Would be nice to hear what folks from evga have to say...



[link=http://www.guru3d.com/news-story/evga-steals-the-rivatuner-rtss-design-concept-into-precisionx-15.html]http://www.guru3d.com/new...nto-precisionx-15.html
[/link]

Bad karma here. Please read this (post number 37):
 
http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2190778

I think this is terrible.  This is a shameful decision by EVGA if it is all true, which so far it seems to be.  I would really like to see a rebuttal from EVGA here.  If they did this, it is going to severely damage their reputation within the community.
 

rjohnson11
Bad karma here. Please read this (post number 37):
 
http://forums.evga.com/FindPost/2190778

I'm not sure what you meant RJ.  Did you mean that it is bad Karma for EVGA to do this?  Then yes I fully agree.
 
This is what Unwinder had to say regarding your comment.
 

Unwinder
Do not misinterpret it please and pay attention to "I'll release new versions myself" words. I haven't left the project and I physically cannot leave it because I'm still the only legal copyright owner of this software product. Yes, it cannot be EVGA branded and use EVGA Precision trademark anymore, but I won't let it die and I will support it in some form even without the company. That's everything I can say now. Hardcore fans of old good EVGA Precision won't be disappointed or hurted in any way. Stay tuned!

 
As for what Unwinder thinks about this.......
 

Unwinder
Actually the only thing that protects one corporation's product manager from finding himself into legal hot water is the fact that I'm not located in US.

 
EVGA should re-think this release.  There had better be a whole lot of acknowledgements and an apology or something.  If this is 100% for real, it changes what I think about how EVGA does business forever.  You have made mistakes in the past, but this crosses the line.

@kaninja, Unwinder also said this:

Neither EVGA nor MSI have access to source code.

 
So how would EVGA copy it? As Jacob said, they worked with Rivatuner long before MSI implemented it in Afterburner and got Unwinder to be mostly exclusive.  

Thanks for that, reading through the entire comments thread to catch up. I will reserve any judgement till everything and everyone has had a chance to explain. I don't know much more about this whole thing than the average consumer so I am sure things go much further back.

Jacob said a formal statement will be made soon, so let's all just wait for that. Lots of people freaking out on Guru3D and saying they aren't going with EVGA products anymore 

EVGA_JacobF
There was never any intention to copy the code or anything like that. Its simple... we like Precision, we know a lot of people that like it, we want to add more features and features that the community requests. Bringing it in house and redesigning the parts that are not EVGA are the only way as many of the features we want to add are covered under exclusive contracts and we have no way to do it on old version. Making sure it did not share code with the old version was very important to us from the beginning
 

Jacob, Hilbert from Guru3D.com here.
 
You keep running in repetitive circles that you didn't use any code from Rivatuner, Alexeys observation already indicated otherwise.
Next to that it isn't solely about the code is it ? You / EVGA literately took any and every idea from the Rivatuner codebase you could use, including the config UI interface. There is no walking away from this Jacob, it is called plagiarism and it is a tag that from now on will always be attached to EVGA PrecisionX.
 
As stated in my article, you guys have every right to develop a proper in-house tool. Instead somehow you guys figured it was OK to make a replicated clone of the Rivatuner design interface with your own Skin attached to it. My honest advice here, pull this software while you still can. Go back to the drawing board and redesign the software in such a manner that it doesn't look like a cheap rip-off of Alexeys software.
 
You can hide behind statements and brainwash everybody that you didn't use anything from Alexey. But the fact is that even if you coded everything in-house, you guys stole his life-work by replicating and cloning it. Make the right choice while you still can my man, this isn't going to do EVGA any good. We have know each other for many years with great mutual respect, but I am afraid you guys are passing a threshold here that will taint EVGA for the rest of its existence.
 
Btw - small note  - you guys even copied and pasted the Rivatuner's Llicense agreement EULA - literally.
 
