[Fedora-legal-list] Free emulators that run free games

[Damian Yerrick]

 From http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing/SoftwareTypes#Emulators
> Most emulators (applications which emulate another platform) are
> not permitted for inclusion in Fedora. The rule of thumb to follow
> is: If it requires ROMs (or image files in any format) of
> copyrighted or patented material to be useful (and the owners of
> those copyrights and patents have not given their express written
> permission), then it's not permitted.

There exist emulators distributed under a free software license that
run games designed for NES.  There also exist games for NES that
are free software and other games for NES that are proprietary yet
licensed by the author for distribution over the Internet.  So if the
emulator is free, and the users have "express written permission" to
make and distribute copies of the ROMs, would the emulators become
acceptable for inclusion?  If not, why not?  The wiki page didn't
link to any archived discussion on legal establishing the context
behind this policy.

In case you need specific examples to investigate, I'll provide some:

FCEUX, an NES emulator under GPL
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FCEUX>

Concentration Room, an NES game under GPL
<http://pineight.com/croom/>

PDROMS.de, a collection of free software for NES and other
redistributable NES ROM images
<http://pdroms.de/files/nes/>

-- 
Damian Yerrick