On Sun, Jul 26, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Lucian Langa<cooly(a)gnome.eu.org> wrote:
> Can you please tell me why? I cant see the difference between
> fuse-emulator and FBZX.
There is no difference between the two but the current rules forbids it:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes
> Emulators
> Most emulators (applications which emulate another platform) are not
> permitted for inclusion in Fedora. The rule of thumb to follow is: If
> it requires ROMs (or image files in any format) of copyrighted or
> patented material to be useful (and the owners of those copyrights and
> patents have not given their express written permission), then it's
> not permitted.
Which is a total crap.
In the past it was possible to include FOSS emulator and remove roms as
it was done for fuse. Now I do not know exactly where it stands as
guidelines are intentionally made vague about this.
Amstrad, the copyright owner of Spectrum ROMs has give express written
permission to use the ROMs:
http://groups.google.com/group/comp.sys.amstrad.8bit/msg/c092cc4d4943131e
Therefore Spectrum emulators are OK in Fedora.
If you do a search by closed review requests for term
"emulator" you'll
see that most of emulators were rejected.
Simcoupe, a SAM Coupé emulator got included because of the same reason:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=444225
And it's ROMs even in Fedora because the copyright holder of the SAM
Coupé ROM (Andrew Wright) and he has given permission to freely
redistribute it:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=444224
As I understand, Amstrad do not want 3rd party to ship Spectrum ROMs
for profit, which is something is possible using Fedora, therefore the
ROMs aren't allowed in Fedora in this case.
You can take this with FESCO or block it for legal but you'll
just waste
time and perhaps get fuse removed from fedora too.
I've submitted for review other emulator which didn't require any roms
at that time and it is still not accepted at this time.
It's really clear that no emulator is welcomed in fedora, fuse case (and
perhaps one or two more) was just a lucky one so I'm trying not to stir
any waters because with the current rules I doubt fuse is valid for
fedora.
As I said, IMHO fuse is safe too.
Bye,
Andrea.