- Wine-Devel - list.winehq.org

RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> Alexandre Julliard wrote: > > > > Gavriel State <gav(a)transgaming.com> writes: > > > > > There are several factors to that equation, and I'm > afraid we don't have > > > a firm ETA yet. > > > > Well, this worries me. It sounds like you are planning to > do the same > > thing you did with your DirectX stuff: by making the code > available on > > your site, and promising to release it at some hypothetical future > > date, you remove all incentive for other people to spend time > > improving the main Wine, thus ensuring that it always lacks some > > features. I don't like this at all. > > > > If you can't/don't want to release your code, I'd strongly suggest > > that you reconsider your strategy of making it publicly > available. If > > it was only available to paying customers, there would at least be a > > reason for other people to work on a free implementation. But if > > everybody who needs some feature in Wine can simply download WineX > > instead, no one will spend time re-implementing that > feature. This is > > beginning to seriously hurt the project, and we need to > find a way to > > address this issue. > > The DCOM issues had been ignored by other Wine developers for YEARS > before we came along. Yes, but that is because it hasn't been needed for anything but obscure application until now. > It's not at all clear that our work there has > discouraged anyone else from working in that area. Granted. > To say that > our work is preventing anyone from doing a free version of DCOM is > completely incorrect. To the contrary: we have already contributed > substantial amounts of this code to the public tree - thousands of > lines, in fact. That can only help anyone with a sudden and > unexpected > interest in recreating our work. That is absolutly true and would make any decision not to release it under a free license even more strange. Note however that I'm not accusing you of not releasing it. Not yet, but I reserve the right to do so in the future. Anyway, see below. > Now, it is our firm desire to see *all* of that code end up > in the main > version of Wine. The fact is, unfortunately, that we simply cannot > afford to give everything away as soon as we write it. We only got a > minimal implementation of the DCOM code working six weeks ago. We are > not a rich company, with millions in VC funding to burn; this > means that > our DCOM work has to remain under the AFPL until we can find a sponsor > willing to defray some of the tens of thousands of dollars it cost us > to develop it. I think that you look a things the wrong way. Think of the expense as an extra cost you pay for being early to the market. Sure it won't make your accountant much happier but thats life. :-) What I mean by that is that the DCOM code aiming to get InstallShield to work is not really something that has very much to do with the product you that your customers want to buy. Installation is done only once and can be made in the real Windows if you dual boat and beside it is really something that Wine should have supported already. In short, it was something you had to do because Wine was not mature, because you wanted to be early to market and holding it as proprietary code are unlikely to give you any advantage for very long. If you won't release it somebody else will implement it before long. > Furthermore, we are committed to writing quality, robust > code. We don't > think it's in anyone's best interest for the current version > of the code, > which is effectively limited to the requirements of > InstallShield, to be > used as the basis of future DCOM related work. We in the midsts of > working on a much more flexible architecture which will permit more > than just typelib based proxying. > > I don't really think this affects individual users at all. They can > simply download and use the code from our website, or apply the > necessary patch to WineHQ wine. They can even redistribute it all > non-commercially should they wish. > > Without a doubt, we are committed to the Wine project and have already > contributed a great deal of code to support it. However, to > maintain the > quality and integrity of the project, we stand by our decision of only > contributing code when it makes sense to do so (in order to > allow us to > continue developing quality code) and when it reaches a > certain minimal > degree of quality. Yes, I fully understand that, I'm grateful for all you have done and I'm not making any accusations right now. However I reserve the right to do so in the future. > Publicly questioning our ethics is certainly not the right solution > nor is it in the spirit of the project, especially given how much we > have supported it to-date. We believe that we ARE doing the Wine > user and developer community a service and propelling it further. I don't think Alexandre is questioning your ethics. I think he is question what relation the Wine project should have with you based on praticial issues and not on ethical issues at all. In short: Should the Wine project wait until you release or should it not? > The > only people that our lack of haste in contributing code back really > affects are organizations that want to make immediate commercial use > of the code. These organizations include the one you work > for, and its > clients. If you want to see the DCOM code Wine-licensed soon, you > need to talk to your boss and your clients, not me. :-) I fully understand that you wish to take every opportunity to get some extra income but I think your analysis is partly wrong. Sure it is possible you might get some sort of one time payment from somebody if you are a little clever, but realize the following. A significant part of your potential customers consists of, I guess, people who would very much like to not to dual boot any longer and their first priority is that their normal productivity applications installs and works. Games are their second priority and so as long InstallShield doesn't work in normal Wine you risk losing them since they will continue to dual boot and presumably continue to play their games in Windows. > At this point, I think it would be best if we were to take this > discussion off-line so that we can determine a solution that works > for everyone. For any discussion concerning milking some money out of CodeWeavers or their clients, absolutely. Not my problem. :-) However one important problem that really can't be discussed off-line, is what your relation you wish to have to the Wine project. In fact, it can't be discussed at all, only your actions can determine it. I will be blunt: Do you see yourselves as a complement to Wine or a competitor to Wine? Because not releasing important core code like code needed to install important applications especially non-games might be interpreted as really wish to compete with Wine instead of being a completement. Note again (the third(?) time) that I'm not accusing you of anything, at least not yet, but I wish to point out that it might hurt your public image if people see as a competitor instead of a complement to Wine. Being vague and saying: "There are several factors to that equation, and I'm afraid we don't have a firm ETA yet." will not help your image.

