IamA Andrew Sampson, 20 year old developer who scared the music industry with my app Aurous and got sued for a couple million dollars, now I'm back to creating Free and open-source software AMA!

How did you come to start coding at a younger age than most? All of my colleagues that started in their early years all have stories like "Dad won a raffle for an IBM PC II" or "Mom had a machine for Lotus 1-2-3 that I'd use in the middle of the night". For someone born in the mid-90's how did your path to programming kick off?

Poor, spent almost every day at the public library, got interested in it because of bot/macros for Runescape. Rest is history.

Ah, yes. The good ol' American "rags-to-sued-for-millions" story...always heart warming.

The American dream is alive and in jail!

DUDE I AM SO EXCITED TO READ THIS. Literally the same exact story as you, the library, the runescape, everything. graduating this semester from a shitty school to work at Google

RUNESCAPE REPRESENT

My first programming experience was SCAR, then I got into private servers, then I got into rsbot which turned into powerbot, and kbot which got sued out. I definitely wrote some random events for rsbot among tons of scripts. My username was mike_ or ThatOneServer, although it seems like you ducked out as I got in.

The worst thing I ever made was a chatbot that responded when people asked shit like "wc lvl?". I am 99% sure that mine was the first, and then lots of people started making them and they were all AWFUL. I could go up to draynor willows and type "wc lvl?" and half of people respond with the couple of canned responses I hardcoded.

The one thing I miss is how much of a great community there was there. You create a script, and you get hundreds and hundreds of replies of feedback and thanks.

I remember you! I ran http://codeusa.net/ but damn in the early days you couldn't not see ThatOneServer on mopar.

The RSPS community is shit now, its nothing but money hungry people and no one has really embraced open source outside of a few.

got interested in it because of bot/macros for Runescape

PowerBot? RSBot?

^{EDIT: I'd forgotten that RSBot was the original project name}

We're talking 2005-2006, so SCAR, Aryan.

What would you buy? The Oculus Rift or HTC Vive?

Already pre-ordered my Vive. Words can't describe my disappointment with the Rift.

So heres a photo

Why are you disappointed with the Rift? What makes the Vive a better choice in your eyes?

Well to start, I can actually see out of the Vive, no matter what lens I used for the rift or how i adjusted it physically or in the software, it was always a blurry to some degree.

With the Vive its clear as day, I also like the fact the Vive has full 360 tracking and the way HTC/Valve are taking it in terms of open source and not locking it down, unlike the Rift. By far my favorite thing about the Vive though is the fact it comes with the motion controls and Lighthouse is so much more responsive.

However I early adopt hardware because I'm a developer, I have ideas I want to see come to life. For your average consumer I say wait another 6 months, prices will be cheaper and you'll probably see some new upgrades.

Hey Andrew! Speaking of Open, not sure if you've heard about OSVR - Open Source Virtual Reality, and we want to create an open ecosystem for VR. I saw that you mentioned creating free and open source software, and I was wondering if you'd like to join our community in the efforts to push VR further. Drop me a reddit pm if you're interested!

So. Down.

Have you used the CV1 Rift or the DK2?

I have the DK2. used the CV1

Where can I get Steam Cleaner? Unsurprisingly, googling several varients of "Steam Cleaner" leads me to things other than software or dead links. I know you've had a bit of trouble with someone DMCA'ing your stuff or something - has that been resolved yet?

I've got a 1.5 TB drive that's like 80% dedicated to Steam games and I suspect that I'm losing a lot of space to junk leftover by Steam.

Here you go

Contrary to the name, it also cleans Origin, Steam, Uplay, Battle.net, GoG and Nexon and custom folders you set.

Neat, thanks! Is this going to be making its way back to Steam's Software catalog eventually?

Edit: It cleaned up a neat 11 gigs of space for me. Very neat.

It's currently on #2 on Greenlights software category

So hoping for a greenlight any day now.

Does this application do things that say, an application like CCleaner does not do?

This is meant to be a really lightweight, click and go program. CCleaner has a lot more features, but none of them targeted specifically towards cleaning up game clients. This is something portable an requires no setup.

