Slashdot Mirror
More Light Shed on Project David
Sun writes "Flexbeta.net received from Specops Labs screenshots "proving" that project David (previously covered here) is a real thing. The demo.... Office 2000 install. This is something both Wine and CrossOver Office know how to do for quite some time.
In a discussion on wine-devel some people noticed evidence inside the screenshots that project David is a CrossOver Office ripoff."
Could this project be based on the leaked MS code, or is it really a CrossOver Office ripoff? I can't tell, but Mike McCormack could.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Show me the latest versions of popular Windows apps (office, outlook, powerpoint) being installed and running - and I'll be more impressed.. And give a real copy to a review site to test - just not that girl over at osnews.com! ;)
At present, why would anyone use this instead of Crossover Office? Well... whenever they release it, that is.
Man watching 6 MSCE's around a sun box, looks alot like the opening scene's of 2001:space odyssey...
... if it's open source it'll be easy to spot a rip-off, if it's CrossOver-style proprietary then what's the point - just use CrossOver anyway!
that in the picture http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/winbridge_ins tall.gif the second
line in winbridge.lst is /etc/wine... There are more clues that this
project David is just a (possibly repackaged) Wine. the second line in winbridge.lst is /etc/wine...
Thing is, shots such as these can be faked in a number of ways.. there was nobody there actually watching this and no real-time video. I am not very impressed. Even if it is real it will not be open source so nobody will use it anyway. :)
the specops website is a pretty blatant pitch for venture capital, and not intended to give information to end users. Has an definate air of dodginess...
Screenshots are great and all, but I'm still a bit sceptical. As soon as they say "Buy David now for $49.95. With our %100 compatibility, kick us if it doesn't work guarantee" I'll take it seriously.
I think this internet thing sounds like a good idea
It may be a ripoff, but where can I download it? I'd like to see the source code. If I can install Pagemaker 7 in linux, I will be very happy.
http://github.com/gbook/nidb
Look at it as Offshore Outsourcing, FOSS style.
This image mentioned in the article clearly shows lines that reference /usr/bin/wine in the winbridge.lst preview icon.
Combined with the link you give, if this is not a complete ripoff then they are at least building on the wine base code in some way.
...is that the directories seen in the homedir view changed quite remarkably. The installation directories (sources, specops) are not there, and some wine-20040408 dir shows up in Konqueror. Just as if it is a totaly different user or something.
Ah well, 'even if' this is a fake, but at least it put some attention on Wine (and derivatives) in the sense that 'they can run Microsoft Office for ages already'.
Yup, I discovered it too. It's right here.
this pic for references to an install of wine.
Finally, for those who know lots about these things, on this picture notice how the on the right and bottom of the page the scroll bar and status bar are clipped. This is a bug in crossover office but is fixed in the latest wine, so they appear to have basically made a crossover varient and not even bothered merging the latest release of the offical wine in. poor.
Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
Better to use a technology never patented: PNG.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I don't believe it. They used GIFs for the screenshots. Somebody needs to knock some sense into these people. This does not reflect well on their computer literacy.
Computer literacy doesn't mean "zealous revolution against all things that have been deemed uncool by the mindless nerd culture", understand?
If it is just a repackaging of wine, the worst thing is the investments they claim to have received. They haven't done anything to actually help wine yet, and if that money is real, it could have been invested in one of the real wine contributing companies. These guys will probably just run away with the money in the end if they are this bad at faking things.
Q.
Insert Signature Here
I think people named David everywhere should join together and be insulted!
They not only rip off a decent product (crossover), but they rip off my name!
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
I dont really see a problem with this being a repackaged Wine. Provided that the company comply with the licensing terms, and that any changes to the source are given back to the community. More heads working on the wine project can only be a beneficial wherever they come from.
However, if they are going to be all take take take and no giving back to the community then I do see a problem with it.
Nick...
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
I would have looked into a way to make this windows apps draw the controls with the linux gui theme.
I wonder just how difficult that would be. A good chunk of the controls are basically pixmaps there would be some constraints as to dimensions and possibly palette issues. But since we have a partially complete native implemetation of the windows API in wine I cant imagine that it would be that much of a mammoth task to intercept API calls and/or use an alternative pixmaps. The wine project are probably more concerned about achieving compatibility at the moment than anything else. None the less I wouldnt mind seeing something along these lines also.
nick...
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Why can't Specops make plugins for wine, like WineX from transgaming?
;)
Transgaming doesn't release their source code for the copyrighted pieces, but they do release modifications to wine.
I don't see a problem, other than they don't mention they use wine. Of couse maybe there is a readme.txt that has all the wine information. It's not released yet.
Though if it is Wine, its not really true virtualization like they claim. Damn, too much guessing, without seeing the code.
Well, here's one reason to use PNG:
[bdr@arthurdent Documents]$ ls -ltotal 172 -rw-rw-r-- 1 bdr bdr 97056 May 9 15:07 office_install1.gif
-rw-rw-r-- 1 bdr bdr 75041 May 9 15:07 office_install1.png
A 25% size decrease for the same quality is pretty good.
