Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Games Entertainment

MAME To Become GPL? 281

Posted by timothy from the would-be-nice dept.
BigJimSlade writes "The 'What's New' file for the latest release of the Multi Arcade Machine Emulator (or MAME, as it is more affectionately known) states that the developers/maintainers are considering re-licensing the not-so-open source code under the GPL/LGPL. Currently the source is under a slightly restrictive licence that prevents modifications to certain areas of code from being redistributed. (L)GPL source for this project would be quite a boon for devlopers, who could reuse the CPU cores and other key components in other OSS projects."
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

MAME To Become GPL? More

MAME To Become GPL?

Comments Filter:

  • But what about the ROM licenses? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mooman ( 9434 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:31PM (#4663936) Homepage
    I don't think many people ever gave much thought to the licensing of MAME itself. I mean, it's nice that it's possibly joining the ranks of the open source movement, but the whole licensing and legality of the rom images I think is a far more restrictive dilemma...

    Now if the games themselves were being made GPL, now that would be some great news!

  • OT - How many Roms are legal? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by teamhasnoi ( 554944 ) <teamhasnoi AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:31PM (#4663942) Journal
    How many out there actually use Roms they have the licence to? I'm guessing the number of people who own a Tempest cabinet pales in comparison to the number of Rom files out there.

    Just a thought.

    • About as many legal ROMs as there are Colecovisions still in use.
      • I'm sorry, how does this follow? I have a colecovision and a handful of games, that doesn't entitle me to run anything other than THOSE versions of THOSE games in mame.

        Also, I think that at this point more people own arcade machines than people use their colecovisions. I mean, I don't use mine at all, the controller is a suck. Ditto for my intellivision, atari VCS, super pong, atari jaguar, or most of the other video game systems I own.

        • >I have a colecovision and a handful of games, that >doesn't entitle me to run anything other than THOSE >versions of THOSE games in mame.

          actually, no... it might give you license to run those game images in MESS's colecovision emulator... but unless you have the ARCADE PCB you only making yourself feel better about your piracy... Of course you're still better than me... I don't even have the colecovision carts of the games in my MAME cabinet... *Shrug*

          e.

    • Re:OT - How many Roms are legal? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      ...but how many people WOULD buy legal ROMs if the ROMs were made legally available?

      To me, ROMs are they same legal gray area as abandonware. People pirate because they have no realistic legal options. Present them with what they want for a reasonable price, and watch the piracy disappear!

      • Re:OT - How many Roms are legal? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by DdJ ( 10790 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:49PM (#4664109) Homepage Journal
        To me, ROMs are they same legal gray area as abandonware.
        Abandonware is not in a legal gray area. Pirating abandonware is just as illegal as pirating a $50000 software package. If you must, say it's in a moral grey area (in which case I simply won't agree with you), but don't kid yourself, there's absolutely no legal grey area.

    • Legal Copy of Star Trek (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Picass0 ( 147474 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @08:41PM (#4664917) Homepage Journal
      I own a sit down Star Trek - Strategic Operation Simulator. The game is in working order (but needs some work on the monitor). As an owner of the original ROMs, I consider MAME to be my Fair Use backup. I am legally using the ROMs for that game.
    • Frankly, I don't have a license to any of the ROMs I use. And I have 4.6Gb worth of MAME ROMs stored on CDs.

      I figure, with the thousands of dollars worth of quarters I dropped into the evil arcade machines, I deserve to at least be able to play arcade games in a small window with a Gravis Gamepad. It's not quite the arcade experience, but it sure is fun. :)

  • Stealing code is easy (Score:4, Interesting)

    by krog ( 25663 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:34PM (#4663968) Homepage
    It's nice that MAME is going open-source, but the code has been there to steal all along. There were parts to which modification was illegal, but plenty of developers went ahead and did just that, forking their own versions. Maybe now the version forks can be reintegrated into the MAME mother tree.

