Two Helpings of WINE

Mister Snee writes: "As of the latest WINE release, the developer who's been working on the ActiveMovie and DirectShow code for the last nine months suddenly pulled it all from the source tree, citing fears of trouble under the DMCA." And an anonymous reader submits: "TransGaming Tecnologies is offering much of its own proprietary code up for exchange if Codeweavers are willing to relicense some of their code under the less restrictive (more free) X11 licence (eg contributing it to the X11 fork of wine, Rewind). Details can be found at this post by CEO Gavriel State. This all came from the Codeweavers-dominated recent licence change (to the LGPL) which was done in an attempt to steal TransGaming's Direct3D code and force them to open up all their work (thus have no means to make money)." Your attitude toward these license machinations may vary; Codeweavers seems unlikely to oppose people making money from WINE development.

wine confusion

[Drunken_Jackass]

Someone should start naming their wine distributions - Burgundy, Pino Grigio, etc. So i can tell who the hell is contributing to what!

Wow.. this was one way to put it

[GauteL]

"which was done in an attempt to steal TransGaming's Direct3D code and force them to open up all their work (thus have no means to make money)."

The licensing change was made because the Wine-project didn't really want "leeches". That is, companies using their work, without contributing back. This has NOTHING whatsoever to do with stealing.

If this hurts TransGaming, then that is their problem, not the Wine-projects.

PS! I actually like WineX, and I am a subscriber, but they have no universial right to use all the work of the Wine-project unless the contributors think that is ok (stated with a license). If they succeed in "swapping code" that is ok. Bitching about not being able to use LGPL-code, is not.

Re:Wow.. this was one way to put it

[dinivin]

If they succeed in "swapping code" that is ok. Bitching about not being able to use LGPL-code, is not.


Some might argue that changing the licensing of the project after a couple of years of development, because the developers didn't think things through when they began, is not OK either.

Dinivin

Re:Wow.. this was one way to put it

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? That code was mit X11 like. They can do whatever with the code they want. When people use BSD like license, they just don't know what they have given up. Now those who contribute to Wine feels the pain and did something.

WINE == DEAD END?

[JohnBE]

It seems to me that all we'll ever be able to run on Wine is old Windows applications. Any cutting edge applications will not run unless the said app. maintains strict adherence to a old proprietary standard. This means that Wine will always be one step back.

Virtual Machines such as Bochs and VM-Ware will eventually be the only choice for running x86 applications.

Incedently VMWare and Bochs are not new concepts. SCO have had something called Merge [caldera.com] for ages, which has allowed people to run Windows on Openserver for years now and more recently allowed Unixware users to do the same.

Wine's forking is a desperately sad attempt to remain as near to the cutting edge in legally grey DMCA infested waters. Virtual Machines and emulators are the way to go, DMCA be dammned.

I don't even know the situ. and I see the bias!

[rknop]

This all came from the Codeweavers-dominated recent licence change (to the LGPL) which was done in an attempt to steal TransGaming's Direct3D code and force them to open up all their work (thus have no means to make money).

<Dripping Sarcasm>
Oh, very well put.
</Dripping Sarcasm>

I don't even know what's going on and I can tell that this is absolutely nothing but a ham-handed attempt to push forward a view of the GPL and LGPL (and/or of Codeweavers) and blame it for things for which it no more responsibility than it does for the crisis in the Middle Eeast.

Licence changes of open code only affect future versions. If an earlier version was out under a different licence you liked better-- fork from there! That's what gave us OpenSSH. It was forked from the last "open enough" version of ssh. Similarly with TuxRacer; it's gone commercial, but the earlier GPLed versions are still GPLed, and nothings to stop anybody from further development of them.

What's more, even if you change your future versions of code, you can't "steal" somebody else's code which uses an older version. The current ssh is under a more restrictive licence... but OpenSSH doesn't have anything to worry about using the older ssh code. Similarly for TuxRacer; if somebody else writes a GPLed extention to it, the proprietary version can't "steal" it simply because it's connected to an earlier version of code that the proprietary version grew out of. (And vice versa. Developers of the GPLed version aren't "stealing" the proprietary code, or preventing it from being sold, by building on the earlier version.)

This statement is little better than Microsoft FUD, and comes across as far less slick than it. If there really is some beef or ethical problem with what Codeweavers has done, I don't know. If there is, it needs to be stated much better than this. This statement here only makes me believe that the poster is a whiner with strong opinions about the GPL that aren't actually based in fact.

-Rob

Re:Wow.. this was one way to put it

[xer.xes]

Maybe we can mod the story itself to -1 :).

Of course most of the stories here on slashdot are kind of biased (towards open software), but this one is really bad (and in the wrong (non-open) direction this time).

Who says you can't make money with open software? Ximian does it, Codeweavers (with *tada* Wine) does it, Eazel did it (they spend more than they made however :)), I do it, lots of other people do it!

License fights

[dmiller]

This adolescent squabbling over licenses is pathetic. It is really sad to see people trying to use the [L]GPL as a weapon. I think I'll just use Rewind

Re:WINE == DEAD END?

