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- Gracenotes, on 10/07/2008, -3/+55It's reassuring that Google basically *gets* the idea of Open Source: you take community code, and you contribute back improvements you make as a part of your own project's development. Compare this with Microsoft's idea, which is taking proprietary technology and including "open" somewhere in its name.
- billbugger, on 10/07/2008, -0/+29Google may be getting large, but it's nice to know they still do things like this and other projects as well.
- switchfrenzy5, on 10/07/2008, -5/+33WINE is freggin awesome...
- tushyd, on 10/07/2008, -3/+26It's cool that they're supporting and providing code for WINE, but why don't they just release a native Picasa?
- insanebrain, on 10/07/2008, -5/+25Google + WINE... a hundred drunk zero's.
- mrchucklepants, on 10/07/2008, -0/+19It runs because Google used WINE to port the windows version.
FTA: In January 2006, Google (working with CodeWeavers the commerical arm of the WINE project) improved WINE so Picasa 2.2 would run. This effort resulted in 225 patches committed to the WINE project. - GothAlice, on 10/07/2008, -0/+14Incoherence is the sign of a brilliant mind! I will dedicate the next few years of my life in trying to divine exactly what you just said. This is a task I do not shoulder easily, but will accomplish with reverence and joy… and just a bit of confusion.
Let's not mention that open source helps everyone, and that Apple purchasing, say, CUPS, didn't negatively impact it. - mcrules, on 10/07/2008, -0/+14"it sucks. It's a little confusing, buggy as hell and eats up way to many resources"
Seems that Wine runs Windows programs accurately after all... - YokoZar, on 10/07/2008, -0/+13Because completely rewriting Picassa from scratch is a ton of work compared to just bundling Wine. If you fix the bugs in Wine and make it look like a native application (eg theme and colors), there isn't even any advantage to an expensive native port.
- TehDoctor, on 10/07/2008, -0/+10Yes, because a ton of projects to run interpreted languages on top of a JIT compiled language that requires a ridiculously bloated platform that sits on top of the native platform is really a HUGE contribution. If MS made one useful product that was actually cross platform, people wouldn't bitch. But all they do that's open is try to get people sucked into using /their/ platform, which is all .NET is. If they could make Python work on .NET without IronPython being open, they would.
MS only cares about furthering their platform, because they feel their business depends on it. Google cares about being a good citizen in the community they are a part of. - YokoZar, on 10/07/2008, -0/+9Here the reason is pretty obvious: it's much cheaper for Google to fix Wine than for Google to rewrite their entire application from scratch. Since Wine is open source, those changes naturally get spread around.
- Induane, on 10/07/2008, -0/+9There are a number of reasons, particularly with W.I.N.E.
1.) Good press. It creates a good guy image around the company.
2.) It improves things that might compete with Redmond and helps break their monopoly.
3.) It allows them to save money in their own development. Many libraries are LGPL which means for instance: I write a library to export PDF files with a nice simple API. A company wants to write some software that writes PDF files. Instead of writing a PDF file library from scratch they utilize the LGPL Open Source library. If it needs improved they can make their improvements and contribute them back to the community. The LGPL means that they can create software around that library and still charge for it so long as the changes they make to the library are available. This saves them time and money and helps the community that wrote the library as well.
You see, Open Source isn't just about free and sharing. Its about not reinventing the wheel every time you need to do something. - TehDoctor, on 10/07/2008, -1/+9Excuse me, how does Microsoft contribute to Open Source? Is it anywhere on the scale of what Google does? Google employs Andrew Morton, Bram Moolenaar, and Guido Van Rossum. Probably many others. The company is in the top 20 of kernel contributors. It helps lots of open source projects. I think we can let the search and advertising technology slide just a little since without it, none of Google's great contributions would ever have happened.
No one is forcing you to use Google's services. If you think they're not secure, go use Live or Yahoo or Ask. - LR2_, on 10/07/2008, -1/+8How can you cite a fictional occurrence as to why google doesn't help apple?
- afrothunderman, on 10/07/2008, -1/+8Picasa wasn't started by Google(At least I don't think so). The company that first made it did not have intentions of porting so Picasa has code deeply rooted in the Windows API, it saves Google time and money to just use WINE(Plus they get the open-source people's support for helping WINE)
- sirhomer, on 10/07/2008, -1/+8Do you have a source for F# being under an OSI approved license now? I can't find anything about it on their website.
