Cedega
|
|
Cedega (formerly known as WineX) is TransGaming Technologies' proprietary fork of Wine, which is designed specifically for running games written for Microsoft Windows under Linux. As such, its primary focus is implementing the DirectX API.
The community has managed to keep Wine in touch with developments in Cedega; many of the games and 3D applications run as well as if not better than Microsoft Windows.
WineX was renamed to Cedega on the release of version 4.0 on June 22, 2004.
| Contents |
Point2Play
Along with Cedega itself, subscribers have access to a front-end/launcher for Cedega called Point2Play. Point2Play allows for simpler management of games, with each new game having its own fake Windows installation created automatically at install time. Version 2.0 of Point2Play was released on June 7, 2005.
Licenses
Transgaming makes the source available from a CVS under a non-Free license, and while the license would permit non-commercial redistribution of the software, Transgaming has threatened to close their parts of the source entirely if this would happen. They also strongly discourage distributions like Gentoo Linux from using the CVS source and letting people build their own version of Cedega.
Controversy
While Cadega is popular among many Linux users, there is a sizeable portion of the Linux community that refuses to use the program. There are two main reasons for this.
Firstly, many Linux users feel that in encouraging development of Cadega, they are discouraging the development of native ports of games or even Linux-exclusive titles.
Also, many in the community object to Transgaming's business practices by "making a quick buck" off the back of the Wine project. Transgaming obtained the source to the original Wine project when it was under a BSD-style license and this enabled them to create a new project that was under a non-free license, although Transgaming do release portions of the source code via CVS. The code that deals with CD copy protection is kept closed.
The official Wine project is now placed under the GNU Public License and this leads many to believe that Cadega are in breach of the license. However, as Transgaming acquired a version of the code that was not under the GPL, and have since worked from that, they are under no legal obligation to disclose the full source code as the GPL requires.
"Note that while this license does permit certain kinds of non-commercial distribution of pre-compiled binary packages of Cedega, doing so on a large scale is discouraged, as it affects TransGaming's ability to continue to improve and develop the code. TransGaming reserves the right to change the license under which TransGaming-owned copyright code is made available, and will not hesitate to do so if non-commercial distribution of pre-compiled binary packages adversely affects the financing of continued development."
External links
- CVS of Cedega (http://cvs.transgaming.org/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/winex/)
- Cedega product description page (http://www.transgaming.com/products_linux.php)
- Cedega/WineX sources page (http://www.transgaming.com/sources.php)
- Patches to run DirectX applications with wine (http://www.oliverthered.com/projects/wine)
- GetWineX (http://ting.homeunix.org/cvs_wine/GetWineX.html) — Unofficial scripts to get WineX for free via CVS
- Unofficial Transgaming Wiki (http://digital-conquest.ath.cx/wiki/) — Games Database
- Boycott Cedega (http://timedoctor.org/boycott_winex.php) — Reasons not to use Cedega
Template:Compu-stubde:Cedega (Software) fr:Cedega pl:Cedega sv:Cedega