Yes, you read well, this is the end. The end of Install0us.
Most of you would not appreciate what follows, just as we definitely do not, yet some of you will be strangely happy...
Why is this happening?
Legalities. When I started up solo, it was for legal reasons, and that still stands: I was fed up of hiding behind other people and wanted the freedom to develop apps without being in the shadows of the law.
For Install0us to offer the same services as other installer apps : browse / download / install, without providing any links to cracked materials, I thought we had something legal and legitimate to offer.
Some really nice people proposed me their help, and from a small blog we evolved to these forums, which just kept growing and maturing, thanks to a wonderful team. That was not appreciated by everybody...but anyway, that is another topic.
During all this time I have been actively searching for a lawyer to know how legal we were. Not the lawyer you can find just anywhere, but one that understands Internet legislations and specializes in copyright laws. Trust me, these people are rare, very in demand, and very expensive.
As such I have been looking for three months, and I finally found one recently. Unfortunately our discussion left me sad and even feeling stupid to have invested so much effort into this, and involved people with me... You see, after talking for more than an hour with him, I'm sorry but the conclusion is that what we do would be very hard to defend against in court.
I am at the moment already at risk, and would risk even more with the exposure that an Install0us v3 release will definitely bring me. Call me a coward, but as I said, hiding under covers is not a life for me. Moreover, these days in my country piracy is a hot subject among politicians... I do not want to be flamed in a trial for something that I do as a hobby, and I do not want to involve any people with me in this. I am sincerely sorry to the people who followed me thinking we were legit, my honest mistake.
What's going to happen?
These forums will close, and repositories too. Just a few more weeks, and everything will be shut down and deleted.
Install0us v2.5 has already been unleashed to you, and it will continue to run. We cannot do anything about it, so be happy!
The bad news is, however, Install0us 3 will not and cannot ever be released. It all must end here. This is extremely disappointing for all of us, considering the time and energy we have spent on it.
On a brighter note, we have introduced some concepts in v3 with native interfaces that have revolutionised what people will be expecting, and I am sure you will see these conceptualisations sooner or later in similar apps, although of course not done by us. In short, we feel we have made a positive contribution to the community we now leave.
To make things clear, we have never shared our source code, and we can never do so, simply for legality's sake. I know from experience that no one is irreplaceable.
But if there were to be one concept I would really like to see one day out of all this, it is the plugin system. An open application not dedicated to any one website.
About Donations
We raised donations and understandably we now have no use for them. Many of you have noticed that recently we have been refunding most of them. In fact we are refunding all refundable donations.
Only very few will not be refunded, mostly because of Paypal rules which restricts refunds to the last 60 days of transaction, or eChecks that just cannot be refunded. (Please be patient if you haven't been refunded yet, Paypal is incredibly slow, blame their staff not ours!)
Once again, thank you very much for your willing support, but our expenses has been covered and since our activities are ending, we just want to be fair with you and refund as much as we can. We are not salesmen, we did all of this for fun, nothing more.
Thanks (a lot)
I have always wanted to do a credits/thanks screen in Installous since the first version. But apologetically, I am a lazy developer who always preferred to code features over making a thanks screen.
I cannot stop all of this without repairing that fault. First of all, many thanks go to all of you for making this journey what it has been, without the users and your continued support and encouragement none of this could have ever been reality.
A group of people that I'd like to take the time to individually thank for their support throughout my time are :
- CCW, for being a friend and all that time spent on the appDB adding missing apps by hand
. - cdecl, for being in #ipa on that first day, for his skills and leaking Crackulous source code (lol).
- crash-x, for the nice chats, sharing knowledge with you have been a real pleasure, you are so right to be on the bright side .
- csmithdesigns.com for the awesome v3 graphics.
- Doosje, for being a friend since almost the beginning, and then to have joined Install0us and bringing along that amazing database .
- fareal, for pressuring me to create these forums (would still be a blog without him lol), and helping so much to create these forums and make them alive (I'm not really a forum administration guy
). - Flawless, for creating AppShare a long long time ago that we all have such fond memories of.
- Hackulo.us community, I remember a time when it wasn't all about money and power... but a community.
- hostjf, from iphonecake, for all your time and help. You are right to be far away from that "scene"...
- lsemtex, that was a real fun day 0 to see that agitation to reproduce The Monkey's Ball crack .
- Kyek, for teaching me a bit of php, for everything you have done. Words cannot express what you've done for us and the community. You will never be forgotten.
- Monster (aka furballinatOor), for his nice contribution to the forums.
- RealZg/Poxy, for being nice even when the whole world was standing against him (even if he was responsible for some leaks I disapprove of).
- Sadam, from xSellize, for his advices and participation A true man in every way.
- Secretss, for being the heart and soul of this community in recent times. Yay!
- lamefuliphone, Thanks for helping secure our app. I know we had plenty of disagreements there, but it was truly fun playing with you.
- skram, for his friendly attitude and being a great AppStore dev sharing his knowledge freely .
- WYSE, your dedication is something to be admired, I will always have a place in my heart for you.
- You, for reading this.
- Sorry if I forget you...there's always going to be someone
Just a couple of extra little bits
- Questions > If you have any questions please pop by our IRC channel #Install0us on the server Rizon. We will be hanging around a little longer in case there is anything more you would like to ask or know.
- Forums > If there are any posts you would specifically like a copy of after we close, please just ask as we would be glad to provide them. If you are looking for somewhere nice to go, why not try xSellize.com?
- Hackulo.us *Has been* a nice community. The core staff has gone nuts at money making. Today they just consider members and even their moderators as puppets. I am really happy to have left them, what happened after Install0us was created is just proof of it.
- TDDebug / dissident > I have always been polite with you, but what a waste. Continue to bring down hackulo.us, people will eventually understand who you really are, a salesman/bullshitter. One sincere advice, you really need a psychotherapist. (Our good friend venusanann was right).
Adieu.
Edit: And a little more elaboration...
Update [27/1/10]: App info server shut down. Beta copies for version 3 no longer work.
Update [28/1/10]: Beta repository gone. Beta versions no longer work (Doosje server gone).
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