Opensource vs Closed source Private

[Harmonic]

Hey there, and I just want to make this clear this is to a civil discussion about the subject at hand, no flame wars, no personal arguments, just the ability to discuss.

Now it is my personal belief that open-source is the way forward for the habbo scene, i'll list them at the end of this post, but here's my pros and cons for opensource and closed source habbo emulators.

Pros for Opensource
- Can be forked to make it specific for your own hotel
- Can allow you to fix bugs without having to wait for a developer (who probably isnt getting paid) to fix them
- Allows you to look into problems and resolve them much easier, for example if an error is thrown saying there's a problem at line 73 of a file, you can head to line 73 and say Oh! My setup must be wrong!
- If the original developer abandons the project, it isn't the end of the world. Someone else can continue it.
- Allows you to audit the code and find any potential backdoors
- Allows you to add in features that the original developer may not have time for, or find irrelevant.
- Allows people to learn from your code, such as how you implemented a certain feature that isn't already in your emulator.


Pros for Closedsource
- Stops people easily seeing your code and copying it, and taking credit for it.
- Stops people easily renaming it
- Stops people from seeing potential exploits that could damage other hotels.

Cons for Opensource
- Allows people to rename and take credit for your work
- Allows people to modify and potentially damage your existing codebase, and emulator reputation (However, this doesn't affect your original code if they fork it! If they try and push damaging code to your git, just reject it!(
- makes bug reports potentially harder, if there's 30-40 hotels all using different versions of your emulator, how are you supposed to help debug it?

Cons for Closedsource
- Allows a developer to add exploits into the sourcecode without you seeing it (Aaron did this with phoenix)
- The developer may disappear, and if the emulator is popular, may leave 100+ hotels without any updates (this happened with phoenix)
- If a program is used to obfusucate the sourcecode, this can make error logging a LOT harder to do (anyone remembers phoenix's garbled error codes that meant nothing?)
- The community will probably come together and crack any license server you add, and you become the next aaron, playing cat and mouse games to who can patch and crack it first. When instead you could just be focusing your work on your emulator, not on trying to stop people getting access to the source.
- If you have a major issue, like someone attacking your hotel due to an exploit, you have to wait until the developer patches it, which could be months, and it isn't fixable by anyone else.
Now, this is not a personal attack and I've tried to see it from both sides, if a moderator feels this shouldn't be up for discussion feel free to close the thread.

Here's a list of emulators, whether they were open and closed source, and the impact they had on the community.

MDK V1 - Leaked - Many people don't know this, but the first publically used habbo emulator wasn't actually opensource, or made by MDK. He leaked it, but without this little emulator the habbo retro scene wouldn't be what it is today. - Was widely used.

Thugie's v1 Emulator - Closedsource - Thugie was a great developer, and while he had many major features added that MDK's v1 never had, it never had quite the same following, as his updates were slow, and he slowly lost interest in the project and it was never finished - Was used somewhat, but eventually died and no hotels really used it once better emulators came out.

Genaga Emulator - Closedsource - Created by Genaga, this emulator was a v9 emulator, and had some amazing features, while it was flatfile, it was closed source, and once better solutions came along, it too was abandoned by the developer.

USA 111 - Opensource - Created by USA111, and many other talented developers, this emulator would thrive in the community, was widely used in it's time, and the sourcecode can still be found on ragezone today.

Marks Server - Closedsource - A great server, was at a point one of the most feature complete emulators of all time, but unfortunately he promised an update, it never came. Marks server died and never came back.

Holograph Emulator - Opensource - Here it is, the one that kickstarted this community, but was also one of the most widely renamed and buggy emulators of all time, while there were feature complete versions, these were kept private and rarely released, and if they were they were compiled and the sourcecode never released. Basic features such as wallitems and rollers were never released publicly and instead people kept these features for themselves.

(Time skip!)

Uber Emulator - Opensource - Uber Emulator was meant to be the herald of the scene, a huge opensource emulator. But -- It was bought by aaron, and became phoenix emulator. A version was later leaked and would become a hobby project for RP Developers for a time.

Phoenix Emulator - Closedsource / Sold with a License - Many people describe this as the time the habbo scene died, and for great reason. While Phoenix had so many hotels using it, they all fell to the same fate once Aaron was arrested, their emulators stopped working, and they had to use cracked versions to continue using their hotels. But way before this, if you had a 100% CPU Bug, you were told it was your fault, not the developers (we later found out this was a problem with a feature aaron added, go figure.)

Snowlight Emulator - Opensource - Abandoned, was mostly feature complete, but why use this when you could use phoenix and have working wired?

