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Wine Software

OSNews Interviews WINE's Alexandre Julliard 138

Posted by Hemos from the much-development-happening dept.
Eugenia writes "OSNews talks with Alexandre Julliard, the WINE project leader and also CodeWeaver's coder, regarding the future of WINE, the obstacles of the development, the WINE commercialization and lots more. An interesting read overall."
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OSNews Interviews WINE's Alexandre Julliard More

OSNews Interviews WINE's Alexandre Julliard

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  • Obstacles (Score:3, Flamebait)

    by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 29, 2001 @05:13PM (#2494758)
    The biggest obstacle to wine development must be MS itself. Considering the windows API is their corporate property, there's no reason they have to allow any other developers to emulate it. Just look at what happens to things like playstation emulators! The wine developers are heading for a lawsuit, for their disregard for the IP rights of others. Hopefully they'll get their product to us before then, but I suspect that MS will not be willing to permit this.

    • Re:Obstacles (Score:3, Informative)

      by Gaijin42 ( 317411 )
      As long as they are using blackbox coding, what they are doing is entirely legal. They are not releasing any MS code to the public, nor are they using any MS code to develop what they do.

      In fact, Microsoft was founded on a very simmilar situation. MS DOS competing with IBM DOS. (After they stopped playing nice of course)

      MS would have crushed them long ago if they had any ammo in this situation

      • Re:Obstacles (Score:3, Informative)

        by lseltzer ( 311306 )
        I agree that there's no legal problem for Wine, but your comparison to PC/MS-DOS is incorrect. PC-DOS was a licensed version of MS-DOS based on the actual code written by Microsoft. It was not an attempt to clone.

        • Re:Obstacles (Score:3, Interesting)

          by Eloquence ( 144160 )
          DR-DOS would be a better example. And in Caldera v. Microsoft, the actual danger for projects like WINE became visible: "We are supposed to give the user the option of continuing after the warning; however, we should surely crash at some point shortly later..." -- David Cole, head of Windows development, e-mail from 1991 regarding the detection of DR-DOS when running Windows 3.1

        • Re:Obstacles (Score:3, Informative)

          by msaavedra ( 29918 )
          Actually, you are only partially correct. Microsoft didn't write DOS originally. They bought it from Seattle Computer. Back then, it was called QDOS (the Quick and Dirty Operating System), and was a bad knock-off of CPM. Microsoft bought the OS, polished it up a little, renamed it MS-DOS and licensed it to IBM as one of the three OS's that were available for the IBM PC. It was much worse than the other OS's, but was also much cheaper, so it caught on. The rest is history.
      • I object, I was not trolling.
    • You seem to be confusing an API with the actual software behind it.
      Anyone coding windows software needs to know about the API. System calls, library calls, etc. This is, mostly, freely available information.

      Anyone is free to write their own versions of these routines.

      One thing making this difficult is the fact that Microsoft does not completely disclose it's APIs, and hides certain functions.

      • Anyone coding windows software needs to know about the API. System calls, library calls, etc. This is, mostly, freely available information.

        It doesn't have to be. For example MS may implement a new OS feature, and use it in Office without telling others how to use it. They may later decide to do it in a slightly different way (either because after experience the first way wasn't so good, or because they want the new way to be worse so their rivals are at a disadvantage), but they will probably keep to old one so older versions of Office keep working. The Office team may decide they like the old API better, or that they don't have time to move to the new one.

        Or they may share "undocumented" APIs with some software developers (say ones that don't compete with their own products), and not others (say ones that make Quicken...).

        They could also decide to put some APIs under NDA just to make WINE's life hard (and maybe Virtual PC at some future point).

        • I already said that 'Microsoft does not disclose all it's API calls' or some such thing in the post you just responded to.

    • Go reread copyright and patents laws/FAW's. API are not -copyrighted- as also ideas are not, protocols are not, GUI's are not. They can be -patented- altough which is a complete different story. (And there is also the possiblity to interfere with -trademark- laws. But reverse engineering -is- -legal-.

