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OSNews Interviews WINE's Alexandre Julliard

Posted by Hemos on 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."

4 of 138 comments (clear)

  1. Missing the point by vlad_petric · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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 Raven

  2. WINE is overrated by Eloquence · · Score: 4, Insightful
    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, 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.

  3. Compatability and Free/Open Source Software by LoveMe2Times · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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, 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!"

  4. Re:winelib - But why not get help?!?!? by knitfoo · · Score: 4, Informative
    You know, I'm genuinely curious about this: we've 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