RE: Wine versions + future

> not having cared about the licensing issues a lot in the past,
> I have read the last threads in this list with increasing concern.
> 
> What bothers me most is the perspective of different independent
> wine versions emerging and the gaps between them widening.
> The FAQ already lists 7 different versions, and probably there are
> more to come (Lindows?).
> 
> Apart from the fact that this takes variable coding time away for
> maintaining branches, merging etc., my main concern is the confusion
> it causes.

Agreed.
 
> IMO what users want is a single version of wine that (ideally) handles
> all Windows applications. Currently a user may need to install
> 
> - crossover plugin for surfing

I don't see this as a problem.

The Webbrowser plugins usually doesn't
interact with other Windows applications
so that is not really a problem. 

> - crossover office for productivity

Agreed.

> - winex for gaming

Agreed in part. Games doesn't usually interact with other
applications either.

> - cvs wine (rewind?) for some other applications that need the hottest
>   wine features.

Well I guess most users will install the normal Wine tree,
since they needn't care about licenses. Use is unstricted
even with the LGPL.
 
> From my experience, maintaining different versions of wine on the same
> computer and associating each app with the "suitable" version 
> is a pain in
> the neck and definitely nothing we want Linux newbies or fresh
> Windows-Linux converts to administer.

Very true.

> While for some users the decision which wine to install may be simple
> according to their preferences, others may be totally confused and
> stay with Windows or VMware instead. Even worse for Linux 
> distributors:
> Faced with a broad range of possible user preferences, which 
> wine version
> should they package? Or should they take on the work of installing
> several versions and resolving the issues related to that?

True.

> IMO this is will be a major obstacle for the future success of wine.
> As all of us, from freedom-loving spare time hacker to company owner,
> are equally interested in wine's breakthrough, I think it is
> absoultely crucial that the issues that have lead to the version
> separation be resolved and resolved quickly. In the current situation,
> that obviously requires a substantial readiness for compromise on all
> parts.

It seems to me that that readiness doesn't exists,
especially from CodeWeavers part. See below.
 
> I don't think that "code trades" for particular pieces of code
> are the way to go - rather a general, reliable procedure for 
> coexistence
> of "free" and "commerical" wine versions must be found (e.g. 
> an Aladdin-
> style agreement where it is guaranteed that commercial 
> additions become
> part of the free tree after a certain, predefined amount of time,
> and companies in turn may use the free wine's full features).

I don't think that can be done without some sort of Wine Corporation
suggested by Gavriel a while back. No reasonable license can make
this happend since it requires case to case analysis on what is
reasonable and what is not.

Of course a Wine Corporation have other problem as discussed earlier.
 
> Technically we must reach a point where there is no commercial wine,
> but only commercial addon modules for wine (additional or replacement
> DLLs, for example) that are able to coexist with each other 
> and enhance
> the free wine's capabilities.

Agreed. And that is why I have been against the LGPL all along.
Sure the LGPL allows this in theory but as long as the various
parts of Wine is not sufficiently seperated this remains theory
not practise.
 
> You may call me naive because I haven't elaborated on the license
> issues that are at the core of the wine tree's branching. While
> I tend to favor xGPL, I would be content with a different 
> free software
> license if it resolves this branching mess.
> 
> However reading through the last threads, I find a number of arguments
> I simply can't buy, especially those about the hypothetical
> future platforms wine may not be able to support if it's LGPL.

The problem is logical consistance of the license.
Any reading of the license that allows the hypthectical future platforms
will also make the license close to worthless in the normal case.

Of course since what LGPL tries to do is not properly defined this
is not very suprising.
 
> We have an enormous potential user base now, and its vast majority
> wants to run standard windows apps on standard PCs running 
> standard Linux
> installations (if there is such a thing as a standard Linux 
> installation).

Agreed.

> Do we want these people to be turned away by the current 
> confusion just
> because we think there may be some others on future exotic 
> platforms that
> perhaps cannot use it? Why don't we just wait
> if such a system ever appears, and react when that happens? If the
> relationship between the free wine community and the 
> companies involved
> were good, I am very confident such an issue could be resolved.

As I said the problem is not really the future exotic platforms
it is the logically consistancy of the LGPL.

IMHO obviously the LGPL allows the future exotic platforms but equally
obvious it doesn't perform in the way some of the LGPL propenents think
it does.

See http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/05/11/1228220&mode=nested&tid=125
especially what Bruce Perens writes.
 
> Unfortunately this relationship seems to have become pretty 
> tense lately,
> which is bad for resolving any issues.

Well. My take on the issue is this:

The problem is that some of the developers, especially Codeweavers,
feel that some other developers, especially Transgaming, doesn't 
contribute enough back to the main tree.

While I certainly understand this, the problem is that you can't both
have the cake and eat it. Either you allow proprietary enhancements or
don't.

Since it is pretty obvious to me that proprietary enhancement must be
allowed if Wine is to prosper it makes IMHO the choice easy. Don't try
to hinder it, you can't stop anyway even with the most extreeme
interpretation of the LGPL and more restrictive licenses that the LGPL 
is not good for other reasons.

My only logical explaination of Alexandre and CodeWeavers refusal to
trade patches is that they somehow think they can eventually force
Transgaming to adapt the LGPL. This is, if that is the case, flawed
thinking. I'm pretty convinced that it won't happend.

The only thing that will happend IMHO is that Transgamings costs will
increase and thus make it harder for Transgaming to survive. Surely this
can't be in the benefit of Wine and especially not the Open Source
movement as a whole. If people can play Windows games on Linux
they are more likely to switch...