[Bug 657] MFC42.dll is not implemented

http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=657

--- Comment #68 from Richard  2010-09-04 09:18:09 CDT ---
A few thoughts:

1. Obtaining the MFC source from Microsoft under a LGPL compatible license
might not be out of the question because Steve Ballmer recently claimed that
Microsoft "loves open source". Considering that the WINE project would stand to
gain a substantial contribution if Microsoft were to donate the MFC source
under a LGPL compatible license, I think it would be worthwhile to try.

Steve Ballmer's email is [e-mail] according to Microsoft's
website(1). I expect that emails received at that address are processed by his
secretaries, so in order to send him an email that would make it to him,
someone important like Alexandre Julliard would need to send it. I imagine that
the body of the email could be something along the lines of "Dear Steve
Ballmer, I am <A> from the WINE project. The MFC source code is available to
almost everyone who wants it, but the WINE project has <X>, <Y> and <Z> legal
concerns that prevent its use in both source and binary form. You recently said
that Microsoft loves open source, so it would be much appreciated if you would
make the MFC source available to the WINE project under a compatible license.
Yours truly, <A>".

(1): http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/exec/steve/2007/03-14convergence.mspx

2. I already opened a bug about pidgen.dll, but it was closed as a duplicate of
this.

3. Provided that #1 is not an option, then a dummy dll with a bunch of stubs
would be awesome. I am a senior computer science student and unlike most of the
computer science students at my university, I made it a point to learn C and
C++, If a stub was available to tell me what functions were being called, I
could try implementing the functions that pidgen.dll uses using Microsoft's
MSDN documentation and then submit them as patches. I plan to take 20 credits
this semester on top of doing some minor undergraduate research, so time is an
issue for me, but I could try my hand at it on one of the upcoming holidays,
provided that there is a dummy dll with stubs in place that define a place for
me to insert code.

4. I know that the WINE project is very strict about the identities of its
contributors. What would I need to do in order to meet the WINE project's
requirements for submitting patches?