zodttd · HackerTrans

I really don't like the fact there is zero developer support for Market given the fact it's self-regulated. The game company / Google partner could easily contact them to remove my app. Fair enough. But how do I contact a human at Google's Android Market? Haven't figured that out yet.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

I am the one who was removed from Google's Android Market. The game company issued a takedown notice to Google. Their motives are unknown.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Your assessment is fairly accurate. Though I consulted with others over GPLv2 and its usage of libraries. One person consulted with was the author of this software.

The UI is in Java and is part of a closed source project which I have been honoring. The library is called by the JNI. It is not linked statically.

If you have more to say on the usage of libraries in GPLv2, please share.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

That's a shame. There's not much to this. Summed up here: http://www.zodttd.com/wp/2011/05/open-source-software-licens...

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Appreciate this. I didn't know there were that many people with this mindset until just recently. I've had my GitHub for quite awhile. I will definitely be in full compliance if I freshen up my sources to the latest versions on a couple projects there, and remove a Cydia Store project (as I've just been made aware of). That's the extent of this issue.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

I'm confused as to who is giving who grounds by your comment here.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Also note that porting from a desktop environment to a mobile phone involves a lot more than simply running it through a different compiler. At times there are very major changes in code required on top of the replacement of input code, and on top of that a GUI to select games and any phone specific features in the HAL.

I think people think of this as being very simple. I ask them to write their own MIPS R3000A -> ARM v5|v7 dynamic recompiler and get back to me. Or if it's already in place, try debugging it when memory addressing changes for 1:1 RAM offsets, the functions for certain phones don't clear ICACHE|DCACHE properly, or there's a bug in it when moving platforms. Happens. A lot.

There is some worth to that. Either way, OSS license violations wasn't why I was removed from Android and Checkout.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Cute. But in reality they could tell me what I violated in their terms, and take down those specific application(s). Then if there was a trend, they could terminate the account as they normally do. That's the trend. They broke this trend with me by not only removing the apps but following up with no interaction on my part by suspending my Google Checkout (!) and Android Market account for my company and I for life.

Not much of a habit, I had a couple products on there. Only major thing up there was psx4droid. The rest were lil things I did to learn some techniques within psx4droid.

The driving motivation to come to Android was a petition of a few thousand signers asking me to produce exactly what I did.

Also remember Google did not pull my account for the reason of open source software licensing violations. I received a takedown notice from a game company. As did Yong.

So your statements and questions are irrelevant but must be responded to now quite often as it has become accepted among the community.

In short: My product was removed from a takedown from a game company & Google Android partner. My only issue was Google terminating my Google Checkout and Android Market accounts instead of just suspending the individual app(s) like they normally do. This is against Google's traditional ways of doing things on Market.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Will gladly let you know, but I'm not following. Take what down exactly? Thanks for reading TFA. :)

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Thanks...

This all comes down to freshening up my GitHub and removing a Cydia Store product. This will be done but I let this mob mentality continue for too long.

I spread myself pretty thin. I can count 20+ projects depending how far into the couple years I go. I have well over 4GB of development files with the majority being source trees.

Some of these will be fairly straight forward and not require much action at all. As Xuzz notes here, I have my projects source up on my GitHub, sometimes it just needs to be updated. Also sometimes it is updated, but just lands up needing some organizing to realize it (version number mismatches in code or instance).

Most however will be difficult when it comes to who to credit. I found out this is taken close to the heart over the years. I upset someone I respect very much, Notaz, at one point for not giving credit where credit was due. I rectified this with psx4droid v3 which I used his source, maintained a COPYING and README, credited, and kept the source up to date on GitHub. The issue is many emulators have been rehashed and ported so many times. For instance psx4droid v3 is based on Notaz PCSX-ReARMed which is a port of PCSX-Reloaded which is based on PCSX at some point. Along the way it used a MAME author's source file for handling the GTE. The MAME author contacted me for credit on the next revision which has not happened yet, and we discussed the issue at hand was it being passed down so much. So sometimes the credit list is huge and mostly unknown, and sometimes licenses mismatch if you really look at the sources.

A good example is SNES which has been rehashed and ported to death from snes9x (and as Xuzz pointed out, will fix) almost exclusively. The code usually becomes a huge mix in the end to the point it's a good luck situation to unravel it.

So doing this is not impossible, I will have to find some balance to please as many as possible without going insane trying to figure the sort out. Most being freshening the source at GitHub and checking compliance there. In the end there will be those who will complain and smear regardless. For those in this mob, they would never be fans and/or customers in the first place, but they do affect the overall feel of a company. And that's what concerns me moving forward...

I appreciate you being calm and courteous with your constructive criticism.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

What truth am I to tell?

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

I received a great contact at the EFF during their help towards fighting to maintain legality of "jailbreaking" of the iPhone.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

The author names were the reason for removing those posts, as I noted in my comment. Really that post has nothing to do with open source, and these matters can be handled by emailing me directly if it's such a concern, as I noted.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

That's part of the discussion I intended for. This wasn't about licensing. And they could take down the apps in question. But why remove our entire accounts? The treatment involved by robo-emails and no human support was scary.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

You are correct. This was not about open source violations, as that was not the reason Google removed our apps and followed through with removing our accounts.

zodttd

15 anni fadiscuss

Go ahead and continue the negative talk about me in regards to licensing violation claims if you must. So be it. But as mentioned earlier, I posted this as to why Google responded the way they did. And it had nothing to do with open source violations.

To respond to some posts here. I generally don't charge for emulators. An example of profit sharing for ones I do, gpSPhone is done with an arrangement between the original author and I. It is licensed accordingly.

Though not an excuse these apps are largely an overblown hobby for me. I've come to learn how seriously people take this licensing. I always tended to do a lot of incremental updates, sometimes multiple ones to multiple products a day. Source control was a mess up until recently. Like I said, this was hobby-grade.

For those talking about a quick buck. If you think I'm getting rich off these emulators, you're sorely mistaken. I can easily focus AppStore and do better. Really all I wanted to do was take peoples requests for ports since the Tapwave Zodiac, GBA, and GP2X days, and give them something to play with.

I've heard enough bashing of my name over the past year, that I haven't touched much at all since then. There's a laundry list of updates I want to do, but there's so much involved now it's not worth the grief. I had way too many ports being worked on, and spread way too thin.

I'm sure someone else will come along, step up, and do a lot of great work for emulation and homebrew in general on mobile devices. Just remember they do this out of love, either for free or unsustainable pay, and deal with tons of support questions and requests daily. Don't burn them out on politics.

I will gladly respond to concerns, as I have before. Though none of this will be needed to be discussed soon enough.

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