source of CFUTILITY?

[apruss]

I'm curious where the cfutility stuff (support for cf modems) came from on Sony Japan's website. I can't find it anywhere there. Have they pulled it? Alex

[n2ifp]

Do you need the Japanese version? Because that's all they had. There is a modified version by Pelaca and can be found here:

http://leggnet.com/clie/

or here: http://clienx_cf_modem.tripod.com/

[pelaca]

Originally posted by apruss
I'm curious where the cfutility stuff (support for cf modems) came from on Sony Japan's website. I can't find it anywhere there. Have they pulled it? Alex

Alex,

The Japanese CFUtility is on the Japanese CLIE ROM.
Why you asking for?

[pruss]

I'm asking because I'm worried about the copyright legalities of using modified drivers not downloaded direct from Sony. Sony's EULA usually prohibits redistribution.

[pelaca]

I don't know why you asking this. If you read the EULA, you know the response.

[Narniahopper]

Does anyone else see the humor in that filename: CFUTILITY *chuckle*

Appropriate.

[pelaca]

Originally posted by Narniahopper
Does anyone else see the humor in that filename: CFUTILITY *chuckle*

Appropriate.

May be Sony wants to hide it on the kangi... I can't understand why they don't want to release this program outside Japan...

Yeah, I CFUTILITY on this...

[LeggNet]

Pelaca, please correct me if I'm wrong, but the 'DRIVERS' have not been modified just the language of the card utility has been translated. In other words, you could you an unmodified version of the utility and drivers along with a an AmbiCom modem and it would function correctly.

Cheers, Rich

[pelaca]

Yes, the CFUtility.prc is the only touched file.
The Ambicom CF56M-EZ (like the Kaga Electronics iTAX56) is an OEM from other company. This company use the Billionton OEM (modifying only the CIS table), selling it then to Ambicom, TAXAN (Kaga electronics is a TAXAN company) and maybe other companies (all of this companies don't change the CIS table, the driver see the modem as CF brand in all of this cases)
Another case is the Targus CF modem. Targus buy this modem to CADMUS Micro (a Billionton company), the modem is a Billionton but Targus change the CIS table, that's the reason because the Targus doesn't work.
I work for 3 month trying to modify the drivers but not success and I leave the project because exist the Ambicom and some other compatibles, working with the actual drivers at very low prices, available on America and Europe.

[pruss]

I read the EULA (thanks to Babelfish) for various Sony things, but I couldn't find CFUTILITY. The reason I was asking was that if it was there on Sony's site, then even if redistribution was forbidden, still the EULA would probably not prohibit us from downloading and using it, as long as we didn't redistribute it. Hence my question: Is there a legal place on Sony's website where I can download it?

[pelaca]

Originally posted by pruss
I read the EULA (thanks to Babelfish) for various Sony things, but I couldn't find CFUTILITY. The reason I was asking was that if it was there on Sony's site, then even if redistribution was forbidden, still the EULA would probably not prohibit us from downloading and using it, as long as we didn't redistribute it. Hence my question: Is there a legal place on Sony's website where I can download it?

NO... the only source for download the Japanese CFUtility is the Japanese CLIE for now...

[euroclie]

For what it's worth, if the program was in ROM in non-Japanese Clié (which is not the case) or if the program was available for download on Sony's site (which seems not to be the case as well), one could possibly distribute only an English overlay and remain in complete legality.

Pelaca, I'm currently working on a (Windows) utility to help create overlay files for a PalmOS program, I'll get in touch with you as soon as I've got something useable if you're interested, as it should make translating Japanese programs into English much easier (or translating any program into any language for what it's worth, as long as the character set is supported by the device...)

[pelaca]

Originally posted by euroclie
Pelaca, I'm currently working on a (Windows) utility to help create overlay files for a PalmOS program, I'll get in touch with you as soon as I've got something useable if you're interested, as it should make translating Japanese programs into English much easier (or translating any program into any language for what it's worth, as long as the character set is supported by the device...)

I know you program... :) I sent some E-MAILs about the ROM serial on the M5xx, do you remember?

[pelaca]

Originally posted by euroclie
For what it's worth, if the program was in ROM in non-Japanese Clié (which is not the case) or if the program was available for download on Sony's site (which seems not to be the case as well), one could possibly distribute only an English overlay and remain in complete legality.

The problem is, you still needs to modify the PRC with the code for use overlays... or not?

[euroclie]

Originally posted by pelaca


I know you program... :) I sent some E-MAILs about the ROM serial on the M5xx, do you remember?

Yes, that was almost exactly one year ago, right? :)

I'm a bit stuck right now with the ROM Editor. Due to the OS5 architecture change, I have to rewrite the low level functions (that will allow easier database editing, too).

So I'm writing another (simpler) utility called ResEditor which handles only databases, not the whole ROM. This makes it easier to polish the database-related functions, and I'll later include them in Chromed. Plus the fact that more and more devices are released for which there's no emulator and/or no JackSprat support, so even if people can edit the ROM, they won't be able to flash it easily or at all, which doesn't make Chromed very useful... :(

ResEditor will include stuff like file stripping, overlay creation, overlay merge, overlay update, etc.
I'll probably include some OS4/OS5 resources format conversion functions so that people can use it to convert the OS5 databases to the old format, use existing tools to modify them, then use ResEditor again to change them back to OS5 format.

The only thing is that with two small kids at home, I've not much free time to code! ;)

[euroclie]

Originally posted by pelaca


The problem is, you still needs to modify the PRC with the code for use overlays... or not?

No, that's the beauty of the PalmOS: you leave the original PRC file untouched, and just install the overlay, and the OS will automatically get the new (translated) strings, menus, forms, etc. :D

The bad side is that it takes more memory since you have both Japanese and English versions of the translatable items. That being said, you can "strip" the original file (i.e. remove the actual resources, and leave only a pointer to those resources, which the OS will get in the overlay). All you need is a program which does that (ResEditor should do it as soon as I can write the appropriate function).

The good side of things is that you don't really need the original application's author permission to release your overlay since you're not codifying anything in his/her program. You don't need to provide copyrighted stuff either: people download the original program or buy the CD or whatever, and you just provide the localization overlay. Simple (in theory at least! ;)) although you have to update the overlay everytime the application is updated as the overlay contains a checksum from the original application to make sure it targets the appropriate version of the file!