Hacking Discussion Team Xecuter Attempted to Bribe RetroNX Developers

[Essasetic]

I have had enough of this thread, its time to clear the air, most of what I state below is true, if you have seen the chatlogs that xianaix has posted already, lets end this thread and have it locked, but first my 2 cents worth:

The original post is all wrong anyway, it was stunt by SquarePusher of RetroArch fame to promote their switch release.

Yes, TX contacted M4W, but when we did he was working solely by himself and not aligned with Libretro, and his Retronx needed help and ui.

We offered to bundle his Retronx inside SX OS (and it would be available for FREE, not licensed) and it would appear as RetroSX in our rommenu, and we would handle all the UI code.

After he agreed to do it, and then he was given a better offer by the libretro team to support them instead, and once he got that offer, he turned around and blackmailed us to fork over $6,000 or he would switch sides and release with libretro instead.

A little back and forth occurred after his blackmail price, but even after it was lowered the 'price' there was no guarantee he would honor his side of agreement, so the whole idea and project was dropped.

After that libretro announced their official switch fork, and m4w completed it for them, there was never a 'bribe from us' and never a want for us to infringe on libretro licenses, at the time the offer was made to work together he was on his own and not part of their project.

But even when chatlogs got leaked in the thread showing the truth, the subject was never corrected, and the thread has turned into many different shitstorms, first with libretro developer fighting with mame developer and then once all those posts removed, it went into fight over tx licensing of code and having brick code at one time in its release, and now its turn into a fight over which homebrew developers are playing on both sides of the fence.

The thread is useless, and normally i love free speech, but locking it i think is best, maybe even restoring all the posts, so people don't think the whole discussion has been censored, there is alot of valid topics in there, but each should be in their own thread with matching subject itself.

Ok, my soap box rant is over. --- Moving forward I love the fact that retronx is out and available for everyone to enjoy, but it was never TX want to lock it down, and I am looking forward to more homebrew and development in the scene.

Ah Team Xecuter. They'll do anything to defend themselves when they get called out. Seriously why can't you and the rest of TX admit you do bad?

 

[ghjfdtg]

I don't believe a single word from gary. Everyone knows he is getting paid to promote things. I would like to see these logs. Never seen a single line of them.

 

[m4xw]

-

Not surprised you need to resort to lies like that. Me, blackmailing TX? Getting a better offer from libretro with their measily income thats barely enough to keep everything going?
It being part of the free version? You forgot to say that the Team changed their opinion on that, also tivoization.
*yawn*.
There's no honor among thieves.
Remember what happened to sonic the iso?

I give you one tip: leave me and libretro alone, or deal with it

This thread here is not to leak any details or names, which TX seems to like to do
Everyone can build their own opinion on this matter.

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

After he agreed to do it, and then he was given a better offer by the libretro team to support them instead, and once he got that offer, he turned around and blackmailed us to fork over $6,000 or he would switch sides and release with libretro instead.

Oh yeah, right, I could totally give a 'better offer' to m4xw, riiiight. Totally.

Where do you come up with this stuff? Show us your 'proof' please of this if you can state this. I'd love to see it. Because I know it to be a complete lie, so does m4xw.

Do note, I want to see proof of this, not speculation, not deflection, not whataboutism, but cold, hard proof. If you cannot prove it, you should not state it.

For the record, I just want to unequivocally state that the part about us 'giving m4xw a better offer by the libretro team' is something that to my knowledge has never happened, m4xw knows nothing about it, therefore if he [gary] wants to say this happened, he should be able to provide proof of this that cannot be dismissed out of hand.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

My take on this:

• I'm feeling more inclined to believe m4xw/libretro over garyopa/TX, mainly due to TXs documentable history of bending the truth (calling brick code a challenge for hackers comes to mind).
  
• That said, unless there is a good reason (and please if there is, be more descriptive than "there is"), I do believe that seeing full chat logs would clear the air.
• @xiaNaix - You seem to be tossing some rather heavy shade at people, maybe justified, maybe not, but I do believe that it's worth noting that the majority of currently active switch hackers was lifted from the 3DS scene (not all, but certainly the majority of members of reswitched), where your entire argument of "the good product was the paid one, the FOSS was a crippled one" doesn't hold up as the resident flashcard team (Gateway) was pretty much lagging behind ever since people got their own emuNAND working, which seems to make this argument not hold up.
• Also, what chat logs did xiaNaix post? Like um, he referred to chat logs he only saw. Paraphrasing them. Not the raw chat logs. Paraphrased chat logs, even if you don't directly show them, inherently have your own bias mixed through reading them. As a result, I feel like some salt should be applied on said paraphrasing unless the raw logs are available and both m4xw/libretro and garyopa are able to comment on the contents of them.

Take this all as you wish.

