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Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

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Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#41

Post by brudgers »

mubou wrote: post #7

Is RTEMS an active project? They should file a copyright complaint and have the libogc repo taken down if this is true. If it were me, I'd lawyer up and throw the book at them. LibOGC accepts donations via Patreon, which means -- if the allegations are true -- they're profiting off stolen code. RTEMS could and should sue for damages. This isn't the first time I've seen an open source project stolen by someone trying…

I'd lawyer up and throw the book at them.

Litigation is expensive.

Yeah, hobbies can be expensive and sure litigation could be someone’s hobby…nothing wrong with that and maybe worth having lawyers on retainer if that’s your jam.

But in this case, there’s probably not a business case…and being a civil matter, there’s no book-‘em Danoh book to throw. Just normal squeezing blood from turnips…which again, might be someone’s hobby at least in theory.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#43

Post by jchw »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #40
jillyboel wrote: post #27

Since y'all decided to flag my other comment I'll rephrase: Can someone explain what harm is being done by an open source non-commercial project "stealing" code? Who is actually hurt by this, and how? Let's ignore for the moment nothing was actually stolen since the original authors still have their copies.

You have a great point. I'm finding it hard to determine that actual harm has occurred here. The problem can be corrected, and the hbc project can still meet the requirements and spirit of open source. But neither fail0verflow nor libogc seem to care about any of this, and instead everything was frozen. You don't need permission to use open source code.. So there appears to be two double standards occurring at once.…

> I'm finding it hard to determine that actual harm has occurred here. [...]. But neither fail0verflow nor RTEMS seem to care about any of this.

? There isn't really any evidence that the original RTEMS developers are aware of this situation.

> You don't need permission to use open source code..

"Open source" on its own is just industry jargon. When you use open source code, you are copying it in accordance with an open source copyright license. The copyright license contains certain stipulations around how it is allowed to be used. For example, BSD licenses require that the copyright notice is included when using the code. IANAL but my understanding is if you omit this information even though your work is a derivative work of the original you're in violation of the copyright license.

> So there appears to be two double standards occurring at once.

You should really elaborate who is being held to what standards because I can't make sense of this.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#44

Post by AshamedCaptain »

arghwhat wrote: post #14
AshamedCaptain wrote: post #4

How much "reverse engineering" these days really is clean room and how much of it is just ripping off proprietary software? One can easily find a bazillion of "github repos" that distribute what is evidently directly decompiled game code with minimal cleanup. Bonus points if they also claim it is OK as long as the game art is not distributed, which in addition to being wrong is disrespectful to developers as a whole.…

Note that reverse engineering does not have to be clean room, poking at hardware without ever seeing any software. In many places, poking at the proprietary software, decompiling it, tracing it, and so forth is fine despite what unenforcable EULA's might suggest. What is not okay is taking the binaries or decompiled source verbatim and re-distributing it. Note that e.g. copyright does not apply to decompiled source c…

> Note that e.g. copyright does not apply to decompiled source code

Where does this non-sense come from exactly? Are you claiming the decompiled source code is not a derivative work? It is almost a text-book definition of one (in much the same way the executable is...).

There are some situations (and this depends on your legislation) in which _violating_ copyright is lawful (e.g. in the EU, if it is _strictly necessary_ to do so for interoperability reasons -- think cryptography for network equipment; a decade ago I used to work on this!). But blanket distribution of decompiled proprietary (or GPL'd!) binaries _is_ a copyright violation (literally textbook, as "decompilation" is quite an example of an automated translation). And frankly, I have no idea what kind of confusion of ideas makes these people believe it is OK to distribute game code publicly. Or why it would be OK for code but not for assets. (And it has nothing to do with patents).

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#45

Post by 1970-01-01 »

jchw wrote: post #43
1970-01-01 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have a great point. I'm finding it hard to determine that actual harm has occurred here. The problem can be corrected, and the hbc project can still meet the requirements and spirit of open source. But neither fail0verflow nor libogc seem to care about any of this, and instead everything was frozen. You don't need permission to use open source code.. So there appears to be two double standards occurring at once.…

> I'm finding it hard to determine that actual harm has occurred here. [...]. But neither fail0verflow nor RTEMS seem to care about any of this. ? There isn't really any evidence that the original RTEMS developers are aware of this situation. > You don't need permission to use open source code.. "Open source" on its own is just industry jargon. When you use open source code, you are copying it in accordance with an o…

The point is that nobody is being held to anything. Who will make a case in court? There is nobody to enforce the law, and if there was someone, it can be easily corrected by including these license files. Therefore nothing is blocking either project.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#46

Post by qwery »

somat wrote: post #31
deng wrote: post #11

How extremely weird. Why didn't they just use RTEMS openly? Was it for clout or did they want to circumvent the GPLv2? I can't imagine the Wii Homebrew scene being commercially significant that it would matter.

