Snes9x.com

SparroHawc wrote:

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

At least have him transfer the Site administrator over to Ryan... for christ's sake this place is falling apart!

Camo_Yoshi wrote:

SparroHawc wrote:

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

At least have him transfer the Site administrator over to Ryan... for christ's sake this place is falling apart!

For that I think you'd have to talk to Jerremy about that.. IIRC he IS the one that set this up and pays the bills, you know.

SparroHawc, understandable..

But, do you guys have contact with jeremy? If not, Gary might. At least inform Gary of our situation and see what he recommends, right?

Yes, please do.

Once I get home from work I'll see if I can track down his e-mail too.

Well I am still alive

Just no longer actively working on anything regarding Snes9x (although it does give me great joy to see Snes9x being ported to every system that you could possibly think off ). I am usually very busy but you can always reach me at <myfirstname>_at_wordtgek.nl. (the email that sparrohawc used also works though).

That said, since Gary doesn't exclusively own the rights to Snes9x so its doubtful the Android developer asking money for it can even get claim it's 'ok'.

Some info on the Snes9? series of emulators, some of which is wrong in most of the interwebz (even incorrect on Wiki).

Snes96 was originally also written by me, it is often claimed (incorrectly) that Snes96 was solely written by Gary. This is completely untrue, Snes96 was not even started by Gary!

I started that project in '95 and released the first working version in '96, but due to time constraints I had to drop the project. When I did that I offered the code to a select few that e-mailed me. Gary was one of those select few and the only one that actually continued my work.

In '97 I got the emulator vibes again and started work on Snes97, my main goal was to fix a lot of the issues Snes96 had (mainly in the graphics department). Snes97 was completely written from scratch.

When I started Snes97, Gary (who was one of the few to ask for the Snes96 code and actually continue work) had started working on sound support and squashing a bunch of bugs in the instruction core.

Somewhere in '98 me and Gary decided to combine his continued work on Snes96 and my new work on Snes97 into Snes9x. Which is the emulator you all now use.

Since I have written a lot of code in both emulators, from the very start, Gary can't "give away" the code.

Can someone email me the info of the android dev?

I'll straighten this out and make him either distribute his work for free, or not at all. If needed I'll even stick a lawyer on it, since I can't stand people profiting off other people's work (let alone my own).

To be fair, he -is- offering a free version, and he -did- make an effort to be legal (a minimal effort, but an effort nonetheless). Not that this changes the fact that he is profiting off of other people's efforts.

However, if we're more interested in forwarding the development of SNES9x than ensuring that it's free for everyone forever... You might consider changing the license to GPL. Then, even if someone does make some initial money off of it due to porting it first, the source code -has- to be made available with their modifications. I know this will require getting in contact with the other developers, but I've already done a good amount of legwork in that regard.

Most of the other developers of the emulators Yong released for Android are using the GPL, and he's shown that he's willing to follow the requirements of that particular license. This also means that we would be able to legitimately take his source code and fold it into the proper SNES9x builds. As I've mentioned, he likely still holds the copyright to the source used to build the Android port that isn't SNES9x itself.

This would have two beneficial effects - it would avoid having to take potentially expensive legal action against someone who really did do some hard work, and open up potential options for adding more functionality to SNES9x itself from other projects released under the GPL.

Well the issue that I have with GPL is that it does allow commercial use, which is something I do not really feel good about. I never really understood why people like GPL so much (due to that very reason).

However it's been such a long time since I did anything for Snes9x that I would be fine with my (Snes9x) code switching to GPL.

So you have my blessing to go to GPL (wonder if you need more then just this message though)

I don't think we'd need more - I know it's you, at least.

In regard to commercial use, I would say that is as much in favor for the GPL as anything else, for one very important reason - commercial involvement improves the end product. There are few motivations greater than the desire for money. The GPL takes that into account, and forces any improvements (made for commercial gain) to be available for the public good.

Like this, for example. We probably wouldn't have an Android port if not for Yong wanting to make some money.

If you still want to initiate a dialogue with Yong, the app information as well as his e-mail address (obscured by captcha) is at http://www.cyrket.com/p/android/com.androidemu.snes/

Please be civil if you e-mail him. He is perfectly capable of rational discussion.

--edit--

I'm going to start a new poll in general discussion, and possibly a new thread in the development topic as well regarding the potential for moving to GPL.

And here I thought I was just going to be a lurker on this forum...

ZNES and BSNES each have a source release. The more emulator source code that's around, the more research can be done, resulting in better emulators for everyone.

Any plans for a Windows Phone release?

Developing for Windows Phone requires a whole new set of skills, FYI. Sorry.