Here are the initial findings from Alexey after inspecting PrecisionX 15:

• Original EVGA Precision EXE resources and dialog templates were copy-pasted to this “in-house” project as is, even original dialog control IDs are the same. Company PRs already claim that GUI is 100% designed by EVGA which is sadly not true, company designed concept art of EVGA Precision skin only. All product properties, entire monitoring section, setting and so on came from directly original RivaTuner (and were available in other RivaTuner based products like HIS iTurbo years before Precision was born) and EVGA has no relation to designing them at all. So company directly violated our license agreement terms and reverse engineered licensed binaries to copy data from it and represent it as their own design.
• EVGA completely cloned original RivaTuner’s RTMUI multilanguage context help system and localization engine. Contents of “Help” and “Localization” folders were copy-pasted to new product as is from original Precision, including localization and GUI translation databases for different languages. “Help” folder contains direct mapping of dialog IDs to help files, I guess getting easy access to it as direct reason of “copying” original dialog templates with original dialog IDs. So the company also violated our license agreement terms and redistributed parts of original product without permission.
• Even “in-house” skin still uses my original raster fonts from old good RivaTuner. But at least that can be partially justified. Out intellectual property ownership terms of agreement define that I own software product copyrights, the company exclusively owns the product distribution rights as well as non-software intellectual properties like trademarks, product name, logos and artwork I create for them during the contract. So you may try to fit “copied” fonts in this category if you close eyes on the fact that it came from original RT.
• Fun thing, even for the installer of “in-house” product the company copy-pasted my own license agreement from original installer, which contains my own third party components licensing terms and direct restriction on reverse engineering or redistributing them. Probably you’ll at least read what exactly do you copy paste, EVGA?
• The most sad and painful thing for me is that the company entirely copy-pasted RivaTuner’s unique concepts of displaying data into On-Screen Display. RvaTuner Statistics Server was the first tool in the industry that introduced the concept of in-game hardware monitoring via OSD back in 2005, I spent almost than 10 years on polishing it. And most sad thing for me is that original Precision was not supposed to include such functionality, so it is not included in development budget and royalty fees. I added RTSS to Precision in one of the first versions completely free of any licensing fees just to help the company to promote new tool and it truly became one of the most important application features. So it was used during more than 5 years completely free (and the company was never brave to admit that) and in final they originally “thanked” for free OSD usage by stealing it. EVGA’s brand new “in-house” OSD is also open a simple rip of open source FW1FontWrapper overlay. And If I were the developer of FW1FontWrapper, I’d read the story of RTSS and think 1000 times about it. 

Guru3D

EVGA_JacobF
There was never any intention to copy the code or anything like that. Its simple... we like Precision, we know a lot of people that like it, we want to add more features and features that the community requests. Bringing it in house and redesigning the parts that are not EVGA are the only way as many of the features we want to add are covered under exclusive contracts and we have no way to do it on old version. Making sure it did not share code with the old version was very important to us from the beginning
 

Jacob, Hilbert from Guru3D.com here.
 
You keep running in repetitive circles that you didn't use any code from Rivatuner, Alexeys observation already indicated otherwise.
Next to that it isn't solely about the code is it ? You / EVGA literately took any and every idea from the Rivatuner codebase you could use, including the config UI interface. There is no walking away from this Jacob, it is called plagiarism and it is a tag that from now on will always be attached to EVGA PrecisionX.
 
As stated in my article, you guys have every right to develop a proper in-house tool. Instead somehow you guys figured it was OK to make a replicated clone of the Rivatuner design interface with your own Skin attached to it. My honest advice here, pull this software while you still can. Go back to the drawing board and redesign the software in such a manner that it doesn't look like a cheap rip-off of Alexeys software.
 
You can hide behind statements and brainwash everybody that you didn't use anything from Alexey. But the fact is that even if you coded everything in-house, you guys stole his life-work by replicating and cloning it. Make the right choice while you still can my man, this isn't going to do EVGA any good. We have know each other for many years with great mutual respect, but I am afraid you guys are passing a threshold here that will taint EVGA for the rest of its existence.
 
Btw - small note  - you guys even copied and pasted the Rivatuner's Llicense agreement EULA - literally.
 
