Re: GPL vs. sweatshops (was Re: Bias)

On 13 Jun 2002, Martin Wilck wrote:

> I am not sure, but Windows and Unix handle many things very differently.
> It looks simple in the first place, but if it really was simple, wine
> would have had 100% Windows functionality 5 years ago. Remember you have
> to deal with all those undocumented Windows features, too.

True enough.  But there are a lot of little bits of low-level functionality 
that are common among most operating systems, and vary more in form than in 
substance.  That's the sort of area I could hope to make some progress in 
without spending undue amounts of time on the effort.  I thought that IPC 
might be such an area.  If it isn't, maybe there's a better area.

> I went into the Winsock stuff because I needed to. It wasn't easy, but
> turned out to be pretty isolated. I still have no clue what happens in
> other areas of wine, and I may never have it.

Given that the Winsock stuff in Windows was basically a port of Berkeley 
sockets (as I understand it), this seems like it ought to be particularly 
straightforward -- shouldn't most of it map directly into underlying Linux 
sockets calls?  Is the Winsock area 100% implemented now?

> If I hadn't needed to delve into wine, I would probably have said the
> same. I think everybody agrees that getting started with wine is more
> difficult than with most other open source projects (I reckon Mozilla is
> not the easiest either :-). Getting started with the kernel is IMO much
> easier, in particular because the net is full of resources on that. 
> (Unless you want to do VM, of course :-)

From a practical standpoint, it would probably benefit the project if some 
of the developers would make an effort to lower that barrier -- whether 
that means writing documentation, mentoring new developers, or whatever.  
Otherwise a lot of people who might have helped are likely to wander away 
in frustration when they realize just how steep the learning curve is...

> Sorry that I put the wrong words in your mouth. It appears we are
> eventually getting closer.

Let's hope so. :-)

> > Some people don't mind being taken advantage of.  I don't really understand 
> > why, but they simply don't.
> 
> If I estimate how many hours of his lifetime e.g. Alexandre has invested
> into wine, I feel that he has reacted very calmly and considerately to
> both Transgaming and the partly unfair criticism on the LGPL switch.

I never criticized the switch, and even if I have some reservations about 
the GPL, I have much less concern about the LGPL -- it's not nearly as 
communicable a disease. :-)

> > I'm not saying everyone ought to use BSD licenses, only that they appear to 
> > have unexpected benefits.
> 
> It depends on a person's general disposition if he or she considers
> these benefits or not.

The problem is that those benefits tend to come with the side-effect of 
someone else getting a much greater benefit, undeservedly by appearances.
That's what makes it hard to accept, I think.

Deven