New release: v2.2.0 FINAL

[slippifishi]

I can't stay away because you have pissed me off so much and I am so. fucking. angry.

 

9 hours ago, LynnInDenver said:

BTW, for those colorization authors accusing @freezy of incorporating code from Pin2DMD and that it justifies continuing the hostile fork... did he actually do that for the internal PAC decoder, or did he just figure out how @lucky1 was encrypting the data to begin with and roll his own solution? Because if it's the latter, then that argument doesn't hold that DMDExt code is now fair game for lucky1 to take.

 

As I already stated, just because "someone would have done it eventually" this does not justify the actions taken. If you are determined to die on that mountain with Freezy, well then my response is simply "someone would make a hostile fork of DMDExt eventually" and you have no recourse.

 

42 minutes ago, Gwyllion said:

I am watching the fight from the barrier....VPU has been and is being a "free" platform of exposure for the creators of the colorizations and it has been clearly seen that they want to continue monetizing and taking advantage of the Vpin community that in a selfless way is advancing more and more every day.

 

It seems terrible to me how 4 authors want to put the laws when this hobby is united against those who take advantage and want to make money.

 

Don't get lost in rights issues, it's very simple, if the authors of the colourisations want to make money, we don't want you here. You should be ashamed to give this image against table creators like VPW and other authors who work for FREE for the community.

 

For the future that PAC2, PAC3, PAC unlimited...., will also be cracked. 

 

Finally, THANK YOU for your work, the TOP tables are already coloured, and GOOD BYE.

 

I didn't want to make any money, some of the TOP tables you refer to were coloured by me, I'm sure I've even seen comments from you on my work saying how much you appreciated it (on the rare occasions I got any from the vpin users). I have done nothing but give you content for free and the real pin community content for free, I personally have never charged anyone for anything. I literally want the same thing as you, for no one to make money from my work but Freezys actions have made that a reality again - don't you see the conflict of your arguing versus my position?!?

 

As for cracking PAC2 and PAC3 and PACunlimited, you incorrectly assume the artists will continue to release any my new projects for vpin - there may be nothing for you to crack. My mentioning PAC2 was an imagined threat and nothing more, you can put the pitchfork down, I am not aware of any plans to make a PAC2 - we are all so disgusted by and still in shock from the collective behaviour here, yours included.

[slippifishi]

9 minutes ago, Ashram56 said:

If you did not pay for it and downloaded it somewhere on the Internet, well then at least you're coherent, and you're basically a thief.

 

Another good example would be the worst kept secret in virtual pinball, the Farsight-coupled Ghostbusters table. I had it, really great VPX; genuinely made me go out and buy the real machine!!

[Gwyllion]

32 minutes ago, slippifishi said:

I didn't want to make any money, some of the TOP tables you refer to were coloured by me, I'm sure I've even seen comments from you on my work saying how much you appreciated it (on the rare occasions I got any from the vpin users). I have done nothing but give you content for free and the real pin community content for free, I personally have never charged anyone for anything. I literally want the same thing as you, for no one to make money from my work but Freezys actions have made that a reality again - don't you see the conflict of your arguing versus my position?!?

 

As for cracking PAC2 and PAC3 and PACunlimited, you incorrectly assume the artists will continue to release any my new projects for vpin - there may be nothing for you to crack. My mentioning PAC2 was an imagined threat and nothing more, you can put the pitchfork down, I am not aware of any plans to make a PAC2 - we are all so disgusted by and still in shock from the collective behaviour here, yours included.

Come on guy, the arrival of alternative hardware aka ZEDMD is what put you on alert and the reason for releasing only PACs is so that your famed PIN2DMD leader would continue to make money. As much as you tell me you don't, your actions of releasing only PACs is a joint strategy to monetize the format for ONE hardware.

 

Don't sell me your idea and your cries that I don't believe them. 

 

Give me just one BELIEVABLE reason why you don't want your colourisations PAC format not to be seen in ZeDMD...and please don't get into open libraries discussions because we are all grown up.

