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Transgaming releases "WineX" 4.0 "Cedega"
visy writes "Transgaming has opened a new site at today and are announcing WineX 4.0, now dubbed Cedega after a unique variety of grape. Transgaming claims Cedega allows "Windows ® games to seamlessly and transparently run under Linux, out-of-the-box, with outstanding performance and equivalent game-play". Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?"
Or a new era of litigation
A psychopath can't tell the difference between right and wrong. A sociopath knows the difference - he just doesn't care.
To be entirely fair, Transgaming didn't force gentoo to pull the packages, they asked them to pull the packages and gave their reasons. The gentoo developers respected that and complied.
You (and I) may disagree with Transgaming's reasons, but saying that they "forced" gentoo to pull the packages is unfairly implying harsh measures on Transgaming's part.
Will we see a new era of game compatibilty?
Yes, as soon as games are compatible with platforms other than Windows, not before.
You've probably noticed that people's noses get bigger as they get older. That's because old people are huge liars.
Just because you can't emerge it doesn't mean it can't be installed the old fashioned way, right?
Karma: Bad (mostly due to all those "In Soviet Russia" jokes)
How seamless is it?
My main problem with games in X is that I have to change the screen resolution myself. Most applications I'm quite happy with seeing in a window, but games I want full screen, often at a much lower resolution. I also want cutscenes to be displayed fullscreen.
Does this solve that problem?
Yeah, they've been saying that they were going to release everything from the beginning. Remember the beginning? As soon as they got enough money, they were going to distribute it for free for everyone. Well, after many bought into that, the promise changed. They liked making a profit. Nothing wrong with that, but people don't like being deceived, even when the initial promises are so ill conceived.
The only way that we'll see a new era of Linux gaming is with direct support from all of the big boys. As long as Linux users have to jump through hoops to get their game running, as long as those games are less than 100% compatible, you won't see much changing.
People want their games to work, not to pay for something (or deal with cvs) to get their stuff to partially work. Most people with a computer good enough to play DX9 games have a Windows disc anyways and a hd big enough to keep both. Transgaming will never be anything more than a niche company servicing a very small niche.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Why is it necessary for Linux to play Windows games? Linux games will come out when people are good and ready for them. In the meantime, frustrated linux users can use one of the many fine gaming consoles (PS2, XBOX, GameCube, even PSOne to some degree).
I already have thousands of dollars' worth of Windows games. I can't play them on any of the "many fine gaming consoles" you enumerate, and I don't know why I'd want to buy another machine when I already have a perfectly good PC, anyway. Are you suggesting I just throw them all away now I've switched to Linux, or will you concede that I might have a legitimate reason to be interested in something like WineX?
If computer gaming is something you can't do without, use Windows. Why not devote a small partition to Windows/games, and use the rest for linux?
Because I might only want to play for ten minutes in my coffee break, and constantly rebooting is really rather a drag?
If you don't want to play Windows games in Linux, good for you - don't use WineX then. For the rest of us, this is one more step towards making a permanent migration possible. That's a Good Thing, in case you didn't realise.
Why would it be a troll? I think the original poster is raising a valid question.
Some people wish to enjoy at least a small portion of the cornucopia of applications developed for the Windows platform without supporting what they see as an evil company
I get so sick and tired of this anti Microsoft lobby. Microsoft is not an evil company, it's a company. Period.
But to answer the original posters question: there are reasons why someone would insist on running anything in linux:
It's the place where you might do most of your work. Maybe you have only one computer and rebooting frustrates you because it is slow.
You might feel safer from viruses etc.
But really, that's all I can think of. Me, I have four computers. Most run linux exclusively, but one is reserved for the few things I do in windows. Crossover and Transgaming or really no issues to me. I have a much better chance of getting windows programs and games working on windows than on linux, so why bother? Because I am supporting an evil company this way? Get real.
Please login to access my lawn
"And also ask them why BSD is much better than GPL :->"
Because BSD is truely free.
It doesn't impose any moral obligations to you. It tells you that you would do well for yourself by contributing back, but we are not going to force you to be nice.
Its like gifts to family members. Your aunt buys you a crappy sweater for your birthday, and for the next 10 years, every time you see your aunt you are obligated to wear it. Wrong size? Too bad. You can't take it back. You can't get your money for it and get something you really want.
Too many people are too damn selfish.
The GPL is the same. Its *VERY* selfish. Its giving a gift and then telling you that you have to wear it everytime the gift giver comes around.
Rationally a gift should be given because you want to give it. If someone doesn't like it or wants to give it to someone else or just get the money and buy crack with it, who the fuck cares. Once you have given it away, your obligation is over and you should have inner peace knowing you did the right thing.
BSD doesn't force you to take on a religion to use their code. It doesn't ask that you vote in the next election in one way or the other. It doesn't tell you Santa Claus doesn't really exist, nor does it require you to crucifix an easter bunny every spring. It gives you a gift and says see that I am doing right by giving this to you and please do the same, but I'm not holding you to the same ethical standards that I hold myself.
