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Alexandre Julliard gets job Hacking Wine

Douglas Ridgway writes "Alexandre Julliard, leader of the Wine project, will be moving to Silicon Valley to work full-time on Wine. See the press release for details. "

132 comments

  1. First post by Anonymous Coward? (nt) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    nt

  2. New Hope for my Daughter! by GW+Hayduke · · Score: 1

    This is GREAT News for me.. My 3 year old has claimed my old Mac Performa as her computer for her CD-Rom games, but in the grand tradition of Mac vs Windows, more child-oriented games are *readily accessible* for me on the Windows platform. I would much rather set her up with a shell account on my workstation at home rather than have to purchase a copy of Windows to please hers *cough,cough* and mine gaming habit. My goal, to have her programming device drivers by the time she hits kindergarten :) Hmmm.... Fisher Price's "How to Code in Perl for Toddler's" I may have something here :)

    --
    -- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
    1. Re:New Hope for my Daughter! by nmarshall · · Score: 1

      hmmm, like the idea. i also would like to see my daughter programing, but how to sneak this by her mom ( who's technophobic ).... maybe if you GPL the book / software. hmmmm... maybe you should first start with coloring books...

      nmarshall
      #include "standard_disclaimer.h"
      R.U. SIRIUS: THE ONLY POSSIBLE RESPONSE

      --
      nmarshall

      The law is that which it boldly asserted and plausibly maintained..
      --Colonel Burr 1783
  3. Re:Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You should also grep for Macadamian as they are working as subcontractors for Corel.

  4. Re:How's dat thing work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I read on a Starcraft Wine HOWTO that starcraft had to be run as root, that's terrible! do all win* programs run under wine have to be run as root?

    I don't like running stable stuff as root if I don't have to much less nasty win* stuff...

  5. Wine stability by mcj · · Score: 1

    Last time I tried WINE was at version 990131 on FreeBSD -CURRENT. It was fairly stable...I got Word 97 running in it, but then the fscking paper clip showed up and crashed everything. Bummer.

  6. Re:good luck by SamIIs · · Score: 1

    i didn't think so.
    ...
    (oops, wine is not...)

    don't flame, use arguments

    Oh, man, settle down. I always agree with people who point-out that they want discussion without flames. Because it would be a shame if people were purposefully antagonistic and childish. Boy, that would be really, uh, bad.

    Please try not to be so petty. It's not that hard to have a real conversation, even if the other person doesn't have the exact same opinion as you.

    You raised some good points. It would be a shame if you simply encouraged a bunch of Flamebait, instead of real discussion.

  7. Re:Yay! Local boy makes good! by SamIIs · · Score: 1

    any post containing the string "first post" would automatically...

    Then wouldn't your post have been blasted into null?

  8. Re:good luck by Jburkholder · · Score: 2

    Jesus, calm down.

    I assume your comments are directed at me? How was what I said not true or a flame?

    It is a FACT that we have had problems with older versions of some office apps not able to read files created by newer versions. I did not say or mean to imply that office 2000 files could not be read by previous versions. I have no experience in this, I've yet to get any 2000-format files. I just said that it does happen.

    And how did you come up with the inference that I think there is a 'desktopdatabase' or anything running on a linux box. I didn't even come close to it. I didn't say anything was bad or better than something else. I was just pointing out an instance where wine might not be a viable alternative to keeping up with ms office apps under win32.

    Christ, go un-knot your underwear, or something?

  9. Oops... :) Thats "...windows software under linux" by absolute · · Score: 1

    Damnit, preview, preview, preview...

    Thou shalt always preview articles BEFORE thou posts them...

  10. WINE and non-x86 Linux; does it work (even a bit)? by Sleepy · · Score: 1

    Has there been any work on WINE and non-x86 processors?

    I understand this is beyond the stated goals of WINE, but...

    I'm dying for SheepShaver PPC/Linux, so I can do on PowerPC what can be done with VMWare... run the native OS inside of Linux so you never need to reboot.

  11. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by dirty · · Score: 1

    Wine is BSD which is still open source. Just because it's not GPL doesn't mean it's not open source.

    --

    -matt
  12. Re:good luck by spectecjr · · Score: 2

    MS will make defeating this project -- with "enhancements" -- priority one.

    Hmmm... interesting claim... but a pretty far out one. There's no way that MS can "defeat this project with enhancements" without screwing up backwards compatibility with existing apps -- which is a MAJOR thing at Microsoft. It's why Win32 is (as people repeatedly claim here) a mess -- they can't change things without breaking software that's out there that people use day in, day out.

    So what if Wine will always be a couple of years behind? That's still 100's of 1000's of apps that will run on the emulator. That's a massive software base to run.

    Simon
    [old APIs never die - they just end up in c:\windows\system32]

    --
    Coming soon - pyrogyra
  13. Re:Wine icon by patrikr · · Score: 1

    It's not new, you just revealed that you're a slashdot-newbie... :) Click on it and check out the archives.

    --

    --
    All Glory To The Hypnotoad!
  14. ...Ah, tis a good year... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hey, this is good news. Wine is one of the main reasons for new Unix users to plunge into the utopia of OSS (at least it was mine). It now makes me curious: Does Wine make Microsoft nervous? I know that it's completely legal, but this sort of thing is the essential utility of the complete unneccessity of Windows (which is quite a good thing). The Unix variants are improving everyday, and this emulator just may be straw that breaks Bill's back. Heehee...you know, that metaphor is very appealing. :> (Snap!)

