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Catching up with Wine
An anonymous reader writes "TransGaming's announcement of the availability of WineX 3.0 got a lot of pixel dust, but that wasn't the only recent news about WINE. The Microsoft monopoly also reached out to touch the project when Whil Hentzen, a leading proponent of Visual FoxPro (VFP) development on Linux, was contacted by an Microsoft manager and told it was a violation of the VFP EULA to run it on Linux." I guess thats one way to stop emulation. update Oh well, its a dupe. Whatever, it gives people something to complain about I guess ;)
This was posted yesterday afternoon, right here:0 45200&mode=thread&tid=109&tid=125.
http://yro.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/04/21/2
But but but..
Wine
Is
Not an
Emulator
????
If you were me, you'd be good lookin'. - six string samurai
There is in the life EULA a section about not beeing a prick against your fellow humans. I think working at MS violates it.
Christ.... It is a sick sick world when you 1. pay many dollars for your software 2. after paying many dollars, not allowed to use it in new innovative ways.
- To understand recursion, we must first understand recursion -
Make the software capable of emulating VFP, but leave it up to the user to violate the EULA. Doesn't the user "agree" to the EULA anyway? The people involved in making the emulator have nothing to do with the end user breaking the EULA.
..by telling him he is an idiot, and he doesn't understand it.
Or by calling your software X IS _NOT_ Y, and people still call it Y.
Again, WINE is translating windows system calls to X11 equivalents.
But seriously - here's a perfect example of the software-side of Microsoft preventing other companies from competing with the OS-side. How is it possible that they're still pulling this crap after years and years?
Bah! Is it even worth getting riled up anymore?
I mean look.. the icon on the right is clearly shows that this current article is not about wine.. (i.e. there is no Wine Icon).. and is really about the quip about MS using EULA violations to stem emulators of windows. The CD icon must mean comedy or something.. i'm not too sure.. not about WINE though.. definately not.
Ok maybe its just taco feeling his article post rate was lowering and need to throw something in.
Who makes you Sig?
Some of the EULAs require that the software be run on a fully licensed microsoft operating system. IIRC some of the EULAs even go as far as to require that you access the software *from* a fully licensed microsoft operating system.
Just because you have paid for a license to use some software doesn't mean you can use it any way you like. Towel boy.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Is it me, or have more dupes been posted in the past 3 months than in the past 4 years? I'm not trolling, I'm just generally curious if the editors actually read their publication (if it can be considered a "publication" or site or whatever).
/. But now, another dupe, and CmdrTaco is so oblivious to this it's really just sad.
This story was big news, at least, I thought so. I thought it was insightful and telling (especially of MS monopolistic practices), and that it got a lot of (deserved) attention, even more so that it's been on
It's okay if you don't agree. I can take the -1 Offtopic and -1 Troll if you wish. I can hear the karma sizzling...
link
> It's the reason why I just use VNC to get to my Windows machine
;-)
Isn't that also something microsoft has been moaning about, in that when vnc'ing to a windows os tht you need 2 windows licences, 1 for the "windows" machine and 1 for the machine that vnc is running on (ie for you linux box!) Dunno what happened there, i'm sure it was introduced (licence change) in xp and a win 2000 service pack.
Ho hum, licenses suck! In fact pretty much everything that tells you you can't do sucks, but that doesn;t mean letting you do what you want would work either, unfortunatly people want to make money, and restricting others is a good way to do that,
hmmmm:
Patent application:
For a method of creating revenue by restricting the rights of others.
MONEY!!!!
+----------------- | What is the question!
You will have a hard time convincing anyone that they should not be able to use the software they purchased under another OS. Monkeyshines like this from Microsoft are just another good reason to not make the purchase in the first place. I got my junky old win98 sitting in the corner and it is rarely used.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
It works under a different premise of law and performs a totally different purpose. It's been explained dozens of times and if you aren't clear on it now then you're either willfully ignorant or shouldn't be talking about things you haven't read.
