Cedega

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Cedega
Basic data

developer TransGaming Technologies
Current  version maudite-17 (GameTree Linux)
operating system Linux
category Compatibility layer ; Implementation of DirectX - API
License proprietary
German speaking No
GameTree Linux

Cedega is a proprietary software that running Windows - games under Linux possible.

The software is developed by the company "TransGaming Technologies". The aim of the project is to develop a compatibility layer that is specially tailored to the DirectX game interface from Microsoft and is therefore particularly suitable for running DirectX games.

The project, which was originally called "WineX" and was based on Wine , has been developed independently of the Wine project since 2002 and was renamed "Cedega" in June 2004.

At the end of February 2011, the “Cedega Gaming Service” was discontinued as a software subscription. Cedega is now available free of charge through the GameTree Linux Developer Program.

Licenses

Although Cedega was mainly proprietary software, Transgaming made part of the source code publicly available under various licenses via CVS. Because of these licenses, Cedega was not free software despite the freely accessible source code . This CVS version was also used as a kind of demo in the past. However, since compiling is not that easy and not always unproblematic, Transgaming has temporarily offered a real demo version, which is no longer available. For some time now, demo versions of current games have been offered regularly via Cedega, with which Cedega could also be tested without a license.

Some Linux distributions , including Debian GNU / Linux and Gentoo Linux , wanted to include packages of Cedega's CVS version with their distributions. To prevent this, Transgaming threatened to tighten the licenses even further.

costs

The acquisition costs were between 25 and 45 euros, depending on the duration of the subscription, and were based on whether or not you wanted to receive a license key and an installation CD with the current Cedega version. An account was created with the license key purchased. With this account you could log into the Transgaming website and have access to a closed area. During the term of the subscription, the current version or updates from Cedega could be downloaded at any time and without restrictions.

When buying directly from the American manufacturer's website, there was only a small selection of payment options (primarily credit card). For many interested parties from the German-speaking area, one of the German resellers was therefore the ideal choice.

When buying from the manufacturer, you acquired a subscription that included a minimum of three months of updates from Cedega. When buying through dealers, other billing models (e.g. individual purchase) were also possible. After the subscription expired, Cedega could no longer receive updates. Already installed versions of Cedega could still be used without any restrictions even after the subscription expired.

criticism

Transgaming used the Wine source code as the basis for Cedega. Cedega was published as proprietary software and so no developments flowed back to the Wine project. This transgaming was made possible by the fact that Wine was previously under the X11 / MIT license, which contains no copyleft and is therefore a permissive open source license . According to Transgaming, these restrictions are necessary because Cedega contains, among other things, licensed code for running copy - protected games.

The developers of Wine responded by releasing future versions of Wine under the LGPL . This states that anyone who publishes a modified version of Wine must also place the source code under an LGPL-compatible license. Therefore, further improvements in Wine could no longer flow into Cedega, so that most games work much better with newer Wine versions than with Cedega. However, Cedega was also developed independently and adapted to newer games.

attitude

After the license of Wine was changed from the MIT license to the LGPL in March 2002, the further development of Cedega turned out to be extremely problematic. Over the years, the Cedega code base has only been rudimentarily patched instead of being further developed. In addition, with the spread of DirectX 10, the compatibility of Cedega with modern DirectX games decreased increasingly because it did not support the current version of the collection of proprietary Microsoft programming interfaces.

With CrossOver , there has also been a direct competing product since 2008, which is based on a current Wine version and avoids Cedega's criticisms.

Since further development as a customer-centric product was no longer profitable, the subscription service was discontinued at the end of February 2011. Cedega is now to be further developed via a developer program with the support of the publisher and will be available free of charge to end customers via the GameTree Linux Developer Program.

See also

Web links

swell

  1. ↑ TransGaming.Org: Cedega CVS ( Memento of the original from June 24, 2006 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / transgaming.org archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English)
  2. ↑ Transgaming Technology: Licenses ( Memento of December 12, 2005 in the Internet Archive ) (English)