I was at a LAN event for a CSGO tournament and they had about 120gb of garbage on the HDD, I downloaded Steam Cleaner off github, ran it, freed up all the space I needed to install Killing floor while we waited for the event to start.

why dont more open source developers who dont want to make profits release their work anonymously over a tor website? that would avoid lots of lawsuits and shut down software.

The biggest issue really is that while open source is great and a lot of people enjoy doing it; it doesn't always pay the bills. If you don't have a sponsor for your project or companies giving you royalties or paying for support, you kind of have to put your face to the project in the hopes it lands you a decent job. I've spent thousands of dollars on projects that never made me a single cent- the other end of the spectrum is some people will say they "love open source" but when you ask them to contribute to a project, they want to get paid. This is a common issue when trying to get a decent UX/UI designer to help with a FOSS project. There is a joke, how do you know a project is free and open source? It's ugly.

Are you working on anything that needs UI/UX work done? Let's talk.

Possibly, shoot me a PM with your email and a portfolio of some of your work.

This is a common issue when trying to get a decent UX/UI designer to help with a FOSS project. There is a joke, how do you know a project is free and open source? It's ugly.

Is this really true? I'm a pretty competent UI designer, but unfortunatly I know only HTML/CSS/JSript and BASIC.

I like nothing more than to analyze every aspect of a UI, categorizing things, figuring out the fundamental logic behind it, and how the average user will want to use it, and then complain to programmers about why the <Back> button doesn't work the way it should. And I also love designing pretty interfaces, and coming up with better names for software (for instance, GIMP should be renamed Imagen).

And I'm absolutely happy to work for free too. Where do I sign up? At the very least, how can I beta test your software and complain to you about it (constructively, of course)?

Shoot me a PM with your email and a portfolio of some of your work, I always love hearing feedback on what can be done better.

What are your thoughts on the lack of questions in this AMA?

Well I'm curious if I get a consolation prize for trying.

Hello Andrew,

I guess you must have a lot of ideas and projects going on. How do go about choosing what to work on? And if you where not a developer what do you think you would do instead?

When choosing a project I put myself in a users shoes, I like to create things that make something easier, or at the minimum, better. I also have to balance them out; at any time I'm working on 6 to 7 projects, sometimes some of them even up becoming one single project, working on multiple projects at once helps keep creativity fresh and I can transfer ideas from one project to another if it helps it.

I'd probably go to law school if I stopped being a developer.

Thank you for your well put answer. I know I already asked two questions already but if you don't mind, I'll ask another:

It there a company/project/person that you would like to work for or with?

Person wise, I'd actually love to be Kanye West in-house developer, he already has two I know of.

Outside of that, I'd enjoy working with anyone who is awesome at what they do, I enjoy learning from others.

I'd probably go to law school if I stopped being a developer.

Interesting. I've always said that if I wasn't a developer, I would be something similar, such as a lawyer or a philosopher.

I'd probably focus on IP law, mostly to offer free/discounted legal services to tech startups who are working on awesome stuff thats bound to get copyright trolls slowing them down.

Have you heard of OpenBazaar? Have you thought about incorporating bitcoin in new open-source projects? ex: xbox betting platform, where $0.10 can be bet per match, and participants are rewarded automatically upon the completion

OpenBazaar

I haven't heard of it no, but I actually created an unofficial client for Salty Bets that let you bet actual BTC; never got around to finishing it entirely.

I followed your link and I am really liking Ulterious. When do you think you'll have a stable version up for download?

Also, its your baby so do with this information what you will, I use a program called Rainmeter which sticks widgets to my desktop. I am running a few widgets which basically do what your program will: browse files, open programs, see tasks running, etc. Just a thought, but if you could somehow stick your program to the desktop you would remove A LOT of visually unpleasant crowdedness (and that's something I and others wouldn't mind dropping a couple of bucks for)

We are looking to have a stable version by the end of the month, probably sooner once my partner on the project gets back home.

