Hacking DIOS MIOS/Devolution ethics thread

[wiismodrome]

As many of you know, some interesting events have transpired lately, including the fact that crediar changed DIOS MIOS downloads to an external host, then tueidj reported crediar for violating the terms at Google Code and later decided to host crediar's files on his own server (software which allegedly violates his own ethical standards).

Rather than clutter up the main threads, perhaps people might move the discussion of these events and related ethical issues here.

These are just a few of the questions that come up: Is it wrong for crediar to use a commercial file hosting service in an attempt to earn funds to continue development of DIOS MIOS? If so, why? Was it right to report crediar? What was the motivation for doing so? If motivation is ethically relevant, is it morally acceptable to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

 

[Hielkenator]

As many of you know, some interesting events have transpired lately, including the fact that crediar changed DIOS MIOS downloads to an external host, then tueidj reported crediar for violating the terms at Google Code and later decided to host crediar's files on his own server (software which allegedly violates his own ethical standards).

Rather than clutter up the main threads, perhaps people might move the discussion of these events and related ethical issues here.

These are just a few of the questions that come up: Is it wrong for crediar to use a commercial file hosting service in an attempt to earn funds to continue development of DIOS MIOS? If so, why? Was it right to report crediar? What was the motivation for doing so? If motivation is ethically relevant, is it morally acceptable to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

I think they're both on the thin line of the law, and trying to stay on the "good"side so they won't get into trouble.
And they both like to be in control.
And I think they both work at Nintendo.
It's probably more about "holes" in the law and practical thinking, than having to do anything with ethics..

As I do not care what "management" has to be done to get the files for us to use, as long as we get 'em.
People make choices/ decisions what ever, and both devs are just people.
No reason to get into the ethics understandings of both...What in there for us? lol

 

[SifJar]

These are just a few of the questions that come up: Is it wrong for crediar to use a commercial file hosting service in an attempt to earn funds to continue development of DIOS MIOS? If so, why? Was it right to report crediar? What was the motivation for doing so? If motivation is ethically relevant, is it morally acceptable to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

Why report him? Because he violated the terms of the service he was using, I would assume. I don't think you are allowed to link to externally hosted files from Google Code. There's nothing wrong with him trying to earn money (although most file hosts that potentially earn money are a pain in the ass for users), but he can't link to it from the Google Code page. He would have to have no link to download the binary version on the Google Code page (i.e. just use google code for source, and make no reference to where the binary version can be found).

As for your last question, I don't think that really has to do with the Wii, but I'll humour you anyway; IMO, the reason is of utmost importance, but only to the person doing the "right thing". To everyone else, all that matters (or should matter) is that the right thing is done. [As an example, lets assume some guy, let's call him Fred, has a grudge against some other guy, let's call him Greg. Greg happens to be a terrorist, and is about to kill thousands of people, but Fred shoots him first, not to stop him killing people, but because of his grudge. To Fred, he knows he didn't mean to stop Greg from killing people, he was just acting on a grudge. But to everyone else, all that matters is Greg was prevented from killing them.]

 

[Ericss]

There's only one right thing for Crediar to do now: hack Devolution's AP and upload the cracked version to the file hoster he used for his DM files. That way, tueidj will be forced to either let Crediar make money off its downloads, or upload the cracked version of his own app to his server

 

[WiiUBricker]

These are just a few of the questions that come up: Is it wrong for crediar to use a commercial file hosting service in an attempt to earn funds to continue development of DIOS MIOS? If so, why? Was it right to report crediar? What was the motivation for doing so? If motivation is ethically relevant, is it morally acceptable to do the right thing for the wrong reason?

Why report him? Because he violated the terms of the service he was using, I would assume. I don't think you are allowed to link to externally hosted files from Google Code. There's nothing wrong with him trying to earn money (although most file hosts that potentially earn money are a pain in the ass for users), but he can't link to it from the Google Code page.