Here are the initial findings from Alexey after inspecting PrecisionX 15:

• Original EVGA Precision EXE resources and dialog templates were copy-pasted to this “in-house” project as is, even original dialog control IDs are the same. Company PRs already claim that GUI is 100% designed by EVGA which is sadly not true, company designed concept art of EVGA Precision skin only. All product properties, entire monitoring section, setting and so on came from directly original RivaTuner (and were available in other RivaTuner based products like HIS iTurbo years before Precision was born) and EVGA has no relation to designing them at all. So company directly violated our license agreement terms and reverse engineered licensed binaries to copy data from it and represent it as their own design.
• EVGA completely cloned original RivaTuner’s RTMUI multilanguage context help system and localization engine. Contents of “Help” and “Localization” folders were copy-pasted to new product as is from original Precision, including localization and GUI translation databases for different languages. “Help” folder contains direct mapping of dialog IDs to help files, I guess getting easy access to it as direct reason of “copying” original dialog templates with original dialog IDs. So the company also violated our license agreement terms and redistributed parts of original product without permission.
• Even “in-house” skin still uses my original raster fonts from old good RivaTuner. But at least that can be partially justified. Out intellectual property ownership terms of agreement define that I own software product copyrights, the company exclusively owns the product distribution rights as well as non-software intellectual properties like trademarks, product name, logos and artwork I create for them during the contract. So you may try to fit “copied” fonts in this category if you close eyes on the fact that it came from original RT.
• Fun thing, even for the installer of “in-house” product the company copy-pasted my own license agreement from original installer, which contains my own third party components licensing terms and direct restriction on reverse engineering or redistributing them. Probably you’ll at least read what exactly do you copy paste, EVGA?
• The most sad and painful thing for me is that the company entirely copy-pasted RivaTuner’s unique concepts of displaying data into On-Screen Display. RvaTuner Statistics Server was the first tool in the industry that introduced the concept of in-game hardware monitoring via OSD back in 2005, I spent almost than 10 years on polishing it. And most sad thing for me is that original Precision was not supposed to include such functionality, so it is not included in development budget and royalty fees. I added RTSS to Precision in one of the first versions completely free of any licensing fees just to help the company to promote new tool and it truly became one of the most important application features. So it was used during more than 5 years completely free (and the company was never brave to admit that) and in final they originally “thanked” for free OSD usage by stealing it. EVGA’s brand new “in-house” OSD is also open a simple rip of open source FW1FontWrapper overlay. And If I were the developer of FW1FontWrapper, I’d read the story of RTSS and think 1000 times about it. 

Good Post !

garnetandblack
Yeah, it looks pretty similar, but don't you want familiarity in a tool that people have been using for years?  I'd hate to have to re-learn where to find everything in a tool I'd grown accustomed to.  As long as they didn't take the actual underlying code, I don't see an issue.
 
Now, the situation itself with Unwinder...  I dunno what to make of it.  I know, from experience, that Unwinder has a tendency to be "difficult" at times.  Sure sounds like there was some of that going on from both sides.

go goes beyond similarity, there using his code re using alot of his code.. None this would been problem if EVGA would put stop to the idiots around here that were accusing RTSS of corrupting drivers, Which it does not. and certian people still do around here. Now EVGA is use his re using his code with out permission
 
http://forums.guru3d.com/...74813&postcount=90
 
Dont mater to me I removed Precision X from my pc months ago and never looked back AB is better then even 15, IF evga can fiqure way to enabled K-boost with out castrating  powerstates i might try it agian, but for now screw precision X i been using RTSS for years since came out now EVGA is ripping it off

This is going to be one interesting dang thread!!! It should get a sticky!!!

IF evga needs it i have a good carpet guy. This way you can atleast by a quality rug to sweep this under before hand. 

Violence.
IF evga needs it i have a good carpet guy. This way you can atleast by a quality rug to sweep this under before hand. 

Haw.

Yar har, fiddle di dee,
Being a pirate is alright to be,
if you like to steal code,
You are a pirate!
 
Goes with evga anniversary theme.

Here is the official EVGA statement:
 

First, we value the relationship that we have with RivaTuner Alex/Unwinder since Feb.13th, 2008. With EVGA and Alex/Unwinder mutual efforts, Precision has become a very popular overclocking utility since it launched. Afterburner’s first release was in Oct. 2009.

It was originally EVGA’s idea to provide the world’s first “simple” overclocking GUI designed for NVIDIA cards that utilizes some of the Rivatuner technology for free. Due to some misinformation floating around about EVGA Precision recently, we would like to clarify several points. Also, EVGA wouldn’t have any interest to develop our own version if Alex/Unwinder had showed his interest back then like we’ve seen today!

