Re: Visualboy Advance question.

[Nathanael Nerode <neroden@twcny.rr.com>]

J.B. Nicholson-Owens wrote:

> Matthew Palmer wrote:
>> Let me ask you this: if there was an image viewer, which only viewed one
>> format of images, and there were no images out there in that format,
>> would you
>> want to see that in Debian?  What if there were images in that format,
>> but in order to get them you'd have to break copyright law?
> 
> I think software usefulness is remarkably subjective and not something on
> which one should base inclusion in main.  Perhaps usefulness is a better
> argument for what to include on installation media (versus what to leave
> in an online repository to pick up later).
> 
>> That second case is pretty much where we stand with a *lot* of game
>> console emulators out there -- the only way to get data to use with them
>> is to break
>> the law.  Wonderful.
> 
> I'd be surprised if this is entirely true all the time everywhere.  It
> might
> be mostly true, but there could be demos (for example) that are DFSG-free.
Unlikely; most demos are distributed without source code, but the source
code does exist.  :-P

>  In some countries it might be legal to make dumps of ROMs for one's own
> personal
> use.  In either case, one might want an emulator to run the ROMs one
> obtained
> legally.
Right.  Those would be legal, non-free ROMs, and so the emulator goes in
'contrib'. If there were absolutely *no* legal ROMs at *all*, the emulator
would probably constitute contributory copyright infringment and be
undistributable.  :-P

> This might not be the most popular use for emulators, but I 
> don't have any way to measure the most popular use of emulators and that
> doesn't
> seem to be the criterion for inclusion in main.  Perhaps Debian main's
> criteria are being interpreted from the perspective of American law?
> 
>> The litmus test here is "a significant amount of functionality", not
>> "will refuse to work at all without it", although that's a fairly good
>> description of a console without a ROM.
> 
> Would one ROM cut it, then?
Yes, in a word!  Or, indeed, a compiler designed to create such ROMs.

> I am working to determine if one ROM is 
> available
> under a DFSG-free license right now.  I don't have much to report yet
> except thanks to those who have supplied information to help me track down
> the
> copyright holder.  I should know more soon and I plan to report what I've
> learned on debian-legal.

-- 
There are none so blind as those who will not see.