The nucore you sold me never had a problem. I saw on here the numerous posts of people having issues with Ubuntu and it caused concern so I ...

I have been asked by mod team to not comment anymore and after threats of litigation, that is all I will say.

the system you sold me was fine. thanks

How many times can the same story change? How can anyone take what you write seriously?

We went from getting replies that convinced you... to replies that never happened...

and we all know email from unknown destinations is the most reliable delivery evah...

edit so I can do as the mods say, but also make it more clear for you:

I attempted to contact them multiple different times.

early on I was told it was no longer for sale. later on I got nothing.

I found it to be very poor customer service (I guess understandable since it was for a product NLA). For anyone concerned about your P2K, there are good board techs that can likely help you with most issues. I would suggest going that route

Could you tell a bit more about the update(s)?
The "old" Nucore already does the same like the original hardware did. (smoother and faster)

Or what is about the new features? Will be the card reader supported? Playing mp3 music while a game is played? Jukebox with video function, shaker, hardware knocker,...

There are a lot nice features that I would like to see.

Are you planing a beta test?

Will be the bigguyspinball community reactivated?

So it's been a while, but I took a look at the court docs and the case is still moving forward.

Pinbox's defense seems to be very confident that NuCore illegally infringed on QEMU's license. They want to bring in an expert in both open source licensing and programming to evaluate the source code of NuCore.

The Software Freedom Conservancy has expressed that they may be interested in taking action against NuCore pending the outcome of a code review.

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So what's the abridged version of all this Nucore stuff?

Nucore is suing Pinbox for code stealing, but Nucore may have also infringed on QEMU's copyrighted software?

The way I'm viewing this is that Nucore wants to go after someone for pirating their product. OK, that's fine this is the US after all, where you sue someone at the drop of a hat. Mind you, I am NOT condoning what was done to Nucore-plainly stated-it sucks. BUT-and this is where some critical forethought should have gone into this-WHAT does Nucore stand to gain by suing these jerks? Court fees aren't free. Attorney's fees are not free. Sheriff's fees (for serving) are not free. Lost revenue due to being tied up in court are just that-LOST. Nucore will NOT recoup any of this, period. Oh, and if they win, which they very likely will, they will collect whatever the defendant can afford, not a dollar more. You think the dollar value of what they can collect is more than what they've lost in actually SELLING their product over the last few years? Maybe, but not likely. What if they're judgement-proof? Lots of people are these days. Oh, and IF they win, good luck collecting. Remember, in the US the court systems are geared towards the thief, NOT the victims. Sorry to sound so cynical, but that is the way it is. I truly hope to see Nucore up, running & making a profit soon, but this court case nonsense is going to cost them.

Nucore seems to have taken the QEMU code changed some stuff (names of print outs / names of variables) to hide that fact.

at the core they took the QEMU code added stuff to cover the PCI card (that at the basic level is storage + sound card) they also added code to get the right screen mode / chip stuff needed to make the pinball os run / boot up right that is very tied to the low end chip sets that WMS used. They also added usb dongle lock down to it.

Now pinbox came and found a way to bypass the usb dongle.

Now this case is bad for all 4? sides.

1. WMS / the IP rights owners of the Pin2k system and games. Why should they get to take there cut again / push the need for DRM in this like the driver boards / table parts don't count as there own? Why should they get to control the system that people are useing to get there owned systems working?

2. QEMU / mame / others with open source software. Why should people be able to take there software / code. Also there may a small Chance that due to chilling effects with the DMCA BS that qemu and other free software has to shut down or they have to become more limited.

What if QEMU add code that does some of the same stuff that Nucore does (may be not the pci card part but the chipset stuff) there are other embed software / hardware driven by old pc's with custom cards / code that does not work on newer x86 pc hardware. Also should Nucore / WMS IP even be able to sue QEMU if they add the Citrix chip set (owned by AMD now?)

3. Nucore for taking free software then suing someone for taking there code. also why did nucore shut down when there drm was bypassed? Who does that now days or even in the past?

3A What will this case due to pinball arcade if they say one day want to DMCA take down pinmame / visual pinball? how much pinmame / mame code is in there system? There emu system seems to do some thing that pinmame did first.

4. pinbox takeing the code and passing removing the DRM if not for Nucore taking the QEMU code they would of just been like any other group / coders that bypass DRM systems. But why did nucore shut down then they came out?

There may be some patent stuff that may come as well.

I have a strong hunch that the lawsuit has to do with their license from Williams. They probably cannot resume sale of their product until the court case is over. It would be a "clean" way for Williams to protect their IP in the case of a product like this, as if they don't protect it, it isn't Williams that is running around having to sue a bunch of people.

Software wise, NuCore is comprised of 3 parts:

1. The PIN2K ROM software for RFM or SWE1
2. An open source program called QEMU, which emulates an environment that allows the PIN2K ROMs to be run on modern hardware.
3. NuCore's proprietary software to interface that QEMU emulation with their hardware and the hardware on the pinball machine.

