It appears IGN outdid itself again with the following article:
http://psp.ign.com/articles/629/629453p1.html
It's obvious the PSP homebrew community has a serious PR problem. Is there anything we can do about it? If I was better at writing, I could write up an article about current homebrew projects and counter IGN's false claims.
Homebrew devs "unlicensed" / users "bad boys&
I just thought this line was funny:
Way to stay up to date IGN!
They released an article back when the swaploit was first released saying that it would damage the system, even though the method had only been out for a day. Not saying that it was safe, but they didn't have any proof considering it had only been available for a few hours...unless they had been swapping Memory sticks like crazy for no apparent reason before that time.
It is good to see that I won't have to update past 1.5 for Midnight Club and Coded Arms though.
-Matt
Code: Select all
(And yes, there is a Memory Stick cheat to hack into the PSP with version 1.50, but it's already been locked down in later versions, and it's not exactly good for your Memory Sticks to try.)They released an article back when the swaploit was first released saying that it would damage the system, even though the method had only been out for a day. Not saying that it was safe, but they didn't have any proof considering it had only been available for a few hours...unless they had been swapping Memory sticks like crazy for no apparent reason before that time.
It is good to see that I won't have to update past 1.5 for Midnight Club and Coded Arms though.
-Matt
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Guest
Well, the actions by Sony, as reported, were not unexpected. The opposite even.
As for the author's choice of words, he used "unlicensed and/or illegal" to refer to the homebrew development. Well, its true.
All of the homebrew is unlicensed (leaving aside any issue as to whether a license is even necessary, its a correct statement in any case).
Some of the aforementioned unlicensed homebrew may even be illegal. Specifically, many of the emulators foster illicit sharing of game roms/isos, and there is always the risk (rumoured to even exist now?) that someone can now play UMD iso's off of memstick ?
So I would say the author was correct in his assessment.
What was lacking, and perhaps the crux of your issue, is that the author made no attempt to present any point of view showing what the real homebrew community is like, giving some depth beyond those "unlicensed and/or illegal" words.
But then, the author was similarly neutral towards Sony. After all, Sony was taking actions to close some holes. Whether someone reading the article feels hostile to Sony or to the homebrew community, if they even care at all, still depends on which side of the fence they are already sitting.
So in this respect, I personally see no issue with the way the article was presented. Perhaps it is a good thing the author didn't even make a small effort to say more, because small efforts often mean inaccuracies. Stick to the facts, Jack!
As for the author's choice of words, he used "unlicensed and/or illegal" to refer to the homebrew development. Well, its true.
All of the homebrew is unlicensed (leaving aside any issue as to whether a license is even necessary, its a correct statement in any case).
Some of the aforementioned unlicensed homebrew may even be illegal. Specifically, many of the emulators foster illicit sharing of game roms/isos, and there is always the risk (rumoured to even exist now?) that someone can now play UMD iso's off of memstick ?
So I would say the author was correct in his assessment.
What was lacking, and perhaps the crux of your issue, is that the author made no attempt to present any point of view showing what the real homebrew community is like, giving some depth beyond those "unlicensed and/or illegal" words.
But then, the author was similarly neutral towards Sony. After all, Sony was taking actions to close some holes. Whether someone reading the article feels hostile to Sony or to the homebrew community, if they even care at all, still depends on which side of the fence they are already sitting.
So in this respect, I personally see no issue with the way the article was presented. Perhaps it is a good thing the author didn't even make a small effort to say more, because small efforts often mean inaccuracies. Stick to the facts, Jack!
Re: Homebrew devs "unlicensed" / users "bad b
Perhaps the best PR would be to write cool homebrew games.Marco_N wrote: It's obvious the PSP homebrew community has a serious PR problem. Is there anything we can do about it?
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Guest
Re: Homebrew devs "unlicensed" / users "bad b
...and always try to cultivate a reputation for clean and ethical homebrew. Granted, with all of the laws out there around the world, it can be hard, and everyone also has a different viewpoint, but if people are at least always thinking about what they are doing and try to "do what is right" as well as "do no harm" then that is all the PR that is necessary.Shine wrote:Perhaps the best PR would be to write cool homebrew games.
Think of it a different way - the homebrew community thus far has not seemed to cause bad "PR" to be reported. Normally, bad PR is more likely to be reported than good "PR".
That the journalist had not needed to describe the homebrew community in any negative fashion sounds like good news to me.
