WinCE for the DC homebrew maybe legal

[Darksaviour69]

Post at http://www.dciberia.net



Microsoft, in a clear attempt to take advantage of the benefits of the community Open Source, has created the initiative "Shared Source", that allows the independent programmers to accede to the source code of some of its products in order that they improve it and they modify to his taste, yielding in return the right to use it and to distribute it if and single if it is for noncommercial use.

does this mean that WinCE apps are now legal? well there is more to it Ron explained to me


We cant use the Katana / Kamui libs because are property of Sega, but with Win CE 2.1 and DirectX6 we dont have too

[Wally]

Well why not port it to PSP now!

[MetaFox]

#1: WindowsCE has been open source for years now.

#2: DCiberia's method requires the use of the old CELoader program from boob! This loader requires the WindowsCE library to be present in order to run on the Dreamcast.

So, in essence - all the information in this post has been known for years, and hence is not news. As such, I've moved it to the Dreamcast Gaming, Emulation, and Homebrew forum.

[Darksaviour69]

but is it legal?

[MetaFox]

but is it legal?
It's legal to make games and distribute the binary with Windows CE (and has been for several years). However, you can't distribute the library, as the open source Windows CE was meant for embedded systems (ie: those with the Windows CE library built in).

As the library isn't imbedded into the Dreamcast's internal chips, the ability to distribute the binary is pretty useless.

[Darksaviour69]

ok i understand

[Darksaviour69]

ron pointed me to this, its over my head, but he still thinks its all legal

http://msdn.microsoft.com/embedded/usewinemb/ce/sharedsrccode/default.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sharedsource/Licensing/WindowsCE.mspx

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wceosdev5/html/wce50conbuildingaplatformusingmodifiedsharedsource code.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/wceosdev5/html/wce50howhowtousetheidetocreatecustomizeandbuildapl atform.asp

[NoQuarter]

microsoft supports open source,wow?

[ron]

Thx by posting the links !!!!

Being optimistic, it's legal read the licenses please, about WinCE Shared Source.

Best Wishes

[Eric]

Alright i want to hear more about this and this means? Can we use the operating system or something?

[quzar]

Same thing that has been known for years. Since the libraries are Sega AND Microsoft's, the Microsoft open policy on WinCE doesn't apply to them. It's not even clear that we can legally be using the WinCE toolkit for the DC because it is NOT the same as the embedded systems toolkit, and is supposed to require a license in order to be accessed at all. AFAIK it isn't legal for the owner of the license to transfer it, so even if you buy a software set (from a defunct development studio or something), you most likely are NOT buying the right to USE the kit to develop games/apps/whathaveyou for release.


Thx by posting the links !!!!

Being optimistic, it's legal read the licenses please, about WinCE Shared Source.

Best Wishes

Those licenses apply SPECIFICALLY to the WinCE toolkits they offer for download on their site and in the links you pointed to. If you can run that on the Dreamcast go ahead, but it is extremely different from the WinCE for the Dreamcast which is not only incompatible with standard WinCE, but is also OWNED BY SEGA.

But what does it matter? KOS is so much more advanced than WinCE it's ridiculous, and since we don't have access to the sources of the libraries, we wouldn't (even if it wasn't directly against the philosophy of the KOS maintainers) be able to extract any information from it.

Get over it. As long as Katana is off limits, this will be. It will be up to sega to open both of these.

[MetaFox]

Thx by posting the links !!!!

Being optimistic, it's legal read the licenses please, about WinCE Shared Source.

Best Wishes
The shared source is meant for embedded systems. Dreamcast is not an embedded system. You still need the library to distribute the binaries. The compiled WindowsCE library for Dreamcast is not included in the shared source.

[Christuserloeser]

AFAIK it isn't legal for the owner of the license to transfer it, so even if you buy a software set (from a defunct development studio or something), you most likely are NOT buying the right to USE the kit to develop games/apps/whathaveyou for release.

Hm, I think that you are right if it comes to commercial use but I've yet to see something that backs up the theory about this also applying to free software.