Hacking The State of The Scene(s)

[noobwarrior7]

there is a lot of in-fighting in the scene, which has really become two scenes, as it pretty much always does with "hacked" systems. I would like to hopefully have a thread where we can talk about some things, and I'm gonna start it off. I have this viewpoint, that is only my own AFaiK, of what has happened since wii hacking kind of "Blew up."

ISSUE NUMBER ONE:
What are the two scenes?
REALLY? You have to ask? There's homebrew, and there's piracy, just like there always is. They crisscross paths a lot, and they definitely aren't really made to get along, but who are we kidding, this is how things are.

Homebrew purists....always bash pirates.....why? Who cares. If they don't want to support piracy, they don't have to, they don't need a reason.
It's less about for what reason someone is bashing, and more about why bashing involves wanting to impede others or cause their failure at a given venture.

Pirates....are often ungrateful, because they are used to getting whatever they want for free.....in the real world, we call that spoiled....and yes, in some ways, getting free games makes us pretty spoiled, I mean cmon, some people in the world don't eat, and we get free entertainment.....just accept it. Im not saying you should chastise yourself, but it is true, people do this for us, and we come out for the better.

ISSUE NUMBER TWO:

What people do these things for us?

OKAY, I'm just gonna say it.
I am not a bushing hater.
Why? well aside from the fact that I just don't hate many people,
HE HAD A RIGHT TO NOT REVEAL HIS SECURITY FLAW, HIM OR SOMEONE WHO TRUSTS/SUPPORTS HIM FOUND IT
he also has a good REASON.....
Hes about the most famous person in the Wii-scene so far, and he lives in america, where piracy is illegal.

I'm not nintendo, and I could probably find bushings home address in about 2-3 days, if I really tried.

No coder wants to go to jail, and if he really is anti-piracy, (Which I do hold in contention, but so many of you shout out) then theres no reason for him to risk it

why do I question this? because I believe the support of a DVDRead Library which will be integrated into Emulators for wii is in-fact support of piracy.

I could care less, he can do what he wants
do I think he should have reported it, no, cuz that seems kind of deliberate thwarting of others, but it apparently didnt interest nintendo anyway, so whatever

Waninkoko....releases things....that we can use....(OH BUT WHAT ABOUT HBC!!!!)...and rarely ever speaks to the community at all.

He always includes warnings, and always includes thanks. I respect that. I don't think insulting his code proves anything except an inferiority complex from the insulter. Even marcan and bushing must have seen some value in sharing with him, because despite saying that he just took their IOS calls and packaged them, they continued to share info with him (according to them) for-freakin-ever.

I personally don't believe hes just some fool who they told what to do, if you check out his site (waninkoko.info) it is obvious with all his projects he is a (busy) experienced coder, who also doesn't talk crap. Not talking crap is good, it makes you not look like a little vulva, which a lot of people apparently like to look like on here. Go ahead, look up vulva.

ISSUE NUMBER THREE:

What makes a release worthwhile? Who gets to decide?

The HBC is not THAT impressive codework......There, I said it. I like it, I use it.
if it hadnt been them, it woulda been someone else.

I'll be more impressed when we can skin our system menu.
I'll be more impressed when we can swap our hard drives (NAND I know).

the scene doesnt work to impress me, yes I know this.

and yet, I'm not afraid to say....the really impressive releases arent here yet, and I hope they do come.

these are simple code, and licensed devs are not really impressed.
shown the homebrew channel...? ..."yea, thats pretty neat, we put something like that together one week..."
lol

games are the same way, we put that together in one of my college classes in an hour

IM GONNA PROBABLY MAKE A LOT OF PEOPLE MAD HERE:

Homebrew on systems is almost always very weak, and usually blames it on piracy. Its the same old story.
"They ruined it for us."
Time to stop blaming kids, if you want glory, do the work. its not the pirates fault for stealing your thunder.

I personally think nitrotux did one of the most impressive releases lately, with the IOS5 really kicking some things off.

Im sure Im about to get flamed, but in the midst of it, I'd like some people to praise some apps besides the HBC, post what you think, we like releases don't we? talk about who is doing good, instead of bad, for a change.

 

[felix123]

The HBC is not THAT impressive codework

Name another homebrew channel with a better banner.

 

[wchill]

Just make another one if the HBC is not that impressive.
Doubt you'll do a better job.

 

[Sportsmaniac1322]

let the flames begin...

