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Wine Software

More Light Shed on Project David 213

Posted by CmdrTaco from the whats-going-on-here dept.
Sun writes "Flexbeta.net received from Specops Labs screenshots "proving" that project David (previously covered here) is a real thing. The demo.... Office 2000 install. This is something both Wine and CrossOver Office know how to do for quite some time. In a discussion on wine-devel some people noticed evidence inside the screenshots that project David is a CrossOver Office ripoff."
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More Light Shed on Project David More

More Light Shed on Project David

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  • Which Kind of Ripoff? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:46AM (#9099529) Homepage Journal
    Could this project be based on the leaked MS code, or is it really a CrossOver Office [codeweavers.com] ripoff? I can't tell, but Mike McCormack could [winehq.org].

    • true (Score:3, Interesting)

      by nycsubway ( 79012 )
      It may be a ripoff, but where can I download it? I'd like to see the source code. If I can install Pagemaker 7 in linux, I will be very happy.

    • this image (Score:5, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:05AM (#9099596)
      This image [flexbeta.net] mentioned in the article clearly shows lines that reference /usr/bin/wine in the winbridge.lst preview icon.

      Combined with the link you give, if this is not a complete ripoff then they are at least building on the wine base code in some way.

    • Crossover (Score:5, Informative)

      by quinkin ( 601839 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:26AM (#9099682)
      It's a crossover ripoff. See the wine mailing list (notes evidence of crossover bugs in the screen shots).

      Q.

    • Re:Which Kind of Ripoff? (Score:4, Funny)

      by DickBreath ( 207180 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:35AM (#9100047) Homepage
      From the screenshot, linked to by parent poster....

      The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

      How about we switch to something more up to date?

      The quick versatile penguin jumped over the broken windows.

    • ...the stupid and shameless kind? :) It *is* wine. Look at the screen shots. The wine directory on the filesystem tree, the references to wine files on the lst icons... You'd think they would be smart enough to hide evidence of a rip-off since they were smart enough to change the titles on the wine windows.

      These specops guys seem to be just VC phishing. The things they say on their buzzword-laden website reads investment scam all the way.

      • Not only is it a ripoff of WINE, in their FAQs on their site they claim that WINE has too many problems to be viable as since WINE implements the win32 API that it makes all of Linux unstable. Somehow their mythical David project was supposed to do it the right way and not have any the problems that Wine had.

  • Show me something recent... (Score:4, Informative)

    by harikiri ( 211017 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:50AM (#9099540)
    Show me the latest versions of popular Windows apps (office, outlook, powerpoint) being installed and running - and I'll be more impressed.. And give a real copy to a review site to test - just not that girl over at osnews.com! ;)

    At present, why would anyone use this instead of Crossover Office? Well... whenever they release it, that is.

    • Re:Show me something recent... (Score:5, Informative)

      by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:53AM (#9099552)
      Well I'm running office XP under crossover office just fine. I'm not sure if there's any later version of office out now but that works for me and is more recent than 2000.

      Other things that work fine for me in crossover is MSIE 6 (well to IE's limited ability anyway), Media Player and Trillian.

      However, all my needs these days are really met by Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice - so I use crossover very few times.

      However if I did need to use the complex features of MS Office that are not yet in OpenOffice I'd definitely recommend Crossover

    • Re:Show me something recent... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:00AM (#9099849) Homepage
      It seems a little ironic that the screenshots presented show-off all the best features of Windows applications.

      Just about to agree to the EULA of Microsoft Office [flexbeta.net]

      Windows needs to be restarted to continue this installation [flexbeta.net]

      MS-Word asking you to register [flexbeta.net]

      Tell me again, why do we not use OpenOffice?
      • A company that already own licenses for Microsoft office and wants to migrate to Linux is a good reason. Why waste a license you already own?

        People who need Microsoft Access for little db projects do not need Postgres, mySQL or Firebird, it is just overkill and requires far more knowledge than lets say a secretary should need to do his or her job; there is not any good replacement for Microsoft access. Access is fills the gap when a spreadsheet is not good enough and spending ANY time or money on a front

        • Re:Show me something recent... (Score:5, Insightful)

          by gnu-generation-one ( 717590 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @03:02PM (#9101294) Homepage
          Okay, I don't mind the joke becoming a debate, but if it does, can I ask about this one:

          "[OpenOffice.org] lacks an email client, evolution does the job fine but not everyone agrees"

          Now, everyone says this, I hear it all the time, and it makes no sense. Is there someone here who could explain

          Why does an office suite need an email client?

