building devkitARM: calico

[asiekierka]

Rehosting a GPL3 binary is not inherently illegal.

Inherently, no, but there are two arguments that have been raised which could be a differentiating factor here:

• The GPL grants no rights regarding the use of trademarks. In fact, the GPLv3 in particular explicitly states that the copyright holder may decline to "grant rights under trademark law for use of some tradenames, trademarks, or service marks". This is, for example, why sites providing WordPress (a GPL program) hosting as a service do not use the name "WordPress" in their name (trademarked), but rather the acronym "WP" (not trademarked). Similarly, Mozilla's Firefox (an open source program) has additional restrictions regarding the distribution of binaries bearing the Firefox trademark; this is why Debian's distribution of Firefox was named IceWeasel for many years, and why GNU calls their fork IceCat.
• Most of the GPL binaries being rehosted do not have the corresponding source code and build instructions attached, or even instructions on where to procure such source code (read section 6 of the GPLv3). Having it available would, naturally, allow a resolution to the first problem by removing trademarks from the binary.

While I am not a lawyer, I think there's at least some argument to be had as to how such distribution could potentially be seen as infringing.

 

[linux86]

Inherently, no, but there are two arguments that have been raised which could be a differentiating factor here:

• The GPL grants no rights regarding the use of trademarks. In fact, the GPLv3 in particular explicitly states that the copyright holder may decline to "grant rights under trademark law for use of some tradenames, trademarks, or service marks". This is, for example, why sites providing WordPress (a GPL program) hosting as a service do not use the name "WordPress" in their name (trademarked), but rather the acronym "WP" (not trademarked). Similarly, Mozilla's Firefox (an open source program) has additional restrictions regarding the distribution of binaries bearing the Firefox trademark; this is why Debian's distribution of Firefox was named IceWeasel for many years, and why GNU calls their fork IceCat.
• Most of the GPL binaries being rehosted do not have the corresponding source code and build instructions attached, or even instructions on where to procure such source code (read section 6 of the GPLv3). Having it available would, naturally, allow a resolution to the first problem by removing trademarks from the binary.

While I am not a lawyer, I think there's at least some argument to be had as to how such distribution could potentially be seen as infringing.

This is an interesting chain of thought, but who are you defending and why?

No action stands devoid of context. I feel a person reading every message in this thread without historical context would see this and move on to another project anyways to avoid the hassle. For every person posting here, there are 100 others who decided it wasn't worth engaging with. I don't really care if it was legal or justified, it was against the spirit of the thing. DevKitPro has tightly coupled their trademark to their work -- most FOSS projects go out of their way to give you an unbranded build easily. Bringing trademark and copyright law together is a lovely little firebomb when you're sending binaries to end-users that have the potential to get them sued for not reading carefully while still trying to act in the spirit of free software.

 

[mrparrot2]

If you look at Dave Murphy (WinterMute)'s personal blog, he uses dehumanizing metaphors that compare users of his software to animals -- specifically a herd of cats he is managing.

The fact that he likes to compare silly development behavior with cats and the fact that Catnip was the trigger for this issue is simply mind blowing. Does the cat here doesn't like catnip after all, or doesn't it affects me because I am a parrot?

 

[EvilJagaGenius]

I haven't personally interacted with WinterMute, but DevkitPro's attitude of breaking people's toolchains and leaving it to end users to fix it all while going after archived tools is... infuriating. I had to track down an archive of old libraries and compilers when I wanted to build Quake 2 for my 3DS, and it was such a painful experience I'm not touching 3DS dev again. DKP could push an update next week that breaks everything with zero documentation. For as accessible as they may make homebrew dev, I wonder how many people quit because of how they work.

I should see if I can get Jagoomba or gbaDoom building on the GNU Arm toolchain instead of devkitArm.

 

[AntonioND]

I should see if I can get Jagoomba or gbaDoom building on the GNU Arm toolchain instead of devkitArm.

There is a migration guide from devkitARM to BlocksDS if you want to give it a try: https://blocksds.skylyrac.net/docs/technical/devkitarm_porting_guide/

 

[Deleted member 702243]

There is a migration guide from devkitARM to BlocksDS if you want to give it a try: https://blocksds.skylyrac.net/docs/technical/devkitarm_porting_guide/

I was under the impression that blocksDS only supports ds

 

[AntonioND]

I was under the impression that blocksDS only supports ds

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood, I misread and thought they were games for DS.

 

[Deleted member 702243]

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood, I misread and thought they were games for DS.

still very cool to give help and documentation on migrating, devkitpro would have never done that ;p