Kind of seems like any drama from open source projects almost exclusively comes from projects who have Discord servers. Maybe we should all go back to IRC. Then at least the general public wouldn't be around harassing open-source developers for support.
Nothing against Stenzec, but the community will just fork the last open version and build off that, meanwhile the "official" one will stagnate and be left behind. It's a tale as old as time. Meanwhile by changing the license he is possibly opening himself up as a target by Sony in a similar vein that closed source Nintendo system emulators get routinely targeted by Nintendo.
@@MrGamelover23 They could, however its fundamentally harder to do so and there is no guarantee that the contribution will actually see the light of day considering it now has to be approved by Stenzec before it can be distributed. Not to mention this will make it significantly more difficult to make ports of the emulator, and what ports that are made will likely suffer due to the new code being closed off. Plus any contributors from this point on will have to ask themselves the question if their contribution will some day be used for a version of duckstation that is completely walled off and monetized.
@@MrGamelover23 Actually there is. No Derivatives specifically prohibits publishing remixes of the original, which is what pull/merge requests are. Although, from what I recall, there is a clause in the Github ToS that states that all code uploaded to the site must be forkable. So, there might be a way? But even if there is, it's adding unnecessary legal hurdles.
@@MrGamelover23 The new license and policies both prevent the community from contributing any more. It specifically forbids derivative works, and the project no longer accepts patches from outsiders.
I can see a hostile fork of the last open sourced version of DuckStation taking over if the community gets pissed enough. Which would suck because Stenzec's insanely talented and I'd hate to see the continual emulation brain drain.
hes making it so poeple cant fork it, he just wants to keep it for himself which is wrong. i think people should fork it and forget about the dev who made this decision. you can see in his reasoning that hes concerned about him getting the attribution, well now hes gone against the community. him having the rights to strip peoples code away and rewrite it just so he can change the licence so hes always got attribution is just bad
Copyright holder can change their license as they see fit. If I release something with GPL on version 1.0, I can change it to commercial license in the next version. People can still use the 1.0 software as in accordance with GPL. They can't change the license because they don't have the right, but I can since I am the copyright owner. Now if there are community patches that carries over to 2.0, I cannot change the license to something that is incompatible with GPL, UNLESS, 1. all of the contributors agree, or 2. all contributors signed copyright transfer on their patches.
@@12q8 takeaway would be that if other ppl contributed to this repo and they didn't agree to the license change GPL will still be applying to future changes to the code
It's so odd to me. They were already violating the license, what does changing it even do? It's just a net negative for everyone involved and seems like a decision made in frustration and not well thought out.
That's literally it, it's a kneejerk reaction that doesn't accomplish what he wants it to. 1. He's mad at the Chinese bootleggers; this literally won't stop them because they don't care 2. He's mad at Libretro; trademarks would've done the job just fine, and this will slow and restrict them, but not stop them. 3. He's mad at 3rd party distributions/packages; it won't stop them either because even the most restrictive CC license explicitly allows such a "change of format". That clause was intended to let you convert FLAC to MP3 though, not Source Code to Executable. So he's misapplying a very inappropriate license to his code. What it does stop is people contributing to the project without first begging stenzek and the other 100+copyright holders for permission to be exempt from the ND clause.
They usually bundle their distribution with pirated games. I'm pretty sure even Western people on piracy subreddit really care about software license & copyright.
"Somebody else will surely do the work instead!" Good luck. It might get forked, but in 99.9% of cases people who fork something either won't commit anything or notice after 5 commits how much work it actually is and stop any further. Rather be happy that somebody else has spend a massive amount of his life just to make yours a little easier, without even expecting anything in return. People tend to forget the worthness and the ownership of these kind of things, you aren't even obligated to expect such software to exist in the first place. If this change is gonna improve the life of people who have to deal with all that heat, so let it be. They are just humans after all.
In case stenzek isn't aware, he needs permission from every person who has ever contributed to the project to change the license. They made their code and contributions in good faith and completely aware of the license it was being published under. There is a lot of trouble coming.
Where did you read that? Do the contributors hold any sort of copyright? ... on a copyleft licensed project (i.e. GPL-licensed)?? Where in the GPL does it say that you own the software in any way and that the owner can cancel/invalidate the GPL? Or perhaps any random person can go ahead and cancel the GPL on any project. The core contributor, the first contributor, and a random stranger on the street don't seem to be differentiated in the GPL with any sort of different rights.
@@williamduncan7401 The very reason companies like Canonical or Red Hat make you sign a CLA if you're contributing, is so they hold the necessary permission to relicense your contributions should they deem it necessary. Small projects have no such provision, ergo you are relicensing the work of others that contributed to your success, and you can't do that. While he doesn't need to get everyone's permission, he does however need to get permission from everyone whose **contributions are still within** duckstation.
@@williamduncan7401 copyleft is not public domain/no copyright, it's to ensure user's freedom, not nuke the concept of copyright. so the author do have rights to relicense their own code to any license they want, but only their own code. all the other codes, regardless of how tiny they are, by contributors belong to them, they're the ones who have the rights to relicense their code, thus to move away from gpl, or literally any original license, you need their permission to relicense it (to relicense on their behalf). otherwise, those codes are stuck to gpl forever, which will make the code mixed with gpl and whatever new license is. if the new license it compatible with gpl, it's fine. if not, it's gpl violation.
@@williamduncan7401 "Where did you read that? Do the contributors hold any sort of copyright? ... on a copyleft licensed project (i.e. GPL-licensed)??" They do if there isn't a CLA (Contributer Licence agreement) to assign copyright to the lead developer and stenzek has said there isn't a CLA. "Where in the GPL does it say that you own the software in any way and that the owner can cancel/invalidate the GPL?" Where it differentiates itself from Public Domain. Every contributor owns the copyright to their contributions. "Or perhaps any random person can go ahead and cancel the GPL on any project. The core contributor, the first contributor, and a random stranger on the street don't seem to be differentiated in the GPL with any sort of different rights." That's the feature. Under the GPL, every contributor holds the copyright to their contributions and has licenced their code under the GPL. That's why if you change to a non-GPL compatible licence, You need the poermission of all the contributors or you have to rewerite the code to remove those GPL'd contibutions. Stenzek can do this because they worte the vast majority of the code so own the copyright to the vast majority of DuckStation. Also, the new licence only applies to new versions of DuskcStation, old versions are still under the GPL.
I certainly hope people fork it from the last open version, and continue on without their notoriously unstable founder. Dude has a problem with the existence of a duckstation retroarch core, and by his own admission, he knows the new license won't fix the problems he's complaining about, creates problems for lots of people, and accomplishes nothing but making him personally feel better.
Stenzek, while I respect his technological abilities and I can somewhat understand frustration from a company taking his work not simply crediting him out of respect, he should not be super anal about people using or modifying his code and redistributing it. It's just as bad as proprietary software nonsense and the freedom restrictions it comes with.
Because people aren't going to bother submitting patches to a project that is less accessible. Unless the new version with the new license can develop a ton of code that makes interoperability enough of a problem that people flock to his code, it's probably going to either die or become irrelevant the way that Open Office is.
Duckstation is available as a core in RetroArch, but with the name Swanstation. It's a build before the license change, when it was GPL. Sadly it will also stop getting updates.
@@jezjackinjoe Wtf are you talking? Swanstation is not a violation of the GPL. Please learn what the license is about and what they do before spreading nonsense and false information.
What are those updates for anyway? It's an emulator for an ancient system, with ancient games that runs even in a toaster, what more is there to develop and update? I havent updated the ePSXe in my android for years and it's still working every time.
@ZanZippo These already exist for ages friend, tell me one ps1 game that runs bad? Like I said, ps1 games run in a toster, you dont need a ps1 game in 4k, dude.
@@Kannon_BR If you read the update notes, then you know what the updates are. No emulator is perfect, especially with complex systems. There is always room for improvements (such bug fixes or performance upgrades or better menus or adapting to new environments) or adding new features (such as support for .chd format in example). Just open the update notes and read into it, if you want to know what is changing. There is a lot!
the creative commons license *is not* built for software, at all. an example i heard of how this will get seriously messy is that it's required that all contributors NEED to approve any other contributions made to the program. that's just beyond messy.
100% this. For starters, it has no indemnification/disclaimer clause, so the dev can be sued for whatever bogus reason. People who were selling h/w without respecting the old license will continue doing that. The only thing this changes that other projects can no longer distribute/package/bundle this anymore (cc-by-nc-nd prevents derivative works, including packaging).
Gets messy as soon as the GPL code suddenly appears in a CC licensed project. Last time I checked, any software that uses GPL must also be licensed as GPL. And last time I checked, the GPL was copyleft, so there are no copyright holders.
@@williamduncan7401wrong. Copyleft is just a concept that states, derivatives must be licensed in the same way. Copyright still applies for each contribution, automatically. GPL is just a license that delineates the rights and obligations for someone who wants to use the copyrighted code. The only situation where copyright doesn't apply is when the code is dedicated to "Public Domain", but not all countries recognize Public Domain, in which case the copyright reverts.
As an open-source author who has been through many of the same challenges as Stenzek, including rip-offs, widespread corporate use without paying me, harassment, and a ton of threats to me and everyone around me, I cannot support Stenzek's decision to close the source. I would never hurt my community like that.
