I don't know what the final decision on it will be but it doesn't have anything to do with D2K's situation and shouldn't be compared to it. That was made for sale and was sold, not to mention completely changed the game into a new one. This Pauline is a hack one guy made and burned onto one board. I have a Kicker board I'm burning Kung-Fu Johnny into, which fwiw has way more changes than this DK hack, and that doesn't mean it's going in mame because I burned it into a board. The fact that this was never sold and never had sale plans probably counts it out. Every game in mame has been sold or had plans to be (protos).
Pauline is the most overrated hack since Crazy Otto. Player haters unite.