      Question: Why shouldn't it? Laws should be for the community of the people filling a state. And I don't see how a law that forbids reverse engineering would we of wealth for people.

      If you're a programmer or interested in software issues I highly recommend this link:
      http://www.doc.ic.ac.uk/~nd/surprise_95/journal/ vo l4/hml/report.html

      It should clearify how softare laws are really, in contrast to what of your personal understaing of justice.

      Unfortunally: Justice != Law
    • Just look at what happens to things like playstation emulators!

      They win in court [bowie-jensen.com] .

      Excerpt:
      "The intermediate copies made and used by Connectix during the course of its reverse engineering of the Sony BIOS were protected fair use, necessary to permit Connectix to make its non-infringing Virtual Game Station function with PlayStation games. Any other intermediate copies made by Connectix do not support injunctive relief, even if those copies were infringing.

      The district court also found that Sony is likely to prevail on its claim that Connectix's sale of the Virtual Game Station program tarnishes the Sony PlayStation mark under 15 U.S.C. 1125. We reverse that ruling as well.
  • I want to donate.

    Is there an address that I can ship cases of astro-glide to so that when MS decides to come after the WINE team, they won't feel TOO much pain?

    They're just asking for hell.

  • I haven't played with Wine, but I'm curious: Have they implemented the whole Windows printing subsystem? How is that handled?

    • Re:Printing (Score:2, Interesting)

      by (startx) ( 37027 )
      it basically sets up LPT1: (or whatever you pick) to point to lpr
  • It is ironic that MS got into business doing the
    same thing hacking the BIOS.

    Like the true geek he is, Bill only shrugs at
    irony. You can bet his team of bank rolled
    lawyers will be mounting their possee ready to
    hang WINE. MS doesn't need a court victory or a
    legitimate case: They can cripple WINE with legal fees.
    • Bill Gates and Microsoft don't give one whit about WINE and it's future.

      WINE will forever lag behind windows. It's not what people will run the latest and greatest [insert app/game here] under.

      The tiny little fraction of zoids who use wine, don't change the MS business one bit.

      I know for a fact that Bill Gates and Steve Ballamer Know about WINE, and Are actually happy that it's there. It's a Ace card with the DOJ. -- "SEE... Anyone can make a windows clone" It represents no loss in market share, but provides a clear example of the ability to replicate Windows.

      • WINE will forever lag behind windows. It's not what people will run the latest and greatest [insert app/game here] under.

        That's not true. I think Win98-compatibility (and maybe WinNT4 for some business apps) would be enough.

        Just tell me one Windows app that does not run on Win98 and/or WinNT4, systems that are more than 3 years old!

        For most apps, even Win95 compatibility (6 years!) would be good enough.

        And since (according to Microsoft themselves) more than 75% of Windows users still run Win9x, it's gonna stay that way for a loooong time.

        My best wishes and my deepest regards to the Wine project,

        Roland

    • What on earth are you on about? They didn't get into business 'hacking the bios' so it's not ironic at all.

  • Missing the point (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vlad_petric ( 94134 ) on Monday October 29, 2001 @05:45PM (#2494889) Homepage
    A program that almost runs is like a plane that almost flies

    Regardless of what Juliard says, WINE is mostly used as an app-level emulator. The problem is that WINE can't properly run most of the popular Windows applications, and, at the same time, alternatives like Win4Lin do a much better job at that.

    • The problem is that WINE can't properly run most of the popular Windows applications, and, at the same time, alternatives like Win4Lin do a much better job at that.

      Could you please post some real life experience about Win4Lin?

      How stable is it?
      I've heard it requires a kernel-patch, does this limit the kernel version you can use?
      Does it support DirectX? Does it run Flash-plugins in Internet Explorer?

      Thanks a lot.

      • Very stable. I've been using it for more than 1 year, and no crashes so far.

