Google Yanks Several Emulators From App Store 190
PC Magazine reports that the "-oid" family of emulators from developer Yong Zhang (better known as yongzh) has been pulled from Google's Android Market. These include Nesoid, Snesoid, and Gameboid. From the article: "So what got Zhang the boot? Or, rather, who? Neither Zhang nor Google have commented on the primary source of the complaints against the developer's emulator apps. While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft–there's also speculation that Zhang allegedly violated the open source licenses for projects that parts of his programs were derived from." A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.
sleezeball (Score:5, Informative)
I don't care what you're position is on emulators or Google. This guy tried to make money off of other people's work, his emulators were just based off of open source projects like snes9x. And he actually had the gall to try and play the sympathy card about how he's lost his primary source of income. You mean he might actually have to work, or come up with something original to earn money? How sad.
He deserved to get pulled.
Re:sleezeball (Score:4, Insightful)
So what you're saying is that OSS is a poisoned chalice that anyone who wants to make money or a career for themselves in software development shouldn't touch with a 12 foot barge pole?
No, I didn't think so.
You seem to think that commercial interest and OSS are exclusive to one another. Where do the major OSS licences forbid you making money?
In this case, if he was using code released specifically under a non-commercial licence then clearly it would explain why his software has been pulled, but your rant smacks of a much broader chip on your shoulder that you think it's immoral to sell OSS software for money, or otherwise generate income from OSS software.
Re:sleezeball (Score:4, Insightful)
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reading from other comments it looks like he used something that was under non-commercial license only. Which, ironically makes it non-OSS. So the GP is spot on: the guy is a freeloader and deserves no sympathy.
Not to be pedantic, but it's still OSS (Open-source Software) ... just not FOSS (Free Open-source Software).
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FOSS isn't "Free Open-source Software", it's "Free and Open-source Software" (as in, the Free Software as defined by the FSF plus the Open Source software as defined by the OSI).
And according to the Open Source Definition,
. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.
So, no, it's not OSS.
Re:sleezeball (Score:5, Insightful)
Snes9x homepage: http://www.snes9x.com/ [snes9x.com]
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute Snes9x in both binary and source form, for non-commercial purposes, is hereby granted without fee, providing that this license information and copyright notice appear with all copies and any derived work.
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.
Snes9x is freeware for PERSONAL USE only. Commercial users should seek permission of the copyright holders first. Commercial use includes charging money for Snes9x or software derived from Snes9x.
The copyright holders request that bug fixes and improvements to the code should be forwarded to them so everyone can benefit from the modifications in future versions.
Super NES and Super Nintendo Entertainment System are trademarks of Nintendo Co., Limited and its subsidiary companies.
Those two licences don't apply here.
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I think the most immediate thing that goes through many, essentially non-programmers' minds is the idea that;
"If I release all of the source code to my application, what is to stop somebody else from forking my project, replacing any copyrighted assets with free ones, and distributing a compiled binary to consumers as a competing, free product?"
If someone could concisely explain why this fear is unfounded in a few sentences, this could become something that people quote to back up FOSS in arguments such as
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Nothing. That's what FOSS is about.
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"If I fear someone forking my project and competing with me, why should I open the source code?"
Fixed that for you :P
Joking aside, if you fear competition you don't give ammunition. Then again, free and open source is about cooperation (and coopetition [wikipedia.org]).
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I'm not sure that you are understanding my position - it is that OSS is *not* a poisoned chalice, and I was addressing what I saw as the OP's wider rant that profiting from OSS code you didn't personally write was immoral, which I don't necessarily think is true (licences permitting).
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GP had a very valid point and your comments don't seem to understand them.
Porting a fully open source base you didn't pay a cent for is not worth much unless someone's paying you to do it. Expecting income from it is just silly. If you do get paid, good for you, but the expectation shouldn't be there.
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The problem is that outside of Richard Stallman's world there are two very different groups of people. The first group RHS is familiar with and it includes people that can program computers and pick up just about any piece of code in any language and instantly be able to adapt and modify this piece of code. Why would this group of people pay anything for something from open source?
