discoDSP Retromulator: the Usual Suspects code repackaged

[Seluvis]

The developer in question seems oblivious to the damage this move could potentially bring to their door. If this was an isolated incident it may have worked but you have to remember the many times they have upset existing customers as witnessed by the very negative forum posts here and elsewhere.

[whyterabbyt]

It has been stated MANY TIMES to you that The Usual Suspects absolutely are NOT happy with discoDSCP has done here.
.
.
.
You constantly bringing up open source terms does not change this fact.

At the end of the day, though, TUS chose a license which completely permits this, whether they are happy with that or not. And they would not be the first group to be dismayed by someone leveraging their open source work in such a way. It is, however, life as normal within the world of open source software. And, FWIW, it bears remembering that TUS, or any other party for that matter, are at perfect liberty to redistribute this fork.

Bottom line, discoDSP didn't have the basic common courtesy to make contact with The Usual Suspects first.

Just so you know, this is not a thing which is 'common' in the reuse of open source software.

Instead they repackaged their hard work into an all in one (and sadly inferior) product, then added it into their shop page with a buy now option which confused many people into wondering is it actually a free option or not. And they're basically charging for support for a product that the only real people can truly offer support is The Usual Suspects themselves, who can and indeed do offer updates and support already, for free.

Counterintuitively to expectations, this (or at least the action, rather than the method) is somewhat encouraged by the creators of the GPL

"Actually, we encourage people who redistribute free software to charge as much as they wish or can."

And its not exactly uncommon. Search ebay for 'audacity' for example.

(Oh, and please dont be so silly as to try and present this as my support for DiscoDSP's actions, or any other contributor to the thread. Im merely explaining how it is, not what I prefer, condone, or support. )

[Seafire Mk2]

Shady is meaningless. Its either legal, or illegal

So if it were legal to stab you in the face, you'd be ok with that?

Argumentum ad Legem.

"It wath thotally legal!" he slurred, with the knife protruding from his cheek.

Of course. The law is the law. Shady doesn't come into it.

[Teksonik]

Anyone who uses ROMs without owning the hardware and without permission of the copyright holders is committing the crime of intellectual property theft.

So as long as I abide by, and do not breach, the specific terms of use of that firmware I would have to agree to in order to download that software from the manufacturer, as far as I understand the legal situation, I should be good, no?

This is directly from the TUS site FAQ:

TUS 031026-1.png

[Teksonik]

Just curious, have you tried the emulators?

As I wrote in an earlier post I tried the Virtual JV (which I don't think is a direct TUS project but is the same concept) because I own a hardware JV880. Even then the whole thing just felt wrong so I have since uninstalled it and moved on.

I won't try any of the other TUS projects because I don't own the hardware. (See the image in my post above).

I'll add this also from the TUS FAQ:

We cannot legally provide you with this ROM/firmware as part of the emulator nor provide any assistance nor accept any responsibility or liability for any illegal usage of these emulators. Per our #rules published on our Discord server, no discussion of how to acquire ROM/Firmware will be tolerated in our community and may result in a ban.

[ampetrosillo]

Lads. DiscoDSP has no obligation to share your view of morality. Morality was never even part of the original concept of copyleft and free software, which really was a more "materialist" response by the developers' to people taking possession of their freely shared work and closing it off for the rest. Copyleft leverages copyright to basically nullify it and ensure it stays nullified, all the provisions of copyleft licences tying the licence itself to the original licensor are just there because, in a world where copyright exists, it's the only way to realise such a goal. Copyleft licences would not exist in a world without copyright, they embrace the inherent contradiction as a pure pragmatic approach.

That said, there are better angles from which to criticise discoDSP.

- his derivative work adds little of value
- not being the original developer, nor having made any contributions to the more technical side of the software, discoDSP has a very low probability of being able to offer meaningful support beyond his very shallow personal contributions to his packaged version

Should he prey on those who aren't knowledgeable enough to make sense of the subtleties of open source software, The Usual Suspects and the music community have the power to educate. People who might be looking for this kind of thing won't probably stumble upon it by chance.

[cron]

Shady is meaningless. Its either legal, or illegal

So if it were legal to stab you in the face, you'd be ok with that?

Argumentum ad Legem.

"It wath thotally legal!" he slurred, with the knife protruding from his cheek.

Well I think the judge's first question here would be "why did you personally select a license which actively encourages bilinder33 to stab you in the face?" If I want to tell you I'm against you stabbing me in the face, I probably wouldn't sign a document that includes face-stabbing as an explicitly stated example of something I want you to do. You simply cannot argue appeal to law when TUS themselves chose the law here.

[DrOcsid]

I don't see anything dirty or dark side about it. Gatekeeping old digital hardware for an unspecified, non-legal non-moral reason doesn't make sense to me. I don't get it.

No, you don't get it at all.

Anyone who uses ROMs without owning the hardware and without permission of the copyright holders is committing the crime of intellectual property theft. The irony is we're on a website dedicated to the creation of intellectual property. The legality of the ROMS is even mentioned by TUS themselves and the very reason why they don't include the ROMs in their downloads.

If old hardware dies who cares? What we have at out fingertips these days is orders of magnitude better so the entitlement of owning a piece of hardware you didn't buy or have the rights to use is not a legitimate argument.

