Apps That Officially Support Wine

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Apps That Officially Support Wine

Posted by kdawson on Monday February 2, 2009 @04:12PM from the insert-alcohol-related-line-here dept.

David Gerard writes "Wine (the Windows not-an-emulator for Unix) runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.) Dan Kegel on the wine-users mailing list/forum has started gathering apps that declare Wine a supported platform. And there's now a Wine Support Honor Roll page on the Wine wiki. We need more apps that work with Wine stating that they consider it a supported platform. If you write Win32 open source or shareware, please open yourself to the wider market!"

61 of 354 comments (clear)

Inaccurate? by TrancePhreak · 2009-02-02 16:16 · Score: 3, Insightful

There are probably more Vista users than Wine users, so I think the summary is inaccurate.

--

-]Phreak Out[-
1. Re:Inaccurate? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 16:24 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  "Certainly more often than Vista does."
  This is what gives Slashdot a bad name: completely false (or exaggerated) negative statements in order to promote your own ideas.
  I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't. This kind of shit would be tolerable on Fox News, hopefully it never will be here.
2. Re:Inaccurate? by RedK · 2009-02-02 16:30 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  WOOOOOSH. He meant Wine is more compatible with Windows apps than Windows Vista is. He wasn't comparing the installed user base of each. Now his statement was an hyperbole meant to poke fun of Windows Vista breaking many apps when it got released and so it's probably not very accurate. It was meant as a joke. Your response should've been : Haha, moving along...
  
  --
  "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
  Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
3. Re:Inaccurate? by Ethanol-fueled · 2009-02-02 16:35 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Your comment might have been instead modded insightful instead of funny if the summary bashed XP instead of Vista.
  
  So thanks a lot, jerk. Now I'll lie awake all night wondering,"Was that guy serious?"
4. Re:Inaccurate? by fm6 · 2009-02-02 16:35 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  What does the number of users have to do with it? He's talking about Windows apps that run on WINE but not on Vista. And there are a lot of those, if you count apps that with features that are broken under Vista, and don't count apps that will run on Vista if you upgrade to the latest and greatest version.
  Even so, he's probably exaggerating and/or overestimating. But the fact remains that there's a nasty degree of API incompatibility between Vista and previous versions of Windows. For example, if you have any version of Adobe Acrobat except the latest, you get a file system error if you try to write certain modifications out to disk. Basic I/O operations broken! That's pretty bad.
  That said, I'm less then impressed by the list of "works on WINE" apps. The link is to a forum that mentions precisely two of them. That motivated somebody to start a wiki page with a list. There are maybe 20 very obscure apps on this page, and I'd be surprised if they don't all have Linux native alternatives.
  When a major software vendor starts talking about WINE support, then we have a real trend. Not before.
5. Re:Inaccurate? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 16:41 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't. This kind of shit would be tolerable on Fox News, hopefully it never will be here.
  Well, it's a kdawson post. He will post anything that sounds even a little bit sensationalist or bashes something that "true nerds" hate. Nobody knows why he is still /. staff.
6. Re:Inaccurate? by RedK · 2009-02-02 16:43 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  English is also not my first language. Sorry if my grammar melted your eyes or something.
  
  --
  "Not to mention all the idiots who use words like boxen."
  Anonymous Coward on Monday August 04, @06:49PM
7. Re:Inaccurate? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 16:57 · Score: 5, Interesting
  
  Sorry, the number of users works the other way. As an app maker, I can guarantee you that I've received more complaints that my app doesn't work in Vista than complaints that my app doesn't work in Wine.
8. Re:Inaccurate? by theheadlessrabbit · 2009-02-02 17:11 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  from the perspective of a computer user (my sig should confirm that I am not a developer) perhaps this is because people expect windows apps to work in the windows world because, "we paid good money for this, it had better work"
  while in the linux world, if an app doesn't work, i am not all that bothered by it, because its free, i paid nothing for it, i will forgive the occasional bug, and if it gets bad enough, there is an alternative out there that is also free.
  In wine, having an app that was intended for an entirely different operating system actually work just blows my mind. i would never think to complain to the wine team that "x program won't work"
  in windows, when an app fails, it is frustrating because I expect commercial software to be bug free.
  (note to linux zealots: please don't mod this flamebait, did you notice how i said "IF a linux app fails" and "WHEN a windows app fails")
  
  --
  -I only code in BASIC.-
9. Re:Inaccurate? by shish · 2009-02-02 17:22 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  I thought one of the premises of Slashdot is that it is unbiased when your news isn't.
  When did that happen o_O? Last time I looked at the FAQ, this was taco's personal blog, and he and his guest contributors did whatever they wanted with it ._.
  