- DBeta, on 10/07/2008, -0/+6Why would we want that? Seems to me that having more options is a good thing. Sure, it might seem like having Photoshop for Linux might hurt GIMP, but it will help. Because if Photoshop became available for Linux, more people would use Linux. The more people who use it for Photoshop, the more people who will use Linux because their friend/kid/parents use it. And they will want a graphics editor, but wont want to pay for Photoshop. So then they get GIMP. Seems like a win/win to me. This also puts Adobe in the same place as Google with wanting to help Linux. Adobe will have invested interest in Linux's well being. As such, they will help out when the sound system doesn't work well with Audition, or they will push the hardware vendors to make graphics drivers that work better with Photoshop.
At the end of the day, Linux will be better. People who did not pay for Photoshop will benefit. And people who want Photoshop will have more options. Sounds like a good deal to me. - Lionhart, on 10/07/2008, -1/+7What you've just said is one of the most insanely idiotic things I have ever heard. At no point in your rambling, incoherent response were you even close to anything that could be considered a rational thought. Everyone in this room is now dumber for having listened to it. I award you no points, and may God have mercy on your soul.
- seandfeeney, on 10/07/2008, -3/+9Can someone please an intelligent reason as to why they just don't just write the program to natively work on linux?? I try to like WINE but honestly, it sucks. It's a little confusing, buggy as hell and eats up way to many resources on hardy. Taking the time to fix bugs in WINE seems like a waste of resources when you can just create it to work on linux.
- Frost9999, on 10/07/2008, -2/+7As long as Adobe stays away from linux - other people will be motivated to improve non-adobe image tools for the platform. This can only be a good thing.
- sirwally, on 10/07/2008, -0/+4@Matt2K: "codeplex.com, dashcommerce.org, dotnetnuke right off the top of my head"
Microsoft has nothing to do with the DNN project, other than the DNN codebase having its heritage in the IBuySpy Portal sample code. Granted, they worked somewhat with the DNN project during it's inception, but I don't believe they actively contribute to the project. Please correct me if I am wrong. The way I see it, Microsoft has no incentive (other than purely political) to contribute to it as it is in somewhat direct competition with some of their own products like SharePoint (and CMS, which is now defunct because of SharePoint). DashCommerce is based on CommunityServer, which was developed by Telligent, not Microsoft. Microsoft may actively contribute to the project -- I don't know. I'll assume that they do seeing as you mentioned DashCommerce (I'm too busy to do the research at the moment).
Microsoft has gotten a lot better with respect to work with OSS as opposed to against it, but people should remember that Microsoft only does this for political reasons -- if it works to their advantage to play nice with certain OSS projects they will do so. CodePlex is a great initiative to get a community of OSS developers working on the Microsoft platform as opposed to other non-Microsoft platforms. If the threat of OSS projects (Linux and MacOSX based) weren't such a threat then I suspect that sites such as CodePlex would not have been created. It all comes down to a battle for OSS developer mind-share. That's just my opinion...I could be wrong :-) - daeken, on 10/07/2008, -0/+4@sirhomer, Actually, I'm wrong. It's 'open source', but it's their shared source nonsense.
- ethana2, on 10/07/2008, -1/+5It is a good thing, yes, but it's also a bad thing.
It's a bad thing because it keeps graphic designers away.. but at the same time, you have every other linux distro out there actually /shipping/ GIMP. --That'd be like if every mac came with some corel thing. If Adobe screws around much longer, they're going to end up regretting it. - morhippo, on 10/08/2008, -0/+4Google Earth is not using wine or winelib, rather it is a Qt program and can thus natively be used on Windows, Mac and Linux.
- TehDoctor, on 10/07/2008, -0/+4codeplex is so tied up with closed source stuff, like Team Foundation Server, it's not a contribution worth noting. Which is a pity since I'm sure projects hosted on it like 'rawr' (WoW tool) and 'Live hits finder' are so life changing I hadn't heard of them until I just went and looked at codeplex. No one cares.
A laundry list of people MS pays to work on open source projects that didn't start at MS would be great. As much as it's nice that their formats are being released and .NET is "open", those are just releases the company makes to keep it's market share. Google contributes to code it doesn't originate. MS does not (as far as I know)
"I'm glad you cleared that up for me"
Well, you're the one bitching about 'security through obscurity' when that has nothing to do with raw numbers of patches contributed to multiple outside projects.
Troll - lapubell, on 10/07/2008, -2/+6that is just plain silly. rewriting a program that was originally meant for windows will pretty much fork the two and they won't be at the same version at all.
now, why google didn't plan for the different platforms out of the gate for a software plan (the chrome browser) from the beginning is a little different, but from what I understand, Picassa was bought. So they are just making Wine work better, so it will work better with Picassa, and at the same time, they are making Adobe products work better. That is just plain awesome.
