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Best wishes, this is really neat. I hope it won't get slaughtered by Roblox's legal team. A potential use-case might be to create a Linux-native client. The one

Best wishes, this is really neat. I hope it won't get slaughtered by Roblox's legal team. A potential use-case might be to create a Linux-native client. The one used by most right now (Sober) is proprietary, after the previous (Vinegar) got shut down because of Linux haxxors.

Wowfunhappy 1y ago
> I hope it won't get slaughtered by Roblox's legal team. I'm not saying Roblox won't try, but this project strikes me as very obviously legal. If legality was a spectrum, I'd rank this higher than VLC Media Player (patents) and way above an NES emulator. I suppose it'd be below Android, and Oracle did sue over Android. (Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, etc.)
- 999900000999 1y ago
  Two factors are at play. This looks like it just reimplements a few Roblox APIs in an open source engine. It would of probably made more sense to just create a Roblox to Godot translator or something. Second, your poking a multi billion dollar bear. If this project ever takes off Roblox will take action, right or wrong that's enough to stop most small projects. You can be right, but you don't have millions to fight non stop lawsuits. In reality this is a cute proof of concept. It's never going to compete with the actual product. If it does Roblox will have it stopped in 72 hours
  - gjsman-1000 1y ago
    In practice, no society has ever overcome “might makes right.” Or, arguably, ever will. The good news though; it’s lawyers shutting down your project. Yesterday, it was hiring someone to break your knees.
    - DANmode 1y ago
      The Pirate Bay, SciHub. The Internet interprets censorship (legal, moral, or otherwise) as damage, and routes around it.
      - Muromec 1y ago
        The actual piracy also existed, until it wasnt
        zip8370 1y ago
        It still does https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_21st_century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_21st_century
      - kragen 1y ago
        No, that isn't how routing works on the internet. John was talking about Usenet. Usenet's routing does work that way.
        DANmode 1y ago
        That's how users work on the Internet. and anyway, I heard Usenet is dead ;]
        kragen 1y ago
        News at 11.
  - axus 1y ago
    The open source part is key. Plenty of online Pokemon and World of Warcraft clones out there, they can't seem to catch them all.
    - lukan 1y ago
      No need to. But anything too succesful should be ready to be brought down any moment.
      - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
        pokemon showdown is insanely and I mean insanely successful but it seems to have been almost blessed by the pokemon company. I genuinely don't know how its legal, when I shared the link to pokemon showdown to one of my friends, his first thoughts was, wait how is this legal? This is such a good thing, I wonder why this is free. Only for me to tell it its open source and bro was flabbergasted to say the least.
        deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
  - giancarlostoro 1y ago
    > It would of probably made more sense to just create a Roblox to Godot translator Its meant to be running live so you can play the many dynamic roblox games, I guess you could but it would be a mess.
- kartoffelsaft 1y ago
  Curious what makes you say it'd be less legally dubious than an emulator? To me, it seems this would be at the same legality as the NES emulator because you're basically 'emulating' the environment Roblox game code runs in. To be fair if that intuition's correct it'd still be legal like emulators are if they're careful. (also not a lawyer)
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - conradev 1y ago
    So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Emulators often require handling copyrighted materials like games or firmware, whereas APIs are not copyrightable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.#:~:text=So%20long%20as,are%20identical.%5B11%5D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America...
    - LocalH 1y ago
      The NES itself contains no code. Any NES emulator that ships with no software, or software under proper license (such as homebrew) is unambiguously legal. Does your PC, and the OS that drives it, suddenly become inherently illegal if you, as a user, installed pirated software? No, of course not.
      - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
        No firmware, no microcode? It's all completely hard-wired? (Genuine question, I've no idea what chips it uses or anything - was never rich enough to have a game console until I started work myself.)
        ronsor 1y ago
- jayd16 1y ago
  You don't need to be doing something wrong to get crushed by legal fees.
- LocalH 1y ago
  Emulators are unambiguously legal as long as the emulator author doesn't distribute copyrighted software without permission, and as long as no encryption is involved (recent action by Nintendo have made that bit a little unclear).
  - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
    In all jurisdictions? What are the principal pieces of caselaw?
    - hnlmorg 1y ago
      I don’t know of any country where emulation is illegal? Do you? As the GP pointed out, OEMs use copyright and encryption to protect against unapproved execution. But that doesn’t apply to all systems. Given countries like the UK and US have the strictest intellectual property and computer misuse laws, and emulation is legal there (bar the aforementioned caveats), I’d be surprised if there was a jurisdiction where emulation was illegal. However if you do know of somewhere then please do share.
      - Belopolye 1y ago