MS does not support products under WINE. They never have. They likely never will. That's a given, and there's a huge difference between "not supporting a product" and "suing people who do unsupported things with your product". There seem to be alot of people here who can't understand that, either. If you aren't comfortable running important things under WINE, that's fine. Nobody will make you, especially not Microsoft. Although they've claimed that there aren't any undocumented APIs in Windows that're used for applications.
Here's another suprise - it IS perfectly okay to reverse engineer Windows. This is why MS hasn't sued Codeweavers or the WINE project. There's specific things you have to do to make sure you don't cross any legal lines, but as long as you do that you're fine. MS doesn't have to admit it - they don't have any say in the matter. WINE is a reverse engineering of the Win32 API from publically available documentation. Nothing wrong with that.
Next question: What makes you think that EULA's are "perfectly valid"? Just because they say they are?
Microsoft has every right to declare violations in EULA's. If they don't comply at some point with state law, than of course they are invalid and you can more than likely ignore that portion of the EULA.
I hate to say it but people that complain about an EULA, should also complain about GPL, and other source code licenses. It's frustrating to hear hypocrisy and judgement based on the fact that Microsoft is for-profit and not hear the same for similar agreements in the open source world.
OK, I'll bite. The difference can be expressed int 3 little words - "Quid pro quo" as in when I buy FoxPRO from Microsoft I'd better get Quo for my Quid -- and a click-through license that I MUST AGREE TO and CANNOT GET MY MONEY BACK -- cannot in most states take away my Quo. In other words, the deal can not be changed AFTER you get my money, I can expect fair value, *NOT* Whatever the fuck you say I get. Open Source and Free Software licenses are *NOT* the same -- YOU DON'T HAVE TO FUCKING PAY FOR THEM -- YOU GAVE UP NOTHING (the Quid) AND YOU GOT SOMETHING (the Quo) THERE IS NO QUID PRO QUO. I hate to shout, But I get the feeling I'm talking to a Microsoft Astroturfer, because this argument is BLATANT JUSTIFICATION, of the Monopolist point of view, that anything may be put into a EULA at any time, and if you don't like it, tough. And then try to accuse OS/FS of the same thing. Yep, I talking to the MS legal department
Have a Bad Day,
-- Rich
Free your mind and your Ass will follow -- George Clinton
Yeah, like complaining about it being a dupe...
Oh, wait, was my post self-redundant?
-Daniel.
First off, WINE is not illegal. It simply accepts the documented Win32 API calls, and responds appropriately. Nothing illegal about that at all.
Second, one of the fundamental aspects of EULA law is that if it is binding at all, it is only binding on the parties involved: the seller (Microsoft) and the buyer (the developer). If the developer creates an executable application for a client, and the client installs it to run under WINE, there is no violation of the EULA. Microsoft cannot go after the developer's client, because they were not a party to the original EULA.
Third, with the legal finding that Microsoft is indeed a monopoly on the OS, tying an application like Visual FoxPro to the OS is one of the actions prohibited by law. So even if EULAs themselves are binding, this one isn't, since you cannot enforce an illegal provision of a contract.
It MUST be a double bluff. MS want to create a stink about it so MORE people will run Visual Fox Pro on Lenux, thus delaying the development of several OSS projects.
.net and data access. One guy asked a question starting:
True Story:
I was at a MS seminar, and a MS employee was presenting a demo on
"I'm a developer with Visual Fox Pro..."
The MS guy just replied:
"I'm sorry."
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
What's interesting is how so many people spend so much time and effort bitching about duplicates when it's so much easier to just ignore it. Anyone have any theories on why people act this way?
The only theory I can come up with is that it gives some people a feeling of superiority when they point out errors of people who they consider to be 'above them' (Slashdot editors), and in an effort to try to cover up their true intentions (which is to inflate their ego), they make claims that it is just *sooo* annoying.
Post your theories here!
Why do I keep typing pythong?
Sigh. Time for some more slapping. One: The GPL is not an EULA. One more time: THE GPL IS NOT AN EULA.
They are different licenses (i.e., EULA, BSDL, GPL, LGPL), but they all use copyright law to enforce them. They are the same in that respect.