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."

Comments

Which Kind of Ripoff?

[mfh]

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.

Re:Which Kind of Ripoff?

[mm0mm]

well, this is something known in SE Asia as art of counterfeit. have you seen Rolex (or something that looks like Rolex) made in SE Asia? at least they know that if they *rip off* anything from MS, they'll be in big trouble. so they took the refined open source project apart and made it look like theirs.

what bothers me though, is that they have this very (north) American-looking site to attract investors, despite the progress of *their* project. this so-called project exists purely to collect as much investors' money as possible without actually developing something. now they say they have screenshots. but guess what,

The screenshots were taken by SpecOps Labs staff; Flexbeta does not have actual access to the Winbridge application.

hmm... how convenient.

this company somehow reminds me of this startup a few years ago, claiming that their then-upcoming operating system would become alternative for Windows and run windows applications without any glitch. after trials and errors (as well as marketing hypes), they changed their promise, as they couldn't make their OS fully compatible with all windows applications. the name of the new operating system was "Lindows."

Lindows survived, but I don't think this wine/xover rip off will survive, as they don't seem to have anything to sell but too-good-to-be-true claims. teach them what GPL means and protects if they still want to fiddle with OSS.

Re:Which Kind of Ripoff?

[DickBreath]

From the screenshot, linked to by parent poster....

The quick brown fox jumped over the lazy dog.

How about we switch to something more up to date?

The quick versatile penguin jumped over the broken windows.

Re:Which Kind of Ripoff?

[tverbeek]

The quick versatile penguin jumped over the broken windows.

You're missing "fxyz". How about:

The very quick penguin Tux smashed the fubar Windoze jail.

Re:Which Kind of Ripoff?

[PGillingwater]

OK, here's a better one. It's an instruction to one's butler to prepare the alchoholic beverages for a picnic:

"Pack my box with five dozen liquor jugs."

Notice it's shorter than the stupid story about two animals.

Show me something recent...

[harikiri]

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.

Re:Show me something recent...

[linuxci]

Well I'm running office XP under crossover office just fine. I'm not sure if there's any later version of office out now but that works for me and is more recent than 2000.

Other things that work fine for me in crossover is MSIE 6 (well to IE's limited ability anyway), Media Player and Trillian.

However, all my needs these days are really met by Firefox, Thunderbird and OpenOffice - so I use crossover very few times.

However if I did need to use the complex features of MS Office that are not yet in OpenOffice I'd definitely recommend Crossover

Re:Show me something recent...

[gnu-generation-one]

It seems a little ironic that the screenshots presented show-off all the best features of Windows applications.

Just about to agree to the EULA of Microsoft Office

Windows needs to be restarted to continue this installation

MS-Word asking you to register

Tell me again, why do we not use OpenOffice?

Re:Show me something recent...

[gnu-generation-one]

Okay, I don't mind the joke becoming a debate, but if it does, can I ask about this one:

"[OpenOffice.org] lacks an email client, evolution does the job fine but not everyone agrees"

Now, everyone says this, I hear it all the time, and it makes no sense. Is there someone here who could explain

Why does an office suite need an email client?

No, really. Why? I mean, I've used email for years and I've used office-suites for years, and I've never even once had the urge to say "send this document by email" from a spreadsheet menu. And as yet, my email client has never had any problems with handling spreadsheet attachments in whatever's the default application, no integration required.

In fact, I'd prefer not to have office software integrated with email, because when you send email, you have to stop and think about what the recipient might want, what's the best file format to use, and how best to reduce the size of the attachment, nevermind double-checking you're not sending something confidential in the file headers.

But people are always on the OpenOffice support lists wishing that it had an email client. Why?

Surely it's a barrier to using new software? If OpenOffice.org had an email client, you'd have to swap email clients as well as office suites to use it. Maybe you like the email client you've already got. Maybe it would cost a lot to change email clients.

It's not as if I don't have these tools available. At work I have Outlook and OfficeXP (please don't send viruses, my company probably couldn't handle them). But I've never once used the two together in any way more complex than double-clicking an attachment and the operating system will decide which program to use. I use these programs all the time, and you'd be hard pressed to find some way in which they "integrate". In fact, Visio looks more integrated with MS-Office, and it's not even a microsoft product until recently.

What is it? Is it just convenient to buy them at the same time? Do people actually use the "Save and email this file" menu? Can you preview emailed spreadsheet attachments in a tiny little Excel window? Is there some sort of email collaboration feature that I haven't seen but would change my life if it worked?

What is it about email clients that people want them to be part of an office suite?

I dunno much about it but seems to me...

[rokzy]

... 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!

Re:I dunno much about it but seems to me...

[Anonymous Coward]

I did. They said it clearly contains code ripped off from sys V, and are preparing lawsuits againt them, the Crossover people, the Wine people, and Microsoft.

The good news though is that you'll be able to buy a license to use Windows compatable operating systems for $699 per seat very soon.

Purloined code

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

Re:Purloined code

[ttldkns]

http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/office_instal l1.gif

in this one a subdirectory of their home directory is wine-20040408.

they could at least have made an effort.

Pitch for venture capital

[evil_one666]

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...

Re:Pitch for venture capital

[1u3hr]

Their market strategy page
Objectives

By the end of the first 12 months of operation:
Develop a client base of 75 White Box System Builders and 1 Major Strategic OEM
Sell and Ship 30,000+ copies of the DAVID Middleware
Generate a gross revenue of US$ 1,000,000.00

And the Contacts page gives one address only:
PHILIPPINES
Summit One Office Tower
530 Shaw Blvd.
Mandaluyong City, Metro Manila 150

Not really a rip-off...

[Anonymous Coward]

Look at it as Offshore Outsourcing, FOSS style.

this image

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Discovered?

[The Phantom Buffalo]

SpecOpS Labs recently made an extraordinary discovery involving the Microsoft Windows OS. Our discovery has enabled us to develop a breakthrough software program that we have codenamed David.

Yup, I discovered it too. It's right here.

The evidence

[Chris_Jefferson]

For those who can't get to wine-devel's mailing list: Look at this pic for the words /etc/wine and /usr /bin/wine in the previews of one of the files.

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.

Twice wrong

[leonbrooks]

1. GIFs aren't lossless, they're limited to 8-bit indexed colour.
   
2. The patents haven't expired everywhere yet.

Better to use a technology never patented: PNG.

Crossover

[quinkin]

It's a crossover ripoff. See the wine mailing list (notes evidence of crossover bugs in the screen shots).

Q.

So what if it is?

[polyp2000]

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...

Re:It looks like a ripoff of wine to me.

[polyp2000]

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...

Re:Ow... my eyes...

[BenjyD]

Well, here's one reason to use PNG:

[bdr@arthurdent Documents]$ ls -l
total 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.

Re:That's the new way to start a company

[jd142]

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.

Re:my name!

[David McBride]

Typical. First Darl at SCO, and now this.

beh

[XO]

Note to self/all:

WINE cannot run the Windows Installer.

I emailed Specops....

[TheRealJFM]

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."