Re: Homebrew devs "unlicensed" / users "bad b
That's not PR, it's content. PR is what you cut through to get to the content.Shine wrote:Perhaps the best PR would be to write cool homebrew games.
Unfortunately, you help the wrong people at the right time. You should fully know who that means. As for bad PR within homebrew, there really isnt bad PR, just infighting between groups, and some unnamed but infamous shills.gorim wrote: ...and always try to cultivate a reputation for clean and ethical homebrew. Granted, with all of the laws out there around the world, it can be hard, and everyone also has a different viewpoint, but if people are at least always thinking about what they are doing and try to "do what is right" as well as "do no harm" then that is all the PR that is necessary.
In short, your version of ethics(which seems to be follow the one with the most money) just limits things - just let the chips fall where they may, and let the existing law take its course. Too much over saving oneself from legal action and not enough of just go as far as possible and accepting the loss that happens. You're really harming it by not letting things happen the correct way, not the "take the detour, nobody comes back that goes there" ps2dev approach.
If this post is edited by anyone else, do not trust the edited post, pm me for the correct contents.
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Guest
Re: Homebrew devs "unlicensed" / users "bad b
Seth, interesting points you are making. You are raising the possibility that things are being harmed by the current PS2DEV approach. Do you have any basis for these beliefs that are established in fact rather than some sort of philosophical principle ?sethstorm wrote: In short, your version of ethics...just limits things - just let the chips fall where they may, and let the existing law take its course. ... You're really harming it by not letting things happen the correct way, not the "take the detour, nobody comes back that goes there" ps2dev approach.
Certainly, people who feel contrained by the PS2DEV way of doing things need not be involved at this site and go someplace else more conducive.
But really, I am interested to hear more about any harm that has been done, given the immense amount of collaborative, quality work that has been generated.
gorim, I cannot say there's "harm" that had come, and I actually appreciate the way things go here.
In my view the organization here is centered on providing the tools for development, with legal low-level code generation for providing the basics.
At least on the surface there's no organization and it's chaotic development without structure. As most people here would be just left guessing on the organization and strategic goals guiding the personal efforts, we can only assume there are pitfalls coming our way.
It is a bit sad that some we had to wait for some teens from spain to jump-start the dev. in North America by elegant and not dev-related system exploit.
And makes me wonder if the official SDK was not leaked wether you would had released the toolchain so fast.
personally I'm a bit worried that someone may find a way to run homebrew on 1.51/1.52 and in september Europe will have no way to join the efforts. (save those who already got imported PSP)
don't flame me, that's how it looks to me...
("average Joe", who is not a low-level programmer, who even if he wanted to, could not just jump in and provide help on this low-level develpment)
In my view the organization here is centered on providing the tools for development, with legal low-level code generation for providing the basics.
At least on the surface there's no organization and it's chaotic development without structure. As most people here would be just left guessing on the organization and strategic goals guiding the personal efforts, we can only assume there are pitfalls coming our way.
It is a bit sad that some we had to wait for some teens from spain to jump-start the dev. in North America by elegant and not dev-related system exploit.
And makes me wonder if the official SDK was not leaked wether you would had released the toolchain so fast.
personally I'm a bit worried that someone may find a way to run homebrew on 1.51/1.52 and in september Europe will have no way to join the efforts. (save those who already got imported PSP)
don't flame me, that's how it looks to me...
("average Joe", who is not a low-level programmer, who even if he wanted to, could not just jump in and provide help on this low-level develpment)
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almazlamaz
- Posts: 25
- Joined: Thu Apr 14, 2005 12:36 pm
some kinf of SDK WAS leaked :)MindWall wrote: And makes me wonder if the official SDK was not leaked wether you would had released the toolchain so fast.
http://www.247recovery.com - Data Recovery
'we'?MindWall wrote:It is a bit sad that some we had to wait for some teens from spain to jump-start the dev. in North America by elegant and not dev-related system exploit.
I don't know about you, but those of us with 1.0 units were already working hard on the various tools and code now used by the 1.5 folk. Those spanish fellows didn't jump-start anything - they just finally brought it to the masses.
A noble and useful piece of information, don't get me wrong... but hardly the starting point of homebrew development.
ooPo: sorry, I worded it wrong.
I know that there are people in NA who got the JAP for dev purposes already. When I said to "jump-start" I meant that after making brewing possible for the masses in NA, this will "jump-start" a lot of new interest in development coming from people who were not ahead of the curve and some talanted force (that may have not been working on game consoles before) will gradually show interest in developing for PSP now.