        They support certain kernels directly, so for those it is a piece of cake. I have also patched my own kernel with their open-source kernel patch without any problems. 2.2.x and 2.4.x are supported. Also, I think they are working on making this much easier in the future.

        DirectX is not supported. All plugins that I have tried for IE work fine, including Flash and Shockwave.

        Also, it is very fast! I have a very old computer at home (Pentium 233) and it runs MS Office, Visio, and FrameMaker very well. (All apps that I need to use for work.) They are within a few percent of native speed.
    • The problem is that WINE can't properly run most of the popular Windows applications

      Seconded; of course "popular applications" will be different for everybody. 90% of programs I tried with Wine just Didn't Work. I always ended up thinking "what POS software".. but given what they're trying to emulate, I think they're ready for 1.0 :)

    • WINE can't properly run most of the popular Windows applications

      I beg to differ. Perhaps your experience with Wine is a few versions old, or maybe you were trying to run something fancy.

      For the last several months, I have run, without difficulty, Quicken and Pegasus Mail. I also have successfully installed (but don't run regularly) Quickbooks. Reports of installations of MS Office are regular.

      Programs like Office, Quicken, et. al. are the programs that really keep users tied to Windows. I know, I know... Star Office, GnuCash, whatever. These alternatives miss the point for the masses. The masses of users want to be utilizing the same program as the "guy down the hall". They want to be using the same thing they used last week... and want it to have all the same functions and work the same way. Moving a function from one drop down to another is a big deal for a lot of users.

      I firmly believe that Wine has come a long, long way in the last few months, and that it holds one of the big keys to getting "the masses" on linux, if that's ever to happen. (The other, incidentally, is ease of installation, to the point where it's easier than a Windoze install.)

  • Excellent Project (Score:3, Interesting)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Monday October 29, 2001 @05:54PM (#2494926) Homepage Journal

    I can't say enough good things about the potential for this project to bring open source operating systems to the public at large.

    Backwards compatibility to previous versions of (closed) Windows is the biggest obstacle most casual users have with migrating to Linux. All that shrink-wrapped software purchased over the past 15 years - it has to work.

    Sheesh, even MS has backwards compatibility as its biggest obstacle to getting users to upgrade to the "next" OS.

    WINE can make a serious upgrade happen.

  • WINE is overrated (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eloquence ( 144160 ) on Monday October 29, 2001 @06:00PM (#2494952)
    I'm not trying to troll -- CW are doing a great job with WINE and it's nice that the project keeps getting better. I also think they have a fairly decent business model: Given the fact that Linux will soon replace Windows in all small companies ;-), there will be lots of of legacy apps that need to be ported painlessly (or, even better, run out of the box). Of course, they are competing with the hardware emulation guys, whose stuff is likely more compatible, and with some good programming tricks could possibly also become impressively fast.

    However, for the average Linux user, WINE shouldn't matter much. After all, what's the reason he uses Linux? Certainly not running Win32 apps, but trying to find free, open alternatives. We should not try to run MS Office but rather improve Open Office & Co. (and agree on a common document standard, damnit). Instead of investing time and money in getting PhotoShop to run on Linux, how about investing time or money in GIMP instead? Etc. etc.

    Add to this the fact that WINE has taken on a pretty large challenge. Given the speed with which Microsoft can (and possibly will) change their APIs in the future (and possibly make their own apps incompatible with WINE if it becomes a threat), I don't know if running common applications is really feasible. Again, hardware emulation looks like the more viable approach to me.

    Let's also not forget that, were it not for Microsoft's OEM contracts [infoanarchy.org], most PCs would probably come with a running, easy-to-use, well-configured Linux configuration by now, so new users could try both systems separately without ever having to touch Win32.

    • I forgot: One of the areas where WINE really matters for the end user, IMHO, is gaming, because games will probably take the longest to mature on Linux. And from what I hear WineX seems to be decently fast.

