From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Eric Bavier Subject: Re: MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software Date: Tue, 29 Mar 2016 12:37:40 -0500 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=US-ASCII; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Return-path: Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:40543) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1akxaj-00072S-Oh for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:38:13 -0400 Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1akxad-0005ld-Ck for guix-devel@gnu.org; Tue, 29 Mar 2016 13:38:09 -0400 In-Reply-To: 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: "Thompson, David" Cc: guix-devel , guix-devel-bounces+ericbavier=openmailbox.org@gnu.org On 2016-03-29 12:32, Thompson, David wrote: > 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 Seconded. -- `~Eric