Hacking Official SaltFW - "Slim Alternative Firmware"

[mathieulh]

People should stop doing useless forks that do not contribute to a single line of code. There is no new code in this fork, it just removes code from ARN and has some fancy new name, this is not what forks were meant for.

There will be no reason for any developer to perform Pull Requests from this...

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[The Catboy]

People should stop doing useless forks that do not contribute to a single line of code. There is no new code in this fork, it just removes code from ARN and has some fancy new name, this is not what forks were meant for.

There will be no reason for any developer to perform Pull Requests from this...

People also have the right to make their own work through open-source software. As of right now, it's simply a stripped down version of AuReiNAND, yes and maybe he should have waited a little longer and done a bit more work before releasing it.
At the same time, he is completely within his right to make his own fork and release it, even if it is still showing it's early phases.
Right now, it's not much, but give it time to either succeed or fail on it's own.

 

[mathieulh]

People also have the right to make their own work through open-source software. As of right now, it's simply a stripped down version of AuReiNAND, yes and maybe he should have waited a little longer and done a bit more work before releasing it.
At the same time, he is completely within his right to make his own fork and release it, even if it is still showing it's early phases.
Right now, it's not much, but give it time to either succeed or fail on it's own.

They do, however this is not "their own work" this is ARN copy/pasta and there is not a single line of "their own work" that was added to this.

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[The Catboy]

They do, however this is not "their own work" this is ARN copy/pasta and there is not a single line of "their own work" that was added to this.

yes and maybe he should have waited a little longer and done a bit more work before releasing it..

Yes, he should have done a bit more work before releasing it. It's pretty obvious that this is very clearly a very early release and still in the very early phases.
But that still doesn't mean he doesn't have the right to release the work he's done thus far. Thus far, he's made a stripped down version of ARN. But that doesn't mean there isn't more to come for this project.
Like I just said, give him time to see what happens next. Maybe it fails and just stays at this level or maybe his project branches in it's own direction. Who knows, but that still doesn't warrant dumping on project in it's early phases.

 

[mathieulh]

People also have the right to make their own work through open-source software. As of right now, it's simply a stripped down version of AuReiNAND, yes and maybe he should have waited a little longer and done a bit more work before releasing it.
At the same time, he is completely within his right to make his own fork and release it, even if it is still showing it's early phases.
Right now, it's not much, but give it time to either succeed or fail on it's own.

Just for shit and giggles, I think I will create a new ARN fork and remove everything except the readme and the Makefile and call it "mathieulhCFW"... (no, I really won't, but you get my point, right?)

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[The Catboy]

Just for shit and giggles, I think I will create a new ARN fork and remove everything except the readme and the Makefile and call it "mathieulhCFW"... (no, I really won't, but you get my point, right?)

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You can do that if you want to. It's completely within your right and under the GPL to do so.
You people are just too willing to say, "Welp, he's done nothing and nothing will come of this project!" then trash it from there, instead of saying, "Ok, so you stripped AuReiNAND, what's going to happen from there?"

 

[mathieulh]

You can do that if you want to. It's completely within your right and under the GPL to do so.
You people are just too willing to say, "Welp, he's done nothing and nothing will come of this project!" then trash it from there, instead of saying, "Ok, so you stripped AuReiNAND, what's going to happen from there?"

Then he might as well have forked Mizuki, which already did the very same thing (not that I think any higher of this "cfw"). The point is, before announcing a "new custom firmware!!!" to the world, it might be better to actually have some new code of your own inside, otherwise it's just useless, dumb and all it does contribute to is fragmentation.

It might still be compliant with the GPL license, that doesn't make it less useless/worthless/dumb. Just my two cents here. As I have said, no developer in his/her right mind will do Pull Requests from this.

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[The Catboy]

Then he might as well have forked Mizuki, which already did the very same thing (not that I think any higher of this "cfw"). The point is, before announcing a "new custom firmware!!!" to the world, it might be better to actually have some new code of your own inside, otherwise it's just useless, dumb and all it does contribute to is fragmentation.