Butterfly Emulator - Closedsource/ Leaked - Now, this is where my history gets fuzzy, as unfortunately I was taking a break from the scene when butterfly became widely used, and if I'm wrong feel free to tell me, but it appears that butterfly had multiple versions, and several were leaked eventually. It was widely used until r63b, and became the defacto emulator after Phoenix.

Blunk v5 - Closedsource / Leaked - This is my biggest example, as this was closed source software, I myself purchased this software from office.boy, I sent it to dj.matias to look at, and hey, he leaked it. At the time I was angry, but hey, it showed the shockwave lovers how to do things properly, like the camera! Now we have amazing emulators like Kepler! <3


PlusEmulator - Closedsource/ Leaked / Opensource - PlusEmulator was an emulator made for Habplus, was leaked and became the defacto standard for retros, and was taken over development wise by Sledmore, who made it what it is today. (Correct me if i'm wrong on this.) (wasn't this shit based on bcstorm, which is based on butterfly?? fuck me.)

Comet - Leaked - Comet is a weird one, as after initial leaks Leon became secretive, selling access to servers with an emulator and database on it where you couldn't access the emulator, to prevent people leaking it, guess what? It got leaked. After this, leon made it opensource, but still continues to tweak it in private even today. - Widely used in the non-english community, is probably the most popular emulator to date.

Arcturus Emulator - Opensource/Closed source - Originally created as an opensource project, TheGeneral closed access to the sourcecode, citing that the lack of people helping contribute code made having it opensource a waste of time. However, unfortunately due to him having real life commitments (This is not a dig at him! It happens unfortunately ) some hotels were left months without being able to fix a wired exploit, or use the latest version of MySQL. - Once the Arcturus Morningstar project was started many major bugs that were not known of were found, such as the SSO Exploit, the pathfinder 100% CPU bug etc, that would not have been found without this project.



Thanks and I look forward to seeing people's input!

 

[The General]

Just because it happened in the past does not make it okay to do leak now. If you have ever been part of a proper open source community then you quickly realize that Habbo is a toxic cesspool where people just want mine mine mine instead of ours ours ours.

Speaking from my experience with butterstorm:

Reasons why Opensource is bad:
- At the time, the fixes seemed okay. But in hindsight the emulator did not perform as well as the original butterfly.
- If not correctly orchestrated you will end up with tons of different version. Just count the different butterfly edits, forum threads of pages upon pages with raw source code fixes.
- At the time I would've preferred if one person had just picked up the development, at the time I was not technically knowledgable and did not know that much of C# to fix issues myself and debug problems. Leenster made a great effort to take it up.

Speaking from my experience with Arcturus.

Reasons why Opensource is bad:
- Bad standards. Just because it fixed an issue does not mean it was a good way to fix it. Luckily the majority of the issues in Arcturus are one or two liners so this does not often apply.
- People get pissed when you reject pull requests. Time spend on dealing with that is time that couldnt be spend on working on the emulator.
- Giving people a platform to rename, fuck it up (Hello Azure) - Happened to Arcturus while it was open source. Stopped untill people started to decompile.
- People who contribute think they are expert coders while the opposite is usually true. No commit to the Arcturus repository made me think, this person knows what (s)he is doing.
- Open source is not a place to learn. Pick up a book or go to school. You won't know the arguements or design reasons why decisions have been made because you lack the technical knowledge. If you think you can understand you're just being naive.
- People can find exploits and abuse them more easily. Imagine if Windows was open source, hello hundreds of Zero days. Changes are public without having pushed a release yet. Fixed exploits are immediately known to the public waiting to be abused.
- You gotta hope that the people who are making changes know what they are doing. That majority of the little commits made were okay-ish at best.
- People will be scammed by others for being sold a better source while nothing is different. Has happened to Arcturus while it was open source.

Reasons why Closed source is bad:
- Don't know whats in there, if you don't like it use something ELSE (Not based on decompiled / leaked source code).
- Based on trust and mutual respect, something people here lack.

Saying that closed source is bad because you depend on other people is invalid. Same is still for open source. You still depend on other people to make fixes.

Lets face the truth. The majority of the people here are self taught. Which is all cool but that does not make you an expert in something. Just because you can add a new page in your CMS does not mean you can code in Java or C++. In the end if you feel you are entitled to the source code you are just a selfish dick as you are too lazy to build your own emulator from scratch.

The majority of the people here do not share their projects with anyone, wether in closed or open source form, because they don't want anything above happen to their work and have it discredited or disrespected.

If people could just stop renaming Arcturus, have a bit more respect for peoples work I would totally be down for open sourcing Arcturus again but I have been there, done that and it did not work.