    (I don't remember the names of these forks but a Google search should pick a few up)

    • Re:Stealing code is easy (Score:4, Informative)

      by Pr3d4t0r ( 604257 ) <caseyNO@SPAMsomegeekintn.com> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:53PM (#4664139) Homepage
      Maybe there wouldn't have been as many forks if communication with the "official" MAME developers hadn't often feel on deaf ears. Granted this was a long time ago, But I don't remember enjoying much of a dialog with the MAME folks back when I was dinking around with BeMAME. I ended up staying inside the lines for the most part, but a few minor changes here and there (header file capitalization issues IIRC) would've helped a lot.

      Whatever. Glad to see it opening up. It's fun stuff.
    • AdvanceMAME is a good example. They modified video output to make it tweak a standard VGA card to output signals which are compatible with arcade monitors. It wasn't really cross-platform though.

      I think the thing that the MAME people objected to most was the emulation of more modern recent games.

  • This would be great news if....... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by SiliconJesus101 ( 622291 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:39PM (#4664018) Homepage
    The developers were able to add back the gambling type (fruit machines, blackjack, poker, etc.) games. I think the main reason for the source not being under the GPL was because of a) Nicola not liking the gambling games and b) The fear that the newer and still for sale Capcom, NeoGeo, and other roms may be added by someone causing pircay of new software. I do agree with not adding in current games that are still making money for their copyright holders. The crime of owning ROM images you do not own is still just as illegal regardless of their age unless the copyright has expired. I think the intentions of not emulating newer games was to help MAME "fly under the radar" of the IDSA. As for the non-emulation of gambling type arcade games...well...it's a shame that someone would STOP others from adding that to the source.
    • You think wrong. Other people add the recent games whether we want it or not, and we don't care when other versions add the gambling game, we'll just keep not supporting them because they're not considered video games.

      BTW, if you're curious, what makes the difference between video games and gambling games for us is whether skill can make a difference. In gambling games, all is decided by the return ratio the operator set in the configuration, and you can't change the results, whatever you do (modulo bugs in the software if there are any exploitable).

      OG.

      • BTW, if you're curious, what makes the difference between video games and gambling games for us is whether skill can make a difference. In gambling games, all is decided by the return ratio the operator set in the configuration

        Not for blackjack. Blackjack is a balance between skill and chance, just like Tetris (which MAME currently emulates [www.mame.dk]). A player who know what he doing [blackjackcourse.com] can beat the dealer pretty reliably in four-deck blackjack.

        Outside the realm of coin-op games, is "Casino Kid" a video game?

        • A fair video game version of blackjack would be beatable. What makes you think the video gambling games out there are anywhere near fair? Especially when the people programming them tell you to never, ever play them?

          OG.
        • Not for blackjack. Blackjack is a balance between skill and chance, just like Tetris (which MAME currently emulates). A player who know what he doing can beat the dealer pretty reliably in four-deck blackjack.

          The beat-ability of a title isn't entirely relevent, however. Gambling titles (defined as those games that payout money) aren't going to wind up in actual arcades. And since MAME only emulates arcade games, gambling titles will have to settle for their own MGME or some such emulator. Anyone is free to write one, but don't expect it in MAME.

          • Ah, but you have to understand how the illegal gambling with those bar-top arcade games worked. After someone had been playing, they could "cash out" their credits, and the owner would zero the machine.

            Only known regulars would be allowed to do this, and it was done quietly. Of course, the owners didn't like giving money to people, so the games cheated like hell.

  • Will we have to call it.. (Score:5, Funny)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:39PM (#4664022) Homepage Journal

    ..GNU/MAME ?

  • I never knew this was a problem to begind with... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Blimey85 ( 609949 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:49PM (#4664108)
    It was my understanding that the main licensing problem was with the ROM's and not the MAME software. How does one go about getting a license to a ROM? If you could find the an actual cartridge for the game you wanted to play (if it was on a cartridge to begin with), would that give you the right to play it on your computer? I guess it would. Owning it in cartridge form should allow you to play it however you damn well please as long as you aren't making copies and all that other stuff.

