Re: [GNU-linux-libre] Adding some scummvm game(s) to the "List of software that does not respect the Free System Distribution Guidelines"

[John Sullivan]

On Tue, Jun 13, 2023 at 08:51:19PM +0200, Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli wrote:
> On Mon, 12 Jun 2023 17:37:39 -0400
> John Sullivan <john@wjsullivan.net> wrote:
> > > What an exaggeration!  Writing a free game is a lot of work.  The
> > > small preparatory task of getting and installing ScummVM would
> > > hardly discourage anyone who is prepared to do that work.
> > >   
> > 
> > Says who? If I have an hour to sit down and work on something, I would
> > like to spend that hour working on the thing, not downloading and
> > building dependencies, and then the next Friday when I have an hour, I
> > have to see if the dependencies are updated, and rebuild them
> > manually. And dependencies interrelate -- one of the main reasons we
> > have distros in the first place. Manually maintaining some things on
> > a system while other things are packaged is a notoriously fraught
> > thing to do. Packaging is an important and valuable convenience that
> > eliminates a lot of yak shaving.
> For ScummVM you have to do that anyway. You need to:
> (1) Build the IDE for AGI I mentionned.
> (2) Find a template for it and audit the license.
> (3) Start building a game
> 

Fine, but not having ScummVM packaged would add several steps before 1. The
amount of steps matters. Just because there are still several steps
required does not mean that adding more steps has no impact. 

> > The discussion here is dismissing the relevance and importance of this
> > *private* software. This is the dangerous path you go down when
> > banning software from endorsed distros just because it doesn't have
> > released, packaged free software for it. This private software could
> > be released in the future as free -- but even if it isn't,
> > facilitating private software experimentation and development is a
> > free software value.
> As I understand there was no general rule made for that nor about
> forcing distros to remove software like wine that has perfectly valid
> free software use cases despite also having more nonfree software that
> works with it.
> 

If we're not discussing forcing distros to remove a package like this in
order to still be endorsed, then I have no issue.

-john