On the topic of PSIX...

[Darksaviour69]

homebrew and commercial are not opposites, the games industry started off as homebrew, software that people made at home. Homebrew, means made at home... thats it. I think you are confuseing freeware.

but that has nothing to do with the subject at hand, the question is, is right to for the creators of Psix to sell it? i know too little about the subject to comment. but i will say that selling homebrew is not, bad or wrong ( look at FOF and the other 3 games for the dreamcast), but those game are proper press CD and very well polished.. miles ahead of any freeware homebrew for the dreamcast.

[Fanjita]

There's a lot of conjecture in here. Here are the facts:

- Homebrew just means home-made. Nothing more, nothing less. Traditionally people have given their homebrew away, but that doesn't mean it's mandatory to do so.

- Fluff is not selling PSIX. The $10 (or whatever it is) is basically a forum, support and early-beta access fee, that's been clearly stated.

- Fluff states that his/her share of the fees are all being donated to a fund to give free how-to-program books etc. to homebrew devs in need of them. Believe it or don't believe it, but that's been stated publicly many times.

- Even if PSIX was being sold, the terms of the PSPSDK license (BSD-style, for those who know or care about the difference) would not prevent it. AFAIK Fluff has been very careful not to violate the terms of any licenses for software that is used in PSIX.


Now, I don't want to come across as an apologist for PSIX. Personally, I wouldn't charge anything for my homebrew, or even for support of it. But that's mostly because I don't want to feel obligated to support my work - I don't have time to do so, I need to feel free to walk away from it at any time. There are plenty of people already expecting more than I can give them, I don't want to give them reasonable grounds to expect more. This isn't a job for me, just a way of having fun.

The fact remains though that what is happening with PSIX isn't actually wrong, legally or ethically.

A lot of people think that charging for homebrew-related services is bad, and will lead to a culture of charging for all homebrew. In some ways that's a reasonable fear. But on the flip side, perhaps we're already in a position that's too far the other way. Right now, an awful lot of people fully expect homebrew developers to work slavishly for them, demanding ports and programs, and expecting commercial-level support. The various posts in here saying "but homebrew must be free" are evidence of that.

Developers so far have given away the fruits of their labours. That's hours and hours and hours of work - I'd guess that eLoader, for example, has taken AT LEAST 1000 man-hours so far to code, and probably a lot more. That's 6 months of intense effort. The majority of complex homebrew is on a similar scale. The fact that there are so many people willing to give such huge gifts to the community is a wonderful thing, but it shouldn't mean that everyone who can do so should be forced to.

If Fluff (or others) choose to charge for their work, then let them do so. It will be an interesting experiment in market economics to see what happens. Maybe people will deem the software worth paying for, maybe they won't. But they will have a choice.

And maybe, just maybe, people will come to understand the value of what is being given away, and stop simply expecting gift after gift after gift.

[Athlonman74]

my thoughts exactly Fanjita...right on...

[grin.ch]

I was just gonna say that same thing, Fanjita. (Btw, look "Fanjita" up on the internet and go to the dictionary of sexual terms. hahahahaha)

[chaos-is-me]

I disagree with charging for homebrew but that just means I personally would never pay for something like PSIX. I'm sure its pretty good (It must be to charge 10 bucks for it) but there are plenty of freebies out there that are awesome.

Although people (the idiots over at pspupdates in mind) shouldn't expect constant updates, ports and fully working homebrew right away for free and it makes me sick when people slate a dev because their app/emu isn't 100% perfect.

Yup, that's my view.

[Cap'n 1time]

I was not aware of the bsd style licensing (pretty much care free). I guess fluff has a right to sell his software. if the people of ps2dev didnt want stuff to be developed and sold with their sdk I suppose they should have used a different type of license. Anyway looks like fluff technically isnt doing anything wrong.

[zx-81]

I was not aware of the bsd style licensing (pretty much care free). I guess fluff has a right to sell his software. if the people of ps2dev didnt want stuff to be developed and sold with their sdk I suppose they should have used a different type of license. Anyway looks like fluff technically isnt doing anything wrong.

Yes, with the new version of the BSD license you can do exactly what you want with the source and the software, even for commercial uses (major difference with GNU General Public License).

AFAIK PSIX is linked with zlib which is distributed on zlib license (so you can also do exactly what you want with it, even for commercial purposes).

For the libpng (that is also used in PSIX), it is nearly the same kind of license with the following add :

"If you use this source code in a product, acknowledgment is not required but would be appreciated."

So Fluff has all the right to sell his/her software. But as Fanjita said clearly :

- Fluff is not selling PSIX. The $10 (or whatever it is) is basically a forum, support and early-beta access fee, that's been clearly stated.

Personally, i would never ask for money to developp or support my homebrews, because as many others developpers i do it for fun on my spare time.