    But what if you can't find the cartridge or what if it was never on a cartridge? Some ROM's came from consoles right? So how would you license one of those? I think there needs to be a consolidated effort to petition the companies who own the rights to the games in question and beg/plead/threaten/nag/etc until they release their games under the GPL or some other license that would allow us to play them without having to keep an eye out for "the man".

    • You do have the right to play the rom from a cartridge you own on your computer. I was feeling kind of dirty because I spent a week(yes, a week... It was a single 735MB zip file containing two nero image files and a cracked gta3.exe) downloading GTA3 for PC off of FastTrack. Then it occurred to me that I SHOULD be able to play the PC version, as it is essentially (but not literally) the same intellectual property as the PS2 game, which I own (or have purchased the right to play). The only reason I spent the time downloading it is because of the growing gta3 mod community; something you can not take advantage of on the PS2. BTW, it works beautifully and the mods, for the most part, are super sweet.

      So, am I right? If I'm not right, than do the people who own those old cartridges really have the right to play the roms in mame?
      • Your situation is a little different. GTA 3 for the PC is a different product. It runs different code to play, even if the results is the same. Hence, what you are doing is techincally illegal.

        However, thus far, backups of ROMs appear to be legal. You are allowed to space shift media (ie make a backup copy, copt a CD to tape, etc) and that's all you are doing with a ROM of a cartrage you own. It is simply a copy that resides on your computer. Using an emulator is not relivant to the discussion since it's the data of the game that matters.

      • Then it occurred to me that I SHOULD be able to play the PC version, as it is essentially (but not literally) the same intellectual property as the PS2 game, which I own (or have purchased the right to play).

        I would buy this if you were talking about having a tape copy of a DVD you own, because the film only gets made once.

        However, the same game for different consoles means spending development time on all of the versions. They're the same game, but different products.

    • The whole ROM licensing issue is a game of pretend. The users pretend that they have a license for the ROMs they download. They do this using a click-through disclaimer during the download process. Meanwhile the copyright holders pretend that their ROMS have commercial value.

      The reality is that the vast majority of users are stealing ROM data. But this is countered by the fact that the ROMs can't be monetized by the license holders anyway. Which brings up an interesting question: how can you steal something that isn't worth anything?

  • Open source vs Free software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @06:52PM (#4664131)
    MAME was always open source. Saying it was "not-so-open" isn't true. All the source was free to download and look at. That's open source.

    MAME was free software, but only free as in beer. It wasn't free as in speech. The change to (L)GPL would make it free software [gnu.org].

    Sorry about the anonymous post. When I try to make a subtle point, I always get "-1 overrated" by people who don't read carefully. I don't know why I let the bother me, since I still gain unneeded karma.

    • Re:Open source vs Free software (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jbn-o ( 555068 ) <mail@digitalcitizen.info> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @07:30PM (#4664446) Homepage
      MAME was always open source. Saying it was "not-so-open" isn't true. All the source was free to download and look at. That's open source.

      No, MAME was never Open Source because MAME's license was never approved by OSI, and no, merely seeing the source code is not all there is to Open Source (as the Open Source definition points out in the first sentence). It's easy to arrive at that misunderstanding however, many people merely take the definitions of the words "open" and "source" and arrive at that conclusion.

      For a more thorough understanding of the differences between the Open Source and Free Software movements, I encourage you to read the definitions of both terms and this essay [gnu.org] because it does not address one movement or the other by name calling like the OSI's FAQ does.

      • Re:Open source vs Free software (Score:5, Interesting)

        by man_ls ( 248470 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @07:49PM (#4664578)
        I disagree with you there...

        Open source means, to me, that they let you look at it, download it, mess with it, etc.