  --
  I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
10. Re:Inaccurate? by Achromatic1978 · 2009-02-02 17:28 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  And it's a David Gerard article - the guy is a professional Internet troll (responsible for such classy internet sites as lemonparty.org, yourmom.org, and k-k-k.com - don't visit), and part time Wikipedia admin/Wikimedia UK spokesperson (where his favorite pastimes are blocking entire US states for being sockpuppets of banned user, and so forth, this makes an amusing read). Why am I unsurprised?
11. Re:Inaccurate? by bigjarom · 2009-02-02 17:28 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  As someone who runs Wine and Vista, I have had more problems getting things to run under Wine than Vista; but I have had more problems overall with Vista than with Wine.
  
  I believe that subby was confused on these points.
12. Re:Inaccurate? by SleepingWaterBear · 2009-02-02 18:04 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Even so, he's probably exaggerating and/or overestimating. But the fact remains that there's a nasty degree of API incompatibility between Vista and previous versions of Windows. For example, if you have any version of Adobe Acrobat except the latest, you get a file system error if you try to write certain modifications out to disk. Basic I/O operations broken! That's pretty bad.
  I'm not so sure he's overestimating! Given how many years Windows XP and Windows 98 were aroung for, it's a safe bet that there are hundreds of times more apps for those two platforms than for Vista. A rather large fraction of those work in Wine. If a decent fraction of them don't work in Vista (and my understanding is that they don't), then just by number of apps Wine probably runs a lot more windows apps than Vista does.
  Of course, the vast majority of the apps Wine runs that Vista doesn't are outdated, or have been replaced by newer version that do run in Vista, but for sheer numbers, I think it's a safe bet that Wine wins!
13. Re:Inaccurate? by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 18:05 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  /. needs a healthy does of text book logic lessons. Categorical statements such as this not only remove any credibility from the article, they set a tone on /. that encourages more such statements, and so on. This sort of sophomoric drivel in the comments is to be expected, but it has no place in the submissions (at least not those which get green-lighted).
14. Re:Inaccurate? by theheadlessrabbit · 2009-02-02 18:27 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  Complaining in the F/OSS world = getting the problem FIXED.
  i would absolutely love to believe that was the case, but I am forced to read slashdot in windows, because my wifi wont work in ubuntu, even with ndis wrapper. the reply i got was 'use ndis wrapper'
  in the F/OSS world, my experience has been people who either mis-understand the problem, or ridicule me for not knowing how to code a solution myself, then they wonder why F/OSS doens't take off like it should.
  
  --
  -I only code in BASIC.-
15. Re:Inaccurate? by ushering05401 · 2009-02-02 18:28 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Huh, Well ... Uhm... there's something you should know about santa claus. You may want to sit down for this one.
  Yeah, yeah... My parents tried this one on me. Don't fall for it user 1410247, there is a hole in the crotch of Santa's suit.
16. Re:Inaccurate? by Inner_Child · 2009-02-02 18:41 · Score: 3, Informative
  
  Hopefully nobody, I'm really liking Deluge, myself. But the point is that uTorrent is hardly an obscure app.
  
  --
  Today is red jello day - all workers must eat all of their red jello. Failure to comply will result in five demerits.
17. Re:Inaccurate? by timmarhy · 2009-02-02 18:50 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  what kind of fucking retarded maths is that, wine has a fraction of the apps xp had so if a fraction of the apps don't work on vista is greater than the piddling amount supported by wine than wine is better?
  a quick google of the situation shows these issues are all down to these apps requiring XP/98's poorly thought out security model, requiring access to system components and registry settings. If these software companies refuse to update software to a more secure model than by all means they should be nuked. this is exactly what happens in the linux world, only at a faster pace.
  
  --
  If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
18. Re:Inaccurate? by xtracto · 2009-02-02 18:58 · Score: 2
  
  Complaining in the F/OSS world = being shout FIX IT YOURSELF!.
  There, fixed that for you.
  
