|
The end? :(
#315864 - 10/15/13 11:58 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315865 - 10/16/13 01:02 AM
|
|
|
So then there gonna privatise MAME
|
Arcade Addict
|
|
| Dullaron |
|
Diablo III - Dunard #1884
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 07/22/05
|
|
Posts: 6125
|
|
Loc: Fort Worth, Tx
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Haze just freaking out over changes that all.
[Re: joey35car]
#315867 - 10/16/13 01:21 AM
|
|
|
End of him? I don't think so because the work that he put into. Same for all the rest of the DEV.
Even if he does quit. Someone else will step in. He should leave his stuff alone in the source and stop whining over it. I'm happy for him work on his part. He one of those DEV that I will remember.
|
W11 Home 64-bit + Nobara OS / AMD Radeon RX 5700 XT / AMD Ryzen 7 3700X 8-Core 3.59 GHz / RAM 64 GB
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315868 - 10/16/13 01:33 AM
|
|
|
This isn't good. Haze made a good point from a legal point of view. But then what's the future. Will it be from a selling point. IM a little confused.
|
I’m convinced Mario is a hobo.
He wakes up everyday in the same clothes, runs around in sewers, and collects coins for a living.
At the end of the day, he uses the coins to buy mushrooms
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: jumpmaniac81]
#315871 - 10/16/13 02:04 AM
|
|
|
I'm gonna have to read through this properly when I have time but from what I have read so far, it doesn't bode well.
It certainly will inhibit future support given the current supporter base but again, I've not read up on it properly yet.
I have the utmost faith in what Haze says though as though he may not comply with what most devs see as proper conduct, but he has always had the best interests of the project at heart.
|
http://www.youtube.com/retrorepair
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315874 - 10/16/13 02:32 AM
|
|
|
Ah so this is what happens when an Microsoft employee (Aaron) and a hardcore macf*g (R.Belmont) get together, they turn Mame into a commercial and proprietary friendly project.
I should have figured this was going to happen... 
Edited by Spelunker (10/16/13 02:32 AM)
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315875 - 10/16/13 02:37 AM
|
|
|
> Ah so this is what happens when an Microsoft employee (Aaron) and a hardcore macf*g
> (R.Belmont) get together, they turn Mame into a commercial and proprietary friendly
> project.
>
> I should have figured this was going to happen...
You're a cocksmoker. Switching to an OSI-approved license would make sharing code with other emulators more workable. Right now if you mix code from MAME and a GPL project you end up with a derivative you can't legally distribute.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: gamez fan]
#315877 - 10/16/13 02:47 AM
|
|
|
> So then there gonna privatise MAME
Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an OSI-friendly license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most of the code to be open source.
LN
|
"When life gives you zombies... *CHA-CHIK!* ...you make zombie-ade!"
|
|
| MASH |
|
MASH
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/26/03
|
|
Posts: 1775
|
|
Loc: Germany
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
OSI-MAME... Ich glaub mir wird gleich schlecht!
[Re: Lord Nightmare]
#315878 - 10/16/13 02:57 AM
|
|
|
> > So then there gonna privatise MAME
>
> Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an OSI-friendly
> license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most of
> the code to be open source.
>
> LN
http://opensource.org/faq#commercial
"Can Open Source software (OSI) be used for commercial purposes?
Absolutely. All Open Source software can be used for commercial purpose; the Open Source Definition guarantees this. You can even sell Open Source software.
However, note that commercial is not the same as proprietary. If you receive software under an Open Source license, you can always use that software for commercial purposes, but that doesn't always mean you can place further restrictions on people who receive the software from you. In particular, so-called copyleft-style Open Source licenses require that when you distribute the software, you do so under the same license you received it under."
|
|
|
|
Re: OSI-MAME... Ich glaub mir wird gleich schlecht!
[Re: MASH]
#315879 - 10/16/13 03:00 AM
|
|
|
> > > So then there gonna privatise MAME
> >
> > Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an OSI-friendly
> > license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most of
> > the code to be open source.
> >
> > LN
>
> http://opensource.org/faq#commercial
>
> "Can Open Source software (OSI) be used for commercial purposes?
> Absolutely. All Open Source software can be used for commercial purpose; the Open
> Source Definition guarantees this. You can even sell Open Source software.
>
> However, note that commercial is not the same as proprietary. If you receive software
> under an Open Source license, you can always use that software for commercial
> purposes, but that doesn't always mean you can place further restrictions on people
> who receive the software from you. In particular, so-called copyleft-style Open
> Source licenses require that when you distribute the software, you do so under the
> same license you received it under."
Remember, if MAME goes under the GPL that means anyone who sells it has to distribute the exact source used to build it, meaning anyone else can compile it and sell it for less than the first person, legally. This is a large disincentive for people to use GPL products in commercial software. Hence while lacking a non-commercial-use clause, it has some similarities.
LN
|
"When life gives you zombies... *CHA-CHIK!* ...you make zombie-ade!"
|
|
| casm |
|
Cinematronics > *
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/27/07
|
|
Posts: 668
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315880 - 10/16/13 03:01 AM
|
|
|
> Ah so this is what happens when an Microsoft employee (Aaron) and a hardcore macf*g
> (R.Belmont) get together, they turn Mame into a commercial and proprietary friendly
> project.
>
> I should have figured this was going to happen...
Man, I remember when I first started using Linux, too! I was about as much of a dipshit about it as you are now. With any luck, you'll realise what a complete tool you are and grow out of it.
In the meantime, please do not breed.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: casm]
#315881 - 10/16/13 03:03 AM
|
|
|
> > Ah so this is what happens when an Microsoft employee (Aaron) and a hardcore macf*g
> > (R.Belmont) get together, they turn Mame into a commercial and proprietary friendly
> > project.
> >
> > I should have figured this was going to happen...
>
> Man, I remember when I first started using Linux, too! I was about as much of a
> dipshit about it as you are now. With any luck, you'll realise what a complete tool
> you are and grow out of it.
>
> In the meantime, please do not breed.
Funny thing is, ArBee is definitely a Linux guy, and he's the one pushing it.
|
|
|
|
Will someone please explain?
[Re: Spelunker]
#315882 - 10/16/13 03:03 AM
|
|
|
I've been around for quite sometime. I have watched conversations on the boards also. Will someone please explain to me why anyone would think that any one of the MAME developers would use it for nefarious purposes? Really? I'm actually appalled.
Aaron, RB....etc. They are some genuinely nice people. Most of them have the patience of saints dealing with all this drama....insulting/dumb posts *cough*.
How can anybody rip into them not even hearing all the facts?
Come on everyone, it's just a f*cking emulator. Let's wait to hear everything.
|
|
|
| casm |
|
Cinematronics > *
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/27/07
|
|
Posts: 668
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
|
> > So then there gonna privatise MAME
>
> Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an OSI-friendly
> license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most of
> the code to be open source.
(Emphasis on 'most' above mine.)
Could you please elaborate on what would not be considered open-source within the MAME tree? It's not clear to me what 'most' would and would not cover in this context - or, perhaps to ask the question more accurately: what would now not be considered open-source that was previously?
|
|
|
| casm |
|
Cinematronics > *
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/27/07
|
|
Posts: 668
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Antny]
#315884 - 10/16/13 03:12 AM
|
|
|
> I've been around for quite sometime. I have watched conversations on the boards also.
> Will someone please explain to me why anyone would think that any one of the MAME
> developers would use it for nefarious purposes? Really? I'm actually appalled.
That's one of the unanswered questions at the moment. We've only heard Haze's side of things at this point; perhaps a statement from RB or Aaron is in order.
> Aaron, RB....etc. They are some genuinely nice people. Most of them have the patience
> of saints dealing with all this drama....insulting/dumb posts *cough*.
Well... To be fair, this is something that potentially impacts everyone who interacts with MAME in any way, shape, or form. In a sense, it's good that Haze brought this out into the open - though I may not necessarily agree with his approach in doing so.
> How can anybody rip into them not even hearing all the facts?
I think that saying that people are being 'ripped into' is a bit of a stretch. People are wanting answers, but I have yet to see any lynch mobs forming around the main devs and project leader. Haze is definitely less than happy with RB and Aaron, but pretty much everyone else seems to be in wait-and-see mode.
> Come on everyone, it's just a f*cking emulator. Let's wait to hear everything.
Agreed. So far we're only getting one side of things - and while I personally do not doubt that what Haze is saying is at least rooted in reality, taking a position until all the facts are known does not get anyone anywhere.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :( (edited)
[Re: casm]
#315885 - 10/16/13 03:17 AM
|
|
|
> > > So then there gonna privatise MAME
> >
> > Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an OSI-friendly
> > license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most of
> > the code to be open source.
>
> (Emphasis on 'most' above mine.)
>
> Could you please elaborate on what would not be considered open-source within the
> MAME tree? It's not clear to me what 'most' would and would not cover in this context
> - or, perhaps to ask the question more accurately: what would now not be considered
> open-source that was previously?
I meant open source there to be 'OSI-approved open source with no non-commercial clause', NOT 'closed source'! Having some closed-source DRM module in the core is NOT on the agenda!
I meant it as to say that the core of MAME would be completely open source (much of it already is 3-clause-BSD licensed by Aaron since a year or three ago), and the drivers may retain the current 'no commercial use, contributions must be made available' MAME license and be dual-licensed with GPL or LGPL. This would make it much easier to use MAME's code in other open source project and in contexts like museums where it would be violating the no-commercial-use clause. Some drivers would certainly retain 'no commercial use', though.