 

[Volkov]

Dumping games wifi over seems really neat, but I'm yet to try it..

I support homebrew but I have not found anything I like to use a lot yet...

I was waiting for that wii media player announced months back (i remember hearing itd be reading in less that a wekk lol) but now I just read another one is out, which also supports quicktime, i wonder how that will run

Streaming media from the pc, in all formats, and having everything customizable seems like something most people would use, but as you can see it's taking a long time to do, so effort is going into it, it's very rewarding however...

 

[sosodef]

there is a lot of in-fighting in the scene, which has really become two scenes, as it pretty much always does with "hacked" systems. I would like to hopefully have a thread where we can talk about some things, and I'm gonna start it off. I have this viewpoint, that is only my own AFaiK, of what has happened since wii hacking kind of "Blew up."

ISSUE NUMBER ONE:
What are the two scenes?
REALLY? You have to ask? There's homebrew, and there's piracy, just like there always is. They crisscross paths a lot, and they definitely aren't really made to get along, but who are we kidding, this is how things are.

Homebrew purists....always bash pirates.....why? Who cares. If they don't want to support piracy, they don't have to, they don't need a reason.
It's less about for what reason someone is bashing, and more about why bashing involves wanting to impede others or cause their failure at a given venture.

Pirates....are often ungrateful, because they are used to getting whatever they want for free.....in the real world, we call that spoiled....and yes, in some ways, getting free games makes us pretty spoiled, I mean cmon, some people in the world don't eat, and we get free entertainment.....just accept it. Im not saying you should chastise yourself, but it is true, people do this for us, and we come out for the better.

ISSUE NUMBER TWO:

What people do these things for us?

OKAY, I'm just gonna say it.
I am not a bushing hater.
Why? well aside from the fact that I just don't hate many people,
HE HAD A RIGHT TO NOT REVEAL HIS SECURITY FLAW, HIM OR SOMEONE WHO TRUSTS/SUPPORTS HIM FOUND IT
he also has a good REASON.....
Hes about the most famous person in the Wii-scene so far, and he lives in america, where piracy is illegal.

I'm not nintendo, and I could probably find bushings home address in about 2-3 days, if I really tried.

No coder wants to go to jail, and if he really is anti-piracy, (Which I do hold in contention, but so many of you shout out) then theres no reason for him to risk it

why do I question this? because I believe the support of a DVDRead Library which will be integrated into Emulators for wii is in-fact support of piracy,
and if this bushing is the same bushing who is part of "dev team"....much of the code for their ipod tools is warez, but he may not be.

I could care less, he can do what he wants
do I think he should have reported it, no, cuz that seems kind of deliberate thwarting of others, but it apparently didnt interest nintendo anyway, so whatever

Waninkoko....releases things....that we can use....(OH BUT WHAT ABOUT HBC!!!!)...and rarely ever speaks to the community at all.

He always includes warnings, and always includes thanks. I respect that. I don't think insulting his code proves anything except an inferiority complex from the insulter. Even marcan and bushing must have seen some value in sharing with him, because despite saying that he just took their IOS calls and packaged them, they continued to share info with him (according to them) for-freakin-ever.

I personally don't believe hes just some fool who they told what to do, if you check out his site (waninkoko.info) it is obvious with all his projects he is a (busy) experienced coder, who also doesn't talk crap. Not talking crap is good, it makes you not look like a little vulva, which a lot of people apparently like to look like on here. Go ahead, look up vulva.

ISSUE NUMBER THREE:

What makes a release worthwhile? Who gets to decide?

The HBC is not THAT impressive codework......There, I said it. I like it, I use it.
if it hadnt been them, it woulda been someone else.

I'll be more impressed when we can skin our system menu.
I'll be more impressed when we can swap our hard drives (NAND I know).

the scene doesnt work to impress me, yes I know this.

and yet, I'm not afraid to say....the really impressive releases arent here yet, and I hope they do come.

these are simple code, and licensed devs are not really impressed.
shown the homebrew channel...? ..."yea, thats pretty neat, we put something like that together one week..."
lol

games are the same way, we put that together in one of my college classes in an hour

IM GONNA PROBABLY MAKE A LOT OF PEOPLE MAD HERE:

Homebrew on systems is almost always very weak, and usually blames it on piracy. Its the same old story.
"They ruined it for us."
Time to stop blaming kids, if you want glory, do the work. its not the pirates fault for stealing your thunder.

