Homebrew Leaked SDK = better homebrew?

[loco365]

I was thinking about making one more point as well on this thread. When developing using the SDK, it's far more complex. To display text, you need to load the font into memory, set up the 2D Graphics system, then load the libraries for displaying strings, then do your printf. If you use devkitpro, it's a simple printf statement, nothing more, nothing less.

devkitpro sets up a lot of stuff for you behind the scenes, whereas the official SDK requires you do it all by yourself, so you only have in your ROM what's necessary. Developing with devkitpro is a lot nicer in this way.

 

[Ericthegreat]

It would, but it'd also be illegal as fuck to distribute because of Nintendo's libraries being in it.

Not to mention you may also require the use of CodeWarrior or whatever they're using now for an IDE, which wasn't included in the leaked files.

Actually you can use unity. Tho i haven't actually tried configuring it.

 

[Vappy]

Actually you can use unity. Tho i haven't actually tried configuring it.

You need to be a registered developer with Nintendo before you can use Unity with the Wii U.

 

[Ericthegreat]

You need to be a registered developer with Nintendo before you can use Unity with the Wii U.

Unity is easily cracked for most things, tho this is illegal.

 

[Vappy]

Unity is easily cracked for most things, tho this is illegal.

Exactly, it's illegal. So it's useless as a counter point against the Nintendo SDK being illegal to use, not least of all because Unity doesn't work with the 3DS, so it really has no place in this topic at all.

 

[cearp]

Unity is easily cracked for most things, tho this is illegal.

even if you crack it, you still won't have the extra needed bits it needs to output for ps3/wii etc etc

 

[flarn2006]

I wonder if the company that makes Unity (I think it's just called Unity?) would even take you to court for cracking it for this purpose. Odds are the only reason you need to be a registered developer with Nintendo to get the license for Unity for Wii U is because Nintendo required them to require that. Therefore if you cracked it because you couldn't get the license, I wouldn't be surprised if Unity took a stance of "not our problem, it's Nintendo's rule, not ours" and left you alone. I don't think Nintendo could sue you for it, as you'd be violating Unity's license, not Nintendo's. That is if companies even sued people for using pirated copies of their software (not distributing them) for noncommercial purposes. (It may have happened once or twice, but it's by no means a common thing.)

 

[FAST6191]

If? If? I do not think you realise just how much of an understatement you just made there. Software companies love suing, or at least love as much as one can love legal action, other companies for breaching license terms and straight up piracy. There are working groups dedicated to it (links in a second), larger companies probably have people which have no other job than to ensure license compliance and it is not unheard of in small ones either.

http://www.bsa.org/
http://www.fast.org/

Also it might not be just Unity's code that is being used -- unity itself might be built against Nintendo's libraries.

 

[gudenau]

Here are my two cents.

The leaked sdk should not be touched with a ten foot poll. I would prefer for a 'real' developer to figure out how the sdk talks to the hardware and make an opn source sdk from scratch.

 

[FAST6191]

Here are my two cents.

The leaked sdk should not be touched with a ten foot poll. I would prefer for a 'real' developer to figure out how the sdk talks to the hardware and make an opn source sdk from scratch.

Assuming that meant use the SDK and then implement the findings in a free to use SDK.

If you use the real SDK to figure out how the hardware works then you are using data obtained under illegitimate guises (not sure of the exact wording in the US) and if you use that information to make new code then your new code is tainted (legally speaking), indeed the mere act of reverse engineering something can leave the one doing it tainted in the eyes of some so they may not even be allowed to work on production code (less of an issue in homebrew but hey). There are still ways to reverse engineer things using normal code but disassembling the official SDK is not OK with most courts. This is one of the reasons why reverse engineering is considered such a costly and time intensive process.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2585652/app-development/reverse-engineering.html has a bit more.

 

[gudenau]

Assuming that meant use the SDK and then implement the findings in a free to use SDK.

If you use the real SDK to figure out how the hardware works then you are using data obtained under illegitimate guises (not sure of the exact wording in the US) and if you use that information to make new code then your new code is tainted (legally speaking), indeed the mere act of reverse engineering something can leave the one doing it tainted in the eyes of some so they may not even be allowed to work on production code (less of an issue in homebrew but hey). There are still ways to reverse engineer things using normal code but disassembling the official SDK is not OK with most courts. This is one of the reasons why reverse engineering is considered such a costly and time intensive process.
http://www.computerworld.com/article/2585652/app-development/reverse-engineering.html has a bit more.

I would think by lookint at the headers you could get a good idea of how it works, no real re.

 

[FAST6191]

I have not seen the 3ds one, nor a full analysis of it, but if it is like the DS one then precompiled headers were the order of the day and does appear as though it is an extension/partial unification of the DS/Wii/GC mindset.

Equally http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...e-protected-by-copyright-appeals-court-rules/
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/...weigh-in-on-google-oracle-api-copyright-flap/

 

[Arkansaw]

I can't seem to find the font file for a game. Is there any chance it is actually a "system" font which would not be packaged into the rom?