      Also, thanks to OSNews for the interview -- I really enjoy reading their site, it is quite frequently updated.

    • "Given the speed with which Microsoft can (and possibly will) change their APIs in the future (and possibly make their own apps incompatible with WINE if it becomes a threat), I don't know if running common applications is really feasible. Again, hardware emulation looks like the more viable approach to me."

      Wait a sec? What are we emulating in hardware? Wouldn't we need to emulate the API? Or better yet, the entire OS? If so, it seems like a really terrible idea to attempt to do so in hardware given the possible rate of change in the API... Isn't that why a hardware "general purpose machine" makes more sense? Even though hardware emulation would be faster, the approach the WINE project is taking seems far more feasible.

      Maybe I've totally missed something, but I don't see the hardware guys as having even the slightest chance in keeping up...
    • Quick Story:

      So I was at lunch with my friends today and another guy and I were talking about random linux stuff and servers and whatnot when one of our Windows-gaming friends popped in and said something to the effect of "I'll switch to Linux when I can game on it because it's just not worth the time and effort to switch back and forth for gaming and work."

      XBill aside, he's right - although he's not a typical buy-a-computer-from-Wal-Mart guy, he primarily games. No coding skills, aside from HTML and TI-Basic.

      Wine and WineX (or Transgaming or whaterver it happens to be) bridge this gap. He wouldn't hesitate to switch full time but just doesn't have the time/space/will to install a redundant word processor/ICQ/mail client. Most people don't. Not many average consumers are going to "try both systems separately" because life's busy and the PC is a way to increase productivity.

      While I agree with Loki - it'd be nice if the games were linux-native and true written-for-Linux stuff would be so much better in terms of speed and stability - the fact of reality is that as long as I can't play the latest game with my friends I'm going to keep Windows on my system, and as long as Windows is on my system I'm more likely to use things like Word (which, like it or not, currently is a superior word processor to Star/K/Gnomeoffice - if it fixes my subjunctive when I'm writing in Spanish, it stays).

      We shouldn't _have_ to load multiple operating systems. Someone on the recent REBOL thread used the Ferarri v. 85 Volvo Wagon analogie - it's just not valid in the case of an operating system. I should be able to word process, game, IM, e-mail, and research on the same platform. Windows lets me do that now.

      I use Linux for everything but gaming now (which actually increases my productivity). Wine(X) eleminates this. It's a crucial step. Wine isn't overrated. You can get a large segment of the Windows world by simply offering them gaming.

      They do have some challenges. Changing APIs will suck. But hell, AIM did, and now for a bigger challenge!
    • Desktop users arent likely going to use Wine to emulate popular Windows software like MS Office or IE, but rather to emulate smaller Windows programs that have no replacement yet.

      So Wine is going to be less needed as time goes by but there certainly are some desktop users who will find a use for it. Mostly the Windows users that have a very big Start menu.
    • However, for the average Linux user, WINE shouldn't matter much. After all, what's the reason he uses Linux? Certainly not running Win32 apps, but trying to find free, open alternatives.

      Sometimes you don't have a choice. When you use linux at work in a primarily windows environment, there are occasionally win32 applications that you are forced to use by your company (eg. Lotus Notes). WINE is fantastic for this, and has allowed me to completely banish windows from my work system, and that is awesome in my book! They have done a fantastic job, and I hope they keep up the great work.
    • I'm not trying to troll

      Oh, sure.

      Add to this the fact that WINE has taken on a pretty large challenge. Given the speed with which Microsoft can (and possibly will) change their APIs in the future (and possibly make their own apps incompatible with WINE if it becomes a threat), I don't know if running common applications is really feasible. Again, hardware emulation looks like the more viable approach to me.

      Microsoft will change the Win32API to make it incompatible to make Wine and *EVERY GODDAMN WINDOWS OUT THERE* incompatible?

      And you say that's likely?