        Open Source (capitals) means the political licenses put out by OSI/FSF as a way of influencing developers, to try and get their licenses rendered legally enforceable.

        I personally think that OSI is almost as bad as ICANN is, but there is a lot more need for OSI than there is for ICANN. Just, the implimentation if it should be different.
      • It's easy to arrive at that misunderstanding however, many people merely take the definitions of the words "open" and "source" and arrive at that conclusion.

        And realistically, the OSI can hardly be surprised. They started out by claiming that a different term should be used than "Free Software" because "Free" was ambiguous, ao instead they felt it should be called "Open Source", which is no less ambiguous at all if you're using the term to mean something other than just that the source is available. I've always wondered whether any of the people claiming this believed what they were saying. It's hard to see how they could have done. Not that I have a major problem with either term, just the reasoning given was... unconvincing.
    • Open source requires the user be given certain rights, not just access to the source.

      Keep your Stallmanesque ranting about "free software [microsoft.com]" versus "open source [opensource.org]" out of the rest of the Linux community, it is divisive.

    • MAME was not open source (Score:3, Informative)

      by Goonie ( 8651 )
      "Open Source" does not just mean "free to read the source". Most people use it to mean "distributed under an OSI-approved license". OSI approval is granted on whether the license meets their "open source definition" - which is actually all but identical to the Debian project's definition of "Free Software" and very similar to the GNU project's definition of free software.

      Though the philosophies behind "open source" and "free software" are divergent, a piece of software that is open source is almost always free software (the only difference is on the margins, where OSI accepts a couple of more onerous licenses than RMS is prepared to).

  • I'm not a gamer at all, so the product really means very little to me, however, I wonder if releasing MAME as a GPL product will help ensure the life of the product if one of the game manufacturers were to have the core group shut down because of some DMCA-type infringement.

  • Clearly the GPL *IS* viral! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dawn Keyhotie ( 3145 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @07:13PM (#4664285)
    Clearly the GPL must be a virus, a cancer, a Pac-Man! What else could explain the continuing barrage of both open and proprietary software converting to the GPL/LGPL? Is RMS twisting their arms? Holding their children for ransom? Asking too many rhetorical questions?


    Hah! You never heard of a software package spontaneously converting from GPL to the revered and exalted Windows EULA, have you? Proof that Windows is NOT viral, cancerous, or Pac-Man, and is therefore infinitely superior! So There, GPL weenies!


    Now I will prove which cup contains the Iocaine powder! [sip] Bwahahahahaha! Bwahahahahaha! Erk...

  • Legality of Emulating ROMs you own under copyright (Score:3, Informative)

    by Nathanbp ( 599369 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @07:17PM (#4664334)
    I don't know about arcarde ROMs, but all console games come with a license that says that you cannot make any copies of the game, including for back-up purposes. So even if you own the game, it might now be legal to emulate on the computer.
    See here [nintendo.com] for Nintendo's policy.
    Or try a google search for emulation legal [google.com]
    • Nintendo claims that all emulators and ROMs are illegal and sends cease and desist letters to sites like CrackerJap [crackerjap.com] just for mentioning Pokémon in their meta tags. Their statements about the laws of various countries are self-serving bullshit, not the word of a lawyer or a judge.

      Also, I could be wrong, but I do not remember any court case that has tested the legality of the "licenses" in console video game manuals. Hell, EULAs haven't even been thoroughly tested in court yet!

    • Enforceable? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by yerricde ( 125198 )

      all console games come with a license that says that you cannot make any copies of the game, including for back-up purposes.

      In the United States, the backup law (17 USC 117 [cornell.edu]) gives the owner of a copy the right to make those copies and adaptations necessary to run a program. The Betamax and Diamond Rio precedents give the owner of a copy the right to time-, space-, and format-shift a copyrighted work. And no, I did not see the "EULA" printed in the manual before I handed over the cash at Best Buy, so I don't think it's all that enforceable in a court of law.

      See here for Nintendo's policy.

      That's a publisher's official line, and it includes no citations of any court cases that support the company's position.

      • Same thing in Canada, you are allowed to make a backup copy by law. Nintendo can suck a fat one.

      • I admit, I know nothing about consoles, but if they use encryption of any sort, it is illegal to decode the backup with anything other than the original decrypter (the console itself) by current US law (the still living DMCA). This is why many CD manufacturers want to sell encrypted CDs - you can't use them in your RIO because decrypting them without the original decryption device is illegal (changing them into a different format is legal, however, as long as you leave the encryption intact and that player has a legal decrypter). So far, this has held up in court.

        Nintendo could claim their cartridge format is an encrypter, even if it doesn't use any sort of encryption software. This has been done in court, as well, but I don't remember what the results were (I think the suing company lost, though, which is good).

        As for most EULA's, they state that if you use the software, you agree to the terms stated in the EULA, whether you've read them or not. I think if they could prove the EULA came with the package and you saw it, they would win in court (court has a tendency to favor prosecution, from my limited experience). Most PC software places the EULA in the installer exactly for this reason - so you can't claim you didn't see it. You might win if you claim you don't remember a EULA coming with that particular package (who does?) or that the legalese was too complex for you to understand (hey, it's worked before, but unfortunately not against the worst offender, the IRS).

        • Nintendo could claim their cartridge format is an encrypter, even if it doesn't use any sort of encryption software.

          The GBA cart edge interface is somewhat of a cross between Intellivision's interleaved address and data bus and IDE's seek-and-read architecture. It uses no "scrambling of data" which is one of the DMCA's requirements for an "access control measure". It uses primarily a checksum validation on a header that contains some basic info about the cartridge and a 156-byte block of constant data. Claiming copyright on constant data in a header isn't a valid method of console monopoly protection (Sega v. Accolade [eff.org]). That ruling allows homebrew software like this [pineight.com] to exist.

          I think if they could prove the EULA came with the package and you saw it, they would win in court

          I saw it, and I looked at it, but I don't think it's exactly a binding contract in most U.S. states. A binding contract comes from an offer that is accepted with a "consideration" (that is, an exchange of things of value). Because the consideration was performed (credit card to Best Buy cashier) before I opened the box and saw the offer, the offer is not a valid offer, and there is no binding contract.

  • It'll be bad news for the video game companies if MAME is re-released under the GPL. Loading a video game ROM into MAME is just like linking, and since the GPL is viral...

    Woo hoo! Cough up the Pac Man sources, Namco!

    (Heh.)

  • Some background information of MAME going GPL (Score:5, Informative)

    by Gridle ( 17502 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @08:53PM (#4664969)
    Damn, I expected to be able to submit this story for some quality karma whoring. Oh well, even I tend to forget things when updating mame.net [mame.net] at 4 am. ;-)

    One of the reasons for our own license a long time ago was to deter those who wanted to make a quick buck from selling MAME (together with illegal ROMs). It worked reasonably well - the presence of this deterrent was enough to prevent at least some of them. Even though the reality is that selling the ROMs is illegal, moving back to GPL would open us to that sort of abuse again. You must have seen the banners and popups advertising DVD to CD copy programs for a low price of $49,95 - guess what, they are nothing but GPL'd software (MPEG-2 decoders and MPEG-4 encoders) slapped on a CD. Moreover, in the case of legal trouble, it would be easier to target the original authors than those who are redistributing the illegal material. In short:

    Step 1. GPL MAME

    Step 2. ?

    Step 3. Profit!

    The legal uses of MAME (together with legal ROMs) have been explicitly allowed previously (see the Capcom Classics CD), and it has been made clear that MAME itself isn't for sale, rather just a license for the game ROMs and a free copy of MAME on top.

