Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli]

On Tue, 29 Mar 2016 11:08:56 -0300
Felipe Sanches  wrote:

> That's also the case for any other free-software emulator, though. Any
> idea how we've dealt with this in cases such as dosbox, and other free
> software emulators?
I believe that the wiki page explains that.

I make confusions between dosbox and dosemu. While I think that both
are free software, one of them depends on freedos, which is also free
but requires a non-free compiler(under the openwatcom license) to be
built.

Denis.


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Description: OpenPGP digital signature

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Felipe Sanches]

yes, Matt is right. Even though nowadays MAME and MESS got merged into
a single project called simply MAME.

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 5:32 PM, Matt Lee  wrote:
> The majority of video game systems that MAME can emulate have very
> little in the way of free software that can run on them, but MAME also
> includes the MESS emulator for various older home computers. These
> home computers have lots of free software available for them.
>
> The situation is no different to DOSBOX, which is already in free systems.
>

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software

[alírio eyng]

these are the approaches i can think:
*extremely conservative (eliminating false positive errors)[1]
 removing all emulators
*conservative (eliminating false positive errors)[1]
 make packages/executables like game1-emulator1, game1-emulator2, ...
and not allowing direct emulator installation/execution
*liberal (avoiding false positive errors[1] and false negative errors[2])
 allowing all emulators with free games know
*extremely liberal (eliminating false negative errors)[2]
 allowing all emulators

extremely liberal is naive because it just looks down in the
dependency dag, there's no reason to not look up
extremely conservative is naive because it doesn't allow completely free uses
conservative would solve the issues that originate this thread
liberal is more convenient in some cases

i consider conservative better, liberal ok, and any of the extremes unreasonable

fsdg doesn't allow extremely liberal (according to other people
interpretation), in ndiswrapper, for example:
"with one exception, all ndis drivers are nonfree--and the one free
one is a windows port of a native linux driver. so right now, this
isn't useful for anything besides using nonfree software"[3]

parabola follows extremely conservative with your-freedom_emu[4]

assuming we choose conservative; for wine, we can make guile-wine,
emacs-wine[5] and gnutls-wine[6], but remove wine

it seems there's at least one free game needing an emulator[7]

i think this is a discussion about fsdg[8] and we should discuss it at
gnu-linux-libre@nongnu.org

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/false_positives_and_false_negatives#False_positive_error
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/false_positives_and_false_negatives#False_negative_error
[3]https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines
[4]https://www.parabola.nu/packages/libre/any/your-freedom_emu/
[5]https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-03/msg01216.html
[6]https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2014-11/msg00333.html
[7]http://pineight.com/lu/
[8]http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Felipe Sanches]

What are the goals of Gnash ?

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 2:18 PM, J.B. Nicholson  wrote:
> Felipe Sanches wrote:
>>
>> Such museum (without any ROM file) is now fully free, regardless of
>> what you might attempt to do with it at runtime after compiling it.
>
>
> Practical emulator usage requires some program to run, and in MAME's case
> those programs are nonfree perhaps with a few exceptions.
>
>> The source code is the most important portion of the MAME project,
>> because it is though the source code that the goal of "preserving the
>> history of gaming and computing hardware" is achieved. The runtime
>> binaries tend to be seen as a mere collateral effect of the hardware
>> documentation efforts (also providing evidence that the hw
>> documentation is probably accurate).
>
>
> I think it's important not to conflate goals. Despite reaching the goals
> MAME's developers set out for MAME, why should MAME be included as part of
> an FSF-approved free software distribution
> (https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html) when
> practical usage appears to violate the requirement that "A free system
> distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any nonfree information
> for practical use, or encourage them to do so."?
>
> If MAME's practical use can't meet this requirement, MAME's description on
> https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines#MAME
> should change to something that explains MAME "steer[s or encourages] users
> towards obtaining nonfree information for practical use".
>

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[J.B. Nicholson]

Felipe Sanches wrote:

Such museum (without any ROM file) is now fully free, regardless of
what you might attempt to do with it at runtime after compiling it.


Practical emulator usage requires some program to run, and in MAME's case 
those programs are nonfree perhaps with a few exceptions.



The source code is the most important portion of the MAME project,
because it is though the source code that the goal of "preserving the
history of gaming and computing hardware" is achieved. The runtime
binaries tend to be seen as a mere collateral effect of the hardware
documentation efforts (also providing evidence that the hw
documentation is probably accurate).


I think it's important not to conflate goals. Despite reaching the goals 
MAME's developers set out for MAME, why should MAME be included as part of 
an FSF-approved free software distribution 
(https://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html) when 
practical usage appears to violate the requirement that "A free system 
distribution must not steer users towards obtaining any nonfree information 
for practical use, or encourage them to do so."?


