Microsoft Blocking Wine Users From Downloads Site (More poor business parctices by gates)

wine-devel Mailing list ^ | 2005-02-17 | Ivan Leo

[N3WBI3]

Mike, thats not what they are doing. If it just plain did not work with WINE that would be OK. I dont expect MS to test or even try to make their update software work with anything else. What they did was *go out of their way* to make sure that John Doe running office through wine has to abandon his operating system if he wants to use office. There is no technical reason why this was done!

This was not a support issue. If I called MS support and said I was running office on wine they could tell me to pound sand and they would be well within their rights. Support in the software industry means that if you don't do it the way isuggest youre on your own, it does not mean if you buy a product from me and do it differently I will deny you free upgrades to that product..

When MS broke notes back in the early 90's "Dos aint done till lotus wont run" or when the tried to hijack Java despite a license with sun that said they could not was that all good?

[mikegi]

Why? If I go out and buy a copy of officexp, should I not be able to run it anywhere I please?

You can run it anywhere it'll work but that doesn't mean Msft has to support your configuration. Why do you think Msft is required to support your config?

[tfecw]

All i was saying is that you don't own your XP or MS office software. You don't get to do whatever you want to it. MS owns the software and can do what they want to it. You only but the RIGHT to USE it.

as for what you've digressed into, I would say yes. But what about your argument for a Mac? can you put XP on a mac? no. how about the computer in my car? no can't do that either. How about my 286? nope it won't fly their either.

I think your point is flawed at best. It's MS's stuff. If they only want P4's to run it that is their prerogative. If they don't want Linux to run their programs that is their choice as well. They don't "owe" anyone anything.

[N3WBI3]

I am not asking them to support my config, All I am asking for are the free updates they provide for the product I purchased.. I dont think you understand what support in the computer industry is all about. Support means MS puts its name beind my config (I am not asking them to do that).

Go read the EULA it in no way obligates the user to use windows to run office.

[Born Conservative]

Bump for later.

Thanks for posting this link; I've been looking for a site like this.

[N3WBI3]

It's MS's stuff. If they only want P4's to run it that is their prerogative.

The EULA is a two way street, in that agreement MS makes no mention of the OS to run office on. They make no mention of the processor to run office on, and they make no mention of the automobile that you can run office on.

If they don't want Linux to run their programs that is their choice as well. They don't "owe" anyone anything.

No its not, its their choice not to develop for Linux, its their choice to keep their code closed, and its their choice to not offer support on Linux. To purposely break another operating system is anticompetative.

Would it be ok if Automakers who lease cars require you to use a certain brand of gas when driving? how about a certain brand of shoe to put on the pedal? How about they told you that if you dont wear a tie when you come in for the free oil change they offer they can refuse you. and the best part is none of this is in the lease agreement you signed with them.

[NoClones]

isn't this the time where the open-source boosters are supposed to begin spouting about how superior 'open-source' software is to anything put out by that evil corporation headed by the nincompoop, Bill Gates?

One wonders why anyone with such superior software would want to run anything by Microsoft?

[Oberon]

No, they're saying they don't support your configuration. If I were msft, I'd completely drop all support for WINE users.

Why do you think Msft is required to support your config?

MS is going further than that. They're in effect saying that if you've got WINE on your computer, you can't download their stuff.

It's kind of like Ford saying that if you've got a Chevy in your garage, you aren't allowed to buy an F150 pickup truck.

[Psycho_Bunny]

Considering that most every patch MS produces is a fix for the Windows OS, or how a piece of software interacts with the OS, it's difficult for me to understand why a WINE user would ever go to MS Update.

Even though the requirement to validate your copy of Windows is annoying as hell to me - and MS is going to screw it up somehow - it seems to me that the WINErs are just whining, in this particular instance.

[rwfromkansas]

What the heck is WINE?

[rwfromkansas]

Hack the software. Problem solved.

[mikegi]

When MS broke notes back in the early 90's "Dos aint done till lotus wont run" or when the tried to hijack Java despite a license with sun that said they could not was that all good?

