On 6/29/06, Vincent Povirk madewokherd+d41d@gmail.com wrote:
On 6/29/06, Chris chris.kcat@gmail.com wrote:
One could argue Windows itself is a mis-feature. :P Isn't the point of Wine to duplicate Windows, feature-for-feature and bug-for-bug? IMO, autorun capabilities should be included, though I personally don't care if it's on or off by default, as long as there's an option in winecfg. I'll just turn it off myself. Or perhaps even a popup notification upon the first detected autorun-capable disc, asking if you want to turn autorun on or off. autorun.inf needs to be parsed anyway, since it can set an icon for the drive.
No, I think the point of Wine is to run Windows programs on top of Unix. We don't need autorun to run Windows programs at all. Wine often leaves out features that are in Windows because they aren't needed to get Windows programs to run.
Running whatever code happens to be on a cd without asking the user is a very bad idea. I don't want to see it happen, and I think most real Wine devs probably feel the same way.
Gnome already has a feature that can ask the user what to do when a cd is inserted. KDE probably has a similar feature. I think they'd be the people to ask if you want something like Windows' autorun.
Having the ability to autorun cds is most definitely not a misfeature. Most people who use windows do not want to or are incapable of hunting around a cd for the correct executable to run the installer for their game or whatever. Sure wine is not catering to those people right now, however it will in the future if all goes well. I agree that autorunning all cds without ever asking the user is not good, however the feature itself is not bad. Asking the user is clearly the solution. Windows is simply not designed to have the average user perusing software directories.
Will's $0.02