So Ulterius is a bit different; its a program you run on your computer/htpc/windows server. After its been ran, you can now access your computer from any web browser on any device. So you can browse, download or upload files to and from your computer, kill programs, start programs, (basically task manager) monitor system resources like disk space, cpu/gpu heat, cpu usage, you can stream any webcam you have plugged in onto the page so you turn any cheap usb camera into a security camera. Get detailed info on your hardware/network (like whos connected to your wifi, how many devices can you access)

The neatest part to me personally is that you can do command prompt/powershell all from your browser, and if for some reason you still need to actually remote into the computer and control it. It lets you do that too, no extra software needed. Everything done right from your browser. Of course you can even use it locally just as an all in one control panel.

And since it has plugin support, other developers can extend it to add even more features.

This sounds very useful for my arcade machine computer, which is a pain to access physically (move the cabinet, grab a keyboard and mouse, etc).

Made it primarily for my HTPC so I didn't have to grab a keyboard and mouse every time the thing locked up.

What kind of security does it utilise? Reading that reminds me of my days playing around with BackOrifice and NetBus back in the late 90's :)

WSS, account authorization, AES encrypted packets, API keys which can be revoked if needed and working on session keys.

Since this is bound to be asked eventually, might as well be me.

How would you suggest that I find out if coding is for me?

What are some resources that helped you learn?

Read this

If after you still feel determined, learn a forgiving simple language like C#. Just the basics, and try to make basic stuff that YOU need. If you can manage it, coding is for you.

How's your day going?

It's going great, how about you?

What does ulterius do? The github mobile page didn't have much info.

Its currently WIP, here is the gist from my other comment

its a program you run on your computer/htpc/windows server. After its been ran, you can now access your computer from any web browser on any device. So you can browse, download or upload files to and from your computer, kill programs, start programs, (basically task manager) monitor system resources like disk space, cpu/gpu heat, cpu usage, you can stream any webcam you have plugged in onto the page so you turn any cheap usb camera into a security camera. Get detailed info on your hardware/network (like whos connected to your wifi, how many devices can you access) The neatest part to me personally is that you can do command prompt/powershell all from your browser, and if for some reason you still need to actually remote into the computer and control it. It lets you do that too, no extra software needed. Everything done right from your browser. Of course you can even use it locally just as an all in one control panel. And since it has plugin support, other developers can extend it to add even more features.

How do you handle security? That sounds like a nightmare.

3 different levels of authentication, first you have to actually successfully validate your windows account before your client is allowed to do anything, secondly all calls need the servers API key which only the person setting it up can get, finally everything is encrypted over WSS and AES.

So even if someone knew your windows password, without the api key, they can't use the client; also planning 2 factor integration.

Plugins are ran in their own sandbox and require android like permissions to do anything, so if a plugin even wants to connect to the net, write a file, read a file, you have to approve it.

I don't want to be mean, but that description above would fit very nicely a powerful trojan.

A very useful trojan.

Hiya! I'm a student in university considering picking up coding as a hobby and potential other skill for job prospects.

I'm considering starting in Python or Ruby. Which one do you prefer? Thanks!

Python. However just saying that I can hear an army of rails coming for me.

Hey thanks for doing this! I'm a programmer too and I'm older than you with much less on my resume. What would you say you do that less successful coders don't? Any tips for being more prolific? Did you go to school for comp sci?

Don't be afraid to put yourself out there. Before I got over social anxiety, about everything I made was never seen. Once you start engaging with your users that makes a positive impact; if you make something cool one weekend, blog about it, share your ideas on creating better software and of course call out bullshit whenever you see it. Teach people the little tricks you use to make development easier. Most importantly set your mind to a goal and finish it. Doesn't matter if it takes a week, month or year. Just finish it.

I'm actually a high school "dropout" (is it dropping out if you just stopped going)

Do you have a full time job? If you do, when do you find the time? If you don't, do your open source projects give back enough to support you?

As a C# dev myself, and having a full time job, I find it difficult during a regular week to code my own stuff (and I want to...) but time is limited.

Thanks for your time.

