nightrnr wrote:Ziggy587 wrote:How does that compare to Hyperkin? Is Hyperkin suppose to be Ford?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_Licensed_Automobile_ManufacturersALAM was a greedy organization that chose who could make cars, who couldn't, and collected ridiculous royalties. When Ford was denied a license, he identified that ALAM was evil and reasoned that something should be done. Ford only wanted the automobile to be affordable for everyone, not just a select few.
Hyperkin, apparently, used emulators in their Retron5 that were freely available on the internet. If YOU spent countless hours coding something, with no intent of ever charging for it, only to have some company profit from it... wouldn't you be pissed? It's not at all the same as what Ford did.
So then, if they had every user download/install the emulators separately (not part of the purchase price), would there not be a problem?
If so, it seems like it would have been an easy issue to avoid.
That makes sense to keep everything legit. The Emulators were coded to be free and licensed as such. Though less Retrons would sale if this had happened, the system could simply be upgraded after a purchase with a system update full of EMUs downloaded to SD Card. A silly solution since the end result would be the same. It would be like buying a PC with just the operating system and downloading the free Emulators yourself.
Someone mentioned earlier that Hyperkin could claim the hardware is the price and as a bonus includes the freeware Emulators. Obviously the EMUs are a big portion of the selling point; the original authors really should be compensated to instill continual developement. Another can of worms is to find the original authors for compensation since many of the EMUs have so many coders over the years improving each revision.
Maybe this is why Hyperkin went ahead and released the console, knowing it would be difficult to prove in court who owns the Emulators?
@ Ziggy - That was an interesting article concerning the Automobile patent. Not sure if it fully corelates since both car entities were seeking a profit versus the Hyperkin situation.
However, good thing Ford prevailed, imagine if that Electric Car took precedance back in the 1900s? Maybe the electric car would have gained a foothold in the beginning since ALL automobile manufacturers would have to pay a license fee back to the Electric Car Company. A reverse situation happened many decades later (
Who Killed The Electric Car), sadly this time the oil industry and big three car manufacturers prevented consumer choice of a non gas powered vehicle back in the 1990s. I really would like to have owned one of those EVOs with the woosh low volume jet sound. Fortunately we now have the electric transport option today, though still expensive.
