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

[Mark H Weaver]

Hi,

I haven't yet looked closely at MAME, but for now I wanted to address
the question of WINE.

Jean Louis <address@hidden> 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