Well, it's definitely not FreeBSD -- that much I can say for certain. As far as any of us can tell, that's solely the network stack. I honestly expected Linux with a custom userspace on top of it, and was quite surprised to see them continue with the custom kernel thing.

We're not talking much about details of the lower levels yet (frankly, we just don't know enough to confidently do so, even if we wanted to put it all out there), but it's almost certainly a fork or (partial?) rewrite.

Let me assure you, hacked Pokémon is an extremely practical use.

This may be a joke, but it actually can be very useful. Save backups, sharing cartridges/games among family members, etc.

My 6-year-old son accidentally threw away his event Munchlax in Pokemon Sun, which led me down the path of installing a full custom firmware on my 3DS and using PokeHex to restore the event card and get Munchlax back. He went from depressed to ecstatic. Now we can both have saves on our Pokemon games and he loves to show me how to get past gyms and other stuff. Great bonding experience.

A little bit further down this path, it's been amazing to be able to play classics like Super Mario Sunshine with real GameCube controllers and updated 4K textures via Dolphin. It looks like a brand new game, and again, my son loves hearing about how I played through it 15 years ago on the original GameCube. We just went on a short trip and we were able to play Super Smash Brothers Brawl on my laptop during the flight.

These experiences really underscore the power and importance of hacking communities. I'd love to see modifications to the legal structures to keep emulation, hacking, and modding communities out of the legal grey area and allow them to more fully flesh out their products. Their work is a vastly understated boon to our cultural heritage, and it allows it to be enjoyed and improved for generations. These people are heroes. The way we treat them is a shame.

The emulation and homebrew scene is at a crossroads now. cemu [1] is on track to earn 250k through Patreon (h/t byuu), which is a good way to get stomped on by Nintendo legal.

Open source is critical for the success of projects like Dolphin, but what do you think the emulator developers of the future are going to do when they see the cash they can earn by being secretive?

[1]: cemu.info

I just started playing with CEMU, very exciting piece of software.

I'm looking forward to a world where systems have workable emulators within several months of release, not several years. That will only bring the legal issues into more stark relief. So few of us realize that our intellectual property regime is holding back a lot of major accessibility and practicality improvements.

We need to fix it. Amazing projects like CEMU should not have to live in fear that someone is going to squash them and cause a lot of real harm just to protect someone else's bottom line.

I think emulators are great, but I'm certainly not excited by for-profit(?) proprietary emulators like CEMU.

>> which is a good way to get stomped on by Nintendo legal.

Having a pile of people running the Wii U version of Breath of the Wild on their gaming PCs will do it too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pmf0xA6aVM4

I hadn't been keeping up with CEMU progress, but looking at the 1.7.3 progress preview video, it's damn impressive.

Oh, it wasn't actually a joke.

I'm one of the primary developers for PKHeX -- hacking Pokémon is a very practical use of time as far as I'm concerned.

I played super mario sunshine as a kid. Yikes, you're making me feel old :p

I played Super Mario Sunshine as an adult. Imagine how old you're making me feel :P

I have no idea what Super Mario Sunshine is... Now I feel old too.

And looking it up on the net didn't improve things... My second gaming console was an 8-bit nintendo...

1. I understand wanting to keep stuff under wraps for future use.

2. I understand that "future use" includes shiny, 6IV Arceus clones.

The PS4 uses FreeBSD too - I think a major reason is that the BSD license makes everything easier legally and prevents manufacturers from having to carefully separate and audit GPL code for compliance releases.

Idle note - my one attempt at game RE ever ended up finding GPL code in Ico for PS2 (a SCEJ game!). This fact never seemed to end up getting Team Ico in trouble.