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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under some pressure by TransGaming, an 'intent to package' WineX from sourceforge CVS for (non-free) Debian has been withdrawn.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."
Amusingly, Gentoo Linux users can install WineX with a single command. It is packaged (I assume) from the Sourceforge CVS, and given that Gentoo compiles everything from scratch, conveniently sidesteps the whole distributing binaries thing.
By the way, for fellow Gentoo users, a 2002/05/11 ebuild is currently available by "# emerge winex". Check the package list for the most recent date.
This past year, I was accepted into Carnegie Mellon's School of Computer Science. It has been a remarkable experience that I would lik e to share with the Slashdot community. Here's an account of my experience.
Week 1, Sunday: I moved in today. My roommate, a sophomore CS student, had already moved in tw o days before me. The floor is already completely covered with garbage. He also smells. I think he might be gay too. He's already asked me if I like the color he painted his toenails. This should be interesting. I am almost completely settled in. Techno music is playing in every room in every floor of my dorm. There are computers and other types of trash out in the common areas. What a mess. Tom orrow, I am going to go sign up to get my network connection.
Week 1, Monday: I got hooked up to the CMU network today! I jacked into the network, only to f ind that the hostname and address assigned to me were colliding with another system. I'll just increm ent the network numbers a few times. I am really eager to get on.
Week 1, Tuesday: I am still looking for a free IP address. Can't anybody here properly configu re their systems?
Week 1, Friday: I finally found a free IP! It's mine! You sons of bitches can't have i t, I found it, I keep it, it's mine! To hell with all of you! Head hurts really bad. I've slowly be en developing a headache since I first arrived. Everywhere I look there are these Lucent Technologies wireless access points. I wonder if that's the problem.
Week 1, Saturday: I sat down at my computer today. My desktop wall paper is now the goatse.cx guy. Pleasant. Scattered over every directory on my C: drive are thousands, possibly millions, of fi les titled "J00AR30WN3DBITCH-phj33r-" and then some random hacker's name. Don't these people have liv es? Maybe they need laid or something. It'd take days to clean this out. I mentioned to my roommate that I needed to reinstall Windows, and immediately he jumped up and shouted: "NO! Do NOT use Window s!" Suddenly, two dozen other guys (all of them possibly homosexuals) appeared at the door, each tout ing an operating system called Linux. Half of them got into a fight over which was better, Debian, Re dHat, Slackware, and a bunch of others I couldn't recognize. Some kid who appeared to not have shower ed since he was born was touting "Linux From Scratch", saying that only losers used pre-made distros. A crowd of people in the back kept quiet about how I'd be sorry if I used Linux instead of BSD on the network. Who the fuck are these people? Classes start next week. Hope I have my computer working s o I can do my assignments.
Week 3, Friday: People are still trying to get Linux to work on my system. They keep telling m y that my hardware sucks. We go through about four or five distributions a day. Every now and then, I notice a little devil on my screen. Stickers for every of these distributions have been plastered o n my case. Suddenly, my room stinks a lot more with these people in here. I ask them why they never shower, and the usual response is something along the lines of "showering is like rebooting" and "I do n't want to lose my uptime."
Week 3, Saturday: There's a troop of men running naked in a circle around McGill Hall. I am no t even going to ask.
Week 4, Wednesday: Linux is FINALLY working on my computer! I have a pretty slick desktop too. I think I might like this. I can finally work in my room instead of the labs, although considering the every increasing layer of garbage on the floor...
Week 4, Thursday: My computer flashes messages about how I am "0WNX0RED" and how I should "PHJ3 3R" whoever and how "L4MEX0R" I am for having an insecure box. A kid suggests we reinstall Linux afte r discovering about 17 rootkits.
Week 5, Friday: Someone got BSD working on my computer. I wonder if this will last. The stres s has been building and I forgot to take a shower this morning.
Week 6, Tuesday: Seems I have been "0WNX0R3D" again. Took longer this time. Minutes later, so meone comes in with a "Bastile Linux" install CD. He gets started installing. I am feeling very susp icious of these guys.
Week 6, Thursday: Everyone seems to know more about my system than I do. It's a bit unnerving. I guess anyone could feel upset from this sort of treatment. They hack my box, trash it, then reins tall everything. I guess they think they're being funny. My dirty clothes are piling up and I am out of clean ones. I don't have time to do laundry, I'll have to wear something out of the pile.