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RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> > But you cannot change the license once it is mostly > complete; by then > > it will be too late. > > If it was mostly complete, what would it be too late for? Yes, I wonder that as well. To late for a 100% open source world perhaps, but then only the most naive (like Richard Stallman) actually think it is realistic. Open source is good for some things, but it is not the solutions to all problems. > Patrik Stridvall <ps(a)leissner.se> wrote: > > > Why would you want to change the license when it is mostly complete? > > > > There will be very little reason for companies to enter the market > > at that time and why try to make it difficult for the few > that might. > > I was using the following lines of thinking: If it were > mostly complete, > any changes would most likely be the result of bug fixes or > minor improvements. Exactly and therefore there would be very hard to find a niche for a company to profit in. > In the end, if you look at the larger projects (mozilla, > openoffice, perl), you will > see that any of them uses a straight *gpl scheme. My You mean _neither_ of them, I guess. > suggestion is that if you are > going to change it, change it to something like a currently > existing project that > has commericial involvement (mozilla/openoffice). And the advantage of this would be the following?

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RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> Patrik Stridvall <ps(a)leissner.se> writes: > > > So you mean that all the people that are current voluntering > > to work of Wine won't work on Wine if it is almost complete > > just because somebody else have done the parts they need > > to run their applications and that they will happily pay for > > the right to use it. > > No, I'm not saying they won't work on it when it's almost complete. > I'm saying that there may not be enough incentive to complete it if > all the parts are available under more or less proprietary > licenses. Maybe I'm wrong, but your reasoning that it's OK for people > who want games to have to pay for it certainly doesn't reassure me. What I meant is that for people that play games might it might make more sense to pay a monthly fee since most of them, I guess, lack the knowledge to contribute to Wine anyway. Companies wishing to use Winelib to port their productivity application are not in the same situation, they have the resources pay somebody to improve what they need or perhaps even do it themselves. Sure they can also choose to pay companies with business models like Transgaming but then they become dependent on them to fix bugs in the extra parts they supply. Actually, this is analogous to normal argument for using open source instead of proprietary software, nothing that is unique to Wine. In short: The incentive is the same as working on any open source software. Sometimes is makes sense, sometimes is doesn't. > > In that case it would be disasterous to make Wine run > > all Microsoft implemented non-core Wine DLL:s because > > then everybody would just be happy to use the Microsoft > > DLL:s and nothing beyond non-core would ever be > > implemented. > > It would not be a disaster, but it is certainly a potential problem > too. It is a smaller problem first because making the dlls run is > about as much work as reimplementing them, and because they are > completely proprietary, not half-way open source. But yes, I do think > a number of features could have improved faster if people didn't use > native dlls to work around the problems. There is a distinct possibillity that people used the time they didn't need to reimplement the working Microsoft implemented functions to implement functions that didn't work so it is quite hard to provide hard proof on this. Furthermore the fact that a lot of the Microsoft implement functions works might instead have encourage people to work on because SOMETHING work instead of giving up then NOTHING worked. In any case I think neither of us will be able prove the correctness of our respective theory.