It might still be compliant to the GPL license, that doesn't make it less useless/worthless/dumb. Just my two cents here. As I have said, no developer in his/her right mind will do Pull Requests from this.

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Actually, he didn't announce it as anything new, in fact multiple times through the thread he didn't say it was anything new. He wasn't even the one who made this thread! He's said multiple times that as of right now it's just ARN stripped down and he's working on some actual main releases. If anything, it' pretty apparent from his comments and how early into the stages his github was at the start, that this project is not ready to be presented yet. This is not a finished product nor has he claimed it to be anything more than what it is. But since he's working on the project, he's still within his rights to call it whatever he pleases.
And honestly, yeah, it's not much to pull from. But as I just said, "early release." He's clearly got more work to do. But again, give him time before jumping on him.

 

[Uwabami]

Actually, he didn't announce it as anything new, in fact multiple times through the thread he didn't say it was anything new. He wasn't even the one who made this thread! He's said multiple times that as of right now it's just ARN stripped down and he's working on some actual main releases. If anything, it' pretty apparent from his comments and how early into the stages his github was at the start, that this project is not ready to be presented yet. This is not a finished product nor has he claimed it to be anything more than what it is. But since he's working on the project, he's still within his rights to call it whatever he pleases.
And honestly, yeah, it's not much to pull from. But as I just said, "early release." He's clearly got more work to do. But again, give him time before jumping on him.

So you think fragmentation is a good thing? Look at this: https://github.com/mtheall/ftpd/network
Do you really think the project profited from being forked because some people hated the name and the background image? I mean, once is understandable if you're not a manchild, but that often? It's a mess!

 

[daxtsu]

All of this drama is silly. Let current users use what they want to use, and encourage newcomers to use the latest incarnations of AuReiNand, Cakes, and vanilla ReiNand (or whatever their names will be in the future), if it bothers you, which means confusion problems will be minimal for newbies, and more advanced users can peek behind the curtains to see what else is out there.

Fragmentation is a weak reason at this point, the 3DS scene is fragmented from the very foundation:

1. .CIA vs .3dsx vs .3ds vs .elf (not that we even have an ELF loader, really) for homebrew loading
2. A9LH vs MenuHax
3. A9LH sysNAND vs. A9LH emuNAND
4. Which MenuHax payload has a higher boot rate (lesshax, no debug screens, vanilla, whatever)

We're well past the point of keeping things unified or clean and tidy. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see a million forks of FIRM loaders either, and yes, I myself made a fork of ReiNand, thus making me "guilty" of this, but it's a bit too late to complain. As long as the community and guides are kept up to date with the "best" versions, there's really no point bickering.

 

[The Catboy]

So you think fragmentation is a good thing? Look at this: https://github.com/mtheall/ftpd/network
Do you really think the project profited from being forked because some people hated the name and the background image? I mean, once is understandable if you're not a manchild, but that often? It's a mess!

Actually I do think forking a good thing because it allows choices and it shows community interest in providing these choices. The idea that we should just stop because one or two is "more than enough" is completely absurd and completely counterintuitive to the open-source movement. One of the core ideas to the open-source movement is the option to no only choose something different, but also allowing anyone to modify the source so long as it credits back to the original source code.
If someone want to make their own CFW branching off an existing CFW, I am completely within their right to do so, if it's open-source project.
And honestly I am going to point out what @daxtsu just brought up. It's a little too late to complain about fragmentation. And honestly, this pointless bickering isn't going to change anything. Really, if you don't like this project, you can just not use it. There's nothing really making you look at this thread beyond my reply. And honestly it's just become a dead horse.
There's always going to be "new cfw's" and "new forks," complaining about them every time they come up isn't going to slow them down or change them.

 

[AHP_person]

I want you to imagine that you have this essay that you poured your life and soul into, and you show it to your friends and share it with everyone. Then someone makes a copy of it, removes a few sentences, signs their name at the bottom next to yours, and renames the essay to match. Sounds pretty messed up, doesn't it?

