Right off the bat I would like to say something. If I buy a legal copy of Windows 98 and want to use Win4Lin or whatever to make sure I have access to Windows only programs within my Linux desktop, that is my business. As I read this article about Microsoft saying they that are going to be checking for Wine when running the ‘Genuine Advantage‘ anti piracy initiative, I about lost it.

They have every right to make sure that the copy of Windows you are running is in fact legal. And yes, it is within their rights to screw up your Wine usage as well since it is working off of their software. But no matter how you cut it, the fact that they are going to be causing errors for Wine users will do NOTHING to stop Open Source from marching on. It is a shame that they still have yet to grow up.

Microsoft’s Windows Genuine Advantage (WGA) program has had its share of critics. But this week, a number of open-source advocates joined the ranks of those questioning Microsoft’s methods for thwarting software piracy.

On Wednesday, a developer of Wine — an open-source implementation of the Windows application-programming interface that allows Windows applications to run on Unix and Linux — said he discovered that Microsoft’s Windows validation tool checks for Wine and generates an error when it is found.

Wine developer Ivan Leo Puoti’s e-mail was linked on the Slashdot.org site and immediately generated a flood of comments. While some posters said they believed Microsoft was within its rights blocking users who were running older versions of Windows, others said they believed Microsoft was unfairly targeting users running legitimate Microsoft software on top of non-Microsoft operating systems.

WGA, which Microsoft began beta-testing in September, is set to become mandatory later this year for all users looking to download Windows-related patches, fixes and other software add-ons from Microsoft. The program is designed to check whether consumer and small-business customers are running legitimately licensed copies of Windows XP.