Wine, Office, and the antitrust settlement
I'm proposing that Wine be part of the settlement of the Microsoft antitrust trial. See http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html Comments welcome. I have a few questions for Wine developers, especially the good folks at Codeweavers and Transgaming: 1. How much would it cost to achieve full support for Office 2000 in Wine? 2. Is it true that Office uses undocumented Windows APIs? If so, how many? Are they a significant part of the challenge of supporting Office? Thanks, Dan Kegel dank(a)kegel.com
On Monday 10 December 2001 18:03 pm, Dan Kegel wrote:
I'm proposing that Wine be part of the settlement of the Microsoft antitrust trial. See http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html Comments welcome.
I read in theregister.co.uk (it's not there any more) then part of the settlement was that they will open the API, but ONLY to COMMERCIAL companies, adios open source stuff.
I have a few questions for Wine developers, especially the good folks at Codeweavers and Transgaming:
1. How much would it cost to achieve full support for Office 2000 in Wine?
Heh, thats a good one. Popping up my Office 2K from my old MSDN subscription I had (MS still thinks that I'm subscribed, donno why), gives me this error: [snip] fixme:ole:CoCreateInstance no classfactory created for CLSID {000c101c-0000-0000-c000-000000000046}, hres is 0x80070005 fixme:advapi:RegisterEventSourceW ((null),L"MsiInstaller"): stub fixme:advapi:ReportEventW stub fixme:advapi:DeregisterEventSource (1): stub fixme:thread:SetThreadExecutionState (0x80000000): stub, harmless (power management). fixme:advapi:SetThreadToken ((nil), 0): stub (NT impl. only) err:win:WIN_FindWndPtr window 10021 belongs to other process This installation package could not be opened. Contact the application vendor to verify that this is a valid Windows Installer package. So without the native windows DLL's, you cannot even install it yet. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Office 2K uses heavily MSIE infrastructure, and MSIE still cannot be even installed on wine (without windows), so I suspect it's a ton of work to do.
2. Is it true that Office uses undocumented Windows APIs? If so, how many? Are they a significant part of the challenge of supporting Office?
Well, they did almost anything they can to complicate the word file format, so I assume that yes, they did use any trick in the book (and those who are not in the book), but again - I didn't see Windows, nor office source code, so I cannot say for sure. Maybe other people here can.. -- Hetz Ben Hamo hetz(a)kde.org
Also, if I'm not mistaken, Office 2K uses heavily MSIE infrastructure, and MSIE still cannot be even installed on wine (without windows), so I suspect it's a ton of work to do.
This is an excellent and important point. Office depends on IE, but with Office XP, you can no longer legitimately install IE on Linux (the license for IE requires a valid MS license). Hence, Wine/Linux would be required to provide a full IE replacement in order to get Office XP to run... You have the same problem with DirectX games (although Transgaming has more or less solved this one), and with Windows Media Player. Jer
You have the same problem with DirectX games (although Transgaming has more or less solved this one), and with Windows Media Player.
I actually checked that 2 minutes ago when I read your mail. I called a friend of mine (who owes me some favours) to check the WIndows media issue.. (I asked him that 2 days ago) He checked it a bit and it seems that there are few holes in this license agreement, so you have 2 options: 1. You can put Windows media player for free download with a note that a user needs to have MS Windows, but *it doesn't have to be installed* on the machine. This solution could cover 99% of potential Wine users (or CrossOver plugin users/clients) since almost all the workstations machines are being sold with Windows. 2. A second solution is to give it to an IP lawyer who can dig the holes quite quickly and can give you a statement if you could just put it for download without any notes for end-users. I hardly think that MS will do any problem to CodeWeavers if you guys decide to support it. After all - for them it's just means more clients are using WMP to watch video/listen to audio and a better selling point of their servers.. -- Hetz Ben Hamo hetz(a)kde.org
Hi Dan, I read your remedy proposal; nice work. I obviously like your proposal (hire CodeWeavers to port Office, great idea! <grin>). I'm skeptical that this proposal will be accepted, and I also feel a bit uncomfortable advocating it as it clearly benefits organizations like mine, and doesn't so clearly benefit the Wine community. However, to answer your question, if you value time (i.e. assume people get paid market wages, as opposed to donate their time), a reasonable off the cuff guess for MS Office support (to make it *really* work) is probably on the order of $1-2M or so. Please note, that's largely a guess, and includes a large fudge factor because it's unclear how much work Office XP is going to require (AFAIK, no one has brought it up in Wine yet). We could probably reduce the cost and effort if we had engineers at MS actively helping us (so we weren't always fighting up hill). As far as undocumented APIs in Office, I know of only one used in Office 2000 (of course, the problem with undocumented APIs is that there may be many more we're ignorant of). Finally, I think my largest concern with Wine is in securing protection from Microsoft patents. I've lost some large sales because Mainsoft sales people use patent FUD successfully on my potential customers. Further, it is unclear whether or not open source projects such as Samba, Mono, and Wine are going to be permitted to play in the post .NET world. My greatest fear is that MS will be able to take some legal action that will prevent Wine from supporting any .net enabled application. IANAL, so I have not idea as to the full extent of the threat from MS or what a potential remedy would look like, but IMHO, that's a more significant issue than others we've faced. Cheers, Jeremy Dan Kegel wrote:
I'm proposing that Wine be part of the settlement of the Microsoft antitrust trial. See http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html Comments welcome.
I have a few questions for Wine developers, especially the good folks at Codeweavers and Transgaming:
1. How much would it cost to achieve full support for Office 2000 in Wine?
2. Is it true that Office uses undocumented Windows APIs? If so, how many? Are they a significant part of the challenge of supporting Office?
Thanks, Dan Kegel dank(a)kegel.com
Thanks for the feedback! I've updated my proposal a bit based on your comments and those of others. I do think this is a big opportunity for Wine; the improvements needed to run Office will surely make it possible to run many other programs as well -- at least, as long as they're placed under the same license as Wine, which my proposal now stipulates. - Dan http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html Jeremy White wrote:
Hi Dan,
I read your remedy proposal; nice work.
I obviously like your proposal (hire CodeWeavers to port Office, great idea! <grin>). I'm skeptical that this proposal will be accepted, and I also feel a bit uncomfortable advocating it as it clearly benefits organizations like mine, and doesn't so clearly benefit the Wine community.
However, to answer your question, if you value time (i.e. assume people get paid market wages, as opposed to donate their time), a reasonable off the cuff guess for MS Office support (to make it *really* work) is probably on the order of $1-2M or so.
Please note, that's largely a guess, and includes a large fudge factor because it's unclear how much work Office XP is going to require (AFAIK, no one has brought it up in Wine yet).
We could probably reduce the cost and effort if we had engineers at MS actively helping us (so we weren't always fighting up hill).
As far as undocumented APIs in Office, I know of only one used in Office 2000 (of course, the problem with undocumented APIs is that there may be many more we're ignorant of).
Finally, I think my largest concern with Wine is in securing protection from Microsoft patents.
I've lost some large sales because Mainsoft sales people use patent FUD successfully on my potential customers.
Further, it is unclear whether or not open source projects such as Samba, Mono, and Wine are going to be permitted to play in the post .NET world. My greatest fear is that MS will be able to take some legal action that will prevent Wine from supporting any .net enabled application.
IANAL, so I have not idea as to the full extent of the threat from MS or what a potential remedy would look like, but IMHO, that's a more significant issue than others we've faced.
Cheers,
Jeremy
Dan Kegel wrote:
I'm proposing that Wine be part of the settlement of the Microsoft antitrust trial. See http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html Comments welcome.
I have a few questions for Wine developers, especially the good folks at Codeweavers and Transgaming:
1. How much would it cost to achieve full support for Office 2000 in Wine?
2. Is it true that Office uses undocumented Windows APIs? If so, how many? Are they a significant part of the challenge of supporting Office?
Thanks, Dan Kegel dank(a)kegel.com
participants (3)
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Dan Kegel -
Hetz Ben-Hamo -
Jeremy White