Re: WineX and the AFPL

Joerg Mayer wrote:
> So instead of being sarcastic, you could simply have pointed out that
> Alexandre was probably meaning "this type of" "open source development work".

You have to remember the context in which the statement was given.  Alexandre
was using "that's not how OSD works" to dismiss an argument.  Had he said,
"that's not the way we do things around here" (which, as you and I agree,
is probably what he meant), the question would instantly arise, "Why are you
doing it that way?".  The point I was trying to make was that even if you
limit the scope, it still doesn't make that a valid justification because
there *are* other OSD models - trading patches is just as valid an OSD model
as any other.

> > > 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?.

Alexandre's argument seems to imply that LGPL would have prevented what happened
to Marcus.  However, the LGPL proponents also maintain that you can make
propriatary extensions in DLL form (hence Alexandre's comments about Transgaming
changing their business model).  Now if the latter is true, then the same
thing can happen to someone else in the future as you can't control what others
will put into a separate DLL.  So, either the former is not a valid argument, or
the latter is a deception.  They cannot both be true.

> > 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).

yes, all the stuff I mentioned is not perfectly redundant.  But then, I would
presume that Marcus and Transgaming had different ideas on how to implement DX
too.  Are you saying the premise of redundancy is wrong?

> 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, ...

ok.. your turn.  "what do you want to point out?"

> > 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  ;->

Maybe I'm a sucker for fruitless causes ;)   The initial intent was to extract
a promise from Alexandre that he won't apply Rewind patches.

> 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 had stuff until it royally broke under solaris.

-r