  --
  Ubuntu is an African word meaning 'I can't configure Debian'
19. Re:Inaccurate? by mjwx · 2009-02-02 19:12 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  English is also not my first language. Sorry if my grammar melted your eyes or something.
  Don't worry, he's an American so English is not his first language either.
  
  --
  Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
20. Re:Inaccurate? by cbhacking · 2009-02-02 19:31 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Really? That's... more than a little surprising. On modern programs, Vista is far superior to Wine - blame it on .NET, DirectX, or whatever you want, but wine still struggles to run (and occasionally still fails to install) everything from games to web browsers. I've certainly seen a couple of recent apps - even games - that run truly perfectly in wine, but the most complex one I've seen is Battle for Wesnoth, which has a native Linux version anyhow.
  As for older programs, the only ones I still run are games. Wine still fails to render Battle.Net correctly in StarCraft, and noticeably increases latency in LAN games. By comparison, Vista will, with almost no effort, run WarCraft: Orcs and Humans, a DOS-based game (in fairness, I believe wine will run programs *that* old just fine; my point is that in many cases, so will x86 Vista).
  Use the tool appropriate to the task, of course, but damn near every program, no matter how old, that I've tried in 3 years of Vista (including betas) works fine. There are exceptions, of course, but claiming wine in more compatible in general is ludicrous. I would love for it to be true one day, but that day is still *very* far off.
  
  --
  There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
21. Re:Inaccurate? by drpimp · 2009-02-02 19:34 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Duh, we speak American and Mexican. /rolleyes
  
  --
  -- Brought to you by Carl's JR
22. Re:Inaccurate? by vux984 · 2009-02-02 19:50 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Wine has rather good support for older apps, it's always playing catch-up, but everyone agrees it does old stuff better than Vista does. Lets suppose Vista supports 80% of the old apps, and Wine supports 83% of them (the numbers are made up, but what matters is that Wine is a few points ahead). Then out of every 102 apps (100 98/XP and 2 Vista) Wine supports about 83, and Vista supports 82. I suspect that Wine has a much better than 3% edge for older app support though, and I've assumed that wine has absolutely no support for new Vista apps.
  Except that Vista is actually WAY ahead of Wine. WAY ahead. No comparison. No contest.
  Vista is more compatible with previous versions of Windows than WINE is. Especially after you factor in its compatibility modes, and are prepared to 'run as administrator' things.
23. Re:Inaccurate? by Zoxed · 2009-02-02 20:47 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  >> "Certainly more often than Vista does."
  > This is what gives Slashdot a bad name...
  Are you kidding: these grossly sweeping, biased and potentially inaccurate, but FUNNY, statements are what keep me coming back to Slashdot :-)
24. Re:Inaccurate? by Kjella · 2009-02-02 21:04 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  This is what gives Slashdot a bad name: completely false (or exaggerated) negative statements in order to promote your own ideas.
  Yeah. I use WINE a lot, I've gotten very used to tweaks like switching windows versions, installing overrides, applying winetricks scripts, putting separate applications in their own WINEPREFIX with separate configuration, manually copying files, applying registry settings, even compiling a few custom versions of WINE and so on. Honestly, it's impressive what you can do with a lot of custom tweaks. But, if you think it's anything like running it on native Windows let me just take as an example of a game that works well BUT:
  
