This is not the same as the Fedora OBS situation. Duckstation is now under a CC by no derivatives, non commercial clause.
Packaging software can be considered making a derivative, so people can’t really legally package the latest version of Duckstation anymore.
Instead, the packages use the older GPL version*.
In theory, nothing would stop Fedora flatpak from simply shipping the OBS version in their own repo instead. But here, something like that isn’t legally possible.
To add further context, it is theorized that this developer**, Stenzek, is actually an alt account of Talreth, the creator of the android PS2 emulator. Both accounts have a pattern of creating a discord, and then being unwilling/unable to moderate it (or appoint any other moderators).
So Talreth got harassed on discord, because the audience of an android ps2 emulator is mostly children, many of whom are ungrateful. And it ended with Talreth’s final update to Aethersx2 being a borking update that broke the emulator for everyone.
And that is why I would rather not use the official version of duckstation. I’m not interested in seeing my home directory get nuked because some kid called Stenzek a slur on the discord.
And this is what distros exist for. They act as a barrier, betweem potentially hostile developers and the users. For example, when Audacity added telemetry, all the distros would patch it out when they compiled it.
*Afaik, he did either get permission to relicense, or rewrite GPL contributions of others. The latest version of Duckstation does not illegally use GPL code.
** In r/emulationonandroid, I have been following this drama for a while. A long while. The less mature community seems to be drama prone and it sucks.
This is not the same as the Fedora OBS situation. Duckstation is now under a CC by no derivatives, non commercial clause.
Packaging software can be considered making a derivative, so people can’t really legally package the latest version of Duckstation anymore.
Instead, the packages use the older GPL version*.
In theory, nothing would stop Fedora flatpak from simply shipping the OBS version in their own repo instead. But here, something like that isn’t legally possible.
To add further context, it is theorized that this developer**, Stenzek, is actually an alt account of Talreth, the creator of the android PS2 emulator. Both accounts have a pattern of creating a discord, and then being unwilling/unable to moderate it (or appoint any other moderators).
So Talreth got harassed on discord, because the audience of an android ps2 emulator is mostly children, many of whom are ungrateful. And it ended with Talreth’s final update to Aethersx2 being a borking update that broke the emulator for everyone.
And that is why I would rather not use the official version of duckstation. I’m not interested in seeing my home directory get nuked because some kid called Stenzek a slur on the discord.
And this is what distros exist for. They act as a barrier, betweem potentially hostile developers and the users. For example, when Audacity added telemetry, all the distros would patch it out when they compiled it.
*Afaik, he did either get permission to relicense, or rewrite GPL contributions of others. The latest version of Duckstation does not illegally use GPL code.
** In r/emulationonandroid, I have been following this drama for a while. A long while. The less mature community seems to be drama prone and it sucks.
EDIT: Found the reddit post: https://www.reddit.com/r/EmulationOnAndroid/comments/11q726j/do_not_update_aethersx2_on_google_play_i_repeat/ . It’s not truly broken, but it did get ads and performance was made much worse.