winhelp, Vector NTI, molecular biologists

[Misha Koshelev]

On Wed, 2007-09-05 at 19:40 -0500, Misha Koshelev wrote:
> On 9/4/07, Alexander Sornes wrote:
> > Tirsdag 04 september 2007 03:17, skrev Misha Koshelev:
> > > On 9/3/07, Stefan Dosinger wrote:
> > > > Am Montag, 3. September 2007 13:30:57 schrieb Damjan Jovanovic:
> > > > > Somebody needs to make a do-nothing-useful app, intended for Windows,
> > > > > that also installs on wine and supplies each and every DLL that
> > > > > Windows applications need but we don't have in wine (like MFC42.DLL,
> > > > > the D3DX9_xx.DLL's, new MSVCRT's, etc.). That way we can legally use
> > > > > those DLLs without a Windows licence.
> > > >
> > > > This is not necessarily true. I don't know about MFC42.dll or the
> > > > msvcrts, but the directx eula does not allow that; It requires the
> > > > application to run only on the Microsoft Windows operating system,
> > > > targetting both Windows and Linux+Wine violates the contract. These are
> > > > the conditions for distributing the directx dlls. I've not found anything
> > > > against installing them on Wine, you just must not distribute the DLLs
> > > > with an app that targets both Windows and Wine. Thus I think it's legal
> > > > to write a script that downloads them from the original location
> > > > @microsoft.com and installs them, as long as that script isn't bundled
> > > > with the dlls. However, IANAL.
> > > >
> > > > What remains unanswered though is how this affects game vendors whose
> > > > games run on Wine without intention from the game vendor and ship the
> > > > dlls, e.g. Eve Online.
> > >
> > > Actually you all bring up rather interesting points with regards to Vector
> > > NTI as:
> > >
> > > (a) It pretty much ships with almost every Microsoft redistributable needed
> > > (e.g., MDAC, Windows Script, MFC71, etc.) and installs them on its
> > > installation _except_ MFC42 (not sure why this oversight and if this would
> > > break it on some native system, although I _believe_ it installed correctly
> > > on my plain vanilla Win98 VMWare installation, but I would have to double
> > > check for sure).
> > >
> > 
> > I believe mfc42 is bundled with Windows XP.
> Actually, I just reinstalled Windows 98 in VMWare _without_ installing VMWare tools
> and even my version of Windows 98 is bundled with mfc42.dll, so wine really should
> provide it too...
Oh yeah and before this starts a discussion about legalities I meant we
should provide our own version, not Microsoft's.

> 
> > 
> > > (b) If the licenses for those DLLs/redistributables are the same as you
> > > suggest for DirectX, this would mean they couldn't ever say they support
> > > Wine (but I'm not sure whether or not the licenses are). Anyway, seeing it
> > > work "gold" on Wine still wouldn't be a bad thing in either case and
> > > certainly Vector NTI is not the only program that needs good winhelp
> > > support.
> > >
> > > Misha
> > 
> 

Misha