Re: [hatari-devel] Things still remaining before v1.8 release?

[Teemu Hukkanen <tjhukkan@xxxxxx>]

Nicolas Pomarède <npomarede@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:

> Le 31/07/2014 21:09, Teemu Hukkanen a écrit :
>> Nicolas Pomarède <npomarede@xxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
>>
>>> That's great news, so I will add the dmg built by Troed to the download
>>> area for 1.8.0 and post the final announcement.
>>>
>>> Thanks a lot for taking the time to dive into the mysteries of xcode :)
>>
>> I have uploaded a packaged version into Debian (unstable), and it has
>> already migrated into Ubuntu, so should get into the next releases for
>> both. Additionally, I have uploaded a backport for Ubuntu Trusty (14.04)
>> into an Ubuntu PPA at ppa:tjhukkan/hatari.
>
> Thanks ! :)
>
> Have you tried building it with capslibrary ? It would require to create 
> a package for capslibrary 4.2 too, but it could be interesting to have 
> this under debian/ubuntu too.

The IPF support library is not Free Software, and cannot be distributed
by Debian or Ubuntu. The license only allows usage for non-profit
purposes, and does not allow modification of any kind (which would be
required for packaging). This is on top of not having access to the
source code (or being able to modify it, and distribute modifications).

While the idea behind the IPF support library, software preservation,
and the hardware go to along with it is laudable, it is just proprietary
software (and hardware). Doing software preservation using proprietary
software (and hardware) seems foolish, if bugs are found in the software
(or hardware), or new features are required, and the company behind the
product does not do the necessary changes, no one else can do them
either. How about computer architectures in the future, accessing the
IPF support library would require emulating an older architecture, just
to access disk images for even older architectures. Software
preservation essentially requires Free Software for it to be future
proof.

In short, no, I have not tried to build using the IPF support library.