Interview - Jim White of the Darwine project

Kelly McNeill writes "The Darwine project intends to port and develop Wine as well as other supporting tools that will allow Darwin and Mac OS X users to run Windows Applications. It is an open source project led by a growing number of developers including Emmanuel Maillard, Pierre d'Herbemont and Sanjay Connare. osOpinion/osViews had the privilege to speak to with the project's administrator, (Jim White) to tell us more about Darwine and where the project is headed. For those that don't know, Darwine is Wine (Wine Is Not an Emulator) for OS X on PPC. The following is the transcribed dialog of their conversation which is also available in an audible format on osRadio.com."

Comments

Confused....

[Vengie]

WINE is not an emulator....yet....on...a...ppc.....uh...isn't it actually an emulator? The idea behind WINE is that it puts a wrapper on native calls.....x86 instructions are x86 instructions....so DarWINE is more like, DarWISAE, because it is "sort of an emulator...."

I got a better idea!

[El_Ge_Ex]

How about a way to run Max OSX apps in Linux???

I'm serious. It would be only fair since Wine is written to run Windows apps on an OS that Microsoft didn't intend.

-b

Re:I got a better idea!

[mjrauhal]

Sure; take GNUstep, finish it up and slap QEMU and a MacOS X binary loader on top of it :)

(I'm half-serious, by the way. GNUstep does implement a lot of the necessary APIs.)

Re:I got a better idea!

[NoMoreNicksLeft]

Besides, linux users would have to emulate the ppc instruction set

Only for linux on x86. Why does everyone assume that's the only place you'll ever find linux?

Sign me up!

[keiferb]

The only app I still really use on my windows box is MS Money, and that's only because quicken for mac is horrid. If I could get that over on my powerbook, I'd be in heaven.

--

Digital Convergence

[grunt107]

Seems Apple likes to incorporate many Linux traits. Now they should reciprocate and port (or allow importation) of OSX apps to Linux. Especially a direct connect for iTunes (or iPod).

Is there really a need?

[HogGeek]

What programs for MS Windows, other than Office/Outlook are needed? And since MS Office is available for OS X...

This seems like a solution looking for a problem to me.

Re:Is there really a need?

[molarmass192]

if you have to have Access, you have to have Windows

I feel bad for anybody forced to use Access, it's an utter POS. There are way way WAY better personal databases than Access out there. That said, the strength of Access isn't its' db engine but rather it's Crystal Reports like interface that doesn't really require any underpinning DB knowledge to use so I can understand the attraction. As a total side note, are there any level 3+ *open source or free* MS Access JDBC drivers??? I found a bunch of proprietary implementations but nothing redistributable.

Re:Is there really a need?

[pjt33]

I use Wine to run the Logos Library System - a Windows-only e-book program with a proprietary file format which prevents me writing a clone. The reason - I've got over one hundred pounds' worth of books for it, bought when I used Windows.

Re:Is there really a need?

[Anonymous Coward]

Even Microsoft realizes Access is a piece of shit. In the MSDN article on pricing software from Friday, the guy used Access as an example of a program that would be VERY valuable if replaced by a better interface with plugins to an open source database.

You can use Access as a front-end to an open-source database already. It can use any ODBC driver. I've used it with PostgreSQL with few problems.

Access is still bad, though. I have an Access-based interface to part of my Oracle database. I'm trying to get rid of it, largely because of its horrible error messages. If it had:

• better error behavior
• a more CVS-friendly file structure
• more sophisticated reporting
• a different scripting language

It would be a good product. (And a completely different one.)

More pollution of OSX UI

[Ars-Fartsica]

Its bad enough that Metal and Aqua are mixed interchangably without any rhyme or reason...mix in X11 apps and now Windows apps and I think we can safely say that visual consistency in OSX is gone.

Of course the paucity of applications must be addressed in some manner - its quite clear that many ISVs are not addressing OSX or have any plans on doing so as it meanders around 3% market share.

