Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[rain1]

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