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Hi! I need help
determining the feasibility of writing a wrapper around a DLL so that I can
call it from a Linux machine, perhaps as a SO.
I’m looking for either a member of this list that could contract
with us for support, or pointers to a more appropriate place where I can search
for such a person. If you’re
interested in learning more, please read on – otherwise, thanks for your
time! The DLL in question is one that interacts with call
recording equipment in a telephone switch.
Our customer has an incoming call center where they currently use
windows machines on the desktops of the telephone agents. They’re looking to replace these
desktops with Linux machines, and are trying to convert to a 100% non-Microsoft
shop. This DLL has five or six function
calls that presumably communicates over the network
with the switch. My initial thought was that we have three choices of how to
architect a solution: 1) Port the
code to Linux. I eliminated this as a
choice because we don’t have the source code for the DLL. 2) Use some
kind of RPC mechanism (COBRA, SOAP, etc.) to have the DLL running under windows
on a server. This would work in
principle, and apparently it is the preferred solution by the maker of the
DLL. However, it violates our
client’s no-Microsoft-code mandate, and our customer has rejected this as
a solution. 3) Write a
wrapper to use the DLL running under WINE.
This is what I am pursuing now. I’m looking for someone who has done #3 for other
DLLs, and understands the issues that might come up in getting a third party
DLL to run under WINE without active support from the DLL’s authors. I myself have used Linux quite extensively
but have not had the opportunity to use WINE directly, so we will likely need
some help in setting up our WINE environment.
We’ve got funding to pursue this, so if you can show me that
you’ve done something like this before, we will pay you to first do a
feasibility analysis on the DLL in question, and then implement it. Thanks!
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