==========
Replying to Johns reasons:

Pros for Opensource
- Can be forked to make it specific for your own hotel Assuming the people who run the hotel can code. Yeah they can fix up a CMS (Have you seen the quality of CMS' released here) but don't assume them to be able to actually code and have technical expertise and knowledge.
- Can allow you to fix bugs without having to wait for a developer (who probably isnt getting paid) to fix them You still need to wait for someone to fix it if you cannot do it yourself. And exploits are immediately known and ready to be abused.
- Allows you to look into problems and resolve them much easier, for example if an error is thrown saying there's a problem at line 73 of a file, you can head to line 73 and say Oh! My setup must be wrong! Bad argument: If it throws an error because you did not configure it correctly the error should indicate that or it is proof of bad design. And again: Assuming whoever wants to fix it knows how to code.
- If the original developer abandons the project, it isn't the end of the world. Someone else can continue it. Speaking for Arcturus: If I would abandon the project I would fully open source the emulator, camera, fastfood and toolchains.
- Allows you to audit the code and find any potential backdoors Great for people who want to abuse backdoors, exploits and not contribute to fixing them. Meanwhile the commit says fixed SQL injection exploit and you still need to wait for people to manually update. Closed source means the changelog becomes public and exploits and backdoors can be ommitted to prevent people from getting hacked.
- Allows you to add in features that the original developer may not have time for, or find irrelevant. For Arcturus: There is a plugin API that lets you do anything. If modifications are needed to the API then contact me.
- Allows people to learn from your code, such as how you implemented a certain feature that isn't already in your emulator. Bad argument: You will never ever learn from just reading code if you cannot blindly recreate it. If you want to learn, pick up a book. Go to school. Study software development. You will not learn why decisions have been made for a specific architecture and you will not learn from the mistakes the author learned from to improve the system. If this is your only argument that you want to learn then start building your own emulator from scratch, implement features and do all the hard work. When I started with editing butterstorm I was too naive and thought I was learning. Only when I started my own emulator along with a study of software development I realized all the wasted time and bad practices I had 'learned'


Pros for Closedsource
- Stops people easily seeing your code and copying it, and taking credit for it. As long as people can respect it to not decompile. Yeah obfuscate.
- Stops people easily renaming it
- Stops people from seeing potential exploits that could damage other hotels. I find security more important than open source. Its selfish when you don't care about other hotels being hacked just so you can see the source code.

Cons for Opensource
- Allows people to rename and take credit for your work Yep. And people should be called out on that by the community.
- Allows people to modify and potentially damage your existing codebase, and emulator reputation (However, this doesn't affect your original code if they fork it! If they try and push damaging code to your git, just reject it!( Assuming people who are running the repository have technical knowledge and expertise. If you cannot spot memory leaks you will end up like Azure 2.0
- makes bug reports potentially harder, if there's 30-40 hotels all using different versions of your emulator, how are you supposed to help debug it? Well it is open source so you can fix it yourself, right?

Cons for Closedsource
- Allows a developer to add exploits into the sourcecode without you seeing it (Aaron did this with phoenix) Yes. And people were aware of that. And people could have moved to alternatives but they did not do that. For Arcturus I have voiced countless times that I will never abuse backdoors or exploits to elevate privileges. This community should be based on trust but it isn't.
- The developer may disappear, and if the emulator is popular, may leave 100+ hotels without any updates (this happened with phoenix) Bad example, Aaron was forced to take it down so he had no option to release the source code. AFAIK Shorty had the source code but decided to not release it, fearing legal actions.
- If a program is used to obfusucate the sourcecode, this can make error logging a LOT harder to do (anyone remembers phoenix's garbled error codes that meant nothing?) Who cares about that. Forward the ugly stacktrace to the author who is able to translate it to the original source code.
- The community will probably come together and crack any license server you add, and you become the next aaron, playing cat and mouse games to who can patch and crack it first. When instead you could just be focusing your work on your emulator, not on trying to stop people getting access to the source.
- If you have a major issue, like someone attacking your hotel due to an exploit, you have to wait until the developer patches it, which could be months, and it isn't fixable by anyone else. Shows that people cannot respect other peoples work. For paid servers I understand people dont want to pay, which I agree with. But Arcturus specifically was free to use by anyone, no restrictions.

 

[ovflowd]

These comments are huge. And I can fairly enough understand the points of each person. I should say that @The General has good reasons to why hate Open Source. If I may recall correctly, most of the Closed Source projects were actually private and not intended to the public. Being Phoenix an exception, but we all know what happened with Phoenix. And it always was intended to be a "sell" thing.

In a Habbo retro perspective I really agree with @The General. And being reasonable here, I wouldn't expect that the community will change. It never had. And probably never will.

But this doesn't means that open source is something as "general" bad. You see, 95% of what we use today in our daily softwares and hardwares, came from something open source. Android is open source and uses basically only open source components.

And being honest, the Android renaming community it's huge. XDA is basically a forum about renames of Android, the custom versions, and we all use them. And actually we're happy for that.

