re: What would most aid WINE development?

[Daniel Kegel]

Susheel Daswani wrote:
> For my 'Antitrust & IP' course this semester I am writing a brief
> about why I think the remedy in the Microsoft antitrust case was
> inadequate.

Back in the day, I wrote an essay about this; it's online at
   http://kegel.com/remedy/
in particular,
   http://www.usdoj.gov/atr/cases/ms_tuncom/major/mtc-00028571.htm

I now think my essay was naive, but hey, I was young :-)
It would be interesting to see the complaints sent to the Technical Committee
( http://www.thetc.org/ ) but I doubt they're public.
You might also want to read http://www.lessig.org/content/testimony/msft/msft.pdf
if you haven't already.
> So my question for the WINE developers is "What materials from
> Microsoft would most aid the development of WINE"?  The Windows API is
> of course public, so my guess is that isn't a huge bar to creating
> WINE.  So what are the bars?  Is it simply the scope of the project? 
> Is there information that MS could divulge that would greatly aid the
> WINE effort?  Would open sourcing part of Windows help?

As others have noted, the Windows API is not completely public
nor particularly well-defined.   This makes things harder, but
it's not really the main obstacle.

Here are a few things a judge could order Microsoft to do that would help Wine:
* order them to break up into two companies, one for operating systems and .net, one for everything else
* donate gobs of cash to Wine
* offer a perpetual, transferrable, royalty-free, GPL-compatible license for its protocols and data formats
* support ODF in Microsoft Office

That last item is kind of indirect.  It would make it much easier for
everybody to switch to OpenOffice, which would make it much easier
for everybody to switch to Linux, which is the whole point of Wine.

- Dan

What would most aid WINE development?

[Scott Ritchie]

On Fri, 2005-11-18 at 15:19 -0800, Daniel Kegel wrote:
> Here are a few things a judge could order Microsoft to do that would help Wine:
> - order them to break up into two companies, one for operating systems and .net, one for everything else
> - donate gobs of cash to Wine
> - offer a perpetual, transferrable, royalty-free, GPL-compatible license for its protocols and data formats
> - support ODF in Microsoft Office
>
> That last item is kind of indirect.  It would make it much easier for
> everybody to switch to OpenOffice, which would make it much easier
> for everybody to switch to Linux, which is the whole point of Wine.

Actually, this reminds me of something that would be very useful: free
up the Microsoft fonts.  A few apps (notably Steam) don't work without
either using the Microsoft font directly or drafting a lookalike from
scratch.  Using free fonts is probably related to the opendocument
standard as well.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

What would most aid WINE development?

[Susheel Daswani]

Folks, here is another question:

The following excerpt is from the Microsoft antitrust trial's finding
of facts.  Some of what has been said in this thread hints at the
extreme position this finding takes.  That said, I can't believe that
members of this community believe the task is "impossible", otherwise
why would this community exist at all?  Here it is:

----------------------------
4. Cloning the 32-Bit Windows APIs

52. Theoretically, the developer of a non-Microsoft, Intel-compatible
PC operating system could circumvent the applications barrier to entry
by cloning the APIs exposed by the 32-bit versions of Windows (Windows
9x and Windows NT). Applications written for Windows would then also
run on the rival system, and consumers could use the rival system
confident in that knowledge. Translating this theory into practice is
virtually impossible, however. First of all, cloning the thousands of
APIs already exposed by Windows would be an enormously expensive
undertaking. More daunting is the fact that Microsoft continually adds
APIs to Windows through updates and new versions. By the time a rival
finished cloning the APIs currently in existence, Windows would have
exposed a multitude of new ones. Since the rival would never catch up,
it would never be able to assure consumers that its operating system
would run all of the applications written for Windows. IBM discovered
this to its dismay in the mid-1990s when it failed, despite a massive
investment, to clone a sufficiently large part of the 32-bit Windows
APIs.  [**44]  In short, attempting to clone the 32-bit Windows APIs
is such an expensive, uncertain undertaking that it fails to present a
practical option for a would-be competitor to Windows.
----------------------------

My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
payoff would likely be worth it.

Thoughts?
Thanks!
Susheel

What would most aid WINE development?