Are their instances this can be abused?
Gawd no...you've fullfiled your obligations and while some morally retarded motherfuckers would claim that if even one doesn't follow your lead, you are taking your ball and going home. How is that a choice??? There can be no instances of abuse when you expect nothing out of the other person.
In a sense, it is the most perfect license there is.
Then again, I love GPL for my own stuff...it means competitors can't work against me. They can't release a product of mine and add new features and not give them back to me. Its free development work. And as I'm still considered the expert in my field, folks still buy my consulting from me and the few times a competitor has used my work against me, it only took a fews to surpass what they had done because they really didn't understand the theory behind the practice.
I'm no enlightened hippy, so I do what I can to protect myself. But I going to give all the respect to those that are willing to give with all their hearts and not look back. Maybe one of these days I will be...but not yet...for now, I'll hang with the commies -- and I mean commies as in the rule of Stalin -- because their iron fists protects my livelyhood.
To totally sidetrack, and leave animal analogies behind, I simply think that corporate power is being alowed to run amok, the current trend towards more and bigger mergers is probably a bigger threat to capitalism than communism ever dreamed of being. I view any concentration of power as a potential threat to individual liberties. Government concentrations of power were pretty closely monitored (until 9/11 and the USA PATRIOT act anyway, these days it seems as if anything goes), but corporate power is largely ignored by those who worry about liberty; despite the fact that corporations can trounce your liberties as much as the government can. On a total side note, I'll add that corporations aren't the only group to worry about, guilds, unions, etc are also potential threats. A group has more power than an individual, thus any group can *potentially* be a threat to individual liberty. There are occasional extremely powerful individuals, but they're the exception not the rule. I'm not a fear case who goes around seeing threats to my liberty everywhere, I just have a healthy degree of concern.
"Mission Accomplished" -- George W. Bush May 1, 2003
How is this "interesting"?
Transgaming gives back. You're free to download their cvs product, install it, play games. If that isn't "giving back" I don't know what is. Hell you can read the source code if you wanted to.
Oh, I get it, because you actually have to *pay* for the licensed version, that's not "giving back". Well, welcome to the real world. Everything is not free.
Oderint dum metuant
Computers aren't very different from anything really and no matter how much of a need there is for standard, there never will be really a standard.
Have you ever dreamed installing a big block hemi in your shiny WRX impreza or Ford Focus ?
If that's the case, keep dreaming, it'll never happen. Because chevy stuff are for chevys, ford stuff is for ford stuff. They're not compatible and there isn't a lot we can do to change it.
Computers, like I said, aren't very different. Don't try running windows programs directly in linux, you won't get very far (well...we all know that).
But! in computers we have the advantage of being able to change that somehow by creating "emulators".
Companies won't create a game for all possible platforms, it would cost way too much so they aim for the most popular ones - such as
Linux isn't a profitable platform yet, because not enough people use it to profitably make programs for it, not to mention no company will be willing to release their game in an open source manner, because yes, it would inevitably come down to asking them to release their latest game in an open source because that's what Linux is all about.
And besides the whole "profitable" side of it, think of WineX as the bridge no other sector could create.
Think of it as the ultimate option given to the consumer to finally choose the game HE wants and play them on HIS platform no matter what the game is intended for.
To come back to my chevy/ford example. I doubt we'll ever see any kind of device to allow us to put a hemi engine in my ford impala. It's because cars are bound by mechanical pieces, physical pieces. There are space constraints, tons of fittings would be inserted everywhere.... not a very reliable technique.
Software on the other hand, is an abstract product, something you can't touch see or smell... or taste (?)
We must use that advantage to build bridges that allow us to use what we want, on the platform we want, where we want.
I applaude WineX for their initiative and you be damn sure I'll buy their product once it is matured.
If you look like your passport photo, you're too ill to travel. - Will Kommen
The fact that the users of the software get all the source code is a side benefit.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Sorry but I'm still convinced that Transgaming has been a bad wine citizen (the fact that the licence permitted it doesn't change my opinion),
Transgaming is a commerical venture. They need to secure a line of income. They do this by restricting access to precompiled binaries, amoungst other things. To get it easily you have to pay a nominal subscription: $60 a year. Now that's not alot. Without this subscription they wouldn't have a profit model and would probably desinagrate.
Would you rather have them not do this venture at all? Or do you have another profit model that would alleviate what you criticize? For me the community benefits from their work: I can run Windows games under Linux. The OSS'ers may complain that they don't have full/libre access to the code, but if they had that, there wouldn't be a transgaming anyway. What do you want them to do?
and that they were deceiving the community when they said they'd give back everything to wine after they reach a certain number of subscribers. I guess they have reached that number since they have not yet filed for bankruptcy.
So just because they haven't yet, they're not going to? And they lied about it? Face it a pure software company just doesn't have a OSS profit model. Name one. Red Hat? Services, not software. Mozilla? Not a commerical entity, but backed by them. Come on, what would you have them do?
Why, o why must the sky fall when I've learned to fly?