I know that there are people in NA who got the JAP for dev purposes already. When I said to "jump-start" I meant that after making brewing possible for the masses in NA, this will "jump-start" a lot of new interest in development coming from people who were not ahead of the curve and some talanted force (that may have not been working on game consoles before) will gradually show interest in developing for PSP now.
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Guest
Mindwall,
With respect to the leaked official SDK, I personally haven't seen it, but I have no doubt some people here have seen it, to my disappointment.
However, I can say strongly that it had extremely little impact on the homebrew SDK development because the main players did not need (and I believe did not have or see) the official SDK. Thus the release of the homebrew SDK was neither aided by, or timed by, the leak of the official SDK.
There is nothing magical about official SDK's that requires access to them anyway, contrary to popular belief. Virtually all useful information can be gleaned from publicly released code examination and reversing; people here are REALLY good at that. Official SDK's are usually nothing but a set of API's and documentation of what functions do. Alot of that stuff is NOT difficult to figure out independantly.
Yes, the organization here is chaotic, to say the least. :) That is because the core group is decentralized and operating by rough consensus and various informal collaborations, with the strongest personalities making the most public face on the forums.
But there are no "project managers" or "team leaders" like in a company. Organized leadership implies organized purpose, as opposed to simply shared beliefs and interests. The former would clearly imply business motivations, while the latter indicates values and personal motivation. For good or ill, the latter one is what makes PS2DEV more special than most other sites that focus on the former.
With respect to the leaked official SDK, I personally haven't seen it, but I have no doubt some people here have seen it, to my disappointment.
However, I can say strongly that it had extremely little impact on the homebrew SDK development because the main players did not need (and I believe did not have or see) the official SDK. Thus the release of the homebrew SDK was neither aided by, or timed by, the leak of the official SDK.
There is nothing magical about official SDK's that requires access to them anyway, contrary to popular belief. Virtually all useful information can be gleaned from publicly released code examination and reversing; people here are REALLY good at that. Official SDK's are usually nothing but a set of API's and documentation of what functions do. Alot of that stuff is NOT difficult to figure out independantly.
Yes, the organization here is chaotic, to say the least. :) That is because the core group is decentralized and operating by rough consensus and various informal collaborations, with the strongest personalities making the most public face on the forums.
But there are no "project managers" or "team leaders" like in a company. Organized leadership implies organized purpose, as opposed to simply shared beliefs and interests. The former would clearly imply business motivations, while the latter indicates values and personal motivation. For good or ill, the latter one is what makes PS2DEV more special than most other sites that focus on the former.
Gorim and ooPo are being modest... they (and others) were coding utilities to edit PSP data files long before anyone could execute code on a 1.0, let alone a 1.5.
Oh and is Marco_N the guy who released the 'exploit' which did nothing but error? I'd say incompetence is more damaging to homebrew PR than a boring article on a game review website.
Oh and is Marco_N the guy who released the 'exploit' which did nothing but error? I'd say incompetence is more damaging to homebrew PR than a boring article on a game review website.
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Guest
Thanks for the plug :) More modesty is in order - I had absolutely no involvement (but wish I did! More than those little utilities even;) in the recently released homebrew SDK. Kudos to mrbrown, chp, and everyone else I wish I could remember the list of people in the announcement!rinco wrote:Gorim and ooPo are being modest... they (and others) were coding utilities to edit PSP data files long before anyone could execute code on a 1.0, let alone a 1.5.
gorim, I wanted to imply that you may have felt pressured to release the psptoolchain sooner in order to differentiate your release and enforce the legality of untainted creation.
re: organization structure... IMHO lack of organization does not implay commercial-free intent (it just promotes anarchy, mistakes and inneficiency). There's no doubt that there may be commercial intent in a disorganized community, yet though it will result from the community efforts it will not be directly associated with the community but with the individual who decides to benefit from it.
However, I do think most people here have shared interests and probably all would like to have the community grow. So we do have "organized purpose", even if it's not officially acknowledged.
I also think there is a lot of untapped potential due to the inneficient information decemination and randomized information repository pockets.
re: organization structure... IMHO lack of organization does not implay commercial-free intent (it just promotes anarchy, mistakes and inneficiency). There's no doubt that there may be commercial intent in a disorganized community, yet though it will result from the community efforts it will not be directly associated with the community but with the individual who decides to benefit from it.
