SNES9X for sale on Android app store?

Falaina · Post by **Falaina** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 1:16 am

I apologise if this isn't the appropriate forum for this,but my friend recently bought an SNES emulator on the Android app store (http://www.cyrket.com/package/com.androidemu.snes) and told me about it. Being a bit curious about the prospect of a Java SNES emulator, I decided to disassemble it and take a quick peak but was surprised to see it was simply a Java wrapper around a 'libsnes.so'. Upon closer inspection this .so seemed to be made from the SNES9x source.

I'm curious if this was done with the permission of the SNES9x authors? I didn't see any mention of it in the app and I remembered that SNES9x was non-commercially licensed. I just thought I'd let you guys know, feel free to disregard me if he was given permission (or if it's just that I'm too dumb to understand your license)

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 2:54 am

You're damn straight this was done without the permission of the Snes9X authors. Snes9X is meant to be FREELY distributed, NOT sold for a profit. Feel free to write nasty reviews, hate mails, etc. until the developer(s) make the price FREE, as per licensing requirements.

Failing that, we need to sue.

squall_leonhart69r · Post by **squall_leonhart69r** » Fri Oct 23, 2009 6:13 pm

ima sharpenin the pitch forks.

Camo_Yoshi · Post by **Camo_Yoshi** » Sat Oct 24, 2009 1:06 am

Let the war begin.

*SSBB announcer voice*

3!...2!...1!...GO!

veggievampire · Post by **veggievampire** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 1:35 am

So on the note of, "FREELY distributed" snes9x software. Where can I download snes9x for the android phone for free?

Camo_Yoshi · Post by **Camo_Yoshi** » Thu Apr 01, 2010 4:35 pm

veggievampire wrote:So on the note of, "FREELY distributed" snes9x software. Where can I download snes9x for the android phone for free?

You might want to take a look at snes9x-gtk.Search for it on these forums.

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Mon Feb 07, 2011 9:25 pm

veggievampire wrote:So on the note of, "FREELY distributed" snes9x software. Where can I download snes9x for the android phone for free?

Better yet, someone forked SNesoid after finding the source code.

https://github.com/Pretz/SNesoid

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 4:43 pm

Uh... I e-mailed Yong Zhang about the topic, and he claims he actually -paid- the SNES9x team for a license to sell it on the Android Market.

I am as astounded as you likely are - I thought he would just ignore me. Instead he took the time to reply to my (rather strongly worded, I am ashamed to admit) e-mail, politely and succinctly. Out of curiosity more than anything else, I'm sending a note to Gary Henderson to verify and see if he's willing to part with some details regarding the issues involved in such. It turns out that, far from the assumptions I'd made, he's an upstanding, considerate citizen who pays his dues.

Sorry folks, looks like we'll have to put the pitchforks back and extinguish the torches...

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Tue Feb 08, 2011 10:15 pm

Actually, we've never recieved an agreement, let alone a payment for his use of Snes9X in this manner. Also good luck with getting in contact with Gary and/or Jerremy, as they've been lost in the interwebs...

So yeah, that being said, pitchforks and torches can be locked and loaded. Again.

the_randomizer · Post by **the_randomizer** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 12:57 am

Wow. And I thought the whole having-to-pay-money-for-no$gba-despite-the--fact-that-Martin-killed-the-project was asinine. I'd download the Android app for free just to spite the person selling it.

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 5:55 pm

He -is- using an older version of SNES9x, possibly to restrict the number of individual contributors he had to settle things with. But, I'm still digging into it even as I try to rig up an Android development platform to compile the forked source myself.

If I do get it running, rest assured I will distribute the binary to all and sundry, as well as describe what I did to get it working.

I'll also keep updating you guys as I find out more regarding the licensing claim.

Camo_Yoshi · Post by **Camo_Yoshi** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 6:27 pm

Time to ban that @$&!er!

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 7:55 pm

Camo_Yoshi wrote:Time to ban that @$&!er!

I ... kinda doubt he's registered for the forum here...

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Wed Feb 09, 2011 10:16 pm

SparroHawc wrote:He -is- using an older version of SNES9x, possibly to restrict the number of individual contributors he had to settle things with. But, I'm still digging into it even as I try to rig up an Android development platform to compile the forked source myself.

If I do get it running, rest assured I will distribute the binary to all and sundry, as well as describe what I did to get it working.

I'll also keep updating you guys as I find out more regarding the licensing claim.

