Shameless plug - Enchanted Keyfinder

[Oliver]

Hi folks, forgive the little "advertisment", but I want to introduce you to the

• Enchanted Keyfinder

It's free of charge and Open Source software just like UltraVNC. Hope you'll like it.

[supercoe]

Great tool but what does this fork do that Magic did not?

[B]

I don't think Magical Jellybean is open source at all! It's freeware, and related products are commercial?

[supercoe]

Interesting, I found some info via google that Magic used to be open source but the links I find pointing to sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/keyfinder/ don't work.

Enchanted Keyfinder claims that it is a fork of Magic so at one time the code seemed to have existed.

A big thanks to the author/s of Enchanted Keyfinder for keeping tools like this open source.

[Oliver]

I don't think Magical Jellybean is open source at all! It's freeware, and related products are commercial?

It was OpenSource under GPLv3, but then was taken down. This fork continues open development.

If a package was once released under GPL and one is on posession of such a copy, the license terms of the GPL cannot be revoked. Our luck.

Interesting, I found some info via google that Magic used to be open source but the links I find pointing to sourceforge http://sourceforge.net/projects/keyfinder/ don't work.

Actually that even used to be the address for our project until about a week ago. But the owner of the rights to the follow-up product protested, so that the project name was changed from "keyfinder" to "ekeyfinder" just recently.

Enchanted Keyfinder claims that it is a fork of Magic so at one time the code seemed to have existed.

A big thanks to the author/s of Enchanted Keyfinder for keeping tools like this open source.

... since the name was changed, it's not as well known. Therefore I'm trying to push Google and other search engines to it

[supercoe]

... since the name was changed, it's not as well known. Therefore I'm trying to push Google and other search engines to it

I've added it to my technicians toolbox.

You say "our project", are you involved in the development?

[Oliver]

You say "our project", are you involved in the development?

Just joined, yes. Wouldn't call those few changes involvement yet, though

[B]

Oliver, that Sourceforge decision is ridiculous. I really doubt anyone owns a relevant trademark on "keyfinder" and if they've abandoned their open source project (I'm getting a "whoops, we can't find that page") why not let your group keep it? They could add a disclaimer or something.

Anyway, to "optimize" for Googling purposes you might want to put some combination of "magical" "jellybean" and/or "keyfinder" in the subject of this thread...

[Oliver]

Oliver, that Sourceforge decision is ridiculous. I really doubt anyone owns a relevant trademark on "keyfinder" and if they've abandoned their open source project (I'm getting a "whoops, we can't find that page") why not let your group keep it? They could add a disclaimer or something.

The decision was made by the project admin.

As I understand it, the project named "keyfinder" was originally occupied by what is now the closed-source MJB. Then it was abandoned (obviously in an attempt to get rid of the public sources) and removed from SF.net. Later on someone created a project with that name which inherited some of the properties of the old one (repo, reviews ...).

Our project admin was annoyed by that already, so in addition to the - in my opinion invalid - DCMA notice, he actually wanted to get rid of this history. Renaming was just killing two birds with one stone ...

Anyway, to "optimize" for Googling purposes you might want to put some combination of "magical" "jellybean" and/or "keyfinder" in the subject of this thread...

I'll use the latter one

[B]

Okay, thanks.

What's peculiar is that I could have sworn that the original software started as closed source. From a little googling it seems it only went open around 2008 or so...

Ah well, glad to hear of your fork.

[sag47]

Great tool but what does this fork do that Magic did not?

Works for Office 2010, Load Hive is more reliable, documentation is actually existent, live updates of the software and not just a web link, and changing the Windows XP product key. Also keyfinder.cfg is built from the original community versions of MJB KF. Some entries were added to that and eventually the whole file will be reformatted to match a standard. There are even more plans for more features which will aide it with recovering software keys. There's more that it can do from the svn repository but that's what the unstable releases can do.

Before using it I'd recommend understanding the versions.

Okay, thanks.

What's peculiar is that I could have sworn that the original software started as closed source. From a little googling it seems it only went open around 2008 or so...

Ah well, glad to hear of your fork.

MJB KF 1.51 was closed source. It was basically a self extracting RAR file. It extracted to the TEMP folder 4 files. findkey.exe (delphi gui front end which displayed text files from output of other programs), chgxp.vbs (changed windows XP key), xpkey.exe (found and decoded Windows XP and below key to plain txt file), officekey.exe (same as xpkey.exe but for Office 2003 and below).

MJB KF became open source in MJB KF 2.0. It remained open source until last year (last open source version is 2.0.8 ). Recover Keys bought the project and closed it down (source code-wise). The current MJB KF is the "less feature rich" product compared to their flagship product Recover Keys.

They took out much of the keyfinder.cfg entries also to make it view fewer software keys which were built by community members of MJB KF.

Their current MJB KF still displays the GNU GPL license but when I started Enchanted Keyfinder I asked them for the source as per the GPL for possible bug updates and they replied they weren't giving it and that it was a closed source product. I didn't push the issue further.

That's the bulk of the info comparing the two products. EK isn't attempting to copy the original MJB KF, we're trying to evolve it into something more with our own set of features and goals in mind.

[Oliver]

Side-note: moved it into a forum that is also writable for non-mods.

[B]

Thanks for the explanation, sag47, and congratulations on your project.

I'm sure you know there are places to report GPL violation (e.g. http://gpl-violations.org/ and http://www.softwarefreedom.org/ ) but since the new company owns the (original?) copyright I guess the only offense is claiming a GPL license without abiding by it. Well, that and the question of the user-contributed parts.... Too bad, all in all.

Hmm, your Enchanted Keyfinder project doesn't make the first page of Google hits for "key finder" or "keyfinder" yet, but is climbing up the ranks for "key finder open source".

[sag47]

Thanks B,

There's also a website up for it.
http://ekeyfinder.sourceforge.net/

That is the page I want to rank in google because it points to all information involving the project in a form most humans can understand xD.

[B]

Speaking of forms humans can understand, and this is really trivial to me, but

"Major versions almost never increment. <b>Minor</b> versions are incremented with each <b>major</b> release."

is approaching insanity from my point of view.

I really really don't care what versioning system you use, though. "Just sayin'".

[sag47]

Speaking of forms humans can understand, and this is really trivial to me, but

"Major versions almost never increment. <b>Minor</b> versions are incremented with each <b>major</b> release."

is approaching insanity from my point of view.

I really really don't care what versioning system you use, though. "Just sayin'".

Heh basically unstable bad, stable good *grunt like a monkey*.

I know it's a mouth full. That's the best explanation I was capable of coming up with. I'll attempt to revise it later so that it is better worded.

[B]

So Enchanted Keyfinder (EKeyfinder) is an alternative to Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder.

http://ekeyfinder.sourceforge.net/

Or one could say Enchanted Keyfinder (EKeyfinder) is a Magical Jellybean (no space) Keyfinder alternative or replacement.

Or else one might say that Enchanted Keyfinder (EKeyfinder) is a free, libre, and open source (FLOSS) version of the closed source Magical Jellybean.

So this is what being a piece of SEO scum feels like.

[B]

Hey Oliver, if you have an account at Lifehacker you might want to wander over. Some schmoes are still recommending Magical Jellybean, and getting other people infected!

http://lifehacker.com/5832896/download- ... our-system

(I rarely ever visit Lifehacker any more since the godawful Gawker browser-trapping redesign, but I was looking for something specific.)