Joe Barr writes "Stephen Feller has a story about WINE on NewsForge this morning ahead of next week's expected Beta release. The WINE project is 12 years old, so it's just about time." From the article: "'Wine has historically had a very frustrating history because it has been alpha software,' White said. 'This is really hard work. We're replicating the work of a billion-dollar company. The reason we're saying it's alpha is because we believe we still have fundamental changes to make on the way the internals work.' Noting that it has not always been easy to install software with Wine's alpha releases over the last decade, White said that once you got something working it has never meant it would continue to do so, or do so properly. There may have been display glitches or things not functioning properly, if a program even worked with Wine at all." OSTG is the parent company of both Slashdot and NewsForge. No WINE Before Its Time Log in/Create an Account | Top | 164 comments | Search Discussion Display Options Threshold: -1: 164 comments 0: 160 comments 1: 120 comments 2: 83 comments 3: 31 comments 4: 20 comments 5: 14 comments Flat Nested No Comments Threaded Oldest First Newest First Highest Scores First Oldest First (Ignore Threads) Newest First (Ignore Threads) The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way. More info.. (Score:5, Informative) by jkind (922585) on Saturday October 22, @01:54PM (#13853113) (http://www.milliondollarsweethearts.com/) LWN.NET has a good rundown of new features, including Direct X 9 support and a new RichEdit control :)http://lwn.net/Articles/154451/ [lwn.net] [ Reply to ThisRe:More info.. by tonsofpcs (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:44PM Great Wine Quote (Score:5, Funny) by xactuary (746078) on Saturday October 22, @01:58PM (#13853135) The post reminded me of an old wine quote which I've used quite often... Just take a sip and say, "A naive domestic with little breeding, but I'm amused by its presumption."Cheers. [ Reply to This2 replies beneath your current threshold. Yes but.. (Score:4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, @01:58PM (#13853137) Does it run linux? [ Reply to ThisRe:Yes but.. by CaraCalla (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:14PMRe:Yes but.. by FST777 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @10:35PMRe:Yes but.. by rincebrain (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:29PMRe:Yes but.. by kill-1 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @03:45PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.1 reply beneath your current threshold. VisualStudio Plugin (Score:5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, @02:01PM (#13853150) I think it would be incredible to have a VisualStudio plugin that would allow developers to target the Wine API and at least indicate if a particular API will not be supported under it. That way it makes the API less of a moving target in that it establishes WINE as the authoritative API for development of Windows applications that will work across platforms. Once people recognize that Windows is not the way forward they will appreciate having their options open. [ Reply to ThisRe:VisualStudio Plugin by Anonymous Coward (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:23PMOne exists for PHP, so its not out of the question by Richthofen80 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:59PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Moonbase Alpha (Score:5, Funny) by fm6 (162816) on Saturday October 22, @02:02PM (#13853153) (http://picknit.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 09, @03:53PM) The reason we're saying it's alpha is because we believe we still have fundamental changes to make on the way the internals work. Microsoft seems to have the same problem. [ Reply to ThisRe:Moonbase Alpha by jZnat (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:34PMRe:Moonbase Alpha by fm6 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:34PM vista (Score:5, Interesting) by CDPatten (907182) on Saturday October 22, @02:05PM (#13853173) How will Vista affect this beta release? [ Reply to This Re:vista (Score:5, Funny) by smitty_one_each (243267) * <smitty_one_each@ ... minus physicist> on Saturday October 22, @02:12PM (#13853200) (http://www.emacswiki...iki/ChristopherSmith | Last Journal: Friday July 22, @09:43AM) Category 5 hurricane [ Reply to This | ParentRe:vista by ln -sf head ass (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:48PMRe:vista by gvc (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:15PMRe:vista by joeljkp (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @10:15PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Welld duh its written in C (Score:1, Insightful) by Billly Gates (198444) on Saturday October 22, @02:10PM (#13853188) (http://www.livejournal.com/users/sinistertim101 | Last Journal: Sunday September 18, @02:24PM) Unless they rewritten wine in c++ its going to have problems emulating c++ features like objects really really bad. I am not bashing C, but rather pointing out that rewriting the language to mimick an operating system heavily built on C++ is a mistake.Gnome 1.x learned this lesson by emulating c++ in C because the unix C purists