LWN Timeline for 2008: Wine 1.0 made it!

[Zachary Goldberg]

All,
It seems Wine 1.0 was deemed a significant event for Linux and Free Software
in 2008.

http://lwn.net/Articles/Timeline2008/

Cool beans.

-Zach

[Scott Ritchie]

Zachary Goldberg wrote:
> All,
>
> It seems Wine 1.0 was deemed a significant event for Linux and Free
> Software in 2008.
>
> http://lwn.net/Articles/Timeline2008/

It'd be pretty strange if it weren't.  We don't brag about it, but we're
probably one of the top 5 most newsworthy projects.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

[Francois Gouget]

On Thu, 8 Jan 2009, Scott Ritchie wrote:
> Zachary Goldberg wrote:
> > All,
> >
> > It seems Wine 1.0 was deemed a significant event for Linux and Free
> > Software in 2008.
> >
> > http://lwn.net/Articles/Timeline2008/
>
> It'd be pretty strange if it weren't.  We don't brag about it, but we're
> probably one of the top 5 most newsworthy projects.

<grumpy ex-reader>

And as far as I know, in the 10 years since LWN started, there has been 
exactly one LWN article about Wine. For the 1.0 release, in the 
Development section.

Sure they carry the Wine announcements, and occasionally mention an 
article about Wine in the Press section. But real articles about Wine? 
Nope. One almost gets the feeling that they don't like Wine for some 
reason...

</grumpy ex-reader>

That said, maybe we're not newsworthy.

Not that we're not doing incredible work, but that we're not 
'advertising' it well enough, or that it's too obscure or presented in a 
way that makes it hard to get excited about... Heck maybe we should have 
more regular major releases.

[Scott Ritchie]

Francois Gouget wrote:
> Sure they carry the Wine announcements, and occasionally mention an 
> article about Wine in the Press section. But real articles about Wine? 
> Nope. One almost gets the feeling that they don't like Wine for some 
> reason...
>
> </grumpy ex-reader>
>
> That said, maybe we're not newsworthy.
>
> Not that we're not doing incredible work, but that we're not 
> 'advertising' it well enough, or that it's too obscure or presented in a 
> way that makes it hard to get excited about... Heck maybe we should have 
> more regular major releases.

Perhaps...once every six months :)

We never really do make big announcements though.  Even the 1.0 release
story looked more or less the same as every other release.  Perhaps our
new website will give us a good way to brag about new features in the
next stable release.

Thanks,
Scott Ritchie

[Jan Zerebecki]

On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 07:39:33PM +0100, Francois Gouget wrote:
> <grumpy ex-reader>
>
> And as far as I know, in the 10 years since LWN started, there has been 
> exactly one LWN article about Wine. For the 1.0 release, in the 
> Development section.
>
> Sure they carry the Wine announcements, and occasionally mention an 
> article about Wine in the Press section. But real articles about Wine? 
> Nope. One almost gets the feeling that they don't like Wine for some 
> reason...
>
> </grumpy ex-reader>

Yes, please offer LWN to write Wine articles! ;)

Seriously, has anyone offered LWN to write articles about Wine?

LWN also pays compensation... More info on
http://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn

Jan

[Austin English]

On Sat, Jan 10, 2009 at 7:30 AM, Jan Zerebecki  wrote:
> On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 07:39:33PM +0100, Francois Gouget wrote:
> > <grumpy ex-reader>
> >
> > And as far as I know, in the 10 years since LWN started, there has been
> > exactly one LWN article about Wine. For the 1.0 release, in the
> > Development section.
> >
> > Sure they carry the Wine announcements, and occasionally mention an
> > article about Wine in the Press section. But real articles about Wine?
> > Nope. One almost gets the feeling that they don't like Wine for some
> > reason...
> >
> > </grumpy ex-reader>
>
> Yes, please offer LWN to write Wine articles! ;)
>
> Seriously, has anyone offered LWN to write articles about Wine?
>
> LWN also pays compensation... More info on
> http://lwn.net/op/AuthorGuide.lwn
>
> Jan

I wrote an article on common myths/mistruths
(http://lwn.net/Articles/315071/), went in today's release (will be
free to public in a week).

Looks like the editors went with the first draft, which has a few more
grammar errors, etc. If there are any more articles, I'll be sure to
send them final copies, not proofs :-).