 

Plz close the door at the exit.

[freezy]

17 hours ago, slippifishi said:

17 hours ago, freezy said:

Concerning "not allowing the plugin", that wouldn't have added any value at all, and the community would still have found themselves with the confusing fork situation. Nothing would have changed, and artists would just have used the fork as before.

 

As I said, it would have pissed lucky off, and maybe his hostile fork would be back on. But in that case you would have had some good ammunition and a much stronger argument to convince us artists and the community to remain with DMDExt and reject the fork; you had already tried to work with Lucky and the plugin option, but he hadn't played along so you had to go down the route of disabling PAC, you had no alternative except to release the keys to PAC and that was not your format to crack. I'm not just saying this for dramatic effect I promise, but if that situation had arisen I honestly would have sided with DMDExt, especially after you would have gone so far to accommodate PIN2DMD and had to revert at the last minute.

 

So now you're admitting it was a shitty move from lucky1. And you're saying you would have been okay with releasing the PAC key given that PAC is disabled in dmdext.

 

That's a hell of a take. I thought the publication of the PAC key was the reason you're all raging about. So now that's fine, but dmdext adding support for it is not fine? Wasn't it about the potential bad actor? How does any of that make any sense?

 

This is stupid..

[slippifishi]

2 minutes ago, freezy said:

 

So now you're admitting it was a shitty move from lucky1. And you're saying you would have been okay with releasing the PAC key given that PAC is disabled in dmdext.

 

That's a hell of a take. I thought the publication of the PAC key was the reason you're all raging about. So now that's fine, but dmdext adding support for it is not fine? Wasn't it about the potential bad actor? How does any of that make any sense?

 

This is stupid..

 

I am sorry if that's confusing, in hindsight it was not worded well - I was trying to imply that is what you could have said to us in that event, so for example:

 

Freezy: "I already tried to work with Lucky and the plugin option, but he didn't play along so I had to go down the route of disabling PAC. The alternative would be to release the keys to PAC, and that is not my format to crack"

 

But yes, potentially if you had told us that you were going to go with option 2, then maybe I would have gone down the VNI route in support of rejecting the fork, or fuck it, even moved to Serum. But you skipped option 2 and went to option 3 "publish the private key", so I never got the opportunity, you just gave all mine and everyone else's work up for monetization to spite lucky.

[slippifishi]

18 minutes ago, Gwyllion said:

Give me just one BELIEVABLE reason why you don't want your colourisations PAC format not to be seen in ZeDMD...and please don't get into open libraries discussions because we are all grown up.

 

My BELIEAVABLE reason is quite simply "It is my choice". Don't like it? Then plz close the door at the exit.

EDIT; For clarity, I am referring to my colour projects running on ZeDMD. As for the PAC format? That is not my choice and I have no say in the matter so I do not need to provide any reason as I have no opinion on PAC on ZeDMD; if you can make it work, good for you, you can use my VPIN projects. But given the choice, I would prefer they didn't.

 

I will leave when I am good and ready, or if Dazz chooses to ban my account.

[freezy]

@slippifishi I'm really struggling to understand your point of view. You're saying that:

• You want to be able to control on which hardware device your colorization runs at - something you can't do even with lucky1's fork
• You're okay with the PAC key being published
• You're not okay with everybody's setup breaking at every dmdext update
• You're not okay with dmdext supporting PAC

 

With that logic you should be equally if not more angry at lucky1?

Edited August 17, 2023 by freezy
added last point

[slippifishi]

57 minutes ago, freezy said:

• You want to be able to control on which hardware device your colorization runs at - something you can't do even with lucky1's fork

 

VPIN:
Not really, no. In an ideal world, I would prefer if my projects only ran on PIN2DMD as that is the hardware I designed it for, tested it for, and released it for, and just like you I don't want the support overhead of someone coming to me saying "the project doesnt work on my acme DMD". But I understand once my files are out there they are beyond my control, so if someone is able to make my VNI or PAC files work on a ZeDMD, good for them.
REAL:
Yes. If my projects are able to work on another hardware solution, then this exposes them to monetization by unscrupulous DMD vendors.