I remember a time when KVR fought hard against the abuse of IP rights. Now it doesn't seem to care and that is the truly sad part.

There's nothing particularly sad about people recognizing the hypocrisy and sketchiness of IP law both in terms of how it's legally written and how it's actually enforced. Maybe in something resembling a perfect world, software agreements and technicalities about the legalities of intellectual property would matter in situations like emulation, but instead we get the world of corrupt laws written by corrupt lawmakers for corrupt IP holders. Imagine the hell it would be if everyone actually did follow every aspect of these laws to a T.

I'll go so far as to say, yes, if people are willing to go and put in the work themselves to build an emulation of hardware, then they are entitled to do that, owning the hardware or not.

Your whole argument here is relying on keeping up this old outdated illusion that there is some kind of sacredness or untouchable legitimacy to existing IP law that people have a moral imperative to uphold. There isn't. The fact that people are more aware of that in the modern day is very much the opposite of sad. It shows people understanding nuance beyond the letter of what out of touch legislators write. Thank god for emulation developers like The Usual Suspects.

[TheMaestro]

Irrespective of the legalities, Retromulator is still pretty pointless, its just a pre-set player without a browser (!) You can have the full 'programmable' synth with a proper browser for free from the original developer(s)...whatever discoDSPs aim was with this, it looks like it has backfired.

Except it hasn't because TUS developed it as a preset player without a browser, they thought some people would find that useful

If it really is useless why are so many people enraged at DiscoDSP? Wouldn't a useless product just be ignored?

You dont seem to be following this thread or at least not understanding core problem. People are enraged because of ethics, intent of asking for money in the beginning. Its not because of plugins usefulness, discussion about its usefulness or added value is made in retrospective to the price along with the ethics.

If you're so worried about ethics on behalf of TUS, then go berate THEM for releasing it under GPL 3.
They didn't HAVE to do that. But they did. It was their intention.

[ampetrosillo]

Anyway, I don't see why TUS shouldn't have the right to take issue with what discoDSP has done with their code. They explicitly say that discoDSP can legally do what he did, but they are entitled to call him an arsehole (between the lines, or explicitly) if they so wish. The open source community (or, rather, the free software community - open source is how suits tried to rebrand free software) has some unspoken rules and an etiquette. Again, the fact that the software is free doesn't mean that you have to comply, but it does mean that if you don't, you will at least be criticised within the community.

[Touch The Universe]

Why not then just say, it's free code to tweak but you can't sell it, you have to keep it free?

[seangm]

Why not then just say, it's free code to tweak but you can't sell it, you have to keep it free?

Yeah, I'm not too smart but I don't understand why they allow people to take the code and re-package it and then sell it. Is there some licensing agreement that TUS is bound to for some reason that allows people to do that? Requiring that it stays free seems like the best solution like TTU said.

[ampetrosillo]

You are deliberately being obtuse.

You can interact with the developers, contribute to the project, decide that you want to do some things differently or in a way that is at odds with their vision of the project, amicably depart from the project after some discussion (with the knowledge that they will understand why you are deciding to fork their code), start your own project, include their code (because you can), apply your own changes, contributing your own differing vision to the project, disclose clearly its origins and who the original developers are and sell the compiled binaries for a fee - and technically, if I'm not mistaken, you are under no obligation to share the source with people other than your customers, who will then do as they please, even give it away, source and binaries and all, if they so wish. This would largely align with the ethos of free software. (There is an expectation of freely available source, though).

OR.

You can just lift the code without ever having a modicum of interaction with the original community, add a few minor changes and sell the resulting software, half-heartedly including some "legally necessary" provisions and disclosures (which may or may not be clear or easy to find).

This is possibly even worse than selling Audacity on eBay, which would just be a bit scummy. No, what discoDSP did is outright vile, within the free software community.

[jme-audio]

Why not then just say, it's free code to tweak but you can't sell it, you have to keep it free?

Yeah, I'm not too smart but I don't understand why they allow people to take the code and re-package it and then sell it. Is there some licensing agreement that TUS is bound to for some reason that allows people to do that? Requiring that it stays free seems like the best solution like TTU said.

All Open Source licenses permit repackaging and selling. There are some (non-open-source) licenses that forbid selling but then you no longer participate within the Open Source ecosystem (Open Source projects can't adopt your code and you aren't allowed to adopt theirs). You can create a new licenses but it won't be accepted by the OSI (Open Source Initiative). That's just how things are.
It's very noble that they released their effort not only for free but as Open Source. That people come and see an opportunity to sell the work by others is unfortunately a potential risk.

[seangm]

Why not then just say, it's free code to tweak but you can't sell it, you have to keep it free?

Yeah, I'm not too smart but I don't understand why they allow people to take the code and re-package it and then sell it. Is there some licensing agreement that TUS is bound to for some reason that allows people to do that? Requiring that it stays free seems like the best solution like TTU said.

All Open Source licenses permit repackaging and selling. There are some (non-open-source) licenses that forbid selling but then you no longer participate within the Open Source ecosystem (Open Source projects can't adopt your code and you aren't allowed to adopt theirs). You can create a new licenses but it won't be accepted by the OSI (Open Source Initiative). That's just how things are.
It's very noble that they released their effort not only for free but as Open Source. That people come and see an opportunity to sell the work by others is unfortunately a potential risk.

Got it, didn't realize the open source license required that. Thanks.