My Info
Name: Ira Krakow
Email: <ikrakow_1999@yahoo.com>
Primary obsession: writing the Winelib part of the Wine book
Secondary obsession: understanding enough about the code to contribute to the project
See Brian Vincent's page for a summary of the Wine book. He described the book's schedule the way I see it. Brian's a wonderful person to work with.
I want to make a few comments about the Winelib chapters. My approach with Winelib is that it is one part of a Windows-to-Linux conversion solution, and is not a one-size-fits-all solution for all of these types of projects. I see the conversion process as a continuum. At one end, one could retain all the Windows-based development tools, run the generated PEs under Wine, and declare that the application has been ported to Linux. Simple enough. No code conversion, no recompilation, no nothing. At the other end, one could rewrite the entire application with native Linux tools, including the GUI. This approach takes maximum advantage of native Linux system calls but has the drawback of the long development cycle. If the end product needs to run in both Linux and Windows, this approach might not work, or might require maintenance of two source code trees, with the accompanying maintenance headaches.
I view Winelib as a solution when the app needs to run in both Windows and Linux. Winelib programs can be written when the app needs to take advantage of native Linux library calls, such as to PAM for authentication. The rest of the program does not need to be rewritten, only recompiled with MinGW in the Windows environment. The Winelib programs can be called only when needed. With one code base, this produces an app which runs equally well in Windows and Linux without the maintenance headaches of two code trees.
If the ultimate goal is to convert the app totally to Linux, Winelib can be an intermediate step. You can get the app up and running quickly, get training and user feedback going, and then convert to native Linux on a realistic schedule.
So my approach is to describe the various conversion scenarios, the tools available, and which tools apply to which scenario.
I enjoyed meeting everyone at Wineconf. It was a lot of fun. I especially would like to thank Eric Pouech for his insightful comments on my first draft. I look forward to Version 1.0 and to seeing Wine gaining more and more mindshare, not only in Redmond, but all over the world.