  HOWTO
  This is an attempt to summarize the steps needed to run World In Conflict and to compile a list of tweaks to make the game run as smootly as possible, if you have any additions, please make a reply with the subject "Extra tips for WiC!" and it will be tested, and if verified, added to this howto.
  1. Read this before starting
  Creating a seperate wine configuration directory for this game is recommended if you do not want to affect the environment of other applications/games that you run under Wine. This can be done for any of your other games, and it is an effective way to assure that your wine settings match those in this HowTo. It is however not strictly required.
  World in Conflict should be run with Wine version 1.1.4 or later as it provides best performance, includes several bugs fixes relevant to the game, and support for copy protection.
  2. Installing the game
  Insert the disk, navigate to it's directory and enter this:
  WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-wic" wine Setup.exe
  Observe that we set the variable WINEPREFIX at the beginning of the line. This will determine which directory Wine should work with. If the directory does not exist yet and/or has not been initialized by Wine, it will be automatically created and initialized before Setup.exe is run. If WINEPREFIX is not specified, your default Wine directory will be '$HOME/.wine/'.
  Using the setup program, install the game to it's default directory and choose not to run the game after install - we're not done yet. In addition to the files copied automatically during installation, you'll have to copy over several files from the DVD to the directory the game was installed to. Usually, this should be 'drive_c/Program Files/Sierra Entertainment/World in Conflict' inside your Wine directory. The files to copy are:
  binkw32.dll, dbghelp.dll, mss32.dll(From the 'bin' directory on the DVD)
  wicloc11.sdf and wicloc12.sdf (From ldata/English, ldata/French, ldata/German, ldata/Italian, ldata/Spanish, or ldata/All depending on language)
  Previously, it was necessary to install a crack for this game. Beginning with recent versions of Wine (~1.1 and later), this is no longer required. However, if we attempted to start the game now, it would crash right away. This is because World In Conflict comes with optional support for DirectX 10. As DirectX 10 is currently not supported in Wine, we need to disable it.
  In addition, due to a few missing functions in Wine, the game would currently not be able to detect the hardware of your computer properly. Until these functions are supported in Wine, we will use Microsoft's original DLL to do the job for us. Therefore, get the file dxdiagn.dll from dlldump and save it to the 'drive_c/windows/system32' folder in your Wine directory:
  www.dlldump.com/download-dll-files_new.php/dllfiles/D/dxdiagn.dll/5.03.2600.2180/download.html
  Now let's instruct Wine about DirectX 10 and the dxdiagn.dll. Open a console and enter:
  WINEPREFIX="$HOME/.wine-wic" winecfg
  Click the Libraries tab, type in d3d10 under New override for library and click Add. You'll now see "d3d10 (native,builtin), hit Edit and select Disabled and hit OK. Then again under New override for library, type in dxdiagn and click Add. You'll now see "dxdiagn (native,builtin)" added to the
  
  --
  Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
25. Re:Inaccurate? by Jurily · 2009-02-02 21:56 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  http://xkcd.com/84/
26. Re:Inaccurate? by daveime · 2009-02-02 22:09 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  As Eddie so succinctly puts it ...
  "You say baysil, we say basil ... and you say erbs, and we say herbs ... because there's a fucking 'H' in it."
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hJQsvoY6VU
27. Re:Inaccurate? by Ed+Avis · 2009-02-02 22:10 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Either way you take the summary, it's a ridiculous exaggeration. There is no way Wine is more compatible with Windows apps than Vista.
  
  --
  -- Ed Avis ed@membled.com
28. Re:Inaccurate? by ciderVisor · 2009-02-02 23:39 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  French, a static, dying language best used for describing cuisine.
  Merd !
  
  --
  Squirrel!
29. Re:Inaccurate? by sanosuke001 · 2009-02-03 01:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  So just because MS decided to "fix" some API calls to be more secure, remove old calls that should have been removed, and modernize their OS (for better or worse) you're saying that breaking backwards compatibility for some apps wasn't worth it? Even though MS told everyone they were doing it a year or more in advance and those companies didn't fix their software.
  
  When functions in your favorite language get deprecated, what do you do? Do you bitch and moan, calling the lead Dev a money-hungry whore? Or do you say, "nice, they're fixing issues and letting us know before they pull support for good"?
  
  I love bashing MS just as much as the next guy, but expecting backwards compatibility for every version of something is shortsighted and, for progress' sake, stupid. Updating the API and removing old, insecure calls, is one thing I do agree with MS on. Now, I wish Intel and AMD would drop x86...
  
  --
  -SaNo
30. Re:Inaccurate? by Taevin · 2009-02-03 02:31 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  You're right that it's probably an exaggeration, and I'm sure that any honest Wine user will agree. I love it and use it often but I've had my fair share of getting Windows apps to work correctly, whereas I've had few problems getting things to run on my Vista PC at work.
  
  However, I also think it's an exaggeration to say that "There is no way Wine is more compatible." In my experience, though unlikely, it is possible. More than once I've actually seen app run faster and with more stability in Wine than on the original platform. Remember, Wine is a re-implementation of the Win32 API so it's certainly within the realm of possibility that bugs and inefficient coding could reduce the performance and reliability of apps running on Vista/XP.
I think this is a good thing by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 16:16 · Score: 2, Insightful

Hopefully game developers will soon realize they're missing out on a potential market.
1. Re:I think this is a good thing by Anonymous Coward · 2009-02-02 16:19 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  True! I'd much rather pirate the linux version of a game than the Windows version.
2. Re:I think this is a good thing by Daengbo · 2009-02-02 16:30 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  I've got an "Officially Supported" section in Games That Work which includes Starport Galactic Empires and Soldat running under Wine. I tried to convince Reflexive (since my gal plays hundreds of their website's games) to let me test and certify games so that they could be marked as "Works with Wine 1.0" on the download site. I was snubbed.
  