Week 6, Friday: I got up this morning, sat at my machine, and stared at it blankly. An icon ap peared on my desktop for Quake III. I suppose it couldn't hurt to play some. I have been very stress ed lately.
Week 6, Sunday: I lost track of time! I started playing Quake III on the network with some oth er CMU students (who killed me hundreds of times in the course of 10 minutes) and completely lost myse lf. There's a bag of chips that has been sitting here for a few weeks. I think I'll finish those off for breakfast and then go to sleep.
Week 7, Wednesday: I masturbate every day now. Not a single girl comes near me. This is so de pressing. Do I really smell? Oh well, I have the task of learning how to secure my Linux box to keep me busy. Who has time for the opposite sex after all?
Week 8, Tuesday: I got into a fight with this little shit who kept telling me RedHat was great. What a fucking moron! Anybody who knows Linux knows that Debian kicks its sorry little ass. I'll b e getting my judiciary papers for the incident in the mail. Doesn't this school get it? I can't let someone go around converting people to RedHat! WtF!?
Week 8, Friday: My roommate squeezed my ass today! At first I was shocked and appauled, and I told him off for it. Thinking about it later though, there was just something that seemed too strong about my reaction. I'll talk to him later and appologize for getting so upset, it wasn't really so ba d.
#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.
I think the CEO's email makes their concern quite clear. They acknowledge that the current license can't prevent anyone from making a debian package. I think he's presented quite a reasonable argument for third parties re-packaging their code. What it doesn't address is why they don't make debian packages themselves. (please forgive me if they do, I don't use any flavor of Wine, and the CEO's email seemes to imply they don't, and have canceled plans to do so.)
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.
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
This just illustrates why its important to understand the license governing a project before contributing to it. It is also the reason why the OSI keeps a list of approved licenses.
If you didn't take time to understand the license before contributing to the project, you can't complain that you don't like the result.
-- Button up, your ignorance is showing
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
You're kidding, right? WINE has already helped TransGaming, to the tune of a million lines of code.
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.
I'm currently running Debian, but I'm planning to switch to gentoo in the near future. As to the capabilities of Portage... From their website:
"Portage is a true ports system in the tradition of BSD ports, but is Python-based and sports a number of advanced features including dependencies, fine-grained package management, "fake" (OpenBSD-style) installs, path sandboxing, safe unmerging, system profiles, virtual packages, config file management, and more...
Tell Portage what ebuild you'd like to install, and Portage will auto-download, unpack, patch, configure, compile and install the package. Thanks to Portage auto-dependency resolution, you can install KDE 3.0 or GNOME 1.4 by typing in a single command, and the resultant installed binaries will be optimized and customized to your exact specifications."
Lesbian Nazi Hookers Abducted by UFOs and Forced Into Weight Loss Programs - -all next week on Town Talk.
I'm a former Mandrake user, (mandrake uses apt-get and urpmi, two tools which are nearly identical in functionality). Today I'm a Gentoo user.
Gentoo is by no means stable - you have to maintain the stability yourself. In fact, gentoo is more of a bleeding edge kind of system. They usually have the latest version of whatever someone has written a script for that can be automatically installed (including custom system options, most notablly the
-O3 and -fastmath optimizations on C and C++ code). New stuff is available every couple of hours to be recompiled for your system specifically.
The biggest problem with Gentoo right now is reverse dependancy checking - when you uninstall a package, the portage tool (similar to apt-get) doesn't check to see what packages will be broken by this change (forward dependency checking works great). And of course, not all of the code actually works right away. However, its been my experience that the user community is much, much better to work with than any other distro. In previous distributions, if something broke, I'd often have to scour the internet to learn how to fix it. With gentoo, problems are often solved with just a visit to their website.
One more thing - if you really like some package, you can just install it by hand. But its not much more work to make a package (unlike a rpm, for example). In fact, its not much work to edit packages if there are problems. Therefore, its quite possible for users to be developers in this distro. In fact, it seems to be the norm.
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!
Finally, a GPLer who gets it! Thank you.
Those of us who use the BSD license do so simply because we wish to give/share our software. We don't want to compell anyone to return the favor. It's a no-strings-attached deal.
We realize that not everyone will agree with us, but that's not why we're doing it. People who do wish some sort of a guarantee that mods come back to them should not use the BSD license, because that's not what it's about.
p.s. BSD vs GPL is rather like an anarcho-capitalist arguing with an anarcho-socialist over the nature of liberty.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned