New Competition For CodeWeavers: Aclerex 218
Shisha writes "Linux Planet is running a story about a new Wine offspring. Basically the Canadian company Transgaming decided, that their version of Wine, WineX, is good not only for running games, but for other Windows programs too. So why not try to sell it? For marketing reasons they're selling it to corporations under the AclereX name. Their website has a datasheet with more details about what they are actually offering. Unlike CodeWeavers, they don't seem to be targeting individuals at all, they'd rather sell to corporations. So no downloads available, sorry. Still it could speed up Wine developement, which is always good. Wine Weekly News discusses some of the reactions of the original Wine authors."
huh, isn't transgaming still not giving back? (Score:4, Insightful)
The All In One comment (Score:2, Insightful)
WINE is bad because it will discourage people from writing native applications. Native applications are important because they provide a reason for people to use GNU/Linux or *BSD wholesale, rather than flit between a Free OS and Windows. They also mean more innovation and more investment in Free Software, and more Free Software available. Will The GIMP just drop off the map once Photoshop is reliably supported? Will we no longer see native ports of games, with companies instead hoping that WINE(X) will, at some point, work well with other platforms? Maybe WINE will stop many companies from looking seriously as developing applications as cross-platform from the start, which will hurt users of other platforms like MacOSX, old MacOS, maybe GNU/Hurd, BSDs, etc.
or...
WINE is good because it will fill the application gap until Free Software can catch up. Rather than wait a few years for all the weird and wonderful applications we don't have to appear, WINE will let corporate and home users make the switch straight away and slowly migrate from Windows. WINE will encourage gamers. WINE with winelib will make cross-platform development a sinch in years to come.
Now.... discuss
Re:I don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:GPL? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Tiny market share prevents/slows development of native versions of applications for Unix/Linux.
Re:I don't understand. (Score:5, Insightful)
Lets say we have 2 users, A & B and both would like to move to an Open Source operating system such as Linux however:
A: Has 1 Win app that they MUST be able to run for one reason or another and is able to run it perfectly under Wine so they they switch to Linux and open source for everything but that 1 app. When it comes time to acquire new hardware or apps. they are asking hardware and software venders for Linux support and are investigating open source applications.
B: Has 1 Win app that they MUST be able to run for one reason or another and is NOT able to run under Wine so they they keep using Windows. When it comes time to acquire new hardware or apps. they are asking hardware and software venders for Windows support and are ignoring open source applications because they have no experience with them.
Which one of these users do you think is adding to the demand for OSS software in general and Linux in particular?
You're plugging a closed source product... (Score:5, Insightful)
Keep these things in mind when you think about all of this, though...
They were going to only go after the stuff that wasn't getting active ports and actually encourage native porting work. They turned around and came up with that bastardized "port" of The Sims and Kohan- which had issues out of the box in both cases. The Sims WAS going to be a native app and Kohan WAS a native app that had lost the porting company (Timegate got the rights to the Loki port, but they didn't want to wait and find out it's fate- they went with Transgaming.).
They were going to only work at making Linux gaming possible. Now, they're making game "ports" for Windows and MacOS of console games, but NO Linux versions of the same.
Would YOU trust this bunch?
Re:I don't understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
its extremely hard for companies (the money holders) to go cold turkey to a completely different OS (than MS-Win).
Personally I'm only writing stuff for unix/linux and working on transitioning over the few apps I use in Win32 environment by using WINE. It will keep me from dual-Pc'ing with 2 different OS's and will keep my boss' respect of linux up where it should be.
Re:Speed up Wine development? Are you sure? (Score:4, Insightful)
Then it sounds like the Wine project was not 100% comfortable with the BSD license in the first place.
If you license BSD, you should accept that people may take your code and close it. That's what the truly free software is about.
Until you have a work Office, I'd say no (Score:3, Insightful)
Koffice is faster, but crashes regularly. I understand, I'm using the older KDE (2.x), because I'm on Debian/Woody; but I had installed KDE 3.0 before, along with it's KOffice, and I was still getting crashes.
