Now that i think of it, Marcus's point about redistribution is even more relevant than the problem with licensing.
If one was was allowed (legally) to copy DLLs from Windows without a license, i could do it..... because i know how.... could my mother?.... no way! The only people that i have any success in convincing to switch to Linux/Wine were in situations where it worked "out of the box". Having to download tons of redistributeables and DLLs from the web is not a good solution for "non technical users". Even on real Windows this is a problem. I cannot count the many times family & friends have called me saying: "Help! it says... Unable to find blabla.dll or blabla not installed" (using 2K/XP/Vista). Lets not copy this scenario. I want them to stop calling :-). /p On Fri, 2008-01-04 at 17:00 +0100, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > I do not think patents which are blocking your ability to use the DLLs > > in Wine. It is your Windows license. > > > > I believe that if you have a Windows license for your machine, you are > > free to use Windows or its DLLs. This includes all the "free" downloads > > from their web-pages. I think, if you do not have a license for that > > machine, you are in violation of the license, which is illegal. > > > > I am not sure i got all the details right but you can probably find more > > on their web-page. > > > > If i understand it correctly, it of course means that there are no > > really free downloads on their web-page, as they all rely on a purchase > > of Windows. This makes the "free" download kind of expensive. > > > > For Wine it means that anything the user has to D/L from their homepage > > is a no-no. > > Oh well, I didn't think about that, sorry. > Then it of course is a good thing if we implement our own d3dx. > > > > > > > > > > > >