Wine compatibility and performance on FreeBSD 7

[Chuck Robey]

Russell Jackson wrote:
> Brett Glass wrote:
>> At 10:01 AM 12/11/2007, Julian H. Stacey wrote:
>>  
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_%28software%29
>>>   "... originally released Wine under the same MIT License as the X
>>>   Window System, but owing to concern about proprietary versions
>>>   of Wine not contributing their changes back to the core project,
>>>   work as of March 2002 has used the LGPL"
>> What apparently happened is that one or two of the developers of Wine
>> got their knickers in a twist about the idea that -- heaven forbid! --
>> someone might possibly make some money for the enhancements they made
>> to Wine.
> 
> Don't FUD. Nothing stops anyone from making money off GPL'ed software. The real reason is
> that TransGaming et al weren't contributing anything back and wouldn't provide the source
> to users who bought binaries in a usable fashion.

What a huge distortion.  How many company conferences have you sat in 
on, as company lawyers tried to figure out what would have to change if 
they used GPL software?  If you say "none" then you are either lying or 
you haven't been called into those meetings (lucky you).  No such 
problems with BSD.  The GPL folks want to be able to coerce folks into 
doing things their way, but don't want to be seen as coercing folks, so 
they do a Wink'N'A'Nod towards the truth.  It's still coercion.

> 
>> (Never mind that the marketing and development costs for their
>> commercial versions of Wine were eating all of their profits, and it was
>> unclear whether they actually WOULD make any money.) Also, it is rumored
>> (though I have not seen proof of it) that John Gilmore, an underwriter of 
>> the Wine project, threatened to withdraw support from some of these 
>> developers unless the license was switched to the GPL, thus forcing their
>> hands. 
>>
>