The second group of people, which RHS claims (implicitly) does not exist, is actually in reality a far larger group. It consi
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They don't. You're missing the point. He stole source code from open source applications without attributing it or releasing the source, both of which are required by the license in order to use the source. It was therefore a copyright infringement.
He then made money out of this code which he stole.
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I'm being modded insightful for my post as a whole, which you do need to read to comprehend the use of satire, and you're claiming that my stance (that you can make money of OSS and that it's perfectly fine to do so) is "FUD". Are you a Microsoft shill, or just too shoot-from-the-hip to actually read and attempt to comprehend my comment.
Just to be 100% crystal clear, I am on the side of "pro-OSS" and "OSS is not a poison chalice".
You will also note, in my comment that you didn't read, I addressed the issue
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Those are the breaks with open source licenses though - you have to take the rough with the smooth if you are going to release code in a manner that gives freedom in distribution (depending on the licence of course - GPL, BSD, apache etc).
You have to live with all the potential consequences that arise from the licence you choose - some of which might not be agreeable.
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If backwards-compatibility stopped developers from writing software that took advantage of a backwards-compatible platform, then it would have also stopped developers from writing Windows 95 apps.
No, the reason nobody wrote OS/2 apps because nobody ran OS/2 2.x. Setting aside the various tricks Microsoft used to discourage OS/2 sales and IBM's inept marketing, the reason nobody used OS/2 2.x is because it needed 8 to 12 MB of RAM back when a computer came with your choice of 2 or 4 MB. By the time OS/2 wa
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People have been bitching about this for ages, then finally when his scams get pulled, oh suddenly it's google siding up with the big corporations, give me break, ugh..
Re:sleezeball (Score:5, Informative)
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He can sell his packaging and related services.
Re:sleezeball (Score:5, Informative)
Not without explicit permission from the autors; Snes9x license explicitly forbids it:
Snes9x is freeware for PERSONAL USE only. Commercial users should seek permission of the copyright holders first. Commercial use includes, but is not limited to, charging money for Snes9x or software derived from Snes9x, including Snes9x or derivatives in commercial game bundles, and/or using Snes9x as a promotion for your commercial product. [my emphasis]
Re:sleezeball (Score:4)
Snes9x homepage: http://www.snes9x.com/ [snes9x.com]
Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute Snes9x in both binary and source form, for non-commercial purposes, is hereby granted without fee, providing that this license information and copyright notice appear with all copies and any derived work.
This software is provided 'as-is', without any express or implied warranty. In no event shall the authors be held liable for any damages arising from the use of this software.
Snes9x is freeware for PERSONAL USE only. Commercial users should seek permission of the copyright holders first. Commercial use includes charging money for Snes9x or software derived from Snes9x.
The copyright holders request that bug fixes and improvements to the code should be forwarded to them so everyone can benefit from the modifications in future versions.
Super NES and Super Nintendo Entertainment System are trademarks of Nintendo Co., Limited and its subsidiary companies.
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Redhat doesn't charge for the software. They charge for the services and hardware they provide surrounding the software.
Not exactly true. They charge for commercial Cygwin usage
From what I could see, you can license it so that software developed from it does have a gpl license. Assuming they are the sole copyright holder or have any other copyright holders permission to re-license the code there is nothing wrong with that.
Having various licenses for copyrighted material is not uncommon, for example you can license a Dilbert cartoon for use in a presentation, for use in a presentation and any handouts, and at various licensed size tiers. The BBC licenses some programs for education
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GPL doesn't say you're not allowed to charge, just that you have to release all source.
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RedHat has contributed so much critical code that it's not even remotely comparable.
On a side note, it's always amusing to see RedHat and Novell get shit on constantly on this site. They've contributed so much critical code that Linux would almost definitely be completely irrelevant if it weren't for them. Perennial Slashdot favorites Debian and Ubuntu don't contribute nearly as much, and in terms of contributions to core infrastructure projects (Linux kernel, Xorg, Alsa, Gnome, Firefox etc.) Debian and U
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Nah, Ubuntu only contributed polish, consistency, user experience and millions of desktop users. This was especially notable back when RedHat's workstation distribution was a small step above, say, OpenWindows or CDE. It's hard to appreciate it now, and it's possible they've since jumped the shark, but Ubuntu really changed the game.