  --
  Put identity in the browser.
3. Re:I think this is a good thing by Daengbo · 2009-02-02 18:02 · Score: 2, Insightful
  Starport Galactic Empires and Soldat are claimed to work on Wine by the publisher. That's a lot more than "should work." Just because you apparently don't think independent games are important doesn't mean that they aren't. In fact, they're probably the easiest to get on the "officially supports Wine" page because they need the extra market wherever they can get it and will do a little testing (maybe even tweaking) to get that exposure.
  If you want everything to be EVE Online, you're going to be disappointed.
  
  Step 1: Get "Officially Supports Wine" backing to increase the number and genres of games available on Linux.
  Step 2: Once a beachhead is in place, get devs to do native support ports using winelib.
  Step 3: Encourage more high-quality cross-platform games.
  Step 4: Get the big guys on board.
  --
  Put identity in the browser.
Question by MyLongNickName · 2009-02-02 16:17 · Score: 5, Insightful

How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience? And consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality".... so I figure an even less percentage sales increase.
(ducks and covers)

--
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
1. Re:Question by Paradigm_Complex · 2009-02-02 16:20 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  While it is a smaller audience, it's a much more valuable one.
  
  When Joe Sixpack needs computer advice, he comes to us. Getting on our good side with things like this can garner far more benefit than just our direct increase in audience.
  
  --
  "A witty saying proves nothing." - Voltaire
2. Re:Question by Daengbo · 2009-02-02 16:40 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  This game developer claims that making the game available on less-popular platforms increased his sales by over 122%, perhaps significantly over. This was due to getting a lot of exposure for his game on Mac and Linux sites, when the same game probably would have gotten a footnote on Windows' gaming sites.
  
  --
  Put identity in the browser.
3. Re:Question by moniker127 · 2009-02-02 16:51 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  If joe sixpack asked a linux expert for help, he would probably get laughed at for not knowing how to compile the source of the application he was trying to get to run.
4. Re:Question by SanityInAnarchy · 2009-02-02 16:57 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  How many developers want to put in the extra effort for a 0.1% wider audience?
  Developers who find actual numbers, instead of pulling them out of their ass.
  And that means doing a little market research. The market for your app may be biased one way or the other. For instance, if you're selling a text editor targeted at programmers -- or better yet, an SCM -- it's probably not too difficult to port, and you'll probably get quite a few grateful Linux users.
  
  consider the Linux crowd has the "free (as in beer) software mentality"....
  Can we get past this already? It seems the only Linux folk who have that mentality are complete strawmen created by people who've never actually met a Linux user.
  I actually bought Windows XP, despite Linux being my primary OS. Most Windows users I know will pirate it if it didn't come with the machine.
  There is one exception to that rule: On Windows, there are tons of little freeware (but closed source) utilities like IrfanView, WinRAR, etc. On Windows, and to a larger extent, OS X, there's even more -- a massive culture of shareware, where tiny cataloging utilities and file management utilities are selling for $10 to $20 each.
  So, if your app is something truly useful, sure. I would love to see things like Photoshop support Wine officially (I'll use Gimp when I can, but it still hasn't caught up), and I love that WoW releases Wine-specific patches, and Eve uses Winelib.
  But if you're trying to sell me a $15 version of diff or merge, it had better iron my socks, too.
  
