice Randall's scheme and they eventually refused any and all requests from him to close down sales of JiffyDOS products.

Eventually, Jim Brain and a few others struck deals with Fellows in order to become authorized sellers/distributors of JiffyDOS and now they have a valid reason to claim rights to this family of products; Fellows will protect his interest and his dealers as long as they respect good rules of conduct.

you must do it for free or not at all

Then if it's possible I will do it for free. BTW, "no profit" doesn't mean for free - I hope I can still charge what it costs me for postage...

simply stating "law" etc in regards to copyright in an effort to bypass a members wishes is not allowed, Ralph does not have to (official indicate the information is effectively ©(year) - (legal owner of the intellectual property). he has clearly stated "your own use only"

It is YOUR LEGAL DUTY to verify that your member's wishes are legally valid. Just saying "Ralph says so" provides no proof this person has any legal right over any specific material.

If I strictly forbid anyone on Amibay (it is my wish as a member) to sell copies of whatever VIC-20 games published in 1982 you'd be right in asking me if I created that game or paid someone to do it for me or my company before enforcing such wish. If you just do as I ask without checking if I have any right to do so then you may be making yourself an accomplice to a "pump and dump" scheme.

I'm not sure what is your agreement with 'Mr. Babel', but there is a very simple way to ease your burden, release the PCB layout and the logic content of the GAL on the adapter board. The software itself is already free to use from Ralph's website, it's only the adapter board that is needed to get this working, and I've never understood of not releasing that design to the public with the argument of "some Amiga dealers still sell Guru ROM adapters" which is quite a nonsense, as no official Guru kits were sold in any of the known Amiga shops (Amigakit, Vesalia etc..) for years. So I can only assume that Ralph Babel licenses the design sometimes and takes a cut, which would be an ENTIRELY different argument.

Precisely my point.

You release it completely or not at all otherwise it's just a bad joke on users. This drip rate release seems to me like a method of keeping prices and demand artificially high.

 

[tbtorro]

OK guys, I think copyright discussions aside, I think we should focus on how to solve the current issue, which is that people (including myself) would like to buy the adapters but it's too much load on Speedgeek to deliver them.

I wrote to Ralph Babel yesterday about the issue and this is the ONLY reply I got (partial message):

"Demand seems to be high and he is struggling a lot, as many people want this but he only has time to build a few of them at a time (and considering stopping).

Then I'd suggest they offer Kevin more money and/or support to make manufacturing them worth his time."

So I don't see any reason why Speedgeek couldn't sell these as kits. Just do it already Kevin, the GALs are protected by encryption, you recover your time invested designing them, and people get their adapters. And EVERYBODY wins.

 

[Deleted member 14264]

@tbtorro
IMHO, It boils down to bad business practices.

Here is a specific product who's main function is to keep antique computer equipment viable but the owner of the intellectual property will only allow one individual to produce more units and this person can't face the demand. If he could, he would already have increased the price tag.

Also, concerning the "for your own usage only" advisory with regards to the GVP ROM 4.15, I consider this to be a mockery of GVP SCSI controllers owners. Linux and many versions are technically free yet nobody will get punished for selling the CD-ROMs at whatever price - the market regulates the price since the data is out there for everyone to replicate and the price for these remain low.

Saying "Mr. Babel doesn't have to do anything" doesn't change the immorality of the practices. Smart people who want to release digital information for personal usage use a GNU license for that. I don't see any on Ralph Babel's web site. If he is unhappy that Tim Kovack will sell "unauthorized copies" (is there such a thing when the data is freely available ??) then all he has to do is encourage other people to make copies at a lower price - not stifle everyone who doesn't have the technical know how. Publishing the file in IntelHEX format is also a form of "reserved to intellectual elite" message everyone can do without.

I tried to copy and paste his "Note 3" concerning the above and I got a nice warning message in German! Babel even cared to incorporate a script to prevent copy/pasting text from his web page. How much of a control freak can you be ?

 

[SpeedGeek]

This thread has gone OT and has already taken up more of my time than it was intended to save. Enough is enough and it's now time to close this thread!