DuckStation author now actively blocking Arch Linux builds
github.comThere's a rule I always follow when a developer does things like this: do they have a history of histrionics? In this case, yes, so I'm inclined to believe their personality is a major factor in whatever controversial decision that's been made. All emulator authors (and free software developers in general) deal with bogus bug reports and I'm sure they're annoying, but taking rash actions that end up deliberately inconveniencing people isn't an action taken to help a project, it's a tantrum.
Of course it's their project to do as they will, but I don't have any empathy for their problems with the community. At this point it's clear they're mostly self inflicted. Perhaps it's ego, a lack of emotional self control, impatience with others, but there are plenty of emulator projects that chug along just fine without constant news of the authors doing something stupid, in spite of dealing with the same irritations every day.
It’s also worth noting that this isn’t really free software. It uses a Creative Commons license with the noncommercial and no derivatives clauses. At best it is “source available”; you cannot distribute any changes that you make or adapt it for use on systems not anticipated by the author.
He unilaterally changed the license and claims he rewrote the GPL parts: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/09/playstation-1-emulator...
Well, then he cannot object to a package containing the GPL code from before the license change.
Does the package even contain GPL code, or any of his code at all? From what I can tell the AUR package is just an installation script that pulls in source from the official git.
Yep, stenzek is a really talented emulator dev, he made big contribuitions to household emulators such as Dolphin (esp. Ubershaders) and Pcsx2.
He also made AetherSx2 under his alias Talreth, the first android ps2 emulator that was practically runnable on android devices, before he abandoned due to getting fed up with complaints and "death threats" (Yes, Talreth and Stenzek were the same person, it has already been debunked multiple times)
Unfortunately on the social side he fails very shortly being over sensitive to user complaints and having a big inflated ego so much that you couldn't criticise the emulator or you'd get banned from the discord server.
This is a repost with a better target url, previous submission here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44727438
The relevant cmake file does this btw:
if($ENV{DEBUGINFOD_URLS} MATCHES ".*archlinux.*")
message(FATAL_ERROR "Unsupported environment.")