        To my knowledge emulation is illegal in Japan, as is modding consoles. Edit: I looked into it a bit more. As it is against the law to dump ROMs from games you have legally purchased, as well as acquiring them through other channels, there is no way to emulate games in Japan in a legal manner.
        MobiusHorizons 1y ago
        What about games that come on cd or dvd media? Some emulators can run directly from the disk without creating a rom.
        fallpeak 1y ago
        People still make games for old consoles occasionally as hobby projects, and those are usually released freely as ROM files. I'm not familiar with Japanese law, but in most countries that would constitute a fairly solid proof that there are legal uses to which an emulator can be applied and thus that emulation itself isn't inherently illegal.
- shortrounddev2 1y ago
  The supreme court ruled against oracle that an API cannot be copyrighted, but Roblox can still ban you for using an unofficial client (like discord does)
  - poly2it 1y ago
    For what it's worth, I don't think there is any known case of a Discord user being banned for using an unofficial client yet. https://vencord.dev/faq/#Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Vencord?-Will-plugin-X-get-me-banned https://vencord.dev/faq/#Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Vencord...?
    - a2128 1y ago
      There have been cases and a whole project was shut down because of it https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless?tab=readme-ov-file#i-am-closing-down-the-cordless-project https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless?tab=readme-ov-file#i... However this is an entirely different question. Whether or not an API is copyrightable, and whether you'd be in violation for recreating a proprietary API for the purpose of creating an (open-source) market alternative for their product, are entirely different questions to whether or not a specific private company has stopped serving specific customers due to use of software they do not authorize (which they are entirely in the right to do, legally)
  - kragen 1y ago
    No, they ruled that the copyright on the API was valid, but that Google's infringement of it fell within the bounds of fair use. This was an enormous setback for free software potentially opening the doors for things like lawsuits against WINE for having too much of an impact on the Microsoft Windows market.
    - dragonwriter 1y ago
      > No, they ruled that the copyright on the API was valid No, they didn't. They very specifically did not rule on whether the API was protected by Oracle's copyright on Java. > but that Google's infringement of it fell within the bounds of fair use. They found that, even if the API was protected, Google's use would be within the scope of fair use, and therefore it was not necessary to decide the question of the underlying copyright. Here is, in full, the opening paragraph of the decision: Oracle America, Inc., is the current owner of a copyright in Java SE, a computer program that uses the popular Java computer programming language. Google, without permission, has copied a portion of that program, a portion that enables a programmer to call up prewritten software that, together with the computer’s hardware, will carry out a large number of specific tasks. The lower courts have considered (1) whether Java SE’s owner could copyright the portion that Google copied, and (2) if so, whether Google’s copying nonetheless constituted a “fair use” of that material, thereby freeing Google from copyright liability. The Federal Circuit held in Oracle’s favor (i.e., that the portion is copyrightable and Google’s copying did not constitute a “fair use”). In reviewing that decision, we assume, for argument’s sake, that the material was copyrightable. But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google’s copying did not violate the copyright law.
- RealStickman_ 1y ago
  VLC is French, so the US law on software patents doesn't apply to it.
  - Wowfunhappy 1y ago
    I want to be very clear that I'm not saying either VLC or emulators are illegal. I'm just saying, to the extent that it's possible to make a strained case that something is illegal, TFA strikes me as being on even firmer footing.
bitwize 1y ago
I have a feeling projects like this rank higher on Roblox legal's priorities than does the rampant child predator activity on Roblox's platform.
- echelon 1y ago
  100%. Roblox will snuff this out immediately. You need to make custom servers. In fact, make a server that patched official clients can connect to. That's the correct order of operations.
- StMichael 1y ago
  You are wrong. Child predator activity is a priority for Roblox. Their corporate team has stated that if you investigate child predator activity, you will be banned immediately.[1][2] The virtual world called Second Life, considered similar to Roblox, also has a rampant child predator problem[3]. It is interesting because Second Life and Roblox are similar 3D worlds. Both experiences have a similar visual feel. Both experiences do very little KYC, resulting in a rampant alt problem. In fact, Second Life will begin using the same version of Lua used by Roblox, so in some ways they are even technologically-related 3D experiences. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox_Schlep_ban_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox_Schlep_ban_controversy [2] https://corp.roblox.com/newsroom/2025/08/more-on-removal-of-vigilantes-from-roblox https://corp.roblox.com/newsroom/2025/08/more-on-removal-of-... [3] https://archive.is/yjprF https://archive.is/yjprF (Feb 2024)

Wowfunhappy 1y ago

> I hope it won't get slaughtered by Roblox's legal team. I'm not saying Roblox won't try, but this project strikes me as very obviously legal. If legality was a spectrum, I'd rank this higher than VLC Media Player (patents) and way above an NES emulator. I suppose it'd be below Android, and Oracle did sue over Android. (Disclaimer, I am not a lawyer, etc.)

