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New Competition For CodeWeavers: Aclerex

Posted by Hemos on from the competing-together dept.

Shisha writes "Linux Planet is running a story about a new Wine offspring. Basically the Canadian company Transgaming decided, that their version of Wine, WineX, is good not only for running games, but for other Windows programs too. So why not try to sell it? For marketing reasons they're selling it to corporations under the AclereX name. Their website has a datasheet with more details about what they are actually offering. Unlike CodeWeavers, they don't seem to be targeting individuals at all, they'd rather sell to corporations. So no downloads available, sorry. Still it could speed up Wine developement, which is always good. Wine Weekly News discusses some of the reactions of the original Wine authors."

8 of 218 comments (clear)

  1. GPL? by teklob · · Score: 3, Informative

    Are they allowed to do that when the majority of their code they didn't even write? They have been making it harder and harder to get WineX code too. First they removed it from debian and then Gentoo, and I haven't been able to get the source from CVS since then. I'm not sure what license wine was using when they forked but I dont think that this is allowed, is it?

    1. Re:GPL? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      The Wine source did allow it. The fork was caused by the WINE core group choosing to switch to a GPL license--something TransGaming couldn't allow. The BSD-licensed WINE is still maintained, called ReWind. Some new WINE patches are dual licensed so they get put in here, but the gap is growing. TransGaming occasionally syncs against ReWind and allows WINE to pull anything they want out of it (it is BSD licensed, so you can relicense it under GPL if you like).

      The packages pulled from Debian and Gentoo is an interesting issue. Basically, Debian and Gentoo are allowedto create packages by the license, but if they do so, TrangGaming will stop contributing to the ReWind project, so everyone loses. It's a tight balance and they've been accused of licensing their code (to ReWind) on a license they don't really mean.

      But technically, so far, they're in the clear. The ReWind tree is missing some of the more interesting TransGaming bits--SafeDisc support, for example--which they're afraid of releasing because the US might do to them what they did to Sklyarov next time they have a booth anywhere in the US.

    2. Re:GPL? by i.r.id10t · · Score: 3, Informative

      Hard? Just for grins, I decided to try Wine(X) last night for the first time in a looong time to see if a Windows game my 3 year old likes would work. Took 2 commands and some wait time for download.

      cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.winex.sourceforge.net:/cv sroot/winex login
      cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@cvs.winex.sourceforge.net:/cv sroot/winex co wine

      Straight from the webpage you get afer the license agreement.

      --
      Don't blame me, I voted for Kodos
  2. Re:OEM emulation layer? by robson · · Score: 5, Informative
    Allowing Windows software firms to package it with their stuff and say "Runs on Linux"? Is this the point?

    Here's the main blurb from their site:
    AclereX is the industry leader in cross-platform portability enabling Windows applications to run on the Linux desktop. If your organization is considering a move to the Linux desktop, AclereX can provide seamless and transparent support for your enterprise applications.
    Sounds decent enough. "If your business is sick of Windows but dependent upon Windows-only applications, we can make those applications run in Linux."
  3. Re:How about plain old Wine? by Luke-Jr · · Score: 3, Informative

    From experience, vanilla WINE is the best at running Windoze applications. WineX lacks many common application features such as shaped windows (non-rectangle) etc.

    --
    Luke-Jr
  4. Re:Speed up Wine development? Are you sure? by msh104 · · Score: 3, Informative

    they have returned some stuff, but codeweavers is still a better choise if you want something back in wine. things that wineX donated include SDL frontend, installer support, dcom stuff, some directX stuff every here and there and their experimental shared memory wineserver.

  5. Re:Am i the only one noticing, or am i completly o by JediTrainer · · Score: 3, Informative

    can they do this?

    Yes. They can. The GPL requires that the source be made available either with the binaries, or as a separate download if requested by a possessor of the binaries.

    So you can go buy it, and then you're entitled to the source code after you do.

    On the other hand, the fork that Transgaming has was based on the BSD license, not the GPL (Wine changed licenses some time ago), so they can do whatever they want at that point, because their source code isn't bound by the GPL anyway.

    --

    You can accomplish anything you set your mind to. The impossible just takes a little longer.
  6. Re:woopty-doo by jfunk · · Score: 3, Informative

    I have the same experience. Everyone at Codeweavers are amazing and they actually listen to their customers.

    Transgaming is a different story. I bought a year's subscription and went out and bought Civ 3 and Black and White, both of which are "officially supported." Neither worked acceptably and their support guys closed my support requests without actually helping me.

    Basically, I bought a year's subscription without having used their product for anything. I was seriously ripped off.

    I've heard from other SuSE users that WineX won't run at all on SuSE 8.2 and that TG doesn't seem to care. I'm sure that kind of attitude will go over really well with their "business" customers.