  --
  Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
5. Re:Question by ari_j · 2009-02-02 18:17 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Joe Sixpack tends to carry his Joe Sixshooter to make sure all his tech support calls are user-friendly.
Imagine the day programs like by rolfwind · 2009-02-02 16:19 · Score: 3, Funny

Turbotax, quicken, photoshop, quickbooks claim it on their boxes?
Chair manufacturers wouldn't be able to keep up with demand!
Apps available are also available natively... by mvdw · 2009-02-02 16:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

Most if not all of the apps already mentioned have native Free equivalents that are as good, if not better. Specifically, the majority seem to be DVD or MP3 programs, which are already heavily targeted. Although, more officially-supported WINE apps is certainly good for regression testing the codebase.
1. Re:Apps available are also available natively... by GigaplexNZ · 2009-02-02 18:20 · Score: 3, Funny
  
  Real money, but I lost it all hehe
  You should file a bug report about that.
Wine troubles me... by bogaboga · 2009-02-02 16:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

...because it's always a work in progress. We in the Linux world appear to always be "chasing" a prize that can never be caught.
I applaud the programmers in this effort though.
1. Re:Wine troubles me... by _Sprocket_ · 2009-02-02 16:49 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  As someone playing WoW on my Linux box, I say "chase on!"
2. Re:Wine troubles me... by bondsbw · 2009-02-02 16:50 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  Agreed. They've done a fantastic job, but their job will never be over.
  I personally think that reversing that effort would be best. If companies were able to develop solid apps for Linux, and be assured that they would work flawlessly and efficiently in Windows, that would be a better way to kill two birds with one stone.
  A major project going this direction is andLinux, which is basically the opposite of Wine. It uses the coLinux kernel, a port of the Linux kernel for Windows, to allow Linux programs to run natively in Windows.
  
  --
  All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
WTF with the summary. by rrkap · 2009-02-02 16:51 · Score: 4, Insightful

Wine is a cool project. It's even useful, but it isn't nearly as compatible with Windows or DOS aps than Vista. That's just stupid. This is yet another story that leads me to suspect that kdawson is an idiot.

--
I like my beverages with warning labels!
Wine for Windows by sonamchauhan · 2009-02-02 16:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

> runs Windows applications more often than not. (Certainly more often than Vista does.)
Maybe this occasions releasing Wine on Windows itself ;)
1. Re:Wine for Windows by hcmtnbiker · 2009-02-02 17:51 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Um, WINEHQ has for a long time had a "Windows port". It's used mostly for testing since substituting the real system files is easier in the actual environment; and some other debugging is easier too. Since the new site layout however I've yet to find the correct link for it, otherwise I would post it.
  
  --
  If i had one dollar for every brain you dont have, i would have $1.
2. Re:Wine for Windows by penguinchris · 2009-02-02 19:13 · Score: 3, Interesting
  
  It's worse than that. Many of the programs on the "platinum" list, which as you noted are supposed to "work flawlessly, no configuration" - don't. If you look at the write-ups people posted saying they tried it and it worked flawlessly, most of them will say they "didn't try" certain features (which are probably the ones you want, and which end up not working) or they even say that there ARE some problems... and in many cases these are serious problems.
  But the program starts up, and it's feasible you could get something useful out of it, so it's "platinum" right? Chances are, those couple of things that weren't tried or didn't work quite right are the whole reason anyone wants to use the software in the first place, as in your Starcraft example with multiplayer!
  The worst is that it's obvious in some cases that the people who submitted these reports weren't regular users of the software. They apparnetly just installed it and tried it to see if it would work with wine. That's great, seeing if things are compatible, helping out - but seriously, to be helpful you have to know what the program is supposed to do and what people actually use it for.
  I'm not trying to incite anyone but I don't think anyone who's looked at the Wine AppDB would disagree with me too much. I appreciate the work people put into it, but there needs to be some better standards for deciding how well software works under Wine. It's hard to recommend Wine for anything when it's a total crapshoot whether comments in the AppDB are correct or not.
  I personally don't have need to run anything with Wine, but I have attempted on occasion, and have helped others do so. I do run one piece of Windows software - Adobe Lightroom - but I do so in a Windows VM because Wine support for it is extremely limited.
  As I think someone else in here noted, a lot of the really well-supported software is stuff like DVD rippers/burners and "utility" apps, of which there are usually multiple excellent open-source programs available to choose from. That's not the kind of software preventing people from switching to linux. Although, I did give up my favorite DVD burning program, ImgBurn, when I stopped using windows several years ago - it does work pretty much flawlessly under wine actually, but I like k3b too :)
3. Re:Wine for Windows by LingNoi · 2009-02-03 03:04 · Score: 2, Interesting
  
  I use ubuntu and it depends. Sometimes I just tolerate the bug because I'm tired of the "New version of ubuntu out does this still effect you?" messages I get.
  I could understand if it was something not testable to the person saying that. However when the steps to reproduce are download package x and do xyz I think its simple laziness to not just test it yourself, especially when the package from your version of ubuntu has been used in the new version, duh, of course the bug is still there, it's the same package.
  There is a large commitment on the bug submitter to do all the work on testing and following up on simple bugs which are reproducible by everyone. This happens in wine too which I follow closely, however to a much less significant degree as it happens in Ubuntu.
Re:No Need for Wine by onefriedrice · 2009-02-02 16:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

My computer is a tool. Software is my job, not my religion. If I can increase my productivity or otherwise enjoy life better by using a win32 binary in wine rather than a Free version which may or may not be available, I'll use wine without even feeling guilty. Ahh, true freedom.

