No Love From Microsoft For Xbox Modders

RandyOo writes: "Only 4 days after news of an XBox port of MAME was posted to Slashdot, Microsoft contacted the admin of mame.net and downloads have now been removed. Knew I should have downloaded it earlier this morning ... Thank goodness for P2P!" And scubacuda writes: "According to The Register, one group of Xbox hackers have decided to halt development on its Xbox mod chip. It will be interesting to see how other developers follow suit."

Comments

It's only the binaries

[Cutriss]

They're still posting source code as they update it. Of course, without the Xbox Development Kit (which they used to develop MAME-X), you can't build it, so it's kinda useless.

Precedent has already been set forth by Sega V. Accolade. One does not need permission from a platform developer to release software for that platform, given sufficient reverse engineering. However, since MAME-X, and all other Xbox software, uses Xbox's (and Windows') APIs, effectively nothing can be released without Microsoft's consent.

The EULA strikes again.

Re:It's only the binaries

[Gridle]

> The EULA strikes again.

Not EULA, but Microsoft's property. Apparently binaries compiled with the XDK end up with some part of them still copyrighted by Microsoft, so they clearly have a case here. They did not mention anything about source code, and common sense says that it shouldn't be a problem, so that is still available.

If somebody invests the time and other resources to do a clean-room reverse-engineering of the Xbox development kit or API, we may see the binaries again. But until then, they are illegal. Move along, nothing to see here (anymore).

It really was illegal...

[Shaheen]

So the MAME project uses the Xbox Development Kit to develop MAME for the Xbox. What this means is one of the following:

- They bought a proper license for the XDK. The ability to buy one requires an approved title.

OR
- They illegally pirated a copy of the XDK.

Since the MAME project had a working version on a devkit box (the clear case Xboxes), I'd be willing to bet that a programmer at a games shop that has an approved Xbox title took it upon himself to port MAME.

Once MAME was developed, the only thing required to get it running on commercial Xboxes was either pressing a true DVD-9 and getting the code signed as an approved Xbox title, or using a mod-chip and burning the software onto a CD.

The first option wouldn't happen - MAME is not a title that would show the power of Xbox, nor would it be something the average consumer would want.

The legal problem with the second option is that the ported MAME software uses Microsoft's intellectual property. When building software for Xbox, your application is linked against several static libraries that provide the base software services (file systems, memory management, etc.)

Hence, Microsoft really does have the legal right to stop distribution of MAME in this case.

Don't ask me about the mod chip's legal case - I don't know about it at all.

Re:How is Microsoft doing this?

[The Vulture]

I don't work for Microsoft, and I don't know their current licensing agreements of their SDK, but here's my understanding based on my prior experience (in working for Sega, in their Developer Technical Support group).

There are apparently two things that Microsoft is griping about - the sale of Mod Chips, and the distribution of the MAME X-Box binaries.

Issue 1 (Mod Chips): Microsoft may not have a leg to stand on legally. Until reverse-engineering is completely made illegal in the United States (and other countries where Microsoft could sue people), the Mod Chips are semi-legal. I say "semi-legal" because although they generally allow for the use of pirated games, you can also claim that they let you run other things (like non Microsoft formatted CD-R's/DVD's, etc.), like MAME for the X-Box.

Issue 2 (X-Box MAME): It is my understanding that the binaries that were distributed were built using the Microsoft X-Box SDK. This is a no-no. At Sega, we would rent (believe it or not, basically, rent) the development hardware (which was a special Dreamcast unit that had a debugging CPU, a hard drive and a GD-ROM drive that would boot from non-retail GD's) for somewhere in the neighborhood of $5,000, and we would include with that a copy of our SDK.

The hardware and SDK were heavily licensed, to the point that we could take them away from a developer on pretty much our whim (although I had never heard of such a thing happening - usually the developers returned them on their own volition, like when they were finished development for the system). Also, the game concepts had to go through committee decisions, and the companies getting the hardware and software were generally heavily scrutinized. I can say from personal experience that I was ordered to not provide a certain company with support, even though they had our hardware and SDK, because they weren't working on an authorized title.

So, basically, you weren't allowed to give out the SDK's to anybody, and since you don't have permission to use the SDK, it is illegal to distribute the resulting binaries (kind of like the Quake I for Dreamcast that was floating around - it required WinCE to build, but only licensed Sega developers had legal rights to use the WinCE SDK). On this issue, I completely agree with Microsoft.

Build it without the X-Box SDK, and you're in the clear. Otherwise, get a good lawyer, because you're committing copyright infringement.

-- Joe