I have a fulltime job, I usually work on my projects during downtime or after finishing up a project at work. I don't make too much from open source, I develop pretty quickly so I tend to be able to balance it all pretty well. The magic of adderall I suppose. I found it helps to make list on a physical white board or paper. Do all the task you need to do for a day and take a couple hours for yourself.

Also not sleeping seems to allow for more time.

Could you explain how you manage "not sleeping"?

Usually between 7pm-9pm is my bedtime, after that I'm up until 7pm the next day. Unless I'm actually being social, then I sleep like a normal person.

Might want to make sure you're not riding the good waves of bipolarity there. Sustainable pace and all. 2/24h sleep is non-negligible levels of harmful, regardless of what lets you achieve it.

Sunday I rest.

Thanks for the time, sorry about Aurous- it sounds like it was cool.

Two questions for you : Is there a version of Aurous that exists purely as a traditional media player (no pull service) around (or is that a no-no due to legality?)? Can you tell me more about what Project Dreamland is/does?

Best music player you can use is foobar2000

Or if you pay for streaming services, Tomahawk is awesome

Project Dreamland is a full mod/patch for the game Area 51 that restores its multiplayer and fixes a ton of bugs (security and gameplay wise), the game was made by Midway Austin (who have now shutdown) and Area 51 was released as freeware.

Because I had to emulate the gamespy protocol to get it working again, I am now extending it into other games that were powered by gamespy and using the tech I'm writing for Area 51 to fix the multiplayer and bring dedicated server support to games that were once traditionally P2P. Also since a lot of these games don't have anti-cheats at all, that is also a planned addition.

Of course credit where credit is due, I would have made much slower progress without the documentation of Luigi Auriemma and Karl-Martin

The world needs more people like you, keep being awesome. What is your stance / opinion on the current copyright system and piracy laws? Fair/unfair, can it / should it be changed?

It's terrible. The current situation with YouTube is a prime example, it allows people with a lot of money to control every aspect of creators lives. Until copyright in america gets a major overhaul, you'll see less and less innovation.

are you rich?

Are you?

Hey Andrew. Thanks for the AMA! I'm curious how did you learn to code and if you had to learn from scratch how would you go about doing it? Your projects are awesome and I have ideas of my own but am an analyst who only knows how to code analytics. I want to start learning how to develop my own software programs but I don't know where to start. Any advice?

Well personally I started out by going to the public library pretty much every day, reading the god awful early java docs, copying and pasting really bad code from really bad tutorials and piecing it all together. Eventually stuff just comes easier, you learn better ways to structure your code, I mean you're always learning, languages update and you have to learn whats new.

Lucky for you, you don't have to suffer through that! I know I keep mentioning, but if you're looking to pickup and easy, forgivable language, go ahead and start learning c#.

Microsoft has some pretty decent starting points

Why anonymous VPN bad? Does it make computer hurty?

I'm not too good with computer.

To add some more questions; what was it like getting sued? Did you feel stressed or were you expecting it at some point (perhaps not as soon).

Good luck with your future projects.

It's stressful, I put a lot of work and time into that project, so you can imagine how it feels having to basically throw it away. I expected maybe some phone calls at first, considering it was an early alpha I didn't expect it to get so popular so fast; so I can see why they sued very quickly. From many perspectives, including the EFF what the software did was completely justified. But a lot of mistakes were made, friendships lost and a very heavy depression. But slowly coming back to reality and getting back into the spirit of things.

Hi Andrew, I guess I don't have a question specifically about software that you have developed, but rather my questions is just on the subject of programming. Some minor background about myself: I am a freshman on college studying as a Comp Sci major and really struggling in my C++ class. what do you feel is the best way for a more novice programmer, such as myself, to start learning a new language and to become more proficient at it?

C++ is everyone's first hump, when working with languages like C++ it can seem a bit intimidating; I always suggest people having an issue with C++ write their assignment in a different language, see how it flows there, then go back to C++ and attempt to do it again.