Well, that is the problem with open source. If the companies are also releasing the code to the purchasers, then the companies aren't violating or "ripping off" the open source apps.
What these companies are doing, in theory, is providing the support and services that Free/Open Source/Libre software supporters have always said is the way to make money.
So while you may see it as "ripping off" open source, these companies are doing exactly what the developers intended when they released their software under that kind of license: some very knowledgeable people can get the source and compile it themselves and do all the troubleshooting or someone who just wants a product that works and a support number to call when it doesn't can pay for the packaged solutions.
David is known to many as the Biblical character to slew Goliath, putting the Philistines into retreat and making David a favourite of the Hebrew people, who would one day be their king.
Following this, David was repeatedly attacked by the leaders of the Hebrew people for being too strong.
"For a while, David found himself in the rather bizarre situation of fighting Saul's enemies and fleeing Saul at the same time." - quoted from keyway.ca
No, I'm no sort of religious propagandist, it's just amusing how well this rings when read as an analysis of commercial software vendors targeting the OSS community.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Note to self/all:
WINE cannot run the Windows Installer.
"Champagne for my real friends - and real pain for my sham friends!" http://ericblade.postalboard.com/
Yah, there's the rub. Trying to get Lotus Notes to work under Wine has been the most time consuming computer activity (outside of teaching myself BASIC) I have ever undertaken in my life, and I still can't print.
the problem is that these people are not releasing the code back to the community
Depending on the license (and the original poster was vague about this) there's no obligation to release source code back to the community under any conditions. Under the GPL, the company is only required to release source to the people it sells the software to. If I buy a copy of the GPL'ed Neat-O Keen Software from Acme, Acme is under to release the source to you. It must give me the source if I ask for it, but there's nothing that says you get a copy of it. If Acme makes changes to the code and uses it only internally, it is under no legal obligation to release that code to you. And I think, but am not sure, that if Acme makes changes to the code, and I buy it from them, they only have to give me the code, not you. I can still release the code back, but Acme is under no obligation to.
Under other kinds of licenses, Acme can make all the changes it wants, sell it to me and still be under no legal obligation to give me the code it changed.
even acknowleging the community that created the technology, except as a marketing target, or worse as a theoretical marketing target for fundraising purposes
Acme must include all copyright notices in the code and compiled binaries, but it is under no legal obligation to include references to the copyright holders in it's advertising. Remember, that's part of what the fuss about XFree 4.4.
You may not like it, you may think it is immoral, but it isn't illegal. When you release your code, you may want to think about that when choosing a license.
Most (I can't conclusively say all) of the common controls are indeed drawn using primitives. You could possibly trap the theme API available in XP to redirect calls to a native theme engine, but that would be a tremendous amount of work (and might not work period).
Regards,
.... Bob
The best diplomat I know is a fully activated phaser bank.
-- Scotty.
Since no one else did, I sent this when the first slashdot article appeared. I got a reply recently.
To sum up the email, they will use LGPL, and release a demo code around May when the website will be re-opened.
The program is based on some already existing open source software. So yes, it probably uses wine.
So will it turn up?
This was the response:
The availability of the commercial version of Project David is before the
end of this year. We do encourage the open source movement and we will
comply with the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE. We will be posting
developments and availability of our demo code through our Website
http://www.specopslabs.com which will be reopened before the end of May.
Through our website, we will be announcing how you can secure a licensed
copy of Project David when it becomes commercially available before the end
of this year. For existing MS Windows users, it will be available via
download. For users buying a new PC, we are working with PC manufacturers,
System Whitebox Builders and OEM's on having this pre-loaded when the PC is
ordered as a Linux desktop/server
As the final pricing of the commercial version of DAVID is still being
finalized, the combined pricing of David with the Linux distribution of your
choice will be significantly lower than securing a license for the desktop
proprietary Operating Systems in the market today. We are a firm believer in
having Linux on the desktop and will price the product accordingly to make
the commercial issues more compelling.
Below are some additional information on Project David. [SNIP!]
The only things I didn't already know from the articles that have appeared are that:
"Our Linux/Win Bridge software is one of multiple
components [Including LGPL stuff like wine?], which comprise our OS platform. In the future we will release
another component, which is a set of tools that will encourage developers to
write native Linux applications."
"The David software is a joint development effort between De La Salle
University and SpecOpS Labs. Our Chief Technical Officer is Mr. Peter
Valdez. As you may know Mr. Valdez is the founder of Tivoli Systems, which
is now a multi billion-dollar flagship product of IBM."
"The code for our Windows/Linux Bridge is a hybrid of code, including our own
proprietary code, and code from several open source projects."
Joseph Farthing
http://josephfarthing.com
(I think it means something about an unlucky grassland annoying a certain type of cattle belonging to a mosque. There're more here.)
Ceterum censeo subscriptionem esse delendam.
... with a digital camera. I wonder what their offices look like? I'm sure we would all love to know.
Remember [H]ard|OCP's expose "Behind the Infinium Phantom Console"? Perhaps someone needs to perform some similar detective work in this case as well.