 

57 minutes ago, freezy said:

• You're okay with the PAC key being published

 

Absolutely not. This is what I am most upset about, and for which you have so far from what I can recall, not apologised.
 

57 minutes ago, freezy said:

• You're not okay with everybody's setup breaking at every dmdext update

 

This is a confusing bullet but I will try and clarify my position based on my take of what you mean. 
I don't use DMDExt, but if I was a user, then in an ideal world after every update my setup would continue to oeprate as it did before the setup. If this was not going to be the case as a result of some breaking change, then I would expect to see a note about this in the release notes and/or changelog and/or readme

 

57 minutes ago, freezy said:

• You're not okay with dmdext supporting PAC

 

If there is a way DMDExt can support PAC without exposing the private key then yes, absolutely I am okay with DMDExt supporting PAC. If there is no way to do it without exposing the key, then I am not OK with it (see bullet 2)

 

EDIT: And to clarify between bullets 1 and 4, what I mean here is while I would prefer that my VPIN projects work on PIN2DMD only, I acknowledge that they will be used with DMDExt which I have no control over, so if DMDExt is able to support PAC, then all the better for DMDExt users

[Gwyllion]

1 hour ago, slippifishi said:

 

My BELIEAVABLE reason is quite simply "It is my choice". Don't like it? Then plz close the door at the exit.

EDIT; For clarity, I am referring to my colour projects running on ZeDMD. As for the PAC format? That is not my choice and I have no say in the matter so I do not need to provide any reason as I have no opinion on PAC on ZeDMD; if you can make it work, good for you, you can use my VPIN projects. But given the choice, I would prefer they didn't.

 

I will leave when I am good and ready, or if Dazz chooses to ban my account.

 

Saying "It's my choice" is not a logical reason, rather illogical and therefore you give the rest of the community the reason. But that's ok, I'll answer for you:

 

"WHY?" "Because I just want my PACs to work only in Pin2DMD and monetize".

 

Discussion over, the door is closed, thanks for the services rendered.

 

Let the next one come in

 

[freezy]

Okay but you said before (I paraphrase) "It's my right as an author to decide on which hardware my colorization run" - that's not the same as what you're saying now.

 

So, I think we're closing in now. You, being a significant minority of non-dmdext users, find it less important to not have colorizations break regularly with dmdext.

 

Can you at least comprehend that's not a userbase I'm concerned with? For many users, having a broken setup regularly is actually a big deal.

 

I'm still not getting your view on the PAC key, though. You said:

 

18 hours ago, slippifishi said:

you had no alternative except to release the keys to PAC and that was not your format to crack. I'm not just saying this for dramatic effect I promise, but if that situation had arisen I honestly would have sided with DMDExt

 

That's completely against what you're saying now. I know it's a hypothetical case, but you're saying you wouldn't have been angry, in the contrary, if PAC was public just not supported by dmdext. That's kind of a big deal, because it means it's not about the potential bad actor, but about something else. What else?

[slippifishi]

42 minutes ago, freezy said:

Okay but you said before (I paraphrase) "It's my right as an author to decide on which hardware my colorization run" - that's not the same as what you're saying now.

 

My rights as an author and my opinions are two separate things. My opinions may not align with the opinions of other artists, but we both share the same rights.

 

42 minutes ago, freezy said:

Can you at least comprehend that's not a userbase I'm concerned with? For many users, having a broken setup regularly is actually a big deal.

 

Absolutely, minimising disruption to user experience and expectations is always the ideal way to work, reduce confusion and support, and we can also both acknowledge that sometimes, things change, and breaks do happen or might even be necessary. I was certainly not trying to imply that this is an acceptable way to approach things, and I'm sorry if that was the impression you got, I am all about the users, its part of my day job too.

 

42 minutes ago, freezy said:

I'm still not getting your view on the PAC key, though.

 

That's completely against what you're saying now. I know it's a hypothetical case, but you're saying you wouldn't have been angry, in the contrary, if PAC was public just not supported by dmdext. That's kind of a big deal, because it means it's not about the potential bad actor, but about something else. What else?

 

Let me phrase it this way; as I said in my original post there are two options:

• Option 1 - use luckys plugin, DMDExt breaks every release. (It's not what you want, but it was an option, and I was summing up the options.)
• Option 2 - block luckys plugin, DMDExt breaks PAC for this release, but subsequent releases are safe

You were never going to pick option 1, so lets forget about that.

If you picked option 2, then DMDExt would release without PAC support. The community would be in uproar "Wherez my colorz!?1!". You would explain to users in the readme or a forum thread that this decision was made in order to protect the VPIN community in terms of broken setups, that the usage of PAC was impossible for the reasons described (breaking every release), and though it was a tough pill to swallow, it was for the good of DMDExt and VPIN community as a whole, and everyone should look into Serum and help fill out the library of now missing games.

 

Some people would be pissed off "Wherez my colorz!?1!". This would create a split in the community as some people would be staunchly DMDExt, and some people would be staunchly "I want it all". At this stage (if this is how it played out) I would have looked at the situation and said "wow, Freezy went to all that effort over the past 18 months to accommodate our projects in DMDExt, and at the last minute lucky was determined to ruin it all and now its going to to cause damage to the vpin community, thats not on, thats the community I started out to help!". I almost certainly would have come out in support of DMDExt, and probably released all my projects as VNI, monetization of real pins be damned, because as I have stated countless times it was only ever about giving back to the community.

 

And I'd also like to remind you of my history in this debacle for further context:

 

When this kicked off 18 months ago or whenever, I immediately removed all my VNI files from the download section - this was to protect VPU, and this is written in several forum threads, and Dazz even has a couple of inbox messages about it; you called it FUD and we all had a good time and then you locked the thread. Until I knew what was safe FOR VPU (ie. the vpin community) I would not reupload my files. The real pin files were not affected by the IP fears that were spreading, so they remained online as they had always been, freely available to download. SINCE THEN NONE OF MY PROJECTS HAVE BEEN AVAILABLE, as either VNI or as PAC - I was waiting for this debacle to be resolved so I could make the right choice for the vpin community, and I thought maybe, FINALLY, we were there. I released South Park a few weeks ago, and I released it as PAC; I released PAC because of the issues described to limit monetization of my projects on real pins, and at that time, you and lucky were talking and it looked like PAC support wouldn't be a problem in future and support was right around the corener, so why wouldn't I use that format?

 

I even sent a message to Dazz back in February of this year when he queried why none of my VPIN projects were available. I reminded him of the above situation (which he accepted and acknowledged) and then I said - and I quote: 

Quote

I am currently working on a project for South Park which is nearing completion. I can't give an exact date, but it's looking like I will have something ready to make public in March. I was already planning to reupload all my vpin projects then as PAC - why wait until then? In the remote, tiny, miniscule hope that lucky and Freezy sort their shit out and settle on a format they are both happy with before then.

 

So you see, I was waiting for you to sort things out so I knew which direction to take, but you never shared the roadmap in advance, and now you've run off up the road and left the rest of us behind.

[freezy]

I got what you meant by "block the plugin" - the problem is just that it wouldn't have been feasible technically apart from ripping out the entire plugin system, in which case nothing would have changed. That's exactly the situation we would have been in before, so I highly doubt any uproar would have happened.

 

You didn't address why publishing the PAC key would have been fine. That was just a brain fart?

[freezy]

10 minutes ago, slippifishi said:

My rights as an author and my opinions are two separate things. My opinions may not align with the opinions of other artists, but we both share the same rights.

 

That doesn't make much sense to me either. So your "rights" are that you should be able to control the hardware? But that's something you already can't do with lucky's fork? So your rights were violated before?