[Jeremy White]

> My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
> virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
> of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
> course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
> payoff would likely be worth it.

Well, it's lovely to know that we don't exist <grin>.

To be honest, I'm a bit troubled by your remark.
I think Wine is a lot further along than you, and
most other people, seem to realize; further,
we're not just lazing around waiting for help.

Wine is not perfect; while many apps 'just work',
most have some small flaws, and many don't work at all.

Now we can probably never make it 'perfect';
that much of the findings of fact is acurrate, imo.

However, a whole lot of things 'just work' right now, and
nearly everything else can be made to work
with only a modest amount of elbow grease.

Further, I think we are well on our way to
making most things work well enough to slash
the applications barrier to entry drastically.

Wine absolutely needs a huge investment of
time and money.  But it's had a huge investment
of time from the folks reading this list
(as well as others).  Further, it's fair to say that
every CodeWeavers employee and customer continues to invest
a subtantial sum of money into Wine as well,
not to mention the many other organizations that
contribute money towards Wine, either directly or indirectly.

Can we use *more* money and time?  You bet, and that
would be great.  Further, the money needed to
make a substantial dent would be trivial compared
to its strategic impact.

Cheers,

Jeremy

What would most aid WINE development?

[Susheel Daswani]

Jeremy,
I am sorry if my remarks troubled you.  Perhaps my meaning didn't come
across as intended?  I didn't mean to imply that WINE is not currently
useful or has an impossible task.  I believe just the opposite - that
WINE is useful and it can, one day, achieve 100% Windows
compatibility.  Though I do believe that given the consent decree that
was adopted, WINE's job was not made much easier.  I am simply trying
to figure out what would be the best aid to the WINE effort.

Thanks!
Susheel

On 11/19/05, Jeremy White  wrote:
> > My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
> > virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
> > of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
> > course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
> > payoff would likely be worth it.
>
> Well, it's lovely to know that we don't exist <grin>.
>
> To be honest, I'm a bit troubled by your remark.
> I think Wine is a lot further along than you, and
> most other people, seem to realize; further,
> we're not just lazing around waiting for help.
>
> .....

What would most aid WINE development?

On Sat, 19 Nov 2005 21:54:39 +0100, Susheel Daswani  
 wrote:
> Jeremy,
> I am sorry if my remarks troubled you.  Perhaps my meaning didn't come
> across as intended?  I didn't mean to imply that WINE is not currently
> useful or has an impossible task.  I believe just the opposite - that
> WINE is useful and it can, one day, achieve 100% Windows
> compatibility.  Though I do believe that given the consent decree that
> was adopted, WINE's job was not made much easier.  I am simply trying
> to figure out what would be the best aid to the WINE effort.
>
> Thanks!
> Susheel
>
> On 11/19/05, Jeremy White  wrote:
> > > My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
> > > virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
> > > of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
> > > course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
> > > payoff would likely be worth it.
> >
> > Well, it's lovely to know that we don't exist <grin>.
> >
> > To be honest, I'm a bit troubled by your remark.
> > I think Wine is a lot further along than you, and
> > most other people, seem to realize; further,
> > we're not just lazing around waiting for help.
> >
> > .....

I think that attaining 100% compatability is almost by definition  
unachievable. However reaching a _useful_ and usable degree of  
compatability is not far off.

I wrote a fairly complex windows app. a several years ago using delphi 2  
and even 3 or 4 years ago it worked almost completely on wine at that time.

I tested again last year and the only thing that did not work was some  
fancy  degraded frame borders that were developed more by trial and error  
than by documented features.

It seems to me that the major challenge to wine now is move from a  
constant train of development/regression to a more stable improvement  
without breakage.

That seems to be well understood by the developers.

That task could have been made a lot more attainable had the courts/JD  
been more effective in handling the anti-trust case.

Wine is a very valuable stop-gap resource for people/businesses wishing to  
bridge the gap to a more reliable OS but finding the path barred by the  
need to deal with M$-only formatted correspondance.

The number of disgruntled users has already reached critical mass.

The only real barrier that remains is for sufficient number of businesses  
and administrations to adopt a strategy where it is no longer acceptable  
to publish and transmit documents in a format that forces the recipient to  
have the lastest version of M$ office to read and modify a document.

