• 0 Posts
  • 107 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
cake
Cake day: July 1st, 2023

help-circle

  • You don’t need to provide root access just because you used GPL code, you just have to follow the GPL.

    Well, to follow version 3 of the GPL, you do actually need to provide effective root access.

    Specifically, version 3 of the GPL adds language to prevent Tivoization.

    It’s not enough to just provide the user with the code. The user is entitled to the freedom to modify that code and to use their modifications.

    In other words, in addition to providing access to the source code, you must actually provide a mechanism to allow the user to change the code on the device.

    The name “Tivoization” comes from the practice of the company TiVo, which sold set-top boxes based on GPL code, but employed DRM to prevent the user from applying custom patches. V3 of the GPL remedies this bug.





  • cbarrick@lemmy.worldtoLinux@lemmy.mlLinus Torvalds and Richard Stallman
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    79
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    3 months ago

    However, Linus’s kernel was more elaborate than GNU Hurd, so it was incorporated.

    Quite the opposite.

    GNU Hurd was a microkernel, using lots of cutting edge research, and necessitating a lot of additional complexity in userspace. This complexity also made it very difficult to get good performance.

    Linux, on the other hand, was just a bog standard Unix monolithic kernel. Once they got a libc working on it, most existing Unix userspace, including the GNU userspace, was easy to port.

    Linux won because it was simple, not elaborate.




  • \1. Many retro games were made for CRT TVs at 480p. Updating the graphics stack modern TVs is valuable, even if nothing else is changed.

    \2. All of my old consoles only have analog A/V outputs. And my TV only has one analog A/V input. The mess of adapter cables and swapping is annoying. I want the convenience of playing on a system that I already have plugged in.

    \3. I don’t even still have some of the consoles that play my favorite classic games, and getting retro hardware is sometimes difficult. Especially things like N64 controllers with good joysticks.

    Studios don’t need to do a full blown remake to solve these problems. But I’m also not going to say the Crash and Spyro remakes weren’t welcome. Nintendo’s Virtual Console emulators toe this line pretty well.

    But studios should still put in effort to make these classic games more accessible to modern audiences, and if that means a remake, that’s fine with me.

    (I’m mostly thinking about the GameCube/PS2 generation and earlier. I don’t see much value in remakes of the Wii/PS3 generation yet.)







  • cbarrick@lemmy.worldtoGames@lemmy.worldWhat is the point of Xbox?
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    17
    arrow-down
    8
    ·
    5 months ago

    Nintendo has shown they have no interest in making real console hardware

    Ah yes, the no true Scotsman argument.

    Nintendo doesn’t make hardware to compete with Sony and Microsoft, despite having the best selling console hardware all-time, among the current generation, and among several previous generations.

    You don’t have to be a graphical powerhouse to compete with PlayStation and Xbox…






  • An emulator, even a paid one, would be totally legal in the US as long as:

    1. It does not use any patented technologies. I’m not sure if Nintendo has any patents in the emulation space, but regardless the GBA is so simple that it wouldn’t require patented techniques to emulate.

    2. It does not contain any proprietary (copyrighted) code. On more modern consoles, this would include the BIOS or Firmware files. Does the GBA even need something like that?

    Number 1 is a non-issue for a GBA emulator. Number 2 is more tricky, but it’s always possible to reverse engineer and reimplement the firmware. That’s protected by the Compaq v. IBM case.

    The recent drama with the Switch emulator is that they violated the second principle.