Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Felipe Sanches]

actually: GPL v2 or later.

On Thu, Mar 31, 2016 at 1:13 PM,  <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2016-03-31 17:01, J.B. Nicholson wrote:
>>
>> Julian Marchant wrote:
>>>
>>> As far as I know, all Flash objects are non-libre.
>>
>>
>> How do you figure this?
>>
>>> This is the error in your reasoning: even if it's true that there is no
>>> libre software at all available for any of the systems MAME emulates,
>>> that doesn't necessarily mean that MAME requires proprietary software to
>>> work. From our perspective, that case is no different from if no
>>> software at all existed for the systems. That would make MAME useless
>>> today, but not unethical.
>>
>>
>> I don't see how that addresses the inducement criteria listed in the
>> FSF's free distro guidelines and that isn't the situation with MAME.
>> If the only software one can run with MAME is nonfree then a distro
>> distributing MAME encourages the user to find that nonfree software.
>> As far as I can tell from the two mentions of inducing the user to run
>> nonfree software in the FSF's free distro guidelines (once in the
>> licensing section, another in the firmware section) inducement to run
>> nonfree software is important to avoid. This tells me MAME ought not
>> be a part of an FSF-approved free distro. Users who want MAME will
>> have a minor inconvenience of getting MAME another way.
>
>
> Please reconsider in light of: The freedom to run the program as you wish,
> for any purpose (freedom 0).
>
> It is a little worrying to me that people are talking about excluding a free
> software program - in fact a GPL2 licensed one - on the basis of what it
> might be used for. What if people started demanding removal of "hacking
> tools" [1] like gdb and nmap even though they are invaluable for debugging?
>
> I'm not saying anyone is obligated to include this in their free distro but
> I hope a consensus will come that it is acceptable, as any free software
> program should be. Especially after they have gone through the work of
> re-licensing it as GPL2.
>
> * [1] https://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2007/08/new_german_hack.html
>
>