Thanks bud. Let me know when you get it working, as then we can make an official Snes9X port for Android. And then you should be able to use those tips and tricks to get it working on the latest Snes9X 1.52 source

Someone else tried once before and I didn't get much of a response back from him.

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Fri Feb 11, 2011 1:19 am

adventure_of_link wrote:
SparroHawc wrote:He -is- using an older version of SNES9x, possibly to restrict the number of individual contributors he had to settle things with. But, I'm still digging into it even as I try to rig up an Android development platform to compile the forked source myself.

If I do get it running, rest assured I will distribute the binary to all and sundry, as well as describe what I did to get it working.

I'll also keep updating you guys as I find out more regarding the licensing claim.
Thanks bud. Let me know when you get it working, as then we can make an official Snes9X port for Android. And then you should be able to use those tips and tricks to get it working on the latest Snes9X 1.52 source

Someone else tried once before and I didn't get much of a response back from him.

That's apparently because setting up the development environment is a major pain. Ithas to be done in Linux, for one thing, and then you have to download and xompile at least two packages. And if you want to use a GUI... well, I managed to get my VM's Xorg server to screw up so badly that it flat-out won't start. I'm going to power ahead though, simply because I don't think I actually need the GUI.

And I haven't heard back from Gary, as AoL suspected. I'll try to find another way to get a hold of him.

Also: typing forum posts on an Android touchscreen is a PAIN.

pretz · Post by **pretz** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 6:59 pm

Hey, I'm the one who put the fixed up SNesoid on github. I've been conversing with SparroHawc on twitter about building. I hadn't realized the latest version of the Android NDK broke my fork.

You don't need Linux to compile android apps -- OS X or cygwin work just as well (I use os x mostly).

Some months ago I started an attempt to port SNesoid to the latest snes9x 1.52 sources, but enough of the codebase had changed that the port wound up being more challenging than I thought. Since I wasn't very familiair with the snes9x code it took me a long time to figure out what methods had changed and in what way. I'd be happy to put my unfinished attempt up on github if someone is interested in continuing it -- unfortunately in its current state I don't think it even compiles.

I'm happy to answer any further questions about Android and such.

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 7:33 pm

pretz wrote:You don't need Linux to compile android apps -- OS X or cygwin work just as well (I use os x mostly).

unfortunately in its current state I don't think it even compiles.

Oops. um. Well, my howto explains how to do it in Linux at least. *shiftyeyes* Maybe I'll edit it to make it more generic. I should install Cygwin, I really should - although in the meantime, my little Linux VM is doing a pretty good job.

And I did get it to compile, after commenting out the chmod() calls. It works like a charm, savestates and all!

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:03 pm

Oh yes, and I have an update regarding Yong. He -did- email Gary, and Gary sent me a reply saying so. (angels sing, pigs fly, etc.)

Gary gave permission, and sent him the source of an old SNES9x build that's all his own code. Yong, as Pretz will tell you, did NOT use that code and instead used a more recent build - so he's not legal. What I need to do, now, is find out if I can release a binary compiled off of Pretz's fork legally. Since the SNES9x license only affects the source of SNES9x and not anything built -around- it, he may be able to legitimately exercise copyright on it. It makes no mention in the source code whether or not it has any copyright restrictions. If, however, we throw out the entirety of Yong's Java and rewrite that part from scratch, we could have a legitimate SNES9x port that would be under the same license as the rest of SNES9x.

I briefly entertained the thought of grabbing the wrapper off of one of the other projects he has the source posted for, but those are mostly GPL. Which means the Java wrapper is GPL. Which isn't compatible with SNES9x's license.

So it's either start from scratch or ask Yong for permission to add his code to SNES9x proper.

adventure_of_link · Post by **adventure_of_link** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 8:31 pm

Whoa, you mean you all actually got a reply from THE Gary?

:shock:

you should tell him to come on down to the forums sometime!!!

SparroHawc · Post by **SparroHawc** » Wed Feb 16, 2011 9:45 pm

adventure_of_link wrote:you should tell him to come on down to the forums sometime!!!

I would, if I weren't trying to be fairly professional about all this... All told, it might be better to let him be. I have no clue why he departed the scene, and it's entirely possible it's because of a flaming row somewhere. c_c

Snes9x.com

SNES9X for sale on Android app store?

SNES9X for sale on Android app store?

FREELY distributed snes9x

Re: FREELY distributed snes9x

Re: FREELY distributed snes9x

Re: FREELY distributed snes9x