spoiler
Like most Wii homebrew software, this software depends on libogc. After development of The Homebrew Channel had already started, we discovered that large portions of libogc were stolen directly from the Nintendo SDK or games using the Nintendo SDK (decompiled and cleaned up). We thought that at least significant parts of libogc, such as its threading implementation, were original, and reluctantly continued to use the project while distancing ourselves from it.
It has recently been revealed that the threading/OS implementation in libogc is, in fact, stolen from RTEMS. The authors of libogc didn't just steal proprietary Nintendo code, but also saw it fit to steal an open source RTOS and remove all attribution and copyright information. This goes far beyond ignorance about the copyright implications of reverse engineering Nintendo binaries, and goes straight into outright deliberate, malicious code theft and copyright infringement.
The current developers of libogc are not interested in tracking this issue, finding a solution, nor informing the community of the problematic copyright status of the project. When we filed an issue about it, they immediately closed it, replied with verbal abuse, and then completely deleted it from public view.
For this reason, we consider it impossible to legally and legitimately compile this software at this point, and cannot encourage any further development.
The Wii homebrew community was all built on top of a pile of lies and copyright infringement, and it's all thanks to shagkur (who did the stealing) and the rest of the team (who enabled it and did nothing when it was discovered). Together, the developers deceived everyone into believing their work was original.
Please demand that the leaders and major contributors to console or other proprietary device SDKs and toolkits that you use and work with do things legally, and do not tolerate this kind of behavior.
If you wish to check for yourself, for example, you can compare this function in libogc to this function in a really old version of RTEMS. While the code has been simplified and many identifiers renamed, it is clear that the libogc version is a direct descendant of the RTEMS version. It is not possible for two code implementations to end up this similar purely by chance.
Apparently all Wii homebrew uses this library as well.
So not even shut down by Nintendo, shut down by someone who went “waaah waaah this is copyright infringement”?
Yeah man you’re making the “Pirate Games” machine of course there’s copyright infringement involved I’m shocked you ever thought there wasn’t
“Program on Wii uses Wii code” no shit? Of course it would. It’s a program on the Wii!
Am I missing something here?
You don't have to take Nintendo's code to make homebrew and stuff, its just easier. Ideally devs would have looked at what the apps did and reproduced the functionality, without copying the exact code. Doing it this way opens them up to DMCA claims in a way doing it properly wouldn't.
Like all the homebrew stuff for switch, if Nintendo could take it down they would. But they can't, it doesn't include copywritten code of theirs.
Maybe my confusion about that lies in the fact that I’ve only ever used homebrew for piracy?
Like okay you managed to do all this without using a single line of Nintendo’s code, now I can play this completely illegitimate copy of Mario Kart without breaking Nintendo’s copyright.
The only reason to not use Nintendo’s code is to avoid getting caught, and seeing as this news is only coming out almost 20 years after the Wii when the homebrew scene has mostly moved on anyway means that wasn’t too big of a concern as long as no one say, in charge of the Wii homebrew software throws a temper tantrum about it.
yeah, this looks like an actual violation of trust around not stealing the work of other people in the community of hackers and not just "lol corpo got fucked haha". i would not care if they only used nintendo code, but not citing your sources when they're other open source projects is just rude.
they committed the software equivalent of plagiarism against an open source volunteer project, if the original post is to be believed.
Ah okay yes that’s the part I misunderstood, that is fucked. When it’s not costing you anything or limiting you just attribute credit ffs
Yeah, you should credit them, but throwing a tantrum about not being credited is bourgeois behavior.
Yeah see that’s where it really loses me, like I’ll be honest I just don’t think plagiarism is that big of a deal. It’s bad sure. But like, it’s not theft, it’s just a dick move. This seems like such an overreaction.