Of course renames sometimes get bad, we don't know actually if those changes are good or bad, right? But in most of the majority time, people that make remakes, they actually want on their way, contribute to the project and put their name on it. That happens.

Of course even on Android there are private versions and renamed versions that are sold a privately used. And that's something that always will happen.
@The General the reason why I think you should open source Arcturus is quite simple. It doesn't matter if your code is open or not. People will crack it and decompile it. And even if it's wrong, people don't care, and on the end. They will always use what is more comfortable for them. You think that the community like you? In the moment someone releases something better, they will all go to what is better. Because in the end. "Time is money".

Making it open source, would allow to people that actually want to improve and contribute, to have the chance to exchange knowledge with you, and your team. And make it better.

You can dictate the code. If you ever had worked in a real Company, you will understand, that your opinion is valid, and always welcome, but you're not the only one.

And I'm trying to not enter as personal as I can. Going back to the Open Source / Closed Source thing... Closed source will not benefit you, since your final intention is to share the software. People will make benefit of that. (You be sure about that, and I'm not threatening you).

Windows is a giant Closed Source thing. And guess what? Even Microsoft is thinking in Open Source most of Windows, with the new project Windows Core.

Of course closed is important, even GitHub core is closed. But we try to make most of the stuff Open Source. Even our web site design is open source. Give a look on Primer, our Design Framework:

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My conclusion is. Let's stop fight. Let's work together. Because we're all grown up Adults, right?

I will not make a bullet point list here of Pros/Cons of Open/Closed. @Harmonic and @The General made a great job on that.

On the end, is your choice. Work for the Community, or against the Community.

And I know what will win in the end. Cause even IBM, Microsoft, and even NSA. Is discovering that Open Source, in the end, it's only benefits.

Eg.: Shopify has 90% of their source code, open. And they still have giant revenue. Because ... "Sharing is CARING".



And please @The General. stop thinking that I'm your enemy, or that the whole world is your enemy. 3-4 years ago we were working together. The reason why I kept that repository open, was simple. It was still a hard work for me, and it was worth sharing. And it was based on your open source Arcturus. Well, I deleted the repository on the end. So be happy. But I don't have control about the forks.

You gotta stop trying to fight against everyone. That's not cool. And give random bad reps just because you're mad. Or Doxx people. Or whatever. I still agree with you that decompiling isn't cool. But it's hard to give you support when you don't play along with the rest of the Community.

We all know how much effort you put on Arcturus. But this doesn't make you immune to the law.

 

[The General]

I do not hate open source. I never said I do. Because of the reasons described I personally felt that open source did not suit the Arcturus project. I've tried it because people wanted to but as I have clearly pointed out why it failed I closed the repository.

For other communities open source works beautifully, and would love to have it work for this community too but unfortunately with the current attitude people have we cannot have nice things. And keep in mind that the demopgraphic here is about 10 years younger than other open source communities. Phoenix was licensed, so yeah I can understand cheap people dont want to or some people cannot pay $25 USD. In my opinion it was a good project so I totally did not mind to pay. Updates could have happened quicker.

People do not want to contribute. The majority can't. But all they want is to put their name on it indeed.

Making it open source, would allow to people that actually want to improve and contribute, to have the chance to exchange knowledge with you, and your team. And make it better.

I do not have time to teach people. I am far from the best person to teach you. Go to school if you want to learn. If you want to dick around in source code just to see what happens download something that has been released as open source by the original authors.

My conclusion is. Let's stop fight. Let's work together. Because we're all grown up Adults, right?

It is a good suggestion, but do not forget that I am the author of Arcturus so I decide what happens to it. And if people cannot stand that decision and feel they are entitled to something that they have no rights of, then that just makes them dicks and part of the toxic part of this community.

On the end, is your choice. Work for the Community, or against the Community.

I work for the community. There is plenty ways to contribute to Arcturus which does not directly involve writing Java code for the emulator. Plugins, CMS, tooling, tutorials, support, scripts, updated databases like catalog, pets etc etc. People with toxic comments and hate work against the community. It keeps new people away. And stops people from developing or sharing their work. They do not owe the community anything. But if they know it will get ripped of why take the chance to release it (regardless of source)?

Sharing is CARING

I share Arcturus for free with the community. All I ask in return is to not be a dick towards it. Nothing else. I do not demand a $300 /month license fee. I do not demand 10% of your earnings. I do not demand that I get a share of the plugins you develop and sell for money.

You gotta stop trying to fight against everyone. That's not cool. And give random bad reps just because you're mad. Or Doxx people. Or whatever. I still agree with you that decompiling isn't cool. But it's hard to give you support when you don't play along with the rest of the Community.

