Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....

[floodie]

I had my first experience of this forum the other day when trying to make a snes project with my son. Ive never in my 20 years of forums met a bunch of self righteous arrogant [removed]. Managed to gut my snes, wire the control block, power switch, reset button, use original snes pads in their own ports and the software looks great in the end. Thanks via other forums and various simply austin tutorials. The guy is doing the scene a very good deed, he doesnt need rubbish from you lot especially people calling him "simple austin" in my ask for help thread. Totally disrespectful. I dont write stuff like this lightly.... ban me, do what you like. Id rather die than come back here again to ask for help.

[m3chstaa]

If it wasn't for Austin I wouldn't own a room full of retro consoles with games. I suppose I should hate him for it due to the cost involved! But in all seriousness, if it wasn't for Austin and his videos and the media he shares (he does NOT share roms) I probably wouldn't have got into the retro scene as much as I have and spent hard earned cash on the actual games. Much respect to you Simply Austin for the hard work you do, for helping others like you do and for trying to save them paying money to the actual thieves for terrible setups. You have inspired me (and my kids) and I have loads of fun with these old systems and with RetroPie. Thank you.

[munster]

@buzz Wow, you sound like a dick. Austin wasn't promoting/advertising/selling/providing any copyrighted software. Merely just asking for help. Yet, he just gets grief from a power crazed admin/mod. You're the kind that want to kill this scene off. Austin has done more for the retro scene than most. Sounds like your just jealous, on your little forum. The images he builds and supplies for free, are just the base and themes. If you want the roms, then you need to hunt them yourself.

Maybe watch more of his channel and educate yourself, as you seem to be a noob in this scene. Just get off ya high horse!

[BuZz]

@simply-austin youtube/watch?v=NNnvXaCeJig - no roms on this one ? if so, then it's possible I made a mistake. You don't ever talk about other images too? I commented on the video some time ago and never got a reply. Others in the comments seem to suggest it does contain roms. I can't remember if I tested the image though. Another user also flagged your post for this reason.

And the post I linked says to provide information when posting which which was why I mentioned it, plus the rules about help with 3rd party images.

Others: Feel free to disagree with me - but enough with the language. That's not ok. I made no vulgar personal attack.

There are users of many ages on this forum, so I would ask you remove your colourful language please.

I care about this project, and the 3rd party images packed with copyrighted software give RetroPie a bad name. They are also then often sold by other people (makes it easy for them).

[SIMPLY AUSTIN]

@buzz said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

youtube/watch?v=NNnvXaCeJig

If you could stop editing your post so I could reply, it would be great....
Nope, no roms (as per normal). Sorry, no reply to your post on my video, but with 100.000s of comments per month it can be hard to keep track sometimes. Not sure what post you are talking about to be flagged by another user? Would one not confirm before accusation, especially before you action something as mentioned in your original post? Talking about 3rd party images on a 3rd party site is against the rules here, should I add some links to people talking about them on here so those users can also be treated like this on their first message on your boards? People can talk about things, its not a crime. If I was to share these images etc... yes and rightfully so.

3rd party images... you say they are not supported, in other words you cannot help people as they may contain older builds or modified builds I am guessing. My OP stated nothing about this and was a simple request for help for help while I was making a build. If building images/retropie is against the rules here I guess we all need to ask questions about what we are doing here.

Others: I cannot and do not condone some of the actions of members of your community here, just like I cant police the comments and their falsehoods (like yours) in my public videos. They are public comments. I do try to filter out as many as possible.

I know you care about this project, I can see that. The 3rd party "loaded" images being sold and distributed must be bad and I can more than understand your viewpoint. Isnt it rubbish when someone comes on here or other forums and says things like "RetroPie... its for playing dodgy games" etc. Its kinda like when someone says "Simply Austin, isnt he the guy who does dodgy games?", or more recently "I have removed your youtube channel links whilst your channel promotes images like this. It is damaging to the RetroPie project and the emulation scene."