The whole objective of this entire agenda was to reduce the amount of solely no-commercial-use MAME licensed files in the source code, in favor of files being dual-licensed.
There was some talk of completely relicensing the entire project as another license but this was shot down, because that's nearly impossible as it would require EVERY SINGLE MAME CONTRIBUTOR EVER to sign off on it, which is highly unlikely.
Haze is blowing this whole thing completely out of proportion.
LN
Edited by Lord Nightmare (10/16/13 03:20 AM)
|
"When life gives you zombies... *CHA-CHIK!* ...you make zombie-ade!"
|
|
| casm |
|
Cinematronics > *
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/27/07
|
|
Posts: 668
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
|
> I meant open source there to be 'OSI-approved open source with no non-commercial
> clause', NOT 'closed source'! Having some closed-source DRM module in the core is NOT
> on the agenda!
Ah, OK. Understood. That clarifies things greatly; thank you. To be honest, I wasn't considering a scenario like the one mentioned above as being something likely to happen - really, just some clarification of intent was needed.
> I meant it as to say that the core of MAME would be completely open source (much of
> it already is 3-clause-BSD licensed by Aaron since a year or three ago), and the
> drivers may retain the current 'no commercial use, contributions must be made
> available' MAME license and be dual-licensed with GPL or LGPL. This would make it
> much easier to use MAME's code in other open source project and in contexts like
> museums where it would be violating the no-commercial-use clause. Some drivers would
> certainly retain 'no commercial use', though.
Got it - I see the distinction. But if some drivers retain the 'no commercial use' license, then it seems like it's really no different to where things sit today.
I do have a concern that dual-licensing can lead to license conflict - basically, that something in the existing MAME license could be in contention with something in the (L)GPL. What considerations have been made in this regard?
Also, could you give an example of a driver or drivers that would remain under this license? I'm trying to understand scenarios where this would be necessary, and have a couple of ideas but examples would be helpful.
> The objective is to reduce the amount of solely no-commercial-use licensed files in
> the mame source code.
Fair enough, and I understand that for institutions like museums this would be beneficial. But in a wider sense, what other practical advantages would this confer?
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: casm]
#315888 - 10/16/13 03:55 AM
|
|
|
> I do have a concern that dual-licensing can lead to license conflict - basically,
> that something in the existing MAME license could be in contention with something in
> the (L)GPL. What considerations have been made in this regard?
The MAME license and the (L)GPL as is are by themselves incompatible, yet if a file is licensed under both licenses in parallel, then it can be used as an (L)GPL-licensed file OR as a MAME licensed file, and both licenses state contributions must come back, so its win-win.
>
> Also, could you give an example of a driver or drivers that would remain under this
> license? I'm trying to understand scenarios where this would be necessary, and have a
> couple of ideas but examples would be helpful.
Certain developers wish their contributions to remain under a non-commercial-use clause, for whatever reasons they themselves decide.
> Fair enough, and I understand that for institutions like museums this would be
> beneficial. But in a wider sense, what other practical advantages would this confer?
This would also allow emulators currently under the (L)GPL to use more accurate/complete components of MAME/MESS in place of what components they currently use. I.e. Gens Plus GX and similar.
LN
|
"When life gives you zombies... *CHA-CHIK!* ...you make zombie-ade!"
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315890 - 10/16/13 04:03 AM
|
|
|
sheesh
This too in time shall pass as always, I remember back when neogeo emulation was the end of the world along with
the "U" updates some other popular webmaster cried about. SMH
|
|
|
|
|
> > But in a wider sense, what other practical advantages would this confer?
> This would also allow emulators currently under the (L)GPL to use more
> accurate/complete components of MAME/MESS in place of what components they currently
> use. I.e. Gens Plus GX and similar.
LOL afaik most of contributions to components like YM2612, Z80, PSG(?) for last few years was FROM GenesisPlusGX TO MAME.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: MetalliC]
#315895 - 10/16/13 04:50 AM
|
|
|
> > > But in a wider sense, what other practical advantages would this confer?
> > This would also allow emulators currently under the (L)GPL to use more
> > accurate/complete components of MAME/MESS in place of what components they currently
> > use. I.e. Gens Plus GX and similar.
>
> LOL afaik most of contributions to components like YM2612, Z80, PSG(?) for last few
> years was FROM GenesisPlusGX TO MAME.
Yeah, but how much of that is caused by license issues stopping code from going the other way?
|
|
|
| DMala |
|
Sleep is overrated
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/09/05
|
|
Posts: 3989
|
|
Loc: Waltham, MA
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: OSI-MAME... Ich glaub mir wird gleich schlecht!
[Re: Lord Nightmare]
#315897 - 10/16/13 04:59 AM
|
|
|
> Remember, if MAME goes under the GPL that means anyone who sells it has to distribute
> the exact source used to build it, meaning anyone else can compile it and sell it for
> less than the first person, legally. This is a large disincentive for people to use
> GPL products in commercial software. Hence while lacking a non-commercial-use clause,
> it has some similarities.
It seems to me that the problematic scenario here is that it opens the door for people to bundle MAME with ROMs to sell on eBay, etc. Currently, MAMEDEV can issue takedowns directly based on the no-commercial-use clause. Without it, I would think the only recourse would be to notify the ROM copyright holders. It doesn't harm MAME directly, but it could reinforce the impression that MAME is aligned with piracy. Plus, I can understand developers being upset that their work is being used so bottom feeders can make money.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315898 - 10/16/13 05:00 AM
|
|
|
As an open source geek, as a long time MAME user and as someone who contributed around the edges (I cant remember details but I do recall doing something with the Namco System 2 protection back in the day and also some fiddling with Suzuka 8 Hours, I forget whether any of my code actually ended up in MAME though) I actually support the idea of a move to an OSI approved license (although I personally think LGPL3 would have been a better choice than LGPL2)
Nothing being done indicates that MAME itself will go commercial or cost money. What this means is that code from other emulators (many of which are already licensed under GPL/LGPL/BSD) can be mixed with code from MAME/MESS.
As far as commercial use goes, can anyone think of a situation where someone would be making commercial use of MAME under a new permissive license who isn't already saying "Screw you" to the devs and violating the license anyway? Someone building a bootleg arcade board or selling a DVD full of ROMs isn't going to care what the license says.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Matty_]
#315900 - 10/16/13 05:09 AM
|
|
|
> Switching to an OSI-approved license would make sharing code
> with other emulators more workable.
Bah, this is not about sharing code with other emulators, it hasn't been a problem during all these years so why should it suddenly be a problem now?
What magic code is it that Mame needs but can't have due to licencing problems? It's bullshit.
This is only to make it easy to use Mame commercially, as to why this is suddenly so important to Aaron and R.B is something we'll have to wait and see, sure as hell aren't buying the 'museum' nonsense.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: casm]
#315901 - 10/16/13 05:14 AM
|
|
|
> Man, I remember when I first started using Linux, too! I was about as much of a
> dipshit about it as you are now.
Oh yes, I see the light now. Commercial/proprietary use offers so much to an open source project which aims to document arcade hardware throughout history.
Except it doesn't, for a project like this what possible gain do you have from 200+ legally commercial 'best mame EVAR' releases flooding the web?
What actual project GAIN is there by going through this disruptive licence change?
dipshit back at you!
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: MetalliC]
#315902 - 10/16/13 05:16 AM
|
|
|
> > > But in a wider sense, what other practical advantages would this confer?
> > This would also allow emulators currently under the (L)GPL to use more
> > accurate/complete components of MAME/MESS in place of what components they
> currently
> > use. I.e. Gens Plus GX and similar.
>
> LOL afaik most of contributions to components like YM2612, Z80, PSG(?) for last few
> years was FROM GenesisPlusGX TO MAME.
Yes, but that's perhaps a bad example. There are other (L)GPL/OSI emulators which could benefit from a lot of stuff we've already done.
LN
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315903 - 10/16/13 05:18 AM
|
|
|
> > Switching to an OSI-approved license would make sharing code
> > with other emulators more workable.
>
> Bah, this is not about sharing code with other emulators, it hasn't been a problem
> during all these years so why should it suddenly be a problem now?
>
> What magic code is it that Mame needs but can't have due to licencing problems? It's
> bullshit.
>
> This is only to make it easy to use Mame commercially, as to why this is suddenly so
> important to Aaron and R.B is something we'll have to wait and see, sure as hell
> aren't buying the 'museum' nonsense.
Aaron's a straight-up guy. Your baseless accusations won't change that opinion of him. ArBee more than fair, and is one of the most valuable contributors. He's also largely responsible for the high-quality SDL port for Linux. Neither of them have caused anything like the drama that follows Haze everywhere he goes. Painting them like this just makes you look bad.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315904 - 10/16/13 05:20 AM
|
|
|
> What actual project GAIN is there by going through this disruptive licence change?
Hopefully Haze will actually quit the scene properly, and MAME will be a better place without his endless stream of divisive drama. That's a big gain in my book.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Matty_]
#315907 - 10/16/13 05:33 AM
|
|
|
> He's also
> largely responsible for the high-quality SDL port for Linux.
It's for *nix actually, OSX, Linux, BSD...
> Neither of them have
> caused anything like the drama that follows Haze everywhere he goes.
Well they seem to now, it's not only haze amongst the Mame developers who are upset.
I do hope you are right though, but this sounds like a very aggressive move where the choices seem to be LGPL or BSD your code or get the f*ck out while we rewrite your code.
I can't see any reason for such a disruptive move for the possibility of having Mame in for-profit museums.
And as for code traversing between other emulators, that can be solved on a author to author basis where the code author can dual licence his/her code as per request (or chose not to if they don't want to), I just can't see this as the basis for re-licencing the entire project.
|
|
|
| DMala |
|
Sleep is overrated
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/09/05
|
|
Posts: 3989
|
|
Loc: Waltham, MA
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: casm]
#315908 - 10/16/13 05:38 AM
|
|
|
> That's one of the unanswered questions at the moment. We've only heard Haze's side of
> things at this point; perhaps a statement from RB or Aaron is in order.
Call me Jon Snow, but I thought Aaron had stepped down from the lead position a couple of years ago, and RB had stepped away from active development more recently. How come poop is flying in their direction?
|
|
|
| Big Karnak |
|
Part-time Lurker
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/22/13
|
|
Posts: 1011
|
|
Loc: Mount St. Lurkling
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: DMala]
#315918 - 10/16/13 06:56 AM
|
|
|
Haze has temporarily taken down his original "The End" post. I missed it and wasn't able to read it. Does anyone have a copy of it or know how/where I can read it?
Quote:
As far as commercial use goes, can anyone think of a situation where someone would be making commercial use of MAME under a new permissive license who isn't already saying "Screw you" to the devs and violating the license anyway? Someone building a bootleg arcade board or selling a DVD full of ROMs isn't going to care what the license says.
There's some truth there.
Quote:
This is only to make it easy to use Mame commercially, as to why this is suddenly so important to Aaron and R.B is something we'll have to wait and see, sure as hell aren't buying the 'museum' nonsense.
The implied motives you are possibly suggesting here is understandably worrisome to some. But nobody should jump to any conclusions. I'm quite confident that those spearheading this change to the MAME license will come forward and delineate their position, articulating the advantages as well as the disadvantages that would result from this. With that being said, if they decide to keep quiet and not explain, than eyebrows would begin to rise.
|
|
|
| Foxhack |
|
Furry guy
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 01/30/04
|
|
Posts: 2409
|
|
Loc: Spicy Canada
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: DMala]
#315919 - 10/16/13 07:06 AM
|
|
|
> > That's one of the unanswered questions at the moment. We've only heard Haze's side
> of
> > things at this point; perhaps a statement from RB or Aaron is in order.
>
> Call me Jon Snow, but I thought Aaron had stepped down from the lead position a
> couple of years ago, and RB had stepped away from active development more recently.
> How come poop is flying in their direction?
From what I read in Haze's post, they're the ones that are trying to change the project license. Apparently. This is a mess.
|
|
|
|
Re: OSI-MAME... Ich glaub mir wird gleich schlecht!
[Re: DMala]
#315920 - 10/16/13 07:43 AM
|
|
|
> Currently, MAMEDEV can issue
> takedowns directly based on the no-commercial-use clause. Without it, I would think
> the only recourse would be to notify the ROM copyright holders.
the no-commercial-use has never took down any ROM seller.
the only actions which have been successful were about ebay auctions using the MAME trademark, which just means the sellers kept selling generic "emulators" and "roms" without mentioning the trademark
enforcing the no-commercial-use requires lawyers, time and money, none of which are available for an hobbyist project.
so in practice, current license does nothing about stopping people making money with our code (they just don't care about licenses, no matter which one you use) and makes life harder to people who want to make legit use of the program (e.g. a museum willing to use the emulator as part of a larger exposition). can you see the reasons behind the discussion? 
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315921 - 10/16/13 07:59 AM
|
|
|
> > Switching to an OSI-approved license would make sharing code
> > with other emulators more workable.
>
> Bah, this is not about sharing code with other emulators, it hasn't been a problem
> during all these years so why should it suddenly be a problem now?
how do you know that it has not been a problem during all these years?
|
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Antny]
#315922 - 10/16/13 08:10 AM
|
|
|
> Aaron, RB....etc. They are some genuinely nice people. Most of them have the patience
> of saints dealing with all this drama....insulting/dumb posts *cough*.
>
> How can anybody rip into them not even hearing all the facts?
>
> Come on everyone, it's just a f*cking emulator. Let's wait to hear everything.
The problem is that there was (and is) a discussion going on, and we have not taken a final decision, aside from the fact that the number of files in emu/ licensed as BSD is going to increase (all the ones written by Aaron are already licensed as that).
Once a decision had been made, the change would have been explained, and if necessary opinions would have been asked. But at the moment it's still unclear which change will happen and which parts of the source will be affected.
|
|
|
| casm |
|
Cinematronics > *
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 08/27/07
|
|
Posts: 668
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315926 - 10/16/13 09:36 AM
|
|
|
> > Man, I remember when I first started using Linux, too! I was about as much of a
> > dipshit about it as you are now.
>
> Oh yes, I see the light now. Commercial/proprietary use offers so much to an open
> source project which aims to document arcade hardware throughout history.
Good job on demonstrating exactly how you've missed the point, and proving yourself to be a complete tool into the bargain.
MAME started out on DOS, was ported to *nix and MacOS, eventually moved to Windows as the default platform, then on into OS X, BeOS, QNX, and a host of other platforms.
Some of those platforms are the ones that you deride for being proprietary - but the reality is that MAME started out on a proprietary platform, and has since been ported to a number of both open and proprietary ones. In case that point was lost on you, allow me to summarise: the project a) would not have started in the first place if not for one very specific proprietary platform, and b) would not have expanded as it has if not for it and its descendants. You would not have what you have now if it weren't for MS-DOS and the tools on that platform that made creating MAME possible, and the world would be the poorer for it.
Hell, the default build platform for MAME? It's Windows. Everything else is effectively a port, though one that - through the use of appropriate tools - allows it to be built on others. Either way, you're a hypocrite for railing against 'proprietary' platforms when the software that you enjoy on your 'free' and 'open' one is directly derived from one that does not fit your preferences in that regard.
Platform wars and zealotry surrounding (insert platform of personal preference here) are as dull and idiotic in this day and age - and particularly when discussing a highly platform-portable piece of software such as MAME - as they were in the days of Commodore v. Atari.
Furthermore, if purity of platform is that much of an issue for you, I would suggest that you stop using MAME immediately and delete all source and binaries you may have received or created from it. After all, it would be a crime if MAME's proprietary origins were to taint the racial purity of your 'free' and 'open' platform of choice. Of course, doing so would assume that you truly have the courage of your convictions, which you obviously don't because you're clearly using a piece of software whose origin and licence clashes with those of your platform of choice in a great many regards.
> Except it doesn't, for a project like this what possible gain do you have from 200+
> legally commercial 'best mame EVAR' releases flooding the web?
Bad news: it's already happened, many times over. People who do not choose to respect one licence will just as easily choose to not respect another. In that regard, it's a moot point. For proof, see the umpteen x-in-1 MAME-derived ROM sets supported in, uh, MAME.
> dipshit back at you!
I sincerely hope that you didn't strain yourself coming up with that riposte; it would be highly unfortunate if it was a stretch for you to come up with it.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315929 - 10/16/13 10:25 AM
|
|
|
In my view, there are two important things to remember:
1) If you are not selling something using the code, or using it within a for-profit context, then it is non-commercial use.
2) Regardless of whether museums, etc. can use the code, the fact that MAME exists *is* serving a preservation function in itself.
That said, I kind of wonder about the preclusion against commercial use - especially as commercially owned ROMs are required to make it work.
I don't see that this is - or needs to be - an issue of contributors though. If BSD was used for the main bulk of the code, individual contributors could still provide components under separate - but compatible - licences. Then people who can and want to make use of the BSD parts will just have to check individual licences and seek rights for some components as appropriate.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :( (edited)
[Re: Lord Nightmare]
#315931 - 10/16/13 11:28 AM
|
|
|
> Haze is blowing this whole thing completely out of proportion.
His outburst was based on the original push to trick/co-oerce/force people into accepting mass re-licensing to BSD. He isn't involved in the list discussion though, so he didn't know to retract it after we'd fended that off.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :( (edited)
[Re: ]
#315932 - 10/16/13 12:00 PM
|
|
|
> > Haze is blowing this whole thing completely out of proportion.
>
> His outburst was based on the original push to trick/co-oerce/force people into
> accepting mass re-licensing to BSD. He isn't involved in the list discussion though,
> so he didn't know to retract it after we'd fended that off.
And a bit of what he wrote seems real with Aaron Claiming "I deliberately skipped a lot of files I'm 95% sure I rewrote but which had other names in the header, pending further investigation."
so he's willing to "claim" other peoples work, how long before he claims everything and shut other devs out?
|
|
|
| RATMNL |
|
Patron Saint of the Totally F*cked
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 02/02/13
|
|
Posts: 425
|
|
Loc: 026, NL
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315933 - 10/16/13 12:50 PM
|
|
|
Ok, from an emotional point of view, relicensing for me feels like MAME is giving up the position of being "The Protectors of Good" and that has always been a large part of it's appeal to me. Accuracy and preservation were two words set in high regard and now It feels like dev's are saying: Fuck it, we give up, take our shit and rape it, We don't care anymore.
I personally don't see the whole "Museum" thing being a point of issue, because there only are a few, and I seriously can't see how it would benefit them: If You're a Museum, acquire the boards and the cabs, unless you want to open a MAME-Museum ie. set up 150 pc-based cabinets running V0.01 to V0.150 pac-man to see how that evolved emulation-wise.
