[matheusmoreira]

I thought non-commercial licenses were an old tradition in the emulator community. Snes9x and MAME code were licensed as such for a long time. I've seen developers release code under GPL/MIT/BSD and then object to how other people using their code. Is this what you mean?

In the end, none of these licenses matter anyway. I seriously doubt anyone in this community will ever sue somebody over license violations. People do nothing while corporations file DMCA claims against screenshots despite Sony vs. Connectix.

[sumtechguy]

MAME had one of those style licenses. They switched to GPL/BSD because of your second point. It did not really matter as the companies making these knock off devices/packs had zero intention of following the law anyway, and the people making the emu did not have the money to go after the offenders. It was also a pain if they really wanted to have someone make one of those devices with your code. For example if one of the orig rightsholders to the roms wanted to use MAME they basically couldn't because of that license. For a large company it does matter for import/export and risk management.

People releasing code GPL/MIT/MIT and then getting mad when someone they do not like using it is always going to happen. Not everyone agrees on everything. In the emu case it was more they just did not want to get sued.

What I think is more interesting is there are still devices being created that are using the older code before the switchover that has the restriction and the emulation is worse!

Also Before that Sony v. Connectix it was not very clear, with takedown notices every few months to the sites. Now you pretty much only see the notices on the rom sites. By the point the case was done the license was already mostly in place. Even switching over to the new one was a large undertaking that they put off for a long time. I think a small handful of drivers they could not find the orig authors to ask and they pulled them out and re-wrote them.