On February 17th, 2025, the GitHub repository for the aPS3e emulator for Android opened up, offering an "ad-free" and "optimized" solution for PlayStation 3 emulation on a mobile device, and while this is certainly not the first PS3 emulator for Android (given how there are builds of RPCS3 floating around for Android as well), this one has sparked an interesting debate, which more often than not it's usually the case with the release Android-specific emulators.
The important point when it comes to the GitHub repository for the aPS3e emulator, is that, while there's some source code shared publicly, the entirety of the project is not open source, with some aspects of it still being closed-source, and the developer stated in the GitHub repository that the full source code would be released once donations reached $5000 USD, and later on that sum was lowered to $2000 USD.
As if asking for such a big amount of money for releasing the full project is not enough, according to several reports online, the aPS3e emulator is using not one, but two projects in order to bring the PS3 emulation to Android, with the two other projects being RPCS3 and Termux, as some have already data-mined the APK and found code related to both projects, and given how both projects are licensed under GPLv2, any person that works on a public release software of reworked or forked code from any of the two projects must be required to disclose the full source code, without exception.
The very first issue reported to the repository was none other than a direct notice from the RPCS3 Development team, with developer AniLeo asking the developer of aPS3e, Aenu, to fully disclose the source code to properly comply with the GPLv2 license:
AniLeo said:
The aPS3e GitHub repository was still up earlier today, but at the moment of writing it currently only throws a "404" error upon trying to access the repository.
:arrow: Source
:arrow: aPS3e GitHub repository
:arrow: aPS3e repo saved backup at Archive.org
