IBM Acknowledges Wine! Offers bounty to port it to PPC64!
IBM has started a new contest meant to spur open source development on their POWER architecture, http://www.linuxonpower.com/ Prizes are offered for coders that port some common open source applications to the architecture. A Tier 2 prize, a Mac G5, is offered to anyone who can port one of the list of Tier 2 applications. Color me shocked to find Wine and Winelib listed there! This marks a change in IBMs policy towards Wine, or perhaps signals a management oversight. While normally it seems that they have an active policy of censoring any references to Wine and completely denying its existence, here they are offering prizes for porting it to PPC. So, now, I guess, the obvious questions: Does Winelib even need any porting? Does it build on PPC as it is? Can we run notepad and such on Linux/PPC? Does any of the work done on porting to AMD64 help us here? Thanks, Scott Ritchie
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:14:39 -0800, Scott Ritchie <scott(a)open-vote.org> wrote:
This marks a change in IBMs policy towards Wine, or perhaps signals a management oversight. While normally it seems that they have an active policy of censoring any references to Wine and completely denying its existence, here they are offering prizes for porting it to PPC.
I don't agree with this statement and here is why: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-wine/index.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-toppage/index.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sc10.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-emulat.html -Tom
Thanks, Scott Ritchie
Tom Wickline wrote:
On Mon, 14 Mar 2005 23:14:39 -0800, Scott Ritchie <scott(a)open-vote.org> wrote:
This marks a change in IBMs policy towards Wine, or perhaps signals a management oversight. While normally it seems that they have an active policy of censoring any references to Wine and completely denying its existence, here they are offering prizes for porting it to PPC.
I don't agree with this statement and here is why:
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-wine/index.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-toppage/index.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-sc10.html http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/linux/library/l-emulat.html
Tom, That first is an article that went up, and then was taken down. The authors were mystified as to why it was ordered removed. It later 'reappeared', but as you can see, it's broken in appeareance, which suggests that it went back up by accident, rather than by intention. Further, if you look at their 'desktop migration' redbook, 268 pages of advice on how to migrate from Windows to Linux, you'll see that it mentions Wine exactly once, in passing, and somewhat derogatorily. It then goes on to spend 3 paragraphs on Citrix. Further, if you probe the author on this, he'll respond cryptically that he's happy to take input on the subject, but he has certain restrictions on changes he can make to the Red Book. And since many of the comments on Slashdot when this went up were along the lines of "Huh? Why don't they mention Wine", I don't think I just have a biased view of the Red Book. So I don't think Scott's statement is untrue. Now, with that said, I know of many, many good folks at IBM that are big supporters of Wine, and with any organization like IBM it's hard to make a blanket statement. Cheers, Jeremy
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 13:28:56 -0600, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)codeweavers.com> wrote:
Tom,
That first is an article that went up, and then was taken down. The authors were mystified as to why it was ordered removed.
It later 'reappeared', but as you can see, it's broken in appeareance, which suggests that it went back up by accident, rather than by intention.
Jeremy, Thanks for the information here, I was not aware the four articles were ever removed. I thought they had only moved the articles from 106 to 128.
So I don't think Scott's statement is untrue.
I didn't mean to say if was false just that I didn't agree with how it was stated as there are clearly four articles at developerworks. With that said, I believe I'm talking in a area where I'm really not up to speed on what has taken place in the past. So it would be best for me at this time to "apologize" if my last statement was incorrect and do some reading before I post on this subject in the future.. Cheers, -Tom
With that said, I believe I'm talking in a area where I'm really not up to speed on what has taken place in the past. So it would be best for me at this time to "apologize" if my last statement was incorrect and do some reading before I post on this subject in the future..
Sorry, didn't mean to make you feel like you'd done anything wrong; I'm just sensitive on the subject. I've long thought that IBM and Wine were a natural strategic fit, and have long worked to persuade IBM of that. Unfortunately, the best I've ever gotten from IBM is indifference, and I've had several major deals killed because IBMers spread FUD about Wine. Those deals would have allowed us to pump some major energy into Wine, so imho, IBM has thus far had a substantial negative impact on Wine. (This is sad, because so many individuals at IBM have been very personally supportive of Wine). But that's mostly my problem; my wishing that IBM would do what I think they should is almost as fruitless as hoping that Alexandre will accept my well documented patches...<grin> Cheers, Jeremy
On Tue, 15 Mar 2005 19:16:59 -0600, Jeremy White <jwhite(a)codeweavers.com> wrote:
Sorry, didn't mean to make you feel like you'd done anything wrong;
Well this is a learning experience for me and I hope other's as well. I'm really glad you replied and gave your personal experiences and input on this subject. So there is no need to apologize to me for setting some facts strait. We can only hope in the future that this will change for the better and IBM will see Wine as a natural strategic fit, as this would be positive for everyone. Cheers, Tom
[...]
I'm just sensitive on the subject. I've long thought that IBM and Wine were a natural strategic fit, and have long worked to persuade IBM of that. Unfortunately, the best I've ever gotten from IBM is indifference, and I've had several major deals killed because IBMers spread FUD about Wine.
That's bad. But I guess I can understand their management's position. They scalded themselves with Windows at least once, and I presume the people up the ladder still have that in mind... Cheers, Kuba Ober
Scott Ritchie wrote:
So, now, I guess, the obvious questions: Does Winelib even need any porting? Does it build on PPC as it is? Can we run notepad and such on Linux/PPC?
Porting to PPC including some 64 bit issues has been done by Pierre d'Herbemont over the last couple years and the patches have been accepted. That was done for Darwin/Mac OS X so I don't know whether it works for Linux/PPC. Winelib works but I haven't yet heard from anyone who has even tried to make Wine/PPC work. These are all "TO DO" items for the Darwine project (http://darwine.sf.net) and I am happy to see this platform get attention (the natives are clamoring to run their PC games on Mac OS X ;). Jim White
participants (5)
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Jeremy White -
Jim White -
Kuba Ober -
Scott Ritchie -
Tom Wickline