I would like to point out that the reason the QuickTime player works well in Wine is because of
all of the hard work we have put into (and returned to) Wine.
It's just like PBS. You can choose to support
us, and get a nice souvenir plugin viewer for doing
The Right Thing(TM), or you can choose to not support us. But if you do that, we're going
to switch to all infomercials, all the time...
(grin)
You know, I'm genuinely curious about this:
we've had MFC nailed for well over a year now, and very few people are ever willing to hire us to help them with the MFC part.
Winemaker does a lot of the work - and is free.
The fact that Winelib is capable of as much as it
is now is almost all due to our work - and is free.
We can help you get MFC working quickly and easily, and,
okay, that parts not free (we have to eat
somehow), but it's not that expensive.
We've done it a lot, and we can genuinely
save you time and hassle. It's like hiring
a plumber instead of learning how to sweat
pipes yourself.
Why do so few people ask us for help?
Is it because it's mostly
the developers trying this, who have no budget?
Or am I missing something else?
I think this is a very interesting question,
and one that is rarely honestly discussed.
I've watched the wine-devel list
closely for the past 3 or so years, and I've observed the following:
Most OSS Developers are extremely helpful. I can't begin to tell you how impressed I have been by the responsiveness of developers on both wine-devel and on wine-users.
Some OSS Developers can be very rude to newbies who annoy them (yes, Andreas, I mean you, but you're getting better *g*).
Some queries to the list are simply ignored.
And not just ones where the author failed to RTFM;
there are often cases where someone asks a question, and it doesn't push anyones hot button, and no one replies. Lists can actually be problematic this way. Have you noticed that if you send two people an email, your response rate is lower if you send the same email individually to each person?
Most new posters want to swing for the fences, not pick up the litter. This is a real problem, IMO, with all OSS projects. For example, Wine is hard. However, there's lots of good work
a newbie could do (testing, doco, simple test cases, small projects that Francois does an excellent job of collating). Most new posters
want to make a real impact with their work, not start in the mailroom, as it were. Hence the enormous number of OSS projects (why spend your
personal time cleaning the litter of Wine when
you can be the lead developer on BobsCoolWidget?)
Most OSS projects see a lot of newbies come...and go. They respond best to new people who stick around for the long haul. I guess it's like Minnesotans. They're not very friendly for the first 10 years you're their neighbor, but after that, you're like family...*g*
FWIW, this is the only complaint of this type we
have had; we have hundreds of successful
downloads, from people all over the world.
We do have issues with Yahoo not providing file sizes to browsers. We're working with Yahoo to resolve these issues; we are also hoping that
Yahoo can help to explain why this customer
had such a severe problem.
We are responding to issues as quickly as we
can; please bear in mind that our store
has been operational for all of 36 hours.
We have been trying to work with customers
that have problems, and we have had good
success in resolving problems (you
can review the support emails yourself
if you like). Praedor was understandably
upset and was not willing to allow us
the time to correct the problem.
However, please note that my guarantee is
firm: if you're not satisfied, we refund
your money, no questions asked - which is
what we have done here.
Cheers,
Jeremy White
CEO
CodeWeavers
Re:Some helpful information before downloading!
on
Quicktime In Linux
·
· Score: 2, Informative
These are all excellent points.
The file stuff is a problem. We're using
the Yahoo store front, so we have a remarkably
limited amount of control over both the
file and the amount of information we can
add to the actual order pages. We're
working on it.
I've asked our sysadmin to post the EULA
to our pages; we very much intend for
our customers to know exactly what
they're getting before they buy.
Take a look at the prototype of
the new documentation page here.
Take a look at the items at the bottom
of the Wine 1.0 todo list
here.
Take a look at the plans for revamping
the apps database
here. BTW, we need help. Wanna quit
complaining and give us a hand?
However, I do have to agree in one important
point - many Wine users have a tendency
to get an app up, and then that gets reported
to Slashdot. But, the reality is, it doesn't
work well, so everyone stampedes to try Wine,
and gets disappointed. The key thing we're
trying to get to with the new apps db
is *honest* and verifiable app reports.
One of the key goals for Wine 1.0 is to make Winelib much, much easier to use. With Winelib, you can do (nearly) everything MainWin does, and it's free.
Slashdot Mirror
It's just like PBS. You can choose to support us, and get a nice souvenir plugin viewer for doing The Right Thing(TM), or you can choose to not support us. But if you do that, we're going to switch to all infomercials, all the time... (grin)
Cheers,
Jeremy White
CEO
CodeWeavers
Ah, but have you seen this picture?
You can download it here.
Jeremy White, CEO, CodeWeavers
Yes, we've built and run Winelib apps on both Linux PPC and Solaris SPARC.
Winemaker does a lot of the work - and is free.
The fact that Winelib is capable of as much as it is now is almost all due to our work - and is free.
We can help you get MFC working quickly and easily, and, okay, that parts not free (we have to eat somehow), but it's not that expensive. We've done it a lot, and we can genuinely save you time and hassle. It's like hiring a plumber instead of learning how to sweat pipes yourself.
Why do so few people ask us for help?
Is it because it's mostly the developers trying this, who have no budget? Or am I missing something else?
Thanks for listening,
Jeremy White, CodeWeavers
I've watched the wine-devel list closely for the past 3 or so years, and I've observed the following:
We do have issues with Yahoo not providing file sizes to browsers. We're working with Yahoo to resolve these issues; we are also hoping that Yahoo can help to explain why this customer had such a severe problem.
We are responding to issues as quickly as we can; please bear in mind that our store has been operational for all of 36 hours.
We have been trying to work with customers that have problems, and we have had good success in resolving problems (you can review the support emails yourself if you like). Praedor was understandably upset and was not willing to allow us the time to correct the problem.
However, please note that my guarantee is firm: if you're not satisfied, we refund your money, no questions asked - which is what we have done here.
Cheers,
Jeremy White
CEO
CodeWeavers
These are all excellent points.
The file stuff is a problem. We're using
the Yahoo store front, so we have a remarkably
limited amount of control over both the
file and the amount of information we can
add to the actual order pages. We're
working on it.
I've asked our sysadmin to post the EULA
to our pages; we very much intend for
our customers to know exactly what
they're getting before they buy.
Thanks for the input,
Jeremy White
CEO
CodeWeavers
Take a look at the prototype of the new documentation page here.
Take a look at the items at the bottom of the Wine 1.0 todo list here.
Take a look at the plans for revamping the apps database here. BTW, we need help. Wanna quit complaining and give us a hand?
However, I do have to agree in one important point - many Wine users have a tendency to get an app up, and then that gets reported to Slashdot. But, the reality is, it doesn't work well, so everyone stampedes to try Wine, and gets disappointed. The key thing we're trying to get to with the new apps db is *honest* and verifiable app reports.
Part of the Wine 1.0 effort now underway is to dramatically improve the end user experience of Wine.
For example, there is now an easy to use configurator for the .winerc file.
While it's not committed to CVS (yet), you can
download winecfg here.
We're working on getting most installers working under Wine; for a lot of installers, you can do the following:
(assuming the app installed an icon to the desktop).
You can see more of the overall Wine 1.0 status at http:/wine.codeweavers.com/status.shtml
One of the key goals for Wine 1.0 is to make Winelib much, much easier to use.
With Winelib, you can do (nearly) everything MainWin does, and it's free.