  15. Yay! Local boy makes good! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Always good to see people who work hard and produce quality code get rewarded.

    BTW First Post!

    1. Re:Yay! Local boy makes good! by Zontar+The+Mindless · · Score: 1
      I wish Rob would modify his discussion code so that any post containing the string "first post" would automatically be posted to /dev/null instead of to the discussion page.

      Zontar The Mindless,

      --
      Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
  16. Future Caveats of WINE by Rydian · · Score: 2

    While I believe that WINE is a great tool (I use quite a bit myself). I hope this doesn't prevent companies from doing a true port over to all the variants of *NIX. I can just hear a company saying, "Why should we? We can just develop our aplications for Windows, then let all the *NIX people run it with WINE if they need it."

    This is a problem that OS/2 had, and part of the reason that it didn't flourish as it could have. Companies could develop for the Win16 environment, then market it for both because of OS/2's Win16 compatibility layer.

    Anyways, congratulations to Alexandre, and I hope this will help both him and the development of WINE out!

    --
    chown -R us. /base
    1. Re:Future Caveats of WINE by David+Greene · · Score: 1
      I've never really understood this argument. If WINE is going to discourage companies from porting products, they why aren't they porting now, when WINE is still several years off from being remotely stable for the average user?

      If WINE gives me access to more software under Linux, then I say that's great! If some companies won't port their software because of it, then it is their loss. A better, native version will pop up and it will probably be free.

      I don't know about anyone else, but I don't use WINE to run new applications or to get "real work" done. I use it to run legacy apps that are no longer supported or for quick jobs when someone sends me a document requiring Powerpoint or something. Linux has just about everything else I need and it does it better.

      --

      --

    2. Re:Future Caveats of WINE by SoftwareJanitor · · Score: 3

      This is a problem that OS/2 had, and part of the reason that it didn't flourish as it could have.

      So far this sort of problem isn't happening in the Linux world. I think there are a number of reasons why.

      OS/2 didn't provide enough good reasons to write native apps. One problem I think is that also sharing a history with MS-DOS, it really wasn't perceived as different enough from Windows. Linux clearly doesn't have this problem.
      I think OS/2 also had difficulty courting developer mindshare because of a percieved deficiency in native development tools (either in availabilty, quality or cost). This is not a problem for Linux which was able to initially draw on the strong history of UNIX development tools (many of which are free) and has now started to attract many of its own or ports from other platforms (such as CodeWarrior). Linux clearly has significant developer mindshare and is quickly growing it, which is something that OS/2 never really achieved.
      Furthermore WINE (and Twin and TWINE) is not just an emulator, it is also a porting toolkit. Which should help serve as a bridge for Windows-centric developers to port their code to Linux. Once they have things running, they can write more native apps if they want. Unfortunately, OS/2 never really offered a good way to port Windows code over. In the early days of OS/2 that didn't matter so much, because there weren't very many Windows apps and the Windows API and MFC were't very popular yet, but today a lot of developers feel locked into those or at least have code that is.

  17. Wine icon by Mapultoid · · Score: 0

    I like that icon. It is nice to see a new one around here.

    --
    Ben Garrison, a mindless idiot who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
    1. Re:Wine icon by toofast · · Score: 0

      You like it cuz it's bloated with pretty colors... Heh, just like the OS it's supposed to represent =)

    2. Re:Wine icon by Mapultoid · · Score: 1

      hey man I'm not a newbie at all, I've been here for over a year! Just because you I have a bad short term mem... what were we talking about...?

      --
      Ben Garrison, a mindless idiot who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
    3. Re:Wine icon by geekd · · Score: 1

      Pretty colors = bloat?

      This is an attitude that I see here on /. alot.
      Especially from die-hard lynx users.

      I like pretty colors.
      I like multi-media on the web.
      I like eye-candy.

      Of course, the OS underneath has to be able to handle all this....

      There is alot of "Substance over style" feeling here on /. While I agree that substance is the more important of the two, style is important, too.

      If we have both, there will be no stopping us!

  18. With VMware is WINE still needed? by fr0g · · Score: 2

    I understand that WINE is way different than VMware but with VMware why would we still need wine?

    1. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by -=albert · · Score: 1

      I understand how WINE is completely native and doesn't require a Windows installation to run programs. But since most Windows programs use an installer which runs under Windows. Is there a way around this? And do Windows programs need to be on a fat partition to work properly?

      Just wondering,
      Albert

    2. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by -=albert · · Score: 1

      What I meant to say is:

      I understand how WINE is completely native and doesn't require a Windows installation to run programs. But since most
      Windows programs use an installer which runs under Windows, don't you kinda still need a Windows installation to install those programs before you can use Wine on them? Is there a way around this? And do Windows programs
      need to be on a fat partition to work properly?

      Still Just Wondering,
      Albert

    3. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by sethr · · Score: 2

      VMWare isolates programs from the host machine, WINE programs can interact with programs on the host machine.

      You can cut and paste between linux programs and programs running in a win 98 virtual machine.

      Seth
    4. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by Matrix · · Score: 1

      I didn't say GPL was the only open source license. I said I didn't know what WINE was, and therefore I wasn't sure if it was open source or not. All I could remember is that it was NOT GPL.

