June 2010 - Wine-Devel - list.winehq.org

Re: The WINE Project should solicit grants to hire professional developers

by Damjan Jovanovic

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 9:07 PM, Richard Yao <shiningarcanine(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Dear All: > > I am a senior undergraduate applied mathematics/computer science > student and this year, I migrated from Windows 7 to Gentoo Linux on my > computers. I tried using Linux alternatives to many applications I > used on Windows, but not all software has good alternatives, so I have > been using WINE for certain things. The WINE project's accomplishments > so far have been extremely impressive, but at the same time, WINE's > implementation of the Windows API is deficient in many ways and I > think that the WINE project will need to improve its own organization > before progress toward true API parity with Windows can be made. > > I can divide WINE's development resources into two groups, volunteer > and professional. The volunteer group is predominantly focused on > games.The professional group is comprised of CodeWeavers and Google. > CodeWeavers does what its customers want it to do, and as such, it has > a large focus on games. Google on the other hand, paid CodeWeavers to > make some improvements to WINE, mostly for Picasa, but also for Adobe > Photoshop CS2, the reason for which I cannot imagine. Google also has > its annual Summer of Code program. Each source of manpower has its own > special interest and I do not believe that WINE will ever obtain any > kind of API parity with Windows as long as this remains the case. > > With these things in mind, I would like to propose that the WINE > project solicit grants from charitable organizations so that it could > hire professional developers to augment its existing resources, > specifically in the areas for which special interests could care less. > If the Wine project could solicit sufficient funding to hire a few > dozen developers for a period of several years, then I think that > having WINE become as good as Windows would enter the realm of > possibility. I know that many people will laugh at my suggestion > (especially when they read the organization I suggest that the WINE > project contact), but as far as I can tell, the WINE project has not > solicited grants to be able to hire professional developers and I > think that failing to solicit such grants places a handicap on the > WINE project. > > There exist charitable organizations that seek to fund solutions to > "global problems that are ignored by governments and other > organizations" (as stated in Wikipedia). Because enabling Windows > programs to run on free UNIX operating systems would reduce the cost > of computing for all people, including those in third world countries, > I am certain that such organizations that would be willing to fund > WINE, provided that the WINE project inform them of its existence. The > specific organization from which I think that the WINE project should > attempt to solicit grant money is the Bill and Melinda Gates > Foundation. In consideration of their guiding principles and the fact > that they must spend $1.5 billion a year, it seems only logical to me > that they would provide funding for the WINE project if asked: > > http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/guiding-principles.aspx > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Activities > > The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is not the only organization for > which the WINE project could solicit funding, but I think that it is a > good place to start. Please consider the possibility of soliciting > grants so that the WINE project could hire professional developers. > Also, I am not registered on the mailing list, so please CC me any > responses made either directly or indirectly to this email, even if it > ridicules my suggestion. > > Yours truly, > Richard Yao > > > What about persuading the European Union to spend some of the €497 million it got from the Microsoft competition lawsuit on improving Wine? Damjan Jovanovic

June 29, 2010

Re: The WINE Project should solicit grants to hire professional developers

by James McKenzie

Richard Yao wrote: > Dear All: > > I am a senior undergraduate applied mathematics/computer science > student and this year, I migrated from Windows 7 to Gentoo Linux on my > computers. I tried using Linux alternatives to many applications I > used on Windows, but not all software has good alternatives, so I have > been using WINE for certain things. The WINE project's accomplishments > so far have been extremely impressive, but at the same time, WINE's > implementation of the Windows API is deficient in many ways and I > think that the WINE project will need to improve its own organization > before progress toward true API parity with Windows can be made. > Thank you for the kind comments. What you suggest is a taxation nightmare. Having worked with 501(c)(3) organizations, you HAVE to prove that your grants were used in an appropriate manner. Using them to pay the wages of a for-hire person is NOT appropriate (and will result in the IRS coming down on you like a ton of bricks). If you are looking for a job/internship, contact CodeWeavers. Donations to the Wine Project are used to support developers at WineConf (Wine Conference). We cannot LEGALLY pay wages to others without encountering the wrath of United States taxation laws. Sorry to be so harsh, but that's the reality of the FOSS world. Either you volunteer your time, or you look for a company that will pay wages for your 'support' efforts. James McKenzie

June 29, 2010

Re: ntdll: add stub for NtSystemDebugControl (try 2)

by Andrew Nguyen

2010/6/28 Austin English <austinenglish(a)gmail.com>: > with correct spec file this time > > -- > -Austin > > > > The spec argument that corresponds to the PULONG prototype argument should also be ptr.

June 29, 2010

Re: ntdll: add stub for NtSystemDebugControl

by Andrew Nguyen

On Mon, Jun 28, 2010 at 8:16 PM, Austin English <austinenglish(a)gmail.com> wrote: > See http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=23431 > > -- > -Austin > > > > The NtSystemDebugControl spec types don't match the prototype arguments.

