I propose the following WineHQ patch to present and clarify Wine's goals. I'm submitting this to wine-devel first to get a feel of whether that would be a good addition and whether that sounds reasonable and accurate enough.
Index: templates/en/about.template =================================================================== RCS file: /home/wine/lostwages/templates/en/about.template,v retrieving revision 1.7 diff -u -r1.7 about.template --- templates/en/about.template 24 Mar 2003 22:49:03 -0000 1.7 +++ templates/en/about.template 30 Mar 2003 02:35:46 -0000 @@ -29,4 +29,70 @@ <a href="mailto:julliard@winehq.com">julliard@winehq.com</a>. For a list of current developers, see the <a href="?page=who">Wine Who's Who</a>.</p>
+ +<h1>Wine's Goals</h1> + +<p>As mentionned in many places, the primary goal of Wine is to make it +possible to run Windows applications on x86-based Unix systems. But there is +often confusion as to what this covers. So let's clarify things a bit: + +<ul> + <li>Wine does not try to be a better Windows than Windows. What this means + is that Wine will not try to extend, improve or 'fix' the Windows API in + an attempt to lure developpers into using it. While we think that it is + important to provide a way to reuse the legacy Windows applications that + are out there, we feel that for new developments there are better APIs + than Win32. + + <li>Wine Is Not a (CPU) Emulator. So no, we will not integrate a CPU + emulator in Wine any time soon. However we will do what we can to make it + possible to integrate Wine into a CPU emulation environment that would + provide the regular Unix services that Wine depends on. In such a scheme + both Wine and the Windows application would be run in that environment. + Two candidates that come to mind are <a + href="http://fabrice.bellard.free.fr/qemu/%22%3EQEMU</a> and + <a href="http://www.transitives.com/tech_overview.htm">Dynamite</a> from + <a href="http://www.transitives.com/">Transitives Technologies</a>. + + <li>Wine's goal is to provide replacements for just those DLLs and APIs + that are needed to run Windows applications. This means that we will not + provide replacements for DLLs that are always shipped together with an + application. This also means that implementing an API that no application + ever uses is not a priority. Similarly, until there are applications out + there that use the Win64 API, it will not be a priority. That being said, + we will certainly try to keep our options open and to improve our API + coverage as we can. + + <li>Making it possible to use Windows device drivers or VxDs on Unix is not + part of Wine's goals. Device drivers don't use the same API that Windows + applications do, and run in ring 0 instead or ring 3. To make it possible + to use them on Unix, one would have to hack the kernel, implement a + completely different API. In other words, this would be a completely + separate project. However, if you want to reuse Windows drivers on + non-Microsoft operating systems we recommend that you have a look at + <a href="http://www.reactos.com/">ReactOS</a>. + + <li>Wine is not an operating system or a desktop environment. So writing + device drivers, file or window managers that look like Windows, are not + part of Wine's goals. If you are interested in those, the best would be to + contribute to the <a href="http://www.kernel.org/">Linux</a>, + <a href="http://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a> or + <a href="http://www.reactos.com/">ReactOS</a> kernels, or to the + <a href="http://www.gnome.org/">Gnome</a> or + <a href="http://www.kde.org/">KDE</a> desktop environments. You will get + the added benefit that your contribution will then be usable by everyone, + not just by Wine users. + + <li>Wine's focus is on Unix operating systems, and to some extent Linux + because that is what most of our developpers are using. However we welcome + ports to other architectures such as + <a href="http://www.reactos.com/">ReactOS</a> or + <a href="http://bewine.beunited.org/">BeWine</a>, and will try to make + it possible for them to reuse as much of Wine as possible. After all, + reimplementing the Windows API is a big enough task that it is best if we + can all work together on it. +</ul> + + <p> </p> +