Duckstation(one of the most popular PS1 Emulators) dev plans on eventually dropping Linux support due to Linux users, especially Arch Linux users.
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this developer is a big prick. i had an issue (that turned out to be user error after getting help from another source) with the android version of duckstation so went to their discord for support. instead of offering any aid or insight, i was immediately stereotyped as "an android user" and told "we don't offer tech support for android" basically for no other reason than "because android users bitch too much and then give you a bad review," which is just kind of insane imo? there's no downside to bad reviews like you're not going to get delisted? anyways, completely not surprised to hear this from that ass. it genuinely seems like this guy hates developing duckstation at all and i am confused why he bothers. give it up man, sounds like you'll be happier
Sounds like someone who uses Windows and is annoyed that anyone else uses anything other than Windows.
I dunno about anyone else, but that's a giant red flag for me when it comes to software devs
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Is there a specific interaction that made them angry?
Stenzek's feeling got hurt when DuckStation was still proper open source software and people used the software fully in accordance with its license, i.e. they distributed modifications and not all permitted modifications were the most polished ones, so he felt that they give his name a bad reputation. Again: Stenzek released DuckStation under a license that explicitly allows this.
So he rage quit open source and released new DuckStation versions under a very restrictive "source available to look but not touch" license that's so insanely restrictive, Linux distributions are not allowed to make their own packages. So they ship the old version that works just fine because PlayStation 1 emulation was figured out very long ago. Stenzek feels that they should not ship the old version (which they are fully entitled to) and instead make a special exception for his software alone to point their users to DuckStation's website where instead of acquiring the emulator from their package manager (or "app store" in case you're not familiar with that term), Linux users should take extra steps to manually download and install DuckStation.
And since users may not know about this rift, they may post bug reports and feature ideas to Stenzek, even though these bugs may have been long fixed by non-open source DuckStation.
Basically: Stenzek did not read the license he picked for his software and then got mad when people made use of provisions explicitly allowed by the license.
So that's why he hates Linux lol. What a fucking weirdo.
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He got mad because people kept bugging him to fix problems created by other people which he has no control over. His “tantrums” are his way of re-asserting control over his life.
Open source dev burnout from support requests is a real and widespread phenomenon. When a software developer releases the fruits of their hard work they are doing the wider community a service. When large numbers of people begin to contact the developer for support the effect can be overwhelming even though every individual request may be legitimate and non-malicious.
In the case of packaging errors created by a third party not in contact with (let alone under the control of) the developer, these support requests for dealing with unsolvable and irrelevant (in the developer’s eyes) problems can be absolutely maddening.
I am quite sure the developer would have had no issues with people doing what they did as long as they accepted the responsibility to fix their own issues without contacting him. The fact that they did not do so (and therefore caused him grief) is negligent even if it isn’t malicious.
Am I misunderstanding something? Was he not present in his own discord server meant for troubleshooting?
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The answer for this guy and other people stretched by supporting Linux is to say it's flatpak or nothing. Stop trying to build for each dist because it's not sustainable. If someone on a dist wants to maintain a package then let them take the heat if it is broken.
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Am I misunderstanding something? Was he not present in his own discord server meant for troubleshooting?
For troubleshooting issues with his code. Not with broken packages created by others that he has no power to fix.
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Nope not according to the license. Now is the license change legit and allowed? I don't know
wrote last edited by [email protected]I'm far from an expert on licenses, but logic tells me that any version that was released with the previous license is still under that previous license. So it's probably okay to fork from a previous version to maintain linux support?
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So couldn't someone just fork from the version on AUR?
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Linux pros: FOSS, free, private, secure, etc.
Linux cons: Linux users
Users are the cons of everything, including Windows and OSX
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Yeah... But then it sucks for anyone not running Arch (btw) or derivative distros. I really don't have a dog in this merge conflict but really would feel bad for any packager maintainers.
If it's only available via appimage, as the reply to this comment states, then it will still run just fine on Arch.
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yeah they came down hard after someone crossed the line after looking the other way for like 30 years. i'm not surprised.
also, playstation is like the most legally well-tread area for emulators. remember bleem?
wrote last edited by [email protected]Yeah, but the Bleem! case set the precedent for all emulators of all consoles. The ruling doesn't just apply to PS1.
Bleem! was able to charge for their product as long as it didn't include the system BIOS. They reverse engineered the emulator itself, so without BIOS or ROMS, no IP is being stolen.
Which has become the standard operating procedure regarding emulators for decades now.
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fair enough, but that doesn't mean he has to do everything anyone asks him. he's still within his rights to close the source down and obliterate it from the internet. others will come and pick up the torch.
And likewise, that doesn't mean people aren't allowed to give him shit for doing it.