Enter Pinbox. A guy modified that 3 part NuCore package to run on standard PC hardware, so that even if NuCore was never sold again, people wouldn't be SOL if their Pin2k died.

This upset Nucore, so they are suing Pinbox.

Pinbox's main defense in the lawsuit is that NuCore was distributed illegally to begin with by violating the license of QEMU. People representing QEMU have echoed the same concern (somewhere in this thread in fact).

This is my understanding of the entire situation, if anyone knows any different they are welcome to correct me.

yes but the owner of pinball 2k games still have them have rights to use them.

QEMU is an Virtualization / Emulator system.

NuCore's added code to QEMU for the cpu chipset stuff and the custom pci card also they used them build in code in QEMU to pass the parallel port to the VM. Did they rip the roms and make them into an HDD image and use the MAME? DSC2 code for the sound?

The QEMU people may be more about stuff free software abuse / dmca abuse. Stoping an MS from trying to shutdown / dmca an VM system just as it can run there code in it.

To be fair, the Pinbox guy claimed to have created it all himself, which would have been fine, but then it was very quickly discovered that he took the straight up NuCore code and did a slight modification to it.

The ramifications of that are huge - if Pinbox guy had, as he claimed, created his own operating system, then even if NuCore was never sold again, people wouldn't be SOL. If he did, there would and could be no lawsuit. What Pinbox guy did was not ethical in any way, regardless of any other facts in this story.

own operating system?? QEMU and this software are running on Linux.

The Pinbox guy found a way to bypass the Nucore DRM and maybe if not for him the QEMU lawsuit will have gone no where but they or the WMS rights owner had to sue. Maybe Nucore should of been free / open source but you pay for support / pay for the rom dumps / pay for pre build systems that run it. It's not like you can use NUCORE with visual pinball. Or they should of given back all of the mods to QEMU.

So we agree? I feel like you just repeated everything I said, just much harder to read lol

If Nucore loses the lawsuit what do you think that means for the future of Nucore, Pinbox, or for any legit option for keeping pin2k alive?

Yes just trying to get some of the technology terms right.

They can maybe sell the rom dumps / roms in format that it can use But the nucore code (with source) has to be put out in the open. So that people who get there own dumps don't have to pay to use them with the rest of the pin2k system that they own.

Somehow I doubt this... IF Nucore hadn't stop selling the product... they'd still be manufacturing it during the lawsuit. It's only when the judge issues an injunction does the other party have to stop selling the product.

Personally; I think Nucore is just trolling Pinside... just like Kevin and Papad1ck did... hyping a product they'll never ship. Esp if their lawsuit ends up with them getting a C&D from the opensource community.

I just don't think Nucore is going to recover from this... I'd wager they probably never intended to. You just don't go on "holiday" for 3years and then magically bring a product back to life.

those Pin2K systems are not going to get healthier, so the demand for a nucore type product is only going to increase with time. Not sure the components of the IP but any patents that are a part of this probably fade away in the next few years, so that could remove one of the players involved. Plenty of money at play, but I do have to wonder how much profit can be made after all the legal stuff sucks a huge amount of money out. Clearly, given the potential violation of the open source license for using QEMU, this may be a case of those who live in glass houses should not throw stones.

Ultimately the only potential winners in this will be WMS IP, if this ever gets resolved and they still have something to license, and Pin2K owners in need of a fix.

everyone always says this but reality is that few have stories of them dying and those that do have stories of them dying usually can reference www.lockwhenlit.com as the quick and cost effective solution.

Pinbox is out in the wild. I hate to say it but the fate of Nucore doesn't really matter.

Granted it works 100%.... has anyone put it through thorough testing?

yes, I know people that have been running it since it was out and no issues. 100s of games played on it.

then it's good to know P2k will never be un-repairable

Update?!

http://www.bigguyspinball.com/community/viewtopic.php?f=17&p=5192&sid=18e9013ea95c8934d3577db6feb734ca#p5192

What about the court cases? And the very iffy case of trying to shutdown the free replacement. The licensing terms may say they have to sue the free one but if that free is just QEMU + PC chipset stuff needed to get the os to boot + DCS2 (likely from mame).
Maybe on DCS2 but then also need to sue mame.

The pci card boot rom + game roms maybe but the people using this own the games / have the right Under the DMCA exemptions to replace / workaround the failed hardware.

Now for there licensed one did they really make there own X86 emu? or will they being giving out the pc level chipset work / what ever they did to the pci card or the rom disk driver out to QEMU?

Also with there code for the chipset you may even be able to PCI pass though with the real card on a new system (if you get one that still has pci slots) Giving them even less of a case to fight people doing that and no the licensing terms can make them try to calm the other way as WMS does not and never has owned the rights to X86 or pc chipsets.