Making a custom product using RetroPie
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Hello everyone!
I know there have been discussions about this topic on this forum before, but I wanted to share my particular case with you in order to get some feedback.
I am currently planning on building custom made raspberry-pi based entertainment systems out of wood and aluminum, similar to what http://www.lovehulten.com/ has done. As you can imagine, there's a lot of work and effort involved in creating such a device, especially when there is woodworking and metalworking involved. The system will also feature a custom made PCB that controls the power, distributes all I/O, controls RGB LEDs around the case, provides higher definition analog audio and adjusts fan speed depending on CPU temperature.
I would like to sell it primarily as a retro game console and a nice piece of classic "decoration" to have in a living room, unlike the products at the link I provided, I'm planning on making my system much more affordable. If I'm successful in creating something unique, I may sell a couple of units, or who knows, actually crowdfund it.
Here's the problem, because of the custom PCB and the drivers required to control it, I need to provide a custom version of RetroPie (or any other operating system) with it. I understand how many people abuse of the RetroPie project selling it for a profit on eBay with RaspberryPi's and what not. I don't want to be one of those people, I wan't to have RetroPie's permission to include the software with my system.
My plan was simple, my entire project will be open source, that includes the software. I would provide a copy of all the software and the modifications I made to it, as well as schematics for the hardware and instructions for use. Besides this, I wanted to make it clear that i'm using their software by having a splashscreen stating "Powered by RetroPie" that also provides a link to their page. Of course, I wouldn't include any illegal ROMs (maybe a couple of homebrew legal games) and I wouldn't actually profit from the software itself at all. Besides this, I would also provide a free copy of the modified RetroPie distribution on a website, so that anyone can use it.
I am still in the very early stages of development with a long road ahead of me. But I wanted to make this post in order to get advice on the topic, and maybe getting help contacting the guys behind RetroPie for permission.
Thank you.
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AFAIK you can't sell anything with Retropie on it.
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@sgtjimmyrustles There have been many instances of people doing so (Like the person making the hardware in the link I provided). There has to be a way of contacting the guys behind RetroPie and ask for permision. Besides, the GNU General Public License does allow for distribution as long as you give proper credit and keep your project open source as well.
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@silviustro much of the software is not gpl
See
https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/
Anyways I don't speak for the retropie project, I'll defer to @BuZz for a definitive answer
Appreciate that you're trying to do things proper, looking forward to seeing what you come up with
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@herb_fargus Thank you for your answer. I respect the project and its developers, and I would indeed like to ask for the proper permission to use the software.
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Step 1: Remove all non-GPL, non-MIT, non-BSD licensed software from RetroPie.
Step 2: Without those resources, do you still think your product is viable? I hope so.
There is a lot of grousing about people who want to make commercial products who 'take but do not give back.'
Sometimes it seems like noncommerical license zealots don't actually even want people to give back though. Therefore my suggestion from the peanut gallery: Give back to the community, give back hard, and give back often! :)
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@markwkidd That's what I plan on doing! Unfortunately most of the contributions I can make are in hardware (and the software to drive said hardware). I am more of an electronics and design guy. Like I said, If i'm successful on my project, I will release all the schematics and software I used, I will also make all the hardware "Arduino compatible" so that people can replicate it. I was also planning on designing a couple of themes for EmulationStation as well.
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@silviustro said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:
@markwkidd That's what I plan on doing! Unfortunately most of the contributions I can make are in hardware (and the software to drive said hardware). I am more of an electronics and design guy. Like I said, If i'm successful on my project, I will release all the schematics and software I used, I will also make all the hardware "Arduino compatible" so that people can replicate it. I was also planning on designing a couple of themes for EmulationStation as well.
I'm sure there are a lot of people who would appreciate your schematics and software. I wish you well on your project, I'll be keeping an eye out for future threads!
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@markwkidd Thank you!
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@silviustro I'd recommend directing your customers here to obtain the official image, burn to an SD card and put into your build. From there, you can advise them to download an install script that will push the customisations out specific to the hardware tweaks you mentioned. All they'd need, would be an internet connection, screen and USB keyboard to achieve this.
That way, you're just selling the hardware, not software.
Retropie in a NES - Pi 3 with Mausberry circuit shutdown switch wired to buttons and 8bitdo NesPro30 controller
Retropie in a Saturn Controller - Pi Zero, GPIO controls using DB9 driver
Retropie in a PSX - Pi3
https://markyh444.wordpress.com -
I agree. Like Rasptendo has a script that they provide to add support for safe shutdown. That's perfectly fine in this situation.
