wine users - Sep 2008 - Petition for PunkBuster Support/Version for WINE in Linux

Greetings,
I started this petition the other day.
http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/PunkBusterforWINE


As legitimate owner of a game, regardless of platform (providing that it will
actually run) - one should be entitled to the online experience attached to the
game.

Sadly, for many Windows(tm) games under WINE this cannot be done because of the
PunkBuster Anti-Cheat protection which does not allow those using a WINE based
API to access a PunkBuster protected server.

There is PunkBuster support for Linux game servers, so there is already in-house
knowledge of Linux at Even Balance. CodeWeavers and Transgaming are distributors
of commercial branches of WINE who would work with Even Balance to support their
largest demographic. (the gamers!)

Anything that is which allows WINE users to access PunkBuster protected servers
will be appreciated. (full implementation or not!)

This petition is to show community and market support to the parties who will be
involved in providing PunkBuster support for community and commercial WINE based
products.

Also, for those who want to criticize the way I have approached this, I
don't care (unless you really do have a better idea which I might take on
board).

Click Here to Vote! (http://www.petitionspot.com/petitions/PunkBusterforWINE)

Tell your friends to help make this happen.

here is my petition for you to learn coding yourself
(http://www.lejoueurlibre.com)  [Laughing]

seriously, community seems to be already active on this bug 
http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=9685

just vote for it and try to help, developpers don't need your pressure

Greetings,

OK, I'm that I did not make it clear enough to say exactly who I was
petitioning. I was not trying to pressure Wine developers, they are doing all
they can and they are doing well. I am very very thankful of the work that the
devs do.

Basically, as I didn't communicate strongly enough - I am looking support
from Wine users or anybody interested in the success of Wine. (I acutally prefer
to spell it WINE because of the acronym)

My understanding was that PB worked for most games but failed the Genuine
Windows check which resulted in being booted from the server.

If some native Linux games (Americas Army for example) have a version of
punkbuster which was modified from base code - why not make a version of PB for
WINE using the PB for Windows base code? Is that unreasonably hard?

I am trying to gather proof of interest in an attempt to
motivate/interest/justify Even Balance to make a version of PB for Wine.

It does not have to always be an uphill battle, if we can get some help from
Even Balance it could make things much easier.

Take Google Picasa for example (or Google Earth?). These applications did not
initially work in Wine - but with some inside help (sorry I forgot your name)
Google popped out a "Linux" client taking advantage of Wine.
I believe that the so-called Linux client for EVE online is actualy a slightly
modified (and bastardised, it's horrible) Windows Eve client with Cedega.

A little help from the other side is what I am aiming to encourage.

If you want to enjoy your stay on GNu/Linux and/or other free system you have to
learn one thing
Doing a petition is not the good way because with a program under gnu license
like wine, users are developpers.

I was like you few monthes ago and i regreted no one explained me the GNU
philosophy, just try to help by doing conformance tests for exemple, manage with
some code at your level and overall avoid term like "should",
"must" and "marketing" in your mouth

Say "bye bye  windows" to resume  :D 

Kind regards

There is no official PunkBuster reporting interface... If there was they would
be swamped.

I  do see your point though, unfortunately an independent petition seems the
best I can do. It would also represent the Wine community as a large chunk -
better than a few scattered reports.