    5. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      The installer is typically included with each and every application that uses it, so you'll normally have no problem installing Windows programs under Wine. How well they run is another matter, but with both Corel and Codeweaver paying people to work on Wine, and the people who contribute for free still doing a great job, that is improving rapidly.

      As for FAT... I've seen no problems related to running Wine over ext2fs, but then I haven't used Wine that much (who needs Windows programs anyway? :-))

    6. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by morbid · · Score: 1

      "(although it'll be a while before WINE
      performance becomes acceptable)."

      Well, on my very humble P100 (64MB RAM, 512k cache) WINE appears to run some Windows software faster, or at least as fast as, Win 3.1, and it will run Win95/NT code too.

      Because of Linux, I never "upgraded" to Win95, and I doubt I ever will....
      ...WINE may give some software developers a bigger market in which to sell, who knows!

      --
      I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
    7. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by Matrix · · Score: 2

      Because while VMWare is a virtual 386 (requiring you to install and own Windows, etc), WINE lets you run apps by themselves, without windows. WINE is also open source (or more so than VMWare ... I don't recall WINE's license but I'm pretty sure it's not GPL). VMWare costs an arm an a leg compared to WINE. If something's broken in WINE, you can fix it. etc etc.

    8. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by belial · · Score: 1

      vmware still requires a copy of windows.

    9. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by xeno · · Score: 1

      Point well taken; WINE performs very well for some, and not so well for others.

      As for giving developers a wider market for their wares, I too hope that's the way the wind blows. I hope I see the day when my box of commercial software says "Certified to work with WINE" (with a nice little wine glass logo next to the wavy windows logo). Maybe Corel will be the first to put that on their packaging...

      --
      I think not...(*poof*)
    10. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by lalleglad · · Score: 2
      A Windows installation program is still just a program under Windows and as such Wine should be able to run it as well as other programs under Windows.


      Simple and neat :-)

    11. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Wine license is the same as XFree86 - a la BSD without the advertising clause :)

    12. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by Gleef · · Score: 4

      VMWare is proprietary, WINE is Free
      VMWare is costly, WINE is free
      VMWare requires a Windows license, WINE is independant of Windows
      VMWare is by design slower than Windows, WINE is potentially faster than Windows
      VMWare isolates its programs from the host machine, WINE programs can interact with programs on the host machine.

      VMWare is better for some things, but it's completely different than WINE, there's plenty of room for both.

      ----

      --

      ----
      Open mind, insert foot.
    13. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by xeno · · Score: 2

      "Need" is subjective, but I'd still say a generalized 'yes.' VMware is a commercial software product that operates underneath the typical OS, and allows multiple OSs to run concurrently. You have to buy a MS-licensed copy of Windows to run on top of VMware. That's where the "VM" (virtual machine) comes from.

      WINE, on the other hand is a mapping of win16 and win32 calls to 'nix calls. It's windows functions without the windows itself. It's not a VM, and therefore has a theoretical performance edge by reducing the number of application layers (although it'll be a while before WINE performance becomes acceptable).

      Besides, WINE is open source, and will probably survive the next curve-ball that MS pitches. The way I see it, VMware is playing a dangerous game with MS by directly interfacing with their bread-and-butter products. Sort of like dating a guy whose previous 5 wives have all mysteriously disappeared after a long history of abuse. MS is likely to make a change to the EULA that specifies that you cannot run their OS on a VM, on a processor that wasn't purchased with the OS, etc etc. If this ever happens, VMware becomes the next Tektronix/WinDD or similar victim.

      --
      I think not...(*poof*)
    14. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by HiThere · · Score: 1

      "A Windows installation program is still just a program under Windows and as such Wine should be able to run it as well as other programs under Windows."

      But:
      a) Installers generally make assumptions about things like where the registry is and what it's structure is.
      b) The last time that I checked the Wine site it specifically stated that most installers wouldn't work. (A month or two ago.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    15. Re:With VMware is WINE still needed? by SeanNi · · Score: 1

      a) Only a problem because of b). See b)

      b) Wine is still under development. Once it gets a bit further along the path, that will change.
      --
      - Sean

      --
      It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
      - Sean
  19. Alright! by SirSlud · · Score: 2

    Good for him! I'm looking forward to getting the apps keeping Windows on my HD over to Linux; hopefully this should help.

    On a side note, I may not be able to code Wine, but I sure can drink it - anyone wanna hire me?

    --
    "Old man yells at systemd"
  20. Good by plague3106 · · Score: 1

    Hopefully Wine development will pick up the pace. I'm personnaly very impressed with Wine, i can run my DirectX 6 Glide win95 game on linux. Very cool. Hopefully Wine will be the bridge that lets me delete win95 for good!

    1. Re:Good by Eccles · · Score: 2

      I'd say Wine already picked up the pace. My company's Windows app now sort of works with Wine as of the 073199 release, whereas it crashed shortly after the splash screen with the releases of six months ago. There's still refresh problems with it, but otherwise it's close to usable.

      My hope is that demonstrating that it works with Wine will influence our higher-ups to consider a full-fledged port to Linux.

      --
      Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
  21. good luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    MS will make defeating this project -- with "enhancements" -- priority one.

    1. Re:good luck by ocie · · Score: 1

      Also, if users can run almost-current MS offerings on Linux, then this will go a long way to weakening Microsoft's tieing arrangements:

      If I can run Word on Linux, why buy that extra copy of Windows.