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@markyh444 Pretty sure less than 1% of the people buying something like this would be capable of installing such a script. What about a pre-made image?
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@silviustro imo raspiboy did it pretty well when he provided the hardware, gave a detailed list of the changes specific to his hardware and then pointed people to the image here.
One of the other issues you'll run into here is we don't support third party images even if they arent prefilled with roms whereas if the user is able to start from a stock image they've got a clean record of exactly what changes they've made and it makes it much easier for us to help troubleshoot any issues with their builds as people will inevitably end up here looking for support whether the creator of their hardware supports them or not.
Pretty sure less than 1% of the people buying something like this would be capable of installing such a script
Then the argument becomes how much are they buying your product because of the hardware vs added value of the software? I've found at least in this community generally those that are building handhelds and the like are more tinkerers capable of a bit of scripting, and if not it doesn't hurt for people to be versed in some scripting as the ethos of the pi has primarily been for learning. Turning it into a user friendly product takes a way from that, but that's just my personal opinion
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@silviustro I would say 99% of people buying a product with good instructions on how to install a script could do it.
It's better to link to your instructions and a script then to make a custom image.
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this isn't a question for retropie.
the retropie script is GPL - you could put the script on a CD, sell that, and no-one would/could have a legal problem with that. the problem is, the bootable image includes emulators and other software/themes that have 'non commercial' licenses. for example, all snes emulators capable of being run on a raspberry pi have a non-commercial license.
it's not a matter of asking permission of retropie to do your project - retropie does not speak for these emulator/theme/software authors. they cannot give you permission to break these licenses. https://retropie.org.uk/about/legal/
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You can see the approach that X-Gaming took for matching up a build of RetroPie with their control systems: https://support.xgaming.com/support/solutions/articles/5000554993-how-to-use-x-arcade-with-raspberry-pi
Please be aware that, as has been mentioned before, the folks in this forum don't support their custom version. And amusingly, neither does X-Gaming.
edit: It looks like their custom RetroPie image incorporates at least one noncommercial emulator -- mame2003. Maybe don't do that!
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@silviustro said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:
As has been mentioned - the licences of many emulators and themes forbid including with a commercial product. You can provide a freely downloadable image though for your customers to install (and anyone else who wants it - Obviously abiding by the licences of anything you modify for the image).. You just can't include it with the product.
We wouldn't support any custom image here though - that would be up to you.
Another alternative is to contribute a driver to our project which your users could easily enable on our official image etc.
My preference would be for you to point your customers to our site to use our official image, and either contribute code to our project or host some additional install script yourself.
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I would like to add that I have shown Twinaphex the prebuilt X-Gaming RetroPie binary that seems to include some noncommerical libretro cores.
What I'm about to say is not a policy statement from libretro, but Twinaphex's response was that X-Gaming's approach of offering a free, prebuilt binary download doesn't seem like a license problem to him.
After I got that response, I told Twinaphex that I would start referring to their approach as an example of how to do a prebuilt binary without incurring the wrath of the libretro devs. ;)
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@markwkidd said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:
I would like to add that I have shown Twinaphex the prebuilt X-Gaming RetroPie binary that seems to include some noncommerical libretro cores.
What I'm about to say is not a policy statement from libretro, but Twinaphex's response was that X-Gaming's approach of offering a free, prebuilt binary download doesn't seem like a license problem to him.
After I got that response, I told Twinaphex that I would start referring to their approach as an example of how to do a prebuilt binary without incurring the wrath of the libretro devs. ;)
twinaphex can't speak for the license holders of these non-commercial components any more than retropie can.
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@dankcushions said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:
@markwkidd said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:
I would like to add that I have shown Twinaphex the prebuilt X-Gaming RetroPie binary that seems to include some noncommerical libretro cores.
What I'm about to say is not a policy statement from libretro, but Twinaphex's response was that X-Gaming's approach of offering a free, prebuilt binary download doesn't seem like a license problem to him.
After I got that response, I told Twinaphex that I would start referring to their approach as an example of how to do a prebuilt binary without incurring the wrath of the libretro devs. ;)
twinaphex can't speak for the license holders of these non-commercial components any more than retropie can.
True. And thus my specific disclaimer that it isn't libretro policy I'm paraphrasing.
I used mame2003 as my example since it's what I know best but Twinaphex does have copyrights in several of the noncommercial SNES emulators.
I think it is relevant to hear what a prominent figure in emulator licensing has to say. No substitute for working through each license, but relevant.
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