On Wed, 03 May 2023 21:09:40 -0400 Richard wrote: > This suggests that it would be helpful to list scummvm as "not useful > for free distros" because its only uses are to support games that are > more or less proprietary. > > This is not quite the same question as whether including scummvm > in a distro "tends to suggest" the use of those games.
right, its not an explicit suggestion - however, the availability of any software in the distro repos, is essentially a suggestion to use that software - the fact that the distro distributes the software, suggests that it must be useful for _something_, or else the distro would not expend the effort to maintain it even if that is not an explicit suggestion, still someone is bound to ask the distro maintainers: "why does the distro make this program available? for what task is it useful?" - the only answer to give is: "it's only known use is for playing non-free games; but this distro has none of those available" - in other words: in order for the program to be useful in any way, users must acquire non-free games, only they can not get them from the distro - explicit or not, it is a strong implicit suggestion to seek out the non-free game data of course, the option exists to write a new game for the engine; but i do not consider that to be a use-case, worthy of distro support - that option is trivial - the option to "write your own software" always exists, with or without an existing engine, framework, toolkit, etc as a related side note: the "List of software that does not respect the Free System Distribution Guidelines" is currently highly contentious - it is effectively a FSDG criteria; but it is very out-dated and inaccurate now - it has not been maintained since about 10 years ago - i for one, believe that it should be actively maintained; but as things stand today, no changes will be made
