Creator Of PS1 Emulator DuckStation Threatens To "Shut The Whole Thing Down" Following License Change

I strongly disagree with the decision and I think the developer is a not very nice guy. Hopefully someone will fork this project under the old license and carry on without the dev. Then the project can remain open source and be useful for the community at large to use as they wish.

@JonathanChapman Why do you assume that he's being a jerk? He's already doing us all a favour by creating DuckStation and allowing other to contribute towards it. If anything, it's others behaving like jerks that have forced him into this stance. This is why we can't have nice things and why the world is in the absolute state that it is currently in.

@BLAZINOAH to bring another example: some people within the emulation scene are still pissed with the author of the BigPEmu author because that particular Atari Jaguar emulator is not open source. The fact he got permission to still work on it and release it outside of the Atari 50 is a miracle but some people are still very ungrateful.

Why do we have so many manchildren in charge of these projects?

I'm a big proponent of FOSS and the dev here brings up a very good point that too often people do not respect the terms of the GNUGPL. Look at the Retron 5 and other similar devices; the people that work on FOSS deserve to be credited for their time and effort.

I almost posted a comment on the FPGA toxicity about how the retro-development scene is largely the same at its core, whether it's FPGA or software emulation. Sadly, toxicity is a part of this scene. I've never used Duckstation, though I have heard good things. Duckstation was the center of prior drama a little while back. The reason he's saying he knows how licenses work is because statements he made the last time indicated he didn't understand how they work and people have pointed that out. As I recall, he was claiming that Duckstation was only partly GPL which makes no sense as far as I can tell. I also don't think changing the license or going closed source applies retroactively. It has already been forked. Even if it is the best PS1 emulator, there are other PS1 emulators that work great. I'd rather not see development shut down this way, but PS1 emulation will be fine either way. Also, people can't "take issue" with license violations they don't know about. I don't know if the rest of his grievances are sound, but his prior statements seemed questionable and there's no detail here to go on. Regardless, it's his right to change the license, but, once again, the forks exist.

I don't want to make it sound like I am certain this developer is the problem. I know this is not their job and they don't owe anyone anything in this regard. There's plenty of toxicity in the development community directed at developers. I remember Dreamcast emulation being a bit of a roller coaster for a while. And more recently, the developer of PS2 emulator AetherSX2 stopped development due to apparent death threats and other nastiness, which is absurd behavior to direct at a software developer.

Drama, drama never changes.

Even if he kills the entire thing, somebody will fork it and cal it Goose station or something.

And even then, the originals are still floating out here.

There was speculation that this is the same guy who did aethersx2. I don't know if it's true, but either way both devs need to freaking ignore the community. In the emulation community people are greedy and just want handouts for free, and even when they're given them they complain about them.

Unintentionally the comments are a microcosm of what this dev is going through — some people are on his side, some people think he's a dick, and if anyone takes a stake in either position it can lead to arguments. The signal to noise ratio is far better here than on social media so from an empathetic POV try to imagine yourself in his shoes and how much louder it must be. I think @Poodlestargeneric sums it up best — he should just ignore the community, supporters and detractors alike. That's what No Man's Sky did and they turned things around by just doing the work and not trying to constantly answer to people.

Funny it’s called Duckstation cause this mf’s actin like a real life Daffy Duck💀

All he is doing is protecting duckstation from other people. Selling it in a bundle with roms which is illegal and could lead to the same kind of takedown which happened to citra.

It also stops someone from moding duckstation with a crypto miner and then adding it the web.

I suspect a real copyright holder has been in contact with him and asked for the changes.

Duckstation is one of the most solid and easy to use emulators. There's always so much drama on the internet and scammers that seek to exploit everything they can, this move doesn't surprise me. In the grand scheme, it means nothing to the end user. But on the backend, hopefully it'll make their life easier

the guy is right.

@BLAZINOAH because he changed the license even after people adopted use of the software for distribution.. basically doing a rugpull. And he's trying to use these "threats" to get the conversation or pushback quelled. Well that's not how this works. I can appreciate the effort, but we don't owe him just like he doesn't owe us. And he if wants to step aside that's fine. We shouldn't have to walk around on pins and needles to keep some guy happy so we get updates on software he now wants closed off and under a strict license.

@JonathanChapman Amen. I hope he does shut it all down, just to "teach us a lesson".

Hint: it is he who will learn the lesson (that we do not need him).

I think the emulation devs are allowed to change licenses.

To me emulation to PC communities are just loud. Oh we can't have multiple mod loaders, oh we can't have different licenses for emulation, oh emu devs want audiences to shut up and let them work on it and have time.

PC audiences and modding or licenses or wanting to mess with things when it's not theirs. I get it, but sometimes they go too far and I don't as much disagree with modding groups, emu devs or others in software spaces doing things, breaching licenses, altering things certain ways, changing licenses for whatever reasons they see fit just because they want to do something with it their way.

I understand why Fabric and Quilt or NeoForge exist for Minecraft is due to toxicity from many modders working on the APIs/modloaders so we have now 4 different modloaders then the 2 it usually was but people go we only had 1, yeah I do my research, but fanbases are idiots and go eh we only see what we want and go eh this shouldn't exist and ignore why the many exist is due to behind the scenes they are too stupid to understand and want things in one place when it doesn't work that way.