      Wait a minute, the only reason I was using Word is that it was the best word processor for Windows. Now, I might try Corel.

      I have a feeling that many people run Windows because that's where the Words and Excels run, and people use Word and Excel because that's what runs on Windows. Wine (could) upset the whole apple cart.

      --
      JET Program: see Japan, meet intere
    2. Re:good luck by Jburkholder · · Score: 2

      Right, these are good points, just have one comment:

      >Oh, the new version doesn't work? Don't buy it.

      The only flaw in this logic is something we have experienced IRL here at my job.

      We do business with a major client, who, for some reason, is married to redmond and always has the very latest versions of MS Office. They send us documents in Word, powerpoint, excel, whatever in the newest file format, which of course we can't open with the previous version of the same MS Office programs (grr).

      So we have to upgrade every machine in the office to office 95, then 97, now 2000 - so we can still exchange documents with our customer.

      Now, in the scenario where we are using WINE to run Windows apps and then MS breaks compatibility with the new version, we would be skrewed because we can't excange documents with our Microsoft-happy customer.

    3. Re:good luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Exactly, and having Wine run NEW applications isn't even that important: More and more new apps are being ported to Linux. Running legacy applications are more important.

      Actually, by supporting legacy applications, we make it easier for people to move to Linux. And at the same time, by not supporting the bleeding edge of the Windows APIs, people still have an incentive to do native ports to Linux, as Linux grows.

      The best of both worlds... :)

    4. Re:good luck by Tsu · · Score: 1

      ...and all of the people using *BSD will use Linux emulation to run *those* apps... and pretty soon, it won't matter what OS you run, because everything will be available for just about every platform, and before you know it, the operating system is a commodity, and Microsoft is Out Of Luck!

      I hope.

      Shrug. We'll see.

      --
      Wow, I wrote this a long time ago.
    5. Re:good luck by DGregory · · Score: 1

      Not to start the whole OS war back up again, but that's exactly the reason that something needs to be done to Microsoft... so at least people can create emulators that WORK without them doing whatever they can to screw them up again (new APIs... whatever...). Maybe share that information in any new releases so the emulator developers can make their emulators continue to work with Windows programs.

      Until, of course, OSs become obsolete when chips embedded in your brain let you play Quake XVIII or flight simulation games in real time, virtual reality. woohoo :)

    6. Re:good luck by HiThere · · Score: 1

      Everything that I need from the Windows platform runs under Win95. New "enhancements" don't matter to me. (I pulled Win98 off my computer.)

      --

      I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
    7. Re:good luck by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      don't say things that are not true. athough the format of the documents in msoffice has changed a lot, there is no difference between office97 and office 2000 docs (and mac office98 for that matter). ms knows it can not keep screwing around with its customers.

      and btw. tell me is there any desktopdatabase running under linux that's remotely comparable to access? and: do you know a better spreadsheet/presentation app/word processor running on a linux box (yet)? i didn't think so.

      but when there's a significant amount of companies that start running msoffice on wine/linux, ms will definetely not break support. they still want to sell their product.

      i personally would prefer an open source office suite instead of a commercial office suite running on an open source emulator (oops, wine is not...). so i hope koffice will improve quickly so we won't have to use ms stuff anymore.

      don't flame, use arguments

      wim

    8. Re:good luck by crisco · · Score: 1
      MS will make defeating this project -- with "enhancements" -- priority one.

      Of course, but thats isn't a major issue. While I'm sure this has been discussed before, I'll paste my .02 to the wall.
      1. Wine will bring the existing Windows apps to Linux. This will help bridge the gap to the corporate desktop. Why wait for a Linux version of the last FooApp that BarCorp can't live without when you can do everything else in Linux and run the current version of FooApp under Linux? Oh, the new version doesn't work? Don't buy it.
      2. Wine makes it easier to bring file format compatibility to Linux apps. Take a look at th is posting on Deja to see why.
      3. Emulation is just plain cool. (Yes I know what WINE starts for...)
      4. Some apps will never be ported. Wine will run them.
      5. Why is everyone still using x86 architecture? Why not move to a superior processor? The same market pressure that kept WinTel around make Wine valuable.

      I know this turned into a rant. Sorry.
      --

      Bleh!

  22. Why WINE and not native by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I can't help but think that it would be easier to create a soure code tool to convert windows calls to linux calls and then recompile to get native linux code.

    1. Re:Why WINE and not native by dirty · · Score: 1

      Uhm...netscape was not ported using libwine. Netscape (mosaic) was written for unix way back when, windows and mac ports were done later. Also, netscape is older than libwine.

      --

      -matt
    2. Re:Why WINE and not native by cduffy · · Score: 1

      Pardon?

      Libwine's a library -- like GTK. It doesn't generate code.

    3. Re:Why WINE and not native by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There ARE several products that implement the Win32 API on Unix, however there is one big problem: Do you have the source code for your favorite Windows Apps?

    4. Re:Why WINE and not native by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you saying that Netscape was based on Mosaic too? I KNOW IE was, it says it in the 'about' dialog box.

    5. Re:Why WINE and not native by Scott+Wunsch · · Score: 1

      That is what libwine does, basically. It implements the Windows API on UNIX.

      --
      \\'
    6. Re:Why WINE and not native by Surak · · Score: 1

      Besides the obvious (there are lots of libraries that implement win32 on native Linux) there is no source code available for most Windows apps.

