Wine developer frustration (was Re: ntdll: Improve stub of NtQueryEaFile.)

[Tom Wickline]

On Wed, Jun 17, 2015 at 3:51 AM, Theodore Dubois <tblodt at icloud.com> wrote:

>
> First, yes, we do have hacks in CrossOver, but I think 'a lot' is
> unfair. We really try to avoid those hacks, and we work hard to
> eliminate them. For example, I reviewed our tracker that lists our
> hacks. We have about 100 outstanding; in the last 6 months, we removed
> 4 with upstream fixes, and added 1 new one. Further, we have long felt
> that our diff with winehq was tragically large. But nicely, I can now
> compare it to wine-staging, and claim that it is relatively modest
> <grin>. We touch 28K lines in 228 files versus 100K lines in 509 files
> for wine-staging [1].
>
>
> May I suggest you eliminate those hacks by merging them into the Wine
> codebase?
>
> Right now I have a feeling that Wine is wonderful, but Codeweavers is
> evil. It seems that this feeling is shared by many non-Codeweavers Wine
> developers. Codeweavers has done a lot of work on Wine, which I really
> appreciate, but I wish they would be much more open. I think there should,
> at least, be a public database listing all the hacks that are in Crossover.
> That way, I would know what the heck was going on inside those windowless
> walls.
>

Disclaimer, I am not a employee of CodeWeavers, never have been never will
be! This is just my opinion and it does not reflect the opinion/s of
CodeWeavers Inc.

Jeremy or Jon please correct me where I'm wrong.

CodeWeavers isn't even close to being evil, their actually just the
opposite of evil in so many ways.

Lets see :

WineHQ :
They give back all of their good code and even make their hacks available
in their CrossOver source release.
They pay the hosting and website maintenance for winehq e.g lostwages  :)
They have been the primary sponsor of every WineConf after the first
conference.
They will give any wine developer outside of CodeWeavers a free copy of
CrossOver Linux or Mac to play with.
They setup the 501c none profit and setup everything at the Software
Freedom Conservancy so Wine is protected with their legal counsel.

CrossOver :
They have international pricing that most people are not aware of, so
people in developing countries can afford the software! Because they feel
that it's better to let the people use the technology, get it out to the
users,  then to hold out for the last cent, make the highest profit. In a
country like where I live I see no way that they are even making a profit,
its a charity actually.
They actually help people with CrossTie's and support on unsupported
software! because they want to make the customer happy.
They give promos and discounts to returning customers for their loyalty. At
once again CHARITY pricing.

OK with that said,

wine-staging isn't evil either! they have the best of intentions I believe,
and as I see it the problem is proper communication

Problems / Solutions :

winehq doesn't want wine-staging bugs in their database , simple fix,
wine-staging should look into hosting their own bug tracking database and
tell users to file bugs here and not their. if your not wanted on IRC or a
mailing list fine for talking about staging and not mainline wine then once
again, start your own. :(  Then the worst case scenario is realized I'm
afraid and that being A FORK !!! and who is to blame if it comes to that
horrible outcome?  I have my opinions, ill let you decide that answer on
your own...

Acknowledgments :

wine-staging makes it possible for the public to test, use the code in
their patch set.
the wine-staging project is extremely friendly and easy to engage as a
developer or end user.
wine-staging would make a great wine mentoring project, where new
developers could take a look at half baked patches and try to improve them
so they could go into mainline wine.
Or a new area, feature and do some hand holding to get the process moving
along , underway if their not interested in a staging patch to work on.


>
> This may sound unthinkable, but I would also suggest going further and
> releasing the source code for the hacks. Not the Crossover-only ones like
> sendwndcmd.exe. Or the ones that can't be released because of NDAs. I mean
> the ones that would improve the vanilla Wine distribution.
>
> It seems possible to me that you're not releasing these hacks because they
> would improve vanilla Wine to the point where nobody would be willing to
> pay for Crossover anymore. If that is true, it's the other reason that I
> think Codeweavers is evil. I mean, can't you make enough money on
> consulting for companies that think that Crossover/Codeweavers is better
> because it costs more money?
>

The hacks are available as pointed out before.
The main selling points for CrossOver is its GUI, point and click installer
interface and good support. The hacks are actually a very tiny part of the
overall package. The consulting and porting services just help Wine
development but I don't believe their anywhere large enough to stand on
their own feet, support the company. CrossOver sales are a essential part
of the overall business model.

See : https://www.codeweavers.com/services/faq/ports/


> If there's no openness about what Crossover is doing to Wine, I just can't
> trust them to develop it.
>

So your asking a company with 30 employees to feed to turn over their
business strategy? Can you lend me the keys to your car? I promise I won't
steal it once you fall asleep. ;)

Yesterday I was chatting with a CodeWeavers employee about blogging and
being more transparent about what goes on behind the walls of the great
empire. Would a bi-weekly blog update with updates of whats being tested ,
worked on, just how many cappuccinos James has knocked off help ?? I have
always liked road-maps myself, and others as well I'm sure, as most big
companies put out a road-map periodically to say this is what are working
on, this is where we would like to go. This is just my idea of better
transparency and fun at the same time.

Someone pass the pretzels please...

Tom


>
> ~Theodore
>
>
>
>


-- 
Wine is not a conclusion but a process...
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