      Compatibility is Window's only real selling point.
      Microsoft has done a lot of stupid things in the past, but this would effectively kill the Windows-dominance.

      What Microsoft does is *extend* the API, not change it.

    • However, for the average Linux user, WINE shouldn't matter much. After all, what's the reason he uses Linux? Certainly not running Win32 apps, but trying to find free, open alternatives.

      What you forget is that is an interim solution whilst you find an app that is sufficiently close. For instance, when I first switched more or less full time to linux I couldn't find a linux version of a mail/news program that had the ergonomic feature of single key read (hit spacebar to scroll down message then on to next and eventually on to the next folder). So I used agent (my windows program) under Wine until I had hacked kmail to include what I wanted. I now use kmail so wine is not needed until I get time to try and get one of my games working.

      Earlier in the year I did manage to get Grand Prix Legends (acting in server mode) running under Wine - I just got side tracked into getting the full version running - I wasn't far away but never finally finished it off.

      So I think it has great potential - as one of those interim things until you find an OSS native application that does the same job (which of course with games maybe never).

  • Compatability and Free/Open Source Software (Score:5, Insightful)

    by LoveMe2Times ( 416048 ) on Monday October 29, 2001 @06:03PM (#2494965) Homepage Journal
    I personally think that cross platform capabilities are truly one of the cornerstone capabilities of OSS. To me, the developments in WINE and Cygwin are some of the most important in the entire community these days. I know that's a pretty bold statement, but I say that because both of them are major enabler technologies, both making OSS viable to a whole new crop of users. I know that there are a lot of people that have the "Screw Windoze!" mentality, but users and community are the lifeblood of OSS, which is why I feel that these projects are so important. And they've made a lot of progress lately; I don't follow WINE really closely, but did you know that Cygwin can run XFree86 [cygwin.com], and that a port of KDE 2 is underway? I'm just waiting for the day when WINE and Cygwin can run each other... :) I must admit that I am really keen on Cygwin because it has such a low barrier for entry; it makes it so much easier to introduce my friends to open source and the *nix way. As WINE matures, getting them to upgrade to Linux will be cake: "Run the programs you're used to on a stable OS without M$ license restrictions!"

    • Quick question, have you ever actually run X on cygwin? I have, and its about as slow as a tortise, and that son a 700 MHZ. Not too usefull if you ask me.

      • I run X on Cygwin on a daily basis
        at work, it's on a Pentium 233MMX 128MB ram
        (old dog)

        it's slow but not slower than explorer 5.5
        or office 97 that we use as production environment.

        I find it _VERY_ usable,
        get me a descent shell, vim, ssh, etc..
        and an X server that cost 0$, + no licence problem.
        (comparing to eXceed or GoGlobal)

        YMMV
        (but on a pentiumIII 700MHZ it must fly)
        • I run X on Cygwin on a daily basis

          [snip...]

          First, I'm confused, why did this post get modded down?

          But you reminded me of something else that I'd really like to try: running a WIN32 app through WINE remotely through an X-client on windows, specifically the unstable 9.x series. The interview specifically mentions that they don't want to make WINE bypass XWindows so that they keep the nice network transparency. Think about it, reduce the number of machine reboots by running the app on your stable Linux box, and all without the licensing fiasco of WinXP, or even the expense of Win2K. Kind of like the benefits of running Samba: eliminate expensive licenses, increase stability, all without affecting the desktop (significantly).
        • There's just no way this is true. I've attempted to use cygwin on a PIII-700 laptop with 256 and the speed was just lousy. Then there was the problem that ther terminal emulation sucked, and the port was buggy and unreliable.

          VMWare running a raw FreeBSD partition solved the problem far better than cygwin ever dreamed of. Now I have a dual-boot machine, but I can also boot my FreeBSD partition from within W2K.

          What's $300 compared to having a machine you can actually use?

