Comment 5 for bug 1556275

This matter has been long debated within Mame packagers, and has finally been agreed that:

- configuration and runtime files and subdirectories must lie in the hidden directory ~/.mame. The reason is that the user doesn't need to see them though he/she may like to (e.g. to share the snapshot taken, or the savestate files etc.)

- resource files and subdirectories must lie in the non-hidden directory ~/mame. The reason is that the user can easily place there any personal needed file (let me stress the fact that only a limited number of roms are legally available for free, the vast majority requires owning a licence or the original PCB and can _not_ be distributed)

- the user can override these rules at will in a personal ~/.mame/mame.ini file, or editing /etc/mame.ini at his/her convenience

>> For resource files (roms, samples etc.) a subdirectory is more appropriate.
> I think you meant a non-hidden directory as a subdirectory could also take place in "$HOME/.mame".
Yes, of course. :)
I'm sorry, I should have checked twice before posting.

> If the user does show the .mame folder by default, she can as well move her roms
> to .mame and only have .mame in the config file.
This can be easily accomplished by copying /etc/mame in ~/.mame/ and tweaking it

> For the sake of simplicity, there should only be one ROM's path
Definitely, referring to the user personal files. In /etc/mame.ini there are many concatenated paths to manage files distributed in the package (e.g. artworks) and still allow usage of personal resource files of the same type.