Yes, Canonical didn't contribute as much code. RedHat and Novell didn't contribute much in the way of usability. They're complementary skillsets, and it's kind of sad how ma
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After Unity, I think Ubuntu is no longer anyone's favorite.
If Unity pisses you off then I wouldn't go looking to FC 15 for answers. At least with Unity you can fallback on Ubuntu Classic mode which is a GNOME 2.x desktop. In FC 15 the default is GNOME 3 which arguably has it's own annoyances and the fallback is a desktop-ish GNOME 3 missing a pile of functionality found in GNOME 2.x. A simple example being making shortcuts on your desktop - you can't.
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Except that this seems to be something akin to a GPL licensing issue. The emulator is, apparently, ripped of another emulator (that does provide source code; with a non-commerical reuse license.)
http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/hmwj7/android_markets_most_popular_emulators_disappear/
So, no, the software doesn't seem to be pulled because it was an emulator; but that it was a simple copyright violation in its own right. Not sure what the truth of the matter is; merely that there's good evidence it's
Re:sleezeball (Score:5, Interesting)
Not to mention that I just checked, and the REAL SNES9x is still on the marketplace. This is clearly a license violation.
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The GPL says nothing about not being able to charge money to distribute GPL licensed software. The GPL actually specifically permits this. The problem is that the software in question is according to other posters, *not* GPL, but rather some other license that prohibits selling it.
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Meh... (Score:2)
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The free emulators for Android tend to suck. Really. Compare ADosBox with AnDosBox for instance. The former doesn't even use Android's input system, and so is unusuable on any device that doesn't have a physical keyboard. The C64 is a simpler system than the SNES, but all the C64-emulators in the marketplace are ported on a non-commercial basis, and ... they're not very good. Amiga is in the same boat, basically.
Yong Zhang (and others) have done real work to port emulators to android, that no one else seem
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Aside from some superficial similarities, they are not the same thing
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Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Snesoid was based on Snes9X (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:Snesoid was based on Snes9X (Score:5, Informative)
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But what claim does Nintendo have in this case? An emulator doesn't violate Nintendo's right to copy, and the patent for emulation on mobile devices by Nintendo wouldn't be applicable to Google since Google is only distributing software. yongzh might be on the hook for patent infringement, but I dont see how he's violating Nintendo's copyrights nor trademarks.
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gameboid has a "download roms" link straight from the app(goes to a site with his referrer id attached, so some money there), so did his other emus. he walked a fine line with that.
what he should have done, to keep the sw alive forever, would have been to publish them off-market, and linking to a sleazy roms website definetely didn't help.
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Now to all the Android fans. It's OK to like Android just like it's OK to like Apple. It's OK to like one or the other more. It's NOT OK to delude yourselves that Google is your "open" buddy free from
Somewhat Obvious Who Had It Pulled (Score:5, Insightful)
"While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft"
Why even speculate which of the Big Three it was? The emulators were for:
- Nintendo SNES
- Nintendo Gameboy
- Nintendo NES
- Nintendo N64
Call me crazy, but if it wasn't pulled because of licensing issues, shouldn't it be obvious who would of had the beef with this guy?
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Way to go apple (Score:5, Funny)
Thats why i am staying away from evil and sticking to android.
The Robot Revolution is coming (Score:2)
A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.
Very interesting information (Score:4, Interesting)
"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies, 71 FR 68472-01"
I realize this exception is being stated for video games and computer programs, but it rather reminds me of Disney's Dong of the South in laser disc format.
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" it rather reminds me of Disney's Dong of the South in laser disc format.
Thanks for that!
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OMG, among the worst typos ever....
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OMG, among the worst typos ever....
Could've been worse, you could've said Disney's Dong of the South in Laser Dick format.
:D
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Interesting, but this doesn't apply to the current discussion. The emulators in question were for Nintendo Gamecube (with which the Wii is backwards compatible), Nintendo Gameboy (with which the Gameboy Advance
GBA is discontinued (Score:2)
Nintendo Gameboy (with which the Gameboy Advance is backwards compatible)
The Game Boy, Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Color, Game Boy Advance, Game Boy Advance SP, and Game Boy Player are all discontinued. Nintendo no longer makes hardware capable of playing Game Boy Game Paks.