      • Quick question, have you ever actually run X on cygwin? I have, and its about as slow as a tortise

        Yes, I have, and you're right, it's pretty slow. I don't use it on a day to day basis, but then again there aren't any X apps that I feel I need right now; between Cygwin and natively ported apps, I've got my day to day uses covered. However, current efforts in the Cygwin/XFree project right now include making it use native GDI calls, which I presume will speed it up a lot. They're also apparently having some success getting network audio to work with esound and getting copy and paste to work with windows programs, helping them get ever closer to feature complete. As the KDE 2 project comes along (note that KDE 1.1 already works, although I haven't tried it), I'll be really hyped about trying KOffice on windows! Here's a question for everybody, though: will I be able to run KDevelop on Windows with Cygwin/XFree/KDE (/me drools) or Logic Audio on Linux with WINE first?? Actually, once Emagic releases Audio for native OS X, then it'll probably be time for me to drop Windows once and for all... (I dunno, tho, BSOD is kindof like a brother to me now...)
      • It's not the cygwin that is slow it's the fork() call and IPC that're slow.


        KDE does many "fork(); exec();"s on startup. I did try KDE on windows, it launched really "slow". Also any "make" takes too much time.


        Another thing is: window managers accesses X via IPC. I tried cygwin applications (named XFCE) on exceed with native window management. It wast just "fast".

      • Quick question, have you ever actually run X on cygwin?

        Yep, I have. I agree to some extend, it may seem a bit slow. A lot slower than native Windows, anyway. But I use Cygwin/XFree solely for the purpose of running X-programs over SSH from a Linux-powered computer over broadband Internet-connections, wich it rocks at. I love the feeling when Konqueror shows up on a Windows-box at my school, for instance. (-8 I agree that Cygwin isn't for everyday use, but when you need a GUI (although I can do most of my work on a command-line), Cygwin/XFree is there to help.
        -B
  • Hi!

    A friend of mine boots into Windows for one and only one purpose:

    He has to operate a flash5-site from his company that does not work on anything else than Internet Explorer. (And yes, I have checked Netscape and Mozilla on both Windows and Linux, and yes other Flash-sites work great.)

    I've played a bit with Wine and could run Internet Explorer5 (from Win98SE) but without any flash.

    Did anybody successfully run IE with Flash on Wine?

    We are also looking into Win4Lin, any expirences about that would also be apreciated.

    Thanks for every hint!
    • WTF would anyone want flash? If a site has Flash, You KNOW its a pile of piss without even waiting the 6 1/2 hours it will take to download, let alone the 10 extra secs it will take to crash.

      If I wanted my brain to be asaulted with bright flashing images, I'd take a dose of LSD.
      • Well some prefer Flash5 -- AFAIK, it's more legal than LSD, though both can cause psychosis... ;-)

        Anyway, if it works in there, that Average Joe will switch; we can't always have a l33t attitude about things (though I agree; Flash sites generally suck and I feel Macromedia needs to be shot)

    • Flash is open source, you can download a nice C++ tar file that compiles on win32 and every linux I've tried. They have downloadable native players for Windows, Macintosh,Pocket PC, OS/2, Sun Solaris,Linux x86, andSGI IRIX. at
      http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/alter nates/ [macromedia.com]

      I must also wonder why people are down on flash? Don't confuse it with Shockwave(Macromedia's huge monster app), Flash movies are small, streaming and let you create almost anything without having all the overhead a virtual machine creates.

      If you want a free way of making them check out open source JGenerator( http://www.flashgap.com/ [flashgap.com] ) which even lets you dynamically create flash on your site. Oh and JGenerator runs on almost every OS too.
    • The concentration's too low. You need Southern Comfort, Yukon Jack, or brandy...

  • Wine Database (Score:3, Informative)

    by npietraniec ( 519210 ) <npietran@@@resistive...net> on Monday October 29, 2001 @06:40PM (#2495089) Homepage
    He mentions the Wine database at http://appdb.codeweavers.com Please, everyone... If you play with wine and get something working or find any littler qwirks that might help others..

