WINE is free software. It is under the GPL. But WINE is a borderline case.
The project and website (not the software itself) actively recommends the
proprietary Crossover suite. And realistically, most people do use it to
emulate proprietary software in particular. StarCraft and most PC games are
proprietary. It's not nearly as necessary for a game to be free software as,
for example, a movie player or an office suite, because these are wholly
functional works whereas a game is nearer to a unique work of culture or art.
What game companies have to learn is that they won't lose profits by
releasing the engines of their games as Free Software; in fact, by doing so
they extend the shelf life of the product through modding, and give the
gaming community valuable assets to study and build on.
GNASH in its most recent iterations is finally getting to the point of being
a reliable decoder of SWF up to version 8 and 9. We need to put pressure on
video sharing websites to use HTML5 and Theora instead of a closed standard.
Ads are simple enough that they generally don't glitch. Games are another
story; they are so complex and use so many different parts of the SWF
specification that even SWF 7 games commonly fail to load into the title
screen.
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