Slashdot Mirror
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."
"No, Master!"
Microsoft can kick and whine and scream all they want to, but it's far, far too late. They knew that all the other consoles get chipped. They knew that their hardware was ripe for a Linux/Mame/Etc.. port. They knew that they were going to have to fight this, even if every other console maker has been doing it from the beginning of time.
Sorry, Bill. Take a good look at Sony, your main source of competition. What have they done? Released a Linux kit... and therefore eventual Mame compatibility.
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It sounds as if Microsoft is pissed because their SDK was used. I don't have an Xbox SDK, but I'd imagine that there is some pretty hefty licensing requirements that disallow posting any code built with it on the net.
Now, if someone manages to build Xbox binaries with other tools (gcc) and without the libraries and headers that come with Microsofts SDKs, I don't think Microsoft will be able to do anything about that.
Take a look at the GameBoy Advance scene -- there are at least two non-Nintendo compiler chains that you can use to build GBA binaries. Plenty of people have their own sets of header files available for use (I have a heavily modified set of my own). Nintendo realises that they can't stop them. But, if any of the offical GBA SDK shows up on the net, better believe it that Nintendo's lawyers are working to quickly get it offline.
So, this doesn't have anything to do with Microsoft's poor business model and everything to do with protecting their intellectual property.
dennis
So, once again, the home consumer is being punished for a company choosing a stupid business model... How long until this is written into law?
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
Commencing flame.
No really, mod chips let me import games (which I purchase) from Japan. Pure and simple.
What the fuck is the point of globalization and "the international market" if they are selling neutered hardware that wont let you even USE the stuff you can now have access to in other markets?
It's a fucking joke. Anyone who supports increased global trade, but opposes mod-chips is a total hypocrite. We are not becoming a global community, but a two tiered society - powerful producers and powerless consumers.
Well, fuck that. Like the Boston Tea Party, sometimes you gotta break the rules when they've been sufficiently and effectively stacked up against you.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I'm not entirely convinced Microsoft is doing this because they don't want users to run MAME or because they're worried that people will buy an Xbox, mod it, and just use it to run their own software without ever buying a single officially licensed Xbox game. Quite honestly, that seems like such a small drop in the financial bucket that I doubt Microsoft really cares that much.
I think Microsoft's main concern is that people will use modded Xboxes to screw with Microsoft's Xbox Live offering. You know, the one they're investing, like, 80 gazillion dollars into? I'm no security expert, and I have no idea what kind of "military grade" security Microsoft has implemented with their Xbox Live infrastructure, but based on this article on Wednesday, it does seem to rely heavily on the fact that they're using a closed, Microsoft-only system.
What does that mean? Again, I'm not really sure, but I'd wager good money it means the most likely way somebody could f*** up Xbox Live for users is by using compromised Xboxes. That's something Microsoft definitely doesn't want, and I'm guessing that's why they're showing no love for modders.
"Do you expect me to talk?" "No, Mr. Bond. I expect you to die!"
Sure, research from Enigmah-X, based in China, has been shut down, but we can purhcase these chips. I believe Liksang.com, located in Hong Kong, still sells these chips. If you ever make a trip to the Far East, be sure to check out China and Thailand. A popular Asian philosophy that implies that "knowledge is free" is a reason why local officials drag thier feet to shut down production operations or enforce intellectual property laws. Movies, software, video games, and a long list of other items are considered "knowledge" there, which explains the existence of their large "piracy" market. Mod chip development, which involves research and development, is also considered as something needed to attain what is considered "knowledge", for example video games. (However, China has begun a recent crackdown on software-related piracy in recent months, as it tries its hardest to enter the WTO).
In Thailand, you can obtain PS2 and Xbox games from 2.50-5 bucks a pop. Ps2 and Xbox mod chips in Hong Kong cost less than 110 of US currency in the local markets and stores, last time I checked. X-box Mod chip development will likely pop up in Asian countries, so be on the lookout if your interested in this subject.
The Asian mentality which states that "knowledge is free", which is Confucian in origin, is something a so-called "Westerner" may not understand, especially when that person lives in a country full of IP laws. This explains the seemingly endless battle of American companies, such as Microsoft, against the gargantuan "piracy" markets of Asia.
Also, this quote from a paper of a student of Rutgers University titled "Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China" describes the situtation of IPR (Intellectual Protperty Rights) in China:
"Confucius's concept of the transmission of culture and Marx's views on the social nature of language and invention arose from very different ideological foundations. Nonetheless, because each school of thought in its own way saw intellectual creation as fundamentally a product of the larger society from which it emerged, neither elaborated a strong rationale for treating it as establishing private ownership interests.[15] Deeply influenced by these two ideologies, China falls behind all developed countries and many developing countries in the field of intellectual property protection. It is also not difficult to understand why most of Chinese did not know what were IPRs in 1980s."
As one can see, the IP battle between West and East began with ideas created in the West and East. Microsoft's successful attempt to shut down R&D on the Enigmah-X is part of it.
As one famous Chinese scholar once wrote:
"To steal a book is elegance."
More information on the reasons behind the East-West IP battle can be found in here:
"Preliminary Analysis of Intellectual Property Protection and Economic Development in China", an essay written by Sheng Ding
"To Steal A Book is an Elegant Offense: Intellectual Property Law in Chinese Civilization" by William P. Alford
Use the SDK to build gcc.
In practice, a cross-compiling port of the GNU Compiler Collection also requires a port of GNU Binutils, which is strictly not part of the GCC project, but is almost always distributed alongside GCC. Binutils contains the assembler and the linker. The Xbox SDK's linker signs the code with Microsoft's private key, and parties to whom the Xbox SDK is disclosed are contractually restricted from disclosing Microsoft's private key. The unmodded Xbox will not run unsigned software. Therefore, how will you make a linker whose output the Xbox will accept?
Will I retire or break 10K?