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Can we please not have news about software that supports piracy and disrespects authors' rights on the front page? Why isn't this banned outright? I wonder how

by Asooka 8y ago

Can we please not have news about software that supports piracy and disrespects authors' rights on the front page? Why isn't this banned outright? I wonder how Stallman would feel if Apple were to take GCC's source, add support for e.g. Swift and keep it closed source while violating the GPL and then post blog posts about what great engineers they are.

staticassertion 8y ago
We also have posts about hackers and all sorts of shit. It's here because it's technically interesting. Projects like this are also critical - tons of media running on proprietary hardware/software will be lost without projects like this. Think about DOSBox, or even just Flashplayer games, or how rare an n64 is. All of the art produced on these platforms will be lost unless we build software to run it. Emulators are also, generally, ~5-10 years behind the consoles. At that point the consoles themselves are likely deprecated in favor of the next platform. PS3 has been out for 13 years. Do you really believe this code will negatively impact sales of games, when it's usable nearly 2 decades after release? *edit And a side note - I believe PCSX2 was the first program I ever compiled, as a teenager. It was at least some part of what interested me in computers - I wanted to know why some games were slow or fast, or what role the GPU played. Emulators are some of the coolest projects out there, I think, and posts about their implementation seem very fitting for HN.
- pedrocx486 8y ago
  > or how rare an n64 is I may be reading this completely wrong, but are you implying the N64 console is rare?
  - staticassertion 8y ago
    They're no longer manufactured, and therefor the numbers are only decreasing. A quick look at amazon prices one at ~100 dollars. What do you think that'll be in a decade? Certainly some games are already quite pricey as there are fewer and fewer copies out there (check out prices for SSBM).
unixhero 8y ago
To be banned by who? How would you ban a movement of hackers developing incredible engineering projects in their spare time?
Laforet 8y ago
Emulation has been legal in the US since the Sony vs. Bleem! case was decided. As long as they do a clean room reconstruction of the hardware's functionalities it remains legal. What you are aruging is essentially that clang is guilty for not using GPL because it also compiles code written for gcc. This is not how things work in OSS.
edoceo 8y ago
Taking Open->closed is loads different than taking closed->open. Clearly, Stallman likes only one of those two paths
drngdds 8y ago
Copyright holders (not synonymous with the authors, btw) don't actually have a right to be the sole distributors of a product for all of eternity. The law says they do, but it's a dumb law, and you don't have any moral obligation to follow dumb laws. But the authors of this emulator don't even support unauthorized downloading, as far as I know. You can easily play legally obtained games on RPCS3 by ripping them with an ordinary Blu-ray drive.
mumphster 8y ago
What about any of this is closed source? https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 >> The world's first free and open-source PlayStation 3 emulator/debugger, written in C++ for Windows and Linux.
wishinghand 8y ago
Point out the disrespect. I think Stallman would applaud software that allows freedom from locked down hardware.
rossy 8y ago
That's a poor analogy. It's an understandable mistake to make if you're not familiar with emulator development, but (most) emulators do not rely on stolen source code or other stolen proprietary secrets. They reverse engineer these secrets instead, which is completely legal (and, imo, morally and ethically valid.) I don't know what Stallman's view on video game emulators is, but I'd expect he'd be opposed to them, like how I'd expect he'd be opposed to the original game consoles because they enable the use of proprietary software, since almost all commercial video games are proprietary. However, Stallman is normally in favour of reverse engineering proprietary systems to allow interoperability with free systems, even when that runs the risk of enabling piracy: just see DeCSS/libdvdcss.
kuzehanka 8y ago
It's fascinating to see comments like this, indicating that the rights owners groups propaganda has been so effective in some segment of the population, that they actively advocate against their own interests and rights.

by Asooka 8y ago

staticassertion 8y ago

We also have posts about hackers and all sorts of shit. It's here because it's technically interesting. Projects like this are also critical - tons of media running on proprietary hardware/software will be lost without projects like this. Think about DOSBox, or even just Flashplayer games, or how rare an n64 is. All of the art produced on these platforms will be lost unless we build software to run it. Emulators are also, generally, ~5-10 years behind the consoles. At that point the consoles themselves are likely deprecated in favor of the next platform. PS3 has been out for 13 years. Do you really believe this code will negatively impact sales of games, when it's usable nearly 2 decades after release? *edit And a side note - I believe PCSX2 was the first program I ever compiled, as a teenager. It was at least some part of what interested me in computers - I wanted to know why some games were slow or fast, or what role the GPU played. Emulators are some of the coolest projects out there, I think, and posts about their implementation seem very fitting for HN.

pedrocx486 8y ago
> or how rare an n64 is I may be reading this completely wrong, but are you implying the N64 console is rare?
- staticassertion 8y ago
  They're no longer manufactured, and therefor the numbers are only decreasing. A quick look at amazon prices one at ~100 dollars. What do you think that'll be in a decade? Certainly some games are already quite pricey as there are fewer and fewer copies out there (check out prices for SSBM).

unixhero 8y ago

To be banned by who? How would you ban a movement of hackers developing incredible engineering projects in their spare time?

Laforet 8y ago

Emulation has been legal in the US since the Sony vs. Bleem! case was decided. As long as they do a clean room reconstruction of the hardware's functionalities it remains legal. What you are aruging is essentially that clang is guilty for not using GPL because it also compiles code written for gcc. This is not how things work in OSS.

edoceo 8y ago

Taking Open->closed is loads different than taking closed->open. Clearly, Stallman likes only one of those two paths

drngdds 8y ago

Copyright holders (not synonymous with the authors, btw) don't actually have a right to be the sole distributors of a product for all of eternity. The law says they do, but it's a dumb law, and you don't have any moral obligation to follow dumb laws. But the authors of this emulator don't even support unauthorized downloading, as far as I know. You can easily play legally obtained games on RPCS3 by ripping them with an ordinary Blu-ray drive.

mumphster 8y ago

What about any of this is closed source? https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 https://github.com/RPCS3/rpcs3 >> The world's first free and open-source PlayStation 3 emulator/debugger, written in C++ for Windows and Linux.

wishinghand 8y ago

Point out the disrespect. I think Stallman would applaud software that allows freedom from locked down hardware.

rossy 8y ago

That's a poor analogy. It's an understandable mistake to make if you're not familiar with emulator development, but (most) emulators do not rely on stolen source code or other stolen proprietary secrets. They reverse engineer these secrets instead, which is completely legal (and, imo, morally and ethically valid.) I don't know what Stallman's view on video game emulators is, but I'd expect he'd be opposed to them, like how I'd expect he'd be opposed to the original game consoles because they enable the use of proprietary software, since almost all commercial video games are proprietary. However, Stallman is normally in favour of reverse engineering proprietary systems to allow interoperability with free systems, even when that runs the risk of enabling piracy: just see DeCSS/libdvdcss.

kuzehanka 8y ago

It's fascinating to see comments like this, indicating that the rights owners groups propaganda has been so effective in some segment of the population, that they actively advocate against their own interests and rights.