barryharris.me.uk

First off, apologies for anything that is lost in translation, either in the FBA Shuffle statement, or in our reply.

The following is from the FBA Shuffle statement posted here.

"We apologize for the miserable fact that all your faith failed you simply because of a worthless derivative. Although fbas has established a dominant position in the Central Kingdom, we still would like to help shed light on this problem, sharing some piece of code with all due respect and legitimate admiration to the official fba team.

fba treated us in an unfriendly and offensive manner. this made us feel very bad, and we answered blows with blows. Now it seems this mean and trivial purpose has been well achieved. To clarify we are not against the whole community, it's time to simply release the source code as it's not worth hoarding any more. We don't care about releasing the source code at all. However we deeply regret the way you stuck to the literal meaning while completely ignored the true significance of open source that is cooperation and tolerance.

Please accept our best wishes that fba could take over those "shiny ribbons" with fbas source code available. Meanwhile, we are sorry that someone obviously lacks the ability to distinguish joking and seriousness."

The current FBA team, the previous members, external contributors, and the MAME team (FBA has a lot of MAME code in) have all put in numerous countless hours to FBA. Dave (the creator of FinalBurn), released the source code under a license. That license stated that all releases made based on the code had to be accompanied by a source release. This is what is meant by open-source. We have always posted source code with our releases and always will. Unfortunately, some builds (FBA Shuffle) being the most blatant, believe they don't need to do this. From what I can ascertain, the Shuffle team believes that we have "stolen" some of their code. What I will say is that if we have used any code from Shuffle, we have always credited them, and that the code we have used from Shuffle pails into insignificance compared to the sheer volume of code Shuffle takes from our releases (which is usually done without credit).

The very essence of open-source is that the code is put into the public domain to be used by anybody. FBA has an additional stipulation that the code can't be used for commercial activities. If you don't want to release your modifications then you would need to find another emulator to use, or write your own.

By not complying with the license, you put the project in jeopardy. FBA contains a lot of code from MAME. We are currently in the process of applying for permission to use this code. If permission isn't granted then FBA will not exist. If we are not seen to be policing our license then we will not get permission to use the code.

We see that you have finally released the source code for your current build, and we thank you for that, but remind you that it is a continued requirement of any future releases. There is no need to distinguish between "joking and seriousness", just a need to comply with the license.

4 Comments:

Posted by jjkkyu on 11 March 2010 at 01:43

Just a culture differnce between Western and Eastern. Take it easy, guys. Hope the bright future both for FBA and FBAs.

Posted by Rasek on 17 March 2010 at 00:33

It could be told louder but not clearer. One more time, FBA team deserves all my respect and admiration for its gentlemen attitude in an silly controverse, where anyone can easily determine who was adhering to open source ethics... and who was not. Hope that this "FBA Shuffle" people have seen the light beyond its fancy words, and behave accordingly in the future.

Posted by msbhvn on 22 March 2010 at 05:46

That "statement" made me laugh. What a load of incoherent crap. FBAshuffle is a warez kiddie build anyway, it's not like there were any features worth taking from it. All your base are belong to us! :)

Posted by loop on 8 April 2010 at 20:09

It's been many years since I was an active part of the FBA team, but I always found people who failed to adhere to the license ever so slightly annoying. Anyone who's followed FBA from the start can probably remember a few times when this has happened before. Of course it only gets funnier when they try to play the injured party and paint the FBA team as playground bully trying to steal their sweets. :) Anyway, good luck on getting the MAME license Barry. It would be a shame if FBA where to dissapear.

Statement from FB Alpha Team

4 Comments: