Ask Jeremy White and Alexandre Julliard About the Future of WINE

Last week, after 15 years of development, tempered by the need for arduous reverse engineering, the WINE project released version 1.0. What "1.0" means for WINE is neither that the project is finished, nor that it is perfect, but rather that the software runs a small subset of specific freely downloadable Windows applications. That's not to say it doesn't run scads of others, too -- the apps database is proof that thousands of programs run to at least some degree. Here's your chance to ask WINE developer Jeremy White and WINE project lead Alexandre Julliard (both of Codeweavers) about the future of WINE, or any other questions about the project that cross your mind. The usual Slashdot interview rules apply; please ask as many questions as you'd like, but limit yourself to one question per post. We'll pass on the best questions to Jeremy and Alexandre for their answers.

What about the small unique apps?

I hear people often say that its important for Wine to be able to run major applications like Office and Photoshop. However, from a migrate to Linux point, I think the thing that holds people up the most is the small propreitary applications that are written for a specific function. Is there going to be any focus on those programs in the future? Disclaimer, I realize that there are tens of thousands of such apps, but maybe many have something in common.

Re:What about the small unique apps?

Bugs in such apps are valid and they work hard on fixing them where at all possible. In fact, almost all such apps work just fine.

What tends to happen is that a given area of Win32 is covered to the extent that all apps written with a tool that uses that area then work. So e.g. we're desperately waiting for .NET 2.0 to work properly in Wine.

Most pressing issue...

I think the question that is most pressing on our minds (and the one that will determine the magnitude of the pigs flying) is, "Will we be able to run Duke Nukem Forever on Wine 1.0 in the Year of the Linux Desktop?"

No, wrong.

1.0 is used to mark the API as being stable: it is now safe to build your Windows' program's source code against the wine headers without having to worry about them changing in the future.

That a few of the important Windows applications work was a side goal: the wine developers merely thought that it would be fitting, given the apparent significance of the 1.0 release name, to perfect support for what they can.

Perhaps you're thinking of wine the wrong way. It is, first and foremost, a windows-compatible API for porting applications to posix.

Re:No, wrong.

Perhaps you're thinking of wine the wrong way. It is, first and foremost, a windows-compatible API for porting applications to posix.

Actually that brings up a question I'd like to ask the Wine developers:


As I understand it, Wine was originally intended to be both (1) a set of libraries that Windows developers could recompile their code against to run on other operating systems; and (2) a compatibility layer to run unmodified Windows binaries on other operating systems. Which one was the "primary" intent of Wine originally?

Also, nowadays, it seems that the vast majority of people use Wine in mode (2). Few developers have used the Wine libraries to recompile their code. Is this a fair assessment? If so, how does this affect the way you develop the Wine codebase? Do you see this changing in the future?

Apple

Has anyone from WINE engaged apple to see about getting wine better ported and available to OSX users? I am currently using parallels to support my win32 needs under OSX, but that is all. I do not like the idea of having to pay FRP for a full windows OS when all I want to do is run win32 apps. I think it would be awesome to see WINE shipping directly in 10.7, with support from apple.

Commercial Goals on Wine Project?

Question:

With Vista stumbling terribly and now XP being removed from the marketplace, in the medium term do you see Wine / Linux as a true potential commercial viable alternative rather than just a niche as it is now? If so, what financial steps have you taken to prepare for legal threats?

Thanks!! :)

Reverse-Engineering Routine

How does your usual reverse engineering work flow look like? (How do you start, short note on tools, do you use (unit) tests)

Wine in a world of virtual machines

With virtual machines becoming ever easier to install and use, maintaining a Windows VM on my Linux desktop substantially reduces my need for Wine. Will Wine become an afterthought in another ten years as we move to desktops running multiple operating systems simultaneously?

XP or Vista

Will the WINE project try to implement the Windows Vista APIs or will the project aim only for the Windows XP APIs? Seeing that Windows Vista didn't catch on and a lot of applications are still written for Windows XP. Maybe it is a good time to iron out the DirectX 9 and Windows XP DLLs.

WINE, dual-booting, and virtualization.

When I first started using GNU/Linux in 1999, I knew that if I wanted to run Windows apps, the best way to go about it was to dual-boot. Now, it appears that the most convenient way to run Windows apps is to run Windows in a virtual machine. Since both dual-booting and virtualization appear to be more convenient ways to run Windows apps than WINE, where does WINE fit in?

Re:WINE, dual-booting, and virtualization.

I would argue that Wine is much more convenient than virtualization... when it works, that is.

When you run an app in Wine, it integrates (more or less) with your current desktop environment. It immediately has access to the same folder hierarchy. It also performs better (loading the wine libraries seems to have a lower overhead than loading a VM and an OS).*

The only downside to Wine is that not every app runs, and some apps run but are a bit buggy.

So I would say that Wine wins for convenience, whereas virtualization wins on "robustness": any app that runs on Windows will run on Windows in a VM. This is why I use both Wine and virtualization on my system: for most apps, I can just use Wine and it's treated like just another application. For those that don't work well in Wine, I can always open up the VM.

([*] Another aspect of performance to consider is things like hardware acceleration. Most VMs don't take advantage of 3D acceleration, whereas Wine in principle can.)

Status of Wine

Hi,

Suppose that the APIs delivered with Windows XP are the 100% baseline for app compatibility that you want to achieve. Could you give an estimate of how much percent is already implemented and how much work it would be to implement the rest?

Thanks!

What's the biggest obstacle for wine?

What is the biggest obstacle in getting 100% Win32 API compatibility? Is it undocumented "features"? Inaccurate documentation from Microsoft? Fundamental differences between "Windows" and "Linux"? Other technical limitations?

What about themes/skins?

Wine today runs fine, but as desktop linux visuals become better with nice themes, wine becomes more and more an alien in your computer. Is this any plan to make it more native in the look & feel?

Office 97/2000

With you working for codeweavers (which produces the excellent Crossover Linux package), do you see a conflict of interest in wine not directly supporting MSOffice 2K at the gold level?

As a related question:
How do you decide which portions of the code you write goes to wine and which are crossover-specific?

Wine 2.0

So, what are your plans for Wine 2.0?

API good+bad

Throughout all your adventures with the Win32 API, what would you say is the most brilliant part of the system, and which is the most horrible? Like, for which systems would you say, "Wow! I wish I had come up with that!" or "Dear GOD NO!"

Notepad.exe works perfectly

I know making certain key applications work in time for the 1.0 milestone was one of the WINE team's goals, but I just wanted to thank the team, on behalf of everyone in the /. crowd, for making sure Notepad.exe was one of them. It was the first Windows program I tried to use under WINE and it performed flawlessly, making me feel a little more at home on Linux.

We Linux users have been putting up with the likes of vim and Kate and gedit for years, but all of these editors come with major caveats, such as multiple levels of undo and the ability to read both UNIX and DOS text files. With WINE I've been able to use Notepad to delete entire lines when I really mean to delete only one word, and get little square characters where carriage returns should be. I'm so pleased by this app that I'll probably move on to trying Paint.exe next (the silly GIMP airbrush tool isn't as satisfyingly pixellated as the one MS Paint perfected way back in 1995).

Keep up the good work in bringing the Redmond's best software to the Linux desktop!

ReactOS

How much do the Wine and ReactOS teams contribute to each other's projects? What are your personal takes on ReactOS? Do you think it can become a serious Windows replacement?

Re:10 years from now?

If in 10 years the dominant platform is Linux, or OS X, where does that leave WINE?

Vinegar?

Re:10 years from now?

If in 10 years the dominant platform is Linux, or OS X, where does that leave WINE?

I can answer this one. WINE will still be around and used, because the (by then) 30 years worth of Windows software development will include applications still around and being used.

Also, using 10 years as the endpoint for Windows dominance doesn't address what happens between then and now. It's going to have to be gradual, and as development shifts to a different platform, I guarantee some developers will be tweak their code to run in either Windows or WINE, or use Winelibs to shoehorn most of their application onto OSX and Linux.

Re:Important!

What pieces of software that aren't working do you think are the most important to get working next? Have there been any programs that you never expected to have so many people request?

Re:Waste of Time

I tried Wine and it worked terribly.

Exactly. It's a Windows emulator.

(no, it's not, but for the purpose of the joke...)

Re:Why?

VMs are notoriously shitty at hardware-accelerated graphics.

But hey, if that ever changes...