Urban legends. Do you have any idea how much backward compatibility testing was done in the early 1990s? Some apps would do things that made an update required when moving to a new version of an OS. For example, one fax app had a driver that walked up the stack to look at internal GDI structures. Should Msft have supported that app when creating Win95??? Of course not, yet I imagine some people were claiming that "Windows isn't done until xxxFax is broken, see they have their own fax app now".

Do you know how many fixes are in Windows to cover application errors? One popular app had uninitialized local variables in it that just happen to get zeroed by a call to a Windows api in Win31. That app worked but it was only by accident. In Win95, the location on the stack wasn't zeroed anymore so the app failed. Msft inserted code to specifically zero out that area to make the app work. If it hadn't, would you have screamed "Windows isn't done until FTM is broken"???

Then there are the AppHack flags. Ever wonder what those are for? They're flags to the Windows core telling it that the app incorrectly assumes version-specific things and won't work on the new version. Windows then emulates the old behavior so that the app will run on the new version.

Some things aren't fixable and the app/device is declared "not compatible" with the new version. For example, the Cyrix x86 clone had a flaw where a non-aligned push of a DWORD that crossed a page boundary, and the page below wasn't present, caused the cpu to always push zero when the instruction was restarted. That CPU was declared non-compatible. Would you have claimed that "Windows isn't done until Cyrix processors are broken"?

I realize it is much easier to toss out "Evil Empire" claims than to find out what's really going on.

[tfecw]

Would it be ok if Automakers who lease cars require you to use a certain brand of gas when driving? how about a certain brand of shoe to put on the pedal? How about they told you that if you don't wear a tie when you come in for the free oil change they offer they can refuse you. and the best part is none of this is in the lease agreement you signed with them.


would it be okay? legally technically yes. Morally and ethically probably not. Lets expand you extremely piss pour analogy. lets say there are 5 different types of gas. leaded, unleaded, natural gas, methane, and diesel. (sound familiar because it should) now lets say my ford that I'm leasing only runs on unleaded gas. I hear that NG cars run cleaner and i wanna do my part plus i hate the evil oil industry. Wait a sec...my ford won't let me put natural gas in it. How dare ford not provide support for all 5 fuels. Now I've never leased a car because I'm going to guess that there isn't a clause that says i have to use unleaded could be wrong though. Now in my users manual it says unleaded gas only!

Now the ELUA says nothing about needed windows to run office. But the office manual certainly does. I wouldn't be surprised if the ELUA has something along the lines of conforming to the user manual guidelines as well.

[N3WBI3]

I have said before, and I will say again. Office (particularly excel) is one of the best pieces of software out there. I think you came in on queue at the point when shills for Microsoft start crying about the hundreds of open-source people here who say their software is perfect..

[N3WBI3]

Actually I have no problem verifying that you own a copy of windows, its their product and a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I also think they would be in their rights to verify ownership of any software (say office) before providing an update.

[N3WBI3]

No doubt that is what will happen (or at the veryleast they will change the name of the key) but that does not fix the problem of MS questionable business practices..

[dalight]

If they don't deliver on the obligations (such as they are) that they committed to in the license, then you have recourse. Intentionally "breaking the function" of the software or intentionally interfering with your ability to use of your licensed copy would be a problem if this can be proved.

As other poster's have pointed out, this has been proven in court on a number of occasions, where M$ deliberately broke the software when used with competitive applications. So now they have established a pattern of behavior. Furthermore, they have been found guilty of an antitrust violation, making the presumptions that this isn't part of the existing or previous pattern of unlawful behavior much harder from M$ to prove. An ex-felon has has a harder time claiming they are innocent when their fingerprints are on the murder weapon, eh...

[kevkrom]

Actually I have no problem verifying that you own a copy of windows, its their product and a perfectly reasonable thing to do. I also think they would be in their rights to verify ownership of any software (say office) before providing an update.

Ah, but the problem is that even if they verify ownership of the software (let's say Office) -- they're refusing to provide updates for it unless it is being run on a (verified license) Windows OS.

[TChris]

Hmmm... I don't know much about "microsfots business parctices." Are you sure that's even English?

[Fiddlstix]

BTTT