NES and SNES (for which Nintendo offer emulation on the Wii)
Except for those games that haven't yet been republished on Virtual Console. Let me know when Earthbound is available.
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In this notice, the Librarian of Congress, upon the recommendation of the Register of Copyrights, announces that during the period from the time of this notice through October 27, 2009....
[Federal Register: November 27, 2006 (Volume 71, Number 227)][Rules and Regulations][Page 68472-68480] [copyright.gov]
Expired?
How did the LOC define a library or an archive?
The general impression I have is that this was an academic/istitutional excemption.
The LOC on this same ruling rejected circumvention of CSS to allow DVD play under Linux. Rejected circumvention to play region-encoded DVDs.
There were licensed DVD players for the Linux OS. There were many inexpensive ways to play DVDs from other regions and many st
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"Computer programs and video games distributed in formats that have become obsolete and that require the original media or hardware as a condition of access, when circumvention is accomplished for the purpose of preservation or archival reproduction of published digital works by a library or archive. A format shall be considered obsolete if the machine or system necessary to render perceptible a work stored in that format is no longer manufactured or is no longer reasonably available in the commercial marketplace.
This would be true if there were no other machines you could purchase which would play these game cartridges. Right now on several online sites...I can buy for about $40-50 US machines with the ability to play NES/SNES cartridges. Since you can find these games used at garage sales...used game stores or numerous other venues...you can purchase a new machine which will allow you to play them...it's an EPIC FAIL using this part of copyright law to prove the point the guy was using code which wasn't his to ma
And of course you can sideload the apk ... (Score:2)
... so yeah, not really comparable. Even if Google Market had rules as strict as the iTunes store, it would still be fine with me because the user ultimately has control over what is installed. Google is free to provide a "protected space" (whether or not it's a good idea is a different story) if they want to -- users that want to install other apps are free to do so.
Even AT&T, who used to restrict sideloaded apps, have said they will remove the restrictions via firmware updates. http://www.wired.com/ga [wired.com]
Walled Garden (Score:2, Interesting)
And once again Apple's knee-jerk restrictionist, bizarre App Store(tm) policy comes around to bite ANOTHER innocent developer who most definitely wasn't engaged in any unethical behaviour at all.
Shame on you, Apple. Shame on you. This is a prime example of why everyone should buy Android devices, because the bits just want to be free, man. Open your mind! ...
Internet dickery aside, seriously, these apps deserved to be pulled for a number of reasons and Google did the right thing. But people should be under
Emulators are legal (Score:2)
Just ask people like VMware, or Microsoft or sun.. ( oracle ).
What you do WITH the emulator may or may not be, but why is that a valid reason to pull something? Most anything can be used in a nefarious way, even bricks..
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But what you can do with gaming console emulators is almost exclusively illegal.
Uh... no. Playing ROMS == not, it is how you GET THE RMS that causes the issue.
New Google Slogon (Score:2)
Open Source, eh? (Score:2)
How ironic that Google would punish a developer for doing that...
Firmware? (Score:2)
Did he make sure his emulators use firmware in the right way?
Lame (Score:2)
POV from developer of one of the ported emulators (Score:2)
Strictly from my POV as one of the maintainers of the one of the emulators (Stella), this person asked for permission to release a port of Stella, but without releasing the changes under the GPLv2. Of course we said that was against the license, and he responded that he would figure out another alternative instead. Then a little later, the software was ported and source code not provided. It's almost as if he asked permission, and then when the answer wasn't what he wanted, he went ahead and did it anywa
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Except that the GameBoy emulator was (apparently) authorized by the copyright holder, if this [slashdot.org] is accurate.
As for the ones he did not obtain an alternative license for, that is definitely not acceptable. After all he still could have made money by selling the emulators even with source provided, as putting it in the market provides a service some people are willing to pay for (Automatic updates, and not needing to compile it yourself).
