On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

This post is to open a dialogue about what is and isn't acceptable in the repository. It is an issue that has been touched on somewhat before e.g. the Nintendo emulator saber-rattling incident, and was brought up in a thread in Games.

While that particular invocation of the topic had ulterior motives, the point is still a valid one, and it is this:

If we have a strict anti-piracy policy, why do the repos contain "plenty of copyrighted home computer rom images", proprietary calculator ROM images, &tc?

I remember reading that we're not going for complete DFSG compliance, but what, then?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

It was my understanding ROMs should not be in maemo.org repositories.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Maybe we could list the suspected packages to make a revision with the developers.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

We do.

They shouldn't. If they do (sorry, I haven't installed any emulators) the packages should be removed until they comply with the QA policy. Please also bring it to the testsquad's attention because it would mean they are not testing properly.

That's orthogonal to this. Closed-source in extras (non-free) may be fine, copyright infringement isn't.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

It's better to describe these as "proprietary home computer rom images" instead of "copyrighted home computer rom images".

Most of the software in the repository is copyrighted, but it's legal to distribute it when it's open-source licensed rather than proprietary. Terminology matters.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Yes, i'm familiar with that but understandably confused due to some very popular exceptions by well known developers.

Anyway, as a point of curiosity, if an app fails to pass testing because of this particular point, does it in actual practice get removed from the repository?

That is part of it:
- Free redistribution.

But obviously not the part that was considered optional here. :)

Yes, it was a third-party quote.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

There are proprietary/copyrighted ROMs in the repos?!? I wasn't aware of that. If yes, they should be, of course, removed. However emulators do not break any law out there (as long as their copyright holder has nothing against them being in the repos) so those should stay.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

We could probably do with details/examples on exactly what packages are breaking the rules here - There are plenty of emulators in the repos, which are perfectly fine to be there, but to my knowledge none of them actually come with the ROMs included?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

If that's a quote from somewhere, where? Apparently somebody has a list of packages, which packages are the problem here?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Edited above post but for visibility but here's the reason i came to think perhaps our policy was a bit permissive:

And it really doesn't take too much digging in games to find other offenders. Here's the example given by the person cited above:

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

As I understand the law (and it varies between states):
1. Emulators that contain no propriety code are generally allowed. Strictly they shouldn't be, but they are usually for such old systems that little attention is paid. The system part of the ROM comes in the ROM files which you can acquire from other sources than TMO.
2. Emulators that contain propriety code (e.g. a PSX emu with built in system ROM files) would be disallowed.

In the Maemo.org repos there are only types of 1. emulators AFAIK

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

So vice and maybe ati85? Could you tell the full list so that we don't have to go digging and guessing?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

I've never seen a rom in the repositories, only emulators which are legal as far as i knew

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

There's also a question of how to handle this - I've just had a look through the extras and -testing emulators and can't see any that obviously include any roms, so the only current fremantle example I can clearly see is vice.
The problem with this is that as vice has never been promoted into -testing from -devel, it's never hit the testing queue, so QA hasn't been done on it. As QA testing is only done at the -testing stage, technically there doesn't seem to currently be any mechanism in place for preventing proprietary content from being loaded into -devel and staying there.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

If the Vice example is true, it needs to be pulled, plain and simple.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Indeed. However, we shouldn't jump to conclusions about all emulators (although the burden of proof probably falls on the packager): some systems have their ROMs available for use in emulators; others use reverse engineered ROMs which don't contain code copyrighted to the original manufacturer, but instead are clean room implementations (e.g. DOSbox with FreeDOS)

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

I didn't want to make this a witch hunt, which is why i was hesitant to start naming names. I just wanted a clarification on the position regarding proprietary content. Please don't turn it into a witch hunt...

How about the testing squad go through the emulator threads/packages sequentially and check them? It should be pretty obvious which include proprietary material. I'm talking about all emulators, not just game console emulators.

FWIW MAME claims to contain no proprietary content, it's all reverse engineered.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

great so now we start to see psx..other emu's be taken off now...what a joke..this will just hold back any further progression and more than likely alienate any other people who want to help develop or update apps for us.
i will support and have donated to most of these emu's that have been compiled for n900..yet we never had this hassle on the previous maemo's.

nice going!!

flame away

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Well, not the PSX emulators as they don't actually ship the BIOS files with them.

That said, I do find all this Internet lawyer **** hilarious. I certainly could not give two fücks if the emulators come with BIOS files. At best, the person who has included them has saved me from doing a Google.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Come on qwerty12. You know full well this isn't "internet lawyering"-- it's once burned, twice shy. Do you really want a repeat of the last copyright debacle? We almost lost zerojay as a contributor due to the frustration he needlessly went through.

Most emulator providers are doing the right thing, and it's easy: don't include proprietary objects with your package. Done. Tell customers to get acquainted with Google.

How is that an issue?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

i hear ya pal...its that whiter than white ...god syndrome..gets on my tits too. so maybe not psx stuff but what bout all the others?

on that basis..the weight watchers app that has been created is using the official formula's...how is that considered???

several other apps use info and formulas that perhaps belong to other people/companies

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

That's an absolute crock of crap.

You're looking at this from a purely selfish consumer standpoint. That's fine for you. But some of us have worked hard to build and support a community here, and I for one will be damned if I'm going to sit back and be silent while cowboys put that at risk.

