trap15's major point is that MAME's license should provide some legal restrictions (even if they aren't enforced, and even if it's just the trademark in practice) on using MAME in a way that's detrimental to game makers. I agree with this completely.
Linux is a different project with different aims (as
GNU.org states, selling free software is no problem). One of the key distinctions between something like Linux and something like MAME is that Linux is much more free - there are few, if any, components that the average user needs to run a PC which aren't actually free software. MAME, on the other hand, has always had to do a bit of a dance around the issue of the original game software not being free. Linus Torvalds is definitely OK with the idea that more people are using Linux. Running and administering Linux machines and features is a big business for lots of companies, including some very big and famous ones. The people who own the copyrights to old arcade games, for the most part, still want to bleed the stone and sell compilations.
Edit: The blog post has been updated with this -
After a night of (very little) sleep, my problem based on current events boils down to this:
Aaron wants to enforce some bizarre concept where only the ‘main’ contributor(s) to a file gets a say in how it is licensed. I cannot see this being remotely legal.
Just because I have worked on a driver and done most of the work in making it work does not mean I should have the sole say on it. I would also consider people like Steph (who fixed many dips), Brian (adding new sets), Tafoid (cleanups), or people who have submitted hacks / bugfixes with only a 50% chance of being right (Mash, Mamesick). In addition anybody who has helped refactor + device conversions stuff (Osso, eta), modernizations / deprecat removal (Kale), documentation (Guru), save states (Mooglyguy), hooked up the eeprom / sound chips when I’ve struggled (various), provided decryption functions or simplified the ones I had (Nicola / Andreas), adding output lamps (HowardC), fixing regressions caused by core changes etc. (Phil B, hap), fixing up parts of the video emulation (Paul Priest) should count. If you rewind far enough the people who have converted the drivers to use the tilemap system (Curt Coder etc.). The list of contributors for any one file who should have a say is endless and that is only covering some of the major points and the more recent developers doing these things, there are hundreds more even smaller contributions. People have spent their time doing these things and contributed that in the form of code changes under our existing license, they matter.
Furthermore Aaron has outright stated that if somebody only worked on research, not the code, they don’t count. So Charles, despite providing everything I needed to know for the recent Deco protections apparently has no say on those files. Legally this one does make sense, but I still consider it highly immoral. Likewise I would still consider Bryan to be an author on those files, even if basically all his code has been rewritten, it is only his legacy of work that got us to where we were. It would be rude to write him out of history, you don’t suddenly forget somebody who has made major contributions to a file in the past when it is convenient to your cause.
But in the eyes of Aaron I would be the sole contributor on those, I would be the one who can suddenly decide to make the file available under a plain BSD license. This is the logic being applied to the rest of the source, and I simply can’t agree with it.
EVERYBODY who has contributed counts. This is a TEAM project and everything in it has been worked on by a TEAM of both internal and external contributors for as long as it has been around. Maybe I’m the guy who did most of the driver in many, many cases, but the drivers would be nowhere near as good as they are without the work of ALL those other people. Likewise many other drivers wouldn’t be anywhere as good if I hadn’t spent time making small tweaks and improvements to them!
I don’t like the selfish attitude being demonstrated still. I honestly thought despite often working alone Aaron actually valued all the other contributions. I appear to have been wrong. He’s willing to throw both morality (and in my honest opinion, legality) out of the window in order to claim files are available under plain BSD. Even if the stated cause is good the way it is being done is heavy-handed, and goes far too far.
The issue above is what needs resolving over the next few days if there is to be any progress on this front. While I’ve said I agree that allowing Museums, Educational establishments etc. to use our code is a good cause I simply do not see how this attempted relicensing is going to be legal, there is simply no way to track every contributor. My view remains that the only clean way to do this would be in a completely new project, taking nothing of the MAME cores and drivers. If there is the interest in doing that, it will be done. Our very own legal page states “Sorry, there is no free lunch here.”
That's just shit.