I'm continually amazed at how OSX has reached the unassailable status of Google, Linus, etc in the /. mindspace. My wife purchased a new system that manifested numerous oddities and inconsistencies that I would have though Apple would have dealt with. For starters - a second disk installed by Apple for which my wife did not have write access. Duh! Make preinstalled hardware work the way users think it should. When she went to repair this, I was asked "what is group wheel?" To which I replied it is something a Mac user should never have to know about. The unix stuff is still showing up in odd places.

Re:More pollution of OSX UI

[TheRaven64]

I would hope that Windows apps running in Darwine would continue to look like Windows apps (although drawn directly with Quartz rather than X11 on top of Quartz would be nice). Even if it is possible to use native widgets, the result will be applications that look like OS X apps, but don't feel like them. Leaving them looking like Windows apps will provide a visual clue to the user that they should not expect the application to behave like an OS X native one. It will also serve to encourage companies to produce native ports, rather than believing that running the Windows version in an emulator is good enough for anything other than legacy apps.

Re:More pollution of OSX UI

[dasmegabyte]

They don't act the same...not QUITE, anyway. The big difference is in handling the window. Aqua applications can only be moved around using their toolbar. Metal applications can be moved around by grabbing any part of the metal surface.

The whole POINT of this is that it is good UI to allow a person to manage a window using as much of the non-dynamic visual real estate as possible. But there's no way for a user to know what's dynamic and what's static.

This is what the metal look acheives. It says, "Hey, this part of the screen is not for user entry. So you can grab it." It is intended for data management forms and application launcher forms that have mostly static content aras -- programs that are mostly for dynamic user managed information (such as Word document windows, etc) should really be Aqua, because you're going to want to use as much of the screen as possible for user information.

I like the idea of Metal (because I like the idea of using otherwise useless space as a way to get a grip on the window), but I will admit it's damned confusing the way some windows CHANGE their L&F when their context changes. For example, if you close the toolbar on a Finder window (using the bubble in the upper right hand side), the window's L&F changes. It's a real WTF moment, especially since I don't consider the document source selector on the left hand side of the screen to be a toolbar.

I will not argue whether aqua or metal is the nicer interface. It doesn't really matter to me...they're both simple, monochrome designs that abstract the utilitarian nature of windows from the work inside them. They're pleasant without overshadowing the importance of the controls inside them.

Re:More pollution of OSX UI

[Moofie]

In theory, you're right...so why is Safari metal?

And, if there are large areas of the screen that are not for user data, those areas are wasted. They should be displaying information or waiting for me to put information there, not just sitting there being metal.

Apple's own use of the two UIs is inconsistent. It's no wonder people are confused about them.

Disclaimer: I love my Powerbook and you'll have to pry it out of my cold dead hands.

Wine is a godsend....but.....

[Savet Hegar]

It fails to run a lot of popular software right out of the box. Last I checked, it wouldn't install IE6. Now now....before I am crusified, I have no love for IE. But it is a simple fact that many programs are built on top of it; many industry specific programs such as banking and financial programs.

There's also the famed Photoshop incompatibility, that crossover has managed to overcome. When will the code be incorporated back into Wine?

I realize Mac users have no need for a Windows version of photoshop, but I wonder if Darwin is going to be able to overcome the obstacles that Wine has not been able to.

Support for .Net would also be a godsend since more of the newer windows software is starting to rely on it.

Please stick to drivers at first

[kanweg]

It would be nice if the developers are working along a path with modest but useful goals. It would be great if Windows-only drivers for various devices would run under Darwine. Such drivers would require less than the full Windows-emulated environment and probably no GUI stuff. So, it would be a more modest amount of work, yet still be of significant use. I also think they are not speed critical (most of the time).

Bert

Will this work on a G5?

[adamh526]

It seems like this project is limited by QEMU, which as far as I know, doesn't emulate x86 on a G5. Is such emulation really as hard as Microsoft makes it out to be? And do we have a chance of seeing Darwine run on a G5 anytime soon?

Re:Huh?

[jasonbw]

do you realize that an AC just got a +5 insightful?