New subject: Clarification on my call for license change

15 Feb 2002


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Several people have asked me to clarify my original post.
I just don't understand one thing:
How does your company expect to make money once WINE is
xGPLed? If all your
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code has to be contributed back, why should I buy it from
your company?
Hi,
Companies will pay because they want certain functionality to 
be implemented
that isn't there.  For example, let's say you are company 
Foo, who wants 
their product "FooBar for Windows 2000" to work in Linux using WINE.
It makes use of some COM related functionality not currently in WINE
(like Out-of-proc objects or something)  What do you do?
I mean, you can't just post on wine-devl and say "hey guys, 
stop making
patches for DirectX, we want you to fix this COM stuff and NOW!"
No way.  Do you get your internal staff to do it? Maybe.  However,
most likely none of them know anything about WINE, so there is a big
ramp up time.  Or do you hire an outside company to help you out,
a WINE developer-for-hire so to speak.  That's why companies like
Macadamian and CodeWeavers get hired by clients, to get functionality
into WINE that would otherwise not get done.  It allows the 
client to focus
the fixes in the areas they need for their particular 
application.
Congratulations, you have just explained is why specialized consultants
can make a living in the Wine market. However since this with a similar
explaination is true in almost any market, I can't say I'm impressed.
Sorry. That was perhaps a little rude. I was trying to illustrate a
principle not insult you. It was not really aimed at you.
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Sure, these
changes (optionally for BSD license, "required" for GPL) are 
made available to
competitors, but as far back as I remember and for a while 
yet I imagine
any moderately complex app will always require some fixes to 
WINE to get
it to work perfectly.
Yes, but sometimes this is what your client wants, sometimes it is not.
Sometimes that client doesn't understand what is good for him and
then you have the choice of explaining why or keeping you mouth shut.
Your choice, sometimes this is better for you, sometimes it is not.
Note however, what is good for you is not nessarily the same thing
that is good for your client. Longterm that is. Short term the client
pays you for your work regardless.

RE: Clarification on my call for license change