Hi,
������������ I dont recall how I stumbled upon Wine and its existance, however I am intersted in recent, if any, devlopments with the porting of Wine to OS X.��� I checked the Wine site and most of the articles are dated with the lastest date of Nov 2000.��� A lot has changed in OS X since that time and it appears that a leats a couple of the main issues have been addressed during this time.��� The main issues which seemed to be posted are as follows:



Current list of possible issues:
================================
-> Endianness.��� Since we are using WineLib, could
have resources written in native (big) endian format
with wrc.��� Any external data files such as cursors, bitmaps, sound
would have to be converted. The PUT_WORD/GET_WORD macros
need byte swapping turned off. (Did I miss anything?)

-> Exception handling, Signal handling code

-> Memory alignment issues

-> According to "Inside MacOS X: Kernel Environment"
������ (http://developer.apple.com/techpubs/macosx/Kernel/KernelEnvironment.pdf)
������ pg. 34, Darwin supports Pthreads, "many of the POSIX APIs"
������ I haven't been able to find any lists of incompatibilities yet,
������ but I am afraid of the word "many".

-> According to the "MacOS X Kernel Environment" book, pg. 37,
������ Mac OSX does not support memory mapped devices through the mmap
������ API.��� This would affects at least streaming sound playback.

-> WSControl / WSAIoctl need to be adapted to MacOS X.
������ (ioctl() calls can be platform dependent, /proc/net/dev
������ on linux is probably different on OSX)

-> Sound Support.��� Currently done with WineOSS (ties into
������ Linux OSS drivers)��� Doesn't seem to be a port of OSS
������ to MacOSX.��� Maybe need to do another layer specific to the
������ Mac(?)

-> Must ensure that behaviour of lower level UNIX resources
������ like sockets, threads, files are the way WINE expects it.

-> Presence of Assembly language in code will have to be written
������ in C or translated to PowerPC assembly. (assembly is generated
������ in spec.c files, as well as other places like in the server)

-> Debugger seems tied completely to Intel architecture.
������ (Since we will be using WineLib, we probably don't need
��������� winedbg, can use gdb?)

-> Need a X11 server or need to make a x11drv replacement that
������ is Quartz specific.��� (There is a XFree86 port to MacOS X, but
������ it only runs seperately from Quartz at this time.��� Making the
������ X server a rootless client of Quartz is on the TODO list of
������ Darwin but there is no mention of its current status.
������ There is a commercial server, at:
������ http://www.tenon.com/products/xtools/ which already implements
������ this)

-- the XFree86 port to MacOS X now includes a rootless clinet of Quartz so this should be a big jump having the window manager avialable.

-> Need to be able to build Windows app using gcc (might be issues
������ such as using MS specific keywords/language constructs, etc.)
������ Does ATL build properly with gcc?



in addition��� James Hatheway wrote on Nov 10 2000
"To test these concerns, I made four test apps and compiled and ran them
on Mac OS X.��� I used the "Mac OS X Public Beta Developer Tools CD"
which is downloadable from http://connect.apple.com



The first test app used mmap and MAP_SHARED option, the second sent
messages between two programs using sendto over a socket, the third
used file I/O functions (like read,write) to send messages over a
socket, the fourth sent an FD over a socket to another process
using sendmsg/recvmsg.

I have good news, each of these programs compiled without
modification on MacOS X with the standard cc, and ran perfectly!!

So, I don't think there are any show stoppers that would
keep us from being able to port WineLib to MacOS X.������
Of course there would be work to do, but at least it
is definitely possible.



"

I dont no what has happend to the��� WineLib port to MacOSX if anything.��� However, I am willing with what time I have to begin a port, since it does seem like it can be done now, hopefully with a group of people.��� In addition apple has posted some information regarding win32 porting that may be a little help at "http://developer.apple.com/macosx/win32porting/".��� Hope you had the best of holidays.
Thanks

~Sanjay Connare