 

Or is it just your opinion? You think you "should" be able to control the hardware, but your "rights" are... what exactly?

[slippifishi]

Just now, freezy said:

That was just a brain fart?

 

Not really a brain fart but rather me not attributing that as being being a piece of fictional text when you explain why you picked option 2.

 

As for detecting PAC, I suggested this could have been as simple as outright excluding the extension entirely, and if you can detect PAC enough to fallback to your internal rendering engine, then you can detect PAC enough to refuse to handle any plugin that uses it, surely? Technically anything is possible Freezy, you just didn't give it any thought and took the easy way out instead.

[freezy]

1 minute ago, slippifishi said:

5 minutes ago, freezy said:

That was just a brain fart?

 

Not really a brain fart but rather me not attributing that as being being a piece of fictional text when you explain why you picked option 2.

 

That's just nonsense. Why would you mention that and saying you'd be happy with it?

 

1 minute ago, slippifishi said:

As for detecting PAC, I suggested this could have been as simple as outright excluding the extension entirely, and if you can detect PAC enough to fallback to your internal rendering engine, then you can detect PAC enough to refuse to handle any plugin that uses it, surely?

 

That's not how the API works. The API doesn't know whether it's a PAC or VNI or whatever else that is fed into the plugin.

 

Of course anything is possible technically, but it would require collaboration with the plugin author, which is, uh, tough.

 

[slippifishi]

15 minutes ago, freezy said:

That's just nonsense.

 

I see your game here, obfuscate the original argument by focusing on the semantics of words in various sentences and disputing unrelated facts - you did this when I called the plugin a mod as well, remember? Clever trick, you nearly had me...

 

So let me rewrite the original accusation once again so you can focus on examining the semantics of the words that really matter, and with no other sentences to distract you - I am not questioning authors rights or what files run on what hardware here, I have just one complaint and here it is again in bold caps, so its crystal fuckin clear for you:

 

FREEZY PUBLISHED THE PRIVATE KEY TO A PUBLIC/PRIVATE ENCRYPTION ALGORITHM THAT HE DID NOT OWN AND WAS NOT HIS TO PUBLISH. THIS MAKES FREEZY A THIEF AND A SOFTWARE PIRATE.

 

Discuss.

[freezy]

Dude, when you're in an argument, semantics are important. You literally said you'd be okay if I had published the PAC key but not put it into dmdext. Now you're doing a 180° and are surprised when being called out on it.

 

The mod/API stuff was also important, because it changes which part is responsible for what. I know it's not an easy topic for someone non-technical, but it's important and shouldn't be treated with such ignorance.

 

And I'm continuing calling you out. Because your "current" position is now:

• It's unacceptable to break users' setup on every dmdext release willingfully
• It's not okay to have released the PAC key

So, explain to me, why are you only angry with me and not lucky1?

[Dazz]

1 minute ago, freezy said:

So, explain to me, why are you only angry with me and not lucky1?

 

I believe they are called "fanbois". They invest time into a single ecosystem they don't want to acknowledge that there are others.  Those others may, or may not, be better than the one they are defending but they don't care. They tend to close their minds off to outside thinking. Their ecosystem can't do any wrong, and the others can't do anything right.

[freezy]

@slippifishi It's not that I care a lot about about what you said in your hypothetical scenario. I just wanted to demonstrate that your argumentation is inconsistent and that you're not able to own a mistake.

[LynnInDenver]

17 minutes ago, Dazz said:

 

I believe they are called "fanbois". They invest time into a single ecosystem they don't want to acknowledge that there are others.  Those others may, or may not, be better than the one they are defending but they don't care. They tend to close their minds off to outside thinking. Their ecosystem can't do any wrong, and the others can't do anything right.

 

They ignore that this all started as @lucky1 making a choice that went against the wishes of one author - @freezy - by incorporating actual code from an open source project into his closed source project. The hypocrisy in their arguments against @freezy is incredible.