Well I hope I am not. I make Youtube videos in my spare time showing normal people how to enjoy emulation. So that an every day person can enjoy some games with their family and friends without spending a lifetime learning just how to load them up. If they do want to tinker I try my best (often badly) to guide them through more technical stuff. And those who want something more specific or fan made I try my best to give something that is good to go out the box.... like RetroPie?

I do not include any copyrighted software and if I am covering a newer game I always state how important it is for them to buy the original game to support the devs and the people behind the titles. For me Emulation is not about playing pirated games, its about playing games to either a hightened level, example Dolphin, Cemu etc. Accessibility of games, so I can play them in every room without hooking up every console for example.... and of course the love of preserving these games so everyone has the ability to play them hopefully forever.

To say that I damage RetroPie and Emulation is a bit low to say the least and not something I would expect from someone in this scene often tarred with the same stigmatism I am receiving here.

"3rd party images packed with copyrighted software give RetroPie a bad name. They are also then often sold by other people (makes it easy for them)." I am not the internet police, I cannot stop them from doing that. As I, and from what seems many others here have already stated, I DO NOT PACK THEM WITH ANYTHING! So please quit the accusations and judging me in the same way you are trying to stop others judging RetroPie.

So with all this in mind.... shall we start this conversation over....

Pleasure to meet you Will, My name is Austin. I am a retrogamer and I love the work you guys have done here. Have you any interesting ideas with RetroPie in the pipeline?

[psyke83]

@simply-austin

In the video that @buzz cited, starting at the 5 minute mark, you encouraged people to search out a premade image from "TBP" that bundles copyrighted ROMs. I'm only a contributor who's new to the project, but I already know that @buzz is dealing with multiple legal issues related to people filing copyright/trademark claims on the RetroPie name in order to monopolize selling of hardware bundles on ebay, etc. Having RetroPie-based images that directly facilitate piracy may not seem like a big deal to you or many casual users, but in reality, it jeopardizes the reputation of the community along with many of the associated projects that we depend on (such as RetroArch, who have very similar issues & attitudes about their name being tarnished).

I'd just ask that you try to see from the perspective of the wider community rather than your own self-interest. That's just my two cents and I don't mean any offense.

[SIMPLY AUSTIN]

@psyke83
Not at all mate and I thank you for your well educated and chosen words. I know exactly how it is, I have accusations and letters, emails and calls from the same companies and I constantly have to fight he same stigmatism and troubles. So much so that Youtube has had to give me a Partner Manager as I am a high risk channel due to wrongful copyright claims, wrongful DMCA takedowns from Nintendo, ATLUS, Belgium Antipiracy Federation and many others etc etc, all of course overturned and legal action counterclaimed as I too have to protect myself. Nothing I upload is illegal and is even screened on the same day of upload to cover my own back from YouTube and their team to sign off on it. It takes up more of my free time than my content. That is what goes with this scene and I understand that.

Only thing I would say is "encourage" is a little strong. In this instant I stated where more information on this could be found and for them to make up their own minds. I also stated how important and verbatum "I cannot stress this enough" (for the third time in this video), that this is not endorsed, supported or condoned by RetroPie or anyone else involved in this. Again, I can talk about things and I try to be honest and open as possible so that people get the right idea as to how this has come to be, who is involved and what its doing.

Having any kind of Piracy stigmatism attached to your name is terrible and you should fight it as much as possible. But it needs to be pointed in the right directions. To the people actually committing it? Again this is turning into the exact same thing of you accusing me of the one thing you are trying to avoid others accusing you of. This is exactly why I have the perspective of the wider community, as I am myself a member in it and try my best to involve every emulator, Front end and anything related in it... thus being in the same echo chamber as you guys.

I was just trying to get some help as my exit hotkey wasnt working fellas... next this will be politics and religion too hehe.

Come on, we are both on the same side here, shall we not just work together and try to improve the quality of information that is passed out? I am more than happy to help you and work with guys in any way I can. All I ask in return is a bit of tech help like anyone else from time to time.

[munster]

@buzz I would like to openly and publicly apologise for my earlier rant at Buzz, and some of the wording used was below my standards and expectations of talking to someone I've never met. I was hot headed and tired. It also came across that Austin never had a fair chance, without being judged.