Question is: Didn't MAME already die? Sure as hell feels like it. Of course there's some work done here and there, but to me it feels/seems (note those words! it's a feeling) that nearly every dev moved on to MESS to leave the boatload of work left to do in MAME to some 'insignificant f*ck', because it is way 'beneath' them. The condescending tone in that sentence being the main drive, because at times that how this forum feels towards new people or people that have less experience or brainpower than certain people (Ever spent the day looking at barrister.org shoutbox?). But I digress
Back to the subject at hand. Protectors of the Good! It's kind of an abstract concept, but what I basically mean is how MAME got handled. It's for preservation, It's for doing things 'the right way' (which, undoubtedly is open to discussion), and re-licensing (did some reading and as I understand it) feels to me like it opens SO MANY DOORS to doing things 'the wrong way"...
But I don't know Jack, this is how I feel!
EDIT: Reading back... Man I'm an emotional Wreck  No harm intended to anyone!
Edited by RATMNL (10/16/13 12:54 PM)
|
|
|
| RATMNL |
|
Patron Saint of the Totally F*cked
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 02/02/13
|
|
Posts: 425
|
|
Loc: 026, NL
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315934 - 10/16/13 12:51 PM
|
|
|
... Most heavily discussed news in ages ...
Just sayin'... Something's wrong.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :( (edited)
[Re: goofy123]
#315936 - 10/16/13 01:16 PM
|
|
|
> so he's willing to "claim" other peoples work, how long before he claims everything
> and shut other devs out?
Aaron seems to be claiming files that he originally wrote and licensed under 3 clause bsd at the time. On the assumption that the license was there when people modified it. I don't know the legal implications of that.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: casm]
#315937 - 10/16/13 01:47 PM
|
|
|
> would not have started in the first place if
> not for one very specific proprietary platform, and b) would not have expanded as it
> has if not for it and its descendants.
Jeez what bullshit, it could have started on an open platform, or even another proprietary platform, open source projects are started everywhere. You are trying to claim that Mame owes something to it being started on a proprietary OS (which was what shipped with and still is shipped with basically every desktop computer sold)? Seriously?
Again I don't care one bit what you use, if anyone is a tool it's you.
> weren't for MS-DOS and the tools on that platform that made creating MAME possible,
Lol, people didn't write code at all before MS-DOS... keep drinking the Kool-aid buddy.
> Either way, you're a hypocrite for railing against
> 'proprietary' platforms when the software that you enjoy on your 'free' and 'open'
> one is directly derived from one that does not fit your preferences in that regard.
Mame is 'directly derived from Windows' ? Seriously? Do you know what 'derived' even means in programming terms?
> After all, it would be a crime if MAME's proprietary
> origins were to taint the racial purity of your 'free' and 'open' platform of choice.
Mame has no 'proprietary origins', as far as I know it was open source from it's first version (0.1) and onwards. Which in turn was key to it's success back when practically all other emulators where proprietary, but this was an open project to which everyone could contribute and port to other systems.
> Of course, doing so would assume that you truly have the courage of your convictions,
> which you obviously don't because you're clearly using a piece of software whose
> origin and licence clashes with those of your platform of choice in a great many
> regards.
Nonsense, I have no problem with proprietary code (though unlike you I don't have a hard-on for it, try not to stain that Bill Gates shrine photo too much), I certainly prefer open source and see it as a superior development method.
But what I strongly believe in is the authors right to set his or her conditions for using their code (which includes proprietary), here however it looks like Aaron and R.B are railroading Mame developers into a re-licencing of their code, for 'official' reasons which seem very dubious to me to say the least, and even if they are truly legit, hardly warrants such a disruptive course of action.
> Bad news: it's already happened, many times over. People who do not choose to respect
> one licence will just as easily choose to not respect another. In that regard, it's a
> moot point. For proof, see the umpteen x-in-1 MAME-derived ROM sets supported in, uh,
> MAME.
But previously they were doing it illegally, and the Mame devs could not be directly blamed as they weren't allowing this. Now with this proposed change it's actually legal which makes a huge difference, and the game rom copyright owners will hardly look upon this change fondly either.
It's one thing when people are using their IP without consent, it's another thing when people are making money out of other people using their IP without consent.
It's like the fact that we have a ton of laws which are extremely rarely enforced, but it's important to have those as laws because there may come a time when people breaking those laws en masse or in a particular instance will cause havoc, and then you will need them to be enforcable.
As it was now, Mame devs could legally enforce a DMCA takedown of commercial Mame versions, on the WWW that would be hard to enforce certainly, but atleast they could take down stuff from the mobile app stores, which let's face it is where most commercial Mame versions will end up, and likely flooded with if it becomes legal.
> I sincerely hope that you didn't strain yourself coming up with that riposte; it
No more than it took you to come up with such an amazing insult.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :( (edited)
[Re: ]
#315938 - 10/16/13 01:53 PM
|
|
|
> Aaron seems to be claiming files that he originally wrote and licensed under 3 clause
> bsd at the time. On the assumption that the license was there when people modified
> it. I don't know the legal implications of that.
Well if he wrote the files and placed them under a BSD licence, to which other developers contributed (under the same licence) then they are available under BSD, which is commercially and proprietary compatible already.
So the debate is hardly about that, Aaron likely have had this in mind for quite some time and has licenced his code appropriately, the question here is about the code other developers have contributed under the Mame licence.
|
|
|
|
you don't know what you're talking about... *nt*
[Re: goofy123]
#315939 - 10/16/13 02:11 PM
|
|
|
> > > Haze is blowing this whole thing completely out of proportion.
> >
> > His outburst was based on the original push to trick/co-oerce/force people into
> > accepting mass re-licensing to BSD. He isn't involved in the list discussion
> though,
> > so he didn't know to retract it after we'd fended that off.
>
> And a bit of what he wrote seems real with Aaron Claiming "I deliberately skipped a
> lot of files I'm 95% sure I rewrote but which had other names in the header, pending
> further investigation."
>
> so he's willing to "claim" other peoples work, how long before he claims everything
> and shut other devs out?
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: RATMNL]
#315940 - 10/16/13 02:57 PM
|
|
|
It seems beyond ironic to me that a group of people could do all the work required in building and running a museum, hiring people, advertising, collecting all the pieces and even erm, actually reading the mame license and then after all that they are somehow too lazy to send a 5 minute email asking mamedev for a special use permission. That sudden jolt of laziness sounds really unlikely.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: casm]
#315945 - 10/16/13 03:47 PM
|
|
|
No offense but saying MAME started out on a proprietary platform is ridiculous. DOS programs could run on default Windows at the time which was the most popular OS for PC users. The whole backbone was DOS.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Smitdogg]
#315947 - 10/16/13 04:10 PM
|
|
|
Someone knows where i can download a keygen for MAME 0.151?
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Smitdogg]
#315948 - 10/16/13 04:25 PM
|
|
|
> It seems beyond ironic to me that a group of people could do all the work required in
> building and running a museum, hiring people, advertising, collecting all the pieces
> and even erm, actually reading the mame license and then after all that they are
> somehow too lazy to send a 5 minute email asking mamedev for a special use
> permission. That sudden jolt of laziness sounds really unlikely.
Agreed, the whole 'museum' thing sounds like nothing but a red herring.
As to why Mame in a museum would somehow be critical to arcade hardware preservation in open source documentation form is beyond me.
The critical part of this preservation is that the source code is open and availble for examination, which it already was under the current licence.
How allowing commercial and in the case of BSD licencing, proprietary forks is somehow supposed to gain the project anything is also beyond me.
So I find it weird to say the least that Aaron who turned over the Mame reins, and R.B who not so long ago declared a hiatus from Mame are now back pushing this commercial friendly re-licence agenda so hard.
I can't shake the feeling that something is rotten in Denmark as the stated reasons don't make sense against the major upheaval this relicencing seems to result in.
I do hope I'm wrong, and I would also want to excuse my poor 'tongue-in cheek' attempt at painting Aaron and R.B as caricatures of Microsoft and Apple, I have nothing but respect for all the work they've put into Mame and Mess, but I likewise have nothing but respect for all the other contributors who are now seemingly having a re-licencing more or less forced upon them due to Aaron, R.B and from what I understand Micko's re-licencing plans.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315951 - 10/16/13 04:57 PM
|
|
|
> How allowing commercial and in the case of BSD licencing, proprietary forks is
> somehow supposed to gain the project anything is also beyond me.
the point is neither "allowing commercial" nor "allowing proprietary forks" and I really can't understand how people can think devs are going to sell MAME or restrict its usage or anything else Haze might have stated
the point is:
- how many sellers have been stopped by the license restriction? zero (only some trademark infringements through ebay have been successful)
- how many lines from other emus had required complete rewriting because of incompatible licenses? many (for instance whenever new findings were documented by authors of GPL'd & LGPL'd emulators and needed to be rewritten for MAME use because direct inclusion was not possible)
then we can discuss about which license to choose (I prefer BSD over GPL but to each is own), how to verify if the contributors agree with the change, and so on
but suggesting that there are further motivations behind the proposal means that you've listened the wrong persons for too long
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Smitdogg]
#315952 - 10/16/13 05:18 PM
|
|
|
Would this impact the dumping union? or is that a seperate issue
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#315953 - 10/16/13 05:20 PM
|
|
|
DISCLAIMER: Purely my opinions. Micko is making all the binding decisions on this, not myself and not Aaron. As a Linux guy I know a large headache's worth about licenses, but I'm nowhere near in charge of these decisions.
1) Nobody on or near the team has the time, money, or lawyers to enforce the additional license clauses which make us non-OSI compliant. There was an actual formal call for this at one point, and everyone declined, including Haze. Furthermore, the additions were written by Aaron rather than a lawyer, and I think you don't need to be Admiral Ackbar to understand the trap possibilities there.