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RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> > > and if it does happen, will we find enough people to do what > > > XFree86 has been doing for X11? Maybe, and maybe not. When I hear > > > people like Patrik saying that it's OK for parts of Wine to become > > > proprietary because we can't do everything anyway, I'm worried. > > > > If wine was even CLOSE to being complete, I would agree with you. > > But you cannot change the license once it is mostly complete; by then > it will be too late. Why would you want to change the license when it is mostly complete? There will be very little reason for companies to enter the market at that time and why try to make it difficult for the few that might.

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win32eviceIoControl problem
by Ancient Computers Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

When trying to run a game called Visual Pinball, I get this as console output. The DecodeHash problem can be fixed by using a windows version of advapi. What about the win32eviceIoControl problem, what is it about ? [root(a)localhost Visual Pinball]# [root(a)localhost Visual Pinball]# wine Vpinball.exe x11drv: Warning: $DISPLAY variable ignored, using ':0.0' specified in config file fixme:dsound:IDirectSoundImpl_SetCooperativeLevel (0x403b58f8,00010022,2):stub fixme:ddraw:Main_DirectDraw_SetCooperativeLevel (0x403b5d64)->(00000000,00001008) fixme:commdlg:GetFileName95 Flags 0x00000002 not yet implemented fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device VNETBIOS fixme:win32eviceIoControl Unimplemented control 256 for VxD device NWLINK fixme:advapi:CryptAcquireContextA (0x405b5c30, (null), (null), 1, f0000008): stub! fixme:advapi:CryptCreateHash (0x405b5c34, 0x8001, 0x0, 00000000, 0x405b5c58): stub! fixme:advapi:CryptHashData (0x10010, 0x49ab80, 14, 00000000): stub! fixme:advapi:CryptHashData (0x10010, 0x405b5c5c, 4, 00000000): stub! fixme:advapi:CryptHashData (0x10010, 0x405b583c, 4, 00000000): stub! fixme:advapi:CryptHashData (0x10010, 0x41615710, 4, 00000000): stub! _________________________________________________________________ Chat with friends online, try MSN Messenger: http://messenger.msn.com

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RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> While I am thinking about this, there are some interesting > things in the > LGPL. One of these is that you can modify the LGPL library > to work with > your code. The catch is that you have to release source to the > modifications and that the modifications must not require that your > proprietary component be included. The text of the license > mentions that > if you modify a function that computes square roots to hook into your > proprietary components that the function must still compute > square roots. > But in Wine's case, many functions don't do what they are > supposed to do, > or they do what they are supposed to do but that's not what > actually needs > to be done. That is a very intresting point. Thank you for bring it to my attention. I didn't realize that. Hmm. I will have to think about it what this means, if it indeed means something. > This stuck out like a sore thumb to me, but > maybe it's not > such a big deal. Can you perhaps say exactly what bothered you?

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RE: Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches
by Patrik Stridvall Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

> Patrik Stridvall <ps(a)leissner.se> writes: > > > > No, of course the LGPL doesn't provide absolute > protection; nothing > > > does, and I don't think absolute protection is desirable > either. There > > > are some things that the LGPL clearly allows, some that it clearly > > > forbids, and a number of border cases, that frankly are only > > > interesting to people who want to try to get around the license > > > restrictions. And what would be the point of doing that? > > > > Making their business model work. > > Trying to ensure investment return. > > That would be the case if the code they are using magically turned > LGPL once they had invested millions. But that's not possible, since > only new code becomes LGPL. Indeed and that makes any protection LGPL gives even weaker. My earlier analysis was based a 100% LGPL:ed Wine... > Now, if someone is basing his business > model on turning LGPL code proprietary by exploiting possible > loopholes in the license, I wouldn't suggest investing in his > company... I don't think our goal in choosing a license is to make > sure every flawed business model can succeed. There are lots of > reasonable business models that can be built on a LGPL (or GPL) code > base. Lets arguments sake assume somebody is called Bar and have a business model that might possibly be illegal under your interpretation of the LPGL. What's preventing him from creating a library called bar under his proprietory license as well as supplying a patch under the LGPL that results in code looking like: void WINAPI Foo(void) { #if HAVE_LIBBAR BAR_Foo(); #else /* Old Wine code */ #endif } Wouldn't this always be legal under the LGPL? In that case the only thing you did by threatening to sue him was to increase his costs. The point is, you didn't get his code, that it seems, that you hoped you would get. > > The current license is something that is easy to understand and > > are unlikely to scare companies like Transgaming away, but can > > you really say the say same about LGPL? > > OK, now we are getting somewhere. So your argument is basically that > the LGPL might scare some companies away. Yes. > Yes, I agree that's a > possibility. Good. > Most likely these companies will have been scared away > from Linux already, since many other things they need are also LGPL > (most notably the C library). That is a claim that makes no sense at all. Why should anybody want to make a business model out of modify or making additions to the almost 100% complete C library? One of the main reason Wine has the possiblity at all to attract companies like Transgaming is that it is not complete far from it. > But of course this possibility cannot be > excluded. Indeed. > I think that the risk of this happening is not larger than the risk of > having companies hold hostage pieces of Wine, and the damage in the > second case is much larger; so I think the LGPL would minimize the > potential damage to the project, even if damage cannot be excluded in > any situation. Your analogy with hostage holding is a bad analogy, sure I understand that you are refering to Transgaming promises to release eventually. If you don't believe them announce that publicly and developers that might be hanging back in fear of doing "double" work might step forward. They might not, of course, but then perhaps nobody was intresting in doing work in that area, Transgaming or no Transgaming. > Of course only the future can tell us who is right. Agreed.

