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Good day to all subscribers of this list,
I've got a small decision trouble I have to deal with as an AppDB maintainer. I know that years ago there had been discussion on this topic, but I want to bring this once on a surface once again so we would get a fresh modern look an thus minor problem.
As we all know, Wine isn't perfect, thus applications often require native DLLs to behave properly. AppDb treats such cases as being "Gold" rating. It's easy to distinguish between "Platinum" and "Gold" case most of the time, but sometimes there are cases where native dll overrides happen automagically as a result of app installed installing third-party lib redists himself.
Good example is idSoftware's Rage game which require XAudio2 to functions - which is not implemented in Wine. User would have to install and use native lib for game to function, but most of the times it would be done automatically by Steam (its "auto-install required libs" feature would try to install DirectX redist at the first time user would try to launch the game). How should we treat situations like that? From user PoV it's "Platinum" - app is working out of the box. From real side of things - it is "Gold", as native dll override is required for app to function - Wine's stubbed xaudio2 implementation is obviously not enough for game to work.
With the recent release of Diablo III we're are at the same spot: game installer auto-installs vcrun2008 redist as a part of installation process, so end-user experience is like this game "works out of a box". Problem is that D3 installed isn't working unless user patches Wine's AcceptEx implementation with Erichs patchset, so for vast majority of Wine's userbase installing D3 would be something like "copy already installed D3 from other PC" - and that would bring the problem of the game requiring native VC++ 2008 runtime on the surface. How should we treat/assign ratings for these cases?
P.S. Aside from that, I want to once again bring up the discussion on extending AppDB so more detailed test reports would be possible. IMO it might be reasonable to add to AppDB test report form is an ability to specify whether the version used was "vanilla" or "patched with some out-of-tree patches" one. For most reporters sane default would be "vanilla", while at some circumstances most of the test reports would come for "patched" version: good examples are SW:KOTR, WoT, D3 and many other games that require out-of-tree patches to function best under Wine.
Thanks for spending your time reading this, and thanks in advance for your answers.
- -- Best regards, Alexey Loukianov mailto:mooroon2@mail.ru System Engineer, Mob.:+7(926)218-1320 *nix Specialist
On Wed, 16 May 2012 14:14:30 +0400 Alexey Loukianov mooroon2@mail.ru wrote:
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How should we treat situations like that? From user PoV it's "Platinum" - app is working out of the box. From real side of things - it is "Gold", as native dll override is required for app to function - Wine's stubbed xaudio2 implementation is obviously not enough for game to work.
If the user didn't have to manually do anything, it should be rated platinum.
P.S. Aside from that, I want to once again bring up the discussion on extending AppDB so more detailed test reports would be possible. IMO it might be reasonable to add to AppDB test report form is an ability to specify whether the version used was "vanilla" or "patched with some out-of-tree patches" one. For most reporters sane default would be "vanilla", while at some circumstances most of the test reports would come for "patched" version: good examples are SW:KOTR, WoT, D3 and many other games that require out-of-tree patches to function best under Wine.
Ratings should be based on unpatched Wine. Users can mention in the extra comments section that patching Wine will fix a particular problem.
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16.05.2012 17:34, Rosanne DiMesio wrote:
If the user didn't have to manually do anything, it should be rated platinum.
Is it the official position that have been agreed throughout Wine devteam and AppDB maintainers? Because years ago I've been at first thinking just like this, but later on was told by co-maintainer that the "official policy" is to treat this dependencies like "overrides" for the cases where non-stubbed Wine implementation of the same DLL exists. I've been surprised by this and asked for confirmation and in the end was referenced to a mailing list archive. There were a discussion there concerning this topic.
I hadn't been able to find that discussion today after all the years that had passed since that moment, so that's why I wanted to bring this topic back on surface.
- -- Best regards, Alexey Loukianov mailto:mooroon2@mail.ru System Engineer, Mob.:+7(926)218-1320 *nix Specialist
On Wed, 16 May 2012 17:48:28 +0400 Alexey Loukianov mooroon2@mail.ru wrote:
Is it the official position that have been agreed throughout Wine devteam and AppDB maintainers?
It's the way I've been handling things as an admin. It's really the only way I can handle it, because as an admin, I have to process test reports for apps and games I've never used, and I have no way of knowing what they may be installing behind the scenes unless the test reporter mentions it. But beyond that, the ratings are supposed to reflect the individual user's experience, which is why ratings can validly be gold for a user who uses native dlls and garbage for one who doesn't.
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16.05.2012 18:08, Rosanne DiMesio wrote:
Is it the official position that have been agreed throughout Wine devteam and AppDB maintainers?
It's the way I've been handling things as an admin. It's really the only way I can handle it...
Thanks for info, Rosanne, you were really helpful.
- -- Best regards, Alexey Loukianov mailto:mooroon2@mail.ru System Engineer, Mob.:+7(926)218-1320 *nix Specialist
On Wed, May 16, 2012 at 5:14 AM, Alexey Loukianov mooroon2@mail.ru wrote:
With the recent release of Diablo III we're are at the same spot: game installer auto-installs vcrun2008 redist as a part of installation process, so end-user experience is like this game "works out of a box". Problem is that D3 installed isn't working unless user patches Wine's AcceptEx implementation with Erichs patchset, so for vast majority of Wine's userbase installing D3 would be something like "copy already installed D3 from other PC" - and that would bring the problem of the game requiring native VC++ 2008 runtime on the surface. How should we treat/assign ratings for these cases?
Copying an install form windows is unsupported and should be treated as such.
On Wed, 16 May 2012 12:56:00 -0500 Austin English austinenglish@gmail.com wrote:
Copying an install form windows is unsupported and should be treated as such.
The AppDB form has the option "No, but has a workaround" on the dropdown list for "Installs?" IMO, copying a Windows install is a valid workaround for AppDB test report purposes, though not supported for bug reporting.
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Alexey Loukianov -
Austin English -
Rosanne DiMesio