I want to know what you're supposed to do when wealthier people threaten to sue you. You literally just lose by default and have your life ruined if you just happen to be less wealthy than the accuser in America.
Thank you. It's actually not really closed source, but source available without the rights of a true open source license. Still better than closed source, because you can inspect and build the code and make changes (just not share to public). But I do not support this either and wish he stops coding, because he is only hurting the community with its attitude and splitting them by feeding with bad intentions.
@@thingsiplay The fact that you want the developer of the actual best PS1 emulator out there to stop coding because you can't to whatever you want with his program, including things that are detrimental to the developer says alot about you as a person.
@@rashira9610 That you don't understand the hostile and toxicity of the developer towards free and open source, by taking away the free and open source rights tells a lot about you as a person. The developer is against Freedom and actively working against Freedom of users. Yes off course I want him go away, because the Free and Open Source community does not benefit from it and its actively harming with his nonsense.
@@thingsiplay I'm just a guy that wants to play games. I don;t get into this manchild "Reee I need to be able to fork your work and sell it Reee!" nonsense. It's probably time to grow up and come to grips with the fact that you arent entitled to everything just because you want it.
It sucks that the license changed, but if people/groups aren't respecting the license, I don't see how this will change things. Unless stenzec went after groups legally, I think exploitation of his work will continue
It's like the same problem with Digital Rights Management and Piracy; it only hurts those who respect the license, not those who exploit it. Strangely enough one of this biggest problems was that the RetroArch team ported Duckstation to RetroArch. He has a problem with this, but it makes not sense why. Even after rebranding it to Swanstation in RetroArch, he does not accept it. What the hell, dude... How can someone in the Open Source community be this hostile?
@@thingsiplay The retroarch team harassed Steznek after they added Duckstation to retroarch themselves and told him to make specific fixes for them. Steznek also deals with tons of issues from Retroarch users for a project that isnt his. I'm not sure how that makes Steznek hostile.
@@WhatAboutZoidberg This claim is repeated everywhere without even knowing if its true or providing evidence. There is so much false information out there.
This dude is known for pulling this kind of stuff, probably as a means of seeking/garnering attention. Talented development skills aside, why anyone would put long term faith into projects he has direct control over baffles me, as this should surprise absolutely nobody. He’ll go on to continue creating more highly regarded works that will be surrounded in controversy and this cycle will go on ad-nauseam until he eventually chooses to hang his hat up entirely.
He did the same thing to aethersx2. Talented guy. But i think he is alone and feels unloved. It's a pattern of taking revenge for being attacked and not getting enough emotional support
I doubt they'll bother here. The most recent version prior to the change is probably also the most recent version to receive patches from people that don't know about this. People are free to fork that version. This relicensing would be a violation of the license of the patches as you can't re-license somebody elses code without authorization or a provision in the license allowing you to do it. I don't remember them bothering when the license on Open Office changed as there was a fork pretty quickly afterwards that largely made the issue moot.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade - I meant for previous, OSI (though that organization has been compromised, their old definition hasn't been) compliant version that the developer was complaining had had its license violated multiple times.
I find it amusing that he has a problem with somebody using his software in the way it wasn’t intended, and yet his whole software is to use someone else’s software as it is not intended
@@m92290 I find it amusing you’re trying to think he’s getting some type of gain from making said software where he changed the license to not let others who are trying to profit off something he doesn’t even make money off of, but I guess you know something I don’t.
@@nauyv Oh piss off with your strawman. OP never even insinuated that Duckstation is profitable, or Stenzek is making some sort of gain. Guess what bud, you can still break copyright even if you make no money off of it. That's not how the law works. Whether you want to accept it or not, yes emulation absolutely is using someone else's software in a way not intended. That is the ENTIRE point. The fact that you somehow still felt the need to come to Stenzek's defense over this obvious blanket statement means you need to quit glazing him for 5 seconds and think critically. But yeah, I guess we do know something you don't.
Stenzec is a great developer, sure. But he also is a self righteous pr*ck, who considers himself superior to others. There was a lot of arrogance when he made the aethersx2, PCSX2 port for Android. The code was closed source and then he decided to quit and did never open the code so others could keep that project going. If he quits again, I don't care. There are other good projects out there. If he was doing that just for fun, he wouldn't be so pissed about people not giving him credits, even though he deserves
The artist supposedly already should have let go the moment the GPL was chosen. The GPL is a copyleft license, meaning no contributor can claim any copyright. It's like donating a painting to the general public (in the public domain) and then demanding it back.
@@Butterscotch_96 I played Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom on Yuzu this year, and I'm proud of it. Actually I tried to play TOTK on Ryujinx (still installed) months ago and game didn't run well on my modern gaming PC, with glitches and visual issues, and even had a bug preventing me from progress. Almost no problems in Yuzu. Played over 110 hours on it, way after its death. Some even forked Yuzu and rebranded it, but no clue how well development goes. And if we can trust those too. The thing is, new games come out still.
I dont think this will be the last time this happens. A license that cant be enforced without the huge expense of a legal team and time is just some text you can ignore. Even if you had some sort of FOSS cops (EFF sorta?) I think the time and effort necessary to get into a legal battle over a violation wouldnt be worth it to many devs who see this as a hobby. FOSS licensing has flaws and comments saying 'lol they'll just fork it' are missing the bigger issue.
even if they had a legal team, it's very likely they'd loose due to it not exactly being legal to switch like this, they'd need permission from everyone who has ever submitted code, which I don't think they've done
@@mathman0569 it's not legal in any case (not a lawyer though). The contributors don't own the code in any way under GPL. GPL is copyleft = no copyright. I don't see how you can use the old GPL code in a now-CC-licensed project. Using/incorporating GPL code requires the project that uses it to also be GPL.
I would assume that violating the software license would come with a penalty/compensation. From what I've heard, GPL cases actually have a great track record.
If it was GPL, you can't modify it and release it as non-GPL... not sure what legal angle could be taken here but there definitely could be one if there is a party that claims harm...
@@claybford imagine a company forking this, "rewriting" the Polyform licensed code and doing whatever they want. You can't relicense an already written code, unless you somehow rewrite it with clean room. Relicensing is a legal grey area at best, and company like Ambernic will have dozens of lawyers to exploit that. So yes, their forking is not going anywhere yet community run forks are gonna die. Sodium also did this, all the forks are now dead. But I keep seeing people selling performance mods that are just repackaged Sodium.
It's unfortunate that he chose to do this, but I do kinda support his reasons, he's creating this out of the good of his heart and people deciding to take advantage like they have been would cause me to do the same I'm sure.
I'm like 90% sure this isn't something he can even do, unless he made 100% of the code or got permission from everyone who's submitted code to change from gpl
@@DuhVirus nah, he made this bed the second he chose to license under GPL. he doesn't get to throw a tantrum now that he's laying in it, he should have considered the nature of open source more critically seeing as this is not the first time he has done this.
i think redistributing modified code is essential to the open source community, but i'm also relatively okay with source available licenses because they can still be audited and learned from. i will never complain about someone giving their work back to the community in any form. but its probably time for a more resilient open source PSX emulator.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Can we talk about what leads projects to change their license? Sadly, the FOSS community mainly just takes, eventually leading to burnout. We're not good to many of our contributors and creators.
I don't see how changing the license stops people from breaking license terms, which seems to be the primary cause. It's odd, to me. That said. It's his prerogative to do so.
You're arguably better off using trademarks to provide the protection. Once the code is out there, it's out there, and people can physically ignore the licensing but the trademark is something that's a lot harder to steal without anybody noticing.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade Trademark lawsuits aren't exactly cheap. Would still need to lawyer up anyways. Also, software licenses like the GPL aren't for preventing copying/modifying/using. With the GPL, anyone with a computer can make contributions or other improvements. The GPL literally allows you to redistribute and sell the original code. It's not about restricting the code, it's more about fundamental software freedom. The GPL is in fact copyleft, the literal opposite of copyright-aka no copyright. Anyways, as far as I am aware, GPL court cases have had a fantastic track record so far.
I would also be willing to pay a monthly contribution for a sort of legal defense group that protects opensource licenses. I think something like this will be needed to protect the future of opensource
Stenzek has said that people are free to work on the code, but that all changes need to go through him before they're redistributed. I don't like this move, but there's at least in theory, collaboration can continue.
If there were to be FOSS policing, then there should be a big funding campaign behind it. If Microsoft decides to take some code for themselves, AppGet/WinGet comes to mind, they will do it. In such a case the original developer can't do anything against a giant such as that. In the AppGet/WinGet case the only thing which worked was to call them out and having them admit that the code came from the original author. But apart from that, WinGet is still here and AppGet isn't. Its a pity that the author of DuckStation took this action. As the ones who stole his code don't care. Its the FOSS community which will suffer most from this. And that is sad.
Unless a PSX emulator pops out of nowhere with similar/better compatibility and featureset, this won't happen. DS is the gold standard for PSX emulation, and people will keep using it unless they have a reason to change over.
