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Debian And WineX
fdsa writes "After a heated debate, and under some pressure by TransGaming, an 'intent to package' WineX from sourceforge CVS for (non-free) Debian has been withdrawn. The message provides a good summary of the recent Wine chaos, and notes how WineX is effectively under a different license than stated. Here's a mail from their CEO Gavriel State on the issue."
#include <sig.h>
If you want it to be truely free, use the GPL license. If you don't care, then use the BSD, Artistic, X11 or what-have-you. This is a good example of what can happen.
This is why I bought a PlayStation 2 -- NOTHING is free, and I don't expect any of it to be, so I'm not disappointed. I can just sit down and PLAY GAMES without making moral decisions.
Learning HOW to think is more important than learning WHAT to think.
From the E-Mail "If Debian goes ahead and packages WineX despite our request, we will have to evaluate how
that is affecting our financial situation, and determine whether we should change our
license to restrict any future binary-packaged redistribution, regardless of commercial or
non-commercial intent. It would certainly be our preference not to have to do so."
You know, as I recall there once was a day when projects such as these were more concerned with producing great software rather than profit margins. Unfortunatly it does take money to run a business, and in order to keep it viable so that you can continue to create great software you have to be able to finance the development process. Still I almost feel sad for some reason.
Transgaming has also promised to give back the sourcecode to Wine. There are many obstacles, including licenced technology like SafeDisc and S3 Texture Compression (if they ever do it) but I'm sure they can overcome it.
I would guess there are now more working games for Linux than for Mac OS. That's impressive.
Ciryon
Does a proprietry WineX threaten Linux in any way? No not really. It is a system that allows proprietry windows software to run on open source/free Linux. It hardly matters quite where the free/prop. divide is drawn either above or below the middleware - the end result is that the user is running is a non-free application - although things might be a bit confused if they start sticking prop. kernel modules into Linux - but then again, there is the precedence of VMware et al for this.
So there is nothing legally wrong with what Transgaming are doing. I say let them carry on - but just clear up the confusion and plainly state that WineX is a proprietry system. If anyone's nose is out of joint then it was Wine's fault for ever being under the BSD liscense - which it isn't now.
Of course Transgamings Business Model is wrong. They should simply re-sell Windows games - either to Windows users or to Linux users bundling WineX and some installation glue a la codeweavers.
That's one the advantages of the ports-style system Gentoo uses. The ebuilds are just instructions on how to download and compile a package, they don't contain any actual source code or binaries. Thus Gentoo can have an ebuild for virtually any program, regardless of what license the program is under.
"People that quote themselves in their signatures bother me" - athakur999
If you want it to be truely free, use the GPL license. If you don't care, then use the BSD, Artistic, X11 or what-have- you. This is a good example of what can happen.
I think you don't understand.
To be 'truely' free you should use BSD license. It basically gives your code away.
Those of us who use GPL do it to get back some fruits of our hands. I WANT that any of my modified code will come back to me.
I think BSD people are very generous, but I personally don't think I could just give my work away the way they do.
fucktard is a tenderhearted description
The ability to do -anything- with the code; whenever you want it; however you want it. Or in other words you and your actions are the thing that is free.
Or the ability of the code to distribute itself to wherever the code wants to go; and protection for the code to insure it does not get hidden away in obscure places.
BSD chooses the first as being important - at the expense of freedom of the code.
The GPL chooses the latter - at the expense of freedom for you.
And as with all things in live - reality is a compromize; one cannot have both. Companies and people who want their code to be used in the widest possible way generally pick the BSD code - and people who want their creations to have a robust live of their own - for eternity to come - and out of reach of commercialization - pick the GPL.
Dw.
People like to bitch about transgaming, but they really have done nothing wrong. They grabbed wine, used it according to the license attached to it, offered to trade code to/from the main wine tree. There's nothing wrong with that, if the wine developers didn't want their code used in that manner they should have (L)GPLed it from the start.
Similarly, if the debian crew decides to ignore transgaming's request and package winex in the distribution anyway, transgaming has nothing to complain about, but they can decide to change their license if they think they need too.
I think everyone needs a nice fine glass of STFU.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
They do distribute debian DEB packages along with the RPM's, but of course, these are the full, stable releases, which include non-free code like copy protection, and which you must be a subscriber to download. They're worried that if Debian distributes the compiled CVS version and calls it WineX, people who install that package may think that's all there is, without being aware of the subscription service or the extra features possible. Personally, I agree with them, and don't see what all the fuss is about. I don't see a 'big bad company' trying to muscle out the 'little guy', I see a group trying to support open source development financially, and trying to protect their interests in doing so. If you read Gavriel State's response, I think their position is perfectly reasonable.
