Main > Everything Else
Look at me, I, I mean WE are a real company!
paigeoliver:
I repeat, put it on there anyway, what are they going to do about it? The Mame license isn't a law, and I doubt Nicola Salmoria is going to move to America and sue you.
Mame is open source, but it is neither owned by a person or company, so who can possibly defend the "license". Without possession it is impossible to prosecute things like license violations. So Nicola still might not have a leg to stand on even if he did move to the US and tried to sue you.
Gunstar Hero:
I think that since there would be no business anyways without the MAME devs work that their wishes should be honored and MAME should not be pre-installed.
I would say there is NOTHING wrong with a little tutorial included on how to DL and set up your own version of MAME tho.
But paige is right, legally MAME is pretty defenseless...
Like drew said, you want to make it on your own work or the work of others?
1UP:
From the Mame boards, it sounds pretty much like Hanaho is doing just that. The devs never really gave Hanaho permission, they just refrained from taking any action.
My concern was never with being sued, I doubt anyone would spend tens of thousands to sue over software that doesn't bring any income. The only thing holding me back from doing it is the image of legitimacy. I wouldn't sell cabinets based off someone else's plans for the same reason--it's just a crappy thing to do.
But I do wonder how you can sell cabs for thousands of dollars, then tell the customer they have to download and install software before they can even use it.
I guess it's about like selling consoles though, and with those you have to actually buy the games to make the hardware useful (unless you know where to get game images...)
I do kind of find it hypocritical that the people who have a problem with Mame being sold illegally (even with LEGAL ROMS), are the same people who are stealing ROMS left and right. Lets face it, the primary reason there is so much animosity toward anyone who wants to "abuse" Mame is because everyone is afraid of losing their "right" to play free games when a copyright holder finally shuts them down. :P
Not that I would like to see that happen. I like having my free games too... ;)
paigeoliver:
You know you can have your cake and eat it too.
Install mame and your frontend and configure it like a little monster.
But include no roms.
Put your legally purchased roms on a self booting DOS cd that runs a bat file that copies them onto the computer, and that is the setup CD.
Sounds stupid doesn't it.
You can always tell a rule is stupid when it requires you to do things that make no sense and are extra work in order to stay within that rule, and the end result is the EXACT same result you would have if you would have followed logic and ignored the rule.
I don't follow stupid rules.
1UP:
--- Quote from: paigeoliver on November 18, 2004, 01:19:04 am ---You can always tell a rule is stupid when it requires you to do things that make no sense and are extra work in order to stay within that rule, and the end result is the EXACT same result you would have if you would have followed logic and ignored the rule.
I don't follow stupid rules.
--- End quote ---
You're absolutely right, it makes no sense. But the problem is not that they have a problem distributing Mame with properly licensed roms. Their problem is with including Mame as part of a commercial product. I interpreted that part of the license as meaning "a commercial software package", but apparently it applies to pre-installing it on the hard drive of any computer you intend to sell.
Here's the stupid part: StarRoms will let you pre-install copyrighted roms in the customer's name, and Atari apparently has no problem with this, or they would not continue to license out their roms to Star. But Mame, a free software that carries no patents and probably no actual copyright registration, can not be distributed in any way that even gives the impression that it is being sold. You can't even provide it separately on a CD, unless you are willing to provide the same CD free of charge to anyone who asks for it, whether they buy your products or not.
I just don't see why it can't be considered a free service for the convenience of the customer, to have Mame sitting on the drive when they get it. But that's how Mamedevs want it, so I don't want to soil my name by rocking the boat.