Wine Now Has Big-Time Lawyers On Its Side 227
Roblimo writes "For years there's been fear that the Wine Project would get sued by Microsoft at some point, and this fear has kept IBM and other major free software-using companies from participating openly in it. Now the Software Freedom Law Center, headed by Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen, is offering free legal services to Wine (and other FOSS projects) to allay corporate fears and head off potential lawsuits."
Thanks Eben! (Score:5, Insightful)
-Jesse
Re:Yes indeed (Score:5, Insightful)
While I understand your argument, it DOES also make switching easier. I use wine (actually cxoffice) on my gentoo box. It allowed me to switch from windows quickly and fairly easily. As time goes on and I find OSS projects that I like to use instead of the windows app under wine I switch to them. There are still some that I haven't found replacments that I like for so I use the windows apss. There are a number of windows apps i have stopped using for OSS replacments. If it wern't for cxoffice i would have had to switch all my programs at once, which would have been a huge task, perhapse large enough to make me think it was just easier to deal with windows then to make the switch.
Re:Yes indeed (Score:2)
Re:Yes indeed (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Yes indeed (Score:2)
I'm not sure about the GP but I maintain a few web pages for friends. Having IE available with Wine means I don't need Windows installed at all to test with. That's very handy.
Re:Yes indeed (Score:2)
Re:Yes indeed (Score:2)
You could have made the same argument about MacOS classic when they migrated to OSX. Why bother messing with your application if it's supported under classic?
Don't forget (Score:2)
The reason this is good is that business cannot switch to the more secure GNU/Linux OS, but still use apps they don't have time to migrate from.
Needing to use a proprietry windows accounting program is all that holds my mum's company back from switching to GNU/Linux. If it will work under wine she can start the migration process now, and switch from
Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2, Insightful)
Microsoft: "Hey, they have backing now, we should go after them"
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
"Hey, they didn't have any lawyers to fight us with before...but now that they have a big well educated team lets go blow some cash!"
I knew MS always wants to find ways to blow the contents of its warchest
Next time...think before posting.
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
You could be right. (Score:2)
If this group has any cash at all, MS is likely to try to seperate them from it.
Re:You could be right. (Score:2, Funny)
Re:You could be right. (Score:5, Interesting)
The legal support is free. So the fact that Wine has legal support now does not in any way mean that they suddenly also have money.
If there is a lawsuit and Wine loses Microsoft doesn't get to take the lawyers to the cleaners.
So this development does not mean there is any more money to gain from Microsoft's point of view.
Re:You could be right. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:You could be right. (Score:2)
Re:You could be right. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You could be right. (Score:2)
I don't think there is anything wrong with people trying to make money from their work. I just think it's wrong when they think that the amount they get isn't enough and the
Re:You could be right. (Score:2)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Because before MS would look like the big guy hitting on the little guy that couldn't defend himself.
Now the little guy can defend himself.
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
If Microsoft (or anyone) tries to set precendent with GPL by suing an open source project, you can sure bet IBM, Novell, Redhat and others would come to their aid if they have to. Microsoft better be damn sure they can win.
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Re:Might trigger lawsuits (Score:2)
Given that they got away with making the terms very restrictive (impossible for OSS to use), it would be beyond foolhardy to risk a new anti-trust case with harsher terms were they to start suing their competition, i.e. samba, in an area where they've already been nailed for anti-trust violations.
An angel? (Score:4, Interesting)
My question is "what's their interest?".
I don't think this is a bad thing, just curious.
Is the free software movement gaining enough public exposure that helping it is seen as contributing to the public good?
Are we approaching a tipping point in the perception of FOSS?
here's hoping.
Re:An angel? (Score:5, Funny)
Let's not take any chances on this, OK? Launch Evas!
Re:An angel? (Score:3, Funny)
Send in Section 2 and Mac Users as cannon fooder to estimate the offense capabilities of this Angel!
Re:An angel? (Score:5, Funny)
I wouldn't go that far, this guy is still a lawyer after all.
Re:An angel? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:An angel? (Score:3, Funny)
As in, "After years of not donating any money to charity, suddenly Joe Schmoe decides to give 1 million dollars to the American Heart Association. What is his angle?"