thought it would be less bloated and more cool. It was fine until object oriented programing became a factor.Most of it is due ot the fact that windows is complex and very proprietary with information hidden on the inner details. There are thousands of lines of code in windows based programs that simple workaround bugs. You have to actually duplicate the bug so the code works properly. Its a mess. [ Reply to ThisRe:Welld duh its written in C by blazzy (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:26PM Re:Welld duh its written in C (Score:5, Interesting) by man_of_mr_e (217855) on Saturday October 22, @02:36PM (#13853293) The core API is definately C, but most of the ancillary libraries are C++. Pretty much anything COM based is C++ (DirectX, OLE, GDI+, etc...).Not that I agree with the original poster, you can certainly emulate C++ in C. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Welld duh its written in C by Waffle Iron (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @03:05PMRe:Welld duh its written in C by man_of_mr_e (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @08:07PMRe:Welld duh its written in C by blazzy (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:54PMRe:Welld duh its written in C by AgentJJ (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:33PMRe:Welld duh its written in C by HermanAB (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:48PMC++ on Windows != MFC by ClosedSource (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:27PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Welld duh its written in C by Anonymous Coward (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:55PMRe:Welld duh its written in C by ClosedSource (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:50PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Welld duh its written in C by atomm1024 (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @12:41AMRe:Welld duh its written in C by xquark (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Wine for OSX (Score:5, Interesting) by Dr. Spork (142693) on Saturday October 22, @02:12PM (#13853199) You know, starting about next year, WINE will suddenly find a new big customer base, provided they can abstract the design enough to run on OSX-x86. I'm not sure how much work that would take but it certainly seems worth doing. I imagine that the people on OSX with an urge to run Windows apps will outnumber users of Linux with the same urge. Hell, if I were Codeweavers, I'd be working really hard on CrossoverOSX. There might even be good money in it! [ Reply to ThisRe:Wine for OSX by FidelCatsro (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @02:22PM Re:Wine for OSX (Score:5, Insightful) by fm6 (162816) on Saturday October 22, @02:47PM (#13853344) (http://picknit.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 09, @03:53PM) No matter how quiet they did it, it would get back to Microsoft — and the repercussions would be extreme. The Mac still relies heavily on Microsoft's goodwill.The idea of running Wine on Intel Macs probably occurred to every WINE enthusiast roughly 300 milliseconds after Apple announced they were abandoning POWER. No doubt many people are working on it, including Codweavers. But forget about financial support from Apple. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Wine for OSX by FidelCatsro (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:03PMRe:Wine for OSX by fm6 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:19PMRe:Wine for OSX by FidelCatsro (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:30PMRe:Wine for OSX by 11223 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:28PMRe:Wine for OSX by niteice (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:51PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Already announced by rincebrain (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:32PM Re:Wine for OSX (Score:4, Funny) by timeOday (582209) on Saturday October 22, @02:58PM (#13853394) I'm not sure it's such a good fit:Mac: It Just Works.Wine: Whoah, something almost worked! [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Wine for OSX by ultranova (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:54PMRe:Wine for OSX by esarjeant (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @11:02PMRe:Wine for OSX by Burz (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @09:36PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Re:Wine for OSX (Score:4, Informative) by pwagland (472537) on Saturday October 22, @03:07PM (#13853429) (Last Journal: Monday December 17, @06:50PM) Hell, if I were Codeweavers, I'd be working really hard on CrossoverOSX. There might even be good money in it!http://www.codeweavers.com/about/general/press/?id =20050622 [codeweavers.com]It would appear that you are not alone... [ Reply to This | ParentThank you! by Dr. Spork (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:11PMRe:Wine for OSX by subsolar2 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:32PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Obsolete model? (Score:4, Interesting) by Slashdiddly (917720) on Saturday October 22, @02:13PM (#13853202) Could it be that the hardware improvements made over the last 12 years may have