2) A large number of Bad Guys are making and selling commercial MAME ripoffs; they're in even big-name stores in Europe and Asia, there's the XXX-in-1 PCBs, there's the PS2 arcade discs Hamster made for Konami, there's Raiden Legacy, etc, etc. So it's not like the license is stopping anyone from doing unspeakable things.
3) The license has been a barrier to cooperation with other emulators. For those who haven't noticed, MAME has had it's clock thoroughly cleaned for fast and accurate emulation of modern and 3D systems by a parade of true open source emulators including SuperModel, PCSX2, Dolphin, DeSMuME, and nullDC. (Disclaimer: I'm involved with the SuperModel project, and I'm a fan of the rest of that list). Similarly, in many cases where other emulators have wanted to use MAME components, we've had to tell them "no", which doesn't exactly make them have warm feelings about the project.
On the MESS side, there's an even more formidable list of open source code which could be used to improve things if not for the license; our C64 audio emulation is terrible by any measure, and being able to drop in reSID like everyone else would be a large instant improvement.
Note also that nobody is selling any of those emulators in spite of their use of standard licenses which allow it; the GPL has proven legal teeth in both the US and EU, and it's hard to compete with free.
4) Given the first 3 points, in which the current license does nothing to bad guys while restricting only the good guys, the desire is for the license to a) represent actual legal reality and b) make things easier for the good guys.
There is no intent on anyone's part to start selling MAME or to commercialize it in any way. (We've seen the rise and abrupt failure of Ultracade, why would we want to go anywhere near that tire fire?) The nag screens will still tell you not to play ROMs you don't own, the readme will still say we don't like commercial uses, and we'll continue to tell ThinkGeek that we don't want them to sell MAME. If we end up in a license situation where we can offer official iOS and Android versions FOR FREE in the app stores, that would be amazing, but I'm not counting on it.
5) Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything, nor will they be forced in the future. We're currently identifying the contributors to each of the source files and having them tag acceptable licenses. Nobody knows the final outcome yet, and MAME will continue to be distributed under the current terms. I like smf's proposal where the core is BSD and the drivers are something more restrictive such as (L)GPL; it preserves the intent of the current licensing while eliminating the less-desirable features.
But ultimately nothing may happen, so keep playing MAME.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: OSI-MAME... Ich glaub mir wird gleich schlecht!
[Re: DMala]
#315954 - 10/16/13 05:22 PM
|
|
|
> It seems to me that the problematic scenario here is that it opens the door for
> people to bundle MAME with ROMs to sell on eBay, etc. Currently, MAMEDEV can issue
> takedowns directly based on the no-commercial-use clause.
Actually, 100% of takedowns to date have been based on the MAME trademark, not the license. We would of course retain that power regardless of what the license was.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: etabeta]
#315955 - 10/16/13 05:35 PM
|
|
|
> the point is:
> - how many sellers have been stopped by the license restriction? zero (only some
> trademark infringements through ebay have been successful)
Only because Mame haven't gone after them, it's still illegal and Mame (or some organization acting on the behalf of Mame developers) could go after them should they find the need. Meanwhile Mame itself is legally in the clear as it doesn't allow commercial use.
> - how many lines from other emus had required complete rewriting because of
> incompatible licenses? many (for instance whenever new findings were documented by
> authors of GPL'd & LGPL'd emulators and needed to be rewritten for MAME use because
> direct inclusion was not possible)
You tell me as you have the insight, how many? And more to the point, how is that really relevant nowadays when the necessary code has already been rewritten, if you have examples of GPL licenced code which Mame needs and can't use then state what that source code is, unless there's something concrete it sounds like nothing but hand waving, much like the 'museum' reason.
> then we can discuss about which license to choose (I prefer BSD over GPL but to each
> is own), how to verify if the contributors agree with the change, and so on
> but suggesting that there are further motivations behind the proposal means that
> you've listened the wrong persons for too long
Actually although I first read about this from Haze's blog (from the link here on MW's homepage) but my opinions are based upon how this disruptive licence change makes no sense to me for the supposed reasons that have been stated. It would have made some sense years ago when Mame was less mature and perhaps lacked support for certain types of hardware emulation which were available under incompatible licences, but nowadays?
Again can you point me to something which Mame needs today and can't use now due to licence incompability?
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315956 - 10/16/13 05:39 PM
|
|
|
> Ah so this is what happens when an Microsoft employee (Aaron) and a hardcore macf*g
> (R.Belmont) get together
You misspelled "Unix bigot". I do the overwhelming majority of my MAME/MESS work on my famous 4.7 GHz self-built Core i7 PC running Fedora Linux.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315958 - 10/16/13 05:52 PM
|
|
|
> Bah, this is not about sharing code with other emulators, it hasn't been a problem
> during all these years so why should it suddenly be a problem now?
It has been a problem for years (I advocated GPL when this most recent license was adopted to avoid exactly these issues). It's more important lately because MAME is largely a completed legacy project and most of the developers are now focusing on MESS where high-quality open source code is thick on the ground.
> What magic code is it that Mame needs but can't have due to licencing problems? It's
> bullshit.
One concrete example: back when our ST-V/Saturn support was useless I politely asked Yabause to allow us to use their code. They declined because they felt the GPL protected them better than the current MAME license, and so Kale and I ended up reinventing tens of thousands of lines of code, much of which is still buggy today. We could've put that effort towards supporting more games or other more useful things, but we weren't able to.
|
|
|
| RATMNL |
|
Patron Saint of the Totally F*cked
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 02/02/13
|
|
Posts: 425
|
|
Loc: 026, NL
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315959 - 10/16/13 05:52 PM
|
|
|
> Belmont's Story
Wow, First post that actually does a little bit of enlightening.
Thanks for sort of explaining 
Now... Who's up for some Pac-Man?
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315960 - 10/16/13 06:01 PM
|
|
|
> 2) A large number of Bad Guys are making and selling commercial MAME ripoffs; they're
> in even big-name stores in Europe and Asia, there's the XXX-in-1 PCBs, there's the
> PS2 arcade discs Hamster made for Konami, there's Raiden Legacy, etc, etc. So it's
> not like the license is stopping anyone from doing unspeakable things.
I see this as no reason whatsoever to embark on such a large re-licence undertaking. 'Let's re-licence so as to make it easier on those ripping us off', you could have skipped this point imo.
> 3) The license has been a barrier to cooperation with other emulators. For those who
> haven't noticed, MAME has had it's clock thoroughly cleaned for fast and accurate
> emulation of modern and 3D systems by a parade of true open source emulators
> including SuperModel, PCSX2, Dolphin, DeSMuME, and nullDC. (Disclaimer: I'm involved
> with the SuperModel project, and I'm a fan of the rest of that list). Similarly, in
> many cases where other emulators have wanted to use MAME components, we've had to
> tell them "no", which doesn't exactly make them have warm feelings about the project.
This I can buy into, except I think this can be solved on a individual author to author or possible author(s) basis rather than a complete re-licencing of the project.
> On the MESS side, there's an even more formidable list of open source code which
> could be used to improve things if not for the license; our C64 audio emulation is
> terrible by any measure, and being able to drop in reSID like everyone else would be
> a large instant improvement.
This is where I have to admit I'm starting to side with you, I didn't think there were code Mame/Mess needed in this day from external and licence incompatible projects. If there are indeed still key components that Mame/Mess can't use due to licence incompability then I can certainly see reason for this re-licence proposal.
> Note also that nobody is selling any of those emulators in spite of their use of
> standard licenses which allow it; the GPL has proven legal teeth in both the US and
> EU, and it's hard to compete with free.
The GPL doesn't prevent commercial distribution, but yes a free version would be hard to compete with unless it drowns in a sea of commercial offerings with 'tweaks' to lure users in.
> If we end up
> in a license situation where we can offer official iOS and Android versions FOR FREE
> in the app stores, that would be amazing, but I'm not counting on it.
What would prevent you from doing this given the proposed licence changes? From what I can see with these changes anyone could release both free and commercial versions of Mame if it was licenced under BSD and/or LGPL which seems to be the proposed re-licence choices.
I'd like to state that I sure wouldn't mind seeing officially supported fully open versions of Mame/Mess on places like Steam, Google Play, iOS (do they allow emulators at all?).
> 5) Nobody's forcing anyone to do anything, nor will they be forced in the future.
> We're currently identifying the contributors to each of the source files and having
> them tag acceptable licenses. Nobody knows the final outcome yet, and MAME will
> continue to be distributed under the current terms.
So it will continue to be distributed under the current Mame licence, but also be dual licenced as either BSD or LGPL if they are to be included in the project as per the re-licence plans?
I'm glad to hear that my fears were by the sound of it unfounded, thanks for the info R.B
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315961 - 10/16/13 06:03 PM
|
|
|
> You misspelled "Unix bigot". I do the overwhelming majority of my MAME/MESS work on
> my famous 4.7 GHz self-built Core i7 PC running Fedora Linux.
Yeah I apologized for that, it was crass.
I blame years of IRC (mis)use and coffeine addiction.
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8599
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
informative post
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315962 - 10/16/13 06:18 PM
|
|
|
|
|
|
Re: informative post
[Re: gregf]
#315963 - 10/16/13 06:20 PM
|
|
|
> And it shouldn't fade to obscurity on the forum.
>
> It should also be added as an entry to your page http://rbelmont.mameworld.info/
>
> and maybe added/edited to fit within the FAQ page as well so others that visit
> MAMEdev site in the future will know what has happened and why changes took place.