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Filename case handling
by Duane Clark Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

I have a question about the handling of filename case when trying to find an existing file. When files are on a win filesystem, the case is ignored, by the setting of flags by DRIVE_GetFlags(). As expected. When on a ext filesystem, that call sets the DRIVE_CASE_SENSITIVE flag, which is ok. But then the flag is used in the call to DOSFS_FindUnixName() (from DOSFS_GetFullName()), and I guess the fundamental question I have is under what circumstances wine would want to do a case sensitive search. One of my apps (Xilinx ngdbuild) always supplies upper case names when searching for a file, but the files always have lower case names (they were created by another Xilinx app). When searching for this file in DOSFS_FindUnixName() on an ext filesystem, the first test always fails, because we do a case sensitive test: if (!ignore_case) { if (!strncmp( long_name, name, len )) break; } However, and here is the other part I am questioning, if the file is an 8.3 filename, an alternate dos filename is created by DOSFS_ToDosFCBFormat(), and then a second test is performed here: if (!strcmp( dos_name, short_name )) break; This call passes and the file is found. However, if the file is not an 8.3 filename, the call to DOSFS_ToDosFCBFormat() fails, and no case insensitive test is made. So it seems to me that either a case sensitive search should be made in both cases, or in neither case. And of course I think that it should be both cases (since this fixes my app) :-) Duane

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Wine and Drivers
by Viacheslav Zilberfayn Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

Hello, I'm wondering if anyone ever attempted to use wine to run Windows driver, specifically videocard drivers. Or at least to load them. I'm thinking of using Wine to load windows drivers into Linux, along with whole DirectX. I understand that drivers are special s/w, but I guess they use smaller part of windows api. Any information/opinions would be appreciated. Slava ===== --- NOTE: EMAIL HAS CHANGED !!! --------------------- Slava Zilberfayn | Home +1(416)7838430 EMAIL: slavka012(a)yahoo.ca ADDRESS: appt 1219, 377 Ridelle ave, M6B1K2, Toronto, ON, CANADA ______________________________________________________ Send your holiday cheer with http://greetings.yahoo.ca

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Microsoft Antitrust Remedy proposal, take 3
by Dan Kegel Dec. 17, 2001

Dec. 17, 2001

I've learned a fair bit since putting together my essay on the States' proposed remedies. In particular, Microsoft's response to the States was enlightening; it pointed out the parts of the Court of Appeals ruling that need to be heeded when fashioning a remedy. I now feel that the States' proposal has little chance of being accepted by the judge. The Proposed Final Judgment negotiated by Microsoft and the DOJ is probably the right starting point for any new proposals. Accordingly, I've started over, and this time I'm sticking very close to the negotiated settlement, and paying close attention to the law. As before, you can read my proposals at http://www.kegel.com/remedy.html I'm looking forward to your feedback. I've set up a mailing list at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ms-remedy/ (aka ms-remedy-subscribe(a)yahoogroups.com ) for those who want to discuss this further. Together we can find a way to make the settlement more just and fair, or I'll eat my hat. Dan Kegel http://www.kegel.com

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