Open source

From Chiip-Wiki

Why Chiip isn't open source yet

Many people have asked me why I didn't release the source yet, even though I promised.

Well, there are a few minor reasons:

• I only have limited time to spend on Chiip - and because I thought it was in the interest of most Chiip users, my top priorities in the last two weeks were fixing bugs and implementing important features, not releasing the source. Which is related to the next reason:
• I am a bit of a perfectionist, and the code is not 100% perfect in my eyes as I couldn't spend that much time on improving it. I think most coders know that it's an unpleasant feeling to release code you're not completely satisfied with.
• I was a bit pissed by dozens of people asking me for the source, saying they want to port it to PIC for me, and when I gave them just the information required to do so nobody did it, only two of them even answered. Definitely looks to me like most people asking for the source do not actually want to improve Chiip.

But the really important reason is this:

• The situation is different from when I first decided Chiip should be open source - I don't want to develop just another substandard open source Wii modchip.

Keep in mind that everyone has a motivation for whatever he's doing. And this of course also applies to time-consuming tasks like developing a modchip - nobody spends the reasonable amount of time and money to develop a modchip just because he wants others to run backups, there's always something he wants to get out of it too.

For modchips, the usual motivation is earning money. This is obvious in the case of popular commercial chips like WiiKey/Cyclowiz/Wiinja etc. - but it's not just coincidence that you can buy WiiFree and Wiip/OpenWii modchips too.

This is different in the case of Chiip. You cannot buy Chiip, I've rejected all requests for commercial uses that I've received so far. I really don't get a single cent from Chiip (no, "sponsored by Gamefreax" does not mean I get any money from them) - quite the contrary, it takes me lots of time and some money instead.

So what was my motivation for developing Chiip? Well, I simply liked the idea of developing something unique, something thousands of people would be using and that would be reported about on multiple websites.

When I began developing Chiip and first planned to release it as open source, I simply did not expect some things to turn out this way. There was no Wiiskas, no WiiFree, no Wiip, no OpenWii and no what-the-hell-they're-all-called. If I had known there would be so many free modchips out so soon, I simply wouldn't have started Chiip development. But as I had absolutely no experience with modchips or any modchip-scene, I seriously expected the Chiip idea to be unique - however naive that was...

So I wanted Chiip to be something very unique and special - but now Chiip is just one of a number of free Wii modchips. I don't like this, and it has changed my opinion on Chiip being truly open source.

You see, the main problem is: Once I get the feeling that Chiip is just the same or even worse than several other free Wii modchips and doesn't have any other real advantage over the others, I will lose any interest in further developing it.

Why should I continue spending a serious amount of time on something that isn't any better than several other solutions, while the others at least earn some money from it? Try to put yourself in my position, and I'm sure you'll understand. Maybe that's also the reason why there hasn't been a new Wiiskas release recently, I would completely understand.

Furthermore, I lately realized that there is a huge difference between open source PC applications and open source modchips. Most advantages of open source PC applications simply do not apply to open source modchips.

Being an open source fan, it's hard for me to say but: Open source modchips will stay substandard, at least in the beginning.

Why? Because people judge the quality of a certain modchip not by the features it has, but by how the features compare to the other modchips' features. Cyclowiz v1 seemed great when Wiinja v1 was the only alternative - just a month later nobody would buy one anymore. So commercial modchip developers will always try to keep secret how a certain feature can be implemented, because once that piece of information is publicly available every modchip will have it, and there would be one reason less to buy their product.

That's why open source modchips will have just the basic features that the latest versions of all the other modchips have as well - everyone can simply copy their solution, and you couldn't even prove that. I would have been perfectly fine with the fact that Chiip has just the basic features if Chiip would have been THE self-made, open source modchip - but I wouldn't want to spend my precious free time to develop JUST ANOTHER self-made, open source modchip that doesn't have anything special and is substandard regarding features.

No Chiip source then?

Not quite. I currently tend to release Chiip as delayed source - meaning the source will be available some time after the binary version was released. That way others will still be able to copy Chiip's features, but it's a bit harder to do that from a binary version.