DosBox Turbo isn't developed by the DosBox devs. It's a closed source fork created by a third party developer. If you're having trouble with their product, you'd best contact them through the info in the Play store.

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-01-07, 00:15:

DosBox Turbo isn't developed by the DosBox devs. It's a closed source fork created by a third party developer. If you're having trouble with their product, you'd best contact them through the info in the Play store.

Interesting; thanks gdjacobs. I hadn't heard of it - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id … fishstix.dosbox

Are these "developers" (middlemen) violating the GPL by providing (selling) binaries without corresponding sources and build details? I couldn't find any links to or even mention that source is provided.

GPL2, Terms and Conditions, Section 3:

... For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. ...

Yes I understand that, which is why I also tried RetroArch.. it seems to me like these apps are loading in DosBox ok, but then DosBox cannot launch eg. a game correctly.

I was wondering if there were any dosbox or android logs or something I could be querying to see why game and wasn't being launched. Or if anyone knows if Android has introduced some incompatibility.

gdjacobs wrote on 2020-01-07, 00:15:

DosBox Turbo isn't developed by the DosBox devs. It's a closed source fork created by a third party developer. If you're having trouble with their product, you'd best contact them through the info in the Play store.

Apparently this didn't used to be the case (the maintainer used to provide the source 'on request'), but DOSBox Turbo is on GitHub. Unfortunately it doesn't look like it's been updated since 2015. I actually use it and never thought the $3.99 or whatever it was for a one-time fee was out of line. (I've contributed to mainline DOSBox too.)

There have certainly been other shonky Android ports with dubious or blatant GPL non-compliance though.

xjas wrote on 2020-01-07, 00:35:

(...) never thought the $3.99 or whatever it was for a one-time fee was out of line

Yup - absolutely reasonable to charge for labour and non-labour costs to provide GPL software and binaries to users (details spelled out in the GPL license).

Only concern is that if you provide binaries, you must also provide sources and all supporting build scripts / makefiles / and so on such that users can reproduce their binary - so they can modify and further distribute it. (Very pathetic if they're not.. a friendly call from an EFF lawyer might wake them up!)

krcroft wrote on 2020-01-07, 00:49:

Yup - absolutely reasonable to charge for labour and non-labour costs to provide GPL software and binaries to users (details spelled out in the GPL license).

Absolutely. You can charge thousands for support and software distribution. You can paywall source and dev tool access and limit it to people who have purchased your product. Question is, do they still provide access to a source repository or source package archive? Do they even provide the source code offer (in writing) with the application? If they do none of these things, they're not fulfilling their obligations.

However, that's not germane to the original issue. DOSBox Turbo is a patched version of an unknown release of DOSBox SVN. The nature of the patches and exact revision it's based off of is not known, therefore the maintainer of DOSBox Turbo or a third party willing and able to offer assistance will have to be contacted. I'm not aware of any such person on the forum, therefore I suggest being in touch with fishstix via the address listed on Google Play.

As for Retroarch, it might stay close enough to mainline SVN for the DOSBox devs to chime in. I recommend providing some information on the version of RetroArch you're running, the version of DOSBox core installed (if you can find it), and the platform you're running Retroarch on as a first step. As a first step in troubleshooting, it's always a good idea to provide enough information for someone to replicate the exact state your system is in.