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Funnily enough the Retron5 is illegal. Not because it emulates games, but because the emulators it uses are stolen from open source projects that forbid commerc
by jsheard 9y ago
Funnily enough the Retron5 is illegal. Not because it emulates games, but because the emulators it uses are stolen from open source projects that forbid commercial use.
https://www.libretro.com/index.php/appeal-to-game-journalists-about-retro-bit-and-about-the-new-retro-emulation-industry-in-general/ https://www.libretro.com/index.php/appeal-to-game-journalist...
- astura 9y agoWow, I didn't know that. I don't know much about the product other than it's pretty mainstream so I assumed they played by the rules.
- Karunamon 9y agoAren’t open source licenses that forbid commercial use kind of rare? All of the big name ones I can think of have no such provisions.
- jsheard 9y agoIt's more common in the emulation scene. The two emulators that Retron5 infringes on have licenses roughly based on MIT/BSD, but with no-commercial-use clauses added. https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x/blob/master/docs/snes9x-license.txt https://github.com/snes9xgit/snes9x/blob/master/docs/snes9x-... https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/blob/master/LICENSE.txt https://github.com/ekeeke/Genesis-Plus-GX/blob/master/LICENS...
- rossy 9y ago> Aren’t open source licenses that forbid commercial use kind of rare? In fact, they're so rare, they don't exist. The OSI Open Source Definition forbids discrimination against fields of endeavour, which means a licence with a non-commercial-use clause is not an open source licence. This really bugs me about Genesis Plus GX. It's a great emulator, but I believe FOSS emulation is the best way to ensure preservation of a gaming platform and Genesis Plus GX technically doesn't fit the bill. So, I'm keeping my eyes out for other Genesis emulators to use. BlastEm looks promising (GPLv3.)