There's been a bit of a furore in the emulation community lately centred around the PlayStation 1 emulator DuckStation, which has now seen two license changes recently. As far as I'm aware, DuckStation is the most popular emulator for Sony's classic PS1 console, due to it being fast and accurate.
Up until recently it was open source under the GPL, then on September 1st it changed over to the PolyForm Strict License, and then again on September 13th it was changed over to the CC-BY-NC-ND license. This places a number of restrictions on the project like no commercial use and no derivatives allowed. That means, according to the creator, that no one else is allowed to package it up either as their change mentioned "Packaging is still **not** permitted, since it is effectively a modified/derived work".
Replying to a user unhappy about it on the GitHub, the creator said this:
I am well aware of how licenses work. That's why I changed, to make it very clear and a deterrent due to certain parties violating the old license, by not attributing and stripping my copyright. Packagers being collateral damage was a beneficial side-effect, considering they don't clearly mark their versions as modified (also a GPL requirement), break functionality, and expect upstream to provide support.
I have the approval of prior contributors, and if I did somehow miss you, then please advise me so I can rewrite that code. I didn't spend several weekends rewriting various parts for no reason. I do not have, nor want a CLA, because I do not agree with taking away contributor's copyright.
Also, I don't appreciate the threats. If you are not a copyright holder, then you are not in a position to make any demands. I find it especially ironic, considering when the GPL was actually violated on multiple occasions, even as recently as a few months ago, nobody ever takes issue with that.
I've restricted the repository to prior contributors, and if they have any concerns, they are more than welcome to do so here. If this turns into harassment, then I'll just shut the whole thing down, because I'm way too busy with my actual job to be dealing with unsubstantiated drama from a hobby that is supposed to be fun. Please consider how the community would benefit from that.
With that in mind, this means DuckStation as of the latest changes is no longer open source. You could say it's "source available", or whatever your chosen way is to describe code you can view but has restrictions on it.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
BloodScourge 2 days ago
I tend to use standalone now anyway tbf now it supports shaders directly iirc
Am I right, is this guy's avatar was a "gray bucket"? If yes, then I'm not surprised at all...
I use NixOS, where we repackage all applications by default, so we will no longer be able to use any DuckStation version from this point on without violating the license.
Personally, I so not use any non-FOSS emulators myself (my own choice, not the developer's concern), so I guess I'm not using it anymore anyway. Back to Beetle PSX it is. (Great emulator btw, it's tied to RA which some people don't like)
Disclamer: As I understand it.
Did the dev only do this because he doesn't want to deal with people?
As in he sees anyone doing a distribution of his work (or a derivative one) as completely undesirable as he sees it that they probably using a version that's been built wrong and therefore he can't do anything about it. So if someone logs an issue he is completely powerless to help the people and said people are just wasting his time?
But then he allows PR's... Because a licence that doesn't allow derivative works (aka forks, required to do a PR) and disallows any other license overriding it, then gets overriden by a general-level Github assumed right.
The only way I can see this license to work is to require a CLA, but he says no CLA is required? I'm honestly confused.
Ah well, not like I ever played a single PS1 game in my life. I don't have any skin in the game.
Quoting: DrNickWith the heat surrounding emulation lately it's understandable that the devs would want to cover themselves.
Sure, but I don't see how this offers any protections whatsoever, and it's also not necessary because the DuckStation approach is reliably legal, and Sony hasn't sued anyone since Bleem.
Which is extremely fair, IMHO. A lot of entitled people out there love to bark up the wrong tree.
Could be drama like Stenzik has had with Retroarch in the past (which is not surprising, can't speak for all contributors of that project but some of them are extremely entitled people), could just be mounting frustration over time with distro packaging and entitled users, who knows. I wouldn't be surprised if it's all of the above.
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