Easiest way to learn to code is always to create little applications for yourself. For instance, Microsoft shipped me a Intel Galileo, I decided I wanted a new clock for my living room as well, so I programmed a clock that changed colors depending on the time of day; then I put it on my wall. Projects like that don't take too long and teach you new stuff every time.

Where do you stand politically?

Conservative in the streets, liberal in the bed.

To kind of expand, I hate PC culture, I'm all for higher taxes, I like my guns, I think what people do in the privacy of their own home is of no concern to me, what people do with their bodies is their choice, drugs should be legal and we should vote Kanye for president.

I found the Libertarian!

WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?!

These David and Goliath type stories always remind me of Aaron Swartz. (RIP) If you give away the stuff that big companies are profiting on the sale of then you are going to continue to be met with crippling lawsuits. Are you creating all of these programs just because you can or are you intentionally trying to send a message?

Little bit of both.

Hey, I'm a fairly green developer currently going through the job search grind, and I'm looking for a Foss project to contribute to.

Do you have any good suggestions, or just things you want help with?

If you want something to get your hands dirty with

What do you think about the newest fork of popcorntime.sh? Will you release the source code for aurous and do you think there is a way for a popcorn time browser or something simular to work? Edit: After reading some more comments I thought of another question: can I use a mac time machine hard drive for steam? I have no storage on my computers hard drive?

popcorntime.sh

I don't think much of it, I only trusted the .io team because I know them, whenever new forks of anything popup I'm suspicious, you can check out my security tear down of Torrents-time here

AKA why you should always take caution

As a beginner at C, can you throw in book/website recommendations that is really helpful for someone just learning programming?

You said you are a high school drop out. What was the reason for you to leave/not complete it? Thinking if you one day want to go to college, wouldn't you need to go back to high school and finish that first?

Thanks for the AMA! Creating so much at the age of 20 is motivational.

Apprenticeship Patterns is pretty good to understand C

I dropped out because I was bored, I'd go 2 days out of the week, only more if I had a final or test which I passed. I think my wakeup (no pun intended) was when I was laying my head down in class and a student asked "Why does he get to sleep" and the teacher replied "Because hes the only one that consistently gets an A while sleeping"

I finished freshman year, never got re enrolled, got my GED, and just started working. If I wanted to go back to college I'd just have to enroll.

Hey Andrew, Project Dreamland sounds quite interesting. Are you planning to revive old multiplayer games that are requested? There is a large following of people who would love to play SOCOM 1 and SOCOM 2 online for the PS2 again.

SOCOM 1 and 2 are actually what I'm releasing next.

Do you have any projects you want to work on but don't have the time/resources right now to get started?

Literally can't touch it

I don't know if this question was already asked or answered, but what was the craziest offer you had for your software? If you had one in the first place of course, or was it simply just "got sued, didn't get anything off it".

Couple million, so close, yet so far.

You got an offer for two million dollars? What happened? What was it like? If you don't mind explaining a little bit more I'm really interested in that

A lot of talk, a lot of push and pull from the people offering and in the end it fell through.

What drew you to open-source originally?

I just enjoyed creating, I never saw programming as a way to make money when I started taking it really seriously. I wanted people to be able to enjoy what I created without worrying about paying for it, I also wanted to create as many open source alternatives to closed source software as I could to give people a choice.

As a steam user I have followed you for a while, as a torrentfreak regular I have followed your case since Day 1. I have a few questions about the whole thing, but I understand if you can't answer them.

1. Early on the reports were that you were going to fight it. Was it that you guys believed what you were doing was legal, or we're you fighting it on principal and trying to send a message?

2. From my understanding, one of the pros of Aurous was that it was going to be P2P sharing, yet the Alpha grabbed the audio from MP3 websites. Do you think it affected the case in anyway? Had it been using P2P 100% from the start do you think things maybe have turned out differently?

3. Near I the end (IIRC) you guys offered to shutdown but the RIAA wanted none of it. A lot of commenters at torrentfreak felt you might have been pushing the envelope a little too far for too a little long by continuing to fight, releasing source code, and reopening Strike. How do you feel about that sentiment? If you could do things over again, would you?

