SpecOps Labs has sent Flexbeta a few screenshots of “David” in action. David is the codename for a middleware application that sits on top of Linux to enable it to run Windows applications. This is the first time that “David” has been shown to the public (which apparently is nothing but WINE, but SpecOps managed to make a lot of fuss in the media about this “new technology” without mentioning WINE).
SpecOps Lab’s David Screenshots
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…wine.
It’s called Crossover Office
Look at the icons.
My god, another wine. Isn’t this great…
Ironic… as the other comments have suggested, this looks just like what you see with Codeweavers WINE release. Note that they used Office 2000 and only showed screenshots for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Ironically, Codeweavers only officially supports Office 2000 and 97, not XP. And they only guarantee compatibility with Word, Excel, and Powerpoint. They stress that Outlook and Access may work, but with unexpected results. If Project David is so new and good, why don’t they show us something we haven’t seen before instead of what appears to be CodeWeaver’s products?
Take a look at this picture:
http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/winbridge_install.gif
the second line in winbridge.lst is:
/etc/wine
and couple more lines down:
/usr/bin/wine
hmmm, sure sounds a lot like wine to me
/Line72
It is most likely a WINE based project with some of their own tweaks. Anyways, we will all know what the heck it is when it finally ships.
That was boneheaded of them. If I didn’t think it was WINE-based before, I do think it now…
They never actually said it wasn’t WINE based, infact they did say they are using their own code plus other open source code like from WINE:
“The code for “David” is a hybrid of code, including SpecOpS Labs’ own proprietary code, and code from several open source projects.” So maybe it is WINE with some tweaking. The application is set to be open source when released, I am sure we will be able to tell by then if it is true.
Did not notice that. So there is no question that this is just wine.
Making bold, hyped claims regardless of their truth is just silly. It certainly doesn’t help companies in this community – in fact I would venture to say that it is perceived as a sign of arrogance – far from endearing – and pushes others who might be proponents away. Just tell us what your software is, where you *hope* it is going, & be honest about it. Being excited is fine, just don’t purposely step on the toes of those around you with claims that no one can verify. The hype-mobile isn’t always positive.
I wonder if they’re gonna run afoul with the lgpl licensing.
Ok, so we now know its based on Wine, because of a mistake they made – fair enough, as long as they obey the licence I won’t hold it against them. And they’re trying to hype it up – fair enough, but trying to hype it up on a tech savvy website where people want details isn’t going to give them customers, and its going to turn people away from their products, espically as they’re not giving any credit to the Wine project (They don’t have to, but it does give them a bad rap amoung those who know its based on the work of Wine)
IF it ships.. My hunch is that once VC’s money pours in, this is going to delay and delay and delay…
u all noticed the computer on their homepage is a mac right? and an old 1 at that. just another interesting little fact about our wine… i mean david bridge thas going to revolutionize linux….
sumdays i jus dont wanna get out of bed.
>u all noticed the computer on their homepage is a mac right?
So what? Linux runs on Macs and its proberly a stock photo from some cdrom. Big Deal. You rather get up and open your curtains i might be possible you will see the light.
It’s just WINE: they don’t run some weird applications that WINE doesn’t support. What’s the point: they’ve “stolen” a free code that needed more than 20 years of development, put a new name to it, and said they discovered something new and great that can run virtually any windows application. Office & Outlook are just CrossOver Office.
Stupid & Ridiculous. What a joke!
WINE’s license is LGPL. This means that if you receive binaries of Project David which has WINE LGPL code in it, you should ask for the source code as well. If that’s true, Microsoft was right stating “Project David should be Free” (as in speech).
Other possibilities are that it merely links to WINE (legal because it is LGPL) or that it uses ReWind which is a fork of the last MIT codebase of a few years ago before WINE changed to the LGPL.
It’s painfully obvious that what this company has done is instegate a media circus to promote a product that would have surely been obscure otherwise. Gaining the attention of Microsoft may have been more hurt than help, since they may be researching anti competative tactics against wine technology now.
Codeweavers DOES support MS Office XP. They do not support MS Office 2k3 yet though.
About the screenshots:
I’ll only be impressed by David once I see screenshots of stuff Wine doesn’t do.
Wine used to be licensed with the X license which permits using the code w/o divulging your modifications.
Very likely, David is based on the pre-LGPL version of Wine.
“Very likely, David is based on the pre-LGPL version of Wine.”
a whole of modern improvements are based on lgpled code. good luck to david then
i’m so disappointed. too bad i come from the philippines and from de la salle university
http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/winbridge_install.gif
and the file ms_office.Ist have the wine config file as we know it.. /home/.windows …
but the strange thing is, do they need to make config files for every program that they well install after this?
for in the winbridge installer dir. there are spes. config files for the windows program that they well install.