[slippifishi]

26 minutes ago, freezy said:

Dude, when you're in an argument, semantics are important. You literally said you'd be okay if I had published the PAC key but not put it into dmdext. Now you're doing a 180° and are surprised when being called out on it.

 

The mod/API stuff was also important, because it changes which part is responsible for what. I know it's not an easy topic for someone non-technical, but it's important and shouldn't be treated with such ignorance.

 

And I'm continuing calling you out. Because your "current" position is now:

• It's unacceptable to break users' setup on every dmdext release willingfully
• It's not okay to have released the PAC key

So, explain to me, why are you only angry with me and not lucky1?

 

I have never said that I was OK with you publishing the PAC key. Never. If that's how you read it, you are mistaken, for the nth+1 time, the publishing of said key is my main complaint.

 

I am not angry with lucky1 because lucky1 did not publish the private key to PAC on a public server. If lucky1 had done this, I would be angry with lucky1. But he didn't do it, you did.

 

Lucky1 did not break users setup on every release; lucky1 was proposing that's what he wanted to do, and you were rightly upset and had the opportunity to reject it (you did) and come up with an alternative solution (you did). Unfortunately the solution you chose was the wrong one because ^^ GO TO TOP

 

@zedrummer 

The reason is as I stated; given a preference I want my projects to run on PIN2DMD hardware only, because that is what I develop, test, and release for. I don't know if any display type is better or worse than another, I am rubbish with hardware, I just like colouring in the dots. So this makes me apprehensive of people coming to me and saying "I have got a XJHG345345ST panel on my ZeDMD v91.2.3 and when I run your PIN2DMD project the reds are appearing as blue, why? Fix it please." - I don't know, I only have a PIN2DMD panel here, I can't test a ZeDMD panel, ummmm...... That's why. There is no hidden agenda, just like Freezy, I don't want the perceived overhead of masses of support requests.

[stumblor]

This is a game of obfuscation and gaslighting Slippi, you can't win it. 

[zedrummer]

28 minutes ago, slippifishi said:

The reason is as I stated; given a preference I want my projects to run on PIN2DMD hardware only, because that is what I develop, test, and release for. I don't know if any display type is better or worse than another, I am rubbish with hardware, I just like colouring in the dots. So this makes me apprehensive of people coming to me and saying "I have got a XJHG345345ST panel on my ZeDMD v91.2.3 and when I run your PIN2DMD project the reds are appearing as blue, why? Fix it please." - I don't know, I only have a PIN2DMD panel here, I can't test a ZeDMD panel, ummmm...... That's why. There is no hidden agenda, just like Freezy, I don't want the perceived overhead of masses of support requests.

Thanks, that's clear and understandable, even if, I think, the kind of issue you are talking about are technical problems that shouldn't concern the artists, only the coders. But OK... thanks, again.

[arnoz]

1 hour ago, slippifishi said:

The reason is as I stated; given a preference I want my projects to run on PIN2DMD hardware only, because that is what I develop, test, and release for. I don't know if any display type is better or worse than another, I am rubbish with hardware, I just like colouring in the dots. So this makes me apprehensive of people coming to me and saying "I have got a XJHG345345ST panel on my ZeDMD v91.2.3 and when I run your PIN2DMD project the reds are appearing as blue, why? Fix it please." - I don't know, I only have a PIN2DMD panel here, I can't test a ZeDMD panel, ummmm...... That's why. There is no hidden agenda, just like Freezy, I don't want the perceived overhead of masses of support requests.

go buy yourself some sharpies and paper sheet, then use sharpies on paper, then put that paper on your wall...

[Dazz]

Personal attacks will not be tolerated!  Discussion on this subject is closed.

If you want to continue supporting the commercialization of .pac, please find another site to pawn your wares on. Anyone wanting to remove their .pac files are proving a point. 

Strictly virtual pinball/digital pinball file formats will be the focus going forward.  No discussions of converting vpin files to real pins will be allowed.