Forking a repo is not the same as developing it. Any idiot can rehost the existing source code, but all the developers with knowledge of the code base and project just got axed by Nintendo.
this post was submitted on 05 Mar 2024
154 points (77.5% liked)
Open Source
31197 readers
210 users here now
All about open source! Feel free to ask questions, and share news, and interesting stuff!
Useful Links
- Open Source Initiative
- Free Software Foundation
- Electronic Frontier Foundation
- Software Freedom Conservancy
- It's FOSS
- Android FOSS Apps Megathread
Rules
- Posts must be relevant to the open source ideology
- No NSFW content
- No hate speech, bigotry, etc
Related Communities
Community icon from opensource.org, but we are not affiliated with them.
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
This fork doesn't even have the code for the dynarmic submodule under the externals/dynarmic directory. MerryMage/MerryHime took that down with Yuzu, and it's a core part of the JIT recompiler.
Not to mention, the commit history was wiped clean while a new Patreon was created before even touching a line of C++ code (and subsequently realizing it's missing most of the dependencies).
Lol it's literally just a copy with nothing added and he's already made a Patreon. Yeah no
I kind of wanted the inevitable fork to be called Zuzu
Yuzu TwoZu: Electric Boogaloozoo.
Azula, is that you?
Why throw away the commit history?
Also made communities, setup a patron and donation mails.
This just seems like a dude wanting to scam money out of it and/or taking credit for continued development, disregarding any effort made before the fork.
One of the problems with Yuzu (to nintendo) was that it contained the encryption keys pulled off nintendo switches. By removing commit history you actually can permanently remove this part of the code. There might be a more clever way to do this. Thats my best guess.
Although a good guess, this looks more like the work of someone who's in way over their head and barely knows how to use git. Probably just downloaded the repo as a zip instead of cloning it through git. At least that's the vibe I get from their commit history and other repos.
So basically, this person did the right thing on accident.
Probably just downloaded the repo as a zip instead of cloning it through git.
FWIW, this can actually be a valid strategy, purely because a DMCA takedown will affect forks but not reuploads. Basically, if a DMCA takedown nukes a project, it also nukes any forked projects. But if you downloaded the .zip and reuploaded it, you won’t be affected by the DMCA takedown because it’s not considered a fork of the original project.
It’s a dumb workaround, but it oddly may have helped save a lot of the code simply because offline backups can’t get touched by DMCA or a nuked project.
I downloaded and set up Yuza the day before all this went down, and it did not include encryption keys. And trust me, I looked.
Except, if someone had the repo cloned before the purge, they would retain all of the information, wouldn't they?
Nope, Yuzu was never distributed with keys. It could use keys that were provided by a user, but you had to add those yourself. Yuzu’s setup page even had (outdated) instructions on how to dump keys from your own Switch.
Just like how PlayStation emulators aren’t ever distributed with the BIOS, because sharing the BIOS is considered piracy.
Even if there were keys, you could scrub the history instead of deleting it outright
Like 10 minutes ago the project was nuked by the owner
What is different about this project? How will they reign in Nintendo's legal team?
I wish I were joking, but it boils down to "condemn piracy, tell everyone emulation is legal, and keep the code open-source."
Source, as stated on the project subreddit. In the same post, he also disclosed his country of residence.
I'll give it a year tops...
more like a week
And its gone
Yeah, I felt generous...