bug#38360: Retroarch might violate FSDG

[Nicolò Balzarotti]

Hi Ludo, thanks for your response.

We don't provide them _directly_, but when loading the program the first option is "Load core". Then, first option again, is "Download core". Here you have a list of "proprietary" .so.zip downloads. Retroarch, as far as I understand, is encouraging the download of those programs, with no licensing information (see [1]).  I don't know if this is ok or if we can patch it (hiding the "Download core" menu maybe?).

Debian _does_ provide (from their package manager) some o the cores [2], two of them with the non-free tag.

If we patch retroarch to hide the download menu, to make it functional we should also package some free cores.

Thoughts?

Thanks again,

Nicolò

[1] https://docs.libretro.com/guides/download-cores/

[2] https://packages.debian.org/stretch/games/

Il giorno mar 26 nov 2019 alle ore 11:34 Ludovic Courtès <address@hidden> ha scritto:

Hello,

Nicolò Balzarotti <address@hidden> skribis:

> We might have a problem on how retroarch is packaged. I've never used it,
> tried just now. There's the "core download" section where it downloads
> "$core.so.zip". Those are .so files:
> .config/retroarch/cores/atari800_libretro.so:     file format elf64-x86-64.
> I think we should either compile them and ship them or remove the download
> section or something.

We should definitely remove all binary files from the “source” tarballs.

> Also, when downloading cores there are no license info

That should be investigated, indeed, possibly looking at what Debian is
doing.

> nckx provided this [1] as a useful link. It seems that some of the plugins
> are available for non-commercial projects only (so not compatible with the
> GPLv3, used by retroarch).

We don’t provide those plugins though, do we?

Thanks,
Ludo’.