Hyperkin’s Retron5 License Violations :P

[fuctfuct]

http://www.libretro.com/index.php/retro ... iolations/

http://www.libretro.com/index.php/hyper ... -problems/



EDIT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ChhWQgZaSc

[Tanooki]

I know this probably will start a fight but.... so?

Let them sort it out, whoever got one of them so far shouldn't care if it does what they wanted in putting down the money for it. It's just crooks robbing crooks between source using potentially stolen information to code emulators to the GPL junk and the rest.

[fuctfuct]

Jesse James • 7 days ago
More than Hyperkin not giving a fuck to open-source software licenses (which was expectable honestly), I'm quite shocked by the amount of people trying to found them excuses or saying they don't care because emulator authors are thief that got what they deserve.

Not only this is being totally ignorant about what writing an emulator means and that emulators by themselves generally do not break any copyright law, this also shows how much selfish and hypocrites a lot of retrogaming fans and collectors are. The same "purists" who used to say they can not play on emulators because they want authenticity are now defending and praising a box with stolen emulators just because it let them play with their precious cartridges, and are pissing on emulator developers when those just want to defend their own work.

Lastly, from the "moral" point of view, I find unbelievable that those people are more inclined to defend a company with such shady business practices, whose only goal is obviously to make the most money out of the "retrogaming" and "collecting" community, instead of supporting amateur developers, who literally spent years working on an emulator and contributing to the whole community by sharing their code, without EVER asking for anything in return.

Those people need to wake up, Hyperkin is a shady company and is only seeing us as fools with money:

1) they lied on purpose by saying initially this was not using emulation, although it was quickly proven they were actually dumping the cartridge and using the dumped ROM with emulators

2) they delivered an half-finished product and relied on firmware updates to rush their already delayed release date

3) they admitted using emulators but said they were all written by them, and that open-source emulators were just used as a "source of informations".

4) it is now confirmed they have voluntarily and drastically reduced their development cost by using existing open-source or non-commercial emulators without respecting their license, yet increasing the retail price of their product from $99 to $149, when the cheap cardridge dumper and GUI interfacing with emulators (coded freely by others) maybe represents only 10% of the software being sold here.

I do not have much hope honestly but I wish these companies would be taught a lesson some day, that the "community" will not been a fool foronce and that Hyperkin case could serve as an example. Tommo did the same thing with their portable "Neo Geo" which used an illegal copy of Final Burn Alpha and people reacted the same (both sides) but nothing happened to the company, let's hope history does not repeat itself again.

[Tanooki]

I'm kind of curious what the point of that is exactly? My point was that being preachy about it isn't going to get most people to care, that's it. For the average person seeing it on a shelf or a retail website, they'll say cool (or not) and buy it (or not) based on what the box and description says, that's it. It's like those EULAs on video game consoles and OS's no one reads other than to skim beyond it to hit OK to use the stuff.

Look back when I was under another name in a warezy period long ago I had buddied up to the original author of VBA and he was stuck with tech demos and not much else happening as he had known what the main chips by public specs go, but failed to figure out more than that. I had given to me the tech docs for the GBC and GBA off Nintendo's warioworld.com developer website and forwarded him the stuff in whole, days later it ran games. That's why I said some of them (or at least one) is in fact illegal because it didn't reverse engineer, it used protected technical documents. So in turn by being hurt about being robbed when in fact one of them is based(at least) on theft is like the pot telling the kettle it's black you know? I'm very aware how emulators are written, I assisted with a few earlier projects including snes96 w/sound into 9x on the test side as I'm no coder. It takes 7iginators.

I'm not defending or attacking hyperkin, I see no reason as I wasn't infringed upon so I have no legal stake in it, and that's my take on it. If they fix it great, if they get taken out that's fine too, but I see no reason to care or get involved as it would amount to nothing but wasting time. Your four bullet points, point 1 is correct, point 2 is debatable as the hardware is done it's a software issue, point 3 was the main office being shady but the coder wanted the GPL out there and nagged it but only after the exposure it happened, and point 4 that's correct but it's up to debate really what those parts, the limited R&D cost them and the rest so that's kind of an unfair dig yet I did hate the price increase as we all do. I said it elsewhere before bringing up Tommo too. You'll see a bunch of complaining, bitching, and chest thumping and it'll fade away with those offended tiring of attacks going nowhere and others will buy it in the end short of it being taken off the shelf for some reason like the Tommo/SNK legal spat.

[foxhound1022]

My question is: Whoever has the rights to the code, or whatever, did they have any plans to release a piece of hardware to the community?

[dsheinem]

Tanooki your defense rings hollow. It seems very clear now that the Hyperkin guys used this stuff without following the license requirements. Simple as that.

They owe it to the original coders to remedy things as much as possible - even financially, perhaps. The product is great, but the company and people involved seem to be really poor at transparency on most issues.

Indifference is certainly one response you can choose, but it's one that discourages further work on the technologies around which your beloved Retron5 was built.

[Tanooki]

I don't care if it's hollow because it's not a defense. I'm just making a point it's complaining into the wind as almost no one is going to care on the consumer end of it, and that is true. As a sub point I was showing it in fact is using illegal code (VBA-M) because VBA was developed on the original version it is based upon Nintendo technical documents which makes it illegal. I'm not arguing for or against coders getting their dues or not. Mine is indifference because I really have no stake in it as I'm not the one who could have a lawyer up my butt over it.

[Jagosaurus]

To play devil's advocate... the automobile had a patent on it until a gentleman named Henry Ford said screw that & ran with an existing invention in his own, very similar direction, using many of the exact same designs. He won in court.

[fuctfuct]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ChhWQgZaSc

[Jagosaurus]

Yeah, saws Pat's upload. All valid points. Interested to see how this pans out.