Re: WineX and the AFPL

On 31 May 2002, Alexandre Julliard wrote:

> Well, it will be very easy to test, since the Rewind fork is still
> under the X11 license, and does pretty much the same thing as Wine at
> this point. The future will tell which of the forks is attracting the
> most contributions. My bet is on Wine...

As you've pointed out several times, the project is more than the code; 
it's also the community of developers formed around working on that code.  
The leaders of that community (such as yourself) have encouraged the rest 
of the community to switch to the LGPL license, and the Wine project has 
officially changed to the LGPL.  As such, the assumption should be that the 
focus of the community is likely to be the LGPL codebase.

It tells you nothing about the effectiveness of the license, because the 
fork receiving more contributions will be the one the community focuses on, 
regardless of the license.  Right now, you can expect the LGPL fork to 
thrive over the X11 fork.  If the leaders were to later urge a switch back 
to the X11 fork, you could expect the X11 fork to thrive instead.  Neither 
situation tells you which license is "better".

Now, it's possible that the Wine community will focus on the LGPL, and 
maybe another community will form around ReWind.  (To date, it sounds like 
the ReWind community consists of Transgaming plus the license-agnostic 
members of the Wine community.)  Even if a ReWind community starts to
compete against the Wine community (though those communities may overlap 
somewhat), the Wine community has the initial advantage of longevity and 
strength and existing leadership.  Therefore, if ReWine (the underdog) 
manages to build a stronger community and thrive over Wine, then THAT might 
well indicate superiority of the X11 license over the LGPL.

If Wine clobbers ReWind, on the other hand, that doesn't tell you whether 
or not the LGPL license is superior, since Wine can be expected to "win" 
due to community support alone.  Wine ought to win by default -- so, if 
Wine does win, that doesn't prove that the LGPL made it happen.  Prevailing 
against the odds is far more meaningful than winning by default.

> Of course not, the LGPL only forces them to release the code for the
> dlls where they use LGPL code. They can use all the LGPL code we write
> without ever having to release their DirectX stuff for instance.

How true is that?  I thought that "DLL separation" was the big thing they 
were currently looking for.  Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like 
patches related to making the DLLs truly independent of the rest of the 
codebase.  That seems to suggest that there is currently some dependency 
that would cause the LGPL to "infect" code across DLL boundaries.  If that 
is the case, then they'd be very constrained in combining LGPL'd DLLs and 
their proprietary code, wouldn't they?

If the patches they're asking for are truly to enforce proper boundaries 
between DLLs, might that not constitute a special case?  If the intent of 
using the LGPL (instead of the GPL) was to allow DLLs to be mixed between 
LGPL'd and proprietary DLLs, shouldn't you release any patches that are 
indispensible to making this possible?  (If in fact that's what these are!)

> I don't care whether Transgaming's model is good or bad for
> Transgaming, I only care insofar as their model has an effect on
> Wine. And I believe their current model is hurting Wine, which is why
> I'd like to see them change it. Obviously the decision is theirs, just
> like the decision to not let them have my code under their current
> model is mine.

Your contention is that Transgaming is hurting Wine by developing code like 
DirectX that discourages Wine contributors from working on similar code?

I'm curious why Wine contributors would abandon DirectX just because there 
is competition.  In many other projects (e.g. KDE vs. GNOME), the existence 
of serious competition spurs both sides to put forward their best efforts, 
and results in better results on both sides.

If the existence of DirectX competition kills interest in DirectX support 
under Wine, could it be that there wasn't a real commitment to supporting 
DirectX in the first place?

> Nobody said cooperation is impossible. There has been plenty of
> cooperation already, Transgaming is using a lot of our code and we are
> using a lot of theirs. Just because I don't agree to the specific
> offer Gav is making doesn't mean there won't be any cooperation at all.

Perhaps not, but your statements seem to be suggesting that the only future 
cooperation you'll even consider must be under the LGPL, without exception.

> That's not how open source development work. We don't have a fixed
> number of resources that we can somehow assign to do tasks that we
> consider useful for such and such goal. If some developers have fun
> making games work, that's what they'll work on. And if Transgaming's
> actions make it no longer fun for them (which is what happened for
> Marcus) they will no longer work on it. They are not going to start
> working on dll separation instead, they will just go to the movies or
> do something else they enjoy instead. It's a net loss for the project.