Is it still not possible run MS Access with WINE?
Maybe they should prove themselves with that.
Also in recent news posts around the web, didn’t they say they were at the early stages of their project David? How is it they are able to do this.
http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/winbridge_install.gif
That screenshot convinces me that this is WINE, or WINE based.
Excuse me to say it was MIT. It used to the X11 license indeed.
“i’m so disappointed. too bad i come from the philippines and from de la salle university
”
Do you know the persons behind Project David? Did you heard anything from the project at your university? Do you see any chance to make an interview with them, eventually posting it on the Internet so we have some more background? You’ve got a great chance to contribute over there.
John Blink i was thinking the same. Strange, isn’t it?
I see people here saying it is CrossOver. Well, what is CrossOver, is competition with CrossOver illegal, and what’s wrong with it? CrossOver is GUI / DE integration of WINE. Free (speech and beer) alternatives are available as well. CrossOver is an important, user-friendly bridge for the less technical inclined people and comes with support.
CrossOver is using a proprietary, non-free (beer) model as well, though they do give back to WINE itself. CrossOver seems to support slightly more applications than WINE does. Why shouldn’t Project David be allowed to walk a similair or the same path? Giving back to WINE while keeping the frontends and scripts proprietary, like CrossOver does?
Even if Project David isn’t walking that path they could still: demand money for their source improvements even when they’re (L)GPL or otherwise compatible with the LGPL. One could make an improvement to a FLOSS application, demand money for the source, then releasing the source to the public. A bit a-la Blender.
Do the above as said in last paragraph with the frontend.
“What’s the point: they’ve “stolen” a free code that needed more than 20 years of development, put a new name to it,”
Heh, WINE has been in development for 20 years? That’s news to me! Amazing considering Windows 1.0 was released in 1985!
Why don’t they just license crossover and save a lot of R&D. They could probably get Codeweavers to sign a non-disclosure agreement. If you want to impress me let me see a shot of Far Cry or The Doom III beta running in it.
They could be using the old pre-LGPL X11 code which they wouldnt have to open source.
It’s obviously WINE. Even their computer says so. I am so disappointed with this company (I come from the Philippines). People aren’t going to bite that.
>Heh, WINE has been in development for 20 years? That’s news
>to me! Amazing considering Windows 1.0 was released in 1985!
Yeah and it was based on Wine 0.0.1, MS is trying to get rid of Wine with SlowHorn.
http://www.flexbeta.net/images/david/office_desktop.gif
See the hilighted Winword? Thats windows hilighting (tabbed but non-focused), definitely not Nautilus.
No wonder the SpecOps staff took the screenshots themselves – they are doctored!
> See the hilighted Winword? Thats windows hilighting (tabbed but non-focused), definitely not Nautilus.
> No wonder the SpecOps staff took the screenshots themselves – they are doctored!
Actually that’s KDE desktop. Click on desktop and the last icon that was selected becomes higlighted like in the screenshot.
Im willing to bet that the MS Office they are using
is pirated.
cant stand that, it is a little hard to tell which de is running without a close look. that is definely gnome. notice the large wastebucket, and the sort of semi-open folder.
OR
it could be kde, notice the lack of top bar, notice that there is no username on the home folder, also notice the clock in the corner…
hmmm I would not put money on trying to guess which de is running when you use the bluecurve theme, I hate it, but then again, it is easily changed.
I suspected this product was about as real as “psychic surgeons” and about as useful as the “I Love You” virus.
Can’t you guys see the konqueror throbber in the upper right-hand corner of the file browser? This is obviously KDE.
Heh, I’m with you on that one
Piracy is so common there it’s almost trivial.
They may have a good product in the works but all the pre-hype is making them stink. Until they actually come up with something I still believe this is all hogwash.
yes, seen konquerer, so what, it can run under gnome too. some people prefer it as a file browser so they will run that.
the point is that bluecurve is a crap looking theme as is just confusing
If you dig around you’ll see that IBM has given them money for development. I’ll hold off judgement a lil bit longer.
So, we have a secretive company that claims to have reverse-engineered Windows’ API from scratch when in actuality they use WINE.
Compare to Codeweavers, who didn’t claim to do anything but package WINE so that it is more useable, and they give all their changes to WINE back to the community.
Why do we need SpecOps Labs again? We already have one company that understands what it means to engage in honest business practices with open source projects. Not just grab, modify, resell.
This is the kind of company that makes other companies afraid to open source their projects. Until they prove us that they did something useful, let’s not feed the hype any longer.
“If you dig around you’ll see that IBM has given them money for development. I’ll hold off judgement a lil bit longer.”
Source, please???
Yeah, it’d be better to wait to see if this turns out any better than what we have right now, for sure. It’s something to keep an eye on however.