Why not release old stuffs?

True the person leaking would also breach a contract, but use without a licece also = theft. Theft = taken/use without permission, no licence = no permission, Theft = illegal.

 

Not true. As with essentialy every other console that houses homebrew software, the community uses free tools as opposed to the official ones, for the simple reasons that:

(A.) It lowers the chance that the company which owns the console will attact them with a lawsuit.
(B.) Makes it so they don't have to scour the net for sotware and/or documentation, which as you've stated is hard to find, in the case they don't have a 100% complete dev kit.
(C.) Allows for homebrew teams to form, which wouldn't be possible if everyone needed all this rare/expensive stuff to be a part of it.

If you want to make homebrew stuff then the above is one of the first things you should know.

 

Your point is good up until the "illegal" bit. C'mon guys, no companies are honestly going to give a shit whether or not you release their ancient dev documentation. Just up and say it: you don't want to give away this stuff which cost so much money. There's no shame in that, you don't have to pretend like you'd all be dodging the long arm of the law if these documents did happen to make their way onto the internet. With newer dev software it is admittedly more understandable, for example the XDK:

The vast majority of Xbox homebrew that I'm aware of was developed illegally in the XDK, being a software development environment for the Xbox.

 

The fact remains that if you copy their stuff it is illegal and leaves you at their mercy for wether you will be sued or not. I also said that teh original items cost us all alot to get. So if you read my original equation giving it away for free is not worth it.

 

Show me where I said it was worth it for you to release anything - I didn't, because I'm with you on that point (as I said in my post). But again, saying you're "at the mercy" of Nintendo's legal teams for leaking SNES hardware docs anonymously on an internet forum is a bit melodramatic, don't you think? Honestly, why on earth would they care?

Additionally the fact remains that few of you have the required licenses to possess the software/hardware/documentation that you do - but you don't mind showing photos or screengrabs; kind of a double standard for your legality argument, don't you think? Again let me stress that I'm not trying to blag you into releasing you expensively bought software/documentation, that's entirely up to you and I can fully understand why you wouldn't want to - but the excuses about legality are a fallacy.

 

stop acting like sissies and code...if you can,that is....
cause 90% here cannot code and likes getting dev stuff and bubble about it...

I 'm fuckin bad....

 

What are you on?

 

Well he does say that he's "fuckin bad"...

...I think we all agree on that

 

bad friday the 13 or what?

 

...

oh yes you can

 

Owning the stuff is 1 thing, but whoring it out for the rest of the planet is something alltogether different. If they're not too pleased 1 guy had an SDK but hey it's only 1 man they can ignore it, they won't be too impressed when 6 billion people have access to it.

 

...That's it in a nutshell :-D

 

...

what the nutshell consists of,is that noone that has these things uses them for reasons other than:

1)Impresion(like anyone cares)
2)As case studies of what dust can do to electronics

2 cents...beat it...

 

...Yawn :smt083

 

Just like most other collecting hobbies that use electricity, really
Take those miniature Hornby trains, for example. What's the point? People pay major cash for some of them, all you can do is set up tracks and drive them around, and if they're boxed and mint then they won't come out at all. No real point at all. Difference between me and you is, I don't pop up in their forum and tell them they're wasting their time since their collections don't impress people and exist merely to collect dust - that really is pointless.

 

OK, I'm not sure why this isn't understood.

Sofware is written by a company, who spend lots of time and money developing it. It is then sold under license. That means the software is COPYRIGHT.

Dev software should ONLY be in the hands of licensed developers, who have signed an NDA.

There are the major arguements against releasing it:

1. It would be illegally copying software
2. The person who bought it technically doesn't have the right to own it.

So, I pay for a piece of dev software, or literature. Why should I give you a copy for free? Go and buy it if you want it! Why should I put my neck on the line, and risk pointing out that I own something I shouldn't, and risk having it confiscated?

Incidentally, NO emulator is perfect. Software emulators will NEVER be a 100% copy of a piece of hardware.

I buy the hardware because I want it. I want to understand it, to use it, and learn from it. I also want to preserve it, to stop it from being destroyed, to collect it. It has value to me, so I pay money for it.

If you owned a Ferrari, would it be ok for me to come round your house and borrow the keys? I too would like a Ferrari, but I can't afford one... and if I could, I would have better things to spend my money on. You say I should share MY stuff that I bought. Well then, share your Ferrari. Or your house - let's all have a party in djelaba's house. Hopefully he has a pool - we can use that too. Drink his drink, eat his food. (apologies if you're a woman, djelaba!)

 

I'm hesitant to answer in his stead, as I'm not really interested in obtaining the stuff he is, but your point has problems. The difference is, if you drink his drink, he no longer can as it's been drunk. If you scan your dev manuals and release them to the net, you still have them. Really, I don't care whether you do or not, it makes no difference to me either way, but your point doesn't hold; data doesn't have the same economics of physical objects.

But honestly all this "putting your neck on the line" stuff is bullshit. You know that none of these companies care about their antiquated hardware documents. Stop trying to imply that there's some scary prison sentence awaiting you if you should happen to release it. The bottom line is this:

There is no reason at all, and I doubt I would if I was in the position to do so. Just don't try and say that it's for legal reasons, though. Nobody has yet been arrested for distributing the XDK or Katana or any other Software devkit. It doesn't happen.

 

You are wrong on the xdk. Microsoft has gone after and sued people for release of the xdk. I do not think they care as much now as before with the release of the xbox360 but I sure as hell do not want to test it. With companies looking at any way to make a buck do not rule it out. Hell sony is in bed with all the music industry lawsuits that have sued little girls. What makes you think if they would do that that they would not sue over release of any of their dev items. Basically if you own the original stuff will they come after you very remote but if you put it on a ftp for everyone to have your chances increase emensly and under the law you are in violation. All it takes is one person wanting to make a name for themselves and guess what your are screwed. I stick to my original statement COST+TIME+RISK !=free

 

My point throughout has actually been about older hardware documentation (I thought I'd made it clear with the use of the words "ancient", "antiquated" etc), and my point stands. They surely don't care.

XDK is outside of my experience honestly, I could understand Microsoft issuing cease and desist for distribution, but I've certainly not heard of lawsuits. Either way I wouldn't advocate distribution. Essentially, even with these very current legal concerns little has happened; the idea that someone near-anonymously releasing far older documents on some obscure ftp, on a forum such as this, would cause the copyright owning company to track the perpetrator down, is frankly ridiculous. At that point your equation becomes COST+TIME=FREE, and I can agree that it would make no sense for you to engage in such activities if you were not incilined to.