Feed: Slashdot
Feed Link: https://slashdot.org/
---

Title: Teen Coder Shuts Down Open Source Mac App Whisky, Citing Harm To Paid
Apps

Link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/04/21/2014...

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Whisky, a gaming-
focused front-end for Wine's Windows compatibility tools on macOS, is no
longer receiving updates. As one of the most useful and well-regarded tools
in a Mac gamer's toolkit, it could be seen as a great loss, but its developer
hopes you'll move on with what he considers a better option: supporting
CodeWeavers' CrossOver product. Also, Whisky's creator is an 18-year-old
college student, and he could use a break. "I am 18, yes, and attending
Northeastern University, so it's always a balancing act between my school
work and dev work," Isaac Marovitz wrote to Ars. The Whisky project has "been
more or less in this state for a few months, I posted the notice mostly to
clarify and formally announce it," Marovitz said, having received "a lot of
questions" about the project status. [...] "Whisky, in my opinion, has not
been a positive on the Wine community as a whole," Marovitz wrote on the
Whisky site. He advised that Whisky users buy a CrossOver license, and noted
that while CodeWeavers and Valve's work on Proton have had a big impact on
the Wine project, "the amount that Whisky as a whole contributes to Wine is
practically zero." Fixes for Wine running Mac games "have to come from people
who are not only incredibly knowledgeable on C, Wine, Windows, but also
macOS," Marovitz wrote, and "the pool of developers with those skills is very
limited." While Marovitz told Ars that he's had "some contact with
CodeWeavers" in making Whisky, "they were always curious and never told me
what I should or should not do." It became clear to him, though, "from what
[CodeWeavers] could tell me as well as observing the attitude of the wider
community that Whisky could seriously threaten CrossOver's viability."
"Whisky may have been a CrossOver competitor, but that's not how we feel
today," wrote CodeWeavers CEO James B. Ramey in a statement. "Our response is
simply one of empathy, understanding, and acknowledgement for Isaac's
situation."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

---
VRSS v2.1.180528