Firstly, I apologise if this has been covered before. The search tool doesn't seem to be working for me, and I've checked the last 5-6 pages of posts and nothing similar is there.

Secondly, this post is mostly directed at Roman of course (being his IP and all), but if anyone has any comments that agree or disagree, I'd like to hear them.

I'm a Mac and PC/Linux user. I love my retrogaming, and in particular think that ClrMAMEPro is the single best maintenance tool out there. What I don't particularly like is having to keep a Windows box in the house just to run it.

I know in the past others have asked for a linux version of the tool. I also know that Roman has suggested using WINE instead, but to be honest I don't really like the idea of doing so (although I will take that path if the current single copy of Windows I own stops working with ClrMAMEPro down the track).

Roman, have you ever considered opening the source code? I understand maintaining a second version of the program is nigh impossible when you're already putting so much effort into the Windows version, and still releasing it for free at a binary level. Perhaps if the source is opened, it will pave the way for others to help in porting efforts? MAME and it's spinoff XMAME are the sorts of examples I'm thinking of.

I'm not a developer, and to be honest I wish I was, because I'd be the first to volunteer for the position. One thing I can offer some advice on is licensing the source if you ever chose that path. Most people equate open source to the BSD and GPL licenses, both if which are quite unrestricted in their control of distribution. I'm sure everyone reading this knows the MAME license which immediately comes to mind to keep a project non-commercial. The Creative Commons licenses are also quite good, and keep all IP (commercial or otherwise) in the possession of the author, while still allowing external modification under the rules you specify.

So, what are you thoughts on the idea?

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