I personally think nitrotux did one of the most impressive releases lately, with the IOS5 really kicking some things off.

Im sure Im about to get flamed, but in the midst of it, I'd like some people to praise some apps besides the HBC, post what you think, we like releases don't we? talk about who is doing good, instead of bad, for a change.

AHHHH!!! This is so sweet.... This story above, and this story brought a tear to my eye today. (please click) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=adYbFQFXG0U

 

[atomiccow]

Dumping games over seems really neat, but I'm yet to try it..

I support homebrew but I have not found anything I like to use a lot yet...

I was waiting for that wii media player announced months back (i remember hearing itd be reading in less that a wekk lol) but now I just read another one is out, which also supports quicktime, i wonder how that will run

Streaming media from the pc, in all formats, and having everything customizable seems like something most people would use, but as you can see it's taking a long time to do, so effort is going into it, it's very rewarding however...

Oh, how I miss WiiCR..
That neat little server you set up on your computer that you connect to with your Wii. You could browse your PC with your Wii and when you selected a video file it transcoded it to a decent quality FLV format on the fly. There was only like a 30 second wait, then you could start playing it, and as long as you didn't fast forward, you wouldn't have to wait for buffering the whole time. It supported MP3s, too. I miss that project. I wish someone would revive it, I was almost certain it would have lasting appeal. I suppose this means that there must be some drawbacks that I am missing.

Anyway, to get back on topic after going out on that tangent..
You're making far too big a deal of this, and thus, you're making the Wii scene sound like it could easily be adapted to be turned into a soap opera. There's always pirates, and there's always people dedicated to only homebrew. It's not that big of a deal. Sometimes, they overlap (think Xbox Media Center - some skins have their own menus for homebrew and games) and sometimes they don't. The scene is fine the way it is. HBC is fine the way it is, though I agree that skins would be pretty awesome.

 

[noobwarrior7]

I do think the homebrew channel is an accomplishment, I just don't think any releases we've seen so far makes the creators look god-like.

And I'll just point out, that none of them claim to be god-like. I see no proof in any accusations to the contrary.

Only their supporters say such silly things.

Personally, I like how bushing releases really little simple apps, like xyzzy and title lister....and then says more or less, hey these arent amazing code, they just do these things, and I made em....

in fact, I think it very impressive when any wii-releaser does such things...

and I liked title lister, because simple as it was, it helped me figure out what kind of things I wanted to remove from my system with another modest simple program, wad uninstaller....

I used programs from two coders, whose fans seem driven to crucify someone. Im prolly on the highway to hell by now.

 

[Midna]

Im prolly on the highway to hell by now.

No, you're on highway 99.

 

[podunk1269]

homebrew does support piracy, most are emulators athat require pirated roms. they are just elitist and bitch alot. Piracy is illegal, yes, but so is homebrew

 

[bushing]

there is a lot of in-fighting in the scene, which has really become two scenes, as it pretty much always does with "hacked" systems. I would like to hopefully have a thread where we can talk about some things, and I'm gonna start it off.
Thanks for taking the time to start a calm, meaningful discussion. Comments inline

Homebrew purists....always bash pirates.....why? Who cares. If they don't want to support piracy, they don't have to, they don't need a reason.
It's less about for what reason someone is bashing, and more about why bashing involves wanting to impede others or cause their failure at a given venture.
Oh, there's certainly a lot of fighting and hair-pulling, but the arguments / fights I have witnessed are pretty one-sided. (There are some people who you might even call "homebrew trolls" -- trolls come in all shape and sizes!

Pirates....are often ungrateful, because they are used to getting whatever they want for free(hold that thought)

QUOTENo coder wants to go to jail, and if he really is anti-piracy, (Which I do hold in contention, but so many of you shout out) then theres no reason for him to risk it

why do I question this? because I believe the support of a DVDRead Library which will be integrated into Emulators for wii is in-fact support of piracy,
and if this bushing is the same bushing who is part of "dev team"....much of the code for their ipod tools is warez, but he may not be.

Wait, are we talking about the same iPhone Dev Team? What tools are these that you speak of?

As for motivation -- I'm in this for the fun of exploring uncharted territory and the chance to practice my skills. Why do I avoid piracy?