1. The EVGA Precision main GUI (main Window) and format was fully designed and owned by EVGA, that means Alex/Unwinder did not design the Precision GUI at all. The Rivatuner technology was used for the backend like GPU reporting, OSD and overclocking. Other features like voltage tuning, pixel clock control and Bluetooth function were coded by EVGA. We want it to be clear that Rivatuner source code has never been released to EVGA. A year and half after Precision was introduced, Afterburner was released, that shared a lot of the same ideas and concepts originally set by EVGA’s Precision, and also used Rivatuner technology.
2. Most gamers knew that some of the key features that have been requested and missed such as 64bit OSD, voltage control and video recording in the early versions of Precision, yet Afterburner had it. You probably don’t know that some of those ideas were initiated and requested to Alex/Unwinder by EVGA to implement into Precision well before it was available in Afterburner, but Alex/Unwinder had no intention to add it. One year later they showed up in Afterburner exclusively without any notification and/or offer to EVGA. We felt that we became Alex/Unwinder and Afterburner’s free consultant if we continue this route.

We like Precision, the interface and the features, just like most of the gamers in the community, but under these circumstances, it became clear that in order to provide more features that are requested by the community, we needed to recode the back end from the ground up, using our own existing Precision skin designed as merely inspiration, that is why today we have the new EVGA PrecisionX 15. In the latest PrecisionX 15 we have put in some features like 64bit OSD support, Steam achievements and more. We want to make it clear that EVGA PrecisionX 15 is 100% coded in house without using any code from the older Precision due to we don’t have the source code since day one!

EVGA will continue adding features to support the community on PrecisionX15 for free as usual, and hope to inspire other overclocking utilities to be better for the entire gaming community.

The bottom line is that EVGA doesn’t want any third party to dictate what features the community should or should not have!

EVGA

EVGA_JacobF
Here is the official EVGA statement:
 

First, we value the relationship that we have with Rivertuner Alex/Unwinder since Feb.13^th, 2008. With EVGA and Alex/Unwinder mutual efforts, Precision has became a very popular overclocking utility since it launched. Afterburner’s first release was in Oct. 2009.
 
It was originally EVGA’s idea to provide the world’s first “simple” overclocking GUI designed for NVIDIA cards that utilizes some of the Rivatuner technology for free. Due to some misinformation floating around about EVGA Precision recently, we would like to clarify several points. Also, EVGA wouldn’t have any interest to develop our own version if Alex/Unwinder had showed his interest back then like we’ve seen today!
 

1. The EVGA Precision main GUI (main Window) and format was fully designed and owned by EVGA, that means Alex/Unwinder did not design the Precision GUI at all. The Rivatuner technology was used for the backend like GPU reporting, OSD and overclocking. Other features like voltage tuning, pixel clock control and Bluetooth function were coded by EVGA. We want it to be clear that Rivatuner source code has never been released to EVGA. A year and half after Precision was introduced, Afterburner was released, that shared a lot of the same ideas and concepts originally set by EVGA’s Precision, and also used Rivatuner technology.
2. Most gamers knew that some of the key features that have been requested and missed such as 64bit OSD, voltage control and video recording in the early versions of Precision, yet Afterburner had it. You probably don’t know that some of those ideas were initiated and requested to Alex/Unwinder by EVGA to implement into Precision well before it was available in Afterburner, but Alex/Unwinder had no intention to add it. One year later they showed up in Afterburner exclusively without any notification and/or offer to EVGA. We felt that we became Alex/Unwinder and Afterburner’s free consultant if we continue this route.

 
We like Precision, the interface and the features, just like most of the gamers in the community, but under these circumstances, it became clear that in order to provide more features that are requested by the community, we needed to recode the back end from the ground up, using our own existing Precision skin designed as merely inspiration, that is why today we have the new EVGA PrecisionX 15. In the latest PrecisionX 15 we have put in some features like 64bit OSD support, Steam achievements and more. We want to make it clear that EVGA PrecisionX 15 is 100% coded in house without using any code from the older Precision due to we don’t have the source code since day one!
 
EVGA will continue adding features to support the community on PrecisionX15 for free as usual, and hope to inspire other overclocking utilities to be better for the entire gaming community.
 
The bottom line is that EVGA doesn’t want any third party to dictate what features the community should or should not have!
 
EVGA

 
 
I think most of the people understand that EVGA say they own 100% of the code behind it, the thing is that EVGA could ( should, well MUST HAD ) at least try to make the option panel a little different than what we have on the original RT one. As for the main Precision screen, NM if it loks the same, it's your skin !