Re: MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software

[Ricardo Wurmus <rekado@elephly.net>]

alírio eyng <alirioeyng@gmail.com> writes:

> Isaac David:
>> However in the last few days I have
>>seen many arguments showing there are yet more valid uses I hadn't
>>imagined, like learning from the source code and testing portability
>>without leaving your comfy libre OS.
> source code is out of question for a distro, unless you want to
> compile and execute it (or just have a package that copy the source
> code); but developing without a game is like developing without a test
> suite...

I don’t understand this.  I regularly look at the sources of programmes
I find interesting.  Guix makes this very easy with

    guix build -S name

You don’t have to compile and execute it to find source code useful.

I also disagree with the second part of the last sentence.  You don’t
have to hack on the emulator, but you can hack on an existing free game
or write your own.

> expecting the user to evaluate if some game is free is making it
> unnecessarily difficult to remain in freedom
> making game packages/executables and not emulator packages/executables
> would allow all know good uses and still signal the user to be
> cautious with other games

This limits the use of the emulator.  You seem to think that an emulator
is only useful as a runtime dependency for a game, but I and others in
this thread disagree.

~~ Ricardo