• ethically sketchy -- I think people should pay for software they use. Note that this doesn't mean I'm going around trying to convince people to agree with me
• legally risky -- you mentioned the DMCA itself, so it's better to stay away from these things
• boring -- Piracy is easy enough with hardware modification of the Wii. The mechanisms that prevent are interesting -- but they're mostly understood at this point, which means it's not very fun to me
• one-sided (see note above). Another reason I spend so much time on this is that I get to meet interesting, smart people -- people who will work with me (or with whom I can work) on projects that I can't tackle alone. All "Team Twiizers" is a few people that met on IRC by asking each other interesting questions and by writing clever code. OTOH, from the "piracy scene", we mostly see people begging for an isoloader or for help with their warezed VC channels. This is also boring.

QUOTE

The HBC is not THAT impressive codework......There, I said it. I like it, I use it.
if it hadnt been them, it woulda been someone else.

I'll be more impressed when we can skin our system menu.
I'll be more impressed when we can swap our hard drives (NAND I know).

the scene doesnt work to impress me, yes I know this.

and yet, I'm not afraid to say....the really impressive releases arent here yet, and I hope they do come.

these are simple code, and licensed devs are not really impressed.
shown the homebrew channel...? ..."yea, thats pretty neat, we put something like that together one week..."
lol

games are the same way, we put that together in one of my college classes in an hour
[...]
IM GONNA PROBABLY MAKE A LOT OF PEOPLE MAD HERE:

Fine with me; I'm not here to impress. I'm here to have fun. If I make something you like and find useful in the process, cool! Otherwise, back to hacking.

 

[soonepoon]

I am just wondering what the "Homebrew Purists" do in this scene
The only thing the homebrew is good for at this point is piracy
What else can you use it for?
Turn your Wii into a Webserver??
Or play an MP3 on
I think the legal side of homebrew is not interesting at all

 

[Stalkid64]

these are simple code, and licensed devs are not really impressed.
shown the homebrew channel...? ..."yea, thats pretty neat, we put something like that together one week..."
lol

Working for a licensed developer myself I just couldn't let this slide without serious comment.
ANY licensed developer could create something similar, in far far less than a week. Without even going into the less trivial part known as the Twilight Hack...
The key part that you're missing - the HUGE part - is that these half dozen people *aren't* licensed developers. They don't use the official tools or SDK. All of the knowledge they had to learn while holding down real jobs on their own spare time was from scratch. This includes seriously non trivial things like:
Reverse engineering the file formats used.
Reverse engineering and working out how to use the sound functions in banners and the likes.
Reverse engineering the banner format itself.
Reverse engineering the internal Wii system functions (syscalls, whatever you wish to call them).
Creating a method to install it as a channel, and run homebrew apps from sd card or via tcp.
Creating all of the tools - completely from scratch using 100% original and completely legal code - to do the above. Reliably and with a lot of risk to their own machines (and sanity). Remember that "100% original" part. Your licensed developer has countless advantages over them there.
Creating additional elements like the interface - which went through a large amount of revisions - again using entirely new and barely-proven tools, testing and learning with no "developer knowledge" or assistance from official sources.
Polishing the interface. This incorporates everything from the basic pointer functionality and feel - simple to get right using official tools, not so simple without. Dozens of little touches - some of which still aren't really noticed today because they're incorporated so invisibly.

Then creating additional things like wiiload to aid in testing and development, or to let you use apps wtihout any sd card. USBGecko support. A method for customising your homebrew apps with icons and descriptions. The entirely non-trivial protected auto-update system. Vast vast amounts of testing and revising pieces over and over again to make it absolutely the highest quality it could be so that they trusted it enough to allow people to take the chances and use it with a reasonable degree of certainty that it wouldn't fuck someone up.
All of that, from a half dozen or so people, on their own time, without pay, doing everything without official documentation, without the SDK, entirely coded from scratch using entirely legal code, using tools they themselves had to take the time to also create and develop as they went, while working on it.

Frankly, a licensed developer more than anyone should be able to appreciate that is a massive undertaking. To call it unimpressive is sheer idiocy, given that it is the one single piece of Wii homebrew that almost everyone is guaranteed to have or use on a regular basis. It's incredibly impressive as much for the achievement of it's creation as for what it does, and it does it to an extremely high standard.

 

[Shuny]

Stalkid64 great post, a licensed developer has every tool he needs, doing reverse engineering is way more complicated than coding

 

[felix123]

I am just wondering what the "Homebrew Purists" do in this scene
The only thing the homebrew is good for at this point is piracy
What else can you use it for?
Turn your Wii into a Webserver??
Or play an MP3 on
I think the legal side of homebrew is not interesting at all

Hello? Media center anyone?

