Tonymac mod stole my EFI once again passing it off as his own...

[zearp]

A while ago I noticed a mod on the Tonymac forum used my OpenCore 0.6.9 EFI and passed it off as his own. I knew because I had added a custom entry to the config file that also existed in his. No credit was given and no link was posted to this repo.

Today I checked a new thread about the 7020/9020 on Tonymac and to my surprise the same mod still uses my EFI and passing it off as his own.

This time I could tell because I have added something in the ACPI patches. I've added ZARP on the first line in each patch and those also exist in the version posted on Tonymac.

I know there is nothing I can do about it. I signed up for that forum once and got banned swiftly and my posts were removed for calling them out. So I just post about it here so people can learn the truth.

Just open any of the ACPI patches from my repo in MaciASL and compare them to the ACPI patches found in the OpenCore 0.8.0 archive posted on Tonymac. They're identical including my modification to find and proof this kind of thievery.

I also noticed many posts on Tonyman linking to my repo are removed. I can tell because GitHub stores the referring link to the post that contained the url of the repo. When I click on them the posts are missing, removed by the mods.

Tonymac is not only bad because they promote shitty closed source tools and insert Amazon/Newegg referrals to any link posted to those sites (also in user posts) but at the same time forbids their users from using referrals themselves. They're also a bunch of thieves. I wouldn't be surprised if all of their so called "golden builds" are stolen from Github and other places.

Anyone can verify my claims by downloading the 2 EFI's hosted by Tonymac and comparing the config and ACPI patches to the ones on the repo.

0.6.9 EFI with my custom Dell block (that I've removed in later releases): https://www.tonymacx86.com/attachments/0-6-9-oc-efi-zip.520341/
0.8.0 EFI with my custom ACPI patches: https://www.tonymacx86.com/attachments/oc-0-8-0-macmini-7-1-w-gui-efi-zip.548020/

The chances that the mod in question has made their own ACPI patches and then manually changed the fist line to include a short version of my nickname are very slim. But who knows lol.

I have no problems with people using this repo as base for their EFI and build upon it, but at least give some credit where its due.

[kazuh99]

Wow. I didn’t realise. This is bad. I always wondered about the overlap in the content/info around the 7020/9020 build but this totally makes sense now. Thank you for sharing and letting us know the truth👍🏼

[zearp]

The bad part for me is that it is moderator thats passing it off as his own work. He even goes on about him doing research and what not. His research consists of stealing other people's work.

I spend a lot of time nearly 2 years ago figuring out many things to get a super stable and smooth macOS experience including fixing all the sleep issues, enabling XHCI handoff, some BIOS mods including NVMe booting and lots of other stuff.

It was very educational and a lot of fun to take apart the BIOS and find the UEFI settings and share them. I want others to use it. If a normal user would repost my EFI somewhere I wouldn't care much but this is a moderator of one of the biggest forums for hackintosh which makes it difficult to ignore. They should be better and not steal stuff.

In a way it is telling that he didn't edit the ACPI patches and likely did not even verified if the patches were correct. If he would've checked them he should've noticed my name. I'm curious if he's gonna edit the ACPI patches and remove my name now 🤔

[kazuh99]

The truth is out now. I appreciate your efforts. The world is full of people who don’t value integrity. Don’t let that change who you are. Keep doing what you do. You are helping many people benefit from your work!

[zearp]

Haha, not even 24 hours later and he as changed the EFI and removed my name from the patches.

I was the first to download the updated file. Stil no credit, or an apology for blatantly stealing this EFI but I'll have comfort in knowing this moderator is a clueless noob pretending to know his shit. What a sad person he must be.

[GCPDetective]

I remember my posts linking to your original Reddit post and this GitHub getting removed from there as well back when you first started this project lol. Even posts just mentioning you and your method without links were removed. Haven't been to their site since. Screw those guys.

[zearp]

I must have missed this one, and so did the Tonymac moderator. If you open one of the acpi patches inside that EFI in MaciASL you will see my account name lmao. Kind of sad this moderator is just taking my work and passes it off as his own when he's not too busy posting advertisements with affiliate links that is.

https://www.tonymacx86.com/threads/the-dell-optimac-big-sur-opencore-thread-for-7020-9020-optiplex-desktops.302383/page-57#post-2311827