June 29, 2010

Re: configure.ac: Don't try to rm dirs.

by Nicolas Le Cam

2010/6/28 Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org>: > Nicolas Le Cam <niko.lecam(a)gmail.com> writes: > >> Hi, >> >> This patch allows to do a make clean in a wine tree configured with >> with-wine64 option and fix following errors : >> rm: cannot remove `fonts': Is a directory >> rm: cannot remove `server': Is a directory > > These should be symlinks in a wow64 tree. Probably you didn't start from > a fresh tree. > > -- > Alexandre Julliard > julliard(a)winehq.org > You're right even if I can't remember creating it so long ago. Sorry for the noise. -- Nicolas Le Cam

June 28, 2010

Re: [PATCH] user32: check for valid pointer in CreateIconFromResource

by Florian Köberle

On 06/28/2010 01:44 PM, Reece Dunn wrote: > On 28 June 2010 12:26, Alexandre Julliard <julliard(a)winehq.org> wrote: > >> Wolfram Sang <wolfram(a)the-dreams.de> writes: >> >> >>> According to TestBot (#2851), all non-crashing Windows versions return 0. >>> >>> Found while working on Bug 21012. Although this patch doesn't cure this >>> bug, I think it is still worth adding the check because the pointer >>> may come from the (always evil ;)) user-application. >>> >> Do you have an actual application that does this, or is this just hiding >> a Wine bug? >> > When running winedbg on bfginstaller.exe (trying to track down > http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=14343) winedbg will trap in > the cursoricon.c code (line 771 -- > http://source.winehq.org/git/wine.git/?a=blob;f=dlls/user32/cursoricon.c;h=…) > > 767 /* pre-multiply by alpha */ > 768 for (i = 0, ptr = bits; i < bm.bmWidth * bm.bmHeight; i++, ptr += 4) > 769 { > 770 unsigned int alpha = ptr[3]; > 771 ptr[0] = ptr[0] * alpha / 255; > 772 ptr[1] = ptr[1] * alpha / 255; > 773 ptr[2] = ptr[2] * alpha / 255; > 774 } > > The app itself does not crash there when not running without winedbg, > but is generating an issue later on that does not make sense (which I > am suspecting is a stack corruption issue, possibly triggered by this > issue). > > I'm not sure if this is a wine bug, whether Wolfram's patch gets past > the break triggered or whether it addresses the Big Fish Games issue. > > I'll test the patch tonight. > > - Reece > > > > > When debugging another application I got a page fault at the same position. You can either type "pass" or you can set |BreakOnFirstChance to false to prevent the debugger from running into that "first chance" page faults. That's expecially usefull when your application triggers the page fault very frequently. See http://www.winehq.org/docs/winedev-guide/dbg-config for more information. The application I were debugging has a stack corruption bug too but I don't think it's related. |

June 28, 2010

Re: ddraw: Move complex surface destruction into its own function

by Henri Verbeet

On 28 June 2010 21:51, Luke Benstead <kazade(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Ok I wasn't sure as it's pretty trivial. I'll resend along with the others > after 1.2. > It's trivial, but also mostly pointless on its own.

June 28, 2010

Re: ddraw: Move complex surface destruction into its own function

by Luke Benstead

Ok I wasn't sure as it's pretty trivial. I'll resend along with the others after 1.2. On Jun 28, 2010 8:36 PM, "Henri Verbeet" <hverbeet(a)gmail.com> wrote: On 28 June 2010 20:03, Luke Benstead <kazade(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Needed to properly fix ddraw surfac... That's of course not appropriate during code freeze.

June 28, 2010

Re: ddraw: Move complex surface destruction into its own function

by Henri Verbeet

On 28 June 2010 20:03, Luke Benstead <kazade(a)gmail.com> wrote: > Needed to properly fix ddraw surface refcounting as it must be called from > the surface thunks. > That's of course not appropriate during code freeze.

June 28, 2010

The WINE Project should solicit grants to hire professional developers

by Richard Yao

Dear All: I am a senior undergraduate applied mathematics/computer science student and this year, I migrated from Windows 7 to Gentoo Linux on my computers. I tried using Linux alternatives to many applications I used on Windows, but not all software has good alternatives, so I have been using WINE for certain things. The WINE project's accomplishments so far have been extremely impressive, but at the same time, WINE's implementation of the Windows API is deficient in many ways and I think that the WINE project will need to improve its own organization before progress toward true API parity with Windows can be made. I can divide WINE's development resources into two groups, volunteer and professional. The volunteer group is predominantly focused on games.The professional group is comprised of CodeWeavers and Google. CodeWeavers does what its customers want it to do, and as such, it has a large focus on games. Google on the other hand, paid CodeWeavers to make some improvements to WINE, mostly for Picasa, but also for Adobe Photoshop CS2, the reason for which I cannot imagine. Google also has its annual Summer of Code program. Each source of manpower has its own special interest and I do not believe that WINE will ever obtain any kind of API parity with Windows as long as this remains the case. With these things in mind, I would like to propose that the WINE project solicit grants from charitable organizations so that it could hire professional developers to augment its existing resources, specifically in the areas for which special interests could care less. If the Wine project could solicit sufficient funding to hire a few dozen developers for a period of several years, then I think that having WINE become as good as Windows would enter the realm of possibility. I know that many people will laugh at my suggestion (especially when they read the organization I suggest that the WINE project contact), but as far as I can tell, the WINE project has not solicited grants to be able to hire professional developers and I think that failing to solicit such grants places a handicap on the WINE project. There exist charitable organizations that seek to fund solutions to "global problems that are ignored by governments and other organizations" (as stated in Wikipedia). Because enabling Windows programs to run on free UNIX operating systems would reduce the cost of computing for all people, including those in third world countries, I am certain that such organizations that would be willing to fund WINE, provided that the WINE project inform them of its existence. The specific organization from which I think that the WINE project should attempt to solicit grant money is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In consideration of their guiding principles and the fact that they must spend $1.5 billion a year, it seems only logical to me that they would provide funding for the WINE project if asked: http://www.gatesfoundation.org/about/Pages/guiding-principles.aspx http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_%26_Melinda_Gates_Foundation#Activities The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is not the only organization for which the WINE project could solicit funding, but I think that it is a good place to start. Please consider the possibility of soliciting grants so that the WINE project could hire professional developers. Also, I am not registered on the mailing list, so please CC me any responses made either directly or indirectly to this email, even if it ridicules my suggestion. Yours truly, Richard Yao

June 28, 2010