Austin has been a long time supporter of Retropie, and has always condoned the people who profit from illegal selling of certain content. Austin helps us to self build, or provide template build images, for us to use. We always have to source our own content. Austin is one of the nicest, youtubers in this scene, with good, solid moral intentions.

Thanks.

[BuZz]

@simply-austin said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

If you could stop editing your post so I could reply, it would be great....

I made a few edits after posting to try and stop the embed plugin from embedding the youtube video. Then I added a small sentence to clarify something. All users can edit posts, and it shouldn't stop anyone replying.

Nope, no roms (as per normal). Sorry, no reply to your post on my video, but with 100.000s of comments per month it can be hard to keep track sometimes. Not sure what post you are talking about to be flagged by another user? Would one not confirm before accusation, especially before you action something as mentioned in your original post? Talking about 3rd party images on a 3rd party site is against the rules here, should I add some links to people talking about them on here so those users can also be treated like this on their first message on your boards? People can talk about things, its not a crime. If I was to share these images etc... yes and rightfully so.

Your post was reported by a user who had a reasonable reputation. I checked the post, and remembered I had seen your videos before and had commented on one on the same topic. I made a judgement. I cannot see you actually distributing images, but you have promoted and helped people to find them in your videos. That's up to you of course, but if we don't like that and don't want your channel promoted or linked here, that's up to us.

I stand by my remark that I believe it to be damaging to RetroPie and the emulation scene. That is my view, whether you agree or not.

3rd party images... you say they are not supported, in other words you cannot help people as they may contain older builds or modified builds I am guessing. My OP stated nothing about this and was a simple request for help for help while I was making a build. If building images/retropie is against the rules here I guess we all need to ask questions about what we are doing here.

We don't support them as we have no idea what has been changed on them, most custom images are distributed with roms, and often retropie is sold to users. We do not want to support this activity.

[munster]

Unfortunately Austin, these on this forum are going to self damage the retropie scene. The retro scene is bigger and older than this forum. Austin, you have been helping the EMU scene, with other regular youtubers, who have nothing but praise for your work, time and effort. If certain people can't see the wood for the trees, then that's their short sightedness.

Continue the direction you're going Austin. Retropie can get replaced on the Pi systems. You can see the future, and stay true to your morals. Let these guys, play there game, and alienate the scene themselves.

[psyke83]

@munster said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

Unfortunately Austin, these on this forum are going to self damage the retropie scene. The retro scene is bigger and older than this forum. Austin, you have been helping the EMU scene, with other regular youtubers, who have nothing but praise for your work, time and effort. If certain people can't see the wood for the trees, then that's their short sightedness.

Continue the direction you're going Austin. Retropie can get replaced on the Pi systems. You can see the future, and stay true to your morals. Let these guys, play there game, and alienate the scene themselves.

I don't agree with your view here, but thank you for the apology to @buzz earlier. Bringing personal insults to the table won't help matters, not to mention the usual danger of a person's intent in written communication being easily misinterpreted.

Do you really think that the developers, whether it be of RetroPie, RetroArch or the dozens of other miscellaneous projects which we depend on, all who devote their free time to sharing their work freely for all, really have the intent to alienate anyone? Or is it more likely that people on the development side have to grapple with various ethical or in the case of RetroPie, legal issues that the wider user base are generally ignorant about? Not to mention the personal time and effort sunk into a project in which many users don't respect the (quite modest) conditions requested of them, in which to participate on the official platform, such as these forums?

You, Austin or anyone is free to shirk the terms of RetroPie and promote or advocate whatever software you like in contravention of our wishes. There's a lot of moral grey area on these issues, and maybe we get things wrong now and then. But when you make that conscious decision to go against our conditions, is it fair to expect to be entitled to do that on our platform instead of your own?

