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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."
Aclerex? Why have they named it as if it werea cream for clearing up acne?
Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
I thought Transgaming took Wine code before the LPGL change, and haven't gone back.
Do they still contribute to the mainline WINE effort? Has ANY of their code made it back?
or are we just plugging a closed-source commercial product here?
Why does every new company or product have to invent a new word? "Aclerex"? What was so wrong with "Wine Ecks and Sons, Est. 1832, Purveyors of Fine Software and Noted Not-Emulators"?
Here's the main blurb from their site:
Sounds decent enough. "If your business is sick of Windows but dependent upon Windows-only applications, we can make those applications run in Linux."
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...
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.
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