      This means that you personally cannot recompile your Windows application unless you have written it. And lets not forget that most software companies aren't going to invest the money and energy into "band-aiding" their Windows code to make i9t run on Linux (with the obvious exception of Corel) as it is probably more cost effective in the long run to implement the code the "right" way (written as a native Linux app) since maintaining Windows code compiled for Linux will likely be a bear. Remember that most Windows APIs rely on Windows' poor OS design (ie, too many modules try to do too much...vs. simple one-function programs on Unix/Linux that are really really good at one thing instead of trying to do everything...)

    7. Re:Why WINE and not native by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yup, IIRC most of the Mosaic development team from UIUC went out and formed Netscape and one or two of them formed Spyglass instead (which is the basis for IE).

    8. Re:Why WINE and not native by Stonehand · · Score: 1

      !

      That'd be showing a 1:1 correspondence between the two operating systems. There are larger, more fundamental differences between the OSes than the function names...

      --
      Only the dead have seen the end of war.
    9. Re:Why WINE and not native by Zigg · · Score: 1

      Oh, that would indeed be productive, considering the Windows binary culture. Source code is frowned upon, so how would you even get it to recompile? Besides, there are many Windowsisms in the API that would be next to impossible to implement on an OS that practices sound design principles in process and user segmentation.

      Of course, there are quite a few "platform-neutral" APIs, but they are largely useless. And they still don't fill the niche that Wine, VMWare, and others do.

    10. Re:Why WINE and not native by cxreg · · Score: 2

      That happens to be pretty close to what libwine does. And exactly how Corel is porting their Suite to Linux.

    11. Re:Why WINE and not native by bugg · · Score: 1

      Yup, libwine is what you are describing.
      I wouldn't be surprised if thats how they ported netscape, as the code isn't clean.

      Code that comes out of libwine usually needs a lot of optimization, its usually pretty clunky.

      my 2/100ths of a dollar.

      --
      -bugg
  23. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Hope this way I would finnally get rid of my Nt box

    1. Re:Cool by SoftwareJanitor · · Score: 1

      whatever happened to bochs?

      Looks like it is alive and well. Apparently it can run Windows 9x and a fair amount of Windows software these days given a fast enough CPU.

      The Bochs homepage can be found at:

      http://www.bochs.com

  24. Try FORTY-First by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Geez, boy! If you're gonna try to be a first-poster, at least learn to touch-type!

  25. Oh stop... by ch-chuck · · Score: 1

    all this good news is more than I can bear :))

    I see the AC's are speechless, at least as far as intelligent speech goes.

    Chuck

    --
    try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
  26. good job by Afrosheen · · Score: 1

    I think this is a step in the right direction. He's been maintaining Wine for so long now and it's paying off. Hats off to Open Source.

  27. Hurl by Mawbid · · Score: 1

    I enjoyed the article, all the way up to the word "synergy".
    --

    --
    Fuck the system? Nah, you might catch something.
  28. cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    cool. good to see more open source developers getting employed by companies who want to further the cause.

  29. Nice thing about WINE (big grin) by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

    Now we're able to run ActiveState Perl for Win 32 (I AM joking, y'all).

    Mark Edwards
    Proof of Sanity Forged Upon Request

    1. Re:Nice thing about WINE (big grin) by phutureboy · · Score: 1

      Actually, I was wondering if it would be possible to run Demon Stalkers in an C64 emulator for the Amiga, running under AmigaDOS, running under a Windows-based Amiga emulator, running under WINE, running under Debian, running in VMWare, running in Mandrake, on my old 386SX/16 with coffee stains on the keyboard.

      Would you want to? On a log, with a hog? How does that green eggs and ham thing go, anyway?

      I think I should go eat some food now.

    2. Re:Nice thing about WINE (big grin) by Shadowhawk · · Score: 1

      And even better, we can run the Win32 Java runtime!

      --
      My mind works like lightning. One brilliant flash and it is gone.
  30. Cool by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Haven't used WINE in a while, but this is pretty neat. Hopefully not too many people have given up on it and switched to VMWare. Speaking of VMWare, whatever happened to bochs?

  31. Mr. President! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's you isn't it Bill!!!
    Dammit, I told you I'd have you neutered if you did that again, didn't I?!?!?
    ------
    Hillary

  32. Not with a resume like that! by A+nonymous+Coward · · Score: 1

    We need to keep WINE production up, not in :-)

    --

  33. What the hell? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    WTF?
    This wasn't supposed to go with this post!

  34. Re:Swiss federal institute of technology by evilpenguin · · Score: 2

    Sorry if I'm getting hooked by a troll, but he has been one of the lead developers of Wine (an open-source project) for several years now (at least three). His open-source credentials are impeccable.

  35. VMWare can't replace Winelib, requires x86 by cduffy · · Score: 1

    WINE does a lot more than allow Windows binaries to be run on x86 *nix boxes.

    For one, Winelib can be used to compile Win32 apps against any *nix, be it x86 or not (after the bugs are out, at least).

    Also, with the emulation layer for WINE that's been worked on from time to time, it'll be able to run Windows binaries on non-x86 boxes.

    Furthermore, Wine allows such cool things as drag-and-drop between Windows and *nix apps. Can't do that in VMWare, and that can't be added without a tremendous amount of difficulty.