Yes he can. There was only a problem when he copied the HTML and CSS of google codes download page. He since then made the background black and apparently that is all it took to become ToS compliant.

 

[lovewiibrew]

There's only one right thing for Crediar to do now: hack Devolution's AP and upload the cracked version to the file hoster he used for his DM files.

+1!!!!!!!

 

[SifJar]

Yes he can. There was only a problem when he copied the HTML and CSS of google codes download page. He since then made the background black and apparently that is all it took to become ToS compliant.

Ah, I didn't realise what exactly it was the violation was. Well that all makes sense. There was no way he could get away with pretending he was hosting it on Google Code when he wasn't really.

 

[CheatFreak47]

I commend Crediar for it. if my 30 seconds earns crediar a dime or two toward dios mios' continued devolopment, i say waste 30 seconds.
Crediar is making this great software, and i'm willing to use what ever file host crediar want's me to use.
Personally, I don't care for tueidj, or his project. Dios Mios is what i was looking for. Devolution isn't. And if the only violation was something THAT minor, that show's a lot about tueidj's character as a person.

 

[wiismodrome]

As I do not care what "management" has to be done to get the files for us to use, as long as we get 'em.
People make choices/ decisions what ever, and both devs are just people.
No reason to get into the ethics understandings of both...What in there for us? lol

This point of view is likely not uncommon. A lot of people are probably happy with the situation as long as are able to get the software they want and play the games they want. But, that itself implies a certain ethical perspective, a certain egocentric perspective where the end justifies the means.

In the DIOS MIOS thread, a number of people have called out the individuals in question, which would suggest that they feel that there has been wrongdoing from one or both parties. It is interesting to see what sort of reasoning people employ to justify such judgements. I would also suggest that both crediar and tueidj likely thought that they were "doing the right thing" when making their respective choices. So what makes the "right thing" for one person the "wrong thing" for another?

 

[wiismodrome]

As for your last question, I don't think that really has to do with the Wii, but I'll humour you anyway; IMO, the reason is of utmost importance, but only to the person doing the "right thing". To everyone else, all that matters (or should matter) is that the right thing is done. [As an example, lets assume some guy, let's call him Fred, has a grudge against some other guy, let's call him Greg. Greg happens to be a terrorist, and is about to kill thousands of people, but Fred shoots him first, not to stop him killing people, but because of his grudge. To Fred, he knows he didn't mean to stop Greg from killing people, he was just acting on a grudge. But to everyone else, all that matters is Greg was prevented from killing them.]

In the example given above, I would suggest that Fred did the right thing for the wrong reasons. As a result, he did not make the correct ethical decision, because his decision to act was based upon his own petty feelings rather than any sort of concern for the well being of thousands of other people. A consequentialist ethical view would disregard Fred's motivations and just focus on the outcome. Another point to consider is that if Fred had not had a personal grudge against Greg, he may well have let Greg kill thousands of people and felt no worse for it.

 

[wiismodrome]

There's only one right thing for Crediar to do now: hack Devolution's AP and upload the cracked version to the file hoster he used for his DM files. Then tueidj will be forced to either let Crediar make money off its downloads, or upload the cracked app to his own server

Who says he hasn't....

 

[SifJar]

In the example given above, I would suggest that Fred did the right thing for the wrong reasons. As a result, he did not make the correct ethical decision, because his decision to act was based upon his own petty feelings rather than any sort of concern for the well being of thousands of other people. A consequentialist ethical view would disregard Fred's motivations and just focus on the outcome. Another point to consider is that if Fred had not had a personal grudge against Greg, he may well have let Greg kill thousands of people and felt no worse for it.

I have to disagree with the bolded statement. Perhaps I have a "consquentialist ethical view", but the right thing was done. Motivation isn't necessarily relevant to ethics IMO. For example, it doesn't matter why I pirate something, it would still be ethically "wrong" for me to do so. At least, from my point of view. You may disagree, but that's your opinion (something I have noticed about the way you post is that you often present your opinions as fact and refuse to acknowledge other people's opinions, instead talking about fallacies and straw men and stuff).