>
> http://www.mamedev.org/devwiki/index.php?title=Frequently_Asked_Questions
as it has been said elsewhere, nothing has been really decided at the moment.
so things will be clarified eventually, when actually choices have been taken...
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315964 - 10/16/13 06:28 PM
|
|
|
A quick appendix to clarify Haze's new post:
1) There was large scale mishandling of the initial stages that made it look like we were just going to jettison code that wouldn't be relicensed or force people into things they didn't like. Contrary to some external appearances, MAMEdev is not all that organized, and the "48 hour rule" always applies (wait 48 hours if you don't like an apparent decision, it'll change).
2) The ownership details are being handled according to relevant US and European law, and a majority of them have come from Balrog, not Aaron. The upshot is that if you change functionality and it's not a single-liner you generally get some ownership. Mechanical reformatting of a file (e.g. the modernization we've seen a lot of lately) doesn't grant ownership because the actual functionality didn't change and remains how the original author(s) did things.
3) Going down his specific examples: Stephh gets part-ownership for DIPs. Mash/Mamesick hacks that are more than a single line get part-ownership. Refactoring and modernization don't because the functionality of the code doesn't change. Adding save states gets part-ownership. EEPROM/sound hookups get part-ownership in the case where it's not a single-line AM_RANGE() thing. (And I've done a lot of those in both forms). Decryption functions get part-ownership. Tilemap conversions are a gray area; since you're changing the actual functionality of a great deal of code (even if the results are the same) I'm inclined to give part-ownership for that.
4) The authors of any research or manuals you use to write the code don't own your code; Motorola/Freescale doesn't own the 68000 core, and Charles MacDonald doesn't own anything he derived information for unless he actually wrote the code. That said, you're an asshole if you don't give Charles effusive thanks in the comments and a link to his website. Ditto Guru readmes, which generally are self-crediting.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315965 - 10/16/13 06:36 PM
|
|
|
> This is where I have to admit I'm starting to side with you, I didn't think there
> were code Mame/Mess needed in this day from external and licence incompatible
> projects. If there are indeed still key components that Mame/Mess can't use due to
> licence incompability then I can certainly see reason for this re-licence proposal.
A lot of this is in the PC area; Bochs, DOSBox, VirtualBox, and QEMU are all GPL and all have components we could use to get the later PC-based arcade games up and running in MAME. But of course it applies to many other systems too.
> The GPL doesn't prevent commercial distribution, but yes a free version would be hard
> to compete with unless it drowns in a sea of commercial offerings with 'tweaks' to
> lure users in.
Yeah, there'll always be clones and imitators (have you searched for "Angry Birds" lately in an app store? Yikes) but the original usually wins.
> What would prevent you from doing this given the proposed licence changes? From what
> I can see with these changes anyone could release both free and commercial versions
> of Mame if it was licenced under BSD and/or LGPL which seems to be the proposed
> re-licence choices.
That's correct. We wouldn't release any commercial version, of course, and so any commercial version would have to be a lot better and to stay ahead of our improvements. I like to think we're good enough that that wouldn't be a contest
> I'd like to state that I sure wouldn't mind seeing officially supported fully open
> versions of Mame/Mess on places like Steam, Google Play, iOS (do they allow emulators
> at all?).
iOS does if there's a fixed list of ROMs that you have the rights to. Apple briefly allowed ahh's version which only ran Gridlee until they found out it also enabled adding all the other ROMs. So that version would probably be more limited (and any commercial version someone else made would have the same limitations). Google Play is much easier (they openly encourage emulators). I'm not sure how things stand with Steam.
> So it will continue to be distributed under the current Mame licence, but also be
> dual licenced as either BSD or LGPL if they are to be included in the project as per
> the re-licence plans?
If the re-license happens that will take effect. If it doesn't, or until it does, the current license applies.
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8599
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
in response to academia and some museums with opinion of:
[Re: Smitdogg]
#315967 - 10/16/13 06:39 PM
|
|
|
“This whole thing started with a few academic papers and museums noting that they cannot use MAME/MESS even for a preservation standpoint (which is the whole POINT of the MAME/MESS projects) due to its overly restrictive no-commercial-use license.”
I bring up the funny line from the late Peter Seller's Sidny Wang character (Murder by Death, 1976):
-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3pr2cUC2Aw
"Is most stupid theory I ever heard!" Peter Sellers as Inspector Sidney Wang in Murder by Death (1976)
--
I can see why the license updates might be needed for other open source/source available emulators. The museum and academia views of: "...must avoid MAME." is odd imo.
>It seems beyond ironic to me that a group of people could do all the work required in
>building and running a museum, hiring people, advertising, collecting all the pieces
>and even erm, actually reading the mame license and then after all that they are
>somehow too lazy to send a 5 minute email asking mamedev for a special use permission.
>That sudden jolt of laziness sounds really unlikely.
I agree. Al K. could handle this for museum he is involved with and it seems other museums or universities should be able to work with MAME. Is it because lawsuit happy lawyers are nearby premises ready to jump out and say "Boo! You're being sued!"? 
|
|
|
| gregf |
|
Ramtek's Trivia promoter
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 8599
|
|
Loc: southern CA, US
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
separate issue
[Re: jumpmaniac81]
#315970 - 10/16/13 06:51 PM
|
|
|
>Would this impact the dumping union? Or is that a separate issue?
A different group, but same goal of preservation primarily for other pcb owners and resellers and repair technicians helping document various pcbs and program revisions of various games/redemption/gambling/pinball/wall games etc.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315972 - 10/16/13 07:28 PM
|
|
|
> A lot of this is in the PC area; Bochs, DOSBox, VirtualBox, and QEMU are all GPL and
> all have components we could use to get the later PC-based arcade games up and
> running in MAME. But of course it applies to many other systems too.
Ok, so with this information I am jumping onto ship 'R.B and Aaron' as this re-licence reasoning makes perfect sense to me, as it sounds there are indeed many parts of these projects being 'stranded' or atleast subpar due to licence incompabilities forcing re-implementation of existing emulation which likely no-one is very eager to do.
I just thought Mame/Mess was past that point given how insanely much hardware it emulates.
And of course I must growel in the dirt for my previous outbursts containing poor character assassinations and overall suspicion regarding motives. My apologies.
|
|
|
|
Re: in response to academia and some museums with opinion of:
[Re: gregf]
#315973 - 10/16/13 07:39 PM
|
|
|
> I can see why the license updates might be needed for other open source/source
> available emulators. The museum and academia views of: "...must avoid MAME." is odd
> imo.
say you are a museum director and that you want to use inside an exhibition a computer running via MESS emulation a software you wrote for some old computer whose bios is public domain (e.g. I think some later Spectrum version has been disclosed as such)
would the ticket you charge visitors be considered a commercial use? would you risk in any case to be sued, when you can choose a different emulator, released under GPL/BSD license, without the need to contact MESS developers to clarify if it's commercial use or not?
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#315974 - 10/16/13 07:45 PM
|
|
|
> > A lot of this is in the PC area; Bochs, DOSBox, VirtualBox, and QEMU are all GPL
> and
> > all have components we could use to get the later PC-based arcade games up and
> > running in MAME. But of course it applies to many other systems too.
>
> Ok, so with this information I am jumping onto ship 'R.B and Aaron' as this
> re-licence reasoning makes perfect sense to me, as it sounds there are indeed many
> parts of these projects being 'stranded' or atleast subpar due to licence
> incompabilities forcing re-implementation of existing emulation which likely no-one
> is very eager to do.
On the PC side things are improving already and I don't believe there is any code that would simply drop in to the way we do things. Switching license is unlikely to see any real progress, or someone would have done it and then said "hey look what we get if we switch to GPL".
So I'd take it with a very large pinch of salt.
|
|
|
| RATMNL |
|
Patron Saint of the Totally F*cked
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 02/02/13
|
|
Posts: 425
|
|
Loc: 026, NL
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315976 - 10/16/13 08:10 PM
|
|
|
> That's correct. We wouldn't release any commercial version, of course, and so any
> commercial version would have to be a lot better and to stay ahead of our
> improvements. I like to think we're good enough that that wouldn't be a contest
Herein lies one concern, For an average dumbskull-computer user (the majority) MAME is kind of a B*tch to set up at first. You'll need a frontend (what's a frontend? and there they go) or command line 'knowledge' (like they know where to find cmd.exe). You could easily be outclassed by sheer Ease-of-Use. 'Better' for a user is not better for the developer.
Might be the most sensible thing I said on the issue yet
If I do say so myself.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: RATMNL]
#315981 - 10/16/13 08:34 PM
|
|
|
> Herein lies one concern, For an average dumbskull-computer user (the majority) MAME
> is kind of a B*tch to set up at first. You'll need a frontend (what's a frontend? and
> there they go) or command line 'knowledge' (like they know where to find cmd.exe).
> You could easily be outclassed by sheer Ease-of-Use. 'Better' for a user is not
> better for the developer.
Yup, not denying any of that. Frontends can be offered with MAME now in an unzip-and-go package if they're free, and I assume they'd continue to do so in any such situation.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: ]
#315983 - 10/16/13 08:40 PM
|
|
|
> On the PC side things are improving already and I don't believe there is any code
> that would simply drop in to the way we do things. Switching license is unlikely to
> see any real progress, or someone would have done it and then said "hey look what we
> get if we switch to GPL".
A pretty impressive demonstration could be staged, but given it couldn't go in and it's quite clear that nobody's mind is changing why should anyone bother?
