Google Yanks Several Emulators From App Store

PC Magazine reports that the "-oid" family of emulators from developer Yong Zhang (better known as yongzh) has been pulled from Google's Android Market. These include Nesoid, Snesoid, and Gameboid. From the article: "So what got Zhang the boot? Or, rather, who? Neither Zhang nor Google have commented on the primary source of the complaints against the developer's emulator apps. While most speculate that one of the Big Three are behind the purge–Nintendo, Sony, or Microsoft–there's also speculation that Zhang allegedly violated the open source licenses for projects that parts of his programs were derived from." A piece at Android Police has further mention and some more background on the legal position of emulator software.

Comments

sleezeball

[deisama]

I don't care what you're position is on emulators or Google. This guy tried to make money off of other people's work, his emulators were just based off of open source projects like snes9x. And he actually had the gall to try and play the sympathy card about how he's lost his primary source of income. You mean he might actually have to work, or come up with something original to earn money? How sad.

He deserved to get pulled.

Re:sleezeball

[WarpedCore]

SNES9x is a non-commercial license. Even if he released the source, he can't sell it for money, like he's been doing.

Re:sleezeball

[Anonymous Coward]

Except that this seems to be something akin to a GPL licensing issue. The emulator is, apparently, ripped of another emulator (that does provide source code; with a non-commerical reuse license.)

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/hmwj7/android_markets_most_popular_emulators_disappear/

So, no, the software doesn't seem to be pulled because it was an emulator; but that it was a simple copyright violation in its own right. Not sure what the truth of the matter is; merely that there's good evidence it's not a simple 'DMCA takedown by $BIG_CORPORATION of all emulators'.

Re:sleezeball

[flowwolf]

Redhat doesn't charge for the software. They charge for the services and hardware they provide surrounding the software.

Re:sleezeball

[icebraining]

FOSS isn't "Free Open-source Software", it's "Free and Open-source Software" (as in, the Free Software as defined by the FSF plus the Open Source software as defined by the OSI).

And according to the Open Source Definition,

. Free Redistribution
The license shall not restrict any party from selling or giving away the software as a component of an aggregate software distribution containing programs from several different sources. The license shall not require a royalty or other fee for such sale.

So, no, it's not OSS.

Re:sleezeball

[FrangoAssado]

Not without explicit permission from the autors; Snes9x license explicitly forbids it:

Snes9x is freeware for PERSONAL USE only. Commercial users should seek permission of the copyright holders first. Commercial use includes, but is not limited to, charging money for Snes9x or software derived from Snes9x, including Snes9x or derivatives in commercial game bundles, and/or using Snes9x as a promotion for your commercial product. [my emphasis]

Snesoid was based on Snes9X

[byuu]

Which has a strict non-commercial license. The developers do not want their work being sold for profit.
So in that instance this has nothing to do with the GPL. Not sure about the other two.
Personally, I'm happy to see this one pulled.

Re:Snesoid was based on Snes9X

[Aug Leopold]

Looks like nesoid is based on FCE Ultra (GNU GPL) and gameboid was based on gpSP (GNU GPL).

Re:Snesoid was based on Snes9X

[Exophase]

yongzh has received a relicense for gpSP by me, the sole copyright holder of the source he forked off of (he isn't using any code from any of the other forks). So Gameboid isn't violating any license agreements. It getting pulled is either at Google's discretion due to complaints against the owner in general or, more likely, Nintendo pressuring him. Remember, Google makes money off of his sales too. I doubt they'd remove emulators that didn't directly correlate to any particular person's specific complaint (nor would they take a complaint from some random non-copyright holder seriously). Nintendo, on the other hand..

Re:He violated the GPL

[thetoadwarrior]

Snesoid at least was based on snes9x which strictly says you can't make money from it and he did. That's a clear violation which, if I were the author of Snes9x I'd be pissed.

Re:He violated the GPL

[countertrolling]

Lisa, I would like to buy your bridge...

Re:He violated the GPL

[Anonymous Coward]

Snes9x is not GPL.

Re:He violated the GPL

[uberjack]

Maybe so, but it's not like "yongzh" distributed the source code of his emulators, which _is_ required by the work derived from GPL. That said, while SNES9X doesn't use GPL, it does forbid commercial use of its source code.

Re:The author ripped off other people's projects

[tepples]

If you release software that says "you can feel free to make money off this", and I make money off it, how have I done anything wrong?

Two of the emulators that people port to everything under the sun (VisualBoyAdvance and FCEUX) are GPL. In this case, if you fail to pass on the copylefted source code, then you've done something wrong. And if you do pass it on, you haven't done anything wrong, but anybody else will have the right to rebuild it to APK and submit it as a free app to Amazon, AppsLIb, and SlideME.

Re:I don't see what this man did wrong.

[Kenja]

I'll try to explain using smallish words. He took other peoples emulators, ported then to Android, and charged money. These other peoples emulators had licenses on them that either required he make the source code for his changes available (which he did not do) or forbade charging money (which he did). It has nothing to do with emulators being OK or not. It has to do with copy write and what he was and was not allowed to do with other peoples code.