 

[roamin]

theres 2 options for this thread really,

1: post full chat log to prove the point on who is telling lies
or
2: shut the thread down before its 100 pages of back and forth rubbish for no reason or outcome.

but im thinking 1 and 2 are not going to happen so its popcorn time instead.

right now this is a he said she said thread. nothing more. people will side with tx and people will side with m4xw.
people can side with who you want, doesnt matter, until someone posts logs, again no one will ever really know.

 

[Lumince]

I don't believe a single word from gary. Everyone knows he is getting paid to promote things. I would like to see these logs. Never seen a single line of them.

They posted them but they got removed :/ But from what ive heard, money was asked for and TX gave a quote. This amount was rejected. Then this stuff happened.

 

[Essasetic]

I might as well make a list of TX fuckups in general. I mean if they go that far to defend themselves then it's worth it right? (Then again Garyopa will get TX fanboys to attack me for my opinion and get the thread locked/moved again smh.)

 

[m4xw]

They posted them but they got removed :/ But from what ive heard, money was asked for and TX gave a quote. This amount was rejected. Then this stuff happened.

The irony that a team with the feds on their ass would save chat logs
Also thats not right. They offered money in the very first mail already (as i quoted earlier), also they asked for my quote and I rejected them anyway

 

[Deleted User]

I'm taking a neutral stance on this one due to me not being as informed and knowledgeable as others in this thread, not to mention the lack of solid proof.

m4xw and co. definitely have the upper hand in this situation though, seeing as their reputation is far better.

 

[ken28]

The irony that a team with the feds on their ass would save chat logs
Also thats not right. They offered money in the very first mail already (as i quoted earlier), also they asked for my quote and I rejected them anyway

why do you think the feds would have any authority in china? cause let face it thats where they mostlikely are legally based.

 

[m4xw]

why do you think the feds would have any authority in china? cause let face it thats where they mostlikely are legally based.

China meme is still alive?
These people are not chinese nationals but hunted criminals - since a decade
Mr gary has been on the run for quite some time

 

[Lumince]

The irony that a team with the feds on their ass would save chat logs
Also thats not right. They offered money in the very first mail already (as i quoted earlier), also they asked for my quote and I rejected them anyway

hmmmm then at this point I believe no one since everyone is conflicting. Time to block the thread

 

[isoisoiso]

China meme is still alive?
These people are not chinese nationals but hunted criminals - since a decade
Mr gary has been on the run for quite some time

What do you mean? Console hacking is not illegal

 

[ghjfdtg]

It would not be unreasonable to think they do other shady/illegal things too. That's what he meant i think.

 

[RattletraPM]

I was avoiding this thread like the plague but hey - tell me whatever you want, that I'm new to the Switch scene and that I generally don't like TX's practices to begin with but it doesn't take much to see that what garyopa said is bollocks.

1. "chatlogs that xianaix has posted"
   
   Xianaix has posted no chat logs. Hell, no one has posted any chat logs besides m4xw himself. So this isn't a good start at all, if you ask me.
2. "It was stunt by SquarePusher of RetroArch fame to promote their switch release."
   
   Really? RetroArch is one of the most famous emulation platforms out there, pretty much everyone already knows it regardless of scene or platform and you're implying that they'd do a stunt like this to promote a release? That's very well unlikely already, but for the sake of my argument I'll keep analyzing the rest of your post.
3. "We offered to bundle his Retronx inside SX OS (and it would be available for FREE, not licensed) and it would appear as RetroSX in our rommenu, and we would handle all the UI code."
   
   Free or not, it doesn't change the fact that it would be a GPL violation. Unless TX would be willing to release rommenu's source code, but that's unlikely at the very least.
4. "After he agreed to do it, and then he was given a better offer by the libretro team to support them instead, and once he got that offer, he turned around and blackmailed us to fork over $6,000 or he would switch sides and release with libretro instead."
   
   Again, very hard to believe. It's been already established that LibRetro's overall income is very low, around $1500 per month to be precise, and mind you - that's not counting any expenses whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if half of that is spent on server and hosting fees alone. Then there's the bounties. And of course part of that money is also spent on other projects such as Lakka. So I wouldn't be suprised that very little money is left after all the expenses. In a nutshell $6000 would be quite a lot to offer for someone like libretro but it'd be pennies for someone like Team Xecuter. Guess the one I'm willing to believe here.
5. "After that libretro announced their official switch fork, and m4w completed it for them, there was never a 'bribe from us' and never a want for us to infringe on libretro licenses, at the time the offer was made to work together he was on his own and not part of their project."
   