@@Rayjacker Usually the reason why there aren't other emulators out there isn't because there aren't enough talented people, it's that talented people aren't willing to do it. And those people especially aren't going to try to solve an issue that has already been solved or someone else is working on. Now that spot is slowly opening up again, someone else is going to show up and steal the show. That's how it always worked, and how it always will work. Besides, if DuckStation imploded tomorrow and ceased to exist, there's always PCSX-R that could continue development. After all, that was *the* emulator for the best and latest improvements before DuckStation.
The comment about repackagers is just disgusting. For that alone this project deserves to become irrelevant. This isn't the only PS1 emulator and theres plenty of opportunity one of the many others to replace this one. Taking an open source project into a closed source state is never an acceptable move. Their right to do so or not.
Someone needs to explain to me why coders are supposed to martyr themselves and be chopped up piecemeal for theives to abuse their hard work. Where does all this self righteousness come from?
@@SmallSpoonBrigadeThen why does the code have to be open? Why can't open and closed source projects exist in harmony? Yall say you support small devs until they want control over thier hard work.
As a programmer myself I can say it is very frustrating if someone rips off your work. And if he wrote the software he has the right to do with it what he wants. I love duck station and hope everyone can grow up and enjoy what’s been given for free.
I don't think you legally can change the license, especially for anyone who downloaded the code before the switch in licence. All someone has to do is release one of those older versions and boom - anyone can edit it again.
To be more precise: You _can_ change the license to a project, as long as all copyright holders of the project agree. But, the new license won't apply retroactively; one just need to go back in commit history to find the last commit still using the old license and they can just fork and develop from that point onwards.
The Software Freedom Conservancy do GPL Enforcement through the courts among other things but they really have to pick their battles bc they're a small non-profit.
People (and I mean for profit companies) who use/abuse the free nature of Open Source projects like DS, will not care one bit if the license changes. This is mostly the author having some leverage to take back his work (by legal means if necessary), but alas, not everyone will be on board with that.
Dude, wtf is happening, everything is bad news. First we got blocked by rockstar and battleye on linux, then nintendo sued palworld, and now duckstation goes closed source?, man what a week
DuckStation didn't go closed source. There are more statuses of a codebase than the binary of "closed source" and "open source". The video title was intentionally written to trick you into thinking it's closed source. It takes literally less than a minute to visit the Github repo of Duckstation to verify this.
Stenzec could've sold DuckStation from the start and I would've bought it still for how good and polished it was. He didn't need to make it open source in the first place, but he did. Now the community is against him just for adding a bit more safeguards to himself and his works. I think it's a good thing he even still kept the source available instead of flat-out closing it. I love open-source as much as anyone else, but open source is not a silver bullet. It has its pros and cons, just like how there are many different licenses available. If it was, then everything would've been open source. Heck, even proprietary has its own merits. People should stop thinking, more-so demanding, from others what and what not to do with their work. Stenzec is not a slave nor is he an employee of yours.
I personally have no issue with proprietary software like this either, other than the fact that it tends to add lots of questionable, borderline malware code, but that's a different story. The issue is context, it was a popular software, that is opensource, and community maintained, and if the issue is not obeying the license, these "safeguards" won't matter because people who don't care about licenses won't obey new one either way. It's like writing "Do not rob" on the exterior walls because you got robbed once.
@@hikkamorii sure I can somewhat agree, but that reasoning applies to everything in the world, doesn't it? The existence of people who outright ignore rules does not make having rules a pointless endeavor. Kinda sounds like defeatist mentality to me. At least changing the license gives him a solid case to back him up should he need to. If people want to fork the source from when it was still open, from my understanding, is that they are still free to do so. Code from after the license changed however will need to follow new license terms, and I think if you don't agree with Stenzec in the first place, then it's as simple as not following the project anymore? And hoping to God that new forks will at least be as good as Stenzec's.
@@AllenGuarnes I get why rules exist, but just saying "don't rob" doesn't mean anything if you won't actually try to do something about it (e.i. going to the police). I don't think it's defeatist to call the "solution" to a problem that is as flawed pointless, GPL, or hell, even MIT license should protect from people just taking your code without attribution, but because these people don't care about license, and the owner won't sue them (which I don't blame one for), nothing will change by just re-licensing.
@@hikkamorii I understand what you're saying, but again, I feel like that's exactly what he's trying to do? He is probably laying the foundations to build himself a strong case, should he need to, against people who commercialize his work?
this licence change just means the original developer gets to keep the project exclusive to himself ensuring no forks. this will not have intended effected. lets fork the most recent build before the change and make that the new one
People will criticize stenzek for this, but the world of open source depends on people. When they don't have support or care you get situations like the XZ backdoor. Open source is a community effort. I expect many more projects to go this route in the future without real community and also industry support.
honestly this excuse of: all the contributors agreed, and the ones who didnt agree, we rewrote their code... is invalid, i mean, what if an project only got popular thanks to those other contributors, then it start making tons of money, the project then rewrite the code from everyone except the ones who agree with an licence change, an keep the brand? i dont want help make some floss software became popular just so they change the licence later on, its a bait and switch. im not mad at the duckstation developers, my point isnt to harass or encourage harassment against then, the issue is the precedent that cause and what might happen in the future with other projects that do the same for different reasons.
My guess is their is some large corp that is just taking duckstation and repackaging it and basically selling it. With all the "remakes" on modern consoles it wouldn't surprise me that they just slap duckstation on a cart with an ISO. It might be the case that it's hard to go after these companies legally under the GPL and making the license more strict gives them a better legal opening.
I am pissed about this. this literally always goes down as a way to get the project defunct or unpopular and an alternative takes over. Here it is going to be a fork. Never exclude the community. Just make it a NO CORPORATE USE and NO MONEY .... Edit: He will shut it down and he is a loser for that in a few months.
Whatever fork people make will probably be the one that's still active next year. We saw something similar with OpenOffice being forked to create Libreoffice due to the change in control. Now, I don't know that anybody really uses OpenOffice for much of anything as the development is nearly entirely over at Libreoffice.
Why is everyone making a big deal out of this? -Just submit the changes you'd like to him and if he accepts them, then that's great! If he doesn't, well tough! He's only one person, not a whole development team.- A license change is nothing to anyone, NOTHING. And besides, if he's still making the software for free, what's the point of using a fork? I swear some of you FOSS users just want everything to stay as is, letting everyone else make clones of someone's hard work... EDIT: Actually, I found out that's a little more complicated than just that, so I crossed that point about the code.
Right. Make a change and distribute your change back to the project... Except that is STRICTLY PROHIBITED by the terms of the license. This license is okay if all he wants to do is develop this app by himself. But if anyone else wants to contribute code and adhere to the actual text of the license, then he needs to change it to an open source license.
@@gardiner_bryant you know what, I wasn't completely grasping the terms of that license well... Still though, I personally wouldn't care as long as it's still free.
@@MrGamelover23 no its because the new license only hurts those who respected the license not those who didn't Stenzek KNOWS this is going to cause even further backlash so he is pretty much paving the way for shutting the project down. its the same guy who said he wouldn't support Linux builds on PCSX2 with the new UI because he didn't like answering people's questions about it and how Linux works.
Stenzec is very well respected member of the emulation community he even contributes to PCX2. I can understand why he is doing this he is doing his best to protect his copyright and his work and changing the licensing was his only way of doing so. Also he said if he wanted to stop the project he would revert the license so people can continue to maintain the work being done. Let's just wait and see what is going to happen in the coming weeks and months to see how this decision of his goes. It sounds like it to me that Stenzic is acting like Linus Torvalds in a very small way. What I mean is that any changes to the Linux Kernel have to go through Linus and with Duckstation any changes have to go through Stenzic. It's not a bad thing that Stenzic is taking a page out of Linus' play book. I think it is a good idea to try out.
@@razumskiy The gatekeeping isn't inherently bad, but people are not likely to accept that in an established project, especially when switching to a different license. They tolerate that from Linus because that's how it always was and people can fork their own code if they want to, it's just that for most purposes forking the code to be free of Linus comes at the cost of having to maintain a separate source tree that needs work to keep it compatible with the official kernel. The hassle of maintaining a compatible source tree to accept new changes is a large part of why BSD and MIT licensed projects still get contributions from 3rd parties that are using the code. They're not required to, but failing to do so can be very expensive, so they contribute what they can and mostly just keep the stuff that's specific to their business secret. And sometimes, they don't bother giving anything back at all. Which is fine, it's opensource, that is going to happen whether the license allows it or not and it can be hard to identify violators without doing a lot of work.
Not sure where to ask this, given the DuckStation GitHub doesn't allow reports thesedays, but... is there any reason they offer an SSE2 build, for CPUs older than 2007, and yet no-longer support any GPU that only does DirectX 10 or older? Even the software renderer mode doesn't work on older GPUs now, so how often is it that someone has a CPU older than 2007 (e.g. an Intel Premium 4 or original Intel Core Solo, or an AMD K7 or K8), and yet will have a GPU in such a system that supports DirectX 11? 🤔🤨
It doesn't matter why, or what the topic is, or how valid the point you're trying to reinforce is, don't preemptively talk down to people. If you're lucky, people will write you off as an immature egomaniac, if you're unlucky, there's this thing called psychological reactance that will encourage people to do the opposite specifically to spite you. It's extremely counterproductive, don't do it, save your breath.