If the judicial system wishes to intervene it should be at this level ,  
not trying coerse M$ to play fair with rules and judgements that they will  
already have worked around before they are decreed.

There is already an increasing body of local and national authorities in  
US,Europe and elsewhere that realise being totally dependant on a single,  
closed-source OS is unhealthy and inappropriate to their function.

Maybe Wine could pull in some funding if it could demonstrate a feasable  
interim solution.

What would most aid WINE development?

[David Lee Lambert]

[e-mail] wrote:
> The only real barrier that remains is for sufficient number of 
> businesses  and administrations to adopt a strategy where it is no 
> longer acceptable  to publish and transmit documents in a format that 
> forces the recipient to  have the lastest version of M$ office to read 
> and modify a document.

I used to be unable to read Office 2000 and later files with a certain 
non-Microsoft Windows word processor and with StarOffice,  but for as 
long as I've been using it regularly,  OpenOffice has never had a 
problem with any Word document I've been exposed to (and a lot of 
professors at my school use Word sometimes).  Perhaps that barrier is 
pretty flimsy too?

What would most aid WINE development?

[Dustin Navea]

David Lee Lambert wrote:
> I used to be unable to read Office 2000 and later files with a certain
> non-Microsoft Windows word processor and with StarOffice,  but for as
> long as I've been using it regularly,  OpenOffice has never had a
> problem with any Word document I've been exposed to (and a lot of
> professors at my school use Word sometimes).  Perhaps that barrier is
> pretty flimsy too?

Not to mention writing word doc files.  I've written/modified my resume
in OpenOffice several times, saved it to a word format, and then sent it
to word users, and heard no complaints about the formatting..  Since I
dont have a licensed copy of word anymore, I haven't been able to check
it, but I'd assume that it looks at least halfway decent, or I would
have heard something..

Dustin

What would most aid WINE development?

[Scott Ritchie]

On Sat, 2005-11-19 at 14:13 -0600, Jeremy White wrote:
> Wine absolutely needs a huge investment of
> time and money.  But it's had a huge investment
> of time from the folks reading this list
> (as well as others).  Further, it's fair to say that
> every CodeWeavers employee and customer continues to invest
> a subtantial sum of money into Wine as well,
> not to mention the many other organizations that
> contribute money towards Wine, either directly or indirectly.
>
> Can we use *more* money and time?  You bet, and that
> would be great.  Further, the money needed to
> make a substantial dent would be trivial compared
> to its strategic impact.
>
> Cheers,
> Jeremy

As a back of the envelope form of calculation, I'd be willing to bet
that an amount of money injected into Wine roughly equivalent to the
price of several fancy lawyers would be more than adequate to greatly
speed Wine development and make this question moot ;)

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

What would most aid WINE development?

[David Lee Lambert]

Susheel Daswani wrote:
> My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
> virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
> of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
> course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
> payoff would likely be worth it.

The finding you cite was probably true 10 years ago,  but it may be less 
relevant today.  There are many,  many applications that were and still 
are sold to be used with the Win32 API,  but there are other 
applications that are available commercially for Linux x86,  and some 
also for Solaris x86 and FreeBSD.  Furthermore,  more applications are 
written to run on platform-independent runtime environments,  such as 
Java, JavaScript and .NET.  Besides,  a pure Linux platform is 
sufficient for many,  many tasks.

On the other hand,  some application developers like working against a 
complex, uniform, binary, proprietary OS that changes regularly but not 
too often,  and don't care if it's a monopoly (since they don't feel 
like they are the ones paying for it.)  Game vendors use all sorts of 
tricks to achieve "copy protection",  as do digital music services.  
(Cf. the recent Sony incident.)  Windows application developers also 
have a habit of trying to get the user to escalate their privileges more 
than is strictly necessary;  for instance,  MusicMatch Jukebox (which 
came free on my brother's WinXP laptop) won't run properly in a "Limited 
User" account.  For comparison,  I just installed the Linux version of 
matlab as a normal user (in my home directory,  without becoming root),  
and it runs just fine.

