[Wine] Arguments for Wine on windows/incremental adoption

[James McKenzie]

oiaohm wrote:
> MS will not need to lawyer up.  Its just like people running pirated copies of windows.  All ms has to do is screw the update system up on you.  If you don't update you risk flaws. 
>
>   
They have and will continue to do so.  Fines in the millions of US
Dollars have been leavied around the world.  Running prirated anything
places your computer at risk.  Wine is not pirated software and falls,
technically, under a series of case law studies.  For instance, review
some of the test cases for functions, we look at what happens when we
input certain values into the 'black box', which may be a dll or even a
function provided by a dll.  We then attempt to emulate or duplicate
what happened.  That is what Tandy did in 1981, when they decided to
build an IBM PC 'clone'.   This has been going on before then and after.
> Basically unless you control the core of the OS you will always be at the mercy of someone else.
>
>   
Yes.  The core is different from Windows 95 through Windows 7.  The goal
is to provide 'better' functionality.
> Idea of mixing in wine dlls to make life better can be baldy flawed.  Lets say wine dll depends on particular functions existing MS pushes out a update removing those functions but altering there dlls to use the new function.  Ie who controls the update system controls you.
>   
So, what is your proposal?  Right now, 90% + of the world desktop PCs
run Windows.  That is a fact that is very hard to ignore.  If you want
to take away some of that you have to provide users with a bridge.  That
is what Wine is.  In the PC world there is a catch-22 (circle).  This
states "I'll switch to Linux whenever XYZ program is available for
Linux" (don't even bother to tell them about the better Linux
alternative, they want that and only that program.)  The other side is
that the developers will develop a Linux version when a certain % of
computers are running Linux.  So use Wine to implement the Windows
version of the program, thus the company, users, etc. can switch without
loosing the Windows program they want.  The development community sees
increases in Linux use and may start developing a Linux version.  After
a while, Wine will not be needed but until that time arrives, it has to
provide more and more functionality of the Windows32 API.
> Some people here complain about possible reactos legality problems.  Yes there are.  But the reactos path if it works you are in control.   Linux/BSD/Open Solaris paths you are also in control.   On top of windows path MS is in-control.   The other paths MS will have to use lawyers to cause problems.
>   
Here is the rub.  Microsoft ALREADY has done this.  SCO versus IBM was a
pure MS play.  If MS had decided to sue (and they might or are) RedHat
or SuSE (before the buy and sell out by Novell) the story might be
vastly different.  IBM owns all of the AT&T code (they are not just a
licensee) and the suit was over AIX not Linux, and IBM won after a
couple of year battle in United States Federal court.  If MS decided to
sue and you were the target, you would find that they have a very large
and extensive legal department.  They have sued over piracy concerns and
caught the attention of the Chinese government.  That takes some power.
> People did the same thing with windows 98 as well Deweirdifier.  Sooner or latter you run out of updates to the core.
>   

Yes, it was called Project Odinn.  And yes, the core was changing on a
daily basis.  Not fun to run after, but the folks who are running this
project are not running, they are crawling and that makes a difference.

Your statements about IE are somewhat true.  However, I can get IE for
my Mac.  It is not a current version, but it is IE.  IE became more
intertwined with the operating system in version 6. 

However, sitting around and stating that ReactOS cannot be sued is not
true.  They can be.  Wine can be.  Anyone can be sued.  However, the
court would probably throw out the suit against Wine, whereas they might
not for ReactOS.  There is a difference between duplicating an operating
system and the legally available API (anyone can get the entire API from
Redmond, not everyone can get the source code to Windows.)

Here is what I agree with in your argument:  Wine has to be the bridge
to get users to switch from Windows to Linux/UNIX.  The API needs to be
correct, complete and robust.  Without this, the folks in Redmond can
relax, and create really bad code which we have to deal with.  Wine has
to be bug-for-bug compliant because of the use of poor programming
practices.  I've seen the results of this during the Windows
3.0/3.1/3.11/95/98 days.  This extends through today.

What I don't agree with is that Wine should be abandoned in favor of a
Windows replacement. 

BTW, I work with folks who use Wine on a daily basis.  They are not
afraid of MS coming to get them. 

We are all working towards a common goal here:  Remove the power of
Redmond by making them compete on an equal footing with everyone
else.    Wine makes this possible. 

James McKenzie