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

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.'

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