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New Competition For CodeWeavers: Aclerex
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."
Last I heard, they still hadn't kept their promise to give back to wine stuff they did...
There are many reasons to use wine. In a business case for instance, a company may have all applications for Linux, except for one or two tax or payrol related thing. In cases like that, wine is a good tool to facilitate migration to Linux.
Oh well, what the hell...
No. Tiny market share prevents/slows development of native versions of applications for Unix/Linux.
Doesn't it keep people from quickly adopting a different and open application that runs natively?
Lets say we have 2 users, A & B and both would like to move to an Open Source operating system such as Linux however:
A: Has 1 Win app that they MUST be able to run for one reason or another and is able to run it perfectly under Wine so they they switch to Linux and open source for everything but that 1 app. When it comes time to acquire new hardware or apps. they are asking hardware and software venders for Linux support and are investigating open source applications.
B: Has 1 Win app that they MUST be able to run for one reason or another and is NOT able to run under Wine so they they keep using Windows. When it comes time to acquire new hardware or apps. they are asking hardware and software venders for Windows support and are ignoring open source applications because they have no experience with them.
Which one of these users do you think is adding to the demand for OSS software in general and Linux in particular?
Much of what Transgaming is selling is proprietary. Perhaps legitimately so (like the copy protection support...)- but it is still closed source all the same. In some areas, they're ahead of WINE, in others, they're behind.
Keep these things in mind when you think about all of this, though...
They were going to only go after the stuff that wasn't getting active ports and actually encourage native porting work. They turned around and came up with that bastardized "port" of The Sims and Kohan- which had issues out of the box in both cases. The Sims WAS going to be a native app and Kohan WAS a native app that had lost the porting company (Timegate got the rights to the Loki port, but they didn't want to wait and find out it's fate- they went with Transgaming.).
They were going to only work at making Linux gaming possible. Now, they're making game "ports" for Windows and MacOS of console games, but NO Linux versions of the same.
Would YOU trust this bunch?
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Then it sounds like the Wine project was not 100% comfortable with the BSD license in the first place.
If you license BSD, you should accept that people may take your code and close it. That's what the truly free software is about.
BOO! TERRO
Look at it this way - best case scenario is everybody in the world switches to Linux and WINE, largely because it runs all their Windows programs they can't live without, what then? Do you think companies will still write Windows code even though Windows installations no longer exists/are in the minority?
Look at it from the PoV of a poster further down who voices a concern that being able to run Photoshop on Linux will render The Gimp obsolete... If the vast majority of Photoshop users are running it under Wine on Linux, which platform do you think would get the next (native) version?
It's also worth mentioning that the more people who move away from using Windows as an OS the better, all I hear are people complaining about how hard they're getting hit by SoBig and Blaster, shit, my webserver still gets hit by CodeRed on a far-too-frequent basis. Blaster and SoBig are going to be problems for a long time to come, quite possibly forever, we can't do a lot about people who won't patch their machines (well, ISPs could very easily fix this and all other worm problems if they got their acts together) but if there are less people running Windows (the OS, not the apps that run on it) next time an exploit like these come out then that can only be a good thing for networks worldwide.
In fact, in my opinion, CodeWeavers may even be working with Microsoft.
.Net version of Office.
CodeWeavers' most promoted product is Crossover Office, which allows MS Office to run on Linux.
Does this help Linux and hurt Microsoft? No . . . quite the opposite, in fact. Microsoft wants Linux users running MS Office, because that keeps them locked in to Microsoft file formats while Microsoft prepares the
On the Xandros home page, the main heading states:
> Xandros Desktop now runs Microsoft Office XP
On the SuSE Linux Desktop page, one of the major benefits listed is:
> Codeweaver Crossover Office for the integration of MS Office
Notice how they don't say "for running Lotus Notes," or "for running Windows applications." They only talk about MS Office.
How did CodeWeavers manage to get Office working correctly when so many others had failed? How did they work out Microsoft's secret/obfuscated calls? Did they get help?
Or if they hacked the calls, why hasn't Microsoft sued CodeWeavers under the DMCA (or the "only run with Windows" clause in the licenses)? After all, Microsoft sued another company who made it possible to run MS FoxPro on Linux.
What argument did CodeWeavers use to convince people to LGPL the Wine source? They used the envy-based "we don't want others to profit from our work" argument. Have you ever heard a real Open Source developer say that? I haven't. Open Source developers may talk about how the GPL protects the source from companies like Microsoft, but part of the reason for Open Sourcing your software is the hope that others might profit from it.
Where have I heard the envy-based "surely you don't want others profitting from your work" argument? It was a common refrain by Microsoft astroturfers, who were trying to convince us that the Open Source development model will fail.
Was there a danger in using a BSD license for Wine? Not really. Since the purpose of Wine is to allow closed source applications to run on Linux, it matters little if those applications include some extra code from Wine.
What was the main result of changing the Wine license to LGPL? It hurt Linux! Here's how...
The biggest area where Linux is lacking applications is not office software. It's games! And when the Wine license was changed to LGPL, it prevented most Windows games developers from using it! Unlike Office software, for speed and other reasons, games need to include some library code, not just link to it.
What do you think the fuss was about? Why do you think many game manufacturers are working with Transgaming, instead of using the LGPL'd version of Wine? Now you know, and I thank Transgaming for their part in protecting the BSD'd version of Wine.
So, to summarize, CodeWeaver's involvement in Wine has:
1) Made them money.
2) Helped Microsoft create an MS Office lock-in on Linux.
3) Hurt Linux by making it harder to port games.