 

[TeamScriptKiddies]

Here are my two cents.

The leaked sdk should not be touched with a ten foot poll. I would prefer for a 'real' developer to figure out how the sdk talks to the hardware and make an opn source sdk from scratch.

Agreed, look what happened with the original Xbox scene and how difficult it was for anybody to get any homebrew running on their console due to the fact that it was mostly written using the leaked SDK. Apps couldn't legally be distributed compiled (even sources were a grey area due to how they were written). The vast majority of Xbox homebrew was illegal by default, meaning devs had to remain lurking in the shadows to avoid the wrath of Microsoft's legal team. That's not what homebrew is meant to be like. Homebrew is about freedom, freedom to do what you want with your own devices, without having to worry about the legal consequences. Breaking security systems in devices for the purpose of running homebrew is legal is most (if not all) countries around the world. The only part where its gets hairy is when you enable backup loading, as some countries allow this, while others strictly forbid it.

But enabling homebrew itself is a very widely accepted thing around the world. Open source free and legal SDK's are critical to any homebrew scene to allow anybody to create and/or distribute/download whatever apps they want without risking lawsuits etc. The only thing you should have to forfeit is your warranty/tech support from the manufacturer for modifying your device in some way, shape or form, which is a given.

 

[driverdis]

Agreed, look what happened with the original Xbox scene and how difficult it was for anybody to get any homebrew running on their console due to the fact that it was mostly written using the leaked SDK. Apps couldn't legally be distributed compiled (even sources were a grey area due to how they were written). The vast majority of Xbox homebrew was illegal by default, meaning devs had to remain lurking in the shadows to avoid the wrath of Microsoft's legal team. That's not what homebrew is meant to be like. Homebrew is about freedom, freedom to do what you want with your own devices, without having to worry about the legal consequences. Breaking security systems in devices for the purpose of running homebrew is legal is most (if not all) countries around the world. The only part where its gets hairy is when you enable backup loading, as some countries allow this, while others strictly forbid it.

But enabling homebrew itself is a very widely accepted thing around the world. Open source free and legal SDK's are critical to any homebrew scene to allow anybody to create and/or distribute/download whatever apps they want without risking lawsuits etc. The only thing you should have to forfeit is your warranty/tech support from the manufacturer for modifying your device in some way, shape or form, which is a given.

The Xbox also had a wide variety of decent to great emulators and a good doom port outside of the Doom 3 Limited Collectors edition one. XBMC was also created out if this. having built apps using the official SDK meant that people had access the same amount of hardware as all the big game devs right from the start.

when the 360 got homebrew, people got all uptight over using the leaked SDK and tried making some homebrew using LibXenon. Xell was nice for NAND updating but homebrew was a pain as LibXenon homebrews had to be run from Xell and could not be run from the dashboard like leaked SDK apps. Out of all this, the Xbox 360 despite being open to homebrew got a few poor to OK emulators, a few app and game ports, and the best thing that was produced from all of this was Freestyle Dash and Aurora Dash. Dashlaunch was a close second. Aurora, Dashlaunch, and Freestyle Dash were all made with leaked SDK.

I would have loved my 360 to become my replacement for my Xbox for homebrew and to have an HD video compatible version of XBMC on it. This never took off.

PS3 ended up with a similar fate, I never ended up keeping a 3.55 PS3 (in fact I had CFW until Sony gave the ultimatum to stop using or get PSN banned.)

I am glad the 3DS is doing well with homebrew and a legal SDK but I would love to see emulators using the official SDK as that would fix the sound issues Gameyob has and maybe the performance issues until the legal SDK can do the same.

 

[Slashcash]

As a side note: ctrulib improved greatly in the last months in a lot of major aspects, there is still a lot of work to be done but as of now i would classify it as an user-friendly library (it lacks some rigorous documentation but hey, this is not professional software, this is homebrew and a bit of diy is very well welcomed)

 

[Deleted User]

Legality aside, the official SDK has more features, and is better than ctrulib, in my opinion. Out of the two, I personally choose the official leaked SDK becuase of the fact I am able to implement more stuff that ctrulib couldn't implement (yet) like the software keyboard and other applets from early firmwares (since it's an early SDK...). Plus, the official SDK would be more efficient than the homebrew SDKs because of the fact that 1) it is specifically designed for all aspects of the 3DS, and 2) Nintendo employees made it, so you know that official, trusted, qualified people made that SDK.

On the other hand though, it can get a bit fiddly if you keep using the official SDK, because for us who are using the leaked SDK at the moment, we have to keep renewing the 30-day trial license in order to keep using the official compiler software. (my license just ran out last night, so I'm having to use a V.M. now... ) but for ctrulib, it's all completely free since it was made for unofficial homebrew and made for everyone to use at their own will. But like I say, there are still the downsides of using that said freeware...

 

[Duo8]

Enjoy distributing your software in backalley forums.

 

[cearp]

Enjoy distributing your software in backalley forums.

as opposed to it being on the eshop

 

[Deleted User]

Enjoy distributing your software in backalley forums.

So are those ISO sites classed as backalley forums then?