WINE goes Beta
Wine is the Windows Emulator. It is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API, on *nix systems like FreeBSD, Linux and Solaris. It will allow you to run Windows programs without the MS Windows.
After roughly 12 years of work, the Wine Project is about to take its widely used Windows translation layer to a place it has not been in all that time: beta.
Wine Project leader Alexandre Julliard, who has worked on the software nearly since its beginning in 1993 and maintained it since 1994, said interview yesterday that the beta release is “a matter of days away.” He has since updated that forecast and said it would be released on Tuesday, October 25th.
“We are currently in code freeze for the release,” Julliard said. “It should happen sometime next week.” (more)
Dap: /.
These guys have an almost impossible task, trying to catch up with MS. I am sure every so often MS tweaks the API making it that much harder. Hopefully it won’t take another 12 year before a release version comes out.
October 26th, 2005 at 9:05 am
Once I can get Linux to work with my wireless card, I’m making the switch. I’ve already weaned myself off of Office and my Photoshop clone. For the most part I use strictly open source apps within windows. Wine worked fine for me when I installed it on my Linux box (which has since backslidden to MS). May have to give it another try in the near future.
October 30th, 2005 at 3:47 am
I’ve not used WINE, but I know others that rave over it. Methinks, there really is no reason to use M$ ever. Especially, now that there are more than enough OSS replacements.