[psyke83]

@simply-austin said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

@psyke83
Not at all mate and I thank you for your well educated and chosen words. I know exactly how it is, I have accusations and letters, emails and calls from the same companies and I constantly have to fight he same stigmatism and troubles. So much so that Youtube has had to give me a Partner Manager as I am a high risk channel due to wrongful copyright claims, wrongful DMCA takedowns from Nintendo, ATLUS, Belgium Antipiracy Federation and many others etc etc, all of course overturned and legal action counterclaimed as I too have to protect myself. Nothing I upload is illegal and is even screened on the same day of upload to cover my own back from YouTube and their team to sign off on it. It takes up more of my free time than my content. That is what goes with this scene and I understand that.

Thanks for the explanation. I would consider the video in question (from 2016) to be walking a fine line. You didn't create the image, but you were promoting it on your channel.

Only thing I would say is "encourage" is a little strong. In this instant I stated where more information on this could be found and for them to make up their own minds. I also stated how important and verbatum "I cannot stress this enough" (for the third time in this video), that this is not endorsed, supported or condoned by RetroPie or anyone else involved in this. Again, I can talk about things and I try to be honest and open as possible so that people get the right idea as to how this has come to be, who is involved and what its doing.

I'm not sure what word would be more appropriate? Was the intent of mentioning that image and the torrent site it was available from to inform your users to avoid the image, or was it more of a wink and a nod to interested parties? Regardless, it's an old video. You may not have been aware of RetroPie's terms at the time - but now you do.

Having any kind of Piracy stigmatism attached to your name is terrible and you should fight it as much as possible. But it needs to be pointed in the right directions. To the people actually committing it? Again this is turning into the exact same thing of you accusing me of the one thing you are trying to avoid others accusing you of. This is exactly why I have the perspective of the wider community, as I am myself a member in it and try my best to involve every emulator, Front end and anything related in it... thus being in the same echo chamber as you guys.

I think that the Pi emulation scene is fantastic, including those that promote hardware mods such as yourself. The problem for the RetroPie developers, however, is that when hardware is sold with a RetroPie image - even if no ROMs are included - we cannot be sure what modifications have been made to the image. Putting aside the risk of legitimately nefarious additions (like viruses or bitcoin miners), we can't provide technical support due to our lack of knowledge of what's changed.

We don't want to discourage people making hardware mods etc., but we humbly ask that you do not bundle RetroPie images with anything you sell - even if it's an untouched image written to a new SD card.

Obviously, a third-party image, even if with no pirated content or not bundled with hardware, is much less ethically objectionable, but we generally refuse to help with issues on third-party installs mostly to maintain our own sanity!

I was just trying to get some help as my exit hotkey wasnt working fellas... next this will be politics and religion too hehe.

Come on, we are both on the same side here, shall we not just work together and try to improve the quality of information that is passed out? I am more than happy to help you and work with guys in any way I can. All I ask in return is a bit of tech help like anyone else from time to time.

I get that. As @buzz mentioned, your post was flagged by a member, which is why your post got attention from moderators. The discussion took a turn from your original intent, but to be fair, you did get your issue sorted... ;)

[BuZz]

@simply-austin said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

Come on, we are both on the same side here, shall we not just work together and try to improve the quality of information that is passed out? I am more than happy to help you and work with guys in any way I can. All I ask in return is a bit of tech help like anyone else from time to time.

Cheers. We are happy for any contributions to the project. We are also happy to help people who post here.

[SIMPLY AUSTIN]

I can see that this thread has taken a more personal turn, things have gotten heated and accusations, assumptions and slander has been made from both sides.

I am not here to preach to you what you can and cannot say on your forums, that is your own wish. But I made a post asking for simple help for a simple issue was greeted with an insult and personal attack as to how I am damaging RetroPie and Emulation. I have tried myself to be calm, collective and be open, honest and polite in all interactions on here. Yet over and over again I am told that I am doing all the above. I have seen countless threads remarking derogatory insults (@rbaker etc etc) at me that elsewhere seem to be disregarded. I do not mind, keyboard warriors are everywhere and most of the time I find those remarks quite funny when original but at worst boring, as luckily I have a thick skin.... others may not.

But this is a forum based upon what should be a fun hobby. People come here often with blinkered eyes and views, ignorant to some simple required basics in all this. This thread here was in fact my first interaction on your forums and this is how I am treated. After going through others and some of the messages I have received in regards to this, I seem to be getting a very common "me too" message. You guys run this place however you wish, talk to someone like the way I was on their first post, but lets not call the kettle black here.

Forum rules, no support for 3rd party images on this...
@buzz said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

We don't support them as we have no idea what has been changed on them, most custom images are distributed with roms, and often retropie is sold to users. We do not want to support this activity.

I didnt release any images here, I simply asked for help on RetroPie. Floob, Herb and many others involved adding links to what I can see unofficial images/builds. Of course... not containing roms, free etc... just like mine? They are fantastic work and helped many people out... but again, kettle calling black.

@psyke83 said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

There's a lot of moral grey area on these issues, and maybe we get things wrong now and then. But when you make that conscious decision to go against our conditions, is it fair to expect to be entitled to do that on our platform instead of your own?

You can run these forums however you wish, but if you continue to label me as you have I will continue to protect myself. Again I never requested you post anything of mine, I just wanted to know how to exit a game? It has been you guys who are judging me and vilifying me on your public platform.

We could go around in circles pointing fingers saying who is the bad people man/people, adding yet more toxicity on here, helping no one. Again lets remember this is a hobby for me and I am guessing many of you guys. I do it for the fun, the passion and of course to help others. You have taken the reign over a awesome bit bit of software and it brings smiles and people together for something that should be about fun, so please lets all remember this. I see this thread as me posting something, someone getting the wrong end of the stick and jumping to conclusions, likely from everyone involved here.

@buzz said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

Cheers. We are happy for any contributions to the project. We are also happy to help people who post here.

This just popped up, so I will take your olive branch. It would help everyone, the scene and the community if we actually worked together on this and started to do more positive than these pesky rants we seem to have got into. I apologies if any of my news on certain topics have been handled badly from your standpoint. I assure you that you views have been taken on board and I hope this then improves to share your message in latter videos, posts and topics related to your work on my platform.

Lets all help to try and make this a positive experience that not only helps us, but others too in this scene about games, fun and hobbies.

[rbaker]

@simply-austin said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

I have seen countless threads remarking derogatory insults (@rbaker etc etc) at me

Wait, what? Please link me to these threads. I would like to read them.

[BuZz]

@rbaker I think he meant someone else. I found a reference on the forum to a name someone else used rather than "Simply Austin" - I have changed their post (and downvoted it - I assume it wasn't a typo). It wasn't you though.

All:
We do not appreciate personal attacks or name calling here.

I think this thread has got overly heated. I certainly was not making a personal attack. I'm sorry if it felt that way. I was direct, but I don't think I was personal - and it certainly wasn't intended as that.

I do not like promotion of 3rd party images, or any association of them with this site, even if it's a link to a youtube channel that says where you can get them. I believe the connection with piracy threatens the future of this project and I am tired of dealing with all the problems we have. I regret how popular RetroPie has become.

[psyke83]

@simply-austin said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

I can see that this thread has taken a more personal turn, things have gotten heated and accusations, assumptions and slander has been made from both sides.

I don't believe that I've slandered or libeled you, but I apologise if you've interpreted anything I said as such.

I was only commenting on the video that was brought to my attention - which definitely had troublesome content, but again, was posted a year ago. Promoting videos such as this on the forum would definitely bring unwanted attention and jeopardize the project. Forgive me if I'm mistaken, but @buzz said that he tried to bring this to your attention in a YT comment, but it's understandable if you didn't see it properly due to the volume of comments, etc.

I am not here to preach to you what you can and cannot say on your forums, that is your own wish. But I made a post asking for simple help for a simple issue was greeted with an insult and personal attack as to how I am damaging RetroPie and Emulation. I have tried myself to be calm, collective and be open, honest and polite in all interactions on here. Yet over and over again I am told that I am doing all the above. I have seen countless threads remarking derogatory insults (@rbaker etc etc) at me that elsewhere seem to be disregarded. I do not mind, keyboard warriors are everywhere and most of the time I find those remarks quite funny when original but at worst boring, as luckily I have a thick skin.... others may not.