Its just that I am defending what is mine. Something I made. People who think they are entitled to having the right to share copyrighted code (I am the author, I own the copyright unless stated explicitly that the rights belong to the public domain), are the root of all this drama. If you really feel you want to edit an emulator use something that has been released public, not decompile what is NOT yours. Leon has released

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on Github, Martin has released butterfly a couple years ago. Mango emulator has been publicly released here (IIRC it had some deadlocks but if you cannot fix that then why do you think you should be able to touch Arcturus?). But if you are going to whine about having to reset your hotel you are just dumb. Converting a database is not difficult. And if you find that too difficult then why do you feel entitled to do even more difficult work like programming an emulator?

 

[Emily]

I love how we go on and on about this. I read you got angry before when Blunk got leaked (which isn't even YOUR project, meaning getting angry over it was kinda stupid IMO). Now you blame The General for getting pissed because you released it open source? I think this is really low of you to be honest. But I know I'll get hate for going on about that, so I'll just let that... "slip".

As for OS vs CS, I understand both being good. As for open source, there's a 99% chance you end up with renames after renames (which happened in the past, happens now and will always happen) (also, I admit I was the same, that doesn't make it right and I know what I did as well wasn't right). This isn't a problem though, as - even though I think it's wrong to rename after adding some commands - the structure stays the same. Now, look at the first R63 post-shuffle emulators. It started okay, we ended up with a bazillion versions and the structure changed so much, most emulators being a 99% rename of another one, but with more code being fucked up. In the end, the code in some parts was just terrible due to many people fucking around with it and it only getting worse. Also, with those renames, it's hard to know which ones are good and which ones aren't. Choosing the right version is hard as maybe those renames aren't renames or some are and some uses code from other developers and it's just a big mess.

With making it closed source, you make it harder (as everything can be reverse engineered or decompiled or reflected) to get the source and rename. This of course never prevents people from getting the source, but see it this way: really good hackers and thieves can get in, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't make it as hard as possible. If people respect things being closed source, they can have the source, change stuff in it but keep it private. This allows the software to be closed source, but the person who cracked it (/ whatever...) has the ability to update it how it should be. Any exploits? The person with the source can recompile it without the exploit. I understand, "noobs" won't be trusted with this, but it's not like complete noobs can get the source code (depending on how hard it's made, whether it's obfuscated and what not).

With open source, you allow people to help with development. You allow people to make features either you don't feel like doing yourself, or you just simply not knowing how it works exactly. Or simply not knowing about the feature. Development will get faster, though accepting edits from everybody will eventually make the source a big "mess" (also, in terms of consistency it could be a mess). With making it closed source, people can't contribute to it (but with plugins things like commands can still be made, so for just adding commands you wouldn't need a source code anyways). The source will be a product of the developer, it will be as consistent as the developer can work, and the developer can choose which code ends up in the final product (whether he/she thinks the code is good).

With open source, hiding an exploit doesn't make much sense; anybody could find the exploit and solve it (not really anybody, but you get my point). This makes the emulator relatively safer to use and fixes for exploits would get released as soon as people figure them out (more people able to find them -> exploits gets solved relatively faster). With making it closed source, people can't see exploits easily, it makes it easier for the developer to hide them. Then again, when it comes to people coming here for a long time, with a "status", we shouldn't assume he/she added exploits. Doesn't mean it can't happen, but chances are lower somebody like Quackster and The General would put exploits in a closed source project over a newbie with 2 posts. Also, with this above I don't just mean exploits, but also backdoors.

With open source, the development can be unlimited, as other developers can step in (especially if the original developer lost interest). This way, the software doesn't have to get outdated as it can easily be updated. By making it closed source, the software can get outdated if there's no one to keep it up to date.

Last thing (I probably forgot some points, which I might mention later), by making something closed source, the developer can find a way to make money, and even though I did try this before - and this disgusts me too now looking back at it - I still don't feel 100% good about Habbo stuff (keep in mind, Habbo retro's are illegal, so selling something for illegal business isn't something I stand behind 100%). With it being open source, there's no point as people could just code it themselves and make it free (for example, if you'd have to pay to have dark theme in Windows, and Windows was open source, people could just code in dark theme and release it for free).

Final "opinion":
Closed source projects are good, open source projects are good. If the developer allows something to be open source, this is of course the best thing, but I feel like if a developer wants something to be closed source, it should be respected.

 

[The General]

but I feel like if a developer wants something to be closed source, it should be respected.

But emulators are illegal so I can decompile it because you distribute illegal software with copyrighted client so I can host an illegal hotel. I dont want you to do illegal stuff but I can because I run an illegal hotel infringing IP and infringing your copyright own the code you have written. But it is stolen from habbo so it is not your code despite you writing everything from scratch as there is no way to copy Sulakes server code. And its totally legal to decompile because your server is illegal. Did I say your server is illegal because it is stolen from Habbo and you are making money with? And it is totally fine if I make money selling virtual points to my players who play on my illegal hotel. Dont you dare releasing my CMS.