Quite annoying, but in a way I understand. This is stenzek's "nuclear option" so to speak, because he's tired of this happening. I supported him when it came to Libretro as he's not the only one who's had similar issues with them, but all this... Just no
More and more projects are realizing that you can't make money with FOSS and shift away from open-source . Even Gardiner knows that - game he recently released is not open-source.
I don’t think I fully understand this. I don’t personally use duckstation yet (I have like, a single ps1 game I’d emulate if I did), but I’d duckstation just pay for software now? Is that what was meant by it being no longer free software? Cause to my understanding, it requires a proprietary bios to even use so how does that work? I could be grossly misunderstanding all of this but I hope everyone arrives at a solution that works for everyone.
Free software refers to the idea of software having very little restrictions if any. The reason they say it's not free now is because the license now used by it prohibits forking and commercial use.
@@hikkamorii ah, that explains a lot. So it’s the hinderance to folks in the community that would benefit others by modifying it and now they can no longer do that because they do not have the freedom to do so anymore due to the license. I can see why that would tick off quite a few people. Ultimately, I’m just glad the software exists at all to allow people to use for its intended purposes, however restrictive it may be now.
we have a watchdog that goes around and polices open source use, it is called free software foundation, but guess what they are busy with, instead of doing their only purpose
Stenzec makes good emulators but I feel like this is a slap in the face of everyone who contributed, and endorsed useage of duckstation, and the fact he's did this change without letting anyone know so they could fork the last gpl, and took the source away is a mockery of FOSS. I will not be usibg or recommending anymore software that I know is written by Stenzec. I wish him luck on his projects.
Anyone can fork last GPL version. It's commit aa955b8 if you are wondering, source is still there. That version was released under GPL. Any newer versions and their improvements are under CC-BY-NC-ND (honestly a horrible license for a software project, it doesn't even differentiate between object and source form).
@@VoicesInDark Okay, that makes things far less... evil lol. I'll probably try to support other developers instead anyway, honestly, but this is good info to have out there. Thank you :3
I'm surprised you did not mention the SFC. They do help fight license abuse as well as give much needed services to freedom software projects. Software Freedom Conservancy. Support them. They do good work.
I always love how people justify his terrible behavior just because he's making an emulator for free. Just because he does that doesn't mean he gets to behave the way he does. He's the same dude that made AetherSX2 and he was a thin skinned drama queen that basically lied about the so called "threats" he was receiving. He's talented don't get me wrong. I just wish we had a more mentally stable maintainer for this project.
Agreed. I don't love it, but it's infinitely better than the AetherSX2 situation where it came to a halt entirely since that project had closed source components from the get-go. At least if Stenzek decides to kill Duckstation someday (the threat of killing the project in response to harassment makes me feel like it'll come true someday), it won't be completely cooked since there are forks already of the pre-license changed code.
So Duckstation went from open source to source avaliable. I don't see problem because it will still remain free to use and source code will still be avaliable maybe not as a whole.
The system works, I understand the decision. What can be done? Solve the underlying societal problems. But that's against the interests of Billionaires like Musky boy and their useful Susans.
@@KenBladehart Right. He doesn't want to enjoy his own life, he just wants to make sure no one else enjoys their life. Stenzek is a control freak, a narcissist and a drama queen, and this license change (from open source to proprietary) is a very bad look. Whatever respect he's earned in the open source / emulator community is sure to disappear fast if he continues his childish tantrums.
@@KenBladehart Seems like you're another one of those people who doesn't understand how digital information works. It's not theft when the original copy remains in its place.
@@adamn.4111 Its funny that you said that to me when youre the fact that doesnt know and understand the situation at hand Look at yourself in the mirror sometimes, ok?
I would support license enforcement, and there is something else I would be more eager to support. I would pay for whatever training would be needed for developers to support derivative works. I understand it's not an issue of training, it's that these ppl are adopting a "not made here" attitude and I would pay them to stop doing that! It would be wonderful if everyone would learn to just be supportive when others have a different way of doing things.
A) I would only use a Stenzek made version of Duckstation. B) It's his to do what he wants with. We're playing with his toys. C) It's still going to be free to download.
This is a vaguely sensational title, but I mostly agree with your points here. I also kind of agree with Stenzek, especially regarding what he said about a CLA. Perhaps surprisingly so, but I don't have as much of a doomer take on this, partly because the source will still be available for free. If he had decided to close it entirely and then charge money for access to the source, then I would have a grim view, but this just sounds like he's frustrated with being blamed for things that aren't his fault. As for whether we might need a central authority to police open source license violations, I'm not so sure that's really necessary. I do think that package maintainers and distro maintainers should do a better job of labeling, but a central authority just screams 1984 at me. You may not believe it even though you've witnessed it in your life, but the slippery slope is real.
This re-licensing is really stupid (put mildly!!). First of all, GPL is copyleft, which means nobody has any copyright on it. You can't "own" GPL code; it belongs as much to the creator as it does to any other human. I am pretty sure you can't relicense from GPL to CC, even with the approval of all contributors (not a lawyer though). Prior to the re-license, all of that code forever remains GPL. GPL requires that any GPL code used in any software must also be GPL. This means that the project is still using the old GPL code, but is now violating it! And remember, the contributors don't own it! The GENERAL PUBLIC does (you know, literally as in the name of the license!). Also, you can't just take someone's code and re-write and claim you own the code. What's next, rename their variables and call it new? If you're programming something to somehow become famous and have your name next to a C inside a circle for 50 years after your death... perhaps get a brain check from your doctor. When you're developing something for the benefit of everyone (and where everyone can contribute), it makes no sense to slap your name everywhere and demand that everyone hangs a portrait of your face in their homes. Nobody cares. Of course when you're writing new code, you've got the choice how to license it. Write your own proprietary license for all I care. Relicensing GPL to CC is like getting a refund on a charity donation to all of humanity so you can buy a jetski.
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What's your x?
Kind of seems like any drama from open source projects almost exclusively comes from projects who have Discord servers. Maybe we should all go back to IRC. Then at least the general public wouldn't be around harassing open-source developers for support.
Day by day, IRC becomes even more tempting.
I think humanity would take a step forward if we ditched discord and returned to forums/IRC
making online communication user friendly was a mistake.
already i can smell the circlejerking
It sure does make me want to never update the damn program ever again, let alone any software for that matter if this keeps happening.
Nothing against Stenzec, but the community will just fork the last open version and build off that, meanwhile the "official" one will stagnate and be left behind. It's a tale as old as time.
Meanwhile by changing the license he is possibly opening himself up as a target by Sony in a similar vein that closed source Nintendo system emulators get routinely targeted by Nintendo.
There's nothing stopping the community from just contributing to the new license.
@@MrGamelover23 They could, however its fundamentally harder to do so and there is no guarantee that the contribution will actually see the light of day considering it now has to be approved by Stenzec before it can be distributed.
Not to mention this will make it significantly more difficult to make ports of the emulator, and what ports that are made will likely suffer due to the new code being closed off.
Plus any contributors from this point on will have to ask themselves the question if their contribution will some day be used for a version of duckstation that is completely walled off and monetized.
You mean the same way people “forked” and built off of Yuzu? It’s hard for people who were not part of the original project to improve a project.
@@MrGamelover23 Actually there is. No Derivatives specifically prohibits publishing remixes of the original, which is what pull/merge requests are.
Although, from what I recall, there is a clause in the Github ToS that states that all code uploaded to the site must be forkable. So, there might be a way? But even if there is, it's adding unnecessary legal hurdles.
@@MrGamelover23 The new license and policies both prevent the community from contributing any more. It specifically forbids derivative works, and the project no longer accepts patches from outsiders.
I can see a hostile fork of the last open sourced version of DuckStation taking over if the community gets pissed enough. Which would suck because Stenzec's insanely talented and I'd hate to see the continual emulation brain drain.
hes making it so poeple cant fork it, he just wants to keep it for himself which is wrong. i think people should fork it and forget about the dev who made this decision. you can see in his reasoning that hes concerned about him getting the attribution, well now hes gone against the community. him having the rights to strip peoples code away and rewrite it just so he can change the licence so hes always got attribution is just bad
Isn't that the same guy behind aethersx2? That sounds like a pattern of behavior
Good, we need to defend end-user freedom/liberty.
Its te same dude from the ps2 emulator, he has problems
@@Al-tt6tj He can't do that for older versions as long as said older versions aren't stealing the duck station logo or name
What would stop people from violating this license anyways if they violated the GPL?
It really makes no sense.
asking the real questions here
Copyright holder can change their license as they see fit. If I release something with GPL on version 1.0, I can change it to commercial license in the next version.
People can still use the 1.0 software as in accordance with GPL. They can't change the license because they don't have the right, but I can since I am the copyright owner.
Now if there are community patches that carries over to 2.0, I cannot change the license to something that is incompatible with GPL, UNLESS, 1. all of the contributors agree, or 2. all contributors signed copyright transfer on their patches.
@@masterkutai that doesn’t answer the question, but thanks for sharing.
@@12q8 takeaway would be that if other ppl contributed to this repo and they didn't agree to the license change GPL will still be applying to future changes to the code
Ah well... I think I misunderstand the question.
"People are violating my license! If I make it more restrictive people will totally stop violating it!"
The best part is where people "stripped his copyright" from a project licensed with a copyleft license
It's so odd to me. They were already violating the license, what does changing it even do? It's just a net negative for everyone involved and seems like a decision made in frustration and not well thought out.
