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The MAME Team forces me to cease distribution of mame4iphone
Posted 08-17-2009 at 03:43 PM by zodttd

My work on the iPhone and iPod Touch is truly to provide you, yes you, with software you normally wouldn't see developed for your favorite handheld. In fact I rarely have time to enjoy my own work on these handhelds since I'm busy developing more and more. mame4iphone was no different. It was a request by fans of my previous work. Even though it wasn't a chart topper and highly in demand, I still produced a fully functional port.

So when I received this email from the MAME Team I was quite surprised:

Zitat:

The following message was sent to you via the ZodTTD Forums Contact Us form by MAMEdev ( mailto:legal@mamedev.org ).

--------------------------------

Dear sir,

Please cease distributing our software immediately. You are violating the terms of the license.

Kind regards,
The MAME team

I had my doubts with the validity of the request so I responded with:

Zitat:

Hi,

I'm checking if this was a valid request from the MAMEdev team. Can you verify if the information below was sent from the MAMEdev group?
From what I'm aware of, I am in full compliance with source posted on my github.com/zodttd

Thanks,
ZodTTD
zodttd@zodttd.com
http://www.zodttd.com

Amazingly this request was authenticate. I received the following message back:

Zitat:

Yes, it's us.

Please refer to:

http://mamedev.org/legal.html

• Redistributions may not be sold, nor may they be used in a commercial product or activity.

Q. Can my non-profit use MAME or an arcade cabinet running MAME to help raise money?
A. No, sorry. Even for the most worthwhile cause, this still is a commercial use of MAME and is prohibited by the license.

Calling it a 'donation' isn't a magic loophole that makes it okay to earn money from our work. Please cease.

Kind regards,
The MAME team

So what does this mean? It means they're telling me the work I've been doing on mame4iphone is not of my own, and then they go on to say those who appreciate my work on mame4iphone is "to earn money from our [MAME Team] work".

And now they want me to cease distribution of mame4iphone. They did not even ask to stop taking donations for my work, even though it's never been donations for MAME but for my porting work on a wide range of software.

So due to the legal threat of MAME Team I am ceasing distribution of mame4iphone. What's there to do for MAME fans on the iPhone and iPod Touch?

You have two choices right off the bat:
Wait for MAME Team to officially support iPhone and iPod Touch.
You can write legal@mamedev.org and let them know what you think of this legal threat.
Who would of thought a donation link would bring down an open source project? Especially when I've kept the full sources posted on my public github source repository.

Kind regards MAME Team,
ZodTTD