Licensing response and an idea

[admiral Coeyman]

This argument technically has no end.  One side is arguing 'freedom to' and the
other side is arguing for 'freedom from.'  If we go on from here, trying to decide
which side grants the greater freedom, we ignore the fact that these two principles
are incompatible.  The more freedom from you get, the less 'freedom to' remains.
This argument could, therefore, go on indefinitely without resolution.

What I would like is for wine to 'nail the moving target' and have complete
windows/dos compatibility.  There is a great deal of software out there that I
would be interested in running on an operating system that I can afford.  This is
not even possible on 'true microsoft' windows as I have experienced with 'works
3.0.'  My copy will install on windows 3.1 and windows 9?, but it will only run on
windows 3.1 .  It is still something that I can wish for.

What I need is the ability to tell the people I consult for that they can move
their offices over to a stable *nix platform and keep all the software that they
require for their businesses.  These people are afraid of change.  Computers are
not their primary business, in most cases, so they do not want to devote the time
to learning new software and converting their operations.  Making money is job one
for most businesses that want to be here next year.

To this end, I feel that wine needs to get developers involved.  If the LGPL scares
away developers, then it's incompatible with what I require.  In the event that I
cannot get things like 'office' to run under wine, then I need to get the
developers working on the next big applications to create versions for *nix.  That
will allow me to pitch Linux/wine to businesses.  At some point, wine is going to
need proponents who can make a good business case and that may be my major
contribution.

I've submitted a few patches in the past.  My skills are in X86 assembly, not AT&T
syntax, and that limits where I can really work.  Dos is the only part of this
project that I really understand and, frankly, I've been lazy.  My submissions to
the project were made so that I could get something back from the project.  I'm not
interested in coerced charity...

    God Bless,
        --Robert 'Admiral' Coeyman

--
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May you live as long as you wish and age but a single day.
http://www.dotguy.net/                  admiral at corner.net
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