    Of course, we've had a fair share of problems because nobody is willing to try to enforce our current license on the most visible license violators, who currently do not redistribute the full source code changes: MAME32K (Kaillera) [kaillera.com] and the other MAME32 [classicgaming.com] (not to be confused with the "right" MAME32 [classicgaming.com]). GPL would probably help here to force the source changes open, or to end the development of these particular derivative works. GPL would also allow us to re-use some non-critical code from other GPL'd projects, but personally I don't see this as a big advantage. Everything can be rewritten anyway.

    In any case, even if MAME were to move to GPL, I don't think the development model would change much. Due to the dubious nature of ROMs, the developer mailing list and archive simply can not be public. A public CVS server would also be quite unlikely due to the support and maintainance nightmare. There haven't been any significant forks (unlike somebody mentioned here - changing one or two lines to remove the OK screen isn't forking) nor are we currently forbidding them - and I don't think GPL would change this situation.

    Oh, and if you're wondering, mame.net [mame.net] is handling the Slashdot effect just fine. In fact, we've served even bigger audiences successfully. Moderators should frown any attempts of gaining karma through cut'n'pasting text from mame.net ;-)

    • The Kaillera.com official response. (Score:5, Informative)

      by soulctcher ( 581951 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @10:00PM (#4665329)
      First and foremost, the page that contains the version of MAME32K that we "redistribute [kaillera.com]" DOES have the full source code changes quite visibly available.

      Let me move on to the next point. Kaillera is NOT, I repeat, NOT MAME32K. Kaillera is a client/server application and .dll that allow programs to communicate over the internet that normally would not do so. Emulation is the MOST NATURAL application of the Kaillera solution due to the popularity of arcade/console games, and the interest that people have in playing against real people, instead of the computer.

      You have stated: GPL would probably help here to force the source changes open, or to end the development of these particular derivative works.

      This is a closed-minded view at the effects of moving to the GPL. The simple fact is that true open sourcing of a program with as much interest as MAME would bring more interest to its cousins. Frequently, Kaillera has been attacked by people that have no idea how the open source licensing works. We have also been attacked by MAMEDev members who were instantly jealous at the attention that we commanded when we released new versions of the Kaillera client. This took downloads away from the core MAME project and brought them to our derivitive, MAME32K. Most of the verbal attacks that we have suffered have subsided as people began to realize that we brought people and interest to the MAME project.

      -soulctcher

      (On a more personal note: It does dissapoint me that someone as involved with MAME as you, Gridle, would not do a little homework before tossing accusations towards Kaillera.)
  • I sure hope it does go GPL, the CPU cores will be a real boon to umm.. umm.. well I'm sure there's someone out there somewhere trying to run linux on an arcade machine.

  • GPL'd code (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @09:57PM (#4665314) Homepage Journal
    There's some GPL'd code I wrote in MAME; I've been unhappy about the licensing for a while now. But it's a pretty small amount of code, and I thought the MAME license wasn't *too* awful, so I didn't pursue it.

    I will be quite happy if MAME goes GPL, as it will solve this problem.

  • MAME code more useful than you think (Score:3, Interesting)

    by almightyjustin ( 518967 ) <dopefishjustin AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday November 13, 2002 @11:55PM (#4665867) Homepage
    The MAME code doesn't sound immediately useful, but releasing it under GPL is actually a gold mine, mainly for the CPU and sound cores. I know of several GPL projects that already use the MAME OPL emulation core under special agreements (AdPlug and DosBox); the SN76496 core would be useful for the Sarien AGI Interpreter project...

    Essentially the MAME cores make writing emulators for things much easier because all the really hard work is already done (wanna write a DOS emulator for Linux? take MAME's OPL core, 8086 CPU core, throw on some graphics emulation, and shazam!)

    Emulation in general is going to become more and more important in the future for supporting legacy and closed-source software, so this could be very useful for the open-source community.

