Licensing issue: Emms has been offered support to read the metadata for SNES SPC files. OK with Emacs?

Licensing issue: Emms has been offered support to read the metadata for SNES SPC files. OK with Emacs?

[Yoni Rabkin]

Hello all,

A kind developer is offering a patch to Emms which would enable Emms to
read the metadata of a SNES SPC file.

Each SNES SPC file is a 64KB memory dump of the Super Nintendo
Entertainment System S-SMP chip's SRAM.

These files have been reverse engineered and a format has been published
on the web: http://www.snesmusic.org/files/spc_file_format.txt

However, Emms has a policy of supporting and promoting free audio
formats: https://www.gnu.org/software/emms/manual/#Formats-and-Freedom

I personally have no appetite for it, but as the maintainer of Emms I
also want to serve the community.

Since Emms is installable from within Emacs via ELPA, I decided to ask
here.

Last, but not least, I am also a volunteer for the FSF GPL Compliance
Lab (have been for the past 17 years or so.) But I'm not wearing that
hat at the moment, and instead asking the Emacs developers their opinion
and preference.

-- 
   "Cut your own wood and it will warm you twice"

Re: Licensing issue: Emms has been offered support to read the metadata for SNES SPC files. OK with Emacs?

[Po Lu]

Yoni Rabkin <yoni@rabkins.net> writes:

> Hello all,
>
> A kind developer is offering a patch to Emms which would enable Emms to
> read the metadata of a SNES SPC file.
>
> Each SNES SPC file is a 64KB memory dump of the Super Nintendo
> Entertainment System S-SMP chip's SRAM.
>
> These files have been reverse engineered and a format has been published
> on the web: http://www.snesmusic.org/files/spc_file_format.txt
>
> However, Emms has a policy of supporting and promoting free audio
> formats: https://www.gnu.org/software/emms/manual/#Formats-and-Freedom
>
> I personally have no appetite for it, but as the maintainer of Emms I
> also want to serve the community.
>
> Since Emms is installable from within Emacs via ELPA, I decided to ask
> here.
>
> Last, but not least, I am also a volunteer for the FSF GPL Compliance
> Lab (have been for the past 17 years or so.) But I'm not wearing that
> hat at the moment, and instead asking the Emacs developers their opinion
> and preference.

It is OK for free software to play proprietary formats, as long as
patents do not affect the ability to redistribute and use that software.

We should strive to release our own media only in free formats, however.

Re: Licensing issue: Emms has been offered support to read the metadata for SNES SPC files. OK with Emacs?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > Each SNES SPC file is a 64KB memory dump of the Super Nintendo
  > Entertainment System S-SMP chip's SRAM.

  > These files have been reverse engineered and a format has been published
  > on the web: http://www.snesmusic.org/files/spc_file_format.txt

It is ugly, but it appears to be useful.  If the format is documented
and there is free code that fits our requirements for using it,
I think it is good to do so.

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)

Re: Licensing issue: Emms has been offered support to read the metadata for SNES SPC files. OK with Emacs?

[Richard Stallman]

[[[ To any NSA and FBI agents reading my email: please consider    ]]]
[[[ whether defending the US Constitution against all enemies,     ]]]
[[[ foreign or domestic, requires you to follow Snowden's example. ]]]

  > It is OK for free software to play proprietary formats, as long as
  > patents do not affect the ability to redistribute and use that software.

This question is more complex than it might seem.  Many things in
software are covered by patents, but many of those patents are not in
fact enforced, or not enforced against free software.  Many of them
have lapsed.

Indeed, to find out whether patents exist on any given method is a lot of
work, and lawyers aay you're better off not knowing.

So what we do in practice is, if we don't see threats being made against
free software, we treat it as "safe enough".

-- 
Dr Richard Stallman (https://stallman.org)
Chief GNUisance of the GNU Project (https://gnu.org)
Founder, Free Software Foundation (https://fsf.org)
Internet Hall-of-Famer (https://internethalloffame.org)