So there is no version of Office for Windows that I am aware of that works well. As long as that is the case, WINE is good for OSS, not bad. That is, if they can get Office working successfully. I tried WINE with Word98, and it sucked. But maybe WineX doesn't. If it doesn't, then I'm all in favor of WineX, closed source or not. After all, the Windows apps are also closed source; we're talking about migrating slowly, not jumping in with both feet.
Re:I don't understand. (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at it this way - best case scenario is everybody in the world switches to Linux and WINE, largely because it runs all their Windows programs they can't live without, what then? Do you think companies will still write Windows code even though Windows installations no longer exists/are in the minority?
Look at it from the PoV of a poster further down who voices a concern that being able to run Photoshop on Linux will render The Gimp obsolete... If the vast majority of Photoshop users are running it under Wine on Linux, which platform do you think would get the next (native) version?
It's also worth mentioning that the more people who move away from using Windows as an OS the better, all I hear are people complaining about how hard they're getting hit by SoBig and Blaster, shit, my webserver still gets hit by CodeRed on a far-too-frequent basis. Blaster and SoBig are going to be problems for a long time to come, quite possibly forever, we can't do a lot about people who won't patch their machines (well, ISPs could very easily fix this and all other worm problems if they got their acts together) but if there are less people running Windows (the OS, not the apps that run on it) next time an exploit like these come out then that can only be a good thing for networks worldwide.
Re:Speeding up development how? (Score:2, Insightful)
Also a regspy On native windows can do the trick for many applications. That and the files from Program\ files (and system32) so you see CrossOver is good for learning and then Original wine is good for the rest of the house
CodeWeavers is helping Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
CodeWeavers' most promoted product is Crossover Office, which allows MS Office to run on Linux.
Does this help Linux and hurt Microsoft? No . . . quite the opposite, in fact. Microsoft wants Linux users running MS Office, because that keeps them locked in to Microsoft file formats while Microsoft prepares the
On the Xandros home page [xandros.com], the main heading states:
> Xandros Desktop now runs Microsoft Office XP
On the SuSE Linux Desktop [suse.com] page, one of the major benefits listed is:
> Codeweaver Crossover Office for the integration of MS Office
Notice how they don't say "for running Lotus Notes," or "for running Windows applications." They only talk about MS Office.
How did CodeWeavers manage to get Office working correctly when so many others had failed? How did they work out Microsoft's secret/obfuscated calls? Did they get help?
Or if they hacked the calls, why hasn't Microsoft sued CodeWeavers under the DMCA (or the "only run with Windows" clause in the licenses)? After all, Microsoft sued another company who made it possible to run MS FoxPro on Linux.
What argument did CodeWeavers use to convince people to LGPL the Wine source? They used the envy-based "we don't want others to profit from our work" argument. Have you ever heard a real Open Source developer say that? I haven't. Open Source developers may talk about how the GPL protects the source from companies like Microsoft, but part of the reason for Open Sourcing your software is the hope that others might profit from it.
Where have I heard the envy-based "surely you don't want others profitting from your work" argument? It was a common refrain by Microsoft astroturfers, who were trying to convince us that the Open Source development model will fail.
Was there a danger in using a BSD license for Wine? Not really. Since the purpose of Wine is to allow closed source applications to run on Linux, it matters little if those applications include some extra code from Wine.
What was the main result of changing the Wine license to LGPL? It hurt Linux! Here's how...
The biggest area where Linux is lacking applications is not office software. It's games! And when the Wine license was changed to LGPL, it prevented most Windows games developers from using it! Unlike Office software, for speed and other reasons, games need to include some library code, not just link to it.
What do you think the fuss was about? Why do you think many game manufacturers are working with Transgaming, instead of using the LGPL'd version of Wine? Now you know, and I thank Transgaming for their part in protecting the BSD'd version of Wine.
So, to summarize, CodeWeaver's involvement in Wine has:
1) Made them money.
2) Helped Microsoft create an MS Office lock-in on Linux.
3) Hurt Linux by making it harder to port games.