Is this a violation of license?

lilbud

This looks like one of those knock off systems an older family member would buy you around christmas time.

SimonBelmont

@herb_fargus I always imagined people bought these things for the added layer of security. If the law comes knocking on your door, you could claim innocence by ignorance. "I didn't download any ROMs. It was those people who sold me the console! I don't even know what a ROM is or why it's illegal"

That defense totally wouldn't work but some people find comfort in knowing there is a 3rd party to point the finger at if there is trouble.

BuZz

Complicated to take down ebay items and facebook pages too. If enough people "report" the page facebook might do something. Ebay requires a form printed, filled out, sent back etc etc. They don't want things to get in the way of their profit eh!

cyperghost

@herb_fargus
You get my deepest respect for such kind of words.

But you ask why people are so stupid to buy those things?
Because they don't know how to handle the whole thing. You need to buy a RPi, you need a Controller, you need wires, you need even a PC.... you need to read forums... you need to handle a linux system. Ask those people about SSH, root, user rights, chmod......! - wtf...?
That costs so much time and if you compare time and money then it's sometimes cheaper to buy a ready build system. If there is a demand - there is a market.

You called them opportunistic scumbags - ita

BuZz

@cyperghost You don't need to know all that to run a basic retropie set-up.

dankcushions

@cyperghost said in Is this a violation of license?:

@herb_fargus
You get my deepest respect for such kind of words.

But you ask why people are so stupid to buy those things?
Because they don't know how to handle the whole thing. You need to buy a RPi, you need a Controller, you need wires, you need even a PC.... you need to read forums... you need to handle a linux system. Ask those people about SSH, root, user rights, chmod......! - wtf...?
That costs so much time and if you compare time and money then it's sometimes cheaper to buy a ready build system. If there is a demand - there is a market.

You called them opportunistic scumbags - ita

well simply pre-loading retropie on a system will not avoid any issues you may or may not subsequently get. it seems they've done only the most basic of configuration.

plus, it doesn't matter - they've broken the license. not just of retropie, but a lot of the 3rd party components within. https://retropie.org.uk/documentation/legal-contact/

just reading their website and listings - ugh, "the official", the retropie logo, videos and forum links shown as if they are their own. scumbags.

Concat

Wow... I've seen people selling prebuilt stuff before and including RetroPie on the SD card, but most don't even market it. You only see it when you get to their shop and buy an sd card. That Facebook page is actually trying to look like they are affiliated with RetroPie, or are an arm of RetroPie in Australia. Totally unacceptable.

cyperghost

@BuZz But you should know what Hardware do you need and even worse you have to burn the image to a SD. So you habeto be prepared (a bit) for a setup.

I hope those circumstances will not Fallback to this project. That would be a pitty.

BuZz

@cyperghost There are plenty of guides out there that tell you exactly what you need - even we have a small overview on the site - https://retropie.org.uk/documentation/building-your-own-retropie-machine/

and there are plenty of people selling everything you need in a kit. The user just has to follow the basic instructions of downloading/copying/booting etc.

Floob

As there is a reputable sellers list, I wonder if a "Rogues Gallery" would help make clear that some sellers are clearly operating illegally.
Or perhaps that would just give them more promotion...

BuZz

@Floob we could name them although it might give them promotion - we wouldn't link of course so they wouldn't get any benefit from search engine ranking. I'm in two minds about it - but it's not a bad idea.

Ekstreme

This a$$hat is giving us Aussies a bad name. I've reported him through Facebook, I suggest we all do the same.

ronlaws86

I have mixed feelings about this also, on the other hand, how difficult would it be for the retropie project to offer pre-installed SD cards? like the RasPi foundation do with the NOOBS image, better yet, Is retropie in the noobs image as an install option? could be a way to fight back. (just a thought)

herb_fargus

@ronlaws86 maintaining software is hard enough, I dont know if we are really in a place where we'd want to maintain hardware too. Reaching out to the Raspbian Foundation to include RetroPie in the NOOBS image is something we have discussed, but really the sd image we provide couldnt be any simpler.

ronlaws86

@herb_fargus Of course, flashing the image is a straight forward process with tonnes of guides on how to do it, getting it included in the NOOBS image however would add an extra step of accessibility to people who are still unconfident about flashing SD card images, Noobs at least provides a simple "Drag n' drop" solution that most everyone would find a breeze. (assuming they don't order the noobs image with the pi which is sold everywhere these days)

BuZz

Despite us not having the manpower, we are not able to provide pre-installed sdcards unless we gave them away for free (which we can't afford to do), as the licences of many of the emulators have non commercial clauses (including giving the software away for free with a commercial product). Those emulators could technically be excluded, and installed by the user later, but then you have a manual process again.

I don't think there is anything to fix here though - the process is easy enough.

ronlaws86

@BuZz I was thinking along the lines of selling the cards to cover that part of the cost but I digress.
It's a shame not much more can be done, for the ease of access I was referring to the ultra easy/lazy side of the scale for those who really struggle with most computing tasks, or just can't be bothered.

Distros like mint offer the restricted packages as an opt-in downloadable during install process (e.g. the codecs) so that it isn't bundled with the image.

getting retropie included in noobs can't be that much of an issue surely? the net install version downloads the os images from the internet, nothing is actually bundled with it, it just provides an interface to get you started. Legally this is the same as doing it the current way, it's just a different way of doing it. I know of at least one person who is somewhat tech savvy but really has an irrational phobia of command lines and finds flashing image a huge drag, he finds noobs appealing because it's a simple case of dragging a few files to the SD card, sticking it in the pi and using the mouse to install whatever he wants.

BuZz

If whoever manages noobs wants to include it as a downloadable option they can. We already provide Berryboot images (and retropie is installable over net via berryboot but not sure which version).

I am happy with the ease of installation for RetroPie as it is currently.

davej

Retroarch has had this problem from the beginning. Not much you can do about it other than to publicise how dodgy they are.

An issue that is of concern is people coming here asking for support for an unofficial distribution (with potential changes we don't know about). This should be dealt with by telling them that a) we don't support ripoff distributions and to go back to their supplier for support for the thing they've bought and b) that if they want support from us they have to use an official distribution - with a link to the appropriate download and installation instructions.

ronlaws86

It is a real shame. If I was to make a pre-packaged product based around retropie like this, any markup I charged would be forwarded in donations to support the project, and i'd at least include credit and links to those who put in the hard work making it possible so people became aware of where their product originated from, instead of taking all the credit. :(