Evan Prodromou wrote:
That doesn't make sense to me. An image viewer isn't useful without
images, an interpreter isn't useful without scripts, nor is a library
useful without some program that links to it.
Perhaps my choice of words was poor, but I think that emulators fall
into their own class of software because they rely on what is generally
commercial, non-free (and honestly, quite probably illegal) software in
order to run, which is why they fall into contrib. I'm not saying this
is the best policy, (or even official policy for that matter) but
reading the fceu changelogs[0] suggests to me that this is the reason
emulators fall into contrib even when the program itself might be free.
If somebody wants to dig up an 'official' post on why this is done, it
could probably help clarify. Perhaps some digging around in the d-legal
archives and maybe some old ITPs will shed some light.
Relevant snippet from the fceu changelog:
fceu (0.97.5-3) unstable; urgency=low
* The "movin' on up" release.
Note to ftp-master: This package (along with all other NES
emulators) is
now eligible to go into main since there is now a DFSG-free NES ROM in
Debian -- see the efp package. I mailed debian-legal about this
and they
seem to agree with my assessment (see the archives for Jan 2004).
*other changes snipped*
-- Joe Nahmias <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Tue, 3 Feb 2004 22:26:49 -0500
[0]
http://packages.debian.org/changelogs/pool/main/f/fceu/fceu_0.97.5-3/changelog