  • Say what you want about MAME... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by dasunt ( 249686 ) on Thursday November 14, 2002 @12:21AM (#4665970)

    Sure, there are people who are interested in only piracy, and there are people who are only interested in free games, but in a hundred years, the reason why we will have copies of arcade games from 1975 on up will be because of emulations projects like MAME.

    I don't condone piracy to avoid paying for the latest game or to avoid paying a theater for a movie. But there is a difference between downloading GTA3 and downloading a 25 year old ROM that is not available for commercial sale. Not legally, but ethically.

    (Btw, support Capcom. They are one of the few companies that will sell [some] older rom images [hanaho.com])

    • Sure, there are people who are interested in only piracy, and there are people who are only interested in free games, but in a hundred years, the reason why we will have copies of arcade games from 1975 on up will be because of emulations projects like MAME. I don't condone piracy to avoid paying for the latest game or to avoid paying a theater for a movie. But there is a difference between downloading GTA3 and downloading a 25 year old ROM that is not available for commercial sale. Not legally, but ethically.

      AMEN! I used to collect video games, and I know a couple collectors who own a LOT of games. I am talking 300+. These are the enthusiasts who keep these things alive. One of my good friends was involved in scrounging up all the parts and putting together one of the only known working Zektor [klov.com]games at the time. He put it in a standup Eliminator cocktail cabinet, and we used to get drunk as hell and play Zektor and Eliminator until the wee hours of the morning.

      I ended up selling my two standup cabinets because they just took up too much room in my apartment. I still have a cocktail game, and a Galaga cabaret. I have a couple of boxes of boardsets in the garage, containing the games I just couldn't bear to sell (Bubble Bobble, New Zealand Story, Rainbow Islands, Pengo, Elevator Action, Gyruss, Galaxian). If it weren't for the enthusiasts, the people who love arcade games, these things would be extinct. Instead, they are kept alive. So what if I have a CDROM set with all the ROMs on them. Some are legal, because I own the boardsets, but most of them are illegal. Oooooo, lock me up, I am breaking the law. I know some guys who were trying to get side art to restore one of their game cabinets, and they couldn't find it. So they went through the trouble to reproduce it. They were shut down when the game company got wind of it. Sad. Technically, that is illegal, but for Jebus' sake, when did we stop using our brains and rely completely on the "law"? I think there are definitely gray areas. Pac-Man is a part of our collective culture, as are many of the old classics (and not-so-classics). Enthusiasts have done some really amazing things out of love for these games. Like MAME.

  • Some Legal ROMs... (Score:2, Informative)

    by wardred ( 602136 )
    I believe somebody mentioned this in passing, but it's possible to obtain at least a few legal CapCom ROMs if you buy the HotRod joystick or ArcadePC from HanaHo games. www.hanaho.com. While I'd love to see all the arcade games, past and present, console games, heck any game or piece of software ever created licensed under the GPL or a BSD style license, I just don't think it's realistic to believe this will happen. Nintendo is still releasing Mario Bros. games, and somebody else was correct in mentioning that most game manufacturers have realized that we really would pay to play the old games. They aren't going to GPL them and give up on future revenue for those games, or give up exclusive control of the characters in the games. In that vein, I'd love to see MAME go GPL and more deals such as the Hanaho one where we can legaly obtain old ROMs on CD, even if they're not open sourced. I'd be willing to pay a fair amount if company X said they'd sell a CD filled with ROMs for X amount of money, licensed just like any other game is licensed. Backups are okay, but redistribution isn't. Say 50-200 dollars, depending on how many games were included. A few companies might be willing to totally relinquish control of their games, but I wouldn't count on it.
  • Did they get permission from all of the authors to approve the license change of their code? I never heard anything. Granted, my contributions were minor and happened years ago but it would still have been nice to be notified before reading about the license change on slashdot...

Slashdot Top Deals

2.4 statute miles of surgical tubing at Yale U. = 1 I.V.League

Close