The people who do care are those of us whose games are being pirated (in the case of the arcade manufacturers) or whose work is being used against the license (in the case of MAME). The fact that these things are sold at a profit and used to make money just pisses me off.
As I said to them Aaron, the use of them in a commercial application
IS Illegal... PERIOD....
As you pointed out to them... the use of them in a personal application, is really a moral question. At the end of the day, it's the same moral question as: "Do you use ROM's in Mame that you don't own the original hardware for." The answer is that it's a personal moral choice.
The fact that these boards infringe the rights of the Mame developers, is not a good thing and I don't think that the majority of people here would in any way support such commercial infringement. It's just blatant commercial piracy... For me personally, that falls into a completely different category to non commercial copying of ROM's.
In fact I no longer own the board that I did, partly because of this.
There is one thing however, that I will take issue with you on:
You say
"please don't pollute this forum -- which was built on the back of the software whose license so many here seem to be eager to ignore -- with discussing it."Discussing something is
NOT ignoring the Mame Licence..... Nor I hate to point out to you, was this forum built on the back of Mame!!... Mame may be the most popular emulator in use by members here, but it is not and never has been the only one. Nor do you have any right to dictate what may and may not be discussed here. The ONLY arbiter of rules for this forum is its owner and I'm sure that if Saint wishes to set a rule that these boards may not be discussed, he will undoubtedly do so.
There is already a rule that prohibits links to sales of these boards, and any discussion on where to obtain them is also prohibited here. You cannot however whether you like it or not, dictate that the existence of them and the legality of them cannot be debated here, unless of course Saint decides otherwise.
Best Regards,
Julian (Fozzy The Bear)