Dingoonity.org

Ok, I posted this as a response to the native D-menu post, but nobody was biting, so i thought I would resurrect it as a post of its own, because I believe some of the issues raised are quite valid.


Hi, just got a Dingoo A380, because it was the newest variant, works fine, have not had much dramas, whilst google-ing it i found alot about the scene guys complaining about the use of their work, pretty much (amongst other things) because they wernt asked permission, now, although i do agree with this and think it stinks, but really, what sticks in the back of my head without thinking too hard about it, is hey... hold up, this whole device is about piracy, isn't it?, I mean who can tell me in all honesty that they actually own all the "roms" they are playing on their devices?

I mean you guys are complaining about the use of your work without permission, with the exception of homebrew,  arnt you all using the roms without permission from their creators?....

i mean, ok, you don't like the a380, fair enough, I do, so shutup and go play your a320/a330, and stop deterring other people from working on improving the A380, every post i see regarding the a380 somebody is having a cry about it, if it grinds your gears so badly, rewrite your software they used without permission to have a splash screen to tell us who u are, how good you are and how we should bow in your presence,  blah blah blah, and re-distribute it so people like me who get a new device and see ho they can improve it before even turning it on ill download your updated software and can appreciate the hard work from the scene.

I mean really.... my personal work gets stolen almost everyday and other people take the credit for it, do i care, yes i do, does it stop me?, pfft, no.... i just make it so next time there is some credit to me in there somewhere, via a splash screen, background image or a in-menu help file. etc.

we live in the world of cheap chinese knockoffs, so when have Chinese manufactures ever cared about who they are upsetting, just google chinese iphone for example, do you think they care that they are ripping off apple?, they package these device full of pirated sofware... once again do you think they care?, they also put freeware on there im sure they don't ask if they can sell it with their unit?... lol...

anyways, rant over, i'm sure people will bite back and i am willing to be corrected as I dont know much about this community yet apart from they are not getting over the fact their work was good enough to be re-distributed by Chinese pirates.


EDIT:


ok, i read up a little more and, i see there is also SDK / GPL / Source issues as well, now i had a 2 second look and found a semi (95 odd percent) complete SDK from www.dingoo.hk, so yes i know this SDK is somewhat incomplete when it comes to certain things eg. anything to do with the tilt/gyro sensor etc.

the SDK claims to be from 28 june 2011, http://www.dingoo.hk/en_service.asp?classid=4

No source to be found nor compliance to the GPL.
Hmm no compliance to the GPL hey... because we all comply to that when i comes to the ROMs we play....

so, anyways the SDK was released somewhat... so anyone happy now? or do you expect more from a group of pirates... ha ha ha, i wish, lol, i see everyone still posting "we are upset they diddnt release the sdk / source etc"... when has that ever stopped any good programmer?

So... u guys wont do anything untill they release the Source code?... WTF?...
Seriously, did they release the source code for the Xbox?, PSP?, and the numerous plethora of consoles that have been highly modified by communities? heck nah,

so to recap, it started with sub-par handheld consoles, A320/A330 etc, that were modified to run Linux, and everyone was happy because they could modify it to the cows come home, so then the company who was selling the consoles probably got sick of the 1000's of n00bs bricking their devices trying to put Dingux on it and sending them back saying its not their fault, its faulty.. or it was broken out of the box.... etc...
Im pretty sure the creators arn't stupid, they would be able to see what you are trying to flash to their device by either interrogating the returned device or simply google-ing their own product to see what people are doing with it.. to break so many of them...

So, they decide to help the community out and lower the amount of bricked devices by creating almost identical device that is based on the Dingux o/s that everyone is going to put on it anyway (I actually think this is kinda cool as it saves the n00bs breaking their semi-expensive toys)  but then the community condemns the manufacturer for making a device that is more community modification friendly?, for what? because their, from my experience, sloppy coding was copied? and redistributed?, ha ha ha, you have to be kidding me, Microsoft didn't release their source code when they were coping Macintosh, yet that hasn't stopped people from buying / using nor programming for it..

Now, back to my point,
so your saying you wont code for the Dingoo A380 because they wont release the "borrowed" "community" source, yet back to my original point of this whole scene is about "borrowing" (read Roms) somebody tell me in complete honesty that they own all the Roms they play on their devices, so what about the original game programers?, don't you think they have more of a reason to "bitch and moan" about the ROM scene?, and with D T creating a device that makes it easy for N00bs (read everyday person) to play a zillion game Roms out of the box, I would have thought the scene would actually be happy about that,

I say, if you designed the software they are distributing, then why the hell do you need a source code anyways?... ha ha, can't you remember how you desined it in the first place???.... or is all to hard to modify a device that seems very mod friendly out of the box, I mean FFS, my experience is you can pull the O/S Micro SD card out of it an put it in a Linux based os and see everything anyways... couldn't be friendlier....

Sigh....

anyways, seem to be going round in circles here, quick recap:

A320 release with proprietary, highly limited multiple emulator unfriendly O/S.

scene makes a new O/S that runs more emulators better than the original o/s - everyone happy, except the distributors who get thousands of units returned "bricked by n00bs".

Manufaturer decides to (as the chines do so well, read shanzhai ) copy the source that people are putting on their A320 device and update a bit of hardware (hardly) and reditribute to the community what i assumes we want in our devices.

Scene unhappy with a device that runs the software they want on it out of the box. because there work was shanzhai'd

scene abandons and condemns anyone who buys an A380 device because they feel ripped off.

that it?. in a nutshell.

do you expect pirates to be honest when there is money to be had?, lol, there was more money in releasing a device that is more compatable with emulators, so they did it, unlawfully, but tell me this, does the Dingux release have any of the original Dingoo scource in it?, did you approach them when you redistributed their code?? I think not.. wake up princess its buisness, and people will step on the little guy especially when there is money involved.

