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Jaleco Borrows PocketNES Emulator Source Code
Thanks to Waxy.org for its story discussing Jaleco's apparently legitimate use of the public domain PocketNES emulator in a Game Boy Advance game without explicit permission, explaining: "While the emulation community was outraged, the emulator's programmer felt a bit differently." The article notes: "Like the recent Classic NES Series, Jaleco Entertainment's Jajamaru Jr. for the Gameboy Advance is a nostalgic reissue for the Japanese market... [that] includes five different emulated classic NES/Famicom titles from Jaleco's library: Ninja Jajamaru, Jajamaru's Great Adventure, Exerion, City Connection, and Formation Z." Although "Emulation fans were upset, with cries of copyright infringement", the emulator's author responded: "Yes, PocketNES is public domain... I wanted it to be public domain. This 'Jaleco incident', in fact, is the very reason I wanted to make it FREE (as in public domain) rather than 'GPL free' (strings attached). I'm not a fan of the GPL, I think it's selfish."
I know Loopy, and this is what he always intended. There is nothing wrong with the company doing this. I agree with Loopy that prohibiting commercial use is selfish a lot of the time, but I wouldn't say *always*.
Melissa
One thing. You're missing the irony of a piece of software written to pirate video games being pirated to play video games. (In the opinion of the fanboys - the author knew he didn't have a leg to stand on.)
the author knew he didn't have a leg to stand on
No, the author is completely happy because this is what he intended in the first place, anybody can take the source and use it for anything they want.
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Public Domain is where coders often put "abandonware" stuff they're not particularly interested or proud of, or they'd likely get into legal hot water for asserting their ownership. (Or, alternatively, they're US Government employees who were funded by the US taxpayers).
I'm not saying they don't value their own software -- clearly they do, like any coder does -- but they don't care enough about it to ask people even to assert their authorship.
Given those set of values, I can easily understand the coder here.
Does my bum look big in this?
The fans of the emulator, and the emulation scene, were upset because the work of this author was being used for evil commercial purposes by an evil company. If you haven't noticed, companies now play the role of the hated other. They routinely do terrible things that go unpunished (Shell murdering people in Nigeria, anyone?) and provide worse and worse products. For a company to take someone's work without payment and expoit it commercially is the highest evil imaginable.
Ok, that's a little thick, but you get the point. The problem is this "evil" company is Jaleco, a videogame company which generally seems motivated simply by making quirky games out of quirky ideas and doing so on the cheap. They probably re-released the games because they wanted people to play their stuff, rather than they wanted a quick buck. I know this isn't true at all publishers, and I have no personal contact with Jaleco, but most people who get into gaming do so because they love it, not because there is much money to be made. True, there are some toothpaste salesmen, but by and large even publishers are gamers. What they should have done was notify and thank the original author... but I wouldn't crucify them for that. They put out more retrogames into the world. They deserve support.
The ______ Agenda
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
I followed the link to the PocketNES site, and sent the author a small cash contribution, just because it's so refreshing to see somebody act and respond so magnanimously.
Things here worked out brilliantly. The PocketNES folks put out a great piece of free software that many people enjoy, video game fans get to legally play some old classics, and Jaleco employees get some cash.
Those people who champion the GPL because they believe proprietary software is inherently wrong, I have respect for. (Though the subset of those champions who make their living writing proprietary software, well...) Stallman's plan certainly worked; look at all the excellent GPL-licensed software out there. It's a huge codebase that will never make its way into closed-source software -- mission accomplished. And it certainly was a clever plot to use copyright to keep software open.
But I'm not so politically motivated. Public-domain-style licenses are just fine for most open-source purposes. This situation was a perfect example why. Nobody gets hurt! Like I said above, things here worked out great for Jaleco, for PocketNES (which certainly gets more respect and attention for this), and for the Japanese video-game-playing public in general.
The only "injuries" are that Jaleco is selling more closed-source software, and that the PocketNES author doesn't get a cut. But the author knew full well this could happen, and he didn't care, because it didn't hurt him! He wasn't motivated by greed.
So the only remaining "injury" is that the body of closed-source software has once again grown. Again, for those of you who think this is a Bad Thing, I respect you and your views. But I disagree, and I suspect many of you do, too. GPL is overkill, most of the time.
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
Nintendo will no doubt be thrilled to learn that they have now licenced a game that contains code from an "unofficial" emulator.
Considering how the want to prohibit even legal hardware emulation of their systems (unless they have control over it), I think Jaleco might be in a tiny bit of hot water...
Maybe the author just doesn't care about credit, has no interest in playing bullshit software politic games, and just wants to have fun writing some software. You ever think that not everyone sees software as a religion?
'Standards' in computing only impress those who are impressed by things like 'standards'.
It goes something like this: The USA, UK, European Countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan, and so on, are all free countries, right? But you can't go out and kill someone...in fact there are huge bodies of law restricting people's actions; but they're still free countries...
This is what the GPL is about; it's about preserving everybody's freedoms by placing some restrictions on the use of the code.
Sure, anybody can release their code under any terms they like. The point of the story, I think, is that if you release something public domain or using BSD-like terms, somebody may well take your code and make money from it.
Maybe you expect that and are fine with it, and have as a goal the encouragement of better software (say, going back 15 years, if you release a toolkit like Tcl/Tk because you want to provide an alternative to C/Motif), or just recognition and acclaim based on wide usage.
But this seems somehow wrong when the product being released and charged for is a small increment on top of the original PD stuff. This could happen if the code is a full application rather than components or framework.
If I release a program in the latter category I would consider a license that says "free to non-profits, but pay me if it's a commercial product". This probably has a name in the OSS license taxonomy but I don't know what it is. It seems fairest because the author would always get a share of the profits (whether they are zero or not). I think universities tend to give approval to research projects releasing their code under this kind of license more easily than the GPL - these days technology licensing is no small matter for schools.
If the author of the PocketNES code thought about this and figured PD was what he wanted, great. But the next person might be in for a surprise if they don't think the issues through...
the emulation community was upset about copyright infringement of an emulator's source code. Someone tell them they're infringing on copyrights by downloading ROMs for free. hypocrites. -_-
There are no ropes or chains on his software now. He is not trying to make money off of it or stop anyone else from doing so.
Why is it that some people are fine with not getting any money off of thier software, then get all bent out of shape when some else finds a legal way to do so.Free Mac Mini Yeah, it's