Making a custom product using RetroPie

SgtJimmyRustles

AFAIK you can't sell anything with Retropie on it.

silviustro

@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.

herb_fargus

@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

silviustro

@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.

markwkidd

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! :)

silviustro

@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.

markwkidd

@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!

silviustro

@markwkidd Thank you!

markyh444

@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.

SgtJimmyRustles

@markyh444

I agree. Like Rasptendo has a script that they provide to add support for safe shutdown. That's perfectly fine in this situation.

silviustro

@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?

herb_fargus

@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

Rion

@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.

dankcushions

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/

markwkidd

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!

BuZz

@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.

markwkidd

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. ;)

dankcushions

@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.

markwkidd

@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.

dankcushions

@markwkidd said in Making a custom product using RetroPie:

@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.

he co-holds them. he would need agreement from all snes9x holders for that kind of ruling. he especially can't comment on mame2003, which breaks mame's license (at the time) in several ways already.

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.

having re-read your post, yeah a pre-built binary is fine? i mean, that's what retropie is already. it's preinstalling it in a commercial product that is the problem.