UPDATE on 15 September. I’ve had a talk with Stenzek. This is an evolving situation with a lot more nuance to it than first glance. The decision to make DuckStation proprietary is still terrible, and I intend to rectify this; I’ve proposedh a number of ideas to Stenzek for how to effectively retain DuckStation as a free software project. If this is unsuccessful, I’ll fully fork it myself (from prior to the re-licensing) and probably find people in the PSX scene willing to help maintain it (in that scenario, my role will only be to facilitate and provide infrastructure, while not having an active role in core development, as I already have my Libreboot project which takes all of my time). I simply wish to prevent what is currently the best emulator of its kind becoming proprietary software.

I hope she’s aware of why the Duckstation dev decided to go proprietary: An ongoing harassment campaign by Retroarch.

There is a post by Near/Byuu that documents some of the retroarch developers problems, and some of it is especially damning. I read through some of the leaked IRC chats, and they refer to Near by homophobic and racial slurs (the n word, yes), and this behavior clearly hasn’t stopped, given Steznek’s abrupt and harsh reaction.

On another thread related to this, I mentioned that many people theorize that Talreth (developer of AetherX2, PS2 emulator for android), and Steznek (Duckstation) are the same person. Although there is not hard evidence that they are the same person, their stories parallel in that both of them took code offline because of persistent harassment.

Leah Rowe taking over a fork of Duckstation is nice, but it doesn’t really do anything. People were already going to fork Duckstation, and the Retroarch team did — in the form of SwanStation.

She notes this in the email she sends:

I would also point out that a fork of DuckStation does indeed exist:

https://www.libretro.com/index.php/category/swanstation/

I posted about all of this on my Mastodon. Please see the following post:

https://mas.to/@libreleah/113131594753424867

Unless the DuckStation author changes the project back to GPL, I would suggest that you all boycott the project, and tell others to do the same; you could send all future contributions to SwanStation instead, which is part of libretro. I would suggest that all future works go to a fork (could be SwanStation), instead of DuckStation, while still permitting Stanzek to contribute; this way, any future abusive re-licensing could not realistically occur. The reason I say this, is because based on my own research, it seems that Stanzek’s bios against the GPL has existed for some time, so I’m uncertain as to whether he could be trusted in charge of a public project.

But, in the github reply by stenzek

I find it especially ironic, considering when the GPL was actually violated on multiple occasions, even as recently as a few months ago, nobody ever takes issue with that.

I like free software too, but this stuff doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I think this and her attempts at action, even with the edit to the post, are premature. Her taking over a fork of Duckstation is nice, but I think she, a transwoman, needs to remember why the Retroarch devs harassed the shit out of Near/Byuu: Because they were nonbinary.

If she does decided to maintain a fork of Duckstation, I hope she has a plan that allows her to avoid falling victim to the same harassment that eliminated Near, Talreth, and Steznek. Because while a Playstation emulator is nice to have, Libreboot is essential to obtaining a truly free software society.