I suspect the "loss" is inevitable and somewhat illusory.  The developers 
who were only interested in gaming support, and who drop work like DirectX 
support because Transgaming offers the same functionality (proprietary 
though it may be), and who would go to the movies instead of picking up 
some other work within Wine, aren't REALLY Wine developers per se.

Such developers may be brilliant programmers, but it doesn't sound like 
they're involved to further the Wine project.  It sounds like they're only 
interested in furthering their interests in GAMING, and were willing to 
work on Wine only to the extent that it furthers that interest.  Wine as a 
means to the end of playing more games.

I submit to you that you would have lost the efforts of gaming enthusiasts 
inevitably, just as soon as they had completed enough of the work so that 
Wine flawlessly ran all the games they were interested in.  I'm not saying 
that there aren't committed Wine developers who happen to also be gaming 
enthusiasts as well.  I'm saying that those gamers who worked on Wine only 
to play games would do as little as possible beyond those goals.

They may work on DirectX support (only if not available elsewhere like 
Transgaming), but they don't really care about Wine itself.  They care 
about gaming, and just as soon as they got Wine to the point where it meets 
their gaming needs, they would abandon Wine development work without a 
second thought, because they could now spend their time on their real goal, 
playing all those games.

Perhaps having the gamers focus the attention of the Wine project on games 
was a Pyrrhic victory.  Wine is no closer to a 1.0 release than it was a 
few years ago, despite the impressive progress in support for games.  Maybe 
the committed Wine developers were distracted by the enthusiasm of the 
gamers who were only interested in working on Wine to the extent that it 
served their goals.

Perhaps the Wine project as a whole would be healthier without that sort of 
distraction.  Maybe it's a good thing if Transgaming siphons off developers 
who are only in it for gaming, who don't really care about Wine.  Let them 
be served by a company focused on gaming needs, and let the Wine project 
focus on everything else that's fallen by the wayside in the wake of games.

No, I really don't see how Transgaming's existence or business model has 
really hurt the Wine project.  As far as I can see, it's only shattered the 
illusion that these gamers were committed Wine developers.  Clearly, those 
developers would have ceased to contribute eventually even without the help 
of Transgaming, as they would have finished the coding they needed and gone 
back to playing the games they love so much.

It looks like the Wine project has ALREADY traded a short-term gain (better 
support for Windows games under Wine) for the long-term health of the Wine 
project (as the focus on games seems to have precluded much other pending 
and necessary work) -- even if it seems like a loss if those gamers wander 
away, that's a developer base you never really had available to count on in 
the first place.  The developers who lose interest were never there for you 
or the Wine project anyhow.  They just seemed to be, and in the meanwhile 
they enlisted you and the other committed Wine developers in THEIR cause, 
not them in yours.  (Or so it appears from the outside...)

> You didn't read what I wrote. It's clear that nothing can be done
> about DirectX at this point. I'm worried about the *other* parts of
> Wine, and about the *future*; the DirectX fiasco just serves as an
> illustration of what could happen somewhere else, and *that* is what
> I'm trying to prevent.

Show me an example where ANY committed Wine developer has abandoned their 
efforts simply because a proprietary option existed, and I might believe 
your thesis here.  So far, you've only shown that developers who were not 
committed to Wine (but who were very committed to gaming) lost interest 
once Wine was no longer the easiest option.  It seems like that should have 
been expected, not lamented.

> > Of course not.  But I think you're jumping to conclusions to say that it's 
> > harmful when that hardly seems a foregone conclusion at all.  Obviously, if 
> > it's true, there's no amount of money that can justify it.  But is it true?
> 
> I believe it is true, and there's plenty of evidence that makes this a
> reasonable conclusion I think. And since I believe that, I'm acting on
> this belief. You are free to disagree, but as long as I'm convinced
> Wine is being harmed, I'll do what I can to try to solve that problem.

Consider the possibility that there were committed gamers uncommitted to 
Wine in the ranks of the Wine community.  Now ask yourself what would have 
happened with these developers once they finished their work, even if there 
were no Transgaming to distract them.  Would they have continued to devote 
their efforts to Wine, or gone back to playing their games instead?

How certain are you now, that the damage you sense was real, not illusion?

Deven