    Contribute to the database!
  • I don't like to read anything but the -1 posts. Does anyone else feel this way? Is there a way to filter everything but the -1 posts out?
  • 2. There are developers who suggest that WINE should build a graphics subsystem directly into WINE (bypassing X) and do a lot more of the basic Win32 API closer to the kernel. They claim that this way, WINE could probably be more stable and faster. What is your opinion?

    Alexandre Julliard: I think this would be a complete waste of time. X overhead is fairly small, so you wouldn't gain much performance, and you would lose a lot in stability (not to mention network transparency). If there are really places where X performance is a problem, the effort is much better spent fixing X than trying to bypass it.

    I guess it'll take more than this to turn down the FUD on X.
  • Since everybody seems to agree that Microsoft has a hammer they can drop at any time, has anybody figured out that WINE is a no-lose proposition for Microsoft? On the one hand, it opens up a market for Microsoft products on Linux machines and on the other gives them a case study (not to mention code study) should they want to offer a Microsoft "official" Windows on Linux product in the future (should Linux marketshare on the desktop become problematic). They can make their competition in this area disappear with a wave of a court order (should they so desire). In the meantime, they appear benevolent as the Justice department and European Union consider their normally heavy-handed tactics.


    Curious George

  • By far the biggest problem I've had with Wine is the install programs for Windows apps. Most simply don't work -- they either err out saying they can't find some file or DLL, or they'll just hang.

    Once you get an .exe installed with its dependencies, however, Wine seems to handle it quite well.

    But how do people deal with install problems?
    • Try Transgaming's Winex - they rewrote all of MS's DCOM to do the Inter Process Communication Alexandre was talking about.

      Almost all of the installers run just fine - and from posts the development team made today, the current CVS version even supports CD-Swaping during installs.

      Life is getting much better on the linux desktop due to Transgaming. Just click the link in my sig to go to the signup page. You can afford $5 a month right?

      Derek
      • > Try Transgaming's Winex - they rewrote all of MS's DCOM to do the Inter Process Communication Alexandre was talking about.

        Actually that's what I'm using. Just downloaded it yesterday!

        Tried to install Hasbro's Interactive Risk and Risk II. Those are the only games I really really want bad. I just love that game, and the XFrisk AI sucks rocks. TEG [sourceforge.net] is a bit like Risk and much better in the AI dept, but not QUITE the same.

        Anyway, the original Risk installer starts, then hangs, and the Risk II installer aborts when it can't find a file.

        For the record, I had Stardock's Entrepreneur running pretty much perfectly under Codeweavers wine several months ago. haven't tried again with WineX yet.

        > You can afford $5 a month right?

        Maybe if someone would hire me [yoderdev.com] (independent Web/Linux consultant/developer).....
  • Why not run VMware and just swith between operating systems?
    • IIRC, vmware is not free nor free software. If I had money, this would be a different story and VMware would be possible.

    • Because VMware is a resource hog, performance is mediocre at best, and it requires that you purchase Windoze. Wine has much better performance and does not require Windoze, but will never be able to match the level of compatibility VMware because of that. I only use VMware for things that I cannot do in Wine, such as running software that uses flexlm.

  • Does anyone actually use winelib?

    For me, winelib is the most interesting part of wine. I have win32 code I would like to just port to linux/X without doing a rewrite. In fact I want to port it to both i386 AND powerpc. I'm not interested in 386 DLL loading and crud like that. I just want to use it as a portable widget library. Yes I know of other portable widget libraries but it is too late for these old programs.

    I found that winelib didn't even come CLOSE to compiling on linuxppc.

    Making winelib robust would allow other software houses to release native linux ports of their win32 software much easier.