That's literally it, it's a kneejerk reaction that doesn't accomplish what he wants it to.
1. He's mad at the Chinese bootleggers; this literally won't stop them because they don't care
2. He's mad at Libretro; trademarks would've done the job just fine, and this will slow and restrict them, but not stop them.
3. He's mad at 3rd party distributions/packages; it won't stop them either because even the most restrictive CC license explicitly allows such a "change of format".
That clause was intended to let you convert FLAC to MP3 though, not Source Code to Executable. So he's misapplying a very inappropriate license to his code.
What it does stop is people contributing to the project without first begging stenzek and the other 100+copyright holders for permission to be exempt from the ND clause.
"nobody was listening to the license so that's why I changed the license waah" brilliant logic.
Yeah. Those Chinese companies which violated the original license won't care anyway. Good luck trying to sue them Stenzek.
They usually bundle their distribution with pirated games. I'm pretty sure even Western people on piracy subreddit really care about software license & copyright.
Duckstation will just become like Open Office. It was forgotten, with the fork Libre Office now a better app.
Well open office is under open source license, isn't it?
The difference is that the whole OpenOffice dev team decided to migrate to LibreOffice. I don't think that's what's happening to Duckstation.
"Somebody else will surely do the work instead!" Good luck. It might get forked, but in 99.9% of cases people who fork something either won't commit anything or notice after 5 commits how much work it actually is and stop any further. Rather be happy that somebody else has spend a massive amount of his life just to make yours a little easier, without even expecting anything in return. People tend to forget the worthness and the ownership of these kind of things, you aren't even obligated to expect such software to exist in the first place. If this change is gonna improve the life of people who have to deal with all that heat, so let it be. They are just humans after all.
In case stenzek isn't aware, he needs permission from every person who has ever contributed to the project to change the license. They made their code and contributions in good faith and completely aware of the license it was being published under. There is a lot of trouble coming.
Where did you read that? Do the contributors hold any sort of copyright? ... on a copyleft licensed project (i.e. GPL-licensed)?? Where in the GPL does it say that you own the software in any way and that the owner can cancel/invalidate the GPL? Or perhaps any random person can go ahead and cancel the GPL on any project. The core contributor, the first contributor, and a random stranger on the street don't seem to be differentiated in the GPL with any sort of different rights.
@@williamduncan7401 The very reason companies like Canonical or Red Hat make you sign a CLA if you're contributing, is so they hold the necessary permission to relicense your contributions should they deem it necessary.
Small projects have no such provision, ergo you are relicensing the work of others that contributed to your success, and you can't do that.
While he doesn't need to get everyone's permission, he does however need to get permission from everyone whose **contributions are still within** duckstation.
@@williamduncan7401 copyleft is not public domain/no copyright, it's to ensure user's freedom, not nuke the concept of copyright.
so the author do have rights to relicense their own code to any license they want, but only their own code. all the other codes, regardless of how tiny they are, by contributors belong to them, they're the ones who have the rights to relicense their code, thus to move away from gpl, or literally any original license, you need their permission to relicense it (to relicense on their behalf). otherwise, those codes are stuck to gpl forever, which will make the code mixed with gpl and whatever new license is. if the new license it compatible with gpl, it's fine. if not, it's gpl violation.
@@williamduncan7401 Exactly... you're agreeing with them.
@@williamduncan7401 "Where did you read that? Do the contributors hold any sort of copyright? ... on a copyleft licensed project (i.e. GPL-licensed)??"
They do if there isn't a CLA (Contributer Licence agreement) to assign copyright to the lead developer and stenzek has said there isn't a CLA.
"Where in the GPL does it say that you own the software in any way and that the owner can cancel/invalidate the GPL?"
Where it differentiates itself from Public Domain. Every contributor owns the copyright to their contributions.
"Or perhaps any random person can go ahead and cancel the GPL on any project. The core contributor, the first contributor, and a random stranger on the street don't seem to be differentiated in the GPL with any sort of different rights."
That's the feature. Under the GPL, every contributor holds the copyright to their contributions and has licenced their code under the GPL. That's why if you change to a non-GPL compatible licence, You need the poermission of all the contributors or you have to rewerite the code to remove those GPL'd contibutions.
Stenzek can do this because they worte the vast majority of the code so own the copyright to the vast majority of DuckStation.
Also, the new licence only applies to new versions of DuskcStation, old versions are still under the GPL.
whenever i hear something like this, i usually think it's a good thing because the community will be like "nope" and it gets forked with new life.
I certainly hope people fork it from the last open version, and continue on without their notoriously unstable founder. Dude has a problem with the existence of a duckstation retroarch core, and by his own admission, he knows the new license won't fix the problems he's complaining about, creates problems for lots of people, and accomplishes nothing but making him personally feel better.
Emulators require very specific skills which are not that common. I'm not sure there's that much of a community able to improve on Stenzec's work.
@@Liam3072 all the more reason for it to be open source then right?
there is, its called swanstation
@@littlemac5942i'm hoping we get pigeon station.
Stenzek, while I respect his technological abilities and I can somewhat understand frustration from a company taking his work not simply crediting him out of respect, he should not be super anal about people using or modifying his code and redistributing it. It's just as bad as proprietary software nonsense and the freedom restrictions it comes with.
If there are people who abused gpl license, what makes him think they won't abuse new one?
Because people aren't going to bother submitting patches to a project that is less accessible. Unless the new version with the new license can develop a ton of code that makes interoperability enough of a problem that people flock to his code, it's probably going to either die or become irrelevant the way that Open Office is.
Duckstation is available as a core in RetroArch, but with the name Swanstation. It's a build before the license change, when it was GPL. Sadly it will also stop getting updates.
@@jezjackinjoe Wtf are you talking? Swanstation is not a violation of the GPL. Please learn what the license is about and what they do before spreading nonsense and false information.
What are those updates for anyway? It's an emulator for an ancient system, with ancient games that runs even in a toaster, what more is there to develop and update? I havent updated the ePSXe in my android for years and it's still working every time.
@ZanZippo These already exist for ages friend, tell me one ps1 game that runs bad? Like I said, ps1 games run in a toster, you dont need a ps1 game in 4k, dude.
@@Kannon_BR If you read the update notes, then you know what the updates are. No emulator is perfect, especially with complex systems. There is always room for improvements (such bug fixes or performance upgrades or better menus or adapting to new environments) or adding new features (such as support for .chd format in example).
Just open the update notes and read into it, if you want to know what is changing. There is a lot!
the creative commons license *is not* built for software, at all. an example i heard of how this will get seriously messy is that it's required that all contributors NEED to approve any other contributions made to the program. that's just beyond messy.
100% this. For starters, it has no indemnification/disclaimer clause, so the dev can be sued for whatever bogus reason. People who were selling h/w without respecting the old license will continue doing that. The only thing this changes that other projects can no longer distribute/package/bundle this anymore (cc-by-nc-nd prevents derivative works, including packaging).
CC BY-SA 4.0 lets you license software based on the CC BY-SA 4.0 license under GPL v3.
Gets messy as soon as the GPL code suddenly appears in a CC licensed project. Last time I checked, any software that uses GPL must also be licensed as GPL. And last time I checked, the GPL was copyleft, so there are no copyright holders.
@@williamduncan7401wrong. Copyleft is just a concept that states, derivatives must be licensed in the same way.
Copyright still applies for each contribution, automatically. GPL is just a license that delineates the rights and obligations for someone who wants to use the copyrighted code.
The only situation where copyright doesn't apply is when the code is dedicated to "Public Domain", but not all countries recognize Public Domain, in which case the copyright reverts.
As an open-source author who has been through many of the same challenges as Stenzek, including rip-offs, widespread corporate use without paying me, harassment, and a ton of threats to me and everyone around me, I cannot support Stenzek's decision to close the source. I would never hurt my community like that.
I want to know what you're supposed to do when wealthier people threaten to sue you. You literally just lose by default and have your life ruined if you just happen to be less wealthy than the accuser in America.
Thank you. It's actually not really closed source, but source available without the rights of a true open source license. Still better than closed source, because you can inspect and build the code and make changes (just not share to public).
But I do not support this either and wish he stops coding, because he is only hurting the community with its attitude and splitting them by feeding with bad intentions.
@@thingsiplay The fact that you want the developer of the actual best PS1 emulator out there to stop coding because you can't to whatever you want with his program, including things that are detrimental to the developer says alot about you as a person.
@@rashira9610 That you don't understand the hostile and toxicity of the developer towards free and open source, by taking away the free and open source rights tells a lot about you as a person. The developer is against Freedom and actively working against Freedom of users. Yes off course I want him go away, because the Free and Open Source community does not benefit from it and its actively harming with his nonsense.
@@thingsiplay I'm just a guy that wants to play games.
I don;t get into this manchild "Reee I need to be able to fork your work and sell it Reee!" nonsense.
It's probably time to grow up and come to grips with the fact that you arent entitled to everything just because you want it.
It sucks that the license changed, but if people/groups aren't respecting the license, I don't see how this will change things. Unless stenzec went after groups legally, I think exploitation of his work will continue
It's like the same problem with Digital Rights Management and Piracy; it only hurts those who respect the license, not those who exploit it.
