Hello fellow person that clearly works in the modern software development world.
This is what I’ve been driving at. The GPL is an incredibly free & open public license. Why was the project released under that license if the intention was to place a number of arbitrary and potentially non-enforceable conditions on developers, that extends beyond the scope of GPL.
@DerelictRobot The GPL doesn’t grant you the right to use someone else’s identity. It’s not about that. It’s about the code, not identity. Even Stallman acknowledge that fact. There is a reason why nearly all OS projects protect their identity and why it is accepted in the OS world.
If you are of the opinion that everyone should be allowed to use everyone’s identity, you should be fine with the fact that people publish things in your name, without your consent.
The issue is, that hosting some else’s, branded software is only ok when you ask the author/brand owner for permission/consent. He might not want that for noumerous reasons, or he might be fine with it if you stick to certain rules. Besides law it is a matter of respect. The authors name sticks on the product! The authors name stands for a certain quality level. Not releasing older versions, having a known issue, is a matter of quality in publishing. The brand owner defines the quality level.
If you strip the branding it’s a different matter. Things then don’t fall on Vedders feet.
As said before, you might have contributed with a software having a known bug. That might put someone to danger in the worst case. Vedder strongly recommends to always use the latest revision. He does it for reasons!
The issues that arrise from updates that only work with latest version FW will be tackled in the new release of VESC-Tool with built in backwards compatibility.
So I take a VESC Tool release, CTRL+f del ‘VESC’ and ‘Vedder’, and release it as a downloadable from my store with a disclaimer, that would be okay?
If you find the manpower to service your fork, you can do that. You should carefully remove all and any branding and follow the GPL terms.
However, it’s against the ethos Vedder put up on the project website.
It would be OK from the legal perspective. It may not compile though. 
@Trampa Frank, I agree with @kalebludlow. You do a lot of speaking on Vedder’s behalf on this forum and the views tend to go against the spirit and common practices in open source software development. This raises concerns about how much is lost in translation and to which extent your statements represent what Vedder would have to say for himself. It’s a bit weird. Could you please invite Benjamin to come and talk to us directly instead? I know he’s busy but if you truly think he would be concerned by our activities, it would be in everyone’s interest that he talks to us.
I had him on the phone yesterday and asked him. He doesn’t want to publish old versions. You can take that as fact. He rather takes the big effort to code backwards compatibility. This is a hughe task BTW.
We have a meeting 14ths anyway but I highly doubt that he will change his mind.
I hope that a public statement from Vedder will convince you of the fact that he doesn’t want to run an archive of VESC-Tool, nor have old versions published under his name/brand/identity.
It no matter if he want or not. Is what community want, nobody caring if you wanting or not. Brand is not register in every country and we can releasing without brand is no problem. If don’t liking then is not should be open source project.
I really want this video interview with @longhairedboy he agreed upon, when is the usual question thread happening? I’m tired of the prophet @Trampa, let @longhairedboy speak to god directly (makes him a prophet too though 
)
I can imagine. It’s a good feature though. Much appreciated.
Absolutely. It would also be helpful to know Benjamin’s own reasoning behind the decision.
On its way Jan, I just had him on the phone. I hope we can do a video about that matter soon.
The new VESC-Tool 2.0 is almost ready anyway:
Watch minute 12.30 onward about FW issues and warnings that pop up in the new Tool!
Vedder implemented FW warnings into the new Tool.
Ditto
These are great developments. Very useful new features. I like the warnings about problematic firmware versions.
The way the new VESC Tool handles the backwards compatibility is remarkable. I guess that with that system, it shouldn’t be a problem to add support for any of the old VESC FW versions. One would just need to create a new configuration file for it. These could be contributed by community and then there’s indeed no need for an archive.
On the other hand, it may still be easier and more reliable to compile an older VESC Tool than write a config for the new Tool, so I wouldn’t be so fast about disregarding the archive idea.
At any rate, this is a lot of awesome work by Benjamin. 
Jup, but that can be quite some work. I’m not sure if anyone needs older FW really. The cases should be very rare and linked to special applications.
For the record, i’m less interested in VESC Tool specifically then I am in all the old and current versions of BLDC-Tool, FOCBOX UI, FOCBOX Tool, Ackmaniac stuff and the other things.
I don’t actually use VESC Tool that much myself. I’m just always finding old hardware that might work and I know others are too and would like to be able to find the older firmwares / softwares for it before they’re all gone forever.
They all work with the new FW. You can simply update the FW and that solves all issues. The only exception is currently the UNITY.
We run HW 4.7 till HW 6.8 on the latest FW. Any VESC-Tool will let you upload any FW via the custom FW tab. You can even upload FW 2.18 or Ack FW via the VESC-Tool.
That’s the silliest statement I’ve read all week.
There are FocBox’s being bricked by the latest firmware, most if not all of the Maker-X and FlipSky hardware are locked to a specifically firmware revision.
Your statement is absolutely untrue. Sort yourself out.
Believe what you want to believe. If it works with FW 3.xx it works with FW 3.66 just as good.
Funnily Lee Wright has a Flipsky ESC and is riding on latest FW. Benjamin has a Focbox at home to try updates.
Pavel Garmas updating a Flipsky ESC:
If I had a dollar for everytime I’ve seen you say this
I could afford a VESC lol