made library-level emulation unnecessary? Device-level (eg, vmware) and architecture-level (eg, virtual pc) are both simpler and more robust. [ Reply to ThisRe:Obsolete model? by Darkon (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:21PMRe:Obsolete model? by October_30th (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:27PMRe:Obsolete model? by Darkon (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:30PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Obsolete model? by AlbertEin (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:35PMRe:Obsolete model? by onemorechip (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @03:04PMRe:Obsolete model? by imroy (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:05PMRe:Obsolete model? by October_30th (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:04PMRe:Obsolete model? by Ash-Fox (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @05:39PMRe:Obsolete model? by AlbertEin (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:41PMRe:Obsolete model? by CaraCalla (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:51PMRe:Obsolete model? by ultranova (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:02PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Obsolete model? by Slashdiddly (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @02:49PMRe:Obsolete model? by makomk (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:27PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Re:Obsolete model? by Albinofrenchy (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:17PM2 replies beneath your current threshold. Darwine (Score:1) by catmistake (814204) on Saturday October 22, @02:13PM (#13853205) anyone know if this project is affected by this? Is it moving along? Have they made it to alpha yet? [opendarwin.org] [opendarwin.org] [ Reply to This Windows Standard Base (Score:4, Interesting) by shumacher (199043) on Saturday October 22, @02:13PM (#13853206) (http://phobos.apple....electedItemId=927336) In the hardware-side x86 world, at least for the last fifteen years or so, you could buy a complete system, and no single company could be guaranteed a cut. AMD might get money, Intel might get money, but nobody had it locked down. Over time, the x86 has become something of a standard hardware platform. With WINE, I'd love to see a Windows Standard Base created. A single software environment that would be very commonplace, widely supported, shipped on almost all hardware, but not tied to a single company. In a sense, push Microsoft in software where IBM went with hardware. Eventually, you'll see vendors start creating secure versions, embedded versions, silly hacks to the PSP, and the money could go anywhere. Microsoft's Windows division could use some more direct competition.Wouldn't that be great, or am I wrong? [ Reply to ThisRe:Windows Standard Base by hitmark (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:18PMRe:Windows Standard Base by shumacher (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:25PMRe:Windows Standard Base by Weedlekin (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:24PMRe:Windows Standard Base by Lehk228 (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:37PMopen Windows compatible OS exists: ReactOS ! by free2 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @04:05PM Not as hard as quote suggests (Score:5, Insightful) by AHumbleOpinion (546848) on Saturday October 22, @02:21PM (#13853235) (http://slashdot.org/) This is really hard work. We're replicating the work of a billion-dollar company. Yes and no. It is a little simpler than this quote suggests. Wine does not need to implement every API that Microsoft produces. It needs to implement every API that desired Windows applications use. In some ways it is a quality of service problem, the marginal cost between supporting 90% of apps and 100% of apps may be too expensive. Maybe 80% to 90% is too expensive. I don't pretend to know what the optimal percentage is but it is surely not 100% or even mid to high 90%s. In any case this is a monumental task and the Wine developers deserve an awful lot of credit and thanks. [ Reply to ThisRe:Not as hard as quote suggests by Kjella (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @02:51PM Re:Not as hard as quote suggests (Score:5, Informative) by IamTheRealMike (537420) on Saturday October 22, @03:29PM (#13853524) (http://plan99.net/~mike/) It's not quite that simple I'm afraid.Take the recent DCOM work we did. This is what I'm going to talk about because it's what I know - myself (CW) and Rob Shearman (CW), along with some help from Marcus Meissner (Novell) and Huw Davies (CW) reimplemented large parts of DCOM mostly for one application. The work took many months - starting from a pre-existing codebase written by Marcus years earlier, we were "finished" ~135 patches later. What was that one application which was so important?InstallShield.Now perhaps you see the problem - sure, not every API is used by every app. But there are hundreds of thousands of APIs, many extremely complex, and many millions of applications. All it takes is ONE popular application to use a single API that was not yet reimplemented and you have months of work ahead of you.This is especially true of something like DCOM where the supporting infrastructure for 4 or 5 functions can run to 10,000+ lines of code. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Not as hard as quote suggests by AHumbleOpinion (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @07:47PMRe:Not as hard as quote suggests by xerxesdaphat (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:45PMRe:Not as hard as quote suggests by Jarlsberg (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:56PM2 replies beneath your current threshold.Re:Not as hard as quote suggests by adrianmonk (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @07:30PMRe:Not as hard as quote suggests by AHumbleOpinion (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @09:40PM Good clone (Score:5, Funny) by Baramin (847271) on Saturday October 22, @02:38PM (#13853308) (http://www.chezthierry.info/ | Last Journal: Monday October 17, @08:04AM) White said that once you got something working it has never meant it would continue to do so, or do so properly. There may have been display glitches or things not functioning properly, if a program even worked with Wine at all. That's what I get from WinXP on a regular basis, so I guess I could stand using Wine. [ Reply to ThisRe:Good clone by FST777 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @10:43PM ABRs of OSS (Score:5, Interesting) by Doc Ruby (173196) on Saturday October 22, @02:39PM (#13853310) (http://slashdot.org/~Doc%20Ruby/journal | Last Journal: Thursday March 31, @02:48PM) "Alpha" is not a subjective measure of the quality or maturity of code. Alpha means the code has never been modified by feedback from testers who are not part of the development team. "Beta" means code that has been or is being modified after receiving beta test results from people without the expectations, therefore the blind spots and other biases, of the developers themselves. Alpha tests are important, but beta tests are much more important to determine whether the code will be acceptable by its users, especially when those users aren't the developers. The "release" test is a more subjective delineation, especially since Netscape got everyone to accept that we'd use "beta" software the same way we'd use a general release.So WINE might have good reasons (eg. moving Microsoft target) for remaining relatively "immature", incomplete, or buggy. But once they revised it on feedback from people outside the WINE development team, it is beta, regardless of what they call it.This is not a semantic argument. It's a very important point about how development/testing patterns affect code quality. Incorporating the "social" aspects of development, and their constructive/destructive effects on projects, makes development more productive. This is especially true of OSS, as projects often lack the discipline that comes with keeping the code hidden from "outsiders". Without the proprietary discipline, the alpha/beta/release discipline lets OSS projects have more flexibility, and therefore more productivity when used right. Without even the alpha/beta/release discipline, OSS projects need another to produce quality, or fail to do so. [ Reply to ThisRe:ABRs of OSS by AlbertEin (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:08PMRe:ABRs of OSS by Doc Ruby (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @03:43PMRe:ABRs of OSS by chgros (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:07PMRe:ABRs of OSS by Doc Ruby (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @12:52AMRe:ABRs of OSS by Doc Ruby (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @11:45PMRe:ABRs of OSS by Doc Ruby (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @12:26AMRe:ABRs of OSS by Doc Ruby (Score:2) Sunday October 23, @12:32AM3 replies beneath your current threshold. Is it just me? (Score:2) by zappepcs (820751) on Saturday October 22, @02:39PM (#13853311) (http://www.asomaworld.net/zinn | Last Journal: Tuesday October 04, @08:28PM) Or do others feel that multibillion dollar companies get away with selling alpha software? As far as I can remember, most companies put out alpha and beta software to let users test it in production environments. I could name a few here, but we have all probably dealt with this issue.One thing that is nice to see, the group developing Wine have no illusions, and freely admit that you might have problems using the software. Despite that, I know many people who use Wine so they don't need MS operating systems. Since my adventure began to rip MS products out of my home and business networks, I have found a couple of programs that just are not available for *nix and so far, have limped along on an old Win98SE box. Wine is my next step.Along with others here I say, "so its alpha?", THANK YOU VERY MUCH.