However, I do think most people here have shared interests and probably all would like to have the community grow. So we do have "organized purpose", even if it's not officially acknowledged.
I also think there is a lot of untapped potential due to the inneficient information decemination and randomized information repository pockets.
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Guest
Mindwall, you raise one extremely critical point about how the current organization has handled the huge amounts of new information and making it available. This is a very legitimate perception, and very truly it has been done poorly so far.
However, we have recognized this amongst ourselves and having discussed it informally quite a bit.
The result is that "warren" has volunteered to host wiki.ps2dev.org . Various members have begun updating it with information. The hope is that this new effort at collecting, organizing, and updating information will rectify this one historically huge deficit in homebrew efforts.
As for the timing of the toolchain release, I understood two possible meanings from your original statement, and thank you for clarifying which one you meant.
I haven't heard that there was felt any external pressure related to the homebrew SDK and taint with respect to the offical SDK, with perhaps one exception.
The official SDK was leaked long ago, so questions will naturally arise with respect to the homebrew one. Suffice to say, I have no doubt the homebrew SDK and any messages on these forums have been looked at closely by Sony. (And if I was in Sony's position, I would do the same.)
If there was any concern about taint, and rushing to get the homebrew SDK out, it might be that homebrew community members who are also professional developers would want to get their contributions in to the homebrew SDK before, as a requirement of their professional work, they become encumbered by NDA and licensing agreements that could likely prevent any future legal homebrew activity in that direction. Naturally, they would have to then abide by those agreements.
As for business-oriented purposes, valid points too. The decentralized and voluntary nature sometimes hides business and commercial affilations of people who associate in this community. Not everyone's motivations are clear, and not all clear motivations are necessarily true reflections. Many people are purely in it for the love of the platform and the art of making things for it. Others, whether in addition to or instead of that, are in it for the money. There are even well known instances (and any attempts to rehash them here will be instantly deleted) where those motivations clashed and burned all around. Membership is open, so even the distinction between casual members and the vaguely defined "core" members is fuzzy.
Who represents PS2DEV ?
- Oobles is the primary face of PS2DEV. He hosts the main site.
- Oopo I tend to view as the lead forums moderator, but I have never looked closely at the forums hierarchy to say with certainty.
- As for everyone in general, their involvement is more defined by the measure of contribution to, and the importance of, the various tools, SDK's and utilities hosted at this site. Examples: PS2SDK, PSPSDK, and all the sundry components there of, and other things in CVS.
- Number of forum postings don't count for much. :)
Within this community, recognizing how difficult it is to put everything together with all of these people, laws, interests, and relationships, various rules have evolved and continue to evolve. We cannot control what individuals do in private, but we can do our best to control what is done in public, and hope that by example individuals aspire to these standards in their private actions:
1. Respect copyrights. No distribution of copyrighted material or thinly veiled references to, or abetting, of such.
2. Keep on topic. Less talk, more dev. (I break this rule frequently).
3. Do no harm to the platform and industry. In other words, avoid areas that significantly aid piracy. This is hard to do because it is hard to always forsee consequences of ones work, and many other sites actively pursue these areas. But its a cause worth keeping if only because it better defines the guiding philosophies and values of the kind of people desirable at this site.
Some other people have criticized how imperfectly this site implements its rules and policies with respect to the above, and yes imperfections do happen. Some have even concluded the imperfection to be a sign to stop trying. That is not a philosophy to which I think many here would subscribe.
However, we have recognized this amongst ourselves and having discussed it informally quite a bit.
The result is that "warren" has volunteered to host wiki.ps2dev.org . Various members have begun updating it with information. The hope is that this new effort at collecting, organizing, and updating information will rectify this one historically huge deficit in homebrew efforts.
As for the timing of the toolchain release, I understood two possible meanings from your original statement, and thank you for clarifying which one you meant.
I haven't heard that there was felt any external pressure related to the homebrew SDK and taint with respect to the offical SDK, with perhaps one exception.
The official SDK was leaked long ago, so questions will naturally arise with respect to the homebrew one. Suffice to say, I have no doubt the homebrew SDK and any messages on these forums have been looked at closely by Sony. (And if I was in Sony's position, I would do the same.)
If there was any concern about taint, and rushing to get the homebrew SDK out, it might be that homebrew community members who are also professional developers would want to get their contributions in to the homebrew SDK before, as a requirement of their professional work, they become encumbered by NDA and licensing agreements that could likely prevent any future legal homebrew activity in that direction. Naturally, they would have to then abide by those agreements.
