http://bugs.winehq.org/show_bug.cgi?id=12431
--- Comment #55 from Alexandre Julliard julliard@winehq.org 2008-06-24 15:41:38 --- Northwest gravity can't work because many apps expect the window to be where they requested it, not offset by the wm decorations.
For a long time Wine has tried to stick to the lowest common denominator, which is very low indeed for window managers. Unfortunately there's just no way to provide a satisfying user experience that way, no matter how much we tried. Nowadays there are enough window managers that work (almost) right that we can afford to require better standard compliance, as it makes a lot of things work much better. It does cause some harm on broken wms, but it's worth it. Besides, fixing broken wms is easier than changing windows apps...