| I'm curious why they changed from noncommercial permissive to GPL2+ instead of GPL3. If their goal is to prevent misuse of the project by unethical profit-minded entities, GPL3's anti-tivoization language would have ensured that even if a company profits from building or running a MAME-based cabinet (which is good!), they wouldn't be able to deprive their customers' freedom to fix or upgrade the software that runs it. (As they now can!) It's even worse for the permissively-licensed parts of the code, which can now be used to build locked-down proprietary cabinets that users can't even inspect. I'm glad they got at least part of the project covered by copyleft. The "common questions" on their site contains some confusing claims, too: > Q. Can I include MAME with my product?
> A. Yes. You can use 3-clause BSD compliant files but project as whole is under GPL-2.0 license so in case you wish to use those part you need approval from specific developers. You'd only need permission if you didn't want to comply with the terms of GPL2. There's nothing in GPL2 that requires permission for inclusion with a product. Maybe that's just leftover from before the license change? |