 

[noobwarrior7]

No coder wants to go to jail, and if he really is anti-piracy, (Which I do hold in contention, but so many of you shout out) then theres no reason for him to risk it

why do I question this? because I believe the support of a DVDRead Library which will be integrated into Emulators for wii is in-fact support of piracy,
and if this bushing is the same bushing who is part of "dev team"....much of the code for their ipod tools is warez, but he may not be.
Wait, are we talking about the same iPhone Dev Team? What tools are these that you speak of?

As for motivation -- I'm in this for the fun of exploring uncharted territory and the chance to practice my skills. Why do I avoid piracy?

• ethically sketchy -- I think people should pay for software they use. Note that this doesn't mean I'm going around trying to convince people to agree with me
• legally risky -- you mentioned the DMCA itself, so it's better to stay away from these things
• boring -- Piracy is easy enough with hardware modification of the Wii. The mechanisms that prevent are interesting -- but they're mostly understood at this point, which means it's not very fun to me
• one-sided (see note above). Another reason I spend so much time on this is that I get to meet interesting, smart people -- people who will work with me (or with whom I can work) on projects that I can't tackle alone. All "Team Twiizers" is a few people that met on IRC by asking each other interesting questions and by writing clever code. OTOH, from the "piracy scene", we mostly see people begging for an isoloader or for help with their warezed VC channels. This is also boring.
  
  thanks bushing, for the sincere open post. it's good to hear YOU elaborate on where you stand.
  as for dev team tools, that was supposed to say "according to zibri much of the code..." but in retrospect that just sounds like hearsay so I will remove it.
  
  QUOTE(soonepoon @ Aug 2 2008, 07:41 AM)

• I am just wondering what the "Homebrew Purists" do in this scene
  The only thing the homebrew is good for at this point is piracy
  What else can you use it for?
  Turn your Wii into a Webserver??
  Or play an MP3 on
  I think the legal side of homebrew is not interesting at all

• 
  
  homebrew @ this point allows
  -nice media player
  -all kinds of save tampering and cheat engine goodiness
  -complete nand backup (or semi-complete? I forget)
  -apps that some coders might use, terminal apps, etc.
  -disc rippers
  -games (duck hunt is pretty baller, so is guitarfun)
  -The twilight hack and other homebrew loaders themselves
  -custom IOS's
  -you can count emulators too I guess, not really though
  
  and of course I am only speaking for the USofA
  
  @stallkid
  
  I understand exactly what you are saying, and I was being unclear, so let me see if I can say it how I meant it
  
  by "licensed devs" I meant individual (literally individual) coder friends in company x here and company y there,
  
  so they would not be working on dev kits, and would have only the knowledge that they had of the system over hb devs
  now...maybe they were blowing smoke up my rear, but they said it, they are pros, and I'm not on a grounds to doubt them.
  
  I'll be there first to admit too, why would I doubt my friends?
  
  
  to people who are agitated by my homebrew channel feelings,
  its mostly because:
  
  The homebrew channel (essentially) took the what the twilight hack did and made a channel out of it
  So, in some ways, it wasnt a new thing, but still very useful.
  Theyre both good and currently essential, and I am not bashing them.
  
  I simply think the MORE IMPRESSIVE thing, which most diehards never seem to proclaim, instead of just saying "you couldnt do better",
  
  is that bushing and co, and Im not direct quoting here, but havent they claimed they have enough security flaws that they will always be
  able to have the homebrew channel.
  
  thats the impressive part to me, that if true, the forethought on wii hacking that goes into that claim
  
  nuff said.

 

[davidw89]

er for guys dicking about wii media cetnre

try wiideo, it works flawlessly but quality might not be the best (some encodes to flash format)

for that lets wait for something like geebox with wifi/usb lan support

 

[cosmo2389]

(I'm referring to the initial post, I didn't want to quote it because it is so long.)

Wow! That was an interesting read!

I think that you put many things into perspective and you may even get people thinking!

So far the app I have used the most has to be GuitarFun...! I just got into really liking GH and I think that the ability to play custom songs without having to go through all the crap of owning a chipped console and burning new discs every time is awesome! Thus I would like to thank GuitarFun's programmers and such for making such a great piece of homebrew!