Well, lets talk about the success first... Finally playing EvE online again, but not in wine. I had to get a subscription to Cedega. Fortunately it was only 25USD. The program(s) work perfectly (together) but I wasn't too into paying for linux software. I have had great success with wine and windows games in the past, but could not get EvE running. The deciding factor for me was even though Cedega runs on a subscription, once you buy it you don't have to keep subscribing unless you want the new engine.

Anyway I'm pleased with it but what are your views on the matter?

There is no such thing as a pure OS when it comes to the Desktop market.

Although Cedega is a bit of a parasite, not sure why you think you sold out. You needed a tool, the best one for the job involved paying money, the tool works and you can do what you need to.

And as this is a discussion/opinion piece, I have moved it to General.

when it comes down to paying for linux software, i would just eliminate the speed penilty of emulation and dual boot win/lin.

If it's working well for you, I am not sure it matters what we think.

Depends smeezekitty.

I play WoW on Wine with no speed penalty at all. It runs the same as it does on Windows XP and faster than it runs on Windows Vista. I don't have a high speed power computer, just a cheep laptop that I got at Bestbuy. Only thing I did make sure is that it had a NVIDIA card.

wine and any variant of it are great tools if used when only absolutely necessary. I use it for programming too, by compiling and running my programs to test the Windows side of them, its a amazing tool.

-Jessica-

Amen, I've said the same about WoW before. Wine is great but I was simply unable to get it to run this app.

I was just wondering if anyone had any thoughts on it, pay for linux software is kinda "fringe".

I understand. Wine is a great tool but it doesn't always work. But don't worry. Open source is about Freedom, not No Charge. Free software and Open source have nothing at all to do with money or the lack there of. Yes most is at no charge but buying software has nothing to do with the fundamentals of things.

-Jessica-

IMHO If you have to pay for software you are losing your freedom.
you are losing the freedom to acquire it without giving something else up.

Incorrect. The idea of free software is that when you pay or obtain it that you own it. You have the freedom to do what you wish with it. You can reprogram it, use the code, and/or study the code. You have the ability to give it out after you make your changes as long as you document where and who you got it from and what changes you made. There is some order to it to keep from misuse but you still have a unimaginable amount of freedom.

By your logic we have no freedoms at all because Freedom always costs us something. Whats the old quote? Freedom isnt Free?

-Jessica-

i think it would be a better world if the GPL was written so you cannot sell the software.

The GPL allows for "Darwinian" programming. If I write a movie player and charge £10 for it and it's no better than the ones already out there that cost nothing, then my program will not be used. If it is superior and becomes a "must have" then I will make some money. You can charge what you want and I can pay what I want. Don't forget, even coders have to eat.

if linux kernel wasnt free as in cost, many less people would be using it.

smeezekitty

Nice dodge there

The point is, is that buying software does not limit your freedom. The Free software movement wasn't a way to get free programs, but a way to own what you get.

You buy the RIGHT to use Windows, you do not buy Windows. At any time they can decide to stop your Windows box and there's nothing you can do about it but complain. They hold all the keys and you simply pay a one time rental fee. You have no freedom over the OS other than what they allow. Microsoft isn't the only one who does this, its just a easy target to go at for software design like this.

People like to take the Free in Free software and make it Free Beer when its Freedom. Even if it is free as in no cost, it doesn't mean that buying a Open Source program is in some way destroying the idea of Freedom.

It doesn't matter if less people would be using the Linux Kernel if they had to pay for it, were talking about a concept of freedom here.

-Jessica-

I think your feeling guilty because you suffer from a common misconception within the linux community "Paying for software is wrong". Linux and Linus himself never said this, they disagree with software being published when it should be free such as windows.

A PC is useless without an OS so they should be free as should paint, DTP and things like the internet with it's user-generated content. I think it's amazing when I give a talk on user generated content and people say its a new thing. The internet is user-generated content, websites don't simply pop out of the ground (as if one day two miners were digging near cardiff when they found the internet "Hey Daveth, Look a this, its got GUIStuff & YouTube!").

With linux we are able to see lots more user-generated content in the forms of applications and programs and if we were willing to pay extra for some stuff it would probably be for the good of the community.

Further on this issue is that Cedega contributes to wine so it's kind of good that you 1) paid someone for their hard work and B)helped support others by doing so. You should not feel guilty you should feel happy, EvE works, your only about £20 lighter.

You have just given me inspiration for a whole new topic wow, ur good, have fun on EvE

NOTE[0]: CEDEGA RELEASES COMMUNITY SVN VERSIONS THAT WORK SLOWER BUT PRETTY MUCH THE SAME AS THEIR COMMERCIAL VERSIONS, TRY THESE 1ST!

NOTE[1]: I ACTUALLY ONCE GOT CEDEGA HMM... LAST YEAR IT WAS AND I WAS VERY UNIMPRESSED AS IT CAUSED ARTIFACTS IN WOW, STOCK WINE WORKED IMMEDIATELY AND THE DRIVE I STORED MY WOW ON WAS A 2.5 USB HDD HENCE YOU CAN USE THE SAME WOW IN WINDOWS AND LINUX WITHOUT MODIFICATION AND IT ALLOWS YOU TO UPDATE WOW FROM EITHER.