Windows GDI+ (x86) Forum

@Don, could you please provide the platform SDK license for everyone to see, so that we know whether or not and how if so it is legal?

Hi,

...??...I have -- it takes the form of the URL provided by
the 'Product Page' link on the 'Details' page here ...

Cheers!

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

Hi,

...??...I have -- it takes the form of the URL provided by
the 'Product Page' link on the 'Details' page here ...

Cheers!

Could you mind posting a link here, this info could be helpful with a project I am working on that could take 2 different .app bundled bottles of FL Studio extremely far forward, besides, I suspect ninjas may be checking this one out since I told them I used this copy of the GDI+ dll in one of them.

...see my previous reply -- all application submissions are reviewed
by codeweavers staff before being accepted into C4 ; likewise is so
for all crosstie profiles. In that respect, this app entry (and it's
crosstie) are primarily used in other crosstie profiles, and as such
the installation is 'silent'... so even if I put an installnote in
the crosstie pointing to the information already recorded here, nobody
will see it...

...if you have licensing issues with whatever project you're working on,
you should cover those things in your project ; you don't need a link,
here, to achieve that...

Cheers!

@Don: I see that I may not have communicated what I am trying to say here properly. I am trying to say that supposedly a few people that work for codeweavers think I got gdi+ directly from a Windows installation to make something work, I checked the link on the page but got a very vague answer on what the license was, one that would obviously make it a legal either direction open to interpretation because it refers to a license that is not even posted and since it is a silent install, a settlement is impossible to be reached in either direction, but that it is most likely to be not in microsoft's favor unless you have a biased judge in such a case for reasons of a poorly written end user license agreement on the download page and thus a lack of "I Agree" button or link to sign or seal the agreement. I was just hoping to prove a point and nothing more that I did not directly use Windows to get the dll, but rather used the crosstie for this app.

If anything Microsoft would face legal trouble if they tried to sue, due to a violation of the sherman antitrust law.

...the gdiplus.dll (redistributable) referenced here, is a supplemental,
replacement library for the version(s) originally shipped with multiple
Windows operating systems. As such, using this gdiplus.dll is tantamount
to having used the version of gdiplus.dll that originally shipped with
whatever Windows version it is/was part of. This is all pretty clear to me,
reading the first paragraph of the 'Overview' section of the URL I linked
to as the 'Product Page' ; I can't imagine how any confusion could be apparent..

Cheers!

then in such a case since wine has its own version of gdiplus, then we have to assume it is also legal to use with wine, and possibly even reactos since reactos uses libraries derived from wine, as should anything repackaged from a wine based bottle, do to it having a gdiplus library based on that argument and thus my argument about it being perfectly safe to use since the gdi+ version used can be indeed verified that at signing was not part of a windows installation but rather a supplement and nothing more.

...no, that is an incorrect conclusion -- please read (and understand)
the first paragraph of the 'Overview' section of the URL I linked to as
the 'Product Page' -- it is clearly written, free of any ambiguity, and
there is no complex legalese involved ....

Cheers!

Already have read it, and once again they were not direct by providing the terms for those products, and besides I also read this:
Q. Can Microsoft prevent CodeWeavers' customers from running Microsoft applications on Linux?
A. No. Microsoft's end-user licenses do not preclude operating their applications under other operating systems. Were Microsoft to attempt to prohibit such usage, by requiring that Microsoft products be run only on the Windows OS, they would be in violation of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act. The Sherman Act precludes making the usage of a non-monopoly product dependent on the purchase of a monopoly product. Microsoft has been convicted of monopolist practices under the Sherman Act regarding their operating systems. As a result, they cannot legally make Microsoft Office dependent on having a Windows OS license.
here: http://www.codeweavers.com/products/licensing/
more on that here.

That can mean only one thing, and I am sure you know what it is. If such a law did not exist, then wine would be illegal because microsoft could make running win32 apps and dlls on anything but Windows illegal, but such a law makes such practices illegal thanks to its expansions.
Want an example of how that law was used against microsoft? Look up Netscape vs. Microsoft.

...you still don't get it -- as a supplemental, replacement library
for a system library shipped with the original OS product, the library
is subject to the same licensing provisions that apply to the original
Windows installation, which is all you're legally licensed to use this
software library with. The only difference between the gdiplus.dll here
and that supplied with Windows, is that one is -not- permitted to be
redistributed ; this one is. The actual -legal- situation wrt the usage
scenarios involved when using this software library with crossover/wine,
is the purview of solicitors/lawyers and likely beyond the scope of accurate
comment/discussion in these forums...

Cheers!

Artist Formally Known as Dot wrote:

...you still don't get it -- as a supplemental, replacement library

for a system library shipped with the original OS product, the
library
is subject to the same licensing provisions that apply to the
original
Windows installation, which is all you're legally licensed to use
this
software library with. The only difference between the gdiplus.dll
here
and that supplied with Windows, is that one is -not- permitted to
be
redistributed ; this one is. The actual -legal- situation wrt the
usage
scenarios involved when using this software library with
crossover/wine,
is the purview of solicitors/lawyers and likely beyond the scope of
accurate
comment/discussion in these forums...

Cheers!

