Re: [GNU-linux-libre] MAME emulator is giving incentive to use non-free software

[alírio eyng]

i think i got the root of the controversy:
some people started to think of emulators as hardware (replacements)
 hardware is useful to develop to
some people started to think of emulators as obsolete apis
 obsolete apis are not useful to develop to

i still see emulators (like ndiswrapper) as obsolete apis; without
free applications that can't run natively they are useless and should
be removed so the user doesn't run nonfree software by mistake
unless they emulate current hardware (like qemu), in this case they
are useful in themselves (don't need a free application that can't run
natively), just being hardware replacements helping development
wine is a exception to introduce free software in nonfree platforms

the compromise is define _current hardware_
"MAME now documents a wide variety of (mostly vintage) computers"[1]
_vintage_ seems undoubtly out _current hardware_

i also noticed i was conflating technical details i shouldn't
my approach was to make an opt-out whitelist of free uses (mostly
games) for packages with a nonfree community (mostly emulators like
mame or wine) implemented with the package manager/filesystem

[1]http://mamedev.org/