   There's an obvious fallacy here, m4w didn't complete anything for libretro - it's RetroNX that got "rebranded" into an official RetroArch port. But you could say this is just nitpicking. Still, again, read point #2 to see why what you were offering is still GPL violation.
6. "The thread is useless, and normally i love free speech, but locking it i think is best, maybe even restoring all the posts, so people don't think the whole discussion has been censored"
   
   I'd agree with you if it was just rants over and over just like before your post, but now you've posted some "breaking news" and you're suggesting to lock the thread just after that? Sounds a bit fishy in my opinion. Like if you'd want this thread to end with a one-sided view of the situation, y'know.

So, yeah. You might say (again) that with me not liking TX my view could be biased but hey, you can't deny that believing a post made by somebody that everyone knows is paid by TX themselves isn't exactly a neutral viewpoint either. And given the evidence I'd very much believe m4xw/libretro's side of the story than yours.

 

[smf]

I made a second post explaining the reasoning behind why I will continue to pick fun of Team Xecuter's inane antics. If you do not like my opinion, feel free to block me. That's what the function is for.

The problem with ignoring your posts, is that someone might actually be influenced by what you say and because we don't see your posts we can't keep you honest.

Again, very hard to believe. It's been already established that LibRetro's overall income is very low, around $1500 per month to be precise, and mind you - that's not counting any expenses whatsoever.

$1500 a month isn't amazing, but it's much more than a lot of people make out of emulation. As most of the work for RA is by other people, some of the emulators even have non commercial use licenses. Them taking any money out of it in any way is no different to what TX are doing. MAME for example makes no money, we fund all the costs ourselves.

Painting libretro as the guys in the white hats and TX as the guys in the black hats reminds me of the PKWARE vs SEA controversy. http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/library/CONTROVERSY/LAWSUITS/SEA/

Where the bbs scene turned on SEA and suppored PKWARE, but it turns out that Phil Katz was just a manipulative arse. I see parallels here.

 

[Ev1l0rd]

The irony that a team with the feds on their ass would save chat logs
Also thats not right. They offered money in the very first mail already (as i quoted earlier), also they asked for my quote and I rejected them anyway

I don't recall you specifying it was the first mail, but if it is: glad to have that clarified.

 

[JoeBloggs777]

The irony that a team with the feds on their ass would save chat logs
Also thats not right. They offered money in the very first mail already (as i quoted earlier), also they asked for my quote and I rejected them anyway

so they offered you money first, you didn't ask for it ?

and your quote was $6,000 ?

I was avoiding this thread like the plague but hey - tell me whatever you want, that I'm new to the Switch scene and that I generally don't like TX's practices to begin with but it doesn't take much to see that what garyopa said is bollocks.

1. "chatlogs that xianaix has posted"
   
   Xianaix has posted no chat logs. Hell, no one has posted any chat logs besides m4xw himself. So this isn't a good start at all, if you ask me.
2. "After he agreed to do it, and then he was given a better offer by the libretro team to support them instead, and once he got that offer, he turned around and blackmailed us to fork over $6,000 or he would switch sides and release with libretro instead."
   
   Again, very hard to believe. It's been already established that LibRetro's overall income is very low, around $1500 per month to be precise, and mind you - that's not counting any expenses whatsoever. I wouldn't be surprised if half of that is spent on server and hosting fees alone. Then there's the bounties. And of course part of that money is also spent on other projects such as Lakka. So I wouldn't be suprised that very little money is left after all the expenses. In a nutshell $6000 would be quite a lot to offer for someone like libretro but it'd be pennies for someone like Team Xecuter. Guess the one I'm willing to believe here.

m4xw has only pasted selected parts of chatlogs. post nothing or post it all.


m4xw says he quoted a price, was it $6000?

 

[LibretroRetroArc]

$1500 a month isn't amazing, but it's much more than a lot of people make out of emulation. As most of the work for RA is by other people, some of the emulators even have non commercial use licenses. Them taking any money out of it in any way is no different to what TX are doing. MAME for example makes no money, we fund all the costs ourselves.

Plenty of affiliated rom dumpers for MAME have Patreons, so I don't think this true at all.

https://www.patreon.com/ShouTime

cuavas (another MAMEdev) shows up too -

https://www.patreon.com/cuavas

Are we counting other people's money now for the purpose of throwing shades? Methinks that if all of us are not doing all that well compared to the high rollers, maybe we should, I dunno, COOPERATE, instead of fight with each other? Because only the high rollers win otherwise, while we are like crabs in a bucket.

As most of the work for RA is by other people

Yup, those GL and Vulkan renderers in Beetle PSX, totally done by 'other people', yup.

The Parallel N64 renderer (where we did LLE graphics with Vulkan and beat MAME at its own game by several years)? Totally not done by us. I even remember Mooglyguy saying he was impressed by it. Let's just pretend that didn't happen to suit your narrative.

All the work in RetroArch, totally done by other people, yup.

All the work in Reicast as of late? We had zero hand in that. Yup. I am totally not coordinating things with flyinghead and working together with him. Nope.

Hate us all you want but we add just as much value added on top as the next guy.