 

[wiismodrome]

I have to disagree with the bolded statement. Perhaps I have a "consquentialist ethical view", but the right thing was done. Motivation isn't necessarily relevant to ethics IMO. For example, it doesn't matter why I pirate something, it would still be ethically "wrong" for me to do so. At least, from my point of view. You may disagree, but that's your opinion (something I have noticed about the way you post is that you often present your opinions as fact and refuse to acknowledge other people's opinions, instead talking about fallacies and straw men and stuff).

The content of the reply was prefaced with "I would suggest..." not "I am stating this as an undeniable fact". Further, several others here have, in fact, previously presented a number of fallacious arguments. When that has occurred, I have merely pointed it out.

Hopefully there is some sort of shared recognition that the rules of logic apply universally, and that unsound arguments ought to be dismissed. Without such recognition, there is no possibility of rational discourse.

With regard to your example, I would suggest that, strictly speaking, Fred did not make an ethical decision at all, because he acted out of self-interest, not because he was trying to do the "right thing" in any ethical sense. Rather, from what was written above, it did not appear that Fred had any interest in saving the lives of others at all. As presented, the fact that thousands of lives were saved by Fred's actions is merely an accidental side-effect of his petty self-interestedness. Now, if Fred had actually killed Greg specifically because he wanted to stop the murder of thousands of other innocent people, because he knew that that was the right thing to do, then Fred would would have acted ethically in the situation.

 

[tueidj]

Let's have a look at some of the source code that is used in DIOS MIOS that crediar didn't write:
- A very large portion of MINI, taken from Bootmii (GPL licensed). Some of the SD code is BSD licensed (this code is actually absent from the SVN repo for some reason, meaning DML can't be built).
- The EHCI (USB2) driver, originally taken from linux (GPL) with modifications by kwiirk (also GPL).
- FatFS, the FAT filesystem code. More or less BSD licensed.
- vsprintf.c and string.c taken from Linux, supposedly written by Linus himself (GPL).
- cheat code handler from gecko OS (no idea what licence this uses but it's not crediar's creation).
- ipcmessage struct copy-pasted from neimod's custom ios toolkit (GPL).
- various bits and pieces from libogc: marcan's STACK_ALIGN macro, usbstorage.c (BSD).

A BSD license basically lets you do whatever you want with the code, but you don't own it - you therefore can't transfer ownership of it to someone else.
The GPL license says you can use it in your program for free, you can even charge money for that program - provided you also give away the full source code free of charge and don't add any restrictions to the code, such as disallowing military use or attempting to restrict how it is redistributed. Like BSD, the original author still retains ownership of the code that they wrote.

So first off, remember when the DML source code was "sold"? Yeah, that was completely illegal because the majority of the code didn't belong to crediar. Selling a compiled program that uses GPL code = ok, selling source code that doesn't belong to you = bad. I'm sure some people would argue about the technicalities, that he was only selling the code that he had originally written and the rest of the code was "just along for the ride" but let's face facts, without all the code contributed by other people it would be worthless without a hope of ever being compilable into something useful.
Fast forward to now: access to the project downloads is being restricted to one specific host and anybody who mirrors them gets served with a DMCA take-down notice (which includes a false statement made under penalty of perjury: that the complainant is the lawful copyright holder of the work). This is almost the exact opposite of what the GPL is intended to do: the program is not free (time has worth) and redistribution is restricted. If that is what crediar wants then he should make the effort to replace all the GPL code with his own original work, just as he should have done before he "sold" it. If he wants to piggy-back on other people's work instead, he should respect their wishes just as much as he expects people to respect his own.

