Installshield 6 (inter-proc) patches

[Jeremy White]

>
>
>What do you suggest defending then?  Nothing?  The ability to run only
>your favorite application?  I still don't understand your position,
>and I can't say you seem to really understand it yourself.
>
    The key question here is whether or not switching Wine to the LGPL will,
in the long run, harm or help the Wine project.

    A useful thread I pull from Patrik's comments is the concern
that switching to the LGPL will discourage corporate participation
in Wine, and that the resulting loss of effort will end in a net loss
for the Wine project.

    As I've weighed this issue from CodeWeavers perspective,
it strikes me that the issue is a wash - there are ways in
which a shift to the LGPL would help us, and ways in which it would
harm us.

    It would help us in several ways.  First, since we've always effectively
treated the Wine code base as though it were LGPL, we would gain
the protection that the LGPL offers.  If someone else takes the code we've
worked on, and competes with us, we would gain back
any improvements that they make.  For example, if Wine had been LGPL,
then Transgaming would have been oblidged to release Installshield fixes 
back
(after all, they do follow on work that we did).  With better InstallShield
support, for example, our CrossOver customers might  have a wider range 
of plugins
that would successfully install.  This is a pretty minor problem; I 
can't think of a
significant plugin affected by this.   Further, I think I understand why 
Gav has
has hesitated on this issue, and I firmly believe that Transgamings 
intentions
with regards to the Wine project are honorable and good.

   However, I can imagine alternate scenarios where we could have all of 
our hard work
used against us by others who are more ruthless than Gav, and so the
LGPL would at least offer us some protection from that threat.

    A second benefit is simplicity.  I spend a lot of time discussing 
license
issues with my customers, and fighting very difficult battles to
preserve the integrity of the Wine code base (and while that sounds
noble and all bear in mind that a single, coherent source code base that 
I can fully
use is a key part of my business strategy).  So, if the license were LGPL,
my negotiating requirements would be simplified.  In fact, I would feel 
free to
encourage my clients (and my company) to ruthlessly take advantage of every
possible opportunity to create competitive advantages, because I feel
that the LGPL would protect the integrity of Wine.

   Of course, there are a number of downsides.  First of all, it is 
possible that
I would have fewer clients; the LGPL is complex license,
and it's core premise can deter many people.  It is widely believed in the
Wine community that Corel would have never touched Wine if it had
been LGPL, and Corel's contributions to Wine were very significant
(the irony of course, is that AFAIK, Corel treated Wine as though
it were LGPL).

    Second of all, the LGPL does, oddly enough, take away some freedom
on my part.  Today, I have a full range of choices available to me with
every product I release or help a client to build.  After a switch to LGPL
(and after enough time had passed for the LGPL'd pieces to be
significant), I'd have to be very cirumspect every time a public release
of a product was made to be certain that I had all of my licensing
ducks in a row.  
    For example, right now, we don't provide a copy of the
source code contained within our CrossOver Plugin Wine tree.  The only
changes we have not published back into the main WineHQ tree are
ones specifically required to interoperate with a Linux/Netscape plugin.
The changes we made to Wine would never have been accepted by
Alexandre as being good or generally useful patches, and yet they could
conceivably give someone who wished to replicate our proprietary
Linux plugin code a good insight into how to go about doing so.  To be 
honest,
we sweat a lot of blood and tears to learn how to do that right, and it 
would
hurt if someone were able quickly knock off CrossOver Plugin because we were
forced to show that code.  On the other hand, we also had a heck of a lot
of work on the Plugin code that has nothing to do with Wine, and I'd
like to see someone knock that off quickly <grin>.

   With all that, speaking on behalf of CodeWeavers, I would neither 
call for
nor oppose a switch to the LGPL.  Since that change would impact me and my
customers somewhat slowly, I think I could make the necessary 
adjustments in time.  
The most important thing is for us to continue to have a vital and 
thriving Wine community.

    Finally, speaking strictly on a personal basis, and with no corporate
considerations whatsoever, I would welcome a change to the LGPL;
I have always preferred it to BSD style licenses (and to the GPL,
for that matter); with LGPL projects, I feel more certain that I know 
exactly
where I stand and how my code will be used.

    Jeremy