The Wii Homebrew Channel has been a staple of open source homebrew software for years now. And now, development has ended on the project, with the repository now archived. The reason behind that is a claim that The Wii Homebrew Channel, which uses a library called libogc in order to function, was using code stolen from either Nintendo's SDK, or from decompiled Nintendo game code. The Homebrew Channel's team had believed that the code from libogc was original, though were skeptical at the time.

The developers of libogc are also accused of stealing code from RTEMS, an open-source project, and removing all accreditation and copyright from the original project, claiming it as their own. Those working on The Homebrew Channel did not want to associate with a project using theft and copyright infringement, and felt that they had no other option than to cease development.

Marcan, notable scene developer, made an official statement, below.

This repository is archived and will not accept any further contributions.

Like most Wii homebrew software, this software depends on libogc. After development of The Homebrew Channel had already started, we discovered that large portions of libogc were stolen directly from the Nintendo SDK or games using the Nintendo SDK (decompiled and cleaned up). We thought that at least significant parts of libogc, such as its threading implementation, were original, and reluctantly continued to use the project while distancing ourselves from it.

It has recently been revealed that the threading/OS implementation in libogc is, in fact, stolen from RTEMS. The authors of libogc didn't just steal proprietary Nintendo code, but also saw it fit to steal an open source RTOS and remove all attribution and copyright information. This goes far beyond ignorance about the copyright implications of reverse engineering Nintendo binaries, and goes straight into outright deliberate, malicious code theft and copyright infringement.

The current developers of libogc are not interested in tracking this issue, finding a solution, nor informing the community of the problematic copyright status of the project. When we filed an issue about it, they immediately closed it, replied with verbal abuse, and then completely deleted it from public view.

For this reason, we consider it impossible to legally and legitimately compile this software at this point, and cannot encourage any further development.

The Wii homebrew community was all built on top of a pile of lies and copyright infringement, and it's all thanks to shagkur (who did the stealing) and the rest of the team (who enabled it and did nothing when it was discovered). Together, the developers deceived everyone into believing their work was original.

Please demand that the leaders and major contributors to console or other proprietary device SDKs and toolkits that you use and work with do things legally, and do not tolerate this kind of behavior.

If you wish to check for yourself, for example, you can compare this function in libogc to this function in a really old version of RTEMS. While the code has been simplified and many identifiers renamed, it is clear that the libogc version is a direct descendant of the RTEMS version. It is not possible for two code implementations to end up this similar purely by chance.

Source

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[ROllerGuy]

Libogc... Doesn't Priiloader also use that?

Literally everything homebrew except for like, TinyLoad, which was supposed to be a code-golf of sorts that didn't use libogc for space reasons.

libogc gets statically linked to resulting binaries which means that unused functions will be removed during the linking process, and how much relevant code ends up in an app would vary, but the threading code (and whatever else has been tainted) would likely be pretty integral.

libogc also contains a kprintf implementation sourced from somewhere else which is under the GPL (https://github.com/devkitPro/libogc/issues/75) but that is usually just for debugging and unless you're specifically using it you will likely not see it end up in final binaries.

 

[Xzi]

Was there even anything still in active development under the homebrew channel? And regardless of the answer to that, who really cares about "stealing" abandonware?

 

[The Catboy]

This doesn’t feel very shocking, ngl

 

[SnivySquid65]

Was there even anything still in active development under the homebrew channel? And regardless of the answer to that, who really cares about "stealing" abandonware?

Apparantly, yes. And who cares? Nintendo. Expect a lawsuit by next week.

 

[gbatempfan1]

Hopefully there will be some archives of the other devkitpro repos as nintendo will strike everything down tainted or not.

 

[neotank19]

probably would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie.

this almost feels like there was something personal about this. but that is just my feelings about it.

 

[Fabax01]

The real issue is not the "stolen Nintendo code"... pretty sure it was already well known, an open secret of sort.
Maybe I'm misremembering?
Anyway... https://gbatemp.net/threads/collection-of-old-devkitpro-versions.526377/post-10580252
This ^ should be the "main fact" in the title.