999900000999 1y ago
Two factors are at play. This looks like it just reimplements a few Roblox APIs in an open source engine. It would of probably made more sense to just create a Roblox to Godot translator or something. Second, your poking a multi billion dollar bear. If this project ever takes off Roblox will take action, right or wrong that's enough to stop most small projects. You can be right, but you don't have millions to fight non stop lawsuits. In reality this is a cute proof of concept. It's never going to compete with the actual product. If it does Roblox will have it stopped in 72 hours
- gjsman-1000 1y ago
  In practice, no society has ever overcome “might makes right.” Or, arguably, ever will. The good news though; it’s lawyers shutting down your project. Yesterday, it was hiring someone to break your knees.
  - DANmode 1y ago
    The Pirate Bay, SciHub. The Internet interprets censorship (legal, moral, or otherwise) as damage, and routes around it.
    - Muromec 1y ago
      The actual piracy also existed, until it wasnt
      - zip8370 1y ago
        It still does https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_21st_century https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_the_21st_century
    - kragen 1y ago
      No, that isn't how routing works on the internet. John was talking about Usenet. Usenet's routing does work that way.
      - DANmode 1y ago
        That's how users work on the Internet. and anyway, I heard Usenet is dead ;]
        kragen 1y ago
        News at 11.
- axus 1y ago
  The open source part is key. Plenty of online Pokemon and World of Warcraft clones out there, they can't seem to catch them all.
  - lukan 1y ago
    No need to. But anything too succesful should be ready to be brought down any moment.
    - Imustaskforhelp 1y ago
      pokemon showdown is insanely and I mean insanely successful but it seems to have been almost blessed by the pokemon company. I genuinely don't know how its legal, when I shared the link to pokemon showdown to one of my friends, his first thoughts was, wait how is this legal? This is such a good thing, I wonder why this is free. Only for me to tell it its open source and bro was flabbergasted to say the least.
      - deleted 1y ago
        [deleted]
- giancarlostoro 1y ago
  > It would of probably made more sense to just create a Roblox to Godot translator Its meant to be running live so you can play the many dynamic roblox games, I guess you could but it would be a mess.
kartoffelsaft 1y ago
Curious what makes you say it'd be less legally dubious than an emulator? To me, it seems this would be at the same legality as the NES emulator because you're basically 'emulating' the environment Roblox game code runs in. To be fair if that intuition's correct it'd still be legal like emulators are if they're careful. (also not a lawyer)
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- conradev 1y ago
  So long as the specific code used to implement a method is different, anyone is free under the Copyright Act to write his or her own code to carry out exactly the same function or specification of any methods used in the Java API. It does not matter that the declaration or method header lines are identical. Emulators often require handling copyrighted materials like games or firmware, whereas APIs are not copyrightable. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America,_Inc.#:~:text=So%20long%20as,are%20identical.%5B11%5D https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_LLC_v._Oracle_America...
  - LocalH 1y ago
    The NES itself contains no code. Any NES emulator that ships with no software, or software under proper license (such as homebrew) is unambiguously legal. Does your PC, and the OS that drives it, suddenly become inherently illegal if you, as a user, installed pirated software? No, of course not.
    - pbhjpbhj 1y ago
      No firmware, no microcode? It's all completely hard-wired? (Genuine question, I've no idea what chips it uses or anything - was never rich enough to have a game console until I started work myself.)
      - ronsor 1y ago
jayd16 1y ago
You don't need to be doing something wrong to get crushed by legal fees.
LocalH 1y ago
Emulators are unambiguously legal as long as the emulator author doesn't distribute copyrighted software without permission, and as long as no encryption is involved (recent action by Nintendo have made that bit a little unclear).
- pbhjpbhj 1y ago
  In all jurisdictions? What are the principal pieces of caselaw?
  - hnlmorg 1y ago
    I don’t know of any country where emulation is illegal? Do you? As the GP pointed out, OEMs use copyright and encryption to protect against unapproved execution. But that doesn’t apply to all systems. Given countries like the UK and US have the strictest intellectual property and computer misuse laws, and emulation is legal there (bar the aforementioned caveats), I’d be surprised if there was a jurisdiction where emulation was illegal. However if you do know of somewhere then please do share.
    - Belopolye 1y ago
      To my knowledge emulation is illegal in Japan, as is modding consoles. Edit: I looked into it a bit more. As it is against the law to dump ROMs from games you have legally purchased, as well as acquiring them through other channels, there is no way to emulate games in Japan in a legal manner.