  36. How's dat thing work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I keep hearing wonderful things about the latest WINE running this or that or the other app (starcraft comes to mind). So, can anyone who's gotten wine to successfully run apps in a usable fashion explain the steps needed to make WINE do all that neat stuff?

    I've used CVS source, tarballs, and precompiled binaries, but I've never had WINE run anything I have usably well.

    What kind of compile options do I need? What sorts of extra patches do I need to apply? To what dir should I point WINE's C:\WINDOWS variable to? How do I make it work?

    Thanks!

    uselinux@email.com

  37. Re:WINE and non-x86 Linux; does it work (even a bi by Solemn+Bob · · Score: 1

    >Has there been any work on WINE and non-x86 processors?
    >I understand this is beyond the stated goals of WINE, but...

    This was recently discussed on the wine development mailing list, when one of the active developers made a CPU emulator materialize out of thin air. Something like that brings non-x86's into the realm of possibility, but nowhere near practicality. Doing CPU emulation in addition to everything else is a tremendous burden. My guess is, don't look for non-intel Wine for a long time.

    Winelib is a different story. It's intended to be much more portable. It serves a very different purpose than what you're hoping for, though.

  38. IE 5.0 for Linux :) by GW+Hayduke · · Score: 1

    OH GOODY!!!!! now I can run IE and Outlook Express on my Linux box... Just to have all the messages I send to myself denied 'cause I'm using OE.... sendmail DOES have some good filtering!

    --
    -- Life: Hate the Game... Love the cereal
  39. Re:Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by evilpenguin · · Score: 2

    Download the current copy of the wine source from http://metalab.unc.edu/pub /Linux/ALPHA/wine/development/, gunzip and untar it, and run:

    grep corel ChangeLog

    from the base directory (wineYYYYMMDD) and see how many contributions Corel has made. They've made less than I personally hoped, but they've made quite a few. To be fair, I've poked in that code some, this is not a trivial project. In many ways it is much more complicated than the Linux kernel (I guess that shouldn't surprise any of us!). Corel's team may well be still finding their way around. They may also be concentrating on those things that affect their applications primarily.

    They are there and they are doing things...

    I doubt this news will do anything but improve Wine's situation. A guy who has done much of the lead work on Wine in his spare time will now be working on it full time and being paid to do so. I can't see how this can do anything but help.

  40. Re:This is great by demon · · Score: 1

    In many cases, WINE is the beter option. Some of the code in some apps is just native x86 instructions, and can be executed directly, with the library calls intercepted and mapped to WINE internal calls. (Take StarCraft for example - it's quite playable on my P100 in Wine, because all it does is ask DirectDraw and DirectSound for output contexts, then output directly to the devices - no Win32 calls, afaik). Bochs and VMware both emulate a complete x86 CPU (slow because x86 is not a fully-virtualizable architecture, so a lot of work has to be done in software). For some things, a fully-emulated environment might be better, but if you care about performance, WINE's way of doing things may be the best option.

    --

    Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
    Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
  41. Last Post by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Last Post! YESSS!

  42. Re:Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If you check out the patches and the discussions on USENET, you'll see quite a high frequency of posts from people at Corel. I believe they have somewhere around 4-6 people working on Wine, and they've contributed lots already.

  43. Re:Swiss federal institute of technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Troll... The press release doesn't even mention his degree - it concentrates fully on his contributions to the Wine project.

  44. Re:message boards/newsgroups that discuss this? by SmileyBen · · Score: 0

    You have checked out http://www.winehq.com haven't you?

    AFAIAA Dosemu is much more finished than Wine, and should run any Dos programs you have fine (I think).

  45. Re:WINE is FREE. VMWARE is NOT. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It is if you grab it off of a warez site :)

  46. Also by IntlHarvester · · Score: 3


    As has been pointed out many times, the *most* important applications to many businesses are the ones that have been developed in house in VB/Delphi/VC++/Access/DBase/Whatever. The likelyhood that corporations would/could port these apps to Linux is pretty low.

    In house apps nail the average corporate desktop to Windows, so without something like WINE, you'd probably never see Linux on an average corporate desktop.

    (The good thing about most corporate apps is that they're unlikey to use the latest Windows voodoo API, so there's no worry about MS breaking WINE compatiblity.)


    --

    --
    Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
  47. Re:WINE and non-x86 Linux; does it work (even a bi by SoftwareJanitor · · Score: 1

    You might look at Bochs, which is an open sourced x86 emulator that should work on PPC (it works on Sparc). It isn't the fastest thing in the world, but it is supposed to be able to run Windows 9x and a lot of Windows software.

    You can find the bochs home page at:

    http://www.bochs.com

  48. Quality vs Quantity by Ian+Schmidt · · Score: 1

    Corel's done a LOT of work on things like OLE2/COM/CraptiveX that most other people would never want to touch. I'm all for that :)

  49. Code for Toddlers by DonkPunch · · Score: 3

    Dump this to a line printer and put it up in the nursery:

    A is for ASCII
    B is for Beta
    C is for, well, C
    D is for Drivers
    E is for Emacs
    F is for free() -- see M
    G is for gcc
    H is for Hex
    I is for int
    J is for jmp
    K is for Kilobyte
    L is for long
    M is for malloc() -- see F
    N is for NULL
    O is for Open Source
    P is for Perl
    Q is for Queue
    R is for Recursion -- see R
    S is for Socket
    T is for TCP/IP
    U is for *nix
    V is for Vi
    W is for Window Manager -- see X
    X is for wimps who can't handle a command line
    Y is for Yacc
    Z is for ZZ

    --

    Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
  50. See the REAL Wine icon (attn: Malda) by Ian+Schmidt · · Score: 1

    www.winehq.com - it's FAR better looking (and less likely to attract M$ legal) than the butt-ugly thing /. uses.