Strangely enough one of this biggest problems was that the RetroArch team ported Duckstation to RetroArch. He has a problem with this, but it makes not sense why. Even after rebranding it to Swanstation in RetroArch, he does not accept it. What the hell, dude... How can someone in the Open Source community be this hostile?
@@thingsiplay The retroarch team harassed Steznek after they added Duckstation to retroarch themselves and told him to make specific fixes for them. Steznek also deals with tons of issues from Retroarch users for a project that isnt his. I'm not sure how that makes Steznek hostile.
@@WhatAboutZoidberg This claim is repeated everywhere without even knowing if its true or providing evidence. There is so much false information out there.
@@thingsiplay There was a reddit thread about it 3 years ago. its still up if interested.
This dude is known for pulling this kind of stuff, probably as a means of seeking/garnering attention.
Talented development skills aside, why anyone would put long term faith into projects he has direct control over baffles me, as this should surprise absolutely nobody.
He’ll go on to continue creating more highly regarded works that will be surrounded in controversy and this cycle will go on ad-nauseam until he eventually chooses to hang his hat up entirely.
Isn't this like the third or fourth time he's tried doing this? People are probably going to ditch him and make Mallard-Station at this point
He did the same thing to aethersx2. Talented guy. But i think he is alone and feels unloved. It's a pattern of taking revenge for being attacked and not getting enough emotional support
The FSF has done license policing in the past. I don't know if they do that anymore.
I doubt they'll bother here. The most recent version prior to the change is probably also the most recent version to receive patches from people that don't know about this. People are free to fork that version. This relicensing would be a violation of the license of the patches as you can't re-license somebody elses code without authorization or a provision in the license allowing you to do it. I don't remember them bothering when the license on Open Office changed as there was a fork pretty quickly afterwards that largely made the issue moot.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade - I meant for previous, OSI (though that organization has been compromised, their old definition hasn't been) compliant version that the developer was complaining had had its license violated multiple times.
I find it amusing that he has a problem with somebody using his software in the way it wasn’t intended, and yet his whole software is to use someone else’s software as it is not intended
@@m92290 I find it amusing you’re trying to think he’s getting some type of gain from making said software where he changed the license to not let others who are trying to profit off something he doesn’t even make money off of, but I guess you know something I don’t.
@@nauyv Oh piss off with your strawman. OP never even insinuated that Duckstation is profitable, or Stenzek is making some sort of gain. Guess what bud, you can still break copyright even if you make no money off of it. That's not how the law works.
Whether you want to accept it or not, yes emulation absolutely is using someone else's software in a way not intended. That is the ENTIRE point. The fact that you somehow still felt the need to come to Stenzek's defense over this obvious blanket statement means you need to quit glazing him for 5 seconds and think critically.
But yeah, I guess we do know something you don't.
@@personnelproton I think you commented on the wrong person’s comment my guy
@@m92290 Nope, the dude who I replied to deleted his comment. Thanks for letting me know tho
Stenzec is a great developer, sure. But he also is a self righteous pr*ck, who considers himself superior to others. There was a lot of arrogance when he made the aethersx2, PCSX2 port for Android. The code was closed source and then he decided to quit and did never open the code so others could keep that project going.
If he quits again, I don't care. There are other good projects out there.
If he was doing that just for fun, he wouldn't be so pissed about people not giving him credits, even though he deserves
Stenzec doesn't owe you anything.
This is one situation where you have to separate the art from the artist.
And this is where the artist needs to let go.
The artist supposedly already should have let go the moment the GPL was chosen. The GPL is a copyleft license, meaning no contributor can claim any copyright. It's like donating a painting to the general public (in the public domain) and then demanding it back.
I'd like to see examples of Stenzec's claims here, as-is it sounds like he's the one pushing unsubstantiated drama.
he is, hes been a lying for years
They could just not update the current version ever again and it would probably work for decades
Same thing with Yuzu. It already runs the actual good Switch games. (there's like two or 3 good ones)
@@Butterscotch_96 I played Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom on Yuzu this year, and I'm proud of it. Actually I tried to play TOTK on Ryujinx (still installed) months ago and game didn't run well on my modern gaming PC, with glitches and visual issues, and even had a bug preventing me from progress. Almost no problems in Yuzu. Played over 110 hours on it, way after its death.
Some even forked Yuzu and rebranded it, but no clue how well development goes. And if we can trust those too. The thing is, new games come out still.
I dont think this will be the last time this happens. A license that cant be enforced without the huge expense of a legal team and time is just some text you can ignore. Even if you had some sort of FOSS cops (EFF sorta?) I think the time and effort necessary to get into a legal battle over a violation wouldnt be worth it to many devs who see this as a hobby. FOSS licensing has flaws and comments saying 'lol they'll just fork it' are missing the bigger issue.
even if they had a legal team, it's very likely they'd loose due to it not exactly being legal to switch like this, they'd need permission from everyone who has ever submitted code, which I don't think they've done
@@mathman0569 it's not legal in any case (not a lawyer though). The contributors don't own the code in any way under GPL. GPL is copyleft = no copyright. I don't see how you can use the old GPL code in a now-CC-licensed project. Using/incorporating GPL code requires the project that uses it to also be GPL.
I would assume that violating the software license would come with a penalty/compensation. From what I've heard, GPL cases actually have a great track record.
If it was GPL, you can't modify it and release it as non-GPL... not sure what legal angle could be taken here but there definitely could be one if there is a party that claims harm...
@@claybford imagine a company forking this, "rewriting" the Polyform licensed code and doing whatever they want.
You can't relicense an already written code, unless you somehow rewrite it with clean room.
Relicensing is a legal grey area at best, and company like Ambernic will have dozens of lawyers to exploit that. So yes, their forking is not going anywhere yet community run forks are gonna die.
Sodium also did this, all the forks are now dead. But I keep seeing people selling performance mods that are just repackaged Sodium.
AFAIK auther can relicense it howewer they wish
Isn't this like the 3rd time DuckStation its again in danger of dissapearing?!!
Time to fork 🍴.
It's unfortunate that he chose to do this, but I do kinda support his reasons, he's creating this out of the good of his heart and people deciding to take advantage like they have been would cause me to do the same I'm sure.
whos this people? give examples/proof
I'm like 90% sure this isn't something he can even do, unless he made 100% of the code or got permission from everyone who's submitted code to change from gpl
@@DuhVirus nah, he made this bed the second he chose to license under GPL. he doesn't get to throw a tantrum now that he's laying in it, he should have considered the nature of open source more critically seeing as this is not the first time he has done this.
i think redistributing modified code is essential to the open source community, but i'm also relatively okay with source available licenses because they can still be audited and learned from. i will never complain about someone giving their work back to the community in any form. but its probably time for a more resilient open source PSX emulator.
This isn't the first time this has happened. Can we talk about what leads projects to change their license? Sadly, the FOSS community mainly just takes, eventually leading to burnout. We're not good to many of our contributors and creators.
I don't see how changing the license stops people from breaking license terms, which seems to be the primary cause.
It's odd, to me.
That said. It's his prerogative to do so.
A license is only useful in court. If you don’t want your GPL to be violated, get ready to lawyer up
You're arguably better off using trademarks to provide the protection. Once the code is out there, it's out there, and people can physically ignore the licensing but the trademark is something that's a lot harder to steal without anybody noticing.
@@SmallSpoonBrigade Trademark lawsuits aren't exactly cheap. Would still need to lawyer up anyways. Also, software licenses like the GPL aren't for preventing copying/modifying/using. With the GPL, anyone with a computer can make contributions or other improvements. The GPL literally allows you to redistribute and sell the original code. It's not about restricting the code, it's more about fundamental software freedom. The GPL is in fact copyleft, the literal opposite of copyright-aka no copyright.
Anyways, as far as I am aware, GPL court cases have had a fantastic track record so far.
I would also be willing to pay a monthly contribution for a sort of legal defense group that protects opensource licenses. I think something like this will be needed to protect the future of opensource
Stenzek has said that people are free to work on the code, but that all changes need to go through him before they're redistributed. I don't like this move, but there's at least in theory, collaboration can continue.
"Relicensed" damn dude, crazy how that just means fork the old version because relicensing doesn't change the old version's license.
I can already see what kinda year this is gonna be...
The -NC and -ND variants of Creative Commons are not FOSS. But the other ones absolutely are!
Aaaaaaaeeeeeerrrrrrggghhhh!
That's all I'm gonna say. I won't go harass stenzek, but I can scream here, right?
If there were to be FOSS policing, then there should be a big funding campaign behind it. If Microsoft decides to take some code for themselves, AppGet/WinGet comes to mind, they will do it. In such a case the original developer can't do anything against a giant such as that. In the AppGet/WinGet case the only thing which worked was to call them out and having them admit that the code came from the original author. But apart from that, WinGet is still here and AppGet isn't.
Its a pity that the author of DuckStation took this action. As the ones who stole his code don't care. Its the FOSS community which will suffer most from this. And that is sad.
you know what's worse than being hated ? being forgotten, duckstation wil fall off very fast
Unless a PSX emulator pops out of nowhere with similar/better compatibility and featureset, this won't happen. DS is the gold standard for PSX emulation, and people will keep using it unless they have a reason to change over.