[David Gerard]

2009/1/22 Austin English :
> I wrote an article on common myths/mistruths
> (http://lwn.net/Articles/315071/), went in today's release (will be
> free to public in a week).
> Looks like the editors went with the first draft, which has a few more
> grammar errors, etc. If there are any more articles, I'll be sure to
> send them final copies, not proofs :-).

Has anyone managed to concoct a Google Alert that reliably picks up
most or all articles about Wine the software, but without a zilliion
articles about wine the drink?

- d.

[Marcus Meissner]

On Thu, Jan 22, 2009 at 08:28:07AM +0000, David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/1/22 Austin English :
> > I wrote an article on common myths/mistruths
> > (http://lwn.net/Articles/315071/), went in today's release (will be
> > free to public in a week).
> > Looks like the editors went with the first draft, which has a few more
> > grammar errors, etc. If there are any more articles, I'll be sure to
> > send them final copies, not proofs :-).
>
> Has anyone managed to concoct a Google Alert that reliably picks up
> most or all articles about Wine the software, but without a zilliion
> articles about wine the drink?

I am using "windows emulator wine", seems to be pretty reliable,
not sure if it catches everything.

Ciao, Marcus

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--- On Thu, 22/1/09, David Gerard  wrote:
> Has anyone managed to concoct a Google Alert that reliably
> picks up
> most or all articles about Wine the software, but without a
> zilliion
> articles about wine the drink?

I use "wine linux" - I know wine is not just for linux, but most mentions of wine in the intended context tend to also mention linux somewhere before and after, or in the same sentence...

I suppose it can pick up a pages about linux users who are also drinkers...

[Brian Vincent]

On 1/9/09, Francois Gouget  wrote:
> Sure they carry the Wine announcements, and occasionally mention an
> article about Wine in the Press section. But real articles about Wine?
> Nope. One almost gets the feeling that they don't like Wine for some
> reason...

There was a full lead-in article in the Development section right when
Wine hit the original Beta release - I wrote that.

Jonathan Corbett really doesn't seem to have a strong opinion
regarding Wine.  Or, at least if he has a personal opinion he seems
able to set it aside for the sake of whatever goes into LWN.  I've
exchanged a few emails with him at different times never got the
feeling he didn't like Wine.  It just doesn't seem to be something he
uses to solve any problems he might have.

LWN is definitely receptive to any articles.  Things that come to mind
would be an article describing Wine being used to get a specific
Windows program to run.  For example, how you could use Wine to make
iTunes run (not sure if iTunes is actually working these days.)
Another idea might be someone describing a backend development process
used to make Wine do something neat.  Like a technical description of
what CodeWeavers did to get Chrome to run, or what Google has done to
make the new version of Picasa work, etc.

As compensation, they'll give a subscription to LWN for a year.
That's what I got as compensation because I wasn't looking for $$$ and
it was something they could give away without costing any $$$.

-Brian

[Hin-Tak Leung]

--- On Thu, 22/1/09, Brian Vincent  wrote:
<snipped>
> LWN is definitely receptive to any articles.  Things that
> come to mind
> would be an article describing Wine being used to get a
> specific
> Windows program to run.  For example, how you could use
> Wine to make
> iTunes run (not sure if iTunes is actually working these
> days.)
> Another idea might be someone describing a backend
> development process
> used to make Wine do something neat.  Like a technical
> description of
> what CodeWeavers did to get Chrome to run, or what Google
> has done to
> make the new version of Picasa work, etc.

I used to use wine just to run a few windows programs which has no linux equivalents, but lately it is for the late/testing stage of software development. Most R (http://www.r-project.org) developers are unix-oriented and user windows-oriented, and windows R packages (and R itself) can be either cross-compiled or native-built with mingw. I co-wrote an R package which was getting quite popular, and there were a fair amount of interests to get it to run on windows.

These days I cross-compile it - the process requires both native-linux R and win32 R libraries , you run native-linux R's package build script with mingw-cross gcc to link against win32 R's libraries (under wine) - and if I need to test, I install the cross-compiled package onto win32 R under wine. I don't touch windows, and the R package simply would not be ported over nor actively maintained for windows, if I don't have wine.

For that I contributed some changes to wine around mshtml, etc a while ago, to make win32 R's built-in documentation viewer work properly.

(I am almost pitching an article, it sounds like...)