Boycott Cedega and Transgaming* TransGaming writes incredibly enthusiastic pieces of propaganda which are mostly discussing software they did not write. The LGPL wine (the original codebase) has been developed for 9+ years, but TransGaming forked their version very recently, and does not contribute code back.
* TransGaming has consistently claimed that their approach is superior to native porting in every manner. However, native ports are typically more stable and run faster than games in Cedega. TransGaming claims that emulation leads to a faster development process, but many native ports have been completed in a matter of weeks or even days.
* TransGaming once promised to give back code to what was Wine, before it changed to the LGPL license. After it changed, they removed all mention of giving back code from their website.
* Note that other companies, like Lindows, and Codeweavers _are_ giving back code, and being good open source citizens. TransGaming encourages the misconception that their product is not an emulator, despite the fact that the founder of the Wine project refers to it as such. In order to replace the term "emulation", they refer to Cedega as a "portability technology", stretching definitions of both "portability" and "technology". If TransGaming really wishes to avoid the term "emulation", they should replace it with a phrase that actually reflects what Cedega does, such as "compatibility layer".
* TransGaming's Cedega may discourage developers considering native ports from following through with them. Developers may wrongly assume that their game works well enough under Cedega that a native version is not necessary.
* TransGaming has willingly stripped out all methods of debugging the Wine source base in their packaged releases, greatly slowing down the process of fixing bugs.
* Support for games varies wildly between releases, and even their vaunted "DirectX 8.0 support" is already one rev behind and about to be a second rev behind. It still doesn't provide access to all the nice features that the cards, DirectX, and the games support.
* Obviously, TransGaming does not, and cannot control the development of DirectX, it's a moving target they can't hit. This is the carrot on the stick for the gamer, to keep you subscribing in the futile hope that some day, the emulation will be near perfect for whatever game you want.
* TransGaming promises much, yet delivers little. Many people use Cedega to play Half-Life and the Counter-Strike modification. This mod is the most popular mod ever. In fact, if you buy the 'Mandrake Gaming Edition' (seemingly billing a non-native Cedega "port" of The Sims as a Linux game), the feature list offers Half-Life: Counter-Strike support. Still, there are many problems with the Half-Life emulation. The most notable of these problems is that the menus do not work, causing a significant drop in user-friendliness.
* These same Counter-Strike players couldn't play online for some time. Valve had implemented new anti-cheating software which detected Wine users as cheaters.
* As the anti-cheating software demonstrates, TransGaming does not control it's own destiny. If a game works, it is pure coincidence, and it can never be guaranteed that it will work with a future patch.
* There are many, good arguments against Wine(X) from other people, as well as us.
* TransGaming had a dirty little affair with Debian.
* Transgaming did the same thing with Gentoo: as mentioned here.
* TransGaming seems to be bringing the warez people to Linux. We don't want them. But all too often, we see people using Linux, and Cedega, to play Warez.
* TransGaming's list of games contains 24 games that are otherwise available natively.
* Perhaps the worst problem with TransGaming is the fact they are potentially killing some native ports. Cedega already killed a native port of Sacrifice. The port was in negotiation with Tribsoft, but they stopped negotiating when they found out that it worked (to whatever extent) under Cedega
If you feel similarly, we suggest buying native Linux games when you see them in retail stores, and online, at places like TuxGames. Please do not send hate-mail to developers like TimeGate who let rights to their ports go to TransGaming. TimeGate is doing the right thing in offering those rights, it's just a shame that the wrong people got them.
Feel free to send me (zakk) comments about this, especially diffs.
Uzeto sa [url]http://timedoctor.org/boycott_winex.php[/url]
You got one life, one chance, gotta do it right
Re: Boycott Cedega and Transgaming
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