Note the mention that libogc also copies code from the official Nintendo SDK, which is proprietary.
I would guess one of three cases:
- They didn't want to respect the GPL, because they thought their library would be less popular if it were GPLed. (Many homebrew projects don't want to be fully Open Source because they want to hold back some special sauce, either to slow down efforts by the console vendor to stop them, or to differentiate themselves from other homebrew projects for clout. So someone building a foundational library for homebrew on a platform might want to, legitimately or otherwise, avoid presenting themselves as GPLed.)
- They didn't want to respect the GPL because they couldn't, because they were also pulling in proprietary code they weren't supposed to be using anyway.
- They didn't care because they were already ripping off the Nintendo SDK so why not rip off an Open Source project too. For instance, they just pointedly didn't care about copyright at all, which is a very different position than just not caring about code being proprietary.
(I can respect the position of "we're ignoring the copyright on this old game, so that we can do some awesome modding/romhacking", which is very different than ignoring Open Source licenses and failing to even give credit. I don't see the former as hypocrisy; it's just "we should be able to hack on anything". Console game modders / romhackers / etc tend to have a huge amount of respect for the original game and its authors, and give due credit, even if they're technically violating copyright.)
> Many homebrew projects don't want to be fully Open Source because they want to hold back some special sauce, either to slow down efforts by the console vendor to stop them, or to differentiate themselves from other homebrew projects for clout. So someone building a foundational library for homebrew on a platform might want to, legitimately or otherwise, avoid presenting themselves as GPLed.
For context, The Homebrew Channel itself was one of these projects. fail0verflow had put shittons of work into DRM for the Channel and its installer... purely so that you couldn't remove an anti-scam warning screen that they'd put in there to warn people about shady people trying to sell The Homebrew Channel.
Thing is, GPL requires you to explicitly allow that behavior[0], so HBC can't use GPL software.
[0] It is extraordinarily difficult to write a blanket copyright license that provides most of the terms we care for but prohibits this kind of behavior, without giving the authors the ability to veto anything they don't like. Standard operating procedure in the FOSS space has been to just allow all commercial activity.
> Thing is, GPL requires you to explicitly allow that behavior, so HBC can't use GPL software.
Couldn't, not at the time. HBC has been open-sourced some time ago, sans DRM, as the Wii has long lost commercial relevance beyond enthusiast communities. This open-source re-release is what the repository is.
Yes[0], and if Team Twiizers had consciously decided to use RTEMS code in that way, they probably would have been fine. However, libogc still cannot legally strip out the GPL copyright notices and distribute RTEMS code in that way.
That being said, RTEMS itself is trying to relicense to BSD 2-Clause, which would obviate the concerns over copyleft, but NOT the thing that libogc did. In fact, the 2 clauses left in the BSD 2-Clause license are the ones that require you to retain the copyright notices. So libogc is still in the wrong.
I would guess one of three cases:
- They didn't want to respect the GPL, because they thought their library would be less popular if it were GPLed. (Many homebrew projects don't want to be fully Open Source because they want to hold back some special sauce, either to slow down efforts by the console vendor to stop them, or to differentiate themselves from other homebrew projects for clout. So someone building a foundational library for homebrew on a platform might want to, legitimately or otherwise, avoid presenting themselves as GPLed.)
- They didn't want to respect the GPL because they couldn't, because they were also pulling in proprietary code they weren't supposed to be using anyway.
- They didn't care because they were already ripping off the Nintendo SDK so why not rip off an Open Source project too. For instance, they just pointedly didn't care about copyright at all, which is a very different position than just not caring about code being proprietary.
(I can respect the position of "we're ignoring the copyright on this old game, so that we can do some awesome modding/romhacking", which is very different than ignoring Open Source licenses and failing to even give credit. I don't see the former as hypocrisy; it's just "we should be able to hack on anything". Console game modders / romhackers / etc tend to have a huge amount of respect for the original game and its authors, and give due credit, even if they're technically violating copyright.)