Re: Visualboy Advance question.
Lewis Jardine wrote:
<snip>
> Emulators work perfectly correctly without software to emulate. NO$GMB
> does the same thing with no image loaded that my gameboy does with no
> cartridge in the slot.
It has 'no significant functionality'.
> Pacifist (I assume) does the same thing with no
> BIOS that a real Atari ST does if you pull out its BIOS chips*.
> Many emulators are for systems that are well-documented (indeed, a Free
> emulator is a good source of documentation in and of itself), and can be
> used as a basis for developing one's own software, regardless of whether
> Free software for the platform has yet been written, or packaged in
> Debian.
Well, if the emulator is suitable for that purpose, then certainly I would
say that it doesn't depend on non-free software for that fucntionality, and
therefore can go in main. (Of course, it should go in the 'dev' section if
that's its primary function.)
> In addition, emulator components can be used in writing ones own
> emulator, perhaps to prototype some embedded system.
That's not an 'end-user' use.
> Back in the day, for many 8 and 16-bit era consoles and computers, the
> preferred form for modification was the ROM image itself, or rather
> rudimentary assembler (indeed, many spectrum games were written on
> paper, and assembled by hand). Debian already provides a development
> environment comparable to this.
Well, if you have an emulator for such a system, then great, it belongs in
'main'.
> The policy requires packages to list as a dependency other packages
> which are necessary for it to operate correctly, not other packages that
> are necessary for it to behave in manner entertaining to an end user. In
> my opinion, an emulator bundled with a development environment depends
> on nothing else to work correctly; for most systems emulated to date,
> Debian provides an environment that can be used to develop software.
>
> The requirement to find/write and package an arbitrary Free program for
Not package. Just find/write.
> the platform strikes me as a ridiculous hurdle - either any program will
> do, in which case a program so trivial that the end-user could knock one
> up after reading the manual for a few minutes (a few bytes of assembler
> to flash the screen, for instance) is sufficient,
Um, I think "hello world" would be a bare minimum standard of usefulness.
In the cases of some emulators, the most trivial programs such as that
could *not* be knocked up after reading the manual for a few minutes.
If it *can* be, then go ahead and put the emulator in 'main'. The trivial
program would be a nice thing to put in the emulator package while you're
at it. :-)
> or the program must be
> judged against some arbitrary criteria of usefulness, which is a
> requirement no other type of program in Debian is held to.
I think every program in Debian is held to the standard of being "useful".
--
There are none so blind as those who will not see.
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