From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: "Thompson, David" Subject: Re: MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:32:03 -0400 Message-ID: References: <20160328215516.GA27719@protected.rcdrun.com> <87shzavz0y.fsf@netris.org> <87h9fp2nvc.fsf@dustycloud.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:38359) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1akxUu-0003Px-Hh for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:32:14 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1akxUq-0004Jh-7l for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:32:08 -0400 Received: from mail-yw0-x230.google.com ([2607:f8b0:4002:c05::230]:34704) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1akxUq-0004J2-1y for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:32:04 -0400 Received: by mail-yw0-x230.google.com with SMTP id h129so27901231ywb.1 for ; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 10:32:03 -0700 (PDT) In-Reply-To: <87h9fp2nvc.fsf@dustycloud.org> List-Id: "Development of GNU Guix and the GNU System distribution." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sender: guix-devel-bounces+gcggd-guix-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org To: Christopher Allan Webber Cc: guix-devel On Tue, Mar 29, 2016 at 1:30 PM, Christopher Allan Webber wrote: > Mark H Weaver writes: > >> Hi, >> >> I haven't yet looked closely at MAME, but for now I wanted to address >> the question of WINE. >> >> Jean Louis writes: >>> Put yourself in the view point of free software user. What such user is >>> going to do with WINE? >> >> WINE has at least one useful purpose for a free software developer: to >> help them develop and test Windows ports of their software compiled with >> MingW. >> >> For example, it is important for GNU Guile to run on Windows because >> programs that already depend on Guile (e.g. GNU Lilypond), and programs >> that we hope will use Guile in the future (e.g. GNU Emacs) include ports >> for Windows. The Windows ports of both of the aforementioned programs >> are useful for introducing the free software movement to Windows users. >> >> I would also note that WINE is included in both Trisquel and Parabola. >> >> * * * * * >> >> MAME is a different case. FWIW, here's a Parabola ticket on the >> question of MAME: >> >> https://labs.parabola.nu/issues/961 >> >> I'd like to know if there are any free programs that can be run under >> MAME and cannot be run natively on GNU/Linux. Can anyone answer this >> question? >> >> Thanks, >> Mark > > I'm the one who gave the Wine example with a friend running old versions > of Blender. You could say "oh well that's unusual", but I think this is > a really bad direction. > > For one thing, free software based emulators are a great entry point > into people exploring the guts of how machines work. > > Many of these ROMs may be nonfree. But I really think it's a mistake to > prejudge and *prevent* interesting research work by refusing to include > something that is from its point all the way down free software. > Emulation tools are also a great motivation for research on exactly some > of the hardest problems free software is facing right now, such as free > hardware designs. By condemning this space we may reduce our chance for > serious advancements. Please don't do this! > > Sometimes having these systems available does eventually lead to > interesting software being released as free software. For example, the > SCUMMVM machine was originally used to play proprietary old point and > click adventure games. But *because* it was released, we saw one game > enthusiastically released as free software, Beneath A Steel Sky, and > this might never have happened otherwise. > > Similarly, the z-machine has some free software games. I am told that > this one is GPLv2+: http://ifdb.tads.org/viewgame?id=52x2zxt8ers4rxc0 > > Some more: http://ifdb.tads.org/search?searchfor=tag:GPL > > A friend of mine is a free software developer who is greatly interested > in building text adventure systems on the z-machine with free software > stacks from top to bottom. Would it make sense to demonize this work, > and prevent that from ever happening, because at present there are so > few options presently? > > I think this is a really bad path to go down. I hope we don't go down > it. Let's condemn proprietary software, but not make assumptions that > free software systems will only be used for proprietary purposes. We > might make that into a self-fulfilling prophecy, and prevent some future > interesting free work. I think that would be a shame. An emphatic +1 to this! Very well put. Thank you, Chris. - Dave