An Overview of Wine

The Wine Project is the cornerstone of the CodeWeavers software development toolkit. Wine is basically an implementation of the Windows API running on top of Unix. From a layperson's perspective, you can think of Wine as an intermediary between the application and the operating system. So, when a Windows application says it needs a dialog box, it talks to Wine, and Wine in turn whispers discreetly to whatever Unix OS it is running on and says, "Give this application a dialog box." This conversation occurs thousands of times per second while the application is running. The application itself never knows that it isn't running on Windows — as far as it's concerned, it simply makes calls for services, and services appear as they should. Thus, Wine is a generic replacement for the Windows OS. Indeed, a less technical way of describing Wine is to think of it is as though Windows is Tylenol and Wine is simply generic-brand acetaminophen.

Wine is well-known for allowing Unix users to run many Windows applications via its binary loader. In fact, Wine is able to run a majority of Windows applications in some fashion. However, many people do not fully realize the power and potential of Wine. It provides the basis to fully replace or redevelop any Windows based piece of software for use in a non Windows environment, all without any need for royalties or other license fees. Not only can programs such as Microsoft Office run on Unix with Wine, but independent software vendors can use Wine to port their products, and ambitous users can use Wine with the Windows version of Firefox to replace Internet Explorer-only web pages.

The long and the short of it is simple: if you'd like to use a Windows technology in a non Windows environment, odds are that we can help, and we'd very much like to.

What's the catch?

Conceptually, Wine is a silver bullet that will allow rapid and wide spread of adoption of Linux and Mac OS X, because it can free users from the need for Windows. However, the reality of Wine is a bit less polished than that. Wine is still considered 'Beta'-quality software, and while many applications work well, many more need tweaks or fixes in Wine to get them working.

This, then, is the problem that we at CodeWeavers seek to overcome. We provide stable, well tested versions of Wine within our CrossOver product line that allow our customers to depend on Wine's amazing technology within a supported framework. We also provide services to our customers that wish to leverage Wine's power for their solutions. While we almost always tailor those services to fit our clients needs, we do have a broad overview of typical service engagements.