Re:An angel? (Score:3, Funny)
I mean you can't have to many.
And blank lines are free, after all.
Just my 2 cents.
Re:An angel? (Score:4, Funny)
Free as in beer, or free as in speech?
Re:An angel? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:An angel? (Score:2)
Re:An angel? (Score:2)
Re:An angel? (Score:2)
This isn't really like an angel investment; it's more like a non-profit organization.
Eben is ok (Score:3, Informative)
Re:An angel? (Score:2)
First and foremost, they get access to free software! (it wouldn't exist without this pro-bono work). Kudos to them!
\begin{rant}
Regarding your other point, I think we are reaching a tipping point in the software industry, actually. Over the last 4-5 years, this industry has been overrun by litigation to the extent that it can get very dangerous to write a major piece of code without a lawyer on
A possible benifit (Score:2)
Re:An angel? (Score:2)
Are we approaching a tipping point in the perception of FOSS?
Yes, and maybe even passed it. See my sig. Linux topping Windows on google happened just in the last few months. Not scientific of course but good fun.
Most statistics that US'ians use to measure software dominance (e.g. revenue, stock price, US phone surveys, US sales) don't really apply to much of the rest of the world. Nobody knows what the Chinese and Indian statistics are (2B people versus 300M in the US), linux has no universal stock pr
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't understand Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:5, Informative)
"well, we might not get all of their business, but we'll take what we can get." From a business standpoint, that would seem to make more sense.
What makes sense about supporting a project whose focus will make one of your core (profitable) products unnecessary?
Making Windows applications run on Linux (or whatever) won't make Linux users run out and buy Office. No, rather it will make Windows customers migrate to Linux (because they can still keep their old software).
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:3, Insightful)
MS don't just sell an OS, they sell an integrated solution. They sell a desktop OS and a server OS, with desktop and server apps that complement them. Hell, they even sell *games* too (and some pretty good ones at that, as it happens).
Make it easy to move from Windows to Linux, and you make it easier to migrate away from the rest of the integrated solution, and that can only be a bad thing for MS.
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:2)
Configuring WINE to work correctly on a Linux system takes time and skill which many people who run Windows because "Windows is a computer" will not even be bothered to try learning, let alone succeed at.
Until Linux and associated applications have the 'Just Works' factor of Windows, there is no way in hell that you're going to convert the masses, no matter
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:2)
Re:I don't understand Microsoft (Score:2)
Yeah that should protect them from getting sued (Score:5, Insightful)
Surely MS haven't sued simply because they can see no legal grounds to do so. Otherwise they would have used this against Lindows.
Re:Yeah that should protect them from getting sued (Score:2)
This doesn't mean that his offer is a Bad Thing ©, just that he obviously balanced risk vs reward...
But does it have... (Score:5, Interesting)
Not trolling here, and neither AIAL (am I a lawyer), but can Wine be sued for reverse engineering (definition may vary) Windows APIs/functionality under the DMCA?
From what we've seen in the past, even something as simple/straightforward like pressing the shift key can be construed as "intentionally breaking copy protection mechanisms" by sue-happy companies.
Is reverse engineering document formats (OpenOffice), OS APIs (Wine), illegal under the DMCA, or can it be spun as such?
Re:But does it have... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:But does it have... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:But does it have... (Score:2)
I know this was a joke, but can an argument be made that Skylarov was making a compatability/interoperability program? Just because the "interoperability" is a manner in opposition to the original copyright holder's intent should be irrelevant...
Re:But does it have... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:But does it have... (Score:2)
Erm, straight back at ya dude.
Retro-Activeness (Score:2)
Suppose you wanted to call any reverse engineering illegal (shudder!) -- if that happened before the DMCA and now the project is just in maintence mode, can the DMCA still apply? I'd hope not.
Re:But does it have... (Score:4, Informative)
No.
The nasty provisions of the DMCA are there to prevent people from disabling copy protection and from falsely creating or removing "copyright management information", which means things like holograms on the outside of packages as well as simple copyright notices in code.
