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

[Tobias Platen]

Emulators can be useful for reverse engineering, so there may be cases 
where their use is ok. In the case of MAME at least some files will be 
usable to build new works. Some of those old FM-based sound synthesizer 
chips are emulated with MAME, unfortunately some NSF(Nintendo Sound 
File)-players still the non-free code from mame. Because MAME is now 
free, those programs can be liberated.

Ndiswrapper is a different case, because it implements a proprietary 
interface of the Windows Kernel. I do not use Ndiswrapper because all 
hardware that I use works out of the box with Trisquel GNU/Linux, but 
sometimes I use Wine, but only when I need to reverse engineer a 
proprietary format.

On 04/03/2016 04:20 PM, alírio eyng wrote:
> i think i got the root of the controversy:
> some people started to think of emulators as hardware (replacements)
>   hardware is useful to develop to
> some people started to think of emulators as obsolete apis
>   obsolete apis are not useful to develop to
>
> i still see emulators (like ndiswrapper) as obsolete apis; without
> free applications that can't run natively they are useless and should
> be removed so the user doesn't run nonfree software by mistake
> unless they emulate current hardware (like qemu), in this case they
> are useful in themselves (don't need a free application that can't run
> natively), just being hardware replacements helping development
> wine is a exception to introduce free software in nonfree platforms
>
> the compromise is define _current hardware_
> "MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers"[1]
> _vintage_ seems undoubtly out _current hardware_
>
> i also noticed i was conflating technical details i shouldn't
> my approach was to make an opt-out whitelist of free uses (mostly
> games) for packages with a nonfree community (mostly emulators like
> mame or wine) implemented with the package manager/filesystem
>
> [1]http://mamedev.org/

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