Actually from what I am beginning to see from that post, we are arguing over a situation that has never been to court and until it is interpreted by a judge we do not know its full legal implication, but that we in part agree with each other over which is pointless and this is the perfect time to lock this one down, you just said that the replacement library is redistributable if it is from KB975337 but not directly from a Windows installation. Besides the contradiction if you can distribute it freely but only when used with Windows idea is exactly what I was outlining in the licensing faqs, whether or not it is a supplemental replacement or not, it can still be seen as a violation of antitrust law in that view by rule of reason if Microsoft ever tried to sue anyone attempting to use it outside of Windows. Doesn't matter if it is me, you, or anyone else trying to use it on linux or mac. Lets end this here, I do happen to understand how various parts of federal law work and these posts are almost beginning to look like they will have to go to court before they will be resolved if it doesn't end here.

..we do not 'argue' in these forums ; all we have are points of debate and/or
instruction. wherein ultimately, the thread/topic is judged to be the winner..or not...

... at it's most base level however, having to use any Windows native software
library, with winetech, means wine is not providing a 'solution', because such
usage, of even one software library such as this, means that the end user has to
agree to (and be bound by) any (Windows) software licensing (EULA) associated with
that software library -- this is the what at the heart of the wine project ; avoiding
that situation. One really can't, for instance, be in the business of providing
winetech based solutions (to third party software vendors), and claim to have
successfully accomplished that goal, if one of the caveats is 'still requires users
to agree with M$ EULA in order to legally use required software library'.. no,
that is epic fail really, and also constitutes a failed 'port' using wine, because
it's not that...

...a truly successful 'port' utilizing winetech, shouldn't involve the use of
Microsoft proprietary software libraries at all...unless such are part of a M$
game/app obviously. Folks don't realize this, and nor is the word 'port' used
correctly a lot of the time ... but for example, finding out a game needs directx
installed justbecause* one tiny thing is broken in one wine native dx3d9 dll, is
nothing to be joyful about -- but the situation is often construed as a win. Same
with this library -- if your app requires this dll installed to work properly,
then that means the associated builtin wine version(s) of same require more work,
before a functional porting solution (with winetech) can be achieved. The debate,
should not center around (or move to) considerations of licensing issues ; the
real answer, is to get the wine builtin gdiplus library working better...

...at least on that front, you may see some joy sooner rather than later -- the
wine builtin gdiplus is being actively worked on (more and more apps are utilizing
library calls it contains), so with any luck, reliance on this native library
will drop away with the passing of time... that said, there is quite a bit still
to do ....

http://bugs.winehq.org/buglist.cgi?quicksearch=gdiplus&list_id=13391

Cheers!

That is a very valid point too, since the debate was not over Microsoft licensing but merely over the purpose of the crosstie the debate slowly loses its relevance. Even I can agree that it would be wonderful when we do not need this runtime component, I could say the same about .Net Framework too and I agree when regarding DirectX, ASIO, Microsoft Visual C Runtime, etc. Core Fonts, on the other hand I do not see a possible replacement for, though a community replacement for gm.dls I can see feasible in the near future though. On the other hand, my argument is that during the time prior to wine gdiplus maturing, we pretty much have to use this library and Microsoft cannot sue anyone for using it without violating the exact same clause that netscape sued them over back when Microsoft was moving to push Windows 98 on to the market, so your last statement is irrelevant for that reason. It should not matter if the gdiplus native library is used as a way to fix a broken app or as a substitute for the wine version when looked at from a legal standpoint, it only should matter from a moral one. The gdiplus library is not open source, and that should be the reason we should progress wine forward and obsolete this implementation.

I hope I can clarify a few things.

First, if you obtain a physical, binary file called 'gdiplus.dll' from Microsoft in some way, you will have obtained it by agreeing to some license. That license will use the power of copyright (and contract enforcement) to bind you to a set of terms. Redistribution of that physical binary is more than likely a violation of those terms.

If, instead, you compile your own copy of gdiplus.dll.so (or it's stub dll, gdiplus.dll) using the Wine source code, you are granted a very clear license (LGPL v2) which allows you to redistribute that binary, so long as you follow the terms of the LGPL.

The key here is that Wine contains complete alternate implementations of the Windows API, so we are not using any materials copyright by Microsoft; we have our own implementation.

The FAQ you refer to more address the question of: if you obtain FOO.EXE from someone (not Microsoft), Microsoft has no ability to prevent you from using that FOO.EXE in conjunction with Wine, and any attempt to do so would rather quickly get them into trouble with Mr. Sherman.

I hope that helps.

Cheers,

Jeremy

Jeremy White wrote:

I hope I can clarify a few things.
The FAQ you refer to more address the question of: if you obtain
FOO.EXE from someone (not Microsoft), Microsoft has no ability to
prevent you from using that FOO.EXE in conjunction with Wine, and
any attempt to do so would rather quickly get them into trouble with
Mr. Sherman.

That supposedly means the DLL can be in place until I provide some hacks to wine and obsolete its useage. As long as it does not get redistributed since even if Microsoft was in the wrong it still violates the LGPL of wine itself to distribute it due to a license that violates the LGPL, whereas codeweavers does not add any code to wine itself that it would not contribute to wine directly and thus does not violate the LGPL since distributing it with wine would mean wine code would have been replaced with proprietary code in violation of open source software agreements.

I will be working on seeing what I can do. Any good docs on GDI+ not from Microsoft? I prefer to find one that makes wine work better without needing any microsoft runtime components.