/Morningcrap people rethoric.

Lets gets the facts straight once and for all:

- Building an emulator is legal. Unless you use copyrighted source code, without the appropriate license.
- Code you write is copyrighted by you.
- Using an emulator to host a private server is illegal.
- Hosting copyrighted material is illegal.
- The emulator source code is copyrighted to the Author NOT to the creators of the game you are emulating.
- Playing on a private server is legal.
- Decompiling is illegal. Unless it is for interoperability, which means having one or more systems interact with it so you can interface with say events from the system. Modifying the software is still illegal, unless you have been granted permissions or hold a license to do so.
- Rehosting decompiled source code is illegal, you do not hold the copyright to it.

 

[Harmonic]

You are taking this offtopic, building an emulator isn't illegal, bypassing habbos RC4 is, your emulator bypasses habbos encryption, which ironically, is illegal, check their page.

I wanted a debate about opensource not why people should respect someone who doxes people. Since people can't have a debate without being a jackass can a mod close this thread?

TheGeneral has leaked other people's work before, but it doesn't matter because that's in the past! But then why do people moan about how Jonty is an ass for putting shells in uberemu? That's in the past.

Unfortunately, TheGeneral only cares about his work, he doesn't care if anyone elses is leaked.

Here's a nice little post that quotes exactly how i feel on this, thanks for the quote wesley:
http://forum.ragezone.com/f353/thunderclap-emulator-r63b-940771/
'that was 6 years ago' Oh sorry wesley I forgot time heals wounds, so it's okay for you to be a jackass 6 years ago, but no one else is allowed to do that to you? Hypocrite.

 

[Emily]

But emulators are illegal so I can decompile it because you distribute illegal software with copyrighted client so I can host an illegal hotel. I dont want you to do illegal stuff but I can because I run an illegal hotel infringing IP and infringing your copyright own the code you have written. But it is stolen from habbo so it is not your code despite you writing everything from scratch as there is no way to copy Sulakes server code. And its totally legal to decompile because your server is illegal. Did I say your server is illegal because it is stolen from Habbo and you are making money with? And it is totally fine if I make money selling virtual points to my players who play on my illegal hotel. Dont you dare releasing my CMS.

/Morningcrap people rethoric.

Lets gets the facts straight once and for all:

- Building an emulator is legal. Unless you use copyrighted source code, without the appropriate license.
- Code you write is copyrighted by you.
- Using an emulator to host a private server is illegal.
- Hosting copyrighted material is illegal.
- The emulator source code is copyrighted to the Author NOT to the creators of the game you are emulating.
- Playing on a private server is legal.
- Decompiling is illegal. Unless it is for interoperability, which means having one or more systems interact with it so you can interface with say events from the system. Modifying the software is still illegal, unless you have been granted permissions or hold a license to do so.
- Rehosting decompiled source code is illegal, you do not hold the copyright to it.

I don't think it was meant to be a response on what I said (which, in that case, not necessary as I didn't mean to say Habbo emulators are illegal). But you're right, although weren't we done with the whole "NAME"Crap stuff? I don't think we have to call stuff crap. I'm with you, I understand why you are "pissed" or "annoyed" or salty or whatever it is, but we shouldn't throw torches being thrown at us back at them (stooping down to their level). I think the fight going on between you and Harmonic is getting a bit too far. He did something he shouldn't have done, and there's nothing what's going to happen due to RaGEZONE's rules (and whether I agree or disagree, or anything else, they won't change) allowing things like this. We can go on and on about it, dislike all posts, or just let it go cause it happened - like you would've told me back in the day with Thunderclap (crap... yes), was it your right to release it without my permission? But now I've realized I have handled it wrong, should've just let it go because getting angry annoyed pissed or whatever isn't going to fix it, and will only cause drama around here.

Again, I'm on your side but I feel like you should handle this differently.

You are taking this offtopic, building an emulator isn't illegal, bypassing habbos RC4 is, your emulator bypasses habbos encryption, which ironically, is illegal, check their page.

I wanted a debate about opensource not why people should respect someone who doxes people. Since people can't have a debate without being a jackass can a mod close this thread?

TheGeneral has leaked other people's work before, but it doesn't matter because that's in the past! But then why do people moan about how Jonty is an ass for putting shells in uberemu? That's in the past.

Unfortunately, TheGeneral only cares about his work, he doesn't care if anyone elses is leaked.