Copyright only covers the particular expression of a concept. APIs have been held to be concepts, and you can't copyright them. You can copyright
To protect an idea or concept, you have to use a patent. You can't patent an API, and even if you could it's not protected by the nasty provisions of the DMCA. I'm pretty sure any patents on document formats will be thrown out, too.
Regarding reverse engineering: don't sweat it. As long as you are only looking at what a program does, it makes no legal difference whether you are looking at what bits it sends on a wire or what output it makes on a screen. It's only if you disassemble the program and use the disassembled instructions as your own that you are guilty of copyright infringement.
No, I'm not a lawyer, but I do play one on the net.
Re:But does it have... (Score:3, Informative)
It's only if you disassemble the program and use the disassembled instructions as your own that you are guilty of copyright infringement.
Further, if you disassemble the program and read the disassembly to understand what it does, then write your own program that does the same thing, you are not guilty of copyright infringement.
Re:But does it have... (Score:2)
Since the Wine project started way before DMCA, wouldn't it be excluded from prosecution?
Yes, I AM ignorant.
WINE (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure, it's kind of stabbing it's main flagship product in the back, but isn't that what their "Windows Lite" for the Asian markets do?
Since Indian companies are creating little cheap Linux laptops/computers, Asian companies are selling little cheap Linux computers, why would Microsoft not sell a $35 add-on for Linux, tightly registration controlled (Yes, I said that, too) that allows Microsoft-compiled applications to run on Linux.
Don't jump on me for saying Microsoft should write for Linux. Of course they should. It's unfathomable that they DONT support Linux. Heck, even monolithic old NOVELL is supporting their products on the triad of main OS'es now. Linux, MS-WIN and Mac. They're even migrating Netware to a Linux base.
Re:WINE (Score:3, Interesting)
Microsoft is a marketing company. They don't write software anymore. They acquire and purchase software, then integrate it into their core products (Outlook, MSIE, Visio, Excel just to name a few; none of wh
Re:WINE (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft WINE - precedent for this (Score:2)
Of course Linux was still in its infancy at the time, but Microsoft sold (and even promoted) their 'Win32 for Mac' package as a way to get portability between Windows 95 and whatever MacOS was around in those days.
Of course, it didn't quite work, and once the real threat (OS/2) went away, it was taken off the market, but there was a time when Microsoft saw a reason to sell a portablili
IBM (Score:5, Insightful)
Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:5, Insightful)
1. IBM has no lawyers?
2. IBM is scared of Microsoft's lawyers?
What on earth? Yes, this is great for Wine, but the idea that this somehow changes IBM's view of Wine is so naive it's almost hard to believe this hit the front page of Slashdot.
Let's go over this again.
IBM have more legal experience and probably more lawyers than the rest of the IT industry put together. If they don't support Wine it's for reasons other than "fear of lawsuits". Perhaps IBM are betting on Java, and Wine is kind of irrelevant in the Java view of things.
Companies that sue IBM tend to be very short-lived. They are either SCO-style attack dogs, or pure patent claim firms. Any real IT company that sues IBM will find itself in sudden and extremely expensive violation of more patents than they knew possible.
The article's premise is BS. The rest is interesting though.
Re:Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:2)
United States vs. IBM: IBM lost, operated under consent decrees for many years.
United States vs Microsoft: Microsoft "lost". Slapped on wrist.
IBM also knows that taking on Microsoft's lawyers will make the duration and cost of the SCO case look like seconds and pennies. If they won, it would still be a very pyrrhic victory.
Re:Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:2)
Microsoft know if they tried to sue IBM they would lose (even if they had a great case, IBM could just sue them for $50B dollars worth of patent infringment)
Re:Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:2)
Being big doesn't necessarily make you good.
Re:Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:2, Funny)
Obviously somone doesn't read Slashdot very often
Re:Agreed, the article's premise is BS (Score:2)
But the article's premise is still BS. IBM has millions of dollars of legal budget, with Eben that will be millions of dollars + 1 lawyer. That won't be the straw that breaks the camel's back.
IBM will probably continue to not support WINE, for mostly technical reasons.
Stoner's Pot World (Score:4, Funny)
"Man what a jip, false advertising!"
I thought this story was about internet wine sales finally being legalized!
