The following text summarises (for me) the TransGaming experience (most
probably to their relief). I am going to remove all related packages
and look for some orphaned package to satisfy me "tweaking" need :)
Thanks to those on debian-devel (and RMS) for making suggestions to the
text.
=====
WineX is a branch of the Wine, open source windows emulator software.
allows running certain windows programs on a GNU/Linux operating
system, and thus reducing, evading the Microsoft imposed Operating
System lock-in.
Up until a couple of months ago, Wine (http://www.winehq.com) was
released under the X11 license. Contrary to the more widely spread
better known GPL, this license allows branching the code, making
modifications without having to release the modified source and put
restrictions on the distribution of it.
Some months ago, the license of Wine was changed from the X11 license
to the LGPL to avoid these problems, especially since wine is a
project where a lot of people are working on and are contributing to:
volunteers and people employed by companies like CodeWeavers.
In the wake of this change, which is rumoured to be initiated by
CodeWeavers, a branch is _again_ made to wine (ReWind) which it's
only intention is to keep the X11 license over the LGPL. Since the
LGPL is the main, contributors to the Wine project have to explicitly
agree that their patches can be included in the ReWind project (and
hence also in TransGaming's WineX).
At this point, I guess, a clear distinction between WineX and ReWind
has to be made. ReWind is, to a large degree, tailored to be used by
WineX but to this moment, the changes made by TransGaming (also those
based on in spirit LGPL code, but allowed X11) are not brought back
to the Wine tree.
With the creation of ReWind, one can wonder if it ever will, ...
The sources on which WineX is based are put available on sourceforge
by TransGaming under the Alladin license. I guess you need to be
some barrister to understand all these changes, or start learning.
This license allows using, changing the code, releasing binaries,
as long as the sources are released again. One of the most important
differences with the GPL variants is that there seems to be no re-
striction on the restricting the license afterwards (which is not
the case with the GPL).
Recently, a RFP (Request For Package) was put up on the Debian site,
and a "developer" agreed on maintaining this package. The license as
it is, allows to include it in the non-free archive.
Within hours after posting the ITP (Intent to Package) on the Debian
bug database and on the debian-devel mailing list, a mail from Trans-
Gaming's CEO/CTE Gavriel State was received, which indicates
1. "We noticed that you intend to package our AFPLed WineX package
for release in debian (presumably non-free). We would really prefer
that this not happen, for a number of reasons."
2. " We would prefer not to have to change our license to explicitly
prevent the distribution of binary packages, but if we have to we
will do so."
There are two things in this mail:
There are claims on the rights on the code, which are valid to some
degree. The reasons they state are commercial (development => money
=> development) and possible confusion since the release of debian
binaries based on their public AFP'ed CVS does not provide the full
functionality of the binaries they redistribute (amongst others, they
are not allowed to redistribute proprietary copy protection code
used by games).
If you do distribute binaries, we will change the license to
explicitly prohibit you from doing this.
The reaction of TransGaming concerning the binary debian release of
WineX raises a couple of questions, that should be addressed before
pursueing the packaging any further.
1. Does the license allow packaging?
Yes, I read through it and you can distribute binaries as long as
you put the source available in some common format
2. Is the source free?
Well, to some degree, not the 3 RMS criteria, that's for sure
3. Who is the target audience?
I would think people interested in 3D and 3D games and development.
I think it is pretty obvious that you are not going to satisfy a
hard-core gamer, since there is no support for copyright protection
and most of the tweaking is manual (downloading dll's for example).
I see such a package for enthusiasts that want to check the
state-of-the-art in gaming without having to install windows (I
recently checked the SoF2 demo with this, even though the game was
only for about 30' in my HD).
I imagine it is also useful for people working with 3D graphics and
programming on it (e.g. students develop in win32 and you do not
want to let them show the demo on your GNU/Linux workstation)..
In both cases, it is handy, but most likely not enough to go for
the commercial thing (one could do without it).
4. Should it be packaged?
Carefully reading the mail from Gavriel State, I did not see any
specific objections to packaging it, but to the inclusion of the
package in Debian. I guess it has to do with the possible target
audience...
Part of the objections he made, are now addressed by changing the
name to winex-light. Even then, I do not think this will be
sufficient for them not to change the license to prohibit binary
redistribution when included in debian.
5. Can TransGaming change the license?
Legally I guess there within their rights to do so.
Morally (I never thought I would use this word) no. I have worked
on some projects where I added functionality to code and I cannot
imagine me restricting the distribution of the code from which I
did not write the bulk of it.
6. Will it be in debian?
As things are now, no...
Distributing it would only be temporary (most likely, it would be
cut off before it even reaches unstable).
I personally think that this case explicitly shows the use and
need for us developers to release code under the GPL and hope that,
people will think twice before contributing to non-GPL code. Even
few people question the merrits of the work done by TransGaming,
we should not endorse this policy.
--
greetz, marc
BOFH excuse #64:
CPU needs recalibration
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