As for business-oriented purposes, valid points too. The decentralized and voluntary nature sometimes hides business and commercial affilations of people who associate in this community. Not everyone's motivations are clear, and not all clear motivations are necessarily true reflections. Many people are purely in it for the love of the platform and the art of making things for it. Others, whether in addition to or instead of that, are in it for the money. There are even well known instances (and any attempts to rehash them here will be instantly deleted) where those motivations clashed and burned all around. Membership is open, so even the distinction between casual members and the vaguely defined "core" members is fuzzy.
Who represents PS2DEV ?
- Oobles is the primary face of PS2DEV. He hosts the main site.
- Oopo I tend to view as the lead forums moderator, but I have never looked closely at the forums hierarchy to say with certainty.
- As for everyone in general, their involvement is more defined by the measure of contribution to, and the importance of, the various tools, SDK's and utilities hosted at this site. Examples: PS2SDK, PSPSDK, and all the sundry components there of, and other things in CVS.
- Number of forum postings don't count for much. :)
Within this community, recognizing how difficult it is to put everything together with all of these people, laws, interests, and relationships, various rules have evolved and continue to evolve. We cannot control what individuals do in private, but we can do our best to control what is done in public, and hope that by example individuals aspire to these standards in their private actions:
1. Respect copyrights. No distribution of copyrighted material or thinly veiled references to, or abetting, of such.
2. Keep on topic. Less talk, more dev. (I break this rule frequently).
3. Do no harm to the platform and industry. In other words, avoid areas that significantly aid piracy. This is hard to do because it is hard to always forsee consequences of ones work, and many other sites actively pursue these areas. But its a cause worth keeping if only because it better defines the guiding philosophies and values of the kind of people desirable at this site.
Some other people have criticized how imperfectly this site implements its rules and policies with respect to the above, and yes imperfections do happen. Some have even concluded the imperfection to be a sign to stop trying. That is not a philosophy to which I think many here would subscribe.
Last edited by Guest on Tue Jul 05, 2005 1:48 pm, edited 2 times in total.
I'd argue the opposite. Information is being distributed quickly and efficiently. The number of homebrew games ported or written for PSP already outnumbers that of PS2.
The real problem is convincing people that these forums are dedicated to dev work, not handling imaginary PR problems for a quasi-corporation.
The real problem is convincing people that these forums are dedicated to dev work, not handling imaginary PR problems for a quasi-corporation.
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Guest
No my dear rinco, your 'ad hominem' goes horribly wrong as I never released anything for the PSP. I read the article and found it likened PSP homebrew developers to bootleggers and pirates, while (at least on ps2dev) the exact opposite is true.rinco wrote:Oh and is Marco_N the guy who released the 'exploit' which did nothing but error? I'd say incompetence is more damaging to homebrew PR than a boring article on a game review website.
Letter to IGN
For what it is worth, I had to send this letter to IGN after getting disgusted with their editorial:
<BEGIN LETTER>
I am shocked and utterly disappointed in your comments about the PSP Homebrew crowd and their efforts to run legitimate applications on their own machines, that THEY PAYED for.
Your attempts to show them as outlaws and recommending that performing the "swaploit" trick could be damaging their memory stick sounds like you are on the payroll of Sony and using your platform to create a public opinion bias.
I would have expected a more unbiased review from your editors as in this Information/Internet Age, you cannot expect masses to rely on a single source of information that is befitting the large multinational corporations.
And this letter, by no means, is an attempt to justify or portray the already snowballing group of piracy activities involving UMD ISO rips as legitimate.
I hope you consider this letter in your future editorials.
Regards,
<END LETTER/>
<BEGIN LETTER>
I am shocked and utterly disappointed in your comments about the PSP Homebrew crowd and their efforts to run legitimate applications on their own machines, that THEY PAYED for.
Your attempts to show them as outlaws and recommending that performing the "swaploit" trick could be damaging their memory stick sounds like you are on the payroll of Sony and using your platform to create a public opinion bias.
I would have expected a more unbiased review from your editors as in this Information/Internet Age, you cannot expect masses to rely on a single source of information that is befitting the large multinational corporations.
And this letter, by no means, is an attempt to justify or portray the already snowballing group of piracy activities involving UMD ISO rips as legitimate.
I hope you consider this letter in your future editorials.
Regards,
<END LETTER/>