      - MobiusHorizons 1y ago
        What about games that come on cd or dvd media? Some emulators can run directly from the disk without creating a rom.
      - fallpeak 1y ago
        People still make games for old consoles occasionally as hobby projects, and those are usually released freely as ROM files. I'm not familiar with Japanese law, but in most countries that would constitute a fairly solid proof that there are legal uses to which an emulator can be applied and thus that emulation itself isn't inherently illegal.
shortrounddev2 1y ago
The supreme court ruled against oracle that an API cannot be copyrighted, but Roblox can still ban you for using an unofficial client (like discord does)
- poly2it 1y ago
  For what it's worth, I don't think there is any known case of a Discord user being banned for using an unofficial client yet. https://vencord.dev/faq/#Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Vencord?-Will-plugin-X-get-me-banned https://vencord.dev/faq/#Will-I-get-banned-for-using-Vencord...?
  - a2128 1y ago
    There have been cases and a whole project was shut down because of it https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless?tab=readme-ov-file#i-am-closing-down-the-cordless-project https://github.com/Bios-Marcel/cordless?tab=readme-ov-file#i... However this is an entirely different question. Whether or not an API is copyrightable, and whether you'd be in violation for recreating a proprietary API for the purpose of creating an (open-source) market alternative for their product, are entirely different questions to whether or not a specific private company has stopped serving specific customers due to use of software they do not authorize (which they are entirely in the right to do, legally)
- kragen 1y ago
  No, they ruled that the copyright on the API was valid, but that Google's infringement of it fell within the bounds of fair use. This was an enormous setback for free software potentially opening the doors for things like lawsuits against WINE for having too much of an impact on the Microsoft Windows market.
  - dragonwriter 1y ago
    > No, they ruled that the copyright on the API was valid No, they didn't. They very specifically did not rule on whether the API was protected by Oracle's copyright on Java. > but that Google's infringement of it fell within the bounds of fair use. They found that, even if the API was protected, Google's use would be within the scope of fair use, and therefore it was not necessary to decide the question of the underlying copyright. Here is, in full, the opening paragraph of the decision: Oracle America, Inc., is the current owner of a copyright in Java SE, a computer program that uses the popular Java computer programming language. Google, without permission, has copied a portion of that program, a portion that enables a programmer to call up prewritten software that, together with the computer’s hardware, will carry out a large number of specific tasks. The lower courts have considered (1) whether Java SE’s owner could copyright the portion that Google copied, and (2) if so, whether Google’s copying nonetheless constituted a “fair use” of that material, thereby freeing Google from copyright liability. The Federal Circuit held in Oracle’s favor (i.e., that the portion is copyrightable and Google’s copying did not constitute a “fair use”). In reviewing that decision, we assume, for argument’s sake, that the material was copyrightable. But we hold that the copying here at issue nonetheless constituted a fair use. Hence, Google’s copying did not violate the copyright law.
RealStickman_ 1y ago
VLC is French, so the US law on software patents doesn't apply to it.
- Wowfunhappy 1y ago
  I want to be very clear that I'm not saying either VLC or emulators are illegal. I'm just saying, to the extent that it's possible to make a strained case that something is illegal, TFA strikes me as being on even firmer footing.

bitwize 1y ago

I have a feeling projects like this rank higher on Roblox legal's priorities than does the rampant child predator activity on Roblox's platform.

echelon 1y ago
100%. Roblox will snuff this out immediately. You need to make custom servers. In fact, make a server that patched official clients can connect to. That's the correct order of operations.
StMichael 1y ago
You are wrong. Child predator activity is a priority for Roblox. Their corporate team has stated that if you investigate child predator activity, you will be banned immediately.[1][2] The virtual world called Second Life, considered similar to Roblox, also has a rampant child predator problem[3]. It is interesting because Second Life and Roblox are similar 3D worlds. Both experiences have a similar visual feel. Both experiences do very little KYC, resulting in a rampant alt problem. In fact, Second Life will begin using the same version of Lua used by Roblox, so in some ways they are even technologically-related 3D experiences. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox_Schlep_ban_controversy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roblox_Schlep_ban_controversy [2] https://corp.roblox.com/newsroom/2025/08/more-on-removal-of-vigilantes-from-roblox https://corp.roblox.com/newsroom/2025/08/more-on-removal-of-... [3] https://archive.is/yjprF https://archive.is/yjprF (Feb 2024)