OS Independent Firmware/Patch management

[Primeval_Mudd]

Hi,

Is anybody aware of a coordinated campaign calling on hardware manufacturers to provide OS-independent firmware updates/patch management etc?

I've a Behringer Crave, RD-6 and Korg Monologue, all of which have firmware updates available. Both Korg and Behringer are being disappointingly juvenile, telling me that the firmware can only be updated via their Windows/Mac and, in Behringer's case, iOS (not Android) dependent apps and refusing to send me the SysEx files.

Behringer are being particularly petty; they won't even tell me how to back up the Crave and RD-6 sequencer patterns, choosing again to tell me it can't be done without using their OS-dependent SynthTribe software.

Instead of helping me both have suggested that I use a friend's Windows computer!

I know that putting basic hardware management tools behind an OS wall is an ever-growing problem.

Beyond denying non-Windows/Mac users access to facilities that we've paid for there's a wider ethical issue:

This isn't some sort of shared ownership scheme - we've bought and paid for this equipment outright. It's ours to muck around with in any way we see fit and we should be given the tools to do so.

Lots of people face this problem - is there a campaign to get it sorted?

[folderol]

Return the kit as not fit for purpose and demand a full refund. You might have to argue, but unless things have changed - consumer law should be on your side.

[bluzee]

Devices should be able to update themselves.

In the mean time, a lot of these type of programs will run perfectly in wine.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Return the kit as not fit for purpose and demand a full refund. You might have to argue, but unless things have changed - consumer law should be on your side.

That would deprive me of gear I like and, more importantly, would do little to address the fundamental problem.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Devices should be able to update themselves.

In the mean time, a lot of these type of programs will run perfectly in wine.

I've tried both in WINE to no avail.

[tseaver]

That would deprive me of gear I like and, more importantly, would do little to address the fundamental problem.

The majyk with the "return as unfit for purpose" bit is that it *injects cost* into the supplier's balance sheet. If enough users do so, the bean-counters who make "pragmatic" decisions to limit support for their devices to only "latest Win/OS-X versions" may sit up and take notice, because any return is in effect a *double* charge: the manufacturer loses the profit from the first sale, and in addition incurs costs which are typically equal to whatever that profit was, just to handle the return.

Living without the intrinsically-crippled-but-almost-useful devices they are currently shipping is a sacrifice free software lovers might make to use that leverage.

The other choice is to spend one's own time, energy, and expertise (however painfully gained) to reverse engineer the protocols needed to update / configure those devices without requiring the proprietary software supplied by the manufacturer.

There is really no third choice available.

[j_e_f_f_g]

Here's an "other side of the coin" story. I was visiting my local music store, and I had the following convo with the owner (who is a friend of mine);

HIM: Here's an old MIDI interface made by Opcode. You can have it for free. I can't sell it.
ME: Why can't you sell it? Does it work?
HIM: It works... but only on Windows 95, 98, or ME. It won't run on XP or anything later. The company never made Win NT (Windows Driver Model, or WDM) drivers for it. I can't sell this without modern Windows driver support.

So, I took it home, and managed to find the old 95 driver. I know a bit about WDM development, so I ran it through a disassembler. That's when I noticed that it actually had an incomplete USBMIDI implementation. So I added some "quirks" to ALSA's usb audio driver, to accomodate for the missing support. And now it works on Linux. But for practical purposes, it doesn't work on Windows (because I never bothered writing that WDM support).

[bluzee]

There was some one from Behringer hanging out on FB today on a post about Behringer making music available to the poor or some such thing. I bought this issue up. They said their code is C and C+, so I said then it should be very simple for their developer to compile a Linux port. They didn't disagree so we shall see.

[Primeval_Mudd]

There was some one from Behringer hanging out on FB today on a post about Behringer making music available to the poor or some such thing. I bought this issue up. They said their code is C and C+, so I said then it should be very simple for their developer to compile a Linux port. They didn't disagree so we shall see.

This one, perchance?

https://www.facebook.com/Behringer/post ... 7153863914

Behringer-FB-Linux.png (54.75 KiB) Viewed 3650 times

[Primeval_Mudd]

The majyk with the "return as unfit for purpose" bit is that it *injects cost* into the supplier's balance sheet. If enough users do so, the bean-counters who make "pragmatic" decisions to limit support for their devices to only "latest Win/OS-X versions" may sit up and take notice, because any return is in effect a *double* charge: the manufacturer loses the profit from the first sale, and in addition incurs costs which are typically equal to whatever that profit was, just to handle the return.

That's a very good point though it's a somewhat long-term strategy.

However, it could be very effective if several hundred people did it at the same time.

Living without the intrinsically-crippled-but-almost-useful devices they are currently shipping is a sacrifice free software lovers might make to use that leverage.

Aye, though limited budgets lead to limited alternative options - hence Behringer's dominance. Having said that, I've used a similar argument when trying to build support for industrial action despite the concomitant pay loss so it's safe to say I have some sympathy with it

The other choice is to spend one's own time, energy, and expertise (however painfully gained) to reverse engineer the protocols needed to update / configure those devices without requiring the proprietary software supplied by the manufacturer.

I'd be surprised if there weren't already a fair few people doing this but sharing their work would be problematic - I'd guess it would breach intellectual property rights but I'm not sure.

[merlyn]

Is anybody aware of a coordinated campaign calling on hardware manufacturers to provide OS-independent firmware updates/patch management etc?

Sadly no. You may have seen the Universal Audio on Linux debacle. Someone from UA suggested a petition be started, and UA would support Linux if there were 10,000+ signatures. When the petition started to take off UA quickly backtracked and edited the post. The petition was intended to show how few Linux audio users there are. The petition is here.

It has 1689 signatures. I don't know if that is the sum total of Linux users interested in UA, or if the momentum broke when UA backtracked. Either way it's a small enough number for UA to completely ignore.

It seems there are not enough Linux audio users to put any meaningful pressure on manufacturers.

[bluzee]

When you already have to support more than one OS any way I don't understand why they don't just start out with a cross platform solution.

As for Behringer, I'm a little surprised they didn't come right out with a Linux release for their synths. I expect it would be trivial to compile a Linux port.

[Primeval_Mudd]

Is anybody aware of a coordinated campaign calling on hardware manufacturers to provide OS-independent firmware updates/patch management etc?

Sadly no. You may have seen the Universal Audio on Linux debacle. Someone from UA suggested a petition be started, and UA would support Linux if there were 10,000+ signatures. When the petition started to take off UA quickly backtracked and edited the post. The petition was intended to show how few Linux audio users there are. The petition is here.

It has 1689 signatures. I don't know if that is the sum total of Linux users interested in UA, or if the momentum broke when UA backtracked. Either way it's a small enough number for UA to completely ignore.

It seems there are not enough Linux audio users to put any meaningful pressure on manufacturers.

Thanks for that bit of background. At least somebody tried, even if it didn't get very far.

[Primeval_Mudd]

When you already have to support more than one OS any way I don't understand why they don't just start out with a cross platform solution.

As for Behringer, I'm a little surprised they didn't come right out with a Linux release for their synths. I expect it would be trivial to compile a Linux port.

Behringer could support their self-congratulatory rhetoric about bringing music to the low-income masses by championing Linux as a free OS alternative to the commercial WinMac hegemony.