Re: WineX and the AFPL

On Mon, Jun 03, 2002 at 09:05:23PM -0400, Roger Fujii wrote:
> > That's not how open source development work.
> 
> Oh, I'm glad you have a PHd in Open Source Development and that all the OS
> projects (Mozilla, OpenOffice, Apache, Linux kernel....) work in *exactly* 
> the same way.

Actually, no. Mozilla and Openoffice are company driven with a single
company owning the formerly proprietary sources. The project wine is
closest to is the Linux development kernel: Most developers work on what
is most fun for them or when it scratches a specific itch. Both, wine and
the linux development kernel have no specific goals but becoming ever
better. This is not true for the companies working on/with wine.
Apache and Samba are quite different, because they are developed
in a (user/customer) demand driven way. This is so extreme in the samba
case, that a developer got flamed for breaking an *alpha* release
with the idea that the evolving fix would be better than the old code
(which is done in linux and wine on a very regular basis). So instead
of being sarcastic, you could simply have pointed out that Alexandre
was probably meaning "this type of" "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.
> 
> So, what are you going to do when some other entity add a feature in
> a DLL?  Switch to GPL?

Could you please rephrase that? I don't understand what you are talking
about (what do you want to point out?.

> This is *orseshi*.  Redundancy is something that comes with open source
> development.  Did ext3/reiserfs stop because IBM and SGI were coming out

No, it didn't. Why: Because they are a) not feature identical - they scratch
some quite different itches. b) Hans Reiser has companies sponsoring him (or,
to be more precise: his work). This is the biggest differences between
Linux and Wine: Wine is trying to impelment a given (not selfdefined) API,
while the Linux developers are free to change the API (or at lease add to
it). Another one is, that the Linux kernel has more than enough developers,
as it is *the* most prominent open source project there is, so if you want
to create something new, it's either an optimization/cleanup of a reinvention
of the wheel but  more suited for driving in the rain, desert, ...

> I see nothing more harmful than all the time wasted in changing/arguing over
> the license change and the acrimony that it has instilled in the developers
> (with no let up in sight).

Then maybe, you should stop wasting Alexandres time with fruitless
discussions  ;->
It looks to me that quite a few developers don't care one way or the
other. From the remaining developers more develpers are happy with
the new license than there are unhappy ones. It also enables wine
to grab code from quite a few more projects. I also find it noticable
that the most vehement critics of the license change on this list
are nor were the TG people or Eric but people who are not working
one wine. I assume that's because the active developers care more
about writing new code than running endless license discussions.

   Ciao
             Jörg
(non developer :-)

PS: Sorry PS, I forgot about you when I wrote that last sentence ;->
--
Joerg Mayer                                          <[email protected]>
I found out that "pro" means "instead of" (as in proconsul). Now I know
what proactive means.