[Dev] [GNU-linux-libre] MAME

[Florian Pelz]

Banning free emulators would make Parabola's criteria more strict than
the FSDG. Then again, non-free non-functional data like game art is also
blacklisted at least sometimes.

On 04/02/2016 05:05 AM, Denis 'GNUtoo' Carikli wrote:
>> * Where all the programs for the platform are non-free, emulators can
>> > be viewed as a kind of development kit for the platform architecture, 
>> > allowing new free software to be created for that machine.
> That might not be a strong enough incentive to package such emulators,
> especially if there is no documentation to explain the user how to use
> it. gcc is for instance documented well enough for developers to be
> able to actually use it. Following the (emulator) documentation would
> guide the developer toward a working test program, like a hello world.
> 

Porting free software to non-free operating systems is considered nice
and not generally discouraged on [1], so I think this is a strong enough
incentive.

I suppose an emulator can help with porting even if porting is not yet
easy and well-documented.

[1] https://www.gnu.org/prep/standards/html_node/System-Portability.html