I wasn't attacking you. I urge you to re-read what I said and apply the same charity to my words as you would expect from others reading yours.

But this is a forum based upon what should be a fun hobby. People come here often with blinkered eyes and views, ignorant to some simple required basics in all this. This thread here was in fact my first interaction on your forums and this is how I am treated. After going through others and some of the messages I have received in regards to this, I seem to be getting a very common "me too" message. You guys run this place however you wish, talk to someone like the way I was on their first post, but lets not call the kettle black here.

It is a fun hobby, but we have basic rules in place to prevent excessive spamming of unhelpful support topics that don't provide the basic information needed to diagnose the issue, etc. There needs to be a balance to maintain the sanity of those who provide help on these forums.

Forum rules, no support for 3rd party images on this...
@buzz said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

We don't support them as we have no idea what has been changed on them, most custom images are distributed with roms, and often retropie is sold to users. We do not want to support this activity.

I didnt release any images here, I simply asked for help on RetroPie. Floob, Herb and many others involved adding links to what I can see unofficial images/builds. Of course... not containing roms, free etc... just like mine? They are fantastic work and helped many people out... but again, kettle calling black.

I'm guessing your post was flagged due to your mention of "uploading [an] image", which is against the RetroPie and forum terms, but of course, @buzz probably felt it prudent to bring up the issue with your videos. We're not slandering you, but trying to bring to your attention the need for the RetroPie name not to be associated with direct piracy, as seen in those kind of third-party releases you mentioned in that video. Again, we're not accusing you of making that specific image.

Let's convert all this heat into light and try not to misinterpret concerns with attacks. Thanks!

[phulshof]

I think this discussion triggers heavily on the moral grey and legal black area of playing copies of (nostalgic) games on your computer for which you did not gain permission from the copyright holder, e.g. by buying a copy. Let's be honest: most of the games played by people on emulators are illegal copies, no matter how good of a moral argument you could make for getting a copy of a game that is no longer sold on a machine that you can hardly find anymore.

We all build on the materials that others have provided, like this project heavily builds on the emulators and operating system components that others have written. The more convenient you make the result towards allowing people to use it for playing illegal copies of games, the more legal troubles you might run into, even if you don't provide actual copies of the games. Just look at what's happening in the world of KODI add-ons these days. While I'm highly grateful for all the work that @SIMPLY-AUSTIN has done for the emulation community, I also recognize that exposure isn't always a good thing for projects like this. So, where does one draw the line?

Personally, I feel that the line should be drawn at actually distributing the games. Yes, not doing that might still land you in legal trouble, but you certainly cannot be held accountable for the actions of others. Simply Austin distributing an image of his own might not have your preference, but considering the work this project has been building on top of, I hardly feel that it has a legal or even moral standing to deny others the same courtesy. After all: that's what licenses like the GPL are all about. Of course it's wise to preach caution with regards to distributing these images, but to say: "Well, we may have used a lot of work by others, but you should not be able to do the same with our work." is highly morally questionable in my view.

So, let's regard my own work for instance. I'm the main author for RetroFE, a front-end not that much different from many other front-ends. While I understand that it can be helpful to provide an installation script for RetroFE on the RetroPie platform, why should it be unacceptable if I were to release a fully set-up image in stead? Certainly, users should not come here expecting help to solve the mistakes that I may have made, but should it be forbidden? On what grounds?

I highly respect Simply Austin's work, and I think the reaction he got for asking a simple user question was out of order, no matter how you personally feel about him or his work.

[BuZz]

@phulshof said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

We have no issue with people building their own images so long as they follow the licences and don't distribute with copyrighted content. We just don't offer support for this.

Not sure why you think it's forbidden ? We just don't want links / references to 3rd party images on this forum, or in this case a link to a youtube channel that tells people how to get premade images with roms. It's our forum and our choice.

[psyke83]

@phulshof said in Exiting a Game from a Keyboard with no Escape Button....:

I think this discussion triggers heavily on the moral grey and legal black area of playing copies of (nostalgic) games on your computer for which you did not gain permission from the copyright holder, e.g. by buying a copy. Let's be honest: most of the games played by people on emulators are illegal copies, no matter how good of a moral argument you could make for getting a copy of a game that is no longer sold on a machine that you can hardly find anymore.