 

[Uwabami]

All of this drama is silly. Let current users use what they want to use, and encourage newcomers to use the latest incarnations of AuReiNand, Cakes, and vanilla ReiNand (or whatever their names will be in the future), if it bothers you, which means confusion problems will be minimal for newbies, and more advanced users can peek behind the curtains to see what else is out there.

Fragmentation is a weak reason at this point, the 3DS scene is fragmented from the very foundation:

1. .CIA vs .3dsx vs .3ds vs .elf (not that we even have an ELF loader, really) for homebrew loading
2. A9LH vs MenuHax
3. A9LH sysNAND vs. A9LH emuNAND
4. Which MenuHax payload has a higher boot rate (lesshax, no debug screens, vanilla, whatever)

We're well past the point of keeping things unified or clean and tidy. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to see a million forks of FIRM loaders either, and yes, I myself made a fork of ReiNand, thus making me "guilty" of this, but it's a bit too late to complain. As long as the community and guides are kept up to date with the "best" versions, there's really no point bickering.

Your points are completely unrelated to the problem:

1. These are one container format and 3 executable formats. Each has their own reason to exist, because they serve in different scenarios.
2. One is new and better and the other was used because it was the most convenient at that time. Some even still use it, because they are not ready to move on yet.
3. Now your getting ridicules - how is this fragmentation?
4. Who cares, most people have moved on to A9LH.

Most things you mentioned are features in ARN. I'm pretty sure you don't really know what fragmentation is if you bring these up. And it's not to late to try to convince people to stop releasing firmwares that only change some colors, remove certain features and have their name slapped on.

As soon as this firmware gets a feature that nobody else has (and @Shadowhand keeps up with all relevant changes upstream) this firmware will become relevant. Otherwise, you guys are to blame for the confusion and the mess you're creating.

Actually I do think forking a good thing because it allows choices and it shows community interest in providing these choices. The idea that we should just stop because one or two is "more than enough" is completely absurd and completely counterintuitive to the open-source movement. One of the core ideas to the open-source movement is the option to no only choose something different, but also allowing anyone to modify the source so long as it credits back to the original source code.
If someone want to make their own CFW branching off an existing CFW, I am completely within their right to do so, if it's open-source project.
And honestly I am going to point out what @daxtsu just brought up. It's a little too late to complain about fragmentation. And honestly, this pointless bickering isn't going to change anything. Really, if you don't like this project, you can just not use it. There's nothing really making you look at this thread beyond my reply. And honestly it's just become a dead horse.
There's always going to be "new cfw's" and "new forks," complaining about them every time they come up isn't going to slow them down or change them.

I never said 2 is enough. Your reading comprehension is scary. I and many others now said one- or zero-feature forks are useless and hurt the community.

 

[daxtsu]

Your points are completely unrelated to the problem:

1. These are one container format and 3 executable formats. Each has their own reason to exist, because they serve in different scenarios.
2. One is new and better and the other was used because it was the most convenient at that time. Some even still use it, because they are not ready to move on yet.
3. Now your getting ridicules - how is this fragmentation?
4. Who cares, most people have moved on to A9LH..

No, they're completely related to this supposed fragmentation problem (well, 1 and 2 are, I'll yield 3 and 4).

1. Homebrew developers have to develop for multiple different executable formats, which can have bugs even though the code is the same (see RetroArch for example, for some people the CIA builds don't work at all, while the 3dsx versions do, even though the same code should work, in theory).
2. Right, which creates, guess what? Fragmentation! Having users on different entrypoints can cause their own problems, even when booting the same CFW. We'll probably not convince every 3DS user to switch to A9LH.

My point still stands though, we've had all sorts of fragmentation in this community from day one, whether it's homebrew formats, or CFWs, so complaining about it now is silly. Nothing we do will fix the issues at this point. Confusion I've already addressed, just keep guides up to date, and the community informed. Stem the tide by encouraging people to use the "best" CFWs, and not to make threads like this when they see something new on Github. That's just my opinion though, and I'll leave it at that.

