This is an open letter to the emulation scene, and to the authors of
UltraHLE.

I have been an emulation fan for years, ever since I downloaded the
first version of VSMC years ago.  That version of VSMC did not run a
single game, in fact I don't even think that it displayed graphics. 
But, it still fascinated me, and many others like me.  I remember
reading hundreds of technical documents relating to emulation,
specifically of the SNES, a brand new system at the time.  The emulation
world was exciting, even though commercial games were not the focus.  In
the past few years, hordes of people have hit the emulation scene and
have equated it with the warez scene.  A few days ago, with the release
and discontinuation of UltraHLE, this reality has come to a head.

I repect the authors of UltraHLE, but I would like to address this open
letter to them and to any other true members of the emulation scene, who
are simply amazed by the technical prowess of UltraHLE.  At the release
of UltraHLE,  I was extremely excited for the community.  With bleem,
Connentix's Virtual Game Station, and UltraHLE all ready for release,
the scene finds itself at a defining point.  The events that occur now
will shape the future of emulation.

Then it hit.  Many outsiders, mostly "31337 warez h4x0rs", discovered
UltraHLE and the frenzy began.  No matter where I went, I saw requests
for ROMs.  At one point, I had to leave EFNet's #emu out of disgust. 
What ever happened to the true emulation scene and the days of Archaic
Ruins, Node 99, VSMC, and technical interest in emulation?  Simply put,
with the world watching, we all ran and hid.

The first people to hide were the true members of the emulation scene. 
We easily could have prevented this from the very start by not giving
away our own personal ROMs, not posting ROM sites, and kicking every
person from our IRC channels that we could.  The maintainers of popular
emulation sites could have removed all links to ROMs, and posted the
true point of emulation.  But, instead we just bitched.  That's all, we
just complained about how lame the warezers were, and otherwise kept
quiet.  What is the result of this?  The rest of the world looked at the
scene and didn't see us, didn't hear us, and saw one thing and one thing
only: piracy.  I am very disappointed in myself and the scene.  

Following this, the authors of emulators began to get scared.  At a
pivotal point in the history of emulation, the very founders got
scared!  With Sony suing Connectix, the potential for legal action, and
the explosion of warez foolishness, the authors got frustrated.  But,
what did they do?  Several of them just quit, further tarnishing the
public view of the emulation scene, at the most important time in
emulation history.  To those authors that discontinued their emulators: 
I am ashamed.

Now, this is specifically to the authors of UltraHLE.  Congratulations,
you have created the best emulator of all time.  Oh, and by the way,
thank you for destroying the scene.  Don't get me wrong, I hold the
highest respect for your technical abilities, and as a coder myself, I
am aware of the daunting task that you had ahead of you.  But, please,
your arguments for discontinuing your emulator are weaker than any that
I have ever heard.  Let us analyze your argument:

"The UltraHLE project was a technical demo, an experiment to see if N64
emulation
really is possible and an attempt to advance the state of the art in
emulation. It was
not designed to be a tool for piracy."

No emulator is designed as a tool for piracy!  In fact, nearly every
emulation author gives their emulator away for free, simply because they
are only interested in the technical side of emulation.  If you had
stated this days in advance before releasing your emulator, then maybe
some of this could have been avoided.

"Once it was released, things moved at an unforeseen pace. In a matter
of hours, the
main interest for people became acquiring illegal copies of game ROMs.
This was why
the pages were put down in a matter of hours."

If you did not expect this hysteria, then I doubt that you thought over
what you were doing when you were writing the emulator.  In fact, if you
thought that there would not be warez pups fighting and pleading for
ROMs, then you must be naïve.  This is not an excuse!  On top of this,
you only kept the site up for a matter of 4 hours.  I can guarantee that
the hysteria would die down in under a month.  If you would have stood
up for the emulator, and for the scene, then you may have actually
helped the community, instead, you have damaged it nearly irreparably.

"We do not condone this use of illegal ROMs in any form and do not allow
our emulator
to be used in this way. As we cannot effectively stop people from using
this product
in wrong and illegal ways, we have no choice but to discontinue the
project. 

This is the crescendo of your argument, and it is essentially like a
software engineer saying the following: "I am going to stop coding
anything at all, because people are going to pirate it."  OF COURSE THEY
ARE.  There are millions of idiots in this world, it is unavoidable, but
that does not mean that you can use them as a crutch, and it does not
mean that any idiots are a part of the scene.  With this statement, all
you have done is admitted publicly to the rest of the world that noone
in the emulation scene cares about the technical element, which is
simply not true.  As an ambassador to the world for the emulation scene,
you pointed at us and made us look like fools.  Thanks a bunch.  Now the
world thinks that we are warezing anarchist teenagers and that emulation
is illegal.  Evidence of this is Nintendo's comment on UltraHLE.

In conclusion, I would like to reinstate that I have the utmost respect
for the technical abilities of the UltraHLE authors, and I am not trying
to attack them.  I understand that it all happened so quickly, but that
does not mean that there were not 3 months to prepare before you
released the emulator.  At this point, I wish you hadn't released it at
all.

There is only one way to mend the damage that has been done.  And it is
twofold.  First, the emulation scene needs to gather together to get rid
of the warez pups.  Simply put: don't give out ROMs, don't post ROMs,
don't post links to ROMs, deny that UltraHLE ever existed, and explain
the technical beauty of emulation.  Secondly, the authors of UltraHLE
must release the source code of their emulator, release technical papers
on how they did it, how it works, and why it was created.  This would be
for the benefit of the community, and would show the world what we are
really about.

With hope,

Jonathan LaCour
Panix on EFNet
panix@resnet.gatech.edu