A lot of the PC improvements are due to "look at DOSBox, figure out behavior, write code that does something similar", which is highly wasteful compared to just adapting their code to our device model. isa_sblaster.c is almost entirely that way, and it's still not completely up to spec.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315988 - 10/16/13 10:24 PM
|
|
|
> A lot of the PC improvements are due to "look at DOSBox, figure out behavior, write
> code that does something similar", which is highly wasteful compared to just adapting
> their code to our device model. isa_sblaster.c is almost entirely that way, and it's
> still not completely up to spec.
Copy and pasting code from another emulator is usually pointless because they have far less use cases than we do. It might be ok for a quick kludge to show off, but it'll end up a blocking issue for someone later down the road.
So yeah, copy and pasting dosbox into MESS is pointless. Pulling in a USB or PCI implementation would be useful, but I'm guessing that dosbox doesn't bother with anything like that.
|
|
|
|
Re: in response to academia and some museums with opinion of:
[Re: etabeta]
#315994 - 10/17/13 12:43 AM
|
|
|
You send an email. This paper and apparently half of mamedev are considering museum owners to be too braindead to come up with the idea of sending one. And as someone who went to school with some braindeads I can tell you an academic paper isn't worth the paper it's printed on. I don't care if the license changes though so I'm not arguing against the switch.
|
|
|
|
Re: separate issue
[Re: gregf]
#315997 - 10/17/13 12:50 AM
|
|
|
I would say maybe 5% of the members max dump primarily for pcb owners and secondarily for mame and sometimes that pcb owner is mostly their future self. It's usually the other way around. In my case there's no way in hell I would spend all this time and money to maybe help out 1-3 pcb owners a year. Most of the time when something goes bad on a board it's not a rom.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: jumpmaniac81]
#315998 - 10/17/13 12:53 AM
|
|
|
It's a mailing list of people I put together and everybody thinks for themselves so if they have an issue with the license it's on an individual level. If some mamedevs were actually looking to close the source and sell it that would be another story.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#315999 - 10/17/13 01:00 AM
|
|
|
So museum owners are all set now. They just need to check every separate source file used to emulate the software they want to display which they will know like the back of their hand and then look up relevant licenses. No need for a 5 minute email anymore.
|
|
|
|
|
> > > > So then there gonna privatise MAME
> > >
> > > Nope. You missed the whole point. The idea was proposed to move to an
> OSI-friendly
> > > license, which gets rid of the no-commercial use clause, but still requires most
> of
> > > the code to be open source.
> >
> > (Emphasis on 'most' above mine.)
> >
> > Could you please elaborate on what would not be considered open-source within the
> > MAME tree? It's not clear to me what 'most' would and would not cover in this
> context
> > - or, perhaps to ask the question more accurately: what would now not be considered
> > open-source that was previously?
>
> I meant open source there to be 'OSI-approved open source with no non-commercial
> clause', NOT 'closed source'! Having some closed-source DRM module in the core is NOT
> on the agenda!
>
> I meant it as to say that the core of MAME would be completely open source (much of
> it already is 3-clause-BSD licensed by Aaron since a year or three ago), and the
> drivers may retain the current 'no commercial use, contributions must be made
> available' MAME license and be dual-licensed with GPL or LGPL. This would make it
> much easier to use MAME's code in other open source project and in contexts like
> museums where it would be violating the no-commercial-use clause. Some drivers would
> certainly retain 'no commercial use', though.
>
> The whole objective of this entire agenda was to reduce the amount of solely
> no-commercial-use MAME licensed files in the source code, in favor of files being
> dual-licensed.
>
> There was some talk of completely relicensing the entire project as another license
> but this was shot down, because that's nearly impossible as it would require EVERY
> SINGLE MAME CONTRIBUTOR EVER to sign off on it, which is highly unlikely.
>
> Haze is blowing this whole thing completely out of proportion.
>
> LN
Thanks for your info. 
Is so far enough for my ears.
|
|
|
| Foxhack |
|
Furry guy
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 01/30/04
|
|
Posts: 2409
|
|
Loc: Spicy Canada
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: Spelunker]
#316008 - 10/17/13 02:49 AM
|
|
|
> I'd like to state that I sure wouldn't mind seeing officially supported fully open
> versions of Mame/Mess on places like Steam, Google Play, iOS (do they allow emulators
> at all?).
Steam does. Several games there use DOSBox (Wolfenstein 3D, Commander Keen, some older Sierra adventure games, and so on), The Bard's Tale has the classic Apple II versions built in, and Sega has a crappy Genesis emulator (no, seriously. It's got awful video and audio support) to play games you buy in Steam. Which are also encrypted and can't be used on other emulators.
Steam would probably block it because they're jerks, though.
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#316013 - 10/17/13 05:03 AM
|
|
|
|
|
Stiletto |
|
They're always after me Lucky ROMS!
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 03/07/04
|
|
Posts: 6472
|
|
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Museums
[Re: Smitdogg]
#316018 - 10/17/13 06:22 AM
|
|
|
> So museum owners are all set now. They just need to check every separate source file
> used to emulate the software they want to display which they will know like the back
> of their hand and then look up relevant licenses. No need for a 5 minute email
> anymore.
Since people keep laughing about "museums", here's the actual whitepaper where it was briefly discussed.
You'll note that while MAME is mentioned, the place where the license is criticized is regarding MESS.
You'll also note that this whitepaper is from August 2010. This is surely not the first time an archive project decided not to go with MAME/MESS over its license - despite it being otherwise perfectly suited for this use.
p. 68:
Quote:
All four emulation platforms were able to successfully run the Star Raiders ROM image. However, based upon the team’s criteria for emulation software, all but Stella were eliminated from contention. Specifically, MESS’s licensing policy was too restrictive for use as an archival system, and both PC Atari Emulator and Z26 are in an indeterminate state of upkeep, despite the latter’s popular following in some segments of the emulator community
.
http://mith.umd.edu/wp-content/uploads/whitepaper_PVW.FinalReport.pdf
- Stiletto
|
|
|
|
Re: Museums
[Re: Stiletto]
#316019 - 10/17/13 06:33 AM
|
|
|
Well I stand by what I said because I still honestly can't believe they were suddenly so lazy that they could go to all that trouble and not think to send an email asking permissions. Absolutely stupid. Along the same lines instead of all this junk mamedev could have just put a sentence on their front page with something saying "if you represent a museum, accredited university [etc.] please contact us and we will be happy to grant you a special permission [whatever]".
I'm off to bed.
|
|
|
| Big Karnak |
|
Part-time Lurker
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/22/13
|
|
Posts: 1011
|
|
Loc: Mount St. Lurkling
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: etabeta]
#316021 - 10/17/13 07:07 AM
|
|
|
Quote:
Once a decision had been made, the change would have been explained, and if necessary opinions would have been asked.
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't opinions be asked and considered before the change gets implemented?
|
|
|
|
Re: Museums
[Re: Smitdogg]
#316022 - 10/17/13 07:18 AM
|
|
|
Firstly museums, academia, et al may have blanket bans on using things that don't fall under OSI- and/or FSF-approved licenses. These organisations, despite their association with the likes of the insufferable Richard M Stallman and Eric S Raymond (whose name is an anagram of "RMS or cyanide", "cord in my arse", "racism yonder" and "I carry demons"), actually have competent lawyers to carefully vet the licenses they approve for potential loopholes and pitfalls. OSI/FSF approval actually inspires some level of confidence in a license.
Secondly, it's questionable whether MAMEdev could actually legally grant such exemptions, considering the murky multiple copyrights on all the sources. Anything to clean up and streamline it can't be a bad thing.
|
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Big Karnak]
#316024 - 10/17/13 07:35 AM
|
|
|
> Once a decision had been made, the change would have been explained, and if necessary
> opinions would have been asked.
> Shouldn't it be the other way around? Shouldn't opinions be asked and considered
> before the change gets implemented?
asked to who?
what I was suggesting was that the team should try to get to an agreement about a "proposal for change" first, then the larger base of contributors should be involved: if you can't have agreement among 100 people, you'll never have agreement among thousands...
and I stress about the "proposal" part. no matter how much Haze likes to complain, the discussion has not really been about forcing a new license against other devs' will
|
|
|
| Big Karnak |
|
Part-time Lurker
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 05/22/13
|
|
Posts: 1011
|
|
Loc: Mount St. Lurkling
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: etabeta]
#316030 - 10/17/13 08:49 AM
|
|
|
I'd like to read Haze's original post titled, The End? – Old Update. But it's currently protected/hidden, with the following reason given:
Quote:
I have temporarily set the page in question to be protected until the storm passes, but will restore it at a later date to show my concerns. My concern here is for the MAME project.
That reasoning seems cowardly and represents a defeatist attitude. Once the "storm passes", it will be TOO LATE!!! Please unlock/show your original post and continue the good fight, King Arthur Haze. Do it for Camelot MAME!
|
|
|
| Sune |
|
Connected
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 5648
|
|
Loc: Lagoa Santa, Brasil
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Big Karnak]
#316031 - 10/17/13 09:55 AM
|
|
|
> I'd like to read Haze's original post titled, The End? – Old Update. But it's
> currently protected/hidden
It's for the greater good. Reading most of those comments would make you want to throw up.
> That reasoning seems cowardly and represents a defeatist attitude. Once the "storm
> passes", it will be TOO LATE!!! Please unlock/show your original post and continue
> the good fight, King Arthur Haze. Do it for Camelot MAME!
Yes like that, that's what I meant! Do you swallow too?