Sorry for all the case related questions, it is a subject that is very personal to me. Like I said, I get you may not be able to answer these, I understand. Either way thanks for your contributions to the community and I look forward to your future work.

1. Was fighting not only to protect my hard work, but to try to make sure a president couldn't be outright set that if you utilize apis you're liable.
2. Not really. Probably would have ended up the same.
3. Ego and pride are awful.

Hey, thanks for taking the time to do an AMA. You sound like a busy guy, so I appreciate it!

What do you think is best to start learning first if I want to begin to learn coding, and are there any resources online that you personally recommend for a beginner? It's something that's interested me for quite some time and now i'll be graduating very soon and finally have some time to dedicate to it.

Also, it's gotta be said that I love Steam Cleaner! Thanks in advance!

Whats best is going to depend entirely on how much trial and error you can deal with starting off. Languages like Python will beat you up a bit for doing things wrong, languages like Java and C# are forgiving in that aspect so you can learn basics and improve later.

What does it take to become a developer at 20 years old?

I started pretty early, you're never too old to start, just put your head to books and bang out the ideas that come to mind

Thoughts about Strike?

It was alright, API code is a disaster, at least I have the title of prettiest torrent search engine ever.

Finishing up my Junior year of CS. What kind of projects do you find you have the most fun with? Do you like your full time job as much as your oss work? Why or why not?

I enjoy working full time, I work at a really awesome startup right now doing cool things and been there so long everyone is pretty much a friend for life. Great being able to work closely with really talented people on a daily basis.

What is your opinion on open source software - and why do you feel it's important to develop apps for free in such a fast paced, money-laced society?

There should always be a free, better or at least comparable alternative to paid software. Helps even things out

What type of knowledge and background/education enables you to create software ?

You have to be really good at problem solving. Also punching bags.

what are some good reads to improve as a developer?

Apprenticeship Patterns - must read

Do you plan to do a future AMA when you're not promoting anything?

Yeah, 21 year old developer here, I can drink now, AMA!

Could you explain Project Dreamland a little bit further? Is it just for one game? How will it/does it work?

This should explain it

Oh hi! Did you know that musicians need money for food shelter clothing etc?

Yeah, it's why I integrated bit tipping and when streaming from sites like YouTube the ads would still be counted. Most of the content was copy-left.

Thanks for taking the time to do an AMA!

In your answer to another question you mentioned that you have a full-time job and work on your own projects in your spare time. Does that mean that you primarily work alone? Have you worked on any open-source projects as part of a team, and if so which did you prefer and why? Have you ever thought about (or actually succeeded in) monetizing any of your projects?

It's my pleasure!

I've always tended to be a bit of a lone wolf developer, however lately I've started working with people I'm proud to call friends and partners on some of my newer projects - as well as theirs.

The only project of mine officially monetized at the moment that is open source is Borderless-Gaming my other project Steam Cleaner is also open source and bound to be on Steam any day now.

I would like to take this time to list some very talented people I've had the pleasure of meeting over the last year and working with

https://twitter.com/frobthebuilder

https://twitter.com/luigiplr

https://twitter.com/matbeeDOTcom

https://twitter.com/ksaredfx

https://twitter.com/js41637

https://twitter.com/schizoduckie

Each one genius in their own way.

Thanks for the great response!

If you don't mind my following up: How did you end up connecting with those friends and partners?

We were all doing similar stuff, so naturally we all came together.Now we have our cool kids club.

The guys who made The Forest say they have never heard of you. What did you actually do in that project?

Odd seeing how I had a lot of talks with Anna and others before coming on, I created a mod that helped improve the performance of the game, I contracted with them for a little bit to help optimize the game and start on mod support. (You can thank me for the actual progress bar on loading)

Actually still have my build with mod support funny enough

Technical limitations of the alpha meant I couldn't implement mod support until after multiplayer was finished, so I basically just left at that point and didn't really keep in touch.

One of these days I will probably end up extending the game to do it (through a unofficial patch); currently building a nice plugin system for C# that would be perfect for games based on Unity so time ages all things well.