Versions & mass-appeal

[Tony Lambregts]

Rick Romero wrote:

>On Wed, 2002-10-30 at 00:12, Dimitrie O. Paun wrote:
> 
>  
>
>>Why are we in this position? For reasons I will not go into right
>>now, it seems painfully obvious to me that we are suffering from
>>a severe case of Bad Public Image (tm). Whenever I talk to people
>>not intimately familiar with Wine, about our beloved project, I
>>am _always_ treated with the same reaction: a surprised "Really,
>>it works? Hmmm, I thought it was only running Freecell...".
>>Translation: people consider Wine a huge hack that can run (by
>>some strange happenings) some apps, sometimes. It is viewed as
>>unreliable, "freak of nature sideshow"; something (maybe) cool
>>to talk about, but utterly useless. 
>>    
>>
>Being a long time troll and admittedly bad problem reporter, my lack of
>experience tends to send me down the wrong path, I can tell you what MY
>impressions of Wine are.
>
>My first success with Wine was quite a few years ago, running Agent
>.99.  At that time, it seemed Win16 programs would have a chance, but
>Win32 wouldn't make it.
>
>Since then, I've purchased Crossover products, and been pleasantly
>surprised by the applications that run under it.  I was astonished to
>see GetRight work 100%, and almost taken aback to see Delta Force (and
>it's funky Voxtel engine) running under wine.  (Ok DF3 doesn't QUITE
>make it, but DF1 and DF2 are more than I ever expected.  Hmm Maybe
>desktop mode would work..)
>
>I would love to convert my desktops to Linux + Wine, but one 'little'
>thing keeps nagging at me (even if my apps did work perfectly).  I
>haven't seen it uttered in a while, but the phrase, "Wine is ALPHA
>software" sticks in my head.
>
>People know what beta software is, and when someone see's "Alpha",
>they're not even going to attempt do debug it. Alpha (at least to me)
>conjures up such a raw state of affairs, that whatever problem is
>occurring, is happening because "Alpha" is seen as horribly broken.
>

I am beginning to believe that wine is not very alpha anymore. It is 
more likely to run the program than crash  and in some situations can be 
used in a production environment. So while I do not suggest that we 
immediately drop the alpha designation  I would seriously ask what 
remains to be done to get rid of it.

>
>I realize this isn't the case.  I'm also sure that a lot of people DON'T
>realize that.  I think CodeWeavers has greatly helped Wine's image by
>giving it a version number.  
>
>I wonder if people think CodeWeaver's Wine is THAT much of a different
>product than WineHQ's Wine..
>  
>

I think that for mass appeal branding works better.  These products are 
worth the money to the end user and provide a way for them to contribute 
to wine development.  For those users that are willing and able to 
contribute to the project I welcome them. However most users will simply 
want it to work and for them the best way is to use one of these products.

>Just another perspective, I'll be quiet now :)
>
>Oh, and www.winehq.com seems to be down (can't connect from RoadRunner
>or Savvis networks) 
>
>
>  
>

I also cannot connect.


Tony Lambregts