          No, really. Why? I mean, I've used email for years and I've used office-suites for years, and I've never even once had the urge to say "send this document by email" from a spreadsheet menu. And as yet, my email client has never had any problems with handling spreadsheet attachments in whatever's the default application, no integration required.

          In fact, I'd prefer not to have office software integrated with email, because when you send email, you have to stop and think about what the recipient might want, what's the best file format to use, and how best to reduce the size of the attachment, nevermind double-checking you're not sending something confidential in the file headers.

          But people are always on the OpenOffice support lists wishing that it had an email client. Why?

          Surely it's a barrier to using new software? If OpenOffice.org had an email client, you'd have to swap email clients as well as office suites to use it. Maybe you like the email client you've already got. Maybe it would cost a lot to change email clients.

          It's not as if I don't have these tools available. At work I have Outlook and OfficeXP (please don't send viruses, my company probably couldn't handle them). But I've never once used the two together in any way more complex than double-clicking an attachment and the operating system will decide which program to use. I use these programs all the time, and you'd be hard pressed to find some way in which they "integrate". In fact, Visio looks more integrated with MS-Office, and it's not even a microsoft product until recently.

          What is it? Is it just convenient to buy them at the same time? Do people actually use the "Save and email this file" menu? Can you preview emailed spreadsheet attachments in a tiny little Excel window? Is there some sort of email collaboration feature that I haven't seen but would change my life if it worked?

          What is it about email clients that people want them to be part of an office suite?

          • I really do not understand the desire to have an email client like this either. It appears to me that in general, most users do not benefit from an intergrated email client in any fasion. One influence however would be marketing, the people who buy software get a pitch about everything being intergrated. Maybe there is a thought that you are getting one piece of software to do email, word processing, spreadsheets, databases, .... as opposed to getting a piece of software for each. To them managing one progr
          • I'm kicking myself for replying to the Quick Brown Fox thread above. You deserved some positive moderation for this one, and I blew it.

            Personally, I still can't even see why a calendar/task list and an e-mail client belong in the same package...

            • I agree with the Office + Email = ??? equation, but I have to point out that Email + Calendar actually makes good sense. At least in an office setting, where meeting announcements are sent via email. Being able to simply "accept" the meeting invitation and have it automatically scheduled into your calendar is very handy. Probably more handy for some, than others, of course.

              But it must impress some people, as evident by that fact that companies still purchase the Lotus Notes suite. =P As far as I can te
              • I suppose, but how often is that *really* used? I think I've used it once, despite enduring Outlook since it's introduction.

                I used to work with Lotus Notes though. I loved it, though it wasn't about either e-mail nor calendaring. It was awesome for unstructured data + replication + RAD.
          • At the risk of being moderated a troll...

            I think that Outlook is a tool that has not really been replicated in the OSS community. Yes, you can point to Evolution, yes, you can point to 20 or so utilities that between them do the same things, but it's not the same. For people who live on Outlook, whoes daily buisness and productivity is built around Outlook, these tools that are so often pointed to are just not an answer that works. If I had to switch between even just 5 tools to get done what I used to
            • Pretty words... so how about some examples as to what these glorious features are, that you would need 20... or did you say 5?... seperate utilities to use?
    • At my place of work, we have trouble with formulas inserted into word documents. Seems word crashes in equation editor in random circumstances both on RH9 and Fedora Core 1.

  • I dunno much about it but seems to me... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rokzy ( 687636 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:50AM (#9099541)
    ... if it's open source it'll be easy to spot a rip-off, if it's CrossOver-style proprietary then what's the point - just use CrossOver anyway!

  • Purloined code (Score:3, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:51AM (#9099543)
    that in the picture http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/winbridge_ins tall.gif [flexbeta.net] the second line in winbridge.lst is /etc/wine... There are more clues that this project David is just a (possibly repackaged) Wine. the second line in winbridge.lst is /etc/wine...

