RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?

BuZz

Unfortunately I have had to ban the user - not directly because of his attitude in this thread, but because he decided to change his user profile About Page to have a go at the project (How childish!).

He argues about open source, but his upset is just because he wants to make money from RetroPie - as everyone knows, the licence of the components is nothing to do with us, but we do respect them.

I completely understand why some emulator authors chose to put non commercial restrictions in their code licences.

jcook84

@buzz
It's probably the same guy shilling his wares on /vr/. In fact, "carl" reminds me of the person referenced here: https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/retro-bit/

(It's worth a read)

Hex

I took so much effort in the middle of the night to be helpful. The guy was just looking for a fight. I explained to him everything and yet he insists that his views are the only correct one.

Open source is not OSS.

Jste84

That guy had a stinking attitude and his customers will be in for a delight when he no doubt does attempt to sell 'his' product.

Honestly I don't know how you guys do it. All your hard work and you get idiots like that who offer no thanks for what you've done and make it blatantly clear that they want to use your product to make money.

iek

I (carlsmith) have no intention of selling anything. I teach programming for a living, and while I'm currently unable to work (bed-bound, awaiting a major operation), I fully intend to return to teaching as soon as I can walk again. You can look me up online easily enough. I've been teaching Python for years now.

My interest in RetroPie is as a retro gamer and open source contributor, and I began learning about the project because I was interested in it, and have plenty of time to spare.

You just assume the worst of everyone, and treat people like dog [removed], based on your wildly inaccurate assumptions. There are many examples online.

To be members of the forum (for more than a few hours) everyone must agree with the orthodox view on certain issues, so the forum has become a near perfect echo chamber. You are convincing one another that you know me, but none of you have a clue what you are talking about.

I have no warez to "shill" and did not want a fight. I have no customers to support. I have no products whatsoever. I just wanted to figure out why this project is not open source in the conventional sense, and what it would require to change that.

To be frank, I find it shocking that a community that is all about playing copyrighted video games without a license would be so aggressive in attacking other people in the community for copyright infringement. The pretence that you all just play open source, homebrew titles is absurd. Everyone knows you are hypocrites.

I changed my profile bio to one line of text that calmly described the community here as hostile to open source. You literally banned me for expressing a genuine, heartfelt opinion that you simply didn't like.

I was actually just going to close my account, but couldn't find the option, and didn't want my continued membership to be misinterpreted by the people that know me online as meaning that I am part of this clique.

I will not use puppet accounts to access the site again, so long as you refrain from badmouthing me while I am unable to defend myself. By all means, say your piece here and now, but then let's all just move on. I will respect the ban. It's still your community after all.

meleu

@iek

The pretence that you all just play open source, homebrew titles is absurd. Everyone knows you are hypocrites.

I never saw anyone here in this forum saying "hey! don't act like a criminal downloading copyrighted material (ROMs)!".

What we say here over and over again is "Please, don't share links or any other way to download copyrighted material (ROMs) on this forum. This will harm the project and can shut it down".

iek

What we say here over and over again is "Please, don't share links or any other way to download copyrighted material on this forum. This will harm the project and can shut it down".

Yes, but that is a pretence, and everybody knows it. Why do you insist on having this spelt out?

It's one thing to go along with a pretence for legal reasons. It's another thing to go after people for copyright infringement, when we are all guilty of the exact same thing.

meleu

@iek said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

Yes, but that is a pretence, and everybody knows it. Why do you insist on having this spelt out?

Everybody knows what? That I play ROMs that I do not own the physical copy?

I spell it out too: Hey "everybody", you are right! I have those files. But please be aware that I didn't download my ROMs from RetroPie site and neither got the link to those files in this forum.

Am I still pretending?

iek

No. You are being honest. Thank you for your candid response and for proving my original point: It is hypocritical when members of this community criticise people for infringing copyrights on emulators, when we all use the emulators to infringe copyrights.

markwkidd

@hex said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

Retropie-setup is licensed under MIT license which allows commercial use.

Where did this information come from? RetroPie-Setup is GPL 3, which also famously allows commercial use: https://github.com/RetroPie/RetroPie-Setup/blob/master/LICENSE.md

markwkidd

@buzz said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

Unfortunately I have had to ban the user - not directly because of his attitude in this thread, but because he decided to change his user profile About Page to have a go at the project (How childish!).

Are there additional forum rules I should be reading to make sure I don't make a bannable mistake like this? I wouldn't have guessed that taking a go at the project in a forum profile was bannable.

Edit: here's what I'm seeing as the rules. --

The rules are simple. Be civil, don’t spam, don’t infringe copyrights!
DO NOT:
Ask for BIOS/ROMS/Game Images
Ask where they can be downloaded
Post links to Download Sites and/or BIOS/ROMS/Game Images (including mentioning places to download from)
Discuss Kodi addons which are designed for watching pirate/bootleg video.

Hex

@markwkidd
My bad. I saw ES's license as retropie -setup does not show a license on github's license detection.

@BuZz can you restore his original account. plz

@iek This is my frank opinion. If a hardware/software manufacturer presents no legal way for me to obtain discontinued software and is not interested in gaining from my usage of it then i do not have a problem with what i do. There are some roms which are legit sold by publishers even today. I would purchase them if i wanted to play those games.