 

[Kioku]

This is one of those things where I can’t help but go “Okay, and…?”

The 2000s were a cesspool of morally and legally questionable hombrew, mods, and warez. It sucks, sure. Just not at all surprising..

 

[pearlfect]

probably would have been better to let sleeping dogs lie.

this almost feels like there was something personal about this. but that is just my feelings about it.

There is a forum post from marcan himself saying he knew libogc used Nintendo SDK code (not sure about RTEMS) from as far back as 2009 so I have to agree with this. Why sit on this knowledge for at least 16 years and not do anything about it until now?

 

[SnivySquid65]

There is a forum post from marcan himself saying he knew libogc used Nintendo SDK code (not sure about RTEMS) from as far back as 2009 so I have to agree with this. Why sit on this knowledge for at least 16 years and not do anything about it until now?

From what I analyzed, it was about the fact that the code wasn't just stolen from a mega million company, but a free, open source project. In my eyes stealing from those who don't even price their stuff AND make it open source is just plain evil.

 

[Xzi]

Apparantly, yes.

Surprising, I would've thought most had at least moved on to a system that can output 1080p or better by now. Wii's interface is fun though.

And who cares? Nintendo. Expect a lawsuit by next week.

Of course they'll look into suing over it now, but it's not like they were paying attention for the last ten years or so. Seems awfully foolish to suddenly run his mouth about it instead of just letting the project fade away quietly.

 

[AkikoKumagara]

The 2000s were a cesspool of morally and legally questionable hombrew, mods, and warez. It sucks, sure. Just not at all surprising..

People so quickly forget there was an amount of time thereabout where it was commonplace and generally societally acceptable to just download whatever you want from Megaupload or Limewire (both of which were mainly used for piracy and likely to give your computer many diseases) before they both got shut down because their primary purpose was piracy and the inaction in terms of counteracting it.

 

[SnivySquid65]

Surprising, I would've thought most had at least moved on to a system that can output 1080p or better by now. Wii's interface is fun though.

It was mostly patchwork and removing crashes. It's basically perfect now, but based on the wording of the archival announcement text, they might have been planning on making something new or adding a new feature or something.

 

[NaimArnold]

libogc also contains a kprintf implementation sourced from somewhere else which is under the GPL, but that is usually just for debugging and unless you're specifically using it you will likely not see it end up in final binaries.

Umm actually.... every single binary has it!!!! It's used in the default exception handler

 

[Moseii]

this kinda sucks tbh :/

 

[ihaveahax]

The title of this post is misleading in two ways:

• It's not just the Homebrew Channel, it's libogc, which effectively all Wii/GameCube homebrew use.
• It's not just Nintendo SDK code, this has been known for a while, but code was also allegedly stolen from a free and open source project, RTEMS.

The title of this post suggests that it was HBC specifically that only took Nintendo SDK code, which leaves out some very important context. HBC itself is not known to use any Nintendo SDK code.

 

[SnivySquid65]

The title of this post is misleading in two ways:

• It's not just the Homebrew Channel, it's libogc, which effectively all Wii/GameCube software use.
• It's not just Nintendo SDK code, this has been known for a while, but code was also stolen from a free and open source project, RTEMS.

The title of this post suggests that it was HBC specifically that only took Nintendo SDK code, which leaves out some very important context. HBC itself is not known to use any Nintendo SDK code.

Exactly what I was thinking.

 

[TheStonedModder]

Never thought I would see the day, a shame drama like this can still occur after so much time

This is very common you’d be surprised

The Xbox and Xbox 360 scene are all built off of stolen code like this as well.

Makemhz who makes the stellar modchip

And Xbox live stealth are two very notable examples

 

[Afeohtan]

In other news...

 

[ROllerGuy]

Umm actually.... every single binary has it!!!! It's used in the default exception handler

Oh.

Oh no.

(Serves me right for being so naive as to take Wintermute's word on it, it's genuinely actually used for the exception handler)