Vitaliy Margolen wrote:
Bret Comstock Waldow wrote:
Otherwise, I need to know about the legality, and practicality, of a scheme such as I am proposing above. I'm hoping for comment, pointers, and perhaps help about writing it.
You have to have valid _retail_ license of whatever windows version parts of which you want to use with Wine.
You can only use OEM version if you using the same hardware your license came with.
This makes completely impractical for anyone to use such a setup. Wine is made to avoid having windows all together, not requiring it.
I ONLY want to write a Windows app I can install on my OWN copy of Tablet XP on my OWN Tablet PC and then run from Linux via WINE.
There are Universities that mandate Tablet computers for Faculty and Students, thus locking Linux from use in academic situations, which is one of the best arenas for development of Free Software handwriting recognition. I want to make it practical for anyone to remain in Linux (or Unix) all the time while using a Tablet computer.
This would allow an eco-system of tablet functionality to develop, which in turn makes it more possible and more likely that someone will provide a solution to the central problem of handwriting recognition free from proprietary encumbrance.
If someone wants to avoid using Windows, they should avoid using Windows programs, and instead use solutions that have no dependency on Windows, to make it entirely irrelevant.
WINE is a compromise to allow people to use Windows programs without (all of) Windows, but it's not a solution, it's a stepping stone. That's what I am intending as well, but specifically for Tablet computers.
I don't see an ethical difference between allowing the use of native ..dlls in WINE, and my own intentions, nor a legal one. If you can load native .dlls without running a full session of Windows in order to run a Windows program, why can't I? I would like an actual answer to that, as it seems to be the crux of the question.
Or does WINE itself break the law by allowing the use of native .dlls without loading a full copy of Windows?
Cheers, Bret