The FLOSS ethos and the morality of Cedega

[nanonyme]

They're not a good company, if you don't like 'em don't use their product. A consumer boycott in this shallow market will damage their business irreparably. Also, If they violate any laws in your country take them to court.

Or rather than boycotting Cedega, you could support Wine buy buying from CodeWeavers who cooperate with Wine.

[deanjo]

They're not a good company, if you don't like 'em don't use their product. A consumer boycott in this shallow market will damage their business irreparably. Also, If they violate any laws in your country take them to court.


Problems solved.

Thing is that they have not broken any laws. The fork of wine that they sprouted from is from a MIT-license. With the Cider deals that they are signing it's very unlikely that a boycott of Cedega would have any appreciable damage to TransGaming.

[yogi_berra]

Is it just me or are others concerned about the fact that TransGaming, which has 'borrowed' significantly from the WINE project, is not doing the community any favors? I could probably even swallow their proprietary approach if they just charged a moderate one-off fee for the use of their code, but no, users have to just keep on feeding the coins in the slot as the meter ticks. The very antithesis of FOSS.

They're not a good company, if you don't like 'em don't use their product. A consumer boycott in this shallow market will damage their business irreparably. Also, If they violate any laws in your country take them to court.


Problems solved.

[joeelmex]

Im a Cedega member and I am one happy gamer. I just want to enjoy my games on Linux. Now Transgaming has said all improvements on Cider, they will implement back to Cedega. So for example warhammer online is in beta testing for Mac all-ready so pretty soon it will be playable in Cedega.

I have played both Crysis games using cedega and play left 4 dead on it just about everyday. Im just stating that I dont mind being a member and being able to play my games in Linux.

[deanjo]

Yeah, but they don't choose to bring these games to Mac and not to Linux. That's what they are being paid for. It's the GAME PUBLISHERS that DON'T GIVE A SHIT to GNU/Linux users.

Exactly my point, you can bitch at Transgaming all you want but it is the publishers that decide what gets ported. Cedega offers a solution to ease the "port" nothing more nothing less. Lets face it Cedega has probably made more with just the EA deal then it did in years trying to live off a subscription base linux solution with a constantly moving target. With OS X they have guaranteed revenue through licensing, stable platform, and enjoy 3rd party marketing for their product. It just makes financial sense to support OS X vs a potential "hit or miss" market like linux gaming.

[jntesteves]

Yeah, but they don't choose to bring these games to Mac and not to Linux. That's what they are being paid for. It's the GAME PUBLISHERS that DON'T GIVE A SHIT to GNU/Linux users.

Now, about what Cedega did with the code they borrowed from WINE and built their product upon, they should have learned from Apple that released all source code they got from FreeBSD, KDE, etc, under the terms of the same FOSS licenses they got. Even the code they didn't have to. Now everybody praise them a lot.

But nowadays Cedega isn't that great when compared to the actual state of WINE, a true and complete implementation of the W32 ABI, fully binary compatible, with most accompanying libraries already implemented.

[deanjo]

"Milking" is an appropriate term.
Regardless of whether or not the licensing fee is absorb into the final product price, the end user only pays one fee. Linux users have to buy the game, and keep paying fees forever (or as long as they want to play the game). If that doesn't describe milking Linux users, I don't know what does.

If there were game publishers actually interested in publishing a linux release you would enjoy the same benefit. A license is guaranteed revenue, a middleware product that some may buy is not.

[benmoran]

"Milking" is an appropriate term.
Regardless of whether or not the licensing fee is absorb into the final product price, the end user only pays one fee. Linux users have to buy the game, and keep paying fees forever (or as long as they want to play the game). If that doesn't describe milking Linux users, I don't know what does.

[deanjo]

OMG!!! it is has gotten worse then when I last looked

just look at the number of games the Cedega has "brought" to Mac
A Mac user just has to pay for the game and it comes with needed cedega files to work

BUT a linux user has to buy the game and then "licence" Cedega, if they stop paying, they stop playing

Cedega is just milking linux users!

Warhammer OnlineTransGaming's Cider Brings Warhammer Online to Mac
TransGaming brings Tale of Tales new game to the Mac
Freaky CreaturesTransGaming Brings Abandon Interactive's Freaky Creatures To Mac
Ubisoft Announces New Mac TitlesUbisoft? Announces New Mac Titles (plural!!!!)
City of HeroesCity of Heroes Now Available for the Mac
TransGaming Enables BioWare's Jade Empire: Special Edition for the Mac


its discusting

Not sure how you figure that Cedega is milking the linux users for OS X. Every one of those ports for OS X they get paid licensing from the publisher / developer for use of the Cider engine. That licensing free is us ultimately paid by the OS X user.

[L33F3R]

lol. someone want to partner with L33F3R on a FLOSS website of shame?