@@Rayjacker Usually the reason why there aren't other emulators out there isn't because there aren't enough talented people, it's that talented people aren't willing to do it. And those people especially aren't going to try to solve an issue that has already been solved or someone else is working on.
Now that spot is slowly opening up again, someone else is going to show up and steal the show. That's how it always worked, and how it always will work.
Besides, if DuckStation imploded tomorrow and ceased to exist, there's always PCSX-R that could continue development. After all, that was *the* emulator for the best and latest improvements before DuckStation.
@@Rayjacker there's a very good chance a fork will come out of this, unlikely that it'll be something completely new, though who knows lol
@@Rayjacker Isn’t Mednafen still going strong as a highly compatible psx emulator?
@@TechMarkYT You need a decent PC to run Mednafen PSX. DuckStation works on pretty much any low-to-mid-end device
I fully understand stenzeks frustration, especially since literally no one cared when people disregarded the previous license.
The comment about repackagers is just disgusting. For that alone this project deserves to become irrelevant. This isn't the only PS1 emulator and theres plenty of opportunity one of the many others to replace this one. Taking an open source project into a closed source state is never an acceptable move. Their right to do so or not.
Someone needs to explain to me why coders are supposed to martyr themselves and be chopped up piecemeal for theives to abuse their hard work.
Where does all this self righteousness come from?
It's because if something is not material, simple minded people don't perceive it as stealing.
It's open source. That doesn't justify the harassment, but a lot of the other stuff is just a consequence of the source being open.
@@SmallSpoonBrigadeThen why does the code have to be open? Why can't open and closed source projects exist in harmony?
Yall say you support small devs until they want control over thier hard work.
As a programmer myself I can say it is very frustrating if someone rips off your work. And if he wrote the software he has the right to do with it what he wants. I love duck station and hope everyone can grow up and enjoy what’s been given for free.
This is why we can't have nice things....
I don't think you legally can change the license, especially for anyone who downloaded the code before the switch in licence.
All someone has to do is release one of those older versions and boom - anyone can edit it again.
To be more precise: You _can_ change the license to a project, as long as all copyright holders of the project agree. But, the new license won't apply retroactively; one just need to go back in commit history to find the last commit still using the old license and they can just fork and develop from that point onwards.
Even though this doesn't really affect me, I still feel this is a step backwards for Duckstation. I hope they change their minds on this.
Kind of irrelevant, and not complaining but kind of entertaining how often Emudeck changes its UI / Website😅
The Software Freedom Conservancy do GPL Enforcement through the courts among other things but they really have to pick their battles bc they're a small non-profit.
People (and I mean for profit companies) who use/abuse the free nature of Open Source projects like DS, will not care one bit if the license changes. This is mostly the author having some leverage to take back his work (by legal means if necessary), but alas, not everyone will be on board with that.
Dude, wtf is happening, everything is bad news. First we got blocked by rockstar and battleye on linux, then nintendo sued palworld, and now duckstation goes closed source?, man what a week
DuckStation didn't go closed source. There are more statuses of a codebase than the binary of "closed source" and "open source". The video title was intentionally written to trick you into thinking it's closed source. It takes literally less than a minute to visit the Github repo of Duckstation to verify this.
Source available is not closed source
@@LiEnbyCC-BY-ND with Stenzec being the arbiter may as well be
Stenzec could've sold DuckStation from the start and I would've bought it still for how good and polished it was. He didn't need to make it open source in the first place, but he did. Now the community is against him just for adding a bit more safeguards to himself and his works. I think it's a good thing he even still kept the source available instead of flat-out closing it.
I love open-source as much as anyone else, but open source is not a silver bullet. It has its pros and cons, just like how there are many different licenses available. If it was, then everything would've been open source. Heck, even proprietary has its own merits. People should stop thinking, more-so demanding, from others what and what not to do with their work. Stenzec is not a slave nor is he an employee of yours.
this is wrong, his android forks are closed source and he has yet to push those updates back to source for years now.
I personally have no issue with proprietary software like this either, other than the fact that it tends to add lots of questionable, borderline malware code, but that's a different story.
The issue is context, it was a popular software, that is opensource, and community maintained, and if the issue is not obeying the license, these "safeguards" won't matter because people who don't care about licenses won't obey new one either way. It's like writing "Do not rob" on the exterior walls because you got robbed once.
@@hikkamorii sure I can somewhat agree, but that reasoning applies to everything in the world, doesn't it? The existence of people who outright ignore rules does not make having rules a pointless endeavor. Kinda sounds like defeatist mentality to me. At least changing the license gives him a solid case to back him up should he need to.
If people want to fork the source from when it was still open, from my understanding, is that they are still free to do so. Code from after the license changed however will need to follow new license terms, and I think if you don't agree with Stenzec in the first place, then it's as simple as not following the project anymore? And hoping to God that new forks will at least be as good as Stenzec's.
@@AllenGuarnes I get why rules exist, but just saying "don't rob" doesn't mean anything if you won't actually try to do something about it (e.i. going to the police). I don't think it's defeatist to call the "solution" to a problem that is as flawed pointless, GPL, or hell, even MIT license should protect from people just taking your code without attribution, but because these people don't care about license, and the owner won't sue them (which I don't blame one for), nothing will change by just re-licensing.
@@hikkamorii I understand what you're saying, but again, I feel like that's exactly what he's trying to do? He is probably laying the foundations to build himself a strong case, should he need to, against people who commercialize his work?
Non commercial licenses are a good thing. The devs have had their hard work stolen and monetised.
this licence change just means the original developer gets to keep the project exclusive to himself ensuring no forks. this will not have intended effected. lets fork the most recent build before the change and make that the new one
tell me you willingly download malware without telling me you're downloading malware😂😂😂
A legal defense fund to protect FOSS would be an interesting idea. I wonder if that's been tried before.
People will criticize stenzek for this, but the world of open source depends on people. When they don't have support or care you get situations like the XZ backdoor.
Open source is a community effort. I expect many more projects to go this route in the future without real community and also industry support.
honestly this excuse of:
all the contributors agreed, and the ones who didnt agree, we rewrote their code...
is invalid, i mean, what if an project only got popular thanks to those other contributors, then it start making tons of money, the project then rewrite the code from everyone except the ones who agree with an licence change, an keep the brand?
i dont want help make some floss software became popular just so they change the licence later on, its a bait and switch.
im not mad at the duckstation developers, my point isnt to harass or encourage harassment against then, the issue is the precedent that cause and what might happen in the future with other projects that do the same for different reasons.
Some kind of lawyer Open Source Defense Fund needs to be created to sue companies that don't follow license, so small guys don't get screwed over.
They banned me for asking for help in their discord server so uhhh...yeah I ain't affected by this.
the policing should be through the fsf, though I dont think they have any legal team to enforce it last i even tried
My guess is their is some large corp that is just taking duckstation and repackaging it and basically selling it. With all the "remakes" on modern consoles it wouldn't surprise me that they just slap duckstation on a cart with an ISO. It might be the case that it's hard to go after these companies legally under the GPL and making the license more strict gives them a better legal opening.
I am pissed about this. this literally always goes down as a way to get the project defunct or unpopular and an alternative takes over. Here it is going to be a fork. Never exclude the community. Just make it a NO CORPORATE USE and NO MONEY ....
Edit: He will shut it down and he is a loser for that in a few months.
Whatever fork people make will probably be the one that's still active next year. We saw something similar with OpenOffice being forked to create Libreoffice due to the change in control. Now, I don't know that anybody really uses OpenOffice for much of anything as the development is nearly entirely over at Libreoffice.
Why is everyone making a big deal out of this? -Just submit the changes you'd like to him and if he accepts them, then that's great! If he doesn't, well tough! He's only one person, not a whole development team.- A license change is nothing to anyone, NOTHING. And besides, if he's still making the software for free, what's the point of using a fork? I swear some of you FOSS users just want everything to stay as is, letting everyone else make clones of someone's hard work...
EDIT: Actually, I found out that's a little more complicated than just that, so I crossed that point about the code.
Right. Make a change and distribute your change back to the project... Except that is STRICTLY PROHIBITED by the terms of the license. This license is okay if all he wants to do is develop this app by himself. But if anyone else wants to contribute code and adhere to the actual text of the license, then he needs to change it to an open source license.
@@gardiner_bryant you know what, I wasn't completely grasping the terms of that license well... Still though, I personally wouldn't care as long as it's still free.
How is it going to effect DuckStation, well I won't use it
Just because they were upset people weren't respecting the original license?
@@MrGamelover23 Just because of the new license, if people weren't respecting the old one what on earth makes you think they'll respect the new one?
@@MrGamelover23 no its because the new license only hurts those who respected the license not those who didn't
Stenzek KNOWS this is going to cause even further backlash so he is pretty much paving the way for shutting the project down. its the same guy who said he wouldn't support Linux builds on PCSX2 with the new UI because he didn't like answering people's questions about it and how Linux works.
Just downloaded Duckstation the other day. Guess I won't update.