Maemo already went through this once, and we don't want that sort of attention again.

Let's stay off the legal radar.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

a purely consumer point...yes because without me and others whom purchase the machines..there would be no community!
where was the community..when nokia announced Meego and decided to shaft us all?well those on fremantle anyways...i could go on!
this consumer point is what keeps nokia alive..not community forums...its my money they want not my post count!

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Well, Nokia airing a video of their shop workers playing SNES games in their Helsinki flagship store wasn't the best of ideas...

Have you seen the threads started by some people recently? They can't even search on this forum, let alone use Google...

Take fms' emulators for example. Some people were not able to vote them up in extras-testing due to not having ROMs for the emulator. Homebrew ROMs are easy to come across, but I'm pretty sure that free, compatible BIOSes are hard to come across... (C-Bios is the only one that comes to mind but there are probably more. Not many more, but there probably are more.)

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Surely you're not going to depend on logical fallacies to support including proprietary materials in Maemo repositories.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

this is the sort of thread that makes me think that devlopers etc should sack off nokia repos and host their own repos...that way the app bashers cant say ****! then perhaps they would have to find something else to debate over...perhaps posting off topic in the off topic area??? food for thought lol

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Look, let's avoid emotionalism and get some facts clear.

For one, I'm a huge believer in emulators. I cannot overstate that. I believe emulators are a big key to the success of a platform like Maemo (er... MeeGo).

That said, I'm also a believer in avoiding pointless risk-- especially risk that could damage the very thing you guys are seeking to support.

You can't have it both ways. This quasi open solution is fragile enough. Start putting the community at risk of legal action by including proprietary materials in your packages, and you risk undermining the very thing that enables it.

It really helps to look at the whole picture here, and not little selfish slices.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

You're right: That is a **** argument. I just find this whole thread reminiscent of Wikipedia's deletion policies (and people may remember from IRC what I think of the people who carry them out).

Anyway, I've given my view. I've been on this forum long enough to know that the majority rules and dread123 and I seem to be in the minority.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

I don't think you're getting the point here:

Maemo.org != Nokia

extras, testing and devel repos aren't Nokia either.

I for one second the opinion that proprietary content should not be available through maemo.org because it endangers the maemo.org-community.

just my 2ct.
Aydan

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

I don't see why a discussion is even necessary.
1) Emulators are fine.
2) Copyrighted material (ROMs): Only copyright holders can give you permission to use it. That's the law. So, ROMs are not fine.
3) Keep 1), remove 2) (if any) from the repositories.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

hows is it selfish?? i paid for a phone that was touted to be open software with no limitations..yet the god squad on here seem intent on enforcing rules that even nokia themselves did not agree with?? again..advertising emu on n900 etc...anyways this is all in vain because as i said we can always host elsewhere so....

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

dread123: Since when are ROMs open software? Or wasn't that what you meant?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

no the linux system is open software!

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Anyone who can find non-PD games for the emulators can find any required BIOS files too, usually from the same sources. The BIOSes should definitely not be distributed by maemo.org unless permission is granted, (like with the Spectrum BIOS).

Anyone into emulation will come across the same issue when running the emulator on desktop operating systems. This is a well-known issue, and well documented on emulation sites, so there's no need for hysterics about maemo.org being awkward on this.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

>no the linux system is open software!
Yes. And? What's that got to do with not allowing copyrighted material (without permission) in repositories?

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

The user-friendly way of separating ROMs from emulators is simple.

1) ship emulator without ROMs (or any other copyrighted material you don't have permission to redistribute!)
2) When emulator starts and it can't find the ROM it needs:
- show a popup "download ROM files [ok/cancel]"
3) hitting OK the emulator proceed to wget the rom file from a host online.

This ofcourse means the emulator developer needs to find a web host for the roms, which will then take the legal risk. Indeed, the people in this thread who think roms should stay, would probably make the best candidates as hosters ;)

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

yeah i'll finish here too mate..cant be bothered...plus wife and kids calling now and more important things to do.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

It's not as simple. Without 2, some applications in set 1 will not run (and thus maybe not even be able to enter Extras). Thus some will then try to create a Fedora-like rule where "no application requiring external, proprietary files to do anything useful will be allowed in the repositories" (note: this is not the actual rule but a very mutated one).

My personal vote here is to do as TA-t3 says and allow the distribution of "1"; for example, you could make "1" autodownload the required files from some other site (like the copyright holder's own site if they're redistributing the files -- think flashplayer). Clearly, packages doing this will have to go to non-free.

EDIT:I see that I was too slow writing this :)

I am still a bit worried about allowing this if the copyright holder is clearly against it.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Please refrain from namecalling and other such tactics, thanks. That works against you in a discussion.

You need to separate the two situations here. It's been made very clear by other posters so no need for me to rehash the wisdom of others.

And note that Nokia is also opposed to redistributing the proprietary works of others without permission.

Re: On the distribution of copyrighted material
 

Indeed. fms said it best, so I'll just quote him:
It isn't legal, yes, but it hasn't been a problem before (don't give me that Nintendo ****; Nokia brought that one on themselves) and Vice isn't the first emulator to go to Extras with ROMs included. It hasn't been a problem before, so maybe the people arguing now are just bored perhaps (me included).