Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

maintaining an open-source game emulator has really perverse incentives. users do not care whether your code is good or clean or properly tested. if a horrible hack gets a popular game running, they will plagiarise your WIP patch, make their own build of it, and distribute both…

…at which point it becomes very tempting to just move to a completely closed development model, where we only publish code that is complete enough to land on trunk. and already we are like half of the way there with touchHLE, but it's tempting to go all in. perverse incentives!

4 replies →
4 replies

Saagar Jha

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari If you do that someone will make their own bad patches and publish those instead. Ask me how I know

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar fruit company?

Saagar Jha

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari No Linux emulator
1 replies →
1 replies

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar …which

Saagar Jha

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari The one that runs on your phone

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar i thought that was the other mysterious online fruit whisperer's thing

Saagar Jha

(replying to Saagar Jha)
@hikari Fruit company deserves whatever it gets

PypeBros

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari would that be why gstreamer had "good" "bad" and "ugly" branches ?

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to PypeBros)

@PypeBros i don't know, but that sounds interesting!

Thomas A.

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari Lucky for me, Darling is far from a state where I would have to worry about that that.

But it's something I do worry about when Darling becomes usable/popular enough... I probably wouldn't keep development closed though if this does become an issue for Darling.

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Thomas A.)

@curioustommy oooh, you work on darling? it's a cool project. i do wonder what would have happened if i'd chosen to fork darling way back when, rather than writing touchHLE from scratch.

Penny

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

@hikari I really don’t get it, how do hacky forks with no contributors impact you? If it’s open source how is this plagiarism? Are they using your branding and name? You’re allowed to protect those independent of the source.

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Penny)

@penny there's fairly little i can do to protect the name, and these builds already create confusion, though i've taken some measures already to try to do something about it.

aside from a branding problem, what's frustrating is that this kind of thing can lead to people attributing your own work to someone else, and that isn't great from a motivational standpoint

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))

by the way, did you know that US copyright law does not recognise moral rights (i.e. the right of attribution)? it's purely about copying. plagiarising open-source code is generally (IANAL) legal unless the license prohibits it. :(

Saagar Jha

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari Aren’t you in Germany isn’t that one of the countries where you can’t give away your moral rights

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar yes but that doesn't give me DMCA takedown powers

Saagar Jha

(replying to Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many))
@hikari I thought you hated those powers

Kanbaru 🌟 (one hikari of too many)

(replying to Saagar Jha)

@saagar depends who wields them and for what purpose