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Wine Now Has Big-Time Lawyers On Its Side
Roblimo writes "For years there's been fear that the Wine Project would get sued by Microsoft at some point, and this fear has kept IBM and other major free software-using companies from participating openly in it. Now the Software Freedom Law Center, headed by Columbia University law professor Eben Moglen, is offering free legal services to Wine (and other FOSS projects) to allay corporate fears and head off potential lawsuits."
From all of us, thanks.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
Isn't the real fear for businesses (IBM and other free software using companies) is getting entangled in long, lengthy and technical litigation (see SCO v. Everyone) which can still (and does) happen no matter how great of representation someone has?
Sure...I might not choose to run Windows, but that doesn't mean I won't chosoe to run Office or something else from Microsoft that Wine will enable. I run a Linux Desktop at work but use CrossOver to run Office, and at home I have to use Wine for some of my kids games. I think Microsoft would say "well, we might not get all of their business, but we'll take what we can get." From a business standpoint, that would seem to make more sense. But then again, we're talking about Microsoft.
I'm not a troll, but I play one on Slashdot.
Because we all know Microsoft can't afford lawyers.
Surely MS haven't sued simply because they can see no legal grounds to do so. Otherwise they would have used this against Lindows.
Yeah, that makes sense...
:P
"Hey, they didn't have any lawyers to fight us with before...but now that they have a big well educated team lets go blow some cash!"
I knew MS always wants to find ways to blow the contents of its warchest
Next time...think before posting.
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"I believe this is called an "angel" in the business world. My question is "what's their interest?". I don't think this is a bad thing, just curious."
Let's not take any chances on this, OK? Launch Evas!
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Not trolling here, and neither AIAL (am I a lawyer), but can Wine be sued for reverse engineering (definition may vary) Windows APIs/functionality under the DMCA?
From what we've seen in the past, even something as simple/straightforward like pressing the shift key can be construed as "intentionally breaking copy protection mechanisms" by sue-happy companies.
Is reverse engineering document formats (OpenOffice), OS APIs (Wine), illegal under the DMCA, or can it be spun as such?
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
Why on earth do you think that? They don't have any _money_ backing them, only lawyers, so threre is still no money in suing them. But more importantly, the #1 reason for suing the developers of any free software is to decrease the competition, not to make a quick buck.
Try out fish, the friendly interactive shell.
I wonder why Microsoft wouldn't actually PARTICIPATE in this project, or even write a low-cost version of it's own to (yes, I'm going to say it on Slashdot) sell.
Sure, it's kind of stabbing it's main flagship product in the back, but isn't that what their "Windows Lite" for the Asian markets do?
Since Indian companies are creating little cheap Linux laptops/computers, Asian companies are selling little cheap Linux computers, why would Microsoft not sell a $35 add-on for Linux, tightly registration controlled (Yes, I said that, too) that allows Microsoft-compiled applications to run on Linux.
Don't jump on me for saying Microsoft should write for Linux. Of course they should. It's unfathomable that they DONT support Linux. Heck, even monolithic old NOVELL is supporting their products on the triad of main OS'es now. Linux, MS-WIN and Mac. They're even migrating Netware to a Linux base.
= Grow a brain...
Is that really the case that IBM and "other big companies" did not get involved with Wine because they feared litigation? Can anyone provide a source on this please?
I believe this is called an "angel" in the business world.
I wouldn't go that far, this guy is still a lawyer after all.
Yeah that actually makes sense.... why bother to sue when you know they're just going to lay down before it goes to court... wait till they get lawyers so a precedent can be set.
Hear that? That's the sound of Microsoft shaking in its boots. Really! Can you hear it?
Yeah, me neither.
I'm sorry, that's rude, but the big problem with lawsuits isn't just having one thrown at you, it's the long and drawn-out process of having to see it all the way through to the end. Forget about the merits of the case, if you've got a lawsuit coming, and you're small, you're a hell of a lot less worried about a guilty verdict and a hell of a lot more worried about going bankrupt, because in the big time lawyers prey on fears of the latter more than the former.
If Microsoft wants to sue, they're going to do it whether or not there's a bunch of lawyers working pro bono on the case. You'd need an entire army of tech-minded geeks engaging in "open source law" (in quotes not to refer to open source software, but to "open source journalism", which was a pretty horrible catch-phrase but analogous to this situation...). In which case, maybe this dept could act as a sort of marshalling station.
But still, if they were thinking about dropping the gauntlet before, they're not going to be deterred now.
I applaud this effort, but I think people should also look at the larger picture.
We need to think about representation in the government. Lawyers can defend within the boundaries of the law. But, what laws will they have to fight? What laws will protect them?
From patent law to the fight for telecommunications control there are important decisions being made by our government. I think that there are a lot of special interests being served. The OSS movement needs a voice in Washington and even at the state level.
I really hate seeing so many industry-driven bills going before congress. Many decisions will affect the way you design software, use the internet, and even watch television. There are a lot of college grads who can't immediately finding work. Send them out to represent the needs and desires of the OSS community.
Thanks to Wine for making sure Windows programs dominate the Linux desktop
While I understand your argument, it DOES also make switching easier. I use wine (actually cxoffice) on my gentoo box. It allowed me to switch from windows quickly and fairly easily. As time goes on and I find OSS projects that I like to use instead of the windows app under wine I switch to them. There are still some that I haven't found replacments that I like for so I use the windows apss. There are a number of windows apps i have stopped using for OSS replacments. If it wern't for cxoffice i would have had to switch all my programs at once, which would have been a huge task, perhapse large enough to make me think it was just easier to deal with windows then to make the switch.
1. IBM has no lawyers?
2. IBM is scared of Microsoft's lawyers?
What on earth? Yes, this is great for Wine, but the idea that this somehow changes IBM's view of Wine is so naive it's almost hard to believe this hit the front page of Slashdot.
Let's go over this again.
IBM have more legal experience and probably more lawyers than the rest of the IT industry put together. If they don't support Wine it's for reasons other than "fear of lawsuits". Perhaps IBM are betting on Java, and Wine is kind of irrelevant in the Java view of things.
Companies that sue IBM tend to be very short-lived. They are either SCO-style attack dogs, or pure patent claim firms. Any real IT company that sues IBM will find itself in sudden and extremely expensive violation of more patents than they knew possible.
The article's premise is BS. The rest is interesting though.
My blog
The legal support is free. So the fact that Wine has legal support now does not in any way mean that they suddenly also have money.
If there is a lawsuit and Wine loses Microsoft doesn't get to take the lawyers to the cleaners.
So this development does not mean there is any more money to gain from Microsoft's point of view.
First, this will mean that more programs will get support. (Applications like AutoCAD, which doesn't quite work yet.)
Second, since I started using the Mac, I've become interested in the Darwine project, which aims to make Windows programs run on the Mac without running Windows in an emulator; this project aims to combine Qemu and Wine to run the Wine code natively on the Mac iron while emulating only the application code. Big support behind Wine will likely mean a better Windows-like operating layer not only on x86 systems running, say, Linux, but also on non-x86 systems that are candidates for running the occasional Windows program.
Third, IBM has OS/2 code, which contains some of the same code as Windows itself. I'm not saying that IBM could submit that code directly into Wine, but IBM could have a clean-room implementation of some of the most important functions, using a plain-English specification written by programmers with access to the code. Not to mention that it means a lot of Wine bugs will get fixed. This is good news!