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This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
Add another - geophysical software by dbIII · 2009-02-02 17:41 · Score: 2, Informative

There's the SeiSee program with is a viewer for segy files and is specificly tested with wine:
http://www.dmng.ru/seisview/seisee.en.html
I think you'll find a lot of other scientific software is also designed to be cross platform in that way.
There is also some commerical software which is cross platform from dotnet to mono and has official linux support - but I can't give you an example which is paticularly stable on either platform. I really don't know if the blame can be laid on dotnet or the developers using it - and mono is playing catchup which adds in a few more quirks (libexif as a dependancy to run purely text based stuff?).
Slow but steady by Eil · 2009-02-02 17:59 · Score: 4, Interesting

I was at the credit union today waiting literally hours for a banker-type person to do their job. On the table, a CU industry magazine. I picked it up and started flipping through it. (Interesting how every article followed the same exact business-like structure and format, no matter what the topic.) One of the ads was for some kind of "check transport" device. The thing that zips your check through a U-turn and puts a timestamp or something on it, I think. At the bottom of the ad in big bold letters was the statement:

Compatible with all versions of Windows and Linux with WINE.
I was floored. I got that same feeling as the first few times I started seeing World Wide Web URLs pop up on billboards and on TV commercials. Or when random people would find out I was a computer nerd and ask if I knew that Linux program (pronounced with a long 'I').
Put simply, these things teach me that just as there was not really a definitive "year of the Internet," there won't be a "year of Linux" either.Linux's growth has and always will be slow but steady. The nature of software and the I.T. marketplace will demand that more and more software be portable, available, and just generally flexible. That software which isn't will be replaced by that which is. These are a few of the cornerstones of open source after all, and the proprietary vendors would do themselves a favor to realize this for themselves.
Joke? by NotBorg · 2009-02-02 18:25 · Score: 2, Insightful

I believe the word you are looking for is
WOOOOOOOOOOOSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.
If you don't put a large bare foot next to it or it doesn't follow a well established pattern of humor (eg Soviet Russia), it cant be funny.

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I want this account deleted.
Link to forum is incorrect by marshalium · 2009-02-02 18:37 · Score: 2, Informative

I think you meant to link to: http://forum.winehq.org/viewtopic.php?t=3375
what on earth is the point of this? by alexander+m · 2009-02-02 18:52 · Score: 2, Insightful

what am i missing here -- isn't the ENTIRE POINT of wine supposed to be that apps can run on it without having to specially support it? bizarre. an emulator that needs developers to target it for it to work isn't doing its job... (sure, i know most apps DON'T have to target it, but then that renders the whole concept of this list completely redundant!)
A Windows port? by jandersen · 2009-02-02 20:30 · Score: 3, Funny

I went to their website, but I couldn't even find a Windows port. That's so lame, if we want people to use open source software, we need to port things to Windows. Useless, I say, useless.
Open Source, Open Systems... by argent · 2009-02-02 23:33 · Score: 3, Insightful

... If you write Win32 open source or shareware, please open yourself to the wider market!"
If you write Win32 open source, consider writing your code to an open API instead of a proprietary one instead. Open systems are at least as important as open source.
Re:Please no by phrostie · 2009-02-03 05:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

i understand your arguement and at one time i used to agree.
but in hindsight, as projects like Wine or Reactos have evolved and improved,
MS has been forced to constantly tweak and change their so called standard win32 api.
it has been a moving target.
now by companies and projects officially supporting Wine,
the open source community have taken control of the standard.
write once and run anywhere.
they've taken the Embrace and Extend system MS has used against everyone else and turned it on it's ear.
call it, Embrace and Define.
it may not be a perfect solution, but this is what happened with Unix. now Unix is an accepted open standard.