As a more general statement,  the fact that old programs become unusable 
or unstable after an OS upgrade means that the useful lifetime of a 
piece of computer software is no longer anything near its copyright 
term,  but instead only about 2 or 3 years.  Even if a third-party 
organization verified that Wine 1.0.0 on such-and-such a vendor's 
version of Linux (kernel 2.6.1001, glibc7, ...) implemented 100% of the 
Win32 Unicode API calls correctly when set to the en_US.utf8 locale,  a 
lot of application vendors (including Microsoft) would probably still 
not want to support it,  because that version of Linux could be stored 
on a CD and run on a different computer 20 years from now with the same 
application.

Of course,  the biggest potential threat to Microsoft dominance is 
probably OpenOffice, Firefox and other open-source 
standard-document-processing applications.  (I said "is" because they 
are only a threat together;  no one component is a competitor by itself.)

Just some ideas...

What would most aid WINE development?

[Michael Jung]

Hi Susheel,

On Saturday 19 November 2005 20:16, Susheel Daswani wrote:
> My belief (which opposes the 'fact' stated above) is that if there was
> virtually complete documentation of what exists, and full disclosure
> of additions and modifications, a cloning could be achieved.  Of
> course it would take a huge capital and time investment, but the
> payoff would likely be worth it.

I've scaned the other mails on the list, but am not quite sure if this point 
was brought to attention already: I guess what would most aid Wine 
development from a legal perspective would be legal certainty for the 
project. Although the big companies (IBM, Novell, RedHat, ... where are you?) 
never officially state it, I guess the reason they provide only a limited 
amount of development resources (not to say: none) to the Wine project is for 
fear of Microsoft sueing them (or shutting down the Wine project with the 
legal hammer, which would still mean loosing their investment). The software 
patents problem makes this whole affair even more legally uncertain.

If it's impossible to clone the Windows API anyway, then it should be no 
problem for Microsoft to swear to never sue anyone who is crazy enough to try 
it ;) (I have to admit, that's probably a little naive).

I think it's kind of ironic that the finding of facts states that it's not 
possible for technical or economical reasons to clone the Windows API, a 
statment which in my opinion Wine clearly proves wrong, while not mentioning 
the legal barriers.

Bringing this argument to court could mean opening pandora's box, though.

Bye,

What would most aid WINE development?

[n0dalus]

On 11/21/05, Michael Jung  wrote:
> I think it's kind of ironic that the finding of facts states that it's not
> possible for technical or economical reasons to clone the Windows API, a
> statment which in my opinion Wine clearly proves wrong, while not mentioning
> the legal barriers.

I think from an economical perspective a project like wine is only
possible because it's open source, and there are always developers
coming out of the woodwork to send in a patch or offer a hand. If
people using wine didn't have access to the source they wouldn't be
able to do their own investigations into why a certain piece of
software isn't working, and this would leave it up to the developers
(who may not have access to the software) to do their own testing.
Also I think people don't mind running alpha or beta software if it's
free, but a company trying to sell it would have trouble getting
enough customers to fund itself.

Just my two cents...

n0dalus.

What would most aid WINE development?

[Susheel Daswani]

Hey WINE Developers!
I've been meaning to write for a while, but I just wanted to update
everyone on the paper you all helped me out with.  I submitted it last
semester and I'm glad to say I got a pretty good grade, which is
really poor consolation because the ideas were too late.

Anyways, I've attached it to this message if you are interested. 
Thanks to the whole WINE community for your help!

Susheel

On 11/20/05, n0dalus  wrote:
> On 11/21/05, Michael Jung  wrote:
> > I think it's kind of ironic that the finding of facts states that it's not
> > possible for technical or economical reasons to clone the Windows API, a
> > statment which in my opinion Wine clearly proves wrong, while not mentioning
> > the legal barriers.
>
> I think from an economical perspective a project like wine is only
> possible because it's open source, and there are always developers
> coming out of the woodwork to send in a patch or offer a hand. If
> people using wine didn't have access to the source they wouldn't be
> able to do their own investigations into why a certain piece of
> software isn't working, and this would leave it up to the developers
> (who may not have access to the software) to do their own testing.
> Also I think people don't mind running alpha or beta software if it's
> free, but a company trying to sell it would have trouble getting
> enough customers to fund itself.
>
> Just my two cents...
>
> n0dalus.