However, it is true that we should tell users that Wine is able to run many Windows malware, and that they should be just as careful running Windows software with Wine as they would running it with Windows. We should also show how to install the standard Linux virus checkers.
- Dan
That thread got very nasty very quickly starting with dmitry's comments and getting almost flameful from contributors after that. Though after continuing testing out malware and known spyware infecting applications, since I had the environment already setup, my opinion of this issue has gone from neutral to very strongly in favor of documenting cases where malware/(and dangerous) spyware cross over. A solution I think would be to tag the applications that fall in to this group with a strong warning in appdb.
A good example I found was the first version of iMesh that included spyware (released in 02) that runs and almost seamlessly installs and runs spyware bundled with it. While not up to date I feel the better bug for bug support that wine obtains with windows the more smaller (and in some cases bigger) software solutions it will run, introducing more bundled vectors - imagine when that purple ape runs under wine!
While I take the comment that it is misguided to catalog issues with virus that work maybe valid I cannot see how ignoring software uneducated windows users consider to be legitimate but still contain spyware/malware can be any less misguided. People will try and run these applications and then blame the wine project when they cause issues with their systems in the same way they do when they load them under windows.
Since there is no source available the windows environment binaries (normally) are far more prone to having malicious software included in legitimate software and there is no escaping that.
Edward