 

[Uwabami]

No, they're completely related to this supposed fragmentation problem (well, 1 and 2 are, I'll yield 3 and 4).

1. Homebrew developers have to develop for multiple different executable formats, which can have bugs even though the code is the same (see RetroArch for example, for some people the CIA builds don't work at all, while the 3dsx versions do, even though the same code should work, in theory).
2. Right, which creates, guess what? Fragmentation! Having users on different entrypoints can cause their own problems, even when booting the same CFW. We'll probably not convince every 3DS user to switch to A9LH.

My point still stands though, we've had all sorts of fragmentation in this community from day one, whether it's homebrew formats, or CFWs, so complaining about it now is silly. Nothing we do will fix the issues at this point. Confusion I've already addressed, just keep guides up to date, and the community informed. Stem the tide by encouraging people to use the "best" CFWs, and not to make threads like this when they see something new on Github. That's just my opinion though, and I'll leave it at that.

But this is no argument for multiple firmwares. ARN does both entrypoints.

And there's little reason for normal homebrew to be released in elf format, there are specific reasons for that. 3dsx is the attempt to make homebrew portable, no matter which entry point is used and they can be run in user mode for the most part. I have yet to see homebrew in 3ds format, except converted ones people use on Sky3DS or Gateway, which has become obsolete.

These are all valid use cases and completely unrelated to releasing a CFW. And fragmentation in these cases (I'm not entirely sure the term applies here) is unavoidable. It is avoidable if it only serves raising your e-fame.

 

[daxtsu]

But this is no argument for multiple firmwares. ARN does both entrypoints.

And there's little reason for normal homebrew to be released in elf format, there are specific reasons for that. 3dsx is the attempt to make homebrew portable, no matter which entry point is used and they can be run in user mode for the most part. I have yet to see homebrew in 3ds format, except converted ones people use on Sky3DS or Gateway, which has become obsolete.

These are all valid use cases and completely unrelated to releasing a CFW. And fragmentation in these cases (I'm not entirely sure the term applies here) is unavoidable. It is avoidable if it only serves raising your e-fame.

Fair enough.

 

[infinete]

WOW, did this thread derail fast!
On-topic: Seems good, sadly haters gonna hate, just keep up the good work!

 

[Wolfvak]

Quoting myself again


I feel like GBAtemp is mostly made up of people who've clearly never looked at the Linux community. The idea of not forking a project in the GNU world is considered crazy to us. If you have an idea and the talent, then fucking fork it! It's completely within your right to do so. If people don't like it, tough shit, it's open-source.

It's the extremely salty community that GBAtemp has that hurts the community. People here have become too stagnant. We've stopped wanting to see more projects because are just happy to see one great one instead of wanting to see options.
If people don't want their projects forked, they are completely within their right to close off their source. But if the source is open, then anyone is within their right to fork it.
I also feel like people have forgotten that AuReiNAND started it's life as a fork and that all the CFW's in the community all borrow each other's features.

Yeah yevenfuckin fork it" but then you bring the changes mainline, you don't just rename the kernel binary "vmsomething" and call it a day. Besides, as a small dev who works with a9lh it's a pain to debug most users' problems, because each time you gotta have even more cfws to take into account.
Really, othingig changes should be true forks, otherwise it's like we're having 5 different clones of the same thing, whose only diff is having a quirk that makes debugging a pita

 

[yardie]

I don't get the minimalist thing when it comes to cfw though. No offense to the shadow guy, but come on...the files are so small. It's not like it's gonna increase boot time or anything

 

[Wolfvak]

I don't get the minimalist thing when it comes to cfw though. No offense to the shadow guy, but come on...the files are so small. It's not like it's gonna increase boot time or anything

Besides, it isn't even "minimalist". If it were it'd either force the user to load their firmware from either NAND or from file. Giving the user more options at the cost of LOC doesn't count towards "minimalism"