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Users are the cons of everything, including Windows and OSX
I'd argue that Microsoft is worse than its users
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He changed the license in the first place because someone took unpublished code from him and contributed it to another project. He had permission from his other contributors when he did that but people still went on GPL crusades against him.
Now it’s the issue of people re-packaging his releases for other package managers such as AUR (which is against the license) and doing so incorrectly which leads to support requests from the users of broken packages.
There’s a whole community of people who have turned hostile to this guy over his decisions but it comes off as a sense of entitlement on their part. This is after all an emulation community which is full of people who simply use these tools to run pirated old games. They don’t understand the hard work that goes into a sophisticated emulator. They just want more, better, faster! Gimme gimme gimme is all they know!
wrote last edited by [email protected]What was this "unpublished code"? Something committed to a public git repository where all the code is under GPL? You act as if redistribution of GPLed code was somehow illegal or at least immortal. It's not. It's the foundation of the whole idea behind open source.
If that "unpublished code" was stored only on his hard drive and a hacker obtained it illegally, that would be an entirely different topic but that's completely outside the scope of upstream source code license. That would be an outright crime. Developers at AMD, for example, write Linux driver code for AMD hardware. Then before that code leaves AMD, AMD lawyers need to clear it before it gets published to the Linux Kernel Mailing List for review. Sometimes code is not cleared, so the developers need to rewrite it. As long as the code is behind closed doors, it's not published (therefore the GPL does not yet apply) but as soon as it's posted for review, it's public GPL code and everybody can to everything to it as far as the GPL permits.
This is even spelled out in GNU's official GPL FAQ. Edit: https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html#GPLRequireSourcePostedPublic
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This is a great case for a “reader added context” feature for Lemmy, if it could be implemented in a decent way.
It is implemented. It's known as "comments". You are looking at it. There's no need for any particular UI feature for this stuff.
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I'm immediately skeptical of developers who use Windows. At best, it makes me question their judgement.
They might be on OSX..
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He's not obligated to provide support but there are infinitely many ways for decline providing support without insulting someone for being an Android user, and insulting Android users in general, at the same time, literally the moment when someone sought for support.
Especially when Discord is not even inherently a support platform to begin with, Discord is a fricking instant massaging platform, this is fundamentally no different from insulting a stranger on the street the moment they started a conversation, with the most BS insult ever.
Too many FOSS users are toxicly entitled... It ruins things for everyone.
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the license change is invalid as it's based from GPL3 code and previous contributors did not allow the change
wrote last edited by [email protected]It looks like the change happened nearly a year ago, and no one's kicked up a fuss, so either it was done properly (i.e. past contributors were contacted and consented to the licence change, and any that didn't had their contributions replaced), or there's a big problem once a past contributor notices.
It doesn't make it any more legal to fork the project without going back to the last GPL3 commit, though, as any contributions after the license change have to be assumed to be covered by the new licence, so the combined work would be under an invalid licence (as the old and new licences aren't compatible) rather than being still covered by the old licence.
Normally, I'd completely dismiss the possibility that a licence change like this could have been done properly, but Stenzek is associated with Dolphin Emulator, which did manage to pull off a switch from GPL2 to GPL3+ by emailing lots of people and replacing a lot of code.
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It is implemented. It's known as "comments". You are looking at it. There's no need for any particular UI feature for this stuff.
Reader added context is nice because it averts drive by upvoting of titles that are misleading (and vice versa), as most voters do not dig through the comments.
Hence this very phenomenon of highly upvoted posts that probably wouldn’t be so with the missing context.
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This happens way too much.
“What? People are doing things with my Apache project I don’t like!?”
“What? People are doing things with my Apache project I don’t like!?”
Well, at least for the GPL https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-faq.html exists, so there is no excuse because of incomprehensible legalese.
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Reader added context is nice because it averts drive by upvoting of titles that are misleading (and vice versa), as most voters do not dig through the comments.
Hence this very phenomenon of highly upvoted posts that probably wouldn’t be so with the missing context.
wrote last edited by [email protected]Tbf a substantial amount of voters did see the comment - at the time of writing, 297 upvotes on the comment vs 483 upvotes on the post, or ~61%. So actually most people do dig through the comments, if the upvote count is something to go by at least.
Anyone who doesn't read comments is unlikely to read reader added context, so you're probably not getting a large amount of the remaining 39% of people to get the context just because you add some extra UI feature.
Besides, explaining the context is a much longer affair than a title and just wouldn't fit. It's not like I would even say that the title of this post is misleading in the first place, it's actually pretty to-the-point.
There's also a chance that people will get the wrong idea about posts without the context - i.e. that posts without reader added context are super truthful somehow. I feel that people should rather accept that all titles of a few sentences are missing context. That is after all the point of a title - to summarize and bring only the most important information, which inevitably leads to a loss of context.