  • hmm (Score:2, Redundant)

    by Manip ( 656104 )
    Thing is, shots such as these can be faked in a number of ways.. there was nobody there actually watching this and no real-time video. I am not very impressed. Even if it is real it will not be open source so nobody will use it anyway. :)

    • Re:hmm (Score:3, Informative)

      by Ianoo ( 711633 )
      The thing is, they didn't even fake the screenshots well enough to hide the fact they've ripped off WINE and/or Crossover Office. Does that say something about their competance?

  • Pitch for venture capital (Score:4, Interesting)

    by evil_one666 ( 664331 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @09:57AM (#9099569)
    the specops website is a pretty blatant pitch for venture capital, and not intended to give information to end users. Has an definate air of dodginess...

    • Re:Pitch for venture capital (Score:5, Informative)

      by 1u3hr ( 530656 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:40AM (#9100076)
      Their market strategy page [specopslabs.com]
      Objectives

      By the end of the first 12 months of operation:
      Develop a client base of 75 White Box System Builders and 1 Major Strategic OEM
      Sell and Ship 30,000+ copies of the DAVID Middleware
      Generate a gross revenue of US$ 1,000,000.00

      And the Contacts page gives one address only:
      PHILIPPINES
      Summit One Office Tower
      530 Shaw Blvd.
      Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila 150

    • the specops website is a pretty blatant pitch for venture capital, and not intended to give information to end users. Has an definate air of dodginess...

      The site is amateurish, obviously intended for non-tech savvy wanna-be investors. Everything about the site says "template", and not even a very good implementation (note the drop-shadow problems with the menu tabs, for one).

  • Show me the code (Score:2, Insightful)

    by highwindarea ( 732127 )
    Screenshots are great and all, but I'm still a bit sceptical. As soon as they say "Buy David now for $49.95. With our %100 compatibility, kick us if it doesn't work guarantee" I'll take it seriously.

  • Not really a rip-off... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:03AM (#9099588)
    Look at it as Offshore Outsourcing, FOSS style.
  • ...is that the directories seen in the homedir view changed quite remarkably. The installation directories (sources, specops) are not there, and some wine-20040408 dir shows up in Konqueror. Just as if it is a totaly different user or something.

    Ah well, 'even if' this is a fake, but at least it put some attention on Wine (and derivatives) in the sense that 'they can run Microsoft Office for ages already'.
    • I looked at that. What's most interesting though, is that in the two screenshots brought into question showing the wine directories, you're exactly right.

      The Home Directory in Konquerer changes COMPLETELY. At first it contains Desktop, and two directories, then in the next shot, it contains neither of the two directories, and a number of other ones.

      Something is fishy here.

  • Discovered? (Score:5, Funny)

    by The Phantom Buffalo ( 613874 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:09AM (#9099612)
    SpecOpS Labs recently made an extraordinary discovery involving the Microsoft Windows OS. Our discovery has enabled us to develop a breakthrough software program that we have codenamed David.

    Yup, I discovered it too. It's right here [winehq.com].

  • The evidence (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Chris_Jefferson ( 581445 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:09AM (#9099613) Homepage
    For those who can't get to wine-devel's mailing list: Look at this pic [flexbeta.net] for the words /etc/wine and /usr /bin/wine in the previews of one of the files.

    this pic [flexbeta.net] for references to an install of wine.

    Finally, for those who know lots about these things, on this picture [flexbeta.net] notice how the on the right and bottom of the page the scroll bar and status bar are clipped. This is a bug in crossover office but is fixed in the latest wine, so they appear to have basically made a crossover varient and not even bothered merging the latest release of the offical wine in. poor.

  • If it is just a repackaging of wine, the worst thing is the investments they claim to have received. They haven't done anything to actually help wine yet, and if that money is real, it could have been invested in one of the real wine contributing companies. These guys will probably just run away with the money in the end if they are this bad at faking things.

  • my name! (Score:3, Funny)

    by SanityInAnarchy ( 655584 ) <ninja@slaphack.com> on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:30AM (#9099702) Journal
    I think people named David everywhere should join together and be insulted!

    They not only rip off a decent product (crossover), but they rip off my name!

  • So what if it is? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @10:34AM (#9099714) Homepage Journal
    I dont really see a problem with this being a repackaged Wine. Provided that the company comply with the licensing terms, and that any changes to the source are given back to the community. More heads working on the wine project can only be a beneficial wherever they come from.

    However, if they are going to be all take take take and no giving back to the community then I do see a problem with it.

    Nick...

  • Wine modules like Transgaming. (WineX) (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BrookHarty ( 9119 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:03AM (#9099865) Journal
    Why can't Specops make plugins for wine, like WineX from transgaming?
    Transgaming doesn't release their source code for the copyrighted pieces, but they do release modifications to wine.

    I don't see a problem, other than they don't mention they use wine. Of couse maybe there is a readme.txt that has all the wine information. It's not released yet. ;)

    Though if it is Wine, its not really true virtualization like they claim. Damn, too much guessing, without seeing the code.

  • The name "David" - Biblical reference? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by CdBee ( 742846 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:37AM (#9100063)
    David is known to many as the Biblical character to slew Goliath, putting the Philistines into retreat and making David a favourite of the Hebrew people, who would one day be their king.

    Following this, David was repeatedly attacked by the leaders of the Hebrew people for being too strong.

    "For a while, David found himself in the rather bizarre situation of fighting Saul's enemies and fleeing Saul at the same time." - quoted from keyway.ca

    No, I'm no sort of religious propagandist, it's just amusing how well this rings when read as an analysis of commercial software vendors targeting the OSS community.

  • beh (Score:5, Informative)

    by XO ( 250276 ) <blade.eric@NospAM.gmail.com> on Sunday May 09, 2004 @11:53AM (#9100162) Homepage Journal
    Note to self/all:

    WINE cannot run the Windows Installer.

    • WINE cannot run the Windows Installer.

      So maybe they actually are doing something new then. Have they ever said that they were not using Wine as a base?

    • If you mean MSI then it most certainly can. If you mean the installer for Windows the OS then of course it cannot - you aren't meant to install Windows itself into Wine.

  • I emailed Specops.... (Score:5, Informative)

    by TheRealJFM ( 671978 ) on Sunday May 09, 2004 @01:57PM (#9100994) Homepage Journal
    Since no one else did, I sent this when the first slashdot article appeared. I got a reply recently.

    To sum up the email, they will use LGPL, and release a demo code around May when the website will be re-opened.

    The program is based on some already existing open source software. So yes, it probably uses wine.

    So will it turn up?

    This was the response:

    The availability of the commercial version of Project David is before the
    end of this year. We do encourage the open source movement and we will
    comply with the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE. We will be posting
    developments and availability of our demo code through our Website
    http://www.specopslabs.com which will be reopened before the end of May.
    Through our website, we will be announcing how you can secure a licensed
    copy of Project David when it becomes commercially available before the end
    of this year. For existing MS Windows users, it will be available via
    download. For users buying a new PC, we are working with PC manufacturers,
    System Whitebox Builders and OEM's on having this pre-loaded when the PC is
    ordered as a Linux desktop/server

    As the final pricing of the commercial version of DAVID is still being
    finalized, the combined pricing of David with the Linux distribution of your
    choice will be significantly lower than securing a license for the desktop
    proprietary Operating Systems in the market today. We are a firm believer in
    having Linux on the desktop and will price the product accordingly to make
    the commercial issues more compelling.

    Below are some additional information on Project David. [SNIP!]

    The only things I didn't already know from the articles that have appeared are that:

    "Our Linux/Win Bridge software is one of multiple
    components [Including LGPL stuff like wine?], which comprise our OS platform. In the future we will release
    another component, which is a set of tools that will encourage developers to
    write native Linux applications."

    "The David software is a joint development effort between De La Salle
    University and SpecOpS Labs. Our Chief Technical Officer is Mr. Peter
    Valdez. As you may know Mr. Valdez is the founder of Tivoli Systems, which
    is now a multi billion-dollar flagship product of IBM."

    "The code for our Windows/Linux Bridge is a hybrid of code, including our own
    proprietary code, and code from several open source projects."
  • What is all this non-sense about wine being ripped off? Code reuse is the essence of free software.

    More developers means more eyes and less bugs. I am glad to see that there will be competition on the supported wine app space. This should keep the crossover-office guys on their toes, right Jeremy?

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