As for the definition of Open source from Open source initiative, I do not agree with the free to distribute clause. GPL2 upholds the authors rights to place non commercial restrictions. OSI's definition practically means only GPL3 s/w is Open source, which is not correct IMO.

The retro gaming community is about learning playing and enjoying. If authors allow their s/w in commercial products then so be it. We shall not object to it. Some authors do not want people monetizing their hard work. If you berate them for their opinion then that does not sit well with us.

We like to be all inclusive but not to those who are looking for a quick buck. eg. I will not buy roms from 3rd party who have no right to sell them no matter what.

markwkidd

For some folks, it's like they assume that people who contribute to a GPL project do so because they were under duress. Maybe they were blackmailed. Maybe there was a gun to their head.

Or maybe contributors to GPL, MIT, and other commercial-friendly licenses do so because they believe in the open source movement and don't mind their work being included in commercial products as long as any improvements to the source are published. That's what motivates me.

Hex

@iek said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

I just wanted to figure out why this project is not open source in the conventional sense, and what it would require to change that.

You can fork it and remove the emulators which have NC licenses. Then release it under GPL3 in the traditional sense of OSS

I appreciate you coming back to clear the air. It allows us to grow and mature as a community

iek

Hey Hex, thank you.

Sorry for not handling this better myself. I was told it was a touchy subject and carried on regardless, so can't claim to be totally innocent.

We're clearly not going to agree on everything, but it would be nice to still get along and be friendly.

iek

@markwkidd said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

Or maybe contributors to GPL, MIT, and other commercial-friendly licenses do so because they believe in the open source movement and don't mind their work being included in commercial products as long as any improvements to the source are published. That's what motivates me.

Nailed it.

dankcushions

i think there’s two topics here:

that certain software that is in the retropie image is NC-licenced, and there’s no open source alternative. faced with the choice between no SNES emulators, or a fully libre image, there is only one real option. but at the same time, it’s up to retropie to try and respect the licenses of the emulators (etc) that are the lifeblood of the project. if you have a problem with their licenses, then you should take it up with them, not retropie.
that commercial retropie products bring absolutely no benefits to the project, but plenty of the opposite. whilst the script is GPL i reserve the right to be annoyed by this practice.

there’s a growing trend amongst emulator authors to close the source entirely (redream, cemu, drastic, etc), as many of the open source projects seem to involve one or two people doing 99% of the code, with 100s of others selling either the same software or the lightest of forks, without respecting any of the license, never mind contributing anything back.

there’s an entire industry around monetising emulators/emulator boxes now. it’s a hard scene in which to have open source principles :)

iek

I don't agree with the two "topics", but rather than continue arguing, maybe we can all take a different perspective...

Open source principles include the belief that others should be able to take code they contributed nothing to and commercialise it. We see commercialisation as a positive and a significant contribution in itself. That's a core part of the ideology. Your rejection of that principle is putting us at odds.

On the other hand, there are very serious, valid concerns about the consequences of commercialisation. There are pragmatic reasons for this project to fly under the radar to some extent.

So long as we are just playing orphan games, and we are each doing that on our own initiative, we are unlikely to really upset anyone important. However, if the project is commercialised and used for commercial copyright infringement, it is bound to come under fire, and that could lead to serious issues for the project pretty fast. It's the difference between recording a film that's on TV to watch, and recording it to burn a thousand copies to sell on eBay.

I think we would see eye to eye much more easily if we all approached this from a strictly pragmatic perspective going forward. Seeing people torn to pieces and called every name under the Sun, and all on very shaky moral grounds, really upsets people like me. At the same time, people who share my views cannot expect to go around undermining other people's projects on ideological grounds. It's arrogant and completely disrespects the many people who feel differently, who often put their hearts into the project as well.

If we all focus on the practicalities, and leave morality out of it, it would probably go a long way.

iek

@BuZz - I'd like to abandon (delete??) the carlsmith account and keep this one. Are you ok with that?

mitu

@iek said in RetroPie is GPL licensed, so am I legally entitled to sell copies of it?:

Open source principles include the belief that others should be able to take code they contributed nothing to and commercialise it. We see commercialisation as a positive and a significant contribution in itself. That's a core part of the ideology. Your rejection of that principle is putting us at odds.

That's not true. Commercialisation is neither a pre-condition nor a pre-requisite of the Open Source movement or its software and it's not part of the core ideology of the Open Source movement.

So long as we are just playing orphan games, and we are each doing that on our own initiative, we are unlikely to really upset anyone important. However, if the project is commercialised and used for commercial copyright infringement, it is bound to come under fire, and that could lead to serious issues for the project pretty fast. It's the difference between recording a film that's on TV to watch, and recording it to burn a thousand copies to sell on eBay.

That is another topic in itself. The legality of emulators - which is what the RetroPie project is including in its image - has been questioned before and even challenged in court, but without success. The open source emulators projects have been around for quite a long time and I think that proves that the serious issues you are talking about it's just a false argument.

If we all focus on the practicalities, and leave morality out of it, it would probably go a long way.

Sure, the end justifies the means, right ? Disregarding any license for software because your customers will be happy and you can get your money, right ?