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

[alírio eyng]

Luke:
>https://wiki.parabola.nu/Emulator_licensing_issues
>
>This may prove useful in the event of further research/discussion.
this was mentioned, and it's missing crucial information.

let's add ndiswrapper to it.
it would be classified as "free + free use", but it is still rejected;
because [0] classifies it as "free + useless free use" or "useless in freedom".

proposed definition of "usefulness" for emulators:
 free software _needs_ it as a runtime dependency; or
 development tool acting as hardware replacement.

ndiswrapper fails both, so it's useless in freedom.
qemu emulates current hardware, so it succeeds the second.
wine is needed for notepad++[1], so it succeeds the first.

wine fails the second, so we could provide it just as a dependency not
directly installable.

hatari (atari st) and ppsspp (psp) fail the second.
psp was discontinued in december 2014[2], so it is possible to argue
it is not obsolete; but we probably should not support it for
development anyway[3]

these information and others already there is not really about an
emulator, but about the architecture/board ("driver" in mame[4]); we
could have separate tables describing architectures/boards and
emulators.

mame is so flexible [4] it's really tricky.
a current main processor architecture can have all boards failing the
above criteria, directly.
how much main processor emulation needs board emulation?
if a board is needed and there are no other similar
emulators/disassemblers/debuggers for that architecture with boards
succeeding the criteria, the most recently discontinued board should
get an exception.


answering [5], mac-on-linux was removed from debian/trisquel by being
unmaintained [6].
[0] and [6] should be refactored or merged.

[0]https://libreplanet.org/wiki/List_of_software_that_does_not_respect_the_Free_System_Distribution_Guidelines
[1]needs checking
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Windows-only_free_software
[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_Portable
[3]boycottsony.org
[4]18:34
https://media.libreplanet.org/u/libreplanet/m/hardware-reverse-engineering-insights-from-the-mame/
[5]http://lists.nongnu.org/archive/html/gnu-linux-libre/2016-04/msg00122.html
[6]https://trisquel.info/en/wiki/software-does-not-respect-free-system-distribution-guidelines