Jean Louis <g...@rcdrun.com> writes: > [...] > > Including MAME or any other emulator, even though non-free as such, if > such emulator is practically of no use to free software users without > non-free additions or parts, firmware, blobs, or ROMs, is giving > incentive to free software users to use non-free. > > [...]
For the record, we have a couple Nintendo emulators in games.scm. In particular I packaged Nestopia and Mupen64Plus a while back, and was planning to add higan once I have a solution to its license issue... These would have to go as well I suppose, if MAME will have to go. They're clearly for playing non-free games, at least as far as I'm concerned. I don't have a strong opinion on the outcome of this. Gaming is one thing where I personally tolerate non-free software out of a lack of meaningful alternatives. (The artistic value of a well-made video game cannot be duplicated, in contrast to its technical features as software, which can be re-implemented.) Having such emulators in the main package repository is convenient for people like me, but I can't demand for this to be supported by the project. By the way, I'm no parenting expert, but I know that if I tried to prohibit my child siblings from using their smartphones, tablets, MS Windows laptops, and PlayStation, for playing non-free games and using non-free software based services like YouTube, it would seem like a stupid limitation to them "because everyone else does it" and they would just go to their friends to do these things anyway. It would just not work. Taylan