I think that most people here are misunderstanding the issue, and as a long WineX subscriber, I feel that I need to clarify.
:).
WineX has _always_ been available in source form for free (meaning you can get it even if you aren't a subscriber) if you are willing and able to pull it from their CVS servers. What has never been free is their compiled code, in which they add such goodies such as safedisc and securerom support (which of course, can't be open sourced, because WineX licensed it from the companies that created the copy protection)
What Transgaming is asking is that distributions don't package the free version of their source as a package, so people don't get the impression that when they try to run new game x with copy protection that it doesn't work with the WineX period, and not actually go and check transgamings site and realize that they need to buy the commercial version. I would hope more from the average linux user, but I can see their point.
Besides, people have been tolerating this behaviour from the MPlayer project for a long time, so I don't see what the big deal is. If you don't agree with their reasons, then exercise your right to choose and don't use the product
Well...
It is fine to pay programmers to do work and then sell that work for a moderate fee. However, their BASE was taken from a free project.
Of course under the old Wine license this was fine and legal. Now they have changed...
What erks me royally is the idea that Debian wants to do something that could fall quite in line with the available license and the WineX guys are throwing a fit.
I have no objections to turning a profit, but these guys seem to forget their roots.
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
If we want Linux to become "main stream" we need to allow companies who support us to earn a living doing so. If TransGaming wants to keep their source closed, they have the right to do so under the X11 license. Now that WINE is under the LGPL license, they cannot incorporate any contributions to the LGPL'd tree without following the LGPL license agreement, which, I believe, would force them to put their source tree under the LGPL also.
So, if they want to go it alone without the support of the open source community then God bless them but as Wine moves forward or in a different direction they will need to keep their source tree free of LGPL'd code.
The two branches will get farther and farther apart and eventually, I believe that the Open Source branch will be superior and TransGaming will be in danger of going the way of the dinosaur.
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
That does sound nice but a software project is a dynamic thing, evolving over time. Your scenerio is static, a happy snapshot where you're giving your code away and all is nice.
Lets look at the dynamic:
1.) Start project, license it as BSD
2.) Writing code, everything is nice.
3.) Code becomes popular, sizable group of developers gather.
4.) The vampires show up. Act just like regular users at first.
5.) Vampires start making making requests for you to change certain things, so their fork will work better. They promise to release patche sback to you.
6.) More vampires show up, make the same demands and promises as the proginal vampire.
7.) Your mailing list starts filling up with requests from developers who think it would be best for the project if you cooperated with vampire(x).
8.) None of the vampires have kept their promises. DEvelopers for you project are working on vampire forks.
9.) Your project is no longer popular because it has fewer features than the vampire forks. AFter all the vampire forks will always be their efforts+theirs. you can never keep up.
10.) People on your mailing list start to bitch and moan about not having feature X that they saw in vampire distro.
11.)Vampires continue to orbit. Plucking any new idea you have and not giving anything in return. Project dies a slow death and you get tired of working with it because it's not fun anymore.
Actually, it does NOT impose restrictions. It takes away some restrictions (from standard copyright law) and leaves some in. Public domain removes all restrictions, GPL removes SOME restrictions, MS EULA adds MANY restrictions.
/usr/games/fortune
The GPL is a copyright license; unless you plan to modify and redistribute a GPLed work, you don't even have to worry about it. Its terms are intended to make sure that others maintain the same freedom to modify and redistribute that you received and were pleased to take advantage of.
Microsoft's EULA is a usage license, attempting to impose conditions ex post facto on your use of a product you paid for. You are not able to read the license until after the purchase has been made, and its terms are crafted for the benefit of Microsoft and Microsoft alone.
Thus the GPL and the EULA could scarcely be more different in the letter of their conditions, the spirit of their conditions, and the manner in which those conditions are applied.
AC.
Um, just what do you mean by `close the source'? Nothing a company does with my code has any effect at all on the freedom or availability of the code which I released under BSDL. If said company wants the benefits of open-sourcing their code, great. If they feel better off not doing so, great. Either way, the code I released under BSDL is still available under BSDL.
What you're really saying is that you feel you have a right to control the distribution of their code as well as yours. Now that's fine, if that's what you want, and there are certainly valid arguments for using the GPL in that case, but don't pretend it has anything to do with companies `closing' your source -- only you can do that.