Here's a nice little post that quotes exactly how i feel on this, thanks for the quote wesley:
http://forum.ragezone.com/f353/thunderclap-emulator-r63b-940771/
'that was 6 years ago' Oh sorry wesley I forgot time heals wounds, so it's okay for you to be a jackass 6 years ago, but no one else is allowed to do that to you? Hypocrite.


-- IMAGES REMOVED FROM QUOTE --

The thing is not to respect a person on who he/she is, but to respect somebody for what he did. What he did with Arcturus and his hard work on that, that's what he should be respected for (even if he's a complete dick - which I don't say but as an example - that doesn't mean you should be disrespectful to his work).

 

[Harmonic]

I don't think it was meant to be a response on what I said (which, in that case, not necessary as I didn't mean to say Habbo emulators are illegal). But you're right, although weren't we done with the whole "NAME"Crap stuff? I don't think we have to call stuff crap. I'm with you, I understand why you are "pissed" or "annoyed" or salty or whatever it is, but we shouldn't throw torches being thrown at us back at them (stooping down to their level). I think the fight going on between you and Harmonic is getting a bit too far. He did something he shouldn't have done, and there's nothing what's going to happen due to RaGEZONE's rules (and whether I agree or disagree, or anything else, they won't change) allowing things like this. We can go on and on about it, dislike all posts, or just let it go cause it happened - like you would've told me back in the day with Thunderclap (crap... yes), was it your right to release it without my permission? But now I've realized I have handled it wrong, should've just let it go because getting angry annoyed pissed or whatever isn't going to fix it, and will only cause drama around here.

Again, I'm on your side but I feel like you should handle this differently.


The thing is not to respect a person on who he/she is, but to respect somebody for what he did. What he did with Arcturus and his hard work on that, that's what he should be respected for (even if he's a complete dick - which I don't say but as an example - that doesn't mean you should be disrespectful to his work).

I respect his work, but respect is both ways, why would I respect a man who when he doesn't get his way doxes me. It's like me breaking into his house, stealing his dog, so he shoots my wife , then demands his dog back, and we'll be even, and I should show him respect.

Arcturus Morningstar does not affect him, it doesn't add crappy code to his original codebase, it doesn't affect his project in any way. I've abided by all of the gplv3 license 1.9.0 was released on, Arcturus does NOT have a closed source license attached to it, so no laws have been broken, call it illegal if you want, I'll give you my phone number to give to a lawyer, see you in court.

Also wesley's arcturus 2.0 project is requiring people to sign an NDA. Good luck with that, NDA's don't apply to illegal stuff. There's a difference between closed source, and actively trying to hide your true intentions, blackmail people into not sharing stuff, and once again throwing this scene into a new dark age.

Emulation software is legal yes, but the second you start making money from it, nope. You sell subscriptions to access features of the emulator such as basejump, their camera (which yes, you own a camera which also has habbos images on their site.)

I own a retro, I don't care. I know it's illegal, but you don't see me spreading stuff saying 'OH DONT DO THAT IT'S ILLEGAL AND IMMORAL.' So is copyright infringement, but that's why we're here. Don't want to be in this scene? there's the door, go work on your pokemon game you spoke to me about a while back, i'm sure nintendo won't agree that it's legal, ethical, or moral.

Nintendo won't give a flying toss if you 'own the sourcecode' and 'closedsourced it' they'd take you down with one swing and you'd never be able to write software relating to pokemon ever again.

http://forum.ragezone.com/f704/pokemoncpp-1105880/

 

[The General]

Why would I respect someone who I have repeatedly asked to cease decompiling, renaming, rehosting copyrighted source code? I don't owe anyone anything. If you want my respect, then respect my work. If you cannot do that, then stop whining about you not getting respect from me.

, and once again throwing this scene into a new dark age.

Don't blame me. Blame yourself. You are the root cause of this toxic behavior you are expressing towards me and people that use Arcturus. Bullying them into using your decompiled renamed version and threatening to use exploits. If you claim to have respect for my work you would've said capheus, its not cool what you are doing. You wouldn't have continued to worked on decompiled source code, given people a platform to work on decompiled sources, given people the ability to rename an emulator you did not make.

I've abided by all of the gplv3 license 1.9.0 was released on,

I will tell you again:
I wrote the code, I hold the copyright. I can do with it what I want including moving it to a closed source license, which results into binaries released under a closed source license and then it is not allowed to decompile those binaries. There is a terms of usage statement included in the configuration file, which explicitly states to read everything. Which is required to be read in order to get the emulator to run. Stop being a hypocrit, trying to sway the narrative in your favor.

Arcturus Morningstar does not affect him, it doesn't add crappy code to his original codebase,

It does, That is what you are doing! You are adding / giving people the option to add code to MY original codebase. As YOU decompiled that original code base. You are exposing hundreds of hotels to exploits by making them public. You are the cause that people get hacked because you expose those exploits for the world to see including ways to abuse them.