  51. how? by Barbarian · · Score: 1

    You can sucessfully run windows Directx glide games? Any in particular?

  52. AOL under wine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    When will AOL be able to run under wine? It's still unusable with the latest version. Once it's stable, I can stop using win95 altogether.

  53. RTF? by raistlinne · · Score: 2

    Isn't that what the RTF (Rich Text Format) is for? I thought that that was about the only way that Word users communicate with each other.

    --
    They laughed at Einstein. They laughed at the Wright Brothers. But they also laughed at Bozo the Clown. -- C. Sagan
    1. Re:RTF? by Jburkholder · · Score: 2

      Naw, we communicate quite happily with doc, xls, ppt files. Its just a pain when the new Office comes out and we are forced to upgrade.

  54. Pretty good move! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Well, this is an just another good move for the community, a company who sees the opertunities of open source and supports them actively. Also good for all those Wine people! We'll just hope nobody's using VMware to get his windows. (Well, ofcourse not, we don't want to have an Official Windows 9X, do we?)

  55. Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by Dast · · Score: 1

    I heard a while back that Corel was going to give the wine guys some help. Any idea if they are still doing this? And how will this move affect what Corel does?

    --

    This sig is false.

    1. Re:Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I work at Corel, although not in the Linux dept, and I can say yes, Corel is still paying developers to work on Wine.

      I wish I could say more, but even posting anonymously I don't want to say anything that would get me in trouble with the PR department.
      I will say that I know that Linux is *very* important to us and an important part of our corporate strategy.

    2. Re:Is Corel still donating to/working on wine? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      According to linux.corel.com, they are looking for WINE developers. The following jobs are posted:
      • Software Developer - Linux Wine Development
      • Software Project Leader for the Linux Wine Development
  56. Speed. Freedom Baby! Yeah! by javac · · Score: 1

    VMWare is slow, locks up a considerable amount of memory and requires you to buy windows.

    Wine lets you run Windows binaries, buy implementing the Windows library natively. This is fast!

    Wine is a Good Thing (TM)!

    geach

  57. Great... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Does this mean I can run scientific workplace in linux anytime soon? That's about all I'm missing from the windows world. Of course there is lyx, but it's not as good a swp.

  58. Why is this so great? by Utter · · Score: 1

    OK, let's say that WINE is incredible succesful and completely replaces the WIN32 API. Then Linux would get a lot more applications from the Windows world.

    But that wouldn't encourage companies to port their software to Linux, since it already works almost as good as in Windows. That would leave Microsoft in charge of the WIN32 API should evolve. (And to my personal opinion, the WIN32 API sucks bigtime)

    I would much rather see success for wxWindows, GTK and Qt.

    Anyway, I think it's great that people writing Free software gets paid for their hard labour.

    1. Re:Why is this so great? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But that wouldn't encourage companies to port their software to Linux, since it already works almost as good as in Windows. That would leave Microsoft in charge of the WIN32 API should evolve. (And to my personal opinion, the WIN32 API sucks bigtime)

      On the contrary, wouldn't it weaken Microsoft's ability to unilateralily change the API? Wouldn't their changes probably be ignored by third party developers who want to ensure their software works in Win and Wine?

  59. The other problem by J.+FoxGlov · · Score: 1

    Is the new parent of WINE willing to guarantee they will keep it an open-source project? Free beer?

    J.

    --
    damned vulpine http://sb.drtwister.com/
  60. Hey! Moderator! by MrEd · · Score: 0
    Be nice and moderate the previous post up. We need to educate the children!

    I figger there should only be one change -

    L is for Linus, who begat Linux

    --

    Wah!

  61. Re:Swiss federal institute of technology by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He got hired to develop Wine, an open source program, because he had been maintaining it over the last few years. If having a CS degree was the only relevant qualification, wouldn't it be quite a coincidence that he was the one they happened to hire?

  62. WINE Is in a Big Mess by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I was trying to find a list of what programs are now running under WINE, and to what extent. I was very disappointed that the only list that I can find is inconsitent and essentially useless. I was wondering who has success in running MS Office or WordPerfect suite under WINE? How about the 16-bit WordPerfect? Thanks for your input.

  63. Do I even need to say it? by SeanNi · · Score: 1

    Free speech, not free beer.

    *sigh*

    How many times must we repeat this?
    --
    - Sean

    --
    It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
    - Sean
  64. Re:MS and Linux by Syslevel · · Score: 1

    There's already a Posix layer for Windows (NT). It's not free, and it's not from Microsoft. (they have a crippled Posix subsystem by default).

    Interix

  65. Let's see you use VMWare to port an app to Linux\0 by SeanNi · · Score: 1


    --
    - Sean

    --
    It's a fine line between trolling and karma-whoring... and I think I just crossed it.
    - Sean
  66. message boards/newsgroups that discuss this? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Help! Does any1 know of any urls/ngs that I can go to to ask about Wine? I'm currently running a Win95 box but seriously considering Linux. I just want to run Win95 games and a few apps, btw. A little off topic, does any1 know if Linux runs DOS games? or do I need another emulator (if so, any1 know where I can find 1/some)?