Another interesting point is if you are so called "condemning" the A380 i find it funny that the scenes first response is to go out and buy a A320/A330, ha ha, I bet the manufacturer couldnt be happier with this response!!! not only do they sell 1 unit per person, but they also get a sale of their old unit as well,

So everyone that buys a A380 that is slightly interested in modding ends up buying two units thus giving the manufacturer twice as much cash?.. If I was DT I wouldn't change a thing, because their business model is ideal, everyone buys the latest model, then finds out they are unsupported by their modding peers, everyone says you should have bought a A320, so everyone goes out and buys another unit (read: Dingoo A320 / A330) so they can put Dingux on it even though the A380 is already based on Dingux???....

backwards much?

I apologize for the way my post sounds, but i am having a hard time understanding what is so bad about the A380 hardware, as the s/w can be changed, so who cares what software it comes with, we should care what we can do with the hardware. otherwise we are just sounding like hypocrites.


read: <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanzhai>

-Kegs.

i'll reply to this huge temper tantrum written by a spoiled child that seriously believes he's entitled to developers working on his device of choice just because with: NO, THE A380 DOESN'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST RELATION WITH THE A320, not hardware-wise, not software-wise... not even the manufacturer is the same! the people who made that handheld named it "the dingoo a380" in the hope that uninformed people would bite the bait and invest on something that got nothing to do with the original "dingoo digital a320". and judging by your

because it was the newest variant,

you bited. you got the chinese imitation of a chinese handheld. congrats. 

For me the choice was easily made. I look at the hardware and a Dingoo A380 with 2 wireless controllers shipped from China to Belgium for € 115 isn't overpriced at all. Also keep in mind that what you guys call stealing your work makes it possible to make it cheaper so we don't have to spend more money on a firmware that we don't want to use.

This doesn't mean that I don't understand your frustrations and that you've got the right to ask for the source codes, but if they don't want to release them there isn't much you can do about it than move on.

Quote from: Alien Grey on January 14, 2012, 09:43:42 AM

Also keep in mind that what you guys call stealing your work makes it possible to make it cheaper so we don't have to spend more money on a firmware that we don't want to use.

How can free get any cheaper? They were welcome to use our code, they just had to keep the same license and make it free for anyone else.

That's easy. You pay for the firmware that they won't make for free. You've got a lot of work to replace it so you actually paid for the work you're doing to replace your firmware. 

I did the same as Alien Grey,

Quick background;
I have previously built several MAME arcade machines, some from scratch, some from using all in one main-boards found on cheap Chinese websites, basically as a tightass usually on a tight budget, I am looking for the biggest bang for buck, and as I could buy the Dingoo with a TV out for sub $100 delivered plus two wireless controllers for under $30 each, I can wire both controllers buttons to arcade buttons and 4-way d pads to arcade joysticks then this makes for a cheap way to make an arcade machine that can emulate many other consoles with an easy to follow GUI..

In my case I purchased a console that can support two players, TV-out, upgradable memory (even connect to another A380 console if the need arises) and relatively inexpensive. I don't know of any other consoles apart from the A330 that can accept two wireless controllers and can be disassembled to make an inexpensive arcade thingii (mind you im new to the handheld world, so any suggestions would be awesome)

Cheers.

kegs

I did the same as Alien Grey,

Quick background;
I have previously built several MAME arcade machines, some from scratch, some from using all in one main-boards found on cheap Chinese websites, basically as a tightass usually on a tight budget, I am looking for the biggest bang for buck, and as I could buy the Dingoo with a TV out for sub $100 delivered plus two wireless controllers for under $30 each, I can wire both controllers buttons to arcade buttons and 4-way d pads to arcade joysticks then this makes for a cheap way to make an arcade machine that can emulate many other consoles with an easy to follow GUI..

In my case I purchased a console that can support two players, TV-out, upgradable memory (even connect to another A380 console if the need arises) and relatively inexpensive. I don't know of any other consoles apart from the A330 that can accept two wireless controllers and can be disassembled to make an inexpensive arcade thingii (mind you im new to the handheld world, so any suggestions would be awesome)

Cheers.

kegs

The A330 only supports 1 controller so your only option was to buy the A380.

People aren't working on the A380 as there is a lot of work involved in it, and limited resources available for doing so. No reasonable software development kit exists

For any person having a dingux toolchain setup it would be to just compile as usual, and it would work for device too. I don't see how the resources are so limited or how no reasonable SDK exists?

NO, THE A380 DOESN'T HAVE THE SLIGHTEST RELATION WITH THE A320, not hardware-wise, not software-wise... not even the manufacturer is the same! the people who made that handheld named it "the dingoo a380" in the hope that uninformed people would bite the bait and invest on something that got nothing to do with the original "dingoo digital a320". and judging by your

The A380 surely have a relation to both hardware, software and the people behind it (at least some, but it may be disputed).

The hardware is also a JZ chip, just as the original Dingoo, and is backwards compatible. Software is dingux, which is very related to A320 dingux.
About the companies... they are different companies, however some of the same people moved to start Dingoo Technology. However, while we know that some people moved over, but we don't know to what extent. One source claimed all employees of Dingoo Digital moved, and another source stated two. Maybe it falls somewhere in between.

So to say it has nothing to do with the original Dingoo A320 is simply false.

Letcool has 2 wired controllers usable in TV-out mode.