Stenzec is very well respected member of the emulation community he even contributes to PCX2. I can understand why he is doing this he is doing his best to protect his copyright and his work and changing the licensing was his only way of doing so. Also he said if he wanted to stop the project he would revert the license so people can continue to maintain the work being done. Let's just wait and see what is going to happen in the coming weeks and months to see how this decision of his goes. It sounds like it to me that Stenzic is acting like Linus Torvalds in a very small way. What I mean is that any changes to the Linux Kernel have to go through Linus and with Duckstation any changes have to go through Stenzic. It's not a bad thing that Stenzic is taking a page out of Linus' play book. I think it is a good idea to try out.
@@Fender178 you say as if it's a bad thing
@@razumskiy Nope. It's not a bad thing. I will edit my posting to make it more clear.
@@razumskiy The gatekeeping isn't inherently bad, but people are not likely to accept that in an established project, especially when switching to a different license. They tolerate that from Linus because that's how it always was and people can fork their own code if they want to, it's just that for most purposes forking the code to be free of Linus comes at the cost of having to maintain a separate source tree that needs work to keep it compatible with the official kernel.
The hassle of maintaining a compatible source tree to accept new changes is a large part of why BSD and MIT licensed projects still get contributions from 3rd parties that are using the code. They're not required to, but failing to do so can be very expensive, so they contribute what they can and mostly just keep the stuff that's specific to their business secret. And sometimes, they don't bother giving anything back at all. Which is fine, it's opensource, that is going to happen whether the license allows it or not and it can be hard to identify violators without doing a lot of work.
Not sure where to ask this, given the DuckStation GitHub doesn't allow reports thesedays, but... is there any reason they offer an SSE2 build, for CPUs older than 2007, and yet no-longer support any GPU that only does DirectX 10 or older?
Even the software renderer mode doesn't work on older GPUs now, so how often is it that someone has a CPU older than 2007 (e.g. an Intel Premium 4 or original Intel Core Solo, or an AMD K7 or K8), and yet will have a GPU in such a system that supports DirectX 11? 🤔🤨
The last version that does work on a system with DirectX 10 is 0.1-5636
It doesn't matter why, or what the topic is, or how valid the point you're trying to reinforce is, don't preemptively talk down to people. If you're lucky, people will write you off as an immature egomaniac, if you're unlucky, there's this thing called psychological reactance that will encourage people to do the opposite specifically to spite you. It's extremely counterproductive, don't do it, save your breath.
ok whats to stop someone to still fork the source available still?
Welp, the author as completely lost my respect, time to use SwanStation mainly from now on.
Are there contributions from other developers or only the one developer?
When somone ruins it for everyone this is the result.
It's not ruined, the last released version still exists and people can, and probably will, fork that, if it hasn't already been forked.
The Blaze Evercade team is probably panicking right now
Quite annoying, but in a way I understand. This is stenzek's "nuclear option" so to speak, because he's tired of this happening.
I supported him when it came to Libretro as he's not the only one who's had similar issues with them, but all this... Just no
More and more projects are realizing that you can't make money with FOSS and shift away from open-source . Even Gardiner knows that - game he recently released is not open-source.
I don’t think I fully understand this. I don’t personally use duckstation yet (I have like, a single ps1 game I’d emulate if I did), but I’d duckstation just pay for software now? Is that what was meant by it being no longer free software? Cause to my understanding, it requires a proprietary bios to even use so how does that work?
I could be grossly misunderstanding all of this but I hope everyone arrives at a solution that works for everyone.
Free software refers to the idea of software having very little restrictions if any. The reason they say it's not free now is because the license now used by it prohibits forking and commercial use.
@@hikkamorii ah, that explains a lot. So it’s the hinderance to folks in the community that would benefit others by modifying it and now they can no longer do that because they do not have the freedom to do so anymore due to the license. I can see why that would tick off quite a few people.
Ultimately, I’m just glad the software exists at all to allow people to use for its intended purposes, however restrictive it may be now.
Bruuuh you can't make me cackle for such sad news......QUACK
It doesn't work properly anyways... It wipes memcards.
we have a watchdog that goes around and polices open source use, it is called free software foundation, but guess what they are busy with, instead of doing their only purpose
I actually not sure what the fsf does outside outdated sourceforge and mailing list hub
I'm really tired of emulation drama.
Stenzec makes good emulators but I feel like this is a slap in the face of everyone who contributed, and endorsed useage of duckstation, and the fact he's did this change without letting anyone know so they could fork the last gpl, and took the source away is a mockery of FOSS. I will not be usibg or recommending anymore software that I know is written by Stenzec. I wish him luck on his projects.
Anyone can fork last GPL version. It's commit aa955b8 if you are wondering, source is still there. That version was released under GPL. Any newer versions and their improvements are under CC-BY-NC-ND (honestly a horrible license for a software project, it doesn't even differentiate between object and source form).
@@VoicesInDark Okay, that makes things far less... evil lol. I'll probably try to support other developers instead anyway, honestly, but this is good info to have out there. Thank you :3
Im still using epsxe from my Pentium laptop...
I'm surprised you did not mention the SFC. They do help fight license abuse as well as give much needed services to freedom software projects.
Software Freedom Conservancy. Support them. They do good work.
I honestly had forgotten about them 🫣
I always love how people justify his terrible behavior just because he's making an emulator for free. Just because he does that doesn't mean he gets to behave the way he does. He's the same dude that made AetherSX2 and he was a thin skinned drama queen that basically lied about the so called "threats" he was receiving. He's talented don't get me wrong. I just wish we had a more mentally stable maintainer for this project.
Im using epsxe anyway.
Just be like how Linux works.
Its a shame, but if there is a choice between this and no DuckStation at all, I'm happy he is still willing to work on it in a more restrictive way
Agreed. I don't love it, but it's infinitely better than the AetherSX2 situation where it came to a halt entirely since that project had closed source components from the get-go. At least if Stenzek decides to kill Duckstation someday (the threat of killing the project in response to harassment makes me feel like it'll come true someday), it won't be completely cooked since there are forks already of the pre-license changed code.
Sadly I don't see this doing any good. Rugpulls should not be rewarded.
So Duckstation went from open source to source avaliable. I don't see problem because it will still remain free to use and source code will still be avaliable maybe not as a whole.
The system works, I understand the decision.
What can be done?
Solve the underlying societal problems.
But that's against the interests of Billionaires like Musky boy and their useful Susans.
Maybe Stenzec want Anbernic to pay him for using Duckstation. XD
Stenzek doesnt even want money. He just want to people stop earning money of his hard work
@@KenBladehart
Right. He doesn't want to enjoy his own life, he just wants to make sure no one else enjoys their life.
Stenzek is a control freak, a narcissist and a drama queen, and this license change (from open source to proprietary) is a very bad look. Whatever respect he's earned in the open source / emulator community is sure to disappear fast if he continues his childish tantrums.
@@adamn.4111 Imagine growing a vegetable garden for yourself, and your neighbors steal your harvest and selling it
People dont even try to understand
@@KenBladehart
Seems like you're another one of those people who doesn't understand how digital information works.
It's not theft when the original copy remains in its place.
@@adamn.4111 Its funny that you said that to me when youre the fact that doesnt know and understand the situation at hand
Look at yourself in the mirror sometimes, ok?
FOSS to... Open SSL
I would support license enforcement, and there is something else I would be more eager to support. I would pay for whatever training would be needed for developers to support derivative works. I understand it's not an issue of training, it's that these ppl are adopting a "not made here" attitude and I would pay them to stop doing that! It would be wonderful if everyone would learn to just be supportive when others have a different way of doing things.
A) I would only use a Stenzek made version of Duckstation.
B) It's his to do what he wants with. We're playing with his toys.
C) It's still going to be free to download.
RIP
This is a vaguely sensational title, but I mostly agree with your points here. I also kind of agree with Stenzek, especially regarding what he said about a CLA. Perhaps surprisingly so, but I don't have as much of a doomer take on this, partly because the source will still be available for free. If he had decided to close it entirely and then charge money for access to the source, then I would have a grim view, but this just sounds like he's frustrated with being blamed for things that aren't his fault.
As for whether we might need a central authority to police open source license violations, I'm not so sure that's really necessary. I do think that package maintainers and distro maintainers should do a better job of labeling, but a central authority just screams 1984 at me. You may not believe it even though you've witnessed it in your life, but the slippery slope is real.
This re-licensing is really stupid (put mildly!!). First of all, GPL is copyleft, which means nobody has any copyright on it. You can't "own" GPL code; it belongs as much to the creator as it does to any other human.
I am pretty sure you can't relicense from GPL to CC, even with the approval of all contributors (not a lawyer though). Prior to the re-license, all of that code forever remains GPL. GPL requires that any GPL code used in any software must also be GPL. This means that the project is still using the old GPL code, but is now violating it! And remember, the contributors don't own it! The GENERAL PUBLIC does (you know, literally as in the name of the license!). Also, you can't just take someone's code and re-write and claim you own the code. What's next, rename their variables and call it new?
If you're programming something to somehow become famous and have your name next to a C inside a circle for 50 years after your death... perhaps get a brain check from your doctor. When you're developing something for the benefit of everyone (and where everyone can contribute), it makes no sense to slap your name everywhere and demand that everyone hangs a portrait of your face in their homes. Nobody cares.
Of course when you're writing new code, you've got the choice how to license it. Write your own proprietary license for all I care. Relicensing GPL to CC is like getting a refund on a charity donation to all of humanity so you can buy a jetski.