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Comment by joezydeco | Hacker News Reader

Actually, some still are:

http://www.namcoamerica.com/game.php?gameid=32

Point is: what qualifies you to decide how those old assets should be used? Because you love the game more than the original publisher allegedly does?

So by that logic, why does anyone care at all what the original MAME contributors think of their code being switched into an open-source license? Why are their requests any more or less important than the publishers?

The point of this hand-grenade was merely to point this out, unpopular an opinion as it is. This whole thinking of "I'm a fan therefore I decide" took us over the cliff a long time ago and there's no going back.

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The developers of MAME/MESS get to decide on the license of the MAME/MESS source because they wrote it. That source does not include any roms, because they didn't write those. They're not asking you to open source your game because they're not proposing to open source your game.

Sounds like you're angry at the wrong people.

Joezy, I am concerned you might not be working towards an offer of code contribution.

My contributions are involuntary, Jason. They're in some of those ROM images being freely traded about these last couple of decades.

Unfortunately I never had any contracts offering me royalties on future republished or derivative works unlike some of my peers. Not that they could claim any these days, anyway. But I think it still should be put in the discourse for posterity.

So, what you been up to, lately?

And, more importantly, what changed your mind? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1997159

I suspect joezydeco is reacting less against MAME and more against orionblastar's suggestion to, in effect, pirate.

Since there is no legal way to buy the ROMs, most arcade machines have been recycled and trashed by now, it isn't possible to buy the original arcade machine, and the only way to play these arcade games now is via MAME, it seems as if piracy is the only way to get ROMs until someone gets permission from ROM developers to sell their ROMs.

MAME has thousands of ROMs and games, it would be near impossible to get a license to sell each and every ROM.

StarROMs tried that with the Atari arcade ROMs but failed.

Your point is accepted. FWIW, I think software licenses are every bit as stupid as copyright over sequences of bytes that can be interpreted as Mario.

One can't own information as if it were property.

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