Agreed. I always try to purchase licensed copies (digital or physical) of retro games, but in many cases it's not even possible or feasible to find one.

We all build on the materials that others have provided, like this project heavily builds on the emulators and operating system components that others have written. The more convenient you make the result towards allowing people to use it for playing illegal copies of games, the more legal troubles you might run into, even if you don't provide actual copies of the games. Just look at what's happening in the world of KODI add-ons these days. While I'm highly grateful for all the work that @SIMPLY-AUSTIN has done for the emulation community, I also recognize that exposure isn't always a good thing for projects like this. So, where does one draw the line?

This is precisely about exposure; unwanted attention from one of several large corporations that can shut down the project with a single cease and desist letter.

Personally, I feel that the line should be drawn at actually distributing the games. Yes, not doing that might still land you in legal trouble, but you certainly cannot be held accountable for the actions of others. Simply Austin distributing an image of his own might not have your preference, but considering the work this project has been building on top of, I hardly feel that it has a legal or even moral standing to deny others the same courtesy. After all: that's what licenses like the GPL are all about. Of course it's wise to preach caution with regards to distributing these images, but to say: "Well, we may have used a lot of work by others, but you should not be able to do the same with our work." is highly morally questionable in my view.

Let's make clear the different issues with the types of third-party images:

a) modified images which include ROMs
b) unmodified images bundled with hardware
c) modified images, provided freely

The first is completely unacceptable, for obvious reasons. Directly linking the RetroPie name to piracy and puts the project at extreme risk.

The second violates the license of several of the bundled emulators, and is, IMO, also ethically objectionable. This is an attempt to add perceived value to a (hardware) product by the seller for self-gain. The RetroPie project is a shared collaboration of many people and projects, and we ask that the image is not distributed to monopolize that effort - but it's absolutely fine to include a note explaining where/how to download & install RetroPie for your customers.

The final case is not really a problem (assuming there's nothing nefarious added, as I said earlier), but it's a massive headache to support third party images and IMO, unfair to burden the official forum staff / contributors with such requests.

So, let's regard my own work for instance. I'm the main author for RetroFE, a front-end not that much different from many other front-ends. While I understand that it can be helpful to provide an installation script for RetroFE on the RetroPie platform, why should it be unacceptable if I were to release a fully set-up image in stead? Certainly, users should not come here expecting help to solve the mistakes that I may have made, but should it be forbidden? On what grounds?

Forbidden is a strong word, but I contend that it's not fair to expect the official forums to provide support for your image. No, I think that if you distribute a custom image, then you need to assume all responsibility for technical support.

However, if you are an active user on this forum and have a forum topic dedicated to supporting your image, it's feasible that such an exception would be allowed, of course. But for users to post new support topics for your image? I think that's not a fair burden to place on the forum, to be honest.

I highly respect Simply Austin's work, and I think the reaction he got for asking a simple user question was out of order, no matter how you personally feel about him or his work.

Again, I didn't intend for this to be an attack on Simply Austin. Sorry if you feel piled on, but we have to maintain higher standards to keep a barrier between casual discussion of piracy with the RetroPie name.

Here's an example; Simply Austin posted on his site regarding a ZX Spectrum Classic image: "This one includes NO ROMS! I cant share that Im afraid. But Im sure someone will make and upload a loaded version.... they always do. But at least for now you can have a dabble!"

Apart from the fact that we wouldn't support third-party images, the "wink-and-nod" to casual piracy (i.e., what can be interpreted as an encouragement for others to make such an image) that's inferred here would not meet the standards of the forum. This is nothing personal against Simply Austin, but as I said, it would take one cease and desist letter from a corporation to cause this site to be shut down.

Even if you think that the RetroPie developers are a bunch of stuck-up assholes, it's still not a good thing, as it would cause unwanted attention to the associated projects. RetroArch devs are hard-asses about piracy too, because it endangers their work at hardware preservation through software.