  67. RE: Wordperfect exists for Linux! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wordperfect 8 exists, and I hear that the whole suite is due to follow soon.
    Try this link:
    LINK (WP8) On another note someone asked about Corel/Wine?
    Try this link:
    LINK (SW DEV/WINE)

  68. Re:What is WINE For? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Oh, hi there troll! Nice to see you. Wine is there for old windows applications. Often times there are applications which are no longer supported by those who wrote them, for what ever reasons. Thus, the likely hood of the application being porting to Linux is next to zero. With Wine, one can run those older applications under Linux. Wine is there for existing applications. Sometimes there's a program one wants to use which isn't currently available for Linux. Though, this is becomeing less and less of an issue. Wine is there for future applications. When a company writes a program, often times it is in the best interest of the company to write it for several different platforms. Wine makes porting of applicaitons easier. HTH

  69. Installing 'Doze programs by Micah · · Score: 1

    Has anyone had any success running windows program installers under Wine? I've tried several - from M$ Office 4.3 to IBM's VAJava to Stardock's Entrepreneur to several rather minor ones. They ALL failed at various places!

    And I've heard that M$ Office 4.3 is supposed to work...

    So... do people install stuff under 'Doze and copy the binaries over or is there a better way to get install programs to work?

    BTW I haven't tried Wine since sometime in April. Gave up on it after that.

    1. Re:Installing 'Doze programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I mount and use the MSDOS partition, as I imagine most WINE users do. From my perspective WINE is a way to use my existing Win32 apps AND Linux without having to dual boot. (Dual booting is a pain.)

    2. Re:Installing 'Doze programs by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I've been trying to get windows program installers to run under Wine but every one I've tried crashes. But then every windows program I've tried crashes when running under Wine.

  70. MS and Linux by The+Cheese · · Score: 1

    Of course, this obviates the need for MS to produce a linux shell for winders. The Cheese shall put on his oracle hat (not that Oracle) and prophesy that MS will release such a beast, either as a ServPac for 98 or NT, or as a feature of 2k.

    In fact, I'm surprised that MS doesn't already have one that they're giving away, a la Exploiter.

  71. Sounds reasonable by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    As long as this brings more usefull programs out so that I don't keep on having to use Windoze the happier I will be. p.s. FIRST POST

    1. Re:Sounds reasonable by r_hakz · · Score: 1

      > FIRST POST

      not even close!

      --
      The oxen are slow, but the earth is patient... - High Road to China
  72. Good news... by absolute · · Score: 1

    This is excellent news... Wine is a great tool for working with windows software under windows... It is the one reason I don't have windows anymore to run Unreal... Hopefully one day it will run most windows software under linux... :)

  73. This is great by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Now WINE will develop even more, yeah. I wonder how advanced it will get, and whether it's a better option than just running Windows in a window... like Bochs or VMware.

  74. Re:v by shogun · · Score: 0

    Uh, just why was this marked insightful?

  75. Wine future? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I decided early today to compile a more recent version of Wine (last time I did was early in January), and am I surprised with the progress. The emulator can load Word and Excel 97 (only apps I tested aside from Winamp) - load, usability is another matter, instead of not even showing the splash screen last time I tried... this makes me think about how Wine will come out later, and I came into some questions:

    (i) The API porting is a very nice idea, the concept of using the same source for Win32 and *nix sounds great. But is anyone (aside from Corel possibly) using it this way? I would not like it very much to run things through the emulator... native binaries sound more sane to me.

    (ii) How is libwine into integration with the desktops (KDE and GNOME)? It sure would be nice if they (the three teams) would make everything work with every other thing.

    (iii) Multimedia, or, more exactly, DirectX. The DirectX API seems to change as fast as Microsoft earns money, so how can the people at Wine be up-to-date with that? If Wine is to be used to port games, that compatibility is essential, specially talking about DirectSound and, what brings me to the last question...

    (iv) Direct3D. Yeah, that 3D-accel-thingie. How will (if it will) Wine work with hardware acceleration? Software mode for the latest D3D games sounds awful... maybe some work with the Mesa and the Xfree86 guys, making a layer between D3D and OpenGL??? Sounds reasonable, at least from a complete illiterate point of view.

    Wine always sounded like a great idea to me. But I fear that Microsoft's strategy of ever-changing API's may become an obstacle to its success...

  76. Re:WINE and non-x86 Linux; does it work (even a bi by eliasj · · Score: 1

    Bochs is shareware though. not GPL, not BSDstyle - shareware... yek.

    /Elias

  77. Congrats to Juju! by AlbertoVerdo · · Score: 1

    Hey Juju, congratulations for your work on Wine and this move to California! Is that more fun than porting X to the Smaky environment??... ;-)
    Take it easy, but take it!
    --Pierre

  78. Swiss federal institute of technology by heroine · · Score: 1

    Looks like he got hired because he has a CS degree from the Swiss federal institute of technology. Getting hired because you have a degree in CS is no big news. Now if he got hired because of some open source project that would be something.

  79. Good by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Good for him. Time for his fruits to ripen.

  80. 1st by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    More paid linux programmers. Excellent, I can hear windows breaking already...