Re:Stoner's Pot World (Score:2)
Man, that is flagrant false advertising!!
Re:Stoner's Pot World (Score:2)
Man, that is flagrant false advertising!!
I hate when that happens. I remember something incorrectly, then when I go to fact-check my memory on Google, I get false corroboration from others who made the same mistake. D'oh!
BIg Deal (Score:4, Informative)
Would someone like to post list of FOSS projects that have been killed due to litigation, or even threat of litigation. I assume this list must be quite lengthy given the amount slashdotters bang on about it.
Hear that? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah, me neither.
I'm sorry, that's rude, but the big problem with lawsuits isn't just having one thrown at you, it's the long and drawn-out process of having to see it all the way through to the end. Forget about the merits of the case, if you've got a lawsuit coming, and you're small, you're a hell of a lot less worried about a guilty verdict and a hell of a lot more worried about going bankrupt, because in the big time lawyers prey on fears of the latter more than the former.
If Microsoft wants to sue, they're going to do it whether or not there's a bunch of lawyers working pro bono on the case. You'd need an entire army of tech-minded geeks engaging in "open source law" (in quotes not to refer to open source software, but to "open source journalism", which was a pretty horrible catch-phrase but analogous to this situation...). In which case, maybe this dept could act as a sort of marshalling station.
But still, if they were thinking about dropping the gauntlet before, they're not going to be deterred now.
Re:Hear that? (Score:2)
Re:Hear that? (Score:5, Interesting)
How right you are.
I live about 10 miles from the biggest casino in the world [foxwoods.com] (and its not in Vegas). There was a case years ago where an elderly couple here saved their entire lives to buy a plot of land right on a busy corner so they could invest in the Dunkin Donuts franchise as part of their retirement. They wanted to own the Dunkin Donuts on this corner and live off of the profits.
This plot of land was also in a key location for the nearby casino to put some advertising and an employee/patron parking lot... so they sued the elderly couple and took them to court (with absolutely no valid reason for the lawsuit).
Years later and many delays and continuances, the elderly couple's life savings was completely drained holding up their legal end of the battle. This couple already owned the land that they wanted to put this Dunkin Donuts on.
The casino gave them one final offer: Give us the deed to the land and we won't continue to sue you. Since the couple wanted some money to live off of for the rest of their golden years, they gave in and gave the casino the land.. and in exchange the casino dropped their lawsuit.
I have one word for them: FUCKERS ! (And I'm Native American too, but their abuses on this particular casino/reservation go WAY beyond tribal honor).
This stuff makes me want to vomit.
Hmm (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
The beauty of Wine is that it's not officially supported by any large companies. but is aiming at a stable target. See MS cannot really just break their API to spite Wine anymore. Wine isn't shooting for longhorn compatibility, it's shooting for ~ win2k compatibility.
IBM at the time was supposed to be getting windows compatibility from MS, but instead got the shaft (ungreased).
I would think that OS/2 (and it's wi
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
Re:Hmm (Score:2)
The bigger picture (Score:4, Insightful)
We need to think about representation in the government. Lawyers can defend within the boundaries of the law. But, what laws will they have to fight? What laws will protect them?
From patent law to the fight for telecommunications control there are important decisions being made by our government. I think that there are a lot of special interests being served. The OSS movement needs a voice in Washington and even at the state level.
I really hate seeing so many industry-driven bills going before congress. Many decisions will affect the way you design software, use the internet, and even watch television. There are a lot of college grads who can't immediately finding work. Send them out to represent the needs and desires of the OSS community.
Microsoft = 600lb gorilla (Score:4, Funny)
Saying this is a david vs goliath situation isn't even close to accurate.
Re:Microsoft = 600lb gorilla (Score:2)
Re:Microsoft = 600lb gorilla (Score:2)
The Lawyers should first target Cedega. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Lawyers should first target Cedega. (Score:2, Interesting)
Why on Earth would their GPL compliance be an issue?
Wine used to be BSD licenced (or similar, I forget the exact details) and that is what they based their product on.
Wine later changed their licence to stop other companies using the code without contributing back.
Since licence changes are not retroactive, your question makes no sense.