    --jeff
    • The biggest problem I had was dealing with MFC. We have several windows applications that only use MFC for the GUI interface. So, the first requirement is that you have a license for the MFC source code that allows you to compile it for other operating systems. Then you have to go through and edit the MFC source code so that winelib can compile it. One developer told me that he had over 5000 lines of edits to the MFC source code. The problem is that the license strictly forbids you from distributing your changes to the MFC source. So, every developer that wants to port an MFC application using winelib has to fix the MFC source code itself! Winelib is pretty interesting; but, this is a huge barrier to entry.

      • Re:winelib - But why not get help?!?!? (Score:4, Informative)

        by knitfoo ( 165390 ) on Monday October 29, 2001 @11:02PM (#2495843)
        You know, I'm genuinely curious about this: we've [codeweavers.com] had MFC nailed for well over a year now, and very few people are ever willing to hire us to help them with the MFC part.
        Winemaker does a lot of the work - and is free.
        The fact that Winelib is capable of as much as it is now is almost all due to our work - and is free.
        We can help you get MFC working quickly and easily, and, okay, that parts not free (we have to eat somehow), but it's not that expensive. We've done it a lot, and we can genuinely save you time and hassle. It's like hiring a plumber instead of learning how to sweat pipes yourself.

        Why do so few people ask us for help?

        Is it because it's mostly the developers trying this, who have no budget? Or am I missing something else?

        Thanks for listening,
        Jeremy White, CodeWeavers

  • is that one of the comments posted about it was that The Sims runs on WINE but not VMWare or NT.

    When did this happen? The ONLY reason why I have a Win98 box is to run The Sims. If that's been resolved, I can reformat it to Linux and reload.

    Does anyone have info on this? I tried to search in the WINE db and couldn't find a listing - am I doing it wrong?

    Thanks!

    • Transgaming's [transgaming.com] proprietary Wine extensions allow you to run the Sims and other DirectX games with Wine, but it costs $5 a month to sign up.
      • Yes, you *CAN* pay US$5/month to help them develop WineX, but their CVS system is public. And anonymous. I am currenty using WineX and I haven't subscribed. (Yet)

        Plus, one of the advantages of CVS is that every time they release a .001 version change, you don't have to download the whole shebang again. Just the code changes.

        Chris
        • So, are you saying the GPL version will allow you to play The Sims or do you have to pay for some non-GPL proprietary code to run The Sims under WINE?

          And if it's a subscription, how is that any different from the Microsoft tax?

  • 5. Has implementation work started for some new API functions found on WindowsXP?

    Alexandre Julliard: No, not really. We only implement functions that are needed by applications, and so far there are no applications that depend on XP-specific functions to work. In fact there are many APIs from older Windows versions that we haven't implemented, simply because we haven't found yet a single application that requires them.


    PowerCalc.exe from Windows XP Power Toys is a fully featured scientific graphing calculator, as opposed to the Windows 3.1 calc.exe in Windows 2000 and previous.

    PowerCalc.exe does not run on Windows 2000 or previous. It has XP specific hooks or functions. Do they have anyone working with WINE to investigate XP specific calls?

    • fully featured

      I hate this term. Its completely meaningless. What does it mean to say something is "fully featured"? It implies that ALL possible features that anyone might want are there, which is obviously just marketing baloney, no existing software fits that description.

      I guess when used like this it means the software "has lots of features". Isn't there a better term that means that?

  • if I read "slow C" and java is faster then C - I know this guy is foolish us ;) Time to switch to FissualBasik - this nice fast programming language *ROTFL*
  • Has anyone thought about Wine and the Digital Millenium Copyright Act? Consider for instance the scenario that Windows Media Player has built in "technology" to prevent screen dumps from being taken during playback and that Wine is mature enough to run Windows Media Player. Then Wine could be though of as a circumvention device (!) since I can take an X-windows screenshot while viewing copyrighted movies through Windows Media Player and Wine....

    I'm sure there's *lots* of possible scenarios in which Wine can be described as a circumvention device - especially if we let MS do the talking. I wouldn't dare live in the US if I where a Wine developer. Hell, I might not dare live in the US anyway!

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