Packaging of PlayOnLinux

[Pete Travis]

On 10/15/2015 12:55 AM, drago01 wrote:
> On Wed, Oct 14, 2015 at 5:46 PM, Bastien Nocera <bnocera at redhat.com> wrote:
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>>> Dne 14.10.2015 v 16:50 Bastien Nocera napsal(a):
>>>> If the application cannot work without downloading anything, or being
>>>> supplied
>>>> third-party (sometimes proprietary) applications, then it's closer to an
>>>> emulator than a front-end that's generally useful.
>>> The guidelines speaks about *dependencies*.
>>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Packaging:Guidelines#Packages_which_are_not_useful_without_external_bits
>>>
>>> I think that the idea behind this wording was "runtime dependencies". To deny
>>> application which can not even run without
>>> those proprietary deps.
>>> PlayOnLinux is mainly for games, but you can run any Windows program using
>>> that. Even Gimp or Firefox (I could not
>>> remember program which does not have native linux version and is free).
>>> So it may not be useful for you, but it can be useful for somebody else.
>>>
>>> For me PlayOnLinux is much closer to virt-manager.
>>>
>>>> And emulators aren't allowed in Fedora.
>>> What?
>>> You mean like Wine, all those terminal emulators, QEMU, atari++, hercules,
>>> fuse-emulator and lots of others?
>> The ones listed here:
>> https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Licensing:SoftwareTypes?rd=Licensing/SoftwareTypes
> Wel the reason is not "because they are emulators" but "If it requires
> ROMs (or image files in any format) of copyrighted or patented
> material to be useful (and the owners of those copyrights and patents
> have not given their express written permission), then it's not
> permitted. " ... so "emulators aren't allowed is not what the
> guidelines say" (the wording is a bit odd though).
>
> As for PlayOnLinux its nothing more than a WINE frontend. So there
> shouldn't be anything wrong with packing it. You can use it it run
> free / freeware windows apps or windows apps (games) that you actually
> bought and therefore you do not violate anyone's copyright by using
> them.

My understanding - which is welcome to correction - is that the WINE
community, and presumably therefore utilities like PlayOnLinux, rely on
using specific versions of wine, often with specific patch sets, for
each application  or game.  Many of these patches never make it upstream
because they are not applicable in the broader sense.   That's rather
complicated stuff, and PlayOnLinux solves the problem by defining those
versions and patches and bundling them up for the user.

The greater feasibility question IMO is whether it is even possible for
PlayOnLinux to be effective when using system wine, and if not, whether
the package can be built in a guidelines-compliant way when it bundles
and patches this way.  Jirka, have you put together a spec yet, as a
proof of concept?

-- Pete