MAME going open-source

michaeljacksonMAME, the arcade-game emulating software under constant development since its creation by Nicola Salmoria in 1997, is "going open-source."

Gamasutra: "This is notable because MAME is seen to be the premier emulator for arcade games, and the volunteers who maintain it have done laudable work to preserve artifacts of the game industry in a playable state."

Given the scale of MAME, built over nearly two decades by so many contributors, accomplishing a change in licensing is a project in itself. One contributor reports that the licensing proposed is "BSD3 for core files and BSD3,GPL2 or LGPL2 for drivers/emulators"