Microsoft genuine downloads looking for wine

[Andreas Mohr]

Hi,

On Fri, Feb 18, 2005 at 05:36:52PM +0100, Sam Lauber wrote:
> Agreed.  Can't we just delete 
> HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT/Software/Wine or move it to another name? 
Eh?? This is certainly a non-solution.
Since they cared as much as actively checking for a Wine key
and preventing downloads in the case of success (a thing that I'd never
imagined they would do since it's quite likely illegal),
they can enhance their checks anytime (remember: we're in the internet
era with online updates occurring every other day...) with further Wine
keys to check for.

This is like the fly trying to escape the fly killer until it finally
gets screwed royally, despite all its useless attempts to escape.

IMHO we should re-examine the exact nature of this check (you really
want to be sure in such critical matters),
and if it is found to be deeply problematic (i.e. it is an *active*
check for Wine containing the Wine registry key inside the Microsoft binary
and it does block Wine under most circumstances),
then think about whether we'll do anything about it.

Instead, we could just choose to set our winver to XP for this update
program.
And the fact that Wine users are blocked from non-system updates could lead to
further Wine development, as others have pointed out already.

If however we decide that it is absolutely critical for us to have access
to those updates, then we should do something about it:
if it is a clear violation of the Sherman antitrust act (interoperability etc.)
then we should ask Microsoft to remove this check in their next online update
of the update program (an update which doesn't block Wine, that is!).
If they don't comply even though they probably need to (and knowing MS too well
they probably won't, but there might always be a big surprise),
then legal proceedings might be in order.
After all we don't want to end up like DR-DOS or WordPerfect or Novell
(and countless others?) which have all been tricked by MS's API "changes",
right?

But one thing is (almost) for certain:
the current registry key will remain.

Andreas Mohr