A eulogy for SamIAm and CyberWarriorX's project:
It was announced recently that
SamIAm and CyberWarriorX have officially abandoned their Princess Crown translation.
SamIAm explained on Discord:
I am going to drop in and say something.
The Princess Crown translation project that CyberWarriorX and I were working on was not dead 18 months ago when eadmaster started using our stuff against our wishes. Even twelve months ago, we hadn't given up, and we spent many weeks hurriedly tying up loose ends with the aim of getting our translation done first. But when we didn't. CyberWarriorX and I didn't contact each other for months after eadmaster's final version was released. When we finally did, it was to admit that we were ready to abandon the project. Neither of us can find any joy in working on this thing any longer, and it is clear that time isn't going to help.
So let there be no mystery: Our translation project of Princess Crown really is dead now. God, what a terrible waste of time it all was.
Moreover, when asked if they are nevertheless willing to release the work they've already completed, SamIam said that neither of them have any desire to release anything.
We must thank SamIAm and CyberWarriorX for their hard work 14 years ago, as it is because of their old GitHub project licensed under GPL that somebody was able to finish the job and give us an English version of Princess Crown. Their noble decision to willingly license the code under a free licence has by definition entitled humanity to do whatever we please with the published code:
- The freedom to run the software as one wishes, for any purpose
- The freedom to study how the software works, and change it to make it do what one wishes
- The freedom to redistribute copies so one can help others
- The freedom to distribute copies of one's modified versions to others
But of course, entitling it to humanity is the issue for SamIAm and CyberWarriorX.
Humanity? This was never about a public good. This was about the developers stroking their egos.
Even though eadmaster fully credited them, that wasn't good enough for SamIAm and CyberWarriorX because
they weren't the ones releasing it. SamIAm and CyberWarriorX liked holding this game hostage and tried their damnedest to bully eadmaster into quitting. But unlike some people, eadmaster didn't give up. And unlike some people, eadmaster didn't care about some imagined fame or glory.
The supreme irony is that no one cares about romhackers because their names are all forgotten by the general public in light of people actually playing the damn games they translated—but not in this case, because the petulant control freaks alleging for 12+ years that their Princess Crown translation was nearly finished had managed to elevate eadmaster into a folk hero more famous than the actual game.
So in that sense, yes, these past 14 years were a terrible waste of time: their egos got absolutely nothing, while humanity finally got the game. It was a terrible waste of time because SamIAm and CyberWarriorX made it about themselves by refusing to publish their commits for 14 years, refusing to collaborate with eadmaster despite actually being willing to get things done, and now, refusing to publish the work they had allegedly gotten done, all while having spent the last 14 years promising that a release was imminent with absolutely no credibility.
SamIAm is right that the translation project he and CyberWarriorX were working on was not dead 18 months ago; it was dead closer to 18 years ago.