They make projects, they get along, they change direction with the code/possibilities, people disagree of what stays, gets cut, etc. and they make their own project.

I don't blame them, they don't have to make these emu tools for us to use, if audiences want to be difficult then sure.

I get the whole open sources side of things and not profiting off it and with emulation especially being closed sources but dontation and not paid for I think is understandable why they do that but either way. Emu audiences are vocal and yeah I get what devs want to work with here in certain situations.

Why vet devs split to do their own thing then deal with publishers or other possibilities.

Why mod devs don't deal with the toxicity/set path of a mod loader/direction of the code or asset handling and other aspects and go yep our APIs, our direction for modding and we see other mod loaders exist is disagreements and fan bases go NO! Even though let them code, let them work things of licenses/the state of the emulator or give up.

The Aether emu dev gave up and said stuff it, I'm getting ads from this because of the audience or whatever the issue was. By all means I get why they did it and gave up but gets the ads in it and people go for the older builds of Aether instead if they can find them/don't allow an update to it.

@JonathanChapman @BLAZINOAH
Couldn't have said it better myself. The internet is full of entitled people that think they deserve things, just because they scream loud enough.

We don't 'deserve' ***** when it comes to hobbies and interests. We're lucky, and we should be appreciative that we get anything at all. Most of the cool progress that happens in retro gaming these days comes from people's volunteering of their OWN FREE TIME to do cool things. We should really remember that.

This is in response to people/entities very directly violating the previous license terms and then the creator having to waste his time helping people troubleshoot these essentially bootlegged versions. Nothing they're doing is jerkish or manbaby-ish, it's a defense against people stealing the work of all the contributors.

@JonathanChapman I agree. I mean it is what it is. It'll appear weither or not the creator is still around. But I wish the best.

@MegaManFan agree.

He's absolutely acting within his right and it's a shame that someone who is sharing his hobby and work for others to enjoy, free of charge, to have to go through such hurdles, threats and name-calling is absolutely unacceptable!

Duckstation is great and I suspect it took a lot of work. If I, as a user, still have access to it and the user experience is not impacted, then I'm not fussed and I think as long as all contributors are happy, who cares. From what I can see, people are forking it and then raising issues and bugs. So as far as I can see, someone has created and distributed it for free, the license terms have changed and the dev who did the work is now getting threats? If Duckstation goes, then its a huge blow to the emu community.

The only people complaining about this are either ignorant or upset they can't churn a profit from this.

Good on stenzek. You can see the toxicity in this hobby everywhere, even here on these comments. stenzek spare time doesn't need to fulfill the demands on those who believe they are entitled to have others dance to their insults and threats. I like DiskStation, I look forward to future improvements.

@JonathanChapman Walking around on pins and needles isn't the same as "not giving death threats." It's not the same as violating the license something is distributed under either.

Come on buddy, don't be the problem.

@bluebonics See this is why we can't have a conversation.

It always goes:

1. Developer (or company or group of people or whoever) does something community doesn't like
2. Community speaks up in comments/etc.. someone in the group takes it too far (or sometimes - if you go for the conspiracy theories - is just claimed to have by the Developer)
3. Developer rushes to discuss a death threat to bypass the real discussion ("look here.. I'm under threat.. I'm now totally justified")
4. Community turns on itself in reaction and we can never get back on track to discuss the real issue because we're too distracted

@bluebonics C'mon man.. don't be the problem.

Can I still download the emulator to play games? Yes I can. Is it the code open? Yes and it can be contributed to. Why should anyone care?

@vrubayka It goes against open source - where multiple people contribute and all of the code is open for others to use in their own projects to build on top of. Playing PS1 games is cool, but what if I wanted to build another emulator and base how the controls work on the code in this project? Maybe I learn how to make that better (say less lag) and come back and contribute to this project.

@JonathanChapman But can't you fork it and clearly communicate that it's a fork of Duckstation and credit everybody?

@vrubayka I sure hope so because the developer is kind of forcing the matter. We'll see what comes out of it. I hope the name is clearly different too. But realize that any further enhancements to Duckstation can't be just carried over to that forked project. They'd technically have to be discovered on their own and contributed separately (and if they coincidentally are the same then the author of Duckstation has some legal rights to try and take down the other fork). That's assuming that the other forked project ends up being sold or packaged for commercial use - which is what the author didn't want going forward with his contributions. This is a lot of trouble no-one needed. And for what?

@JonathanChapman
Here's an idea 💡
Take the time to code out an emulator yourself and give everyone time to complain to you about bugs, hotfixes and all the other crap dudes had to put up with.
Feel free to go out and fix it for the rest of mankind

Why is it always threats? No one is owed an emulator. Sit down already.

There’s a fork called Swanstation which exists as a RetroArch core. Works well, in my opinion.

Edit: I recall that, according to Reddit, the fork exists due to a falling out between Stenzek and RetroArch. It would seem that forking and renaming it was done years ago in agreement with him, but who knows the truth apart from the parties involved?

Stenz is a cool dude who is good to work with. Though I think giving DuckStation the axe would be a mistake.