Re: game console emulators: what kind of software is it?
[ I've elided the FDO games group from the recipient list as I can't see
this being of interest outside of Debian or Ubuntu ]
On Fri, Jan 02, 2009 at 12:33:50PM +0100, Evgeni Golov wrote:
> While polishing the desmume [2] package (a nintendo DS emulator), I
> noticed that it is filled under games, which I think is incorrect, as
> it is not a game (but mostly used for gaming though). I'd go for
> utils, but others on irc suggested otherosfs.
policy 2.4 says "The Debian archive maintainers provide the
authoritative list of sections." It does not go on to define the meaning
of the section-names, however. <http://packages.debian.org/stable/> says
"Games
Programs to spend a nice time with after all this setting up."
which does not resolve this either.
I've interpreted "games" as being for games and game-related packages
where a package would not be used outside of games context 99% of the
time. I put deutex (a utility to build doom game resources) in the games
category for this reason, and recommended that all doom related packages
followed suit in the doom packaging guidelines:
<http://pkg-games.alioth.debian.org/doom-packaging/ch-packages.html#s2.1>.
Having said that, bsp (doom level nodes builder) is in utils.
desmume, fceu, mednafen, pcsx, psemu, visualboyadvance and yabause are
in section games. gngb is in x11; hatari and openmsx in otherosfs,
yabause is in utils. I may have missed some (I just apt-cache searched
for "emulator"), but that puts 64% of existing games console or games
hardware emulator packages in the games category.
I think perhaps a list of sections *with long descriptions* should be
maintained within debian-policy. I will raise that in your thread on
-devel. I would suggest games be defined as
games - game and predominantly game-related packages
However, at the moment it is the ftp teams call.
--
Jon Dowland
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