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

hooperre

This seems like another appropriate time to thank @BuZz and @herb_fargus for all their hard work and for @dankcushions for keeping these forums free of disparaging banter.

Retropie (and its forums) are a place where I can escape to the simpler times and also continue working on an enjoyable hobby.

Cheers, boys and thanks.

MegaTimX

It's frustrating because there are so many scammers on ebay who use RecalBox and RetroPie. On top of that they use fake Samsung SD cards and even images including roms. They smack it into a Rpi3 case and sell it.
People are so stupid that they will think that they are getting a good deal by buying an Rpi3 system over spending the extra $30 for an Odroid Xu4 system.
Personally, I understand that the real heroes are the programmers who write RecallBox/RetroPie and do not earn a penny.
But at the same time Nintendo is the worst of all for selling people a crap system with only a few games with a mini NES/SNES case at almost total profit.

BobHarris

@megatimx Nintendo is bound by copyrights. They can't sell a system with all the games because they could never sell it at a profit.
Because of copyrights/lack of interest some of my favorite games will never again see the light of day through official channels. Thankfully we all have Retropie to keep all of our most cherished gaming memories alive. :-)

Ranma

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

People are so stupid that they will think that they are getting a good deal by buying an Rpi3 system over spending the extra $30 for an Odroid Xu4 system.

Wait, what?

If someone was buying a new system I'd still recommend the Pi every time. I've looked into these alternative boards, and while a lot of them look much better on paper, fundamentally to the end user they offer little to no benefit imho, as far as Retropie is concerned.

Though I agree with the principle that folks should not under any circumstances be buying so-called "ready to go" packages from eBay. At all.

PokeEngineer

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

Am I the only one who finds it ridiculous that people are upset that they are not allowed to make money based on the work of others with no effort of their own?

I do as well.

MegaTimX

@ranma I built an XU4 system for my first build. While for me, it was absolutely not worth my efforts, since I lost a small amount of money on selling it(and probably put 100+ hours into making it). I didn't include RetroPie with it, for legal reasons. It played N64 and PSP games perfectly when I tested it out though.
Then for Christmas I built my father and my brother RPi3B systems. For my father's system I wanted to include the PSP Syphon Filter games because he loved the series on PSX. The RPi3 even overclocked could not play the games, not even close. I spent a lot of time trying to tweak the settings.
Personally, for me, being able to flawlessly play most N64 games and most PSP games, and some Dreamcast games would be worth the extra $30 for the system.
Also, I have been overclocking all of my PC CPUs and GPUs since the 90s, but when it comes to emulation systems, at least for me, since I put a lot of work into customizing a real system, I think it should last for decades. If you overclock, your processor is going to die much sooner.
Just look up the specs on the XU4 compared to the RPi3B, the XU4 has twice the ram, higher clock speeds and twice as many cores.

Ranma

@megatimx

I have looked into these alternative boards many times as I mention in my post. They often look great on paper with better specs etc, but either don't have very good software support (drivers are often an issue) or are very difficult to actually buy anyway, making the whole endeavour more pain than it's worth imho. For me, I don't have a desire to run PSP (Syphon Filter runs great on PSX), so that would not be a factor. Neither is N64, because it seems no matter what I play that on it's just not there yet. I do actually have an Android box with much better specs than the Pi, but it's still not enough. So I still find myself coming back to the Pi.

It's just nicer. :-)

BobHarris

@ranma Indeed every Ps1 game I throw at it, the Pi3 runs great. I was only interested in 4 N64 games (Wipeout 64, Mario 64, Doom 64 and Mario kart 64) and they all run very good (no overclocking). Even 4 player Mario kart is no problem. So I guess I'm lucky, because from what I hear a lot of N64 games should run you into problems.

Ranma

@bobharris

Yes pretty much the same here. I loved the N64 back in the day but I'm happy if my favourites are running OK, and they largely do on the Pi if you have a play in the settings. Like I say, I have an Android box with better specs than the Pi 3 but they don't run very much better there. Of course you can see some improvement here and there but not enough to put money down again and start faffing imho, unless you're an enthusiast as obviously MegaTimX is. Which is why I still think the Pi is best value for anyone coming in new. And the community rocks. ;-)

No rush, but roll on Pi 4.

MegaTimX

@ranma Yeah, the Pi3 is great for PSX games. There are just two Syphon filter games that were exclusive to PS2 & PSP. The XU4 is easy to set up with RecalBox, but with RetroPie I really had to put many hours into getting it to run. There are a few minor glitches which are going to be addressed with the next RecalBox release.
What the Pi3 does have going for it over the Xu4 is that bluetooth and wifi is included. But still, I am telling you from experience, the XU4 runs PSP and N64 games great. If all you want is PSX, that's fine but it's nice to have access to some of the great PSP games that I have missed out on. Also, it's nice to be able to turn on some of the graphical/resolution enhancements.