Hacking what makes gw's launcher.dat illegal?

[jimmyj]

I've read this in a lot of places and don't understand why that file is illegal. Can someone explain why?

 

[DocKlokMan]

I've read this in a lot of places and don't understand why that file is illegal. Can someone explain why?

This is the first time I've heard it was illegal.

 

[Billy Acuña]

Afaik it contains the firmware.bin in it.

 

[The Real Jdbye]

Afaik it contains the firmware.bin in it.

Indeed it does. They could make it legal by reading the FIRM from CTRNAND like Luma does but that would require them to make their patches compatible with every FIRM version instead of just hardcoding it for the one they are currently using in their launcher.dat.
Optimally they would do what Luma does and use CTRNAND FIRM and dynamic address searching, so they wouldn't need to constantly update their launcher.dat whenever a new firmware drops. Then it wouldn't be such a big deal that they're no longer supporting their cart. I doubt that's going to happen at this point though.

 

[jimmyj]

Oh ok so it contains firmware.bin wow that is true they could just read it from the nand so compatibilty would be on all fw's

 

[proflayton123]

Sad but true, they charge 80 dollars for a flashcart and can't even keep there closed source legal

 

[Cuphat]

Gateway effectively made a piracy device, I doubt that they really care that their CFW binary contains copyrighted code.

 

[The Catboy]

IIRC, GBATemp actually got a direct notice from Nintendo (or someone representing Nintendo,) not to host their files or show their site. This is because the launcher.dat actually contains the firmware.bin, which is Nintendo's copyrighted file.