What was the nature of the stolen(infringed really) code? Because a naive first glance show that they were distributing source code from a project that requires that you distribute source code.... shrugs, what's the problem here? So was it removing license comments from the files?

It's plagiarism.

They laundered source code from a free software project in a deliberate attempt to deceive.

(allegedly, etc.)

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#47

Post by userbinator »

TuxSH wrote: post #15

To me this looks like a bad attempt at exposing dirty laundry in bad faith, which is not too surprising coming from him. 1. Commit 3ba50ec which Marcan is complaining about was pushed in 2008 and didn't just delete attrib specifically, but all (?) VCS comments indiscriminately. The file was barely touched since 2. "The authors of libogc didn't just steal proprietary Nintendo code (...) ignorance about the copyright i…

which Marcan is complaining about

"That prick again?" Not surprised at all. He's been trying to stir shit up for a long time, and best ignored as a troll.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#48

Post by dokyun »

kmeisthax wrote: post #21
deng wrote: post #11

How extremely weird. Why didn't they just use RTEMS openly? Was it for clout or did they want to circumvent the GPLv2? I can't imagine the Wii Homebrew scene being commercially significant that it would matter.

I suspect that it was neither for clout nor circumvention, but ignorance and people doubling down on that ignorance. If you are not specifically bathed in the norms of the FOSS community, GPL is kind of an unintuitive concept. It's a copyright license that forces you to disclaim most of the benefits of copyright protection. If you're coming from a piracy or game modding scene, where copyright is a thing you wipe your…

That's what makes it come off as stupid and kneejerk to me. This guy wrote "The Wii homebrew community was all built on top of a pile of lies and copyright infringement" like it's some kind of shocking revelation. The guy writes it in a way that makes me think it's fueled by some years-long grudge rather than an intent to unravel some kind of conspiracy. It's kinda pathetic, really.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#49

Post by II2II »

kmeisthax wrote: post #21
deng wrote: post #11

How extremely weird. Why didn't they just use RTEMS openly? Was it for clout or did they want to circumvent the GPLv2? I can't imagine the Wii Homebrew scene being commercially significant that it would matter.

I suspect that it was neither for clout nor circumvention, but ignorance and people doubling down on that ignorance. If you are not specifically bathed in the norms of the FOSS community, GPL is kind of an unintuitive concept. It's a copyright license that forces you to disclaim most of the benefits of copyright protection. If you're coming from a piracy or game modding scene, where copyright is a thing you wipe your…

> Homebrew scenes seem like a candidate for doing things "the right way", but culturally they're a lot closer to piracy scenes than anyone wants to admit, at least in front of a court.

I realize the homebrew scene doesn't view themselves this way, but I pretty much view them as part of the piracy scene even when they are antagonistic towards those who pirate games. The main difference is that they are "pirating" hardware rather than software. By that I mean they are overriding DRM created by the hardware vendor to use the hardware in unauthorized ways.

Now it is easy to say that you should be able to do what you want with hardware you own. In most respects, I am sympathetic with that. Yet I don't like that philosophy for one big reason: it creates a huge disincentive to those who want to create open platforms since it is going to be nearly impossible for them to get any traction when they are up against jailbroken devices from huge multinational corporations.

Re: Libogc (Wii homebrew library) discovered to contain code stolen from RTEMS

#50

Post by jchw »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #45
jchw wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm finding it hard to determine that actual harm has occurred here. [...]. But neither fail0verflow nor RTEMS seem to care about any of this. ? There isn't really any evidence that the original RTEMS developers are aware of this situation. > You don't need permission to use open source code.. "Open source" on its own is just industry jargon. When you use open source code, you are copying it in accordance with an o…

The point is that nobody is being held to anything. Who will make a case in court? There is nobody to enforce the law, and if there was someone, it can be easily corrected by including these license files. Therefore nothing is blocking either project.

> The point is that nobody is being held to anything. Who will make a case in court? There is nobody to enforce the law, [...]

Lawsuits are very expensive for all parties no matter what, there is clearly no intent to try to engage legal action. That has nothing to do with anything. They're trying to distance themselves from illicit behavior, including the behavior they already knew about and let slide in 2007.

(And I doubt it's being done for legal reasons, but distancing yourself from illicit behavior does matter; take a look at what happened with Citra. The case partially hinged on their responses to piracy.)

> It can be easily corrected by including these license files. Therefore nothing is blocking either project.

Tell that to the libogc developers who seem to only be interested in burying the problem rather than trying to rectify it in any way.

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