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This is sad, very sad. A developer from The Libretro Team has written up a blog post on the libretro site asking for us and others to highlight an ongoing problem of code getting ripped off and licenses completely ignored. To be clear, it's not just them, there's other examples in that post of other projects also getting the same crappy treatment.

For those who have no idea what The Libretro Team do, they work on Libretro: a simple API that allows for the creation of games and emulators, RetroArch: a frontend for emulators, game engines and media players and Lakka: a light Linux distribution that can turn a computer into a retro-gaming console.

The blog post starts with a rather sad introduction:

Dear game journalists and other members of the press,

We are beyond the point of desperation at this point, and we ask you dearly for your help in this ongoing problem. Independent entrepreneurs are playing loose and fast with the laws and licenses surrounding open source code, and we have found ourselves the victim of multiple copyright and license violations ever since Hyperkin started selling its Retron5 product back in 2014.

It doesn't get any prettier the further you read it either. It's rather a lot to take in, but the jist of it is that multiple people and companies keep ripping off the emulation scene. They take the emulators, bundle it with some cheap hardware and sell it hoping to make a quick buck. The problem stretches over a few years, but it seems to have increased since Nintendo released things like the NES and SNES mini. Naturally, others see such things being popular and think "We can do it too!" and they see money signs in their eyes and think of the massive yacht they can buy with the quick cash.

They've had some success in fighting these, with Amazon taking down the Sen Pi device made by TekSyndicate that used the Lakka distribution, but more problems remain and they have been rather demoralised by the mess of it all. Especially as this year Retro-Bit have now made the "Super Retro Cade" which uses RetroArch. The company has admitted to using it, but the company doesn't even seem sure what emulators it's using. 

Side note: I hadn't actually heard of Lakka until today, sounds like an awesome project!

I really feel for them, I can't imagine how crap it feels to have people rip off your code and sell it on without giving back in some way. Of course, not everyone wants something in return for people using their code, but if the license forbids it or instructs you to provide the code with the hardware (or whatever else the license says you need to do), then you should play ball.

Hopefully with us and others highlighting it, some people might think twice before ripping off open source/non-commercial projects. If you do, you will be found out and you will have to pay for it in the end. The problem on top of all this, is that it will put off the very people working on such projects from continuing and if your business relies on their work—good luck doing it yourself.

If, like me, this kind of stuff annoys you, please do spread the word.

All the best to The Libretro Team and anyone else being affected by stuff like this.

Thanks for the tip Brandon.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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51 comments
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ElectricPrism Dec 21, 2017
Quoting: NotSoQT
Quoting: ElectricPrismIs he implying they are literally selling the emulators at a extra cost beyond the hardware?
AFAIK, some of the libretro cores are ports from emulators that simply cannot be sold, due license. So these shouldn't be shipped with any paid hardware ever.

Thanks. So then as a entrapenour then wouldn't compliance be as simple as shipping a fork of libretro and then requiring the device to connect to the internet on first boot to download those parts that "can't be bundled into a sold product"

I mean, it seems like there are plenty of ways to comply with the licenses if you know what you're doing.
cprn Dec 21, 2017
I don't get it. Licences got violated. It can be proven. Did the perpetrators get sued or not? What's the crying all about?


Last edited by cprn on 21 December 2017 at 9:48 pm UTC
t3g Dec 21, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlYeah, it's quite nasty when commercial projects just use FOSS as their base, and never contribute anything back or support original developers.

That's what happens when you release permissively licensed (Apache, BSD, MIT) code instead of copyleft like the GPL.
NotSoQT Dec 21, 2017
Quoting: ElectricPrismI mean, it seems like there are plenty of ways to comply with the licenses if you know what you're doing.
That's kinda what TekSyndicate is doing now after desesperately trying to cover all their sh*t deleting stuff here and there, selling their hardware and showing people how to install Lakka thru tutorial.

I guess it's fiiiiine. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
cprn Dec 22, 2017
Quoting: GuestGood luck suing them if they are in China. [...]

What do you mean? I've seen this done couple of times. You need a licensed local representative, clear proof of violation and money to pursue the case. In case of open sourced code distributing it with Chinese licence translation probably would help but shouldn't be necessary (contracts, if any, need to be in Chinese). The usual outcome is them reaching out to negotiate or going bankrupt.
Eike Dec 22, 2017
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Quoting: cprnYou need a licensed local representative, clear proof of violation and money to pursue the case.

Guess what's lacking.
Boogiepop_Phantom Dec 22, 2017
Quotecontribute for the sake of making something better for everyone - including themselves.
And who ought to decide what's better for everyone, or on personal level, better for me?
Doc Angelo Dec 22, 2017
Quoting: Boogiepop_Phantom
Quotecontribute for the sake of making something better for everyone - including themselves.
And who ought to decide what's better for everyone, or on personal level, better for me?

In many cases, you would change something because it is useful for yourself. You make this change available for everyone. Even if your pull request gets denied by your favorite project, there is no reason to not make a fork. If people think your change is useful, they will start to use it.

Hm. I thought this would be a longer post, but that really is it. If I'm missing something, I'm happy to discuss it. :)
elmapul Apr 15, 2018
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: elmapulalso, its a bit ironic that most of the users of the emulators are pirates, and people are "pirating" their code...

I can't speak for all emulator authors, but perhaps 90% of my contributions are to the debugger in Stella, which is directly used by actual game developers to write new games for the 2600. It is actually the opposite of piracy; we are providing tools to ROM authors to help with development.

actually, unlicenced games for consoles are an form of piracy, i mean, in the past, nintendo, sony and ms didnt allow anyone to make games for their console, only licenced apartners.
elmapul Apr 15, 2018
[quote=dvd]
Quoting: elmapulso for the ones that are still around these fans probably generate more profit than the average Joe.

they dont generate profit because many of those companies dont exist anymore, dont sell new games anymore and buying used games dont increase their revenue.
that is only a thing if they relase an classic game for modern platforms.
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