As much as I like duckstation and am glad that its source code remains publicly available, its move from GPL-3 to a highly restrictive no-derivative license last month [0] means that supporting new platforms or features or fixing bugs that might pop up on new versions of OS can't be adapted to the latest versions of the code.
Changing the license will only hurt the legitimate interested parties of the future, as nefarious people who fork and rebrand and charge for such programs have a tendency to be unscrupulous and don't care what the license says. It does help with filing claims, but that can be wack a mole.
It would be nice if they would grant non-commercial non-monetary derivatives at least, so people who want to fix code after the author moves on can do so in an honorable manner.
Another solution might be perhaps a termination clause saying that after some multiple of 5 years that it will revert to GPL-3 again. So at least if the worst happens the software can live on.
[0] https://github.com/stenzek/duckstation/commit/7f4e5d55dbdef5...
I'd rather use the fork that's still open source (GPLv3), or any other open source PS1 emulator such as PCSX2's ps1 support.
DuckStation + $50 Xbox wireless controller + MacBook Air = I’m not buying a PS5 anytime soon
Have you visited the retroarch site without an ad blocker lately? I recommend it. Also, Retroarch can no longer run even Gameboy games on any of my systems without dropping frames every few seconds, regardless of configuration. Defaults drop frames, vsync + disabled threaded rendering drops frames, any combination of backend drivers drop frames. Not to mention audio stutter and crackle, which has always been an issue in RA, not so in standalone emulators.
It may be that I'm a picky bitch about these things, but retroarch has been an absolute mess lately. I can at least see where Stenzek is coming from. These people just do not care the way they ought to for such a problem. Retroarch is regression city.
Stenzek's skills as a software engineer are unparalleled and I have to imagine he knows what he's talking about.
I had a pleasant experience with emulationstation on retropie when i used it to make christmas presents a couple of years back.
I feel I'm missing context? What does RetroArch has to do with it?
Stenzek (DuckStation developer, also contributed many dramatic improvements to Dolphin and PCSX2) effectively declared very public war on Retroarch. He gets a lot of shit for it in certain circles, and for the way he did it (relicensing DuckStation from GPL to a nonfree license). Lots of drama.
It wouldn't be an serious emulator without tons of drama. It's pretty much a requirement.
I appreciate stenzek skills he is a huge contribuitor in emulation-scene not only with DuckStation but considerable contribuition in Dolphin, psx2 (and his Aethersx2 android fork, even though he abandoned after incessant mobile users toxic complaints and death threats).
I know he gets a lot of hate for sabotaging his own emulator (Aethersx2) with ads, and DuckStation subsequent change to a restrictive license, but still think his positive contributions to emulation still considerably outweights these negative ones.
Also let's cut him some slack, it wasn't long ago he got over-harassed by the Retroarch devs to the point they sent email to their irl employer with damning accusations of sexual harassment.
Please don't spread baseless accusations and FUD.