As far as resources being eaten up, it isn't universal. There are many games that run leaner through wine than on Vista. - abbathdoom, on 10/07/2008, -0/+4"Taking the time to fix bugs in WINE seems like a waste of resources when you can just create it to work on linux."
How is it a waste of resources to port these apps in a way that requires less resources than writing them natively from? That is saving resources.
Secondly, this way the whole Linux community benefits from the port even if they never use the app being ported, something with negates many feelings of resentment against them not doing a native version. - Tddupre, on 10/07/2008, -1/+4The banks of course
- DeviateSeptum, on 10/08/2008, -0/+3Adobe is traveling the route that Sun did. They will eventually support open source but probably by the time they do, it will be too little too late.
- greyfade, on 10/07/2008, -1/+4Not really. Picasa uses the Wine libraries as a sort of half-way port. It's really very half-assed. Same with Google Earth and a lot of other things. They were developed for Win32, and then the Linux "port" just links it to Winelib.
- inactive, on 10/08/2008, -1/+4are you drunk?
- sfury, on 10/08/2008, -0/+3how about they contribute an official native version of Chrome to Linux? oh wait, we're supposed to run that through Wine too...
- exscape, on 10/07/2008, -1/+3Who would receive the money?
- oobuntu, on 10/08/2008, -0/+2It a shame they don't make native picasa since a real native version would be a massive boost for people thinking of switching. Having the windows file menus etc just makes it ugly to use.
In reply to greyfade, are you sure that google earth is not native? I believe it is a native Qt application. - xiangxianni, on 04/20/2009, -0/+1http://ubuntuguide.net/how-to-play-warcraft-3-on-u ...
- deezeejoey, on 10/07/2008, -4/+5Oo yay, google desktop!
They'll put that pointless ***** into everything. - insanebrain, on 10/07/2008, -0/+1Johny
- aliem, on 10/08/2008, -1/+2"Taking the time to fix bugs in WINE seems like a waste of resources when you can just create it to work on linux."
It's good to fix bugs ... so we could play that so much-praised crysis (... so much exalted here on digg at least) - GothAlice, on 10/08/2008, -0/+1Hail Eris!
- aliem, on 10/08/2008, -0/+1google transator maybe
- razorxpress, on 10/07/2008, -3/+1The answer why Google is not writing WINE natively is simple. When you get close to original (not so much) by a wrapper called wine and when you have contributed so much people and money on it, you certainly want the wrapper to work fine. Google runs many applications using WINE, because they run Linux as servers and they have to run some windows apps. So to get their programs do better they have contributed to WINE. And another reason for not writing Native to Linux is that Linux at Desktop is still not a threat to anybody until it has taken a serious Market Share. That means they are not interested to provide anything for us, they are writing it for themselves, we use theirs.
- FKnight, on 10/07/2008, -5/+1Microsoft could release Windows under GPL and it wouldn't be considered Open Source because it has the word "Microsoft" in front of it.
- Vodd9, on 10/07/2008, -5/+1What's the reason for companies for contributing to the developpement of free and open source software? How to they expect to get money from investing in it?
- daeken, on 10/07/2008, -11/+6Yes, because MS hasn't released the DLR, IronPython, IronRuby, WiX, F#, etc under OSI-approved licenses. Clearly, this open source code (supported by the Open Source Initiative you seem to put so much stock in) is really proprietary... because MS is bad.
Seriously, there's lots of ***** to bash MS legitimately for, but this isn't one of them -- they've been releasing a lot of open source code these days. - LoganSerman, on 10/07/2008, -9/+4This is cool and all, but doesn't Picasa already run natively on Linux?
- Matt2k, on 10/07/2008, -6/+1> Excuse me, how does Microsoft contribute to Open Source?
codeplex.com, dashcommerce.org, dotnetnuke right off the top of my head, not to mention that both companies employ people who contribute to open source. .NET and Office specifications among others. There's a ton of open source projects either sponsored directly by microsoft, or around that community.
Or is it only open source if they contribute to the projects that you personally follow?
I think we can let the proprietary OS slide a little since without it, none of those contributions would ever have happened.
> No one is forcing you to use Google's services.
Wonderful. I'm glad you cleared that up for me. I was concerned I was stuck with Google services. - RyanPatrick, on 10/07/2008, -9/+1Who is 5/5?
- Tddupre, on 10/07/2008, -11/+2Google Buys WINE in 3...2...1
- Matt2k, on 10/07/2008, -12/+2Compare this with Google's ideas: Using completely proprietary search algorithms, unknowable adsense fraud mechanisms, and anti-spam mechanisms, and securing them solely through obscurity.
See how ridiculous that sounds? Both companies contribute to open source projects, just in different ways.
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