If MAME's practical use can't meet this requirement, MAME's description on 
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines#MAME 
should change to something that explains MAME "steer[s or encourages] users 
towards obtaining nonfree information for practical use".

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Felipe Sanches]

One interesting aspect of MAME is that the source code itself is key
to its mission. Even if you do not run the code, it is already
fulfilling its goals, which can be described as a "hardware museum in
the shape of technical specifications".

Such museum (without any ROM file) is now fully free, regardless of
what you might attempt to do with it at runtime after compiling it.
The source code is the most important portion of the MAME project,
because it is though the source code that the goal of "preserving the
history of gaming and computing hardware" is achieved. The runtime
binaries tend to be seen as a mere collateral effect of the hardware
documentation efforts (also providing evidence that the hw
documentation is probably accurate).



On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:10 AM, J.B. Nicholson  wrote:
> ra...@openmailbox.org wrote:
>>
>> The MAME project has recently re-licensed the project to GPL2 (with GPL3
>> parts). It is now free software. http://mamedev.org/?p=422
>
>
> Wouldn't this change make MAME free software that depends on nonfree
> software in order to run?
>
> As I understand it, the programs MAME emulates are nonfree. If so, this
> should raise a warning because MAME is an instance of what was known as the
> Java Trap (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html) -- a free program
> with nonfree dependencies.
>
> Are there any free software programs MAME emulates?
>

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Jean Louis]

Hello,

It would be good to nicely understand the issues I have pointed to in
this discussion:
http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2016-03/msg01213.html

and to seek legal advice by an attorney of FSF in regards to trademark
usage.

In regards to free software distribution guidelines, as written here:
http://www.gnu.org/distros/free-system-distribution-guidelines.html

I don't agree that MAME should be included, including many of other
emulators, in the free software distributions, for reasons above
explained in the discussion I have started.

Jean Louis

On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:08:56AM -0300, Felipe Sanches wrote:
> I can see good usages of the MAME codebase for documentation of the
> history of computer hardware. (I do it VERY often).
> 
> Or for running homebrew free implementations of games on the emulator
> (I already did that myself a couple times).
> 
> It seems like the source package is undisputably free, while the
> binary package is also free, but inducing users to download and run
> non-free ROMs.
> 
> That's also the case for any other free-software emulator, though. Any
> idea how we've dealt with this in cases such as dosbox, and other free
> software emulators?
> 
> On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 11:05 AM, Felipe Sanches  wrote:
> > The codebase is now fully free. But the vast majority of games
> > (perhaps all of them) require non-free ROMs. So this is a special case
> > that requires some thought.
> >
> > On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 8:57 PM,   wrote:
> >> Hello
> >>
> >> The MAME project has recently re-licensed the project to GPL2 (with GPL3
> >> parts). It is now free software. http://mamedev.org/?p=422
> >>
> >> Please consider updating the entry here to reflect this, since it is now 
> >> out
> >> of date:
> >> https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines#MAME
> >>
> >> Thank you!
> >>
> 

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[J.B. Nicholson]

ra...@openmailbox.org wrote:

The MAME project has recently re-licensed the project to GPL2 (with GPL3
parts). It is now free software. http://mamedev.org/?p=422


Wouldn't this change make MAME free software that depends on nonfree 
software in order to run?


As I understand it, the programs MAME emulates are nonfree. If so, this 
should raise a warning because MAME is an instance of what was known as the 
Java Trap (https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/java-trap.html) -- a free program 
with nonfree dependencies.


Are there any free software programs MAME emulates?

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[rain1]

On 2016-03-29 15:05, Felipe Sanches wrote:

The codebase is now fully free. But the vast majority of games
(perhaps all of them) require non-free ROMs. So this is a special case
that requires some thought.

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 8:57 PM,   wrote:

Hello

The MAME project has recently re-licensed the project to GPL2 (with 
GPL3

parts). It is now free software. http://mamedev.org/?p=422

Please consider updating the entry here to reflect this, since it is 
now out

of date:
https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines#MAME

Thank you!



Thanks for the reply!

There is a discussion about this on guix-devel 
 
which may be of interest.

Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Felipe Sanches]

The codebase is now fully free. But the vast majority of games
(perhaps all of them) require non-free ROMs. So this is a special case
that requires some thought.

On Mon, Mar 28, 2016 at 8:57 PM,   wrote:
> Hello
>
> The MAME project has recently re-licensed the project to GPL2 (with GPL3
> parts). It is now free software. http://mamedev.org/?p=422
>
> Please consider updating the entry here to reflect this, since it is now out
> of date:
> https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines#MAME
>
> Thank you!
>