No, you are a hotel owner. You do not care. You get pissed when someone spams on your hotel which results into people getting DDOS'ed, like Oliver. But you want everyone to know you have changed since that happened less than a year ago yet you keep telling people how it is okay to decompile Arcturus because I made public releases to butterstorm 6 years ago?

 

[Joopie]

You know shit hits the fan when we are talking about licensing and copyright. It's stated a couple of times that RZ in general doesn't give a fuck about it. Leaks are even allowed and almost encouraged to do so. In fact, this entire community is build upon it.

I understand both sides, no it's not nice to decompile other peoples stuff, but it's all we do till this day. And to be fair, it's never gonna change because who wants to take time to read licenses and copyright laws. We all just want to run our favourite private MMO server to play with friends. That was atleast my take on it.

Even this thread is turning into a e-winny, licenses shit copyright fight. That sarcastic thread wasn't made for just fun. You two need to take your shit somewhere else because it makes me so tired of it. Com'on guys, we all know it, we all heard your points on why shit is good or wrong. Go to a hotel, get a room, suck each other and make it out/up.

That having said: I feel like all of this shit could have been avoided by making Arcturus open source. People here can't handle closed source. It's almost in our nature to get the source of it and that has been proven multiple times. Open source ruined that feeling, because it's already there.

If you're afraid of people getting scammed, don't be. It's their fault in the first place of buying shit, or trusting someone else. Oh hè trust, that's another topic with closed source. Just like asking money for services.

Stick with open source when developing for private service. Atleast when you released something publicly.

Just my two cents.

 

[The General]

You two need to take your shit somewhere else because it makes me so tired of it.

Don't blame me. Just trying to defend what is MINE.

 

[Alpha Ducky]

You know shit hits the fan when we are talking about licensing and copyright. It's stated a couple of times that RZ in general doesn't give a fuck about it. Leaks are even allowed and almost encouraged to do so. In fact, this entire community is build upon it.

I understand both sides, no it's not nice to decompile other peoples stuff, but it's all we do till this day. And to be fair, it's never gonna change because who wants to take time to read licenses and copyright laws. We all just want to run our favourite private MMO server to play with friends. That was atleast my take on it.

Even this thread is turning into a e-winny, licenses shit copyright fight. That sarcastic thread wasn't made for just fun. You two need to take your shit somewhere else because it makes me so tired of it. Com'on guys, we all know it, we all heard your points on why shit is good or wrong. Go to a hotel, get a room, suck each other and make it out/up.

That having said: I feel like all of this shit could have been avoided by making Arcturus open source. People here can't handle closed source. It's almost in our nature to get the source of it and that has been proven multiple times. Open source ruined that feeling, because it's already there.

If you're afraid of people getting scammed, don't be. It's their fault in the first place of buying shit, or trusting someone else. Oh hè trust, that's another topic with closed source. Just like asking money for services.

Stick with open source when developing for private service. Atleast when you released something publicly.

Just my two cents.

This.

Don't blame me. Just trying to defend what is MINE.

you are to blame since you keep pushing the issue. Both of you guys.
What was once "yours" is now for everyone the moment you released it. If you can't deal with the fact that people are going to decompile it, some rename and not give credits, then you really should not be here. Of all people, you should already know what is going to happen in this section. It sucks that is how some people act, but what do you expect from a forum literally built around all of this stuff. Just accept the facts and keep doing what you're doing (minus the complaining) or don't accept the facts and stop. People are not going to stop just because you say so.
​

 

[The General]

This.

you are to blame since you keep pushing the issue. Both of you guys.
What was once "yours" is now for everyone the moment you released it. If you can't deal with the fact that people are going to decompile it, some rename and not give credits, then you really should not be here. Of all people, you should already know what is going to happen in this section. It sucks that is how some people act, but what do you expect from a forum literally built around all of this stuff. Just accept the facts and keep doing what you're doing (minus the complaining) or don't accept the facts and stop. People are not going to stop just because you say so.
​

Its exactly why Habbo is a toxic place. If you have ever been part of other open source communities then you know what I am talking about. And saying thats how it is just approving of decompiling, stealing, leeching, renaming etc. Its ironic because they dont want it to happen to their own projects but they are totally fine doing it to other peopls work.

I am just calling people out on their toxic actions.

 

[Shoelace]

This thread started so well and was such a good read. Then you'll had to get so personal and not stick to a general debate.

I hoped for better.

 

[Biesnis]

It is so sad to see so many good discussions go off-topic and end in a flame war because of certain people. It's the same guys all the time, the guys who don't seem to care they are ruining it all for other people.

If you aren't going to write something on-topic with a positive attitude to contribute, then don't post at all.. You really don't deserve a place on this forum if you are like that.