Python is the best language for tooling and systems stuff. It’s like bash, but good (and portable)

barf emoji

Fuck that shit. I’ll release all Microsoft code under GPL so people can figure their own shit out. As for people who built their business on Azure? The will reap what they sowed.

Make me your king, and I will take us to the GNU-Slash-Linux holy land.

Around $3 trillion dollars so that I can buy Microsoft and shut them down, paving the way for the GNU/Linux desktop.

And since it’s GPL that any additions are compatible with the GPL, which the ad / tracking stuff they’re likely to add likely isn’t.

That’s a good point, although I wonder if there are any ad SDKs that are GPL compatible? There’s no reason that couldn’t exist AFAIK.

However, there’s also the much simpler scenario where they straight up replace the apps with something completely different. This company buys apps all the time, so I’m sure they have at least a few calendar, gallery, file browser, etc apps lying around that they can reuse.

I’m not a lawyer either, but the GPL doesn’t say anything about commercial use. Zipo can sell the code in the apps without having to ask permission from contributors. The only restriction is that they have to keep their modifications open source (which that Github response says).

But the main point is that the Zipo people bought out the Google Play listing, giving them access to the millions of users who have those apps installed on their phones. They likely don’t give a shit about features/keeping the apps closed source. It’s just a purchase of the userbase, likely for shady reasons.

This also means that forking the Simple Mobile repos isn’t even likely to accomplish much. Sure, it’ll put control of the repo in the hands of a more trusted party (which is significant), but since it’s open source anyways, it’d be easy to catch any attempts to sneak malware into the apps. And if all development effort moves to the fork, Zipo can still take that fork and redistribute it under the “Simple Mobile Tools” name.

Ultimately, the fucked up thing here is that the original developer, Tibor Kaputa, sold out millions of users. Forking isn’t going fix that. Fuck him. The only thing that will fix this situation is if Google takes down their store listing, but that’s not going to happen. Hopefully F-droid does.

Oh shit, you’re actually a modder! Thanks for helping to keep these old games alive, and keep up the good work!!

I’m a sucker for nostalgia.

I don’t remember all the steps I had to do, but I do remember it being a pain in the ass. I downloaded the black edition from myabandonware.com and installed a widescreen mod (which messed up the UI since some elements were slightly offscreen, but it didn’t bother me).

Besides that, the only other annoyance was the controls. There are actually a lot of community layouts for this game, but the ones I ended up using were a pain when navigating the menus. You’ll definitely want to try a few.

FWIW, here are my current working launch settings for it:

• Proton 8.0-4
• Launch Options: WINEDLLOVERRIDES="dinput8=n,b" %command%

So I guess if you get past the installer, those should get it to launch.

Even Steam themselves say it sucks for preventing piracy:

The Steam DRM wrapper by itself is not an anti-piracy solution. The Steam DRM wrapper protects against extremely casual piracy (i.e. copying all game files to another computer) and has some obfuscation, but it is easily removed by a motivated attacker.

Plus, it’s optional for devs.

I pirated Need for Speed Most Wanted (2005) and played it from start to finish on my Steam Deck because it was impossible to buy. I would’ve paid $20 for that old ass game if it was available for sale, but it was literally impossible.

The problem is that these giant publishers are led by MBAs, and as someone who went to business school, I know first hand how stupid those people are.

That kind of sounds like the Warriors franchise.