IBM's OS/2 code to help WINE? (Score:2)
(a) allow even more support for Windows apps.
(b) get some of that groovy 32-bit multi-threading goodness out to the public
(c) flip Microsoft the bird for what MS actually did to OS/2 when it launched.
I'd give them a lollipop for that. (OS/2 was the ONLY operating system that I have ever bought. and I still think it handled multi-threading better then anything else I have run since then.)
Great! Now if I could just run VISIO 2003 on WINE! (Score:2)
As an annual event, I try to depart from the M$ hive 100%. My last foray brought me VERY close to freedom, but I was tripped up by the need to create and share VISIO files with the M$ world. Apparently WINE is struggling with issues on this front and there was no near-term solution.
I'm not suggesting it's the WINE project's fault, it's just the way it is.
Good news. (Score:5, Informative)
First, this will mean that more programs will get support. (Applications like AutoCAD, which doesn't quite work yet.)
Second, since I started using the Mac, I've become interested in the Darwine project, which aims to make Windows programs run on the Mac without running Windows in an emulator; this project aims to combine Qemu and Wine to run the Wine code natively on the Mac iron while emulating only the application code. Big support behind Wine will likely mean a better Windows-like operating layer not only on x86 systems running, say, Linux, but also on non-x86 systems that are candidates for running the occasional Windows program.
Third, IBM has OS/2 code, which contains some of the same code as Windows itself. I'm not saying that IBM could submit that code directly into Wine, but IBM could have a clean-room implementation of some of the most important functions, using a plain-English specification written by programmers with access to the code. Not to mention that it means a lot of Wine bugs will get fixed. This is good news!
Sorta Thanks to Wine :) (Score:3, Interesting)
Kind of, anyways. I use Cedega, Transgaming's not-totally-free wine branch focused on gaming.
It means I can play many of the Windows games I want to play on Linux.
I happily live in a MS free household. I still play games on my PC, games that wouldn't be possible on a console (RTS, and MMORPG).
TransgamingWine relations are rocky sometimes, but I'm glad both communities are around. They make my life easier.
Sure, it'd be nice if all the developers built Linux versions of their games/apps. But if they find out a significant portion of the user base runs on Wine, they start trying to run their apps inside the company on Wine (some random developer almost always picks it up (Blizzard with World of Warcraft, and I know Secondlife developers have played with it).
Now there's talk of internal attempts to build native linux clients for both World of Warcraft (there was an early beta, but never a release), and Secondlife promises eventual linux support.
Using Windows games/apps on Linux, inside of Wine, demonstrates to developers that there is, indeed, a market for native versions.
Truly, its the best counter argument to "Linux is not a gaming platform, stick it Windows".
I do not believe that it makes developers lazy, and only code for Windows. They were only coding for Windows before; Linux efforts have one way to go, up.
Re:A lawyer's task? (Score:4, Insightful)
I disagree. Caring about the issues means that you have an activist, not a lawyer. If that individual (activist) changes his mind, dies, has other concerns, etc.--your support dries up.
I'd much prefer that the larger community see its interests connected to mine. In this case, my interest being the health of the FOSS movement.
The little guy (FOSS) can win battles by winning converts. But winning hearts and minds takes resources. The little guy, by definition, is little.
The little guy wins the WAR by co-opting the power of the big guys. Appeal to the self-interest of the big guys. If a powerful legal organization sees helping FOSS as an easy way to satisfy some pro-bono requirement and get some exposure, then it doesn't matter if a particluar lawyer is a GNU fan.
Judo.
Re:Conflict of interest (Score:2)
Anyway, even if people do run closed source software using Wine, so what? Linux also supports closed source software: deliberately so, that's why all the major platform libraries are not GPLd.
Re:Mono might benefit for something like this (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.novell.com/news/press/archive/2004/06/
Re:Aren't software patents good? (Score:2)
The true aim of patents isn't encouraging innovation per se, but to give an incentive to publish inventions.
If something's patented when it's already around, doesn't prior art protect its real creator?
The problem with patents in general is that the concept of "innovation" is so fuzzy. What constitutes "prior art"? It's impossible to draw a line between a truly new invention and a trivial improvement on some existing technology. I