Timeout wrote:
What is good for one person may not be good to the other. It is however sad that the software developers only make programs for only one O/S forcing people to work day for day on an environment that is not up to their needs - and I am not talking about the open source replacements, then don't even cover 10% of the functions.
And we have two choices, ask the developer for a native version of the
program and sometimes the developers look at the numbers and say 'We are
not going to waste resources building our program for that platform,
ever' and that has happened to me time and time again; or WE can
develop, test and implement the Windows API on various platforms to act
as a buffer, if you want to use that word, to interface Windows programs
on a UNIX/Linux based platform. That is the purpose and scope of this
project. And folks have been trying to do this since the early 1990s.
It is not the fault of this project if Microsoft wants to
change/improve/warp the functionality of a Dynamic Linked Library
between the various versions of its flagship software product, Windows.
WE have to adapt and overcome those changes. WE also have to figure out
how to support more than just 'games'. The work on Office, Photoshop,
and other 'heavy' Windows based programs amazes me. The fact that .NET
1.1 now installs and there are reports that .NET 1.1 programs now run is
fantastic. This demonstrates that Wine is growing and is the leading
Windows API interface for Linux/UNIX based systems. Of course, there
is much more work to be accomplished, but I am of the opinion that WE
can do it. Once Wine is released, maybe some of those developers will
change their minds and develop Winelib versions of their programs and we
will see more and more ported from Windows applications made available
for UNIX/Linux platforms.
James McKenzie