Now if you want to discuss ethics, consider how ethical it is to use a puppet forum account to discredit other members and send out unlawful DMCA take-down notices just to make a few bucks off something which is mainly used for illegal activity and consists mostly of other people's work...

 

[pwsincd]

Standing on the shoulders of giants. I have no opinion either way or indeed know enough of the red tape to give an opinion worth reading , i do respect tueidj simply because he will stand up and be counted and voice his opinions and defend his actions , maybe crediar dont frequent these forums i dunno but he certainly dont say much . Probably dont care hence the whole issue.

 

[SifJar]

maybe crediar dont frequent these forums i dunno but he certainly dont say much . Probably dont care hence the whole issue.

Oh he's about often enough. You just may not realise.

 

[lovewiibrew]

Let's have a look at some of the source code that is used in DIOS MIOS that crediar didn't write:
- A very large portion of MINI, taken from Bootmii (GPL licensed). Some of the SD code is BSD licensed (this code is actually absent from the SVN repo for some reason, meaning DML can't be built).
- The EHCI (USB2) driver, originally taken from linux (GPL) with modifications by kwiirk (also GPL).
- FatFS, the FAT filesystem code. More or less BSD licensed.
- vsprintf.c and string.c taken from Linux, supposedly written by Linus himself (GPL).
- cheat code handler from gecko OS (no idea what licence this uses but it's not crediar's creation).
- ipcmessage struct copy-pasted from neimod's custom ios toolkit (GPL).
- various bits and pieces from libogc: marcan's STACK_ALIGN macro, usbstorage.c (BSD).

A BSD license basically lets you do whatever you want with the code, but you don't own it - you therefore can't transfer ownership of it to someone else.
The GPL license says you can use it in your program for free, you can even charge money for that program - provided you also give away the full source code free of charge and don't add any restrictions to the code, such as disallowing military use or attempting to restrict how it is redistributed. Like BSD, the original author still retains ownership of the code that they wrote.

So first off, remember when the DML source code was "sold"? Yeah, that was completely illegal because the majority of the code didn't belong to crediar. Selling a compiled program that uses GPL code = ok, selling source code that doesn't belong to you = bad. I'm sure some people would argue about the technicalities, that he was only selling the code that he had originally written and the rest of the code was "just along for the ride" but let's face facts, without all the code contributed by other people it would be worthless without a hope of ever being compilable into something useful.
Fast forward to now: access to the project downloads is being restricted to one specific host and anybody who mirrors them gets served with a DMCA take-down notice (which includes a false statement made under penalty of perjury: that the complainant is the lawful copyright holder of the work). This is almost the exact opposite of what the GPL is intended to do: the program is not free (time has worth) and redistribution is restricted. If that is what crediar wants then he should make the effort to replace all the GPL code with his own original work, just as he should have done before he "sold" it. If he wants to piggy-back on other people's work instead, he should respect their wishes just as much as he expects people to respect his own.

Now if you want to discuss ethics, consider how ethical it is to use a puppet forum account to discredit other members and send out unlawful DMCA take-down notices just to make a few bucks off something which is mainly used for illegal activity and consists mostly of other people's work...

If most of the work was already done for him with other code, why did it take so long for someone to come out with a Gamecube USB loading program?

 

[FIX94]

If most of the work was already done for him with other code, why did it take so long for someone to come out with a Gamecube USB loading program?

Because most devs did not have interest to make it or were simply too lazy.

BTW guys, that thread is not really needed, I mean really, it happend so live with it and dont start a new flaming thread about every single action

 

[JoostinOnline]

I've got two points:

1. tueidj is not preventing crediar from making money off of downloads. All he is doing is providing an alternative place to download them.
2. Anybody who knows tueidj should be aware that he would have reported crediar even if he hadn't been working on Devolution. It had nothing to do with competition.

 

[wiismodrome]

This thread was not started with the intention of facilitating flaming.  It was started, at least in part, to discuss some issues which, while important, do not belong in the main application threads.