--Yes, if it works for me, I contribute dollars. [ Reply to ThisRe:Is it just me? by RoffleTheWaffle (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:01PMRe:Is it just me? by ebuck (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:29PM Enough is enough... Call the FTC (Score:3, Insightful) by Baldrson (78598) * on Saturday October 22, @02:59PM (#13853404) (http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery | Last Journal: Wednesday July 21, @08:12AM) The FTC should have been requiring M$ to publish its API from the first day IBM shipped MSDOS with the 4.77MHz 8088 PC.It should require M$ to publish all of its APIs now and verify that all M$ applications are written to those published APIs. Moreover, it should require that all communications between the application development portion of M$ and the operating system portion of M$ are public domain. [ Reply to ThisRe:Enough is enough... Call the FTC by DigitlDud (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @03:10PM Property rights are a social construct. (Score:4, Insightful) by Baldrson (78598) * on Saturday October 22, @03:29PM (#13853525) (http://www.geocities.com/jim_bowery | Last Journal: Wednesday July 21, @08:12AM) The day Bill Gates, Steve Balmer, Paul Allen, Larry Ellison, Warren Buffett, et al pay the cost of protecting their property rights is the day I'll consider respecting those property rights. Until then, everything they own is fair game.Since the primary function of government is the protection ofnon-subsistence property rights, it is sensible to charge a use fee forthose rights. Note, I said "non-subsistence" property rights. The pointhere is that house and tools of the trade are protected fromconfiscation under bankruptcy law precisely because they aresubsistence assets. Where government does not exist, subsistenceproperties are typically defended by the occupant, whose life issustained by those assets. Government brings precisely the propertyrights we associate with civilization -- assets beyond home and toolsof the trade. Given the relatively liquid nature of civilization, it makessense to define "non-subsistence" in some dollar value of assets.Various ways of defining the dollar value are all approximately equal:The median price of housing a person plus the median price of capitalizing a job. The threshold used by the SEC for "qualified investor". The level of savings insured by the FDIC. Or, for the historically inclined: The market price of 20arable acres in the Confederate south, a mule, a plow and a small houseon such land. Until a citizen accumulates the subsistence net asset level,they should pay no tax and then pay tax only on the net assets they ownabove subsistence.Assessment should be by the owner, thereby establishing a "fair market value" for the exercise of eminent domain. Net assets onlywould be taxed and would be calculated by subtracting the fair marketvalue of debts against the estate from the self-assessment of theoccupant. Other forms of taxation could be eliminated in a revenueneutral way if net assets, in excess of subsistence levels, were taxedat the risk free interest rate [google.com] (approximately the interest rate on the national debt).Indeed, given the centralization of asset ownership that has resultedfrom the subsidy of non-subsistence property, a subsidy inherent incivilization, it may be the failure to use this tax base is theultimate cause of the repeated decay of civilizations from ancienttimes. [ Reply to This | ParentRe:Property rights are a social construct. by Quarters (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @05:26PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.Is there an analogy to doing that? by Grendel Drago (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:29PMRe:Is there an analogy to doing that? by belmolis (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @03:45PMEven better analogy by Lifewish (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:59PMRe:Is there an analogy to doing that? by KillShill (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @04:46PM1 reply beneath your current threshold.2 replies beneath your current threshold. ReactOS and WINE (Score:5, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday October 22, @03:12PM (#13853454) In case anyone doesn't know. The ReactOS project [reactos.com] works closely with WINE. They are implementing the API from WINE on a replica of the Windows 2000 kernel. This means that both Windows drivers and applications will work natively without any changes. They seem to have come on leaps and bounds in the past year with many applications working straight away (OpenOffice, Abiword, mIRC, Unreal Tournament, InfranView, PuTTY as some). Once they start implementing some of the security features then there will be another viable alternative. In the future I can imagine ReactOS coming on a CD with OpenOffice, Apache etc, much like Linux distributions do, which creates an easy migration path: Windows + Apps -> Windows + OSS Apps -> ReactOS + OSS Apps then then off to a Linux or *BSD varient if you want. [ Reply to ThisRe:ReactOS and WINE by TwoTailedFox (Score:3) Saturday October 22, @03:16PMRe:ReactOS and WINE by walterbyrd (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @05:15PMRe:ReactOS and WINE by TwoTailedFox (Score:2) Saturday October 22, @06:12PMRe:ReactOS and WINE by LentoMan (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @06:18PMRe:ReactOS and WINE by FST777 (Score:1) Saturday October 22, @10:48PM1 reply beneath your current threshold. Wine? (Score:3, Funny) by Geoffreyerffoeg (729040) on Saturday October 22, @03:35PM (#13853549) The WINE project is 12 years old, so it's just about time.In other words...it aged for 12 years? [ Reply to This