Where do I get a refund? (Score:2)
I realise this guy broke software licenses, but I bought these. Now that they're no longer available is Google going to hand out refunds to all those customers who have lost access to their software?
I'm actually not really bothered given I bought them ages ago, I just thought it was an interesting question of what happens when Google pulls something.
Re:He violated the GPL (Score:5, Informative)
Re:He violated the GPL (Score:4, Informative)
Snes9x is not GPL.
Re:He violated the GPL (Score:4, Informative)
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Did you send him an email or registered letter requesting the source after buying the app ?
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Lisa, I would like to buy your bridge [roadtripamerica.com]...
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And what if I actually *DO* own the games I play in an emulator? Then it's absolutely positively 100% LEGAL.
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Only if you dump them.
But really, no one's going to track you down because you downloaded a copy of Zoop! for the Genesis.
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Read the article. It references some very useful information including the fact that there are most certainly legal exceptions to these "obsolete" games out there.
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Emulators are only used to play pirated games
Citation needed.
echo "Emulators are only used to play pirated games"| sed -e s,only,mainly,
:)
That should have fixed it.
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A year ago I would have beleived that, but we're not seeing the death of a bunch of ROM sites or a dip in the value of used games. It is easy to believe that emulators are all about 'free games', but darned if anybody could actually prove any effect of it.
I am starting to think that most emulation enthusiasts are people re-living the nostalgia of games they've already paid for.
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Yes, it is. All these people are out there 'stealing roms' yet Nintendo's Virtual Console, for example, is quite successful.
Citation.
Needed.
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A quick Bit Che search shows that right now there are 14,000 seeders and 4,000 leechers for the torrent with the hash ed25fbe9a48b5335de86fbfc61100698e06876c0
That's just the top seed I found on my first search. There are tens or hundreds of thousands of seeders and leechers for other torrents RIGHT THIS SECOND.
Not exactly the same topic, but related.
About two years ago, I posted to a different slashdot story here:
http://games.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=1325079&cid=28949323 [slashdot.org]
In that thread I challenged
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A quick Bit Che search shows that right now there are 14,000 seeders and 4,000 leechers for the torrent with the hash ed25fbe9a48b5335de86fbfc61100698e06876c0
Okay, so what does that actually mean?
In that thread I challenged slashdoters to provide instances of backup software. All the people who install bypass chips INSIST that they're mostly used for legal purposes and that just because they can be used illegally, that doesn't mean it's common.
I wouldn't get too excited about that. We don't even read the article, why would anybody take the time to take photos of backups? I know I'd be hard pressed to do it, like I want photographic proof that I'm copying games.
There are MY citations. They may not be indisputable, but they're what I've managed to obtain so far. What do you have to offer for the other side?
Nintendo's Virtual Console is just fine. People are still selling games from the 80's and 90's on eBay. Nobody has been able to actually show a loss, even on games where the pirated version was out before the release version. In fact, we've seen no
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If I had it to do over again I would have asked for a clarification of how he was using the word 'pirate'. Are we discussing infringement or theft? I thought he meant the latter.
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Eh, I suppose, but that takes a huge bite out of his statement.
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Don't worry, soon this story will lead to conversations about where iPhone apps come from.
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The author took the time to port multiple OS emulators for the benefit of thousands of people who would never had access to them on their smartphones and charged a few bucks for the trouble.
Just playing devil's advocate.
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The author took the time to port multiple OS emulators for the benefit of thousands of people who would never had access to them on their smartphones, charged a few bucks, and closed the source code illegally for the trouble.
Just playing devil's advocate.
FTFY
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If you don't release the source, you're in violation. If you do, you're fine.
Re:The author ripped off other people's projects (Score:4, Informative)
If you release software that says "you can feel free to make money off this", and I make money off it, how have I done anything wrong?
Two of the emulators that people port to everything under the sun (VisualBoyAdvance and FCEUX) are GPL. In this case, if you fail to pass on the copylefted source code, then you've done something wrong. And if you do pass it on, you haven't done anything wrong, but anybody else will have the right to rebuild it to APK and submit it as a free app to Amazon, AppsLIb, and SlideME.
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Re:I don't see what this man did wrong. (Score:5, Informative)