[Ozan]

Understood, but what if your existing software is cutting edge?
Easy thing: stay on windows. Don't force yourself on a certain system because it is hip. Be professional. If you need linux software, use them on a VM.

Re:Territoriality

[sqlrob]

The DCMA is relevant to and has force only for United States Persons. If someone in the USA downloads your source from outside of the USA, and that source violates the DCMA, the downloader is liable, not the author if the source in question is subsequently implimented in a project.

So why was Johansesn (DeCSS) arrested (or at the very least, taken by authorities) and questioned in Sweden?

LGPL does not prevent proprietary additions

[Bruce Perens]

This is a most mixed-up story! The use of the LGPL does not prevent anyone from making a proprietary addition! It would not "steal" the Direct3D work. Proprietary code may be linked to LGPL code. It may be static-linked, dynamic liked, anything. Libraries may include mixed proprietary and LGPL work as long as the two can be separated for re-linking (which means the .o files have to be available, big deal). The decision to go to the LGPL does not retroactively change the license on old-code, either, only new additions.

Bruce

Re:LGPL.

[Bruce Perens]

Yes, you are correct. The entire premse of the story is bogus, LGPL would do nothing to hinder proprietary additions.

Bruce

Re:Who is the guilty one?

[Bruce Perens]

Slashdot for getting the story wrong. Anyone else who got the story wrong - which might mean Wine Magazine, but I haven't read it. The LGPL's effect is essentially the same as the BSD license. You can link any proprietary code to it.

In other words, this is much ado about nothing.

Bruce

share and you get more

[_|()|\|]

Some might argue that changing the licensing after a couple of years ... is not OK either.

How can you argue that TransGaming's proprietary fork is okay, but proceeding with the LGPL is not? You can't have it both ways. WINE is not some corporate charity, so the developers chose a license they're more comfortable with.

TransGaming leveraged a million lines of code, the result of almost ten years of development, in the development of its proprietary WineX product. Now TransGaming wants to trade some of its code for LGPLed code. I can forgive some WINE developers for feeling like TransGaming hasn't made good on its previous trade. Alexandre summarized the WINE sentiment as follows:

What you are doing is you come to the party, you eat and drink from what others have brought, but when people want some of your stuff you charge them for it. And when they complain you ask them to start charging for their stuff too, and transform the party into a shopping mall.

That said, if swapping code improves WINE, I'm all for it. In fact, it validates the decision to go LGPL.

Re:"Start" vs. "K"

[_|()|\|]

I made icewm have the most Windows-like look possible

It sounds stupid, but retraining can be painful for a "power user." I have a Windows setup that works for me. I put the task bar on top, set to autohide. I rename frequently used Start menu items so I can quickly select them with the keyboard: "1 Windows Explorer," "2 cygwin bash," "3 Word," etc. I frequently use the <Windows>-m shortcut to minimize all windows.

It has taken a while, but I've gotten more comfortable with sawfish under GNOME. When I finally had a weekend to play around, I discovered that the panel doesn't have to be a monstrosity at the bottom of the screen, and I rearranged the applets. I mapped some familiar shortcuts to the Windows key. However, the GNOME menu doesn't appear to support first-character discrimination, making it useless for keyboard navigation.

Despite some effort, I am still more comfortable (I hesitate to use the word "productive") under Windows. Eventually, I'll learn GNOME-isms that I miss under Windows. In fact, I'm already pretty attached to Galeon.

I commend your effort to make the workstations more usable, even if making them more Windows like may have felt like a regression.

Total Hogwash

[Outland Traveller]

I can't believe this story was posted as-is. What obvious flamebait!

Newsflash- the LPGL is not some awful burdensom thing designed to make your life hell. It's a perfectly reasonable license that strikes a good balance between the full blown GPL and a BSD-type license. Anyone who has serious complaints about it is just selfish.
This kind of pointless sniping is not a stellar example of how business and open source can work together. Hopefully Codeweavers and Transgaming (and the l33t followers on both sides) can come up with a more intelligent solution than schoolyard name-calling.

Re:The claim of the LGPL's effect is bogus anyway

[natmsincome.com]

Your right in a way the LGPL allows you to add proprietary additions in a way. If you modify the LGPL code then you have to release the modifications (same as the GPL) but if you add extra functionality without changing the code then the bit you add you can linces as you want. If you have to modify the LGPL code to add you functionality then you have to release the parts you midified but not the extra parts you added unless the parts you added are required by the parts you modified. Obviously the community might not add the code you changed to the code base if
it doesn't fix any problems and is only usefull for your proprietry libaries.

It doesn't do anything about the "Direct3D work" but it does mean that people can't take the LGPL code base fix bugs and then sell it without releasing the code.

What it doesn't stop is someone comming along adding say DirrectX 9 support that is clearly seperate from the original code but requires wine. (you still have the changing API problems as wine is updated sine the code isn't in the common code base it must be updated speratly)