His opinion being trumpeted on a blog with a thriving comments section doesn't make it the holy grail. Did you notice how other devs tend to be more quiet in comparison? Maybe there are good reasons for that. Haze is probably just having second thoughts.
Read etabeta's posts in this topic for a more rational perspective.
S
|
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Sune]
#316032 - 10/17/13 10:02 AM
|
|
|
Indeed. Haze jumped the gun this time and the drama shitstorm resulting from it has spread way too far. I suspect there will be fallout from this for years based on the misconceptions people are walking away with from his first blog post on the matter.
|
|
|
| Sune |
|
Connected
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 5648
|
|
Loc: Lagoa Santa, Brasil
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Firehawke]
#316033 - 10/17/13 10:07 AM
|
|
|
> Indeed. Haze jumped the gun this time and the drama shitstorm resulting from it has
> spread way too far. I suspect there will be fallout from this for years based on the
> misconceptions people are walking away with from his first blog post on the matter.
He said it himself in the comments section:
"It’s just a can of worms that did NOT need opening."
S
|
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Sune]
#316036 - 10/17/13 11:40 AM
|
|
|
I have to say I'm pretty unconcerned about a license allowing commercial use of MAME/MESS. Keep in mind that most source-available projects allow commercial use. Linux can and is sold in a variety of projects. I've personally worked on scanners running a modified Linux kernel. And I can understand how switching to a standard license rather than the current customized license will make it easier to share code between projects.
I do, however, see how it could be a nightmare identifying contributors to every file and seeking permission to relicense them individually. Even if it could be done accurately, what sort of program would you actually end up with if you wanted to use only code under the new license?
I'm curious about the rules regarding projects with many contributors switching licenses. Wikipedia switched from the Free Documentation License to Creative Commons BY-SA. While they did take a vote, they certainly didn't require permission from every single contributor.
http://creativecommons.org/weblog/entry/13967
Didn't MAME itself modify its license a few years ago, even if it wasn't as big a change as this one? How was that accomplished?
FWIW, feel free to relicense any of my MAME/MESS contributions. That should take care of about .001% of the project.
|
|
|
|
Regarding the illegal seller drama....
[Re: joey35car]
#316040 - 10/17/13 12:47 PM
|
|
|
LOL.
Am I the only one here that believe everybody is missing the main point? I mean: illegal sellers don't care a shit about selling MAME. They sell because they give you ROMs with an emulator capable of running them, for people too lazy to google them by themselves. I've never seen in my life anyone selling "the MAME emulator, no ROM included". They all sell "thousands of games with MAME emulator". They can use MAME, they can use RAINE, they can use anything to make money. If MAMEdev could hire an army of lawyers to chase down any copyright infringement, I bet ROM sellers would simply start selling ROMS with [insert any emulator here], no matter what license this emulator has. The difference between having a commercial license for the emulator or not only means that ROM sellers will break only 29436 licenses (the number of games emulated in MAME .150) instead of 29437. Do you REALLY believe they will give a single fuck about the MAME license??
Instead, there are thousands of open source software, released under commercial-compliant license, that goes on being free since the first day. Nobody ever thought about things like "I'll use your code to make the payable version of your same free software" because it's nonsense. You should make significant changes and improvements to the code to make it worth, but there are already so many flavors of MAME around that I cannot imagine how they would possibly do this...
People buying a MAME bundle don't buy it because of MAME, they buy it because of the ROMs. A change in MAME license will never change this. And I don't see any chance of a "paid MAME". Because it is not in dev's plans, but even because as the OpenOffice/Libreoffice history teaches us, should the dev divide over the license terms, nobody can prevent the "dissidents" to take the (eg) 0.150 mame source and produce the TFAETWNBACU (Truly Free Arcade Emulator That Will Never Be Allowed Commercial Use) and improve and distribute it with their preferred license...
|
|
|
|
Similar to Linux kernel relicense discussion
[Re: joey35car]
#316041 - 10/17/13 01:13 PM
|
|
|
When GPL v3 was released, there was a discussion about relicensing (or dual licensing) the Linux kernel from GPL v2 to GPL v3 because the licenses are not compatible. This is very similar to what is proposed for MAME, so it might be worth digging around in the Linux kernel mailing list archives etc., and read the discussion. I think they ended up facing the problem that in order to change or add licenses, they need permission from every contributor (or their estates for deceased contributors).
|
|
|
|
Re: Museums
[Re: Matty_]
#316045 - 10/17/13 02:04 PM
|
|
|
It doesn't matter to me if they change the license but it looks like each source file is being licensed individually. So unless you are a mamedev you aren't going to know which all files are used in the emulation of a specific system. Even if you are smart enough to chase all the includes there are still going to be core files you miss. I think it has become more murky now. They've also granted permissions in the past to Gaelco and Capcom, I'm sure others I'm forgetting.
|
|
|
|
Re: Will someone please explain?
[Re: Big Karnak]
#316049 - 10/17/13 02:54 PM
|
|
|
> That reasoning seems cowardly and represents a defeatist attitude. Once the "storm
> passes", it will be TOO LATE!!! Please unlock/show your original post and continue
> the good fight, King Arthur Haze. Do it for Camelot MAME!
Is looking for the SoulEdge, it will give him the soul of eternity.
I hope he has more judgment in his head.
Or we have to write a check every month to have the mame. 
|
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: joey35car]
#316050 - 10/17/13 02:54 PM
|
|
|
If they really cared they would of tried to sue a long time ago, most gaming company founders probably love MAME, they probably have a copy on their personal computer hardrives.
But if making it totally legal helps him to sleep then yes by all means do it. lol
|
|
|
|
Why not put it to a vote?
[Re: Smitdogg]
#316052 - 10/17/13 04:26 PM
|
|
|
Just as an observer i'd like to comment/suggest, why not simply put this whole thing to a forum/online vote for the contributors, and leave the vote open for a whole month to allow people sufficient chance to catch it.
Everyone who has voted could be I guess listed in the new licence document, to state for the record, that these people voted and that the vote was open between these dates (maybe other thing to consider, is also list all the people who were emailed/forum contacted too).
Just a thought, and maybe something like this is logistically manageable
Edited by zambr (10/17/13 04:52 PM)
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: Similar to Linux kernel relicense discussion
[Re: absence]
#316054 - 10/17/13 04:57 PM
|
|
|
The ultimate block there was that Linus himself didn't like the GPLv3 (and with good reason; Linux's major wins in the last 10 years have primarily been in embedded (DVRs, Android, etc), which the v3's anti-TiVo language tries to stop).
|
|
|
|
Re: Why not put it to a vote?
[Re: zambr]
#316055 - 10/17/13 04:58 PM
|
|
|
As some outside-the-mamedev-mailing-list code contributors have pointed out in the thread, their contributions aren't really big enough to warrant much vote power, and they don't seem to care anyway what license choices are made. A forum vote is pretty laughable too considering most people here have absolutely no say so in anything to do with the source code.
What people are mostly concerned about is firstly universities and museums being able to use the software without crapping in their pants, and hopefully this will somehow get us there, everybody seems to want it, though like I said multiple licenses over files doesn't clear that up for non-programmers, it does the opposite. Another concern is other people profiting off of their work, and if the past is any indication of the future, mamedev is never going to sue anybody. The Raiden Fighters folks just flat out stole and sold mame and nobody did jack, and we're not talking about Shenzhen. So that part won't change afaik, maybe I'm wrong. In many cases I guess now they could do that legally. The last thing I see this impacting is other programs wanting to use mame bits, having the license info more clear on files will definitely benefit them.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: ]
#316056 - 10/17/13 05:03 PM
|
|
|
> So yeah, copy and pasting dosbox into MESS is pointless.
It's not for things like Sound Blaster or GUS where they have a 5 year head start on test cases and the hardware has known corner cases.
Furthermore, I've heard repeated grumbling from devs on the SB about being unable to do so.
> Pulling in a USB or PCI
> implementation would be useful, but I'm guessing that dosbox doesn't bother with
> anything like that.
QEMU (as part of the Linux KVM stack) and VirtualBox are used in production systems by businesses, so their PCI and USB subsystems (and implementations of PCI SCSI/IDE/Ethernet chips) are definitely of a quality level that we'd be interested in.
|
|
|
| R. Belmont |
|
Cuckoo for IGAvania
|
|
|
|
|
|
Reged: 09/21/03
|
|
Posts: 9716
|
|
Loc: ECV-197 The Orville
|
|
|
|
Send PM
|
|
|
Re: The end? :(
[Re: R. Belmont]
#316057 - 10/17/13 05:40 PM
|
|
|
Covering a few points related to Haze's newest posts:
1) If stuff gets mislicensed, it's quite obvious and easy to fix. Kale did not need to engage in Mortal Kombat to correct drivers/jaguar.c, just a text editor. If he's concerned about this, Haze needs to start license-tagging his files like everyone else is doing.
2) Since MAME will continue to be distributed under the MAME license, all files in the project are implicitly dual-licensed with the MAME license (we should probably note that in the documentation). Therefore, there is an easy path for a deco16-like combination: you put the combined file under the set of licenses that's common to all of the originals. A MAME+BSD file combined with a MAME+LGPL file would end up MAME-only, for instance, and that's completely legal. Now, of course, you'd want to not be a dick and talk to the original authors first, but legally you wouldn't have to.
At the same time, I expect any conflicts doing this to be rare; it looks like a majority of devs are fine with any license as long as it's not closed source so MAME+BSD will be a popular option.
Carry On And Emulate Games
|
|
|
Index 
Threaded 
The end? :(
Reply
[Re: 
No harm intended to anyone!
