Subject: Wine status - January 26, 1994
From: [email-masked] (Bob Amstadt)
Date: 29 Jan 1994 23:49:19 +0200
Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.announce

***************************************************************
Status Report - January 26, 1994

Thanks to the work of Alexandre Julliard and Martin Ayotte, we have
eliminated all Xt code from Wine.  Wine is now faster and looks more
like MS Windows.

We have a new mailing list!!!  Hopefully, it will result in faster
turn around times and less confusion.

We now have 30% of major API functions defined.  We have received our
first donations of money and equipment.  We still could use more
though.  Our current plans are to use monetary donations to buy
programming time from student programmers.  Work continues at an
amazingly rapid rate.  

-Bob Amstadt
[email-masked]

***************************************************************
HOW CAN YOU HELP?

	If you are interested in contributing to this project,
join the wine-users mailing list.  You can join by sending the message:

subscribe wine-users

to [email-masked].  To send mail to everyone on the list,
send mail to [email-masked].  New releases are approximately
every Tuesday.  All releases are announced to the WABI channel.
Also, I will do my best to answer any question mailed to me.
However, we really need people who can dedicate 10 or more hours
per week.  This project requires people who can learn on there own.  
My address is "[email-masked]".  

	If you don't have time to donate, how about money or equipment?
This project has exploded into one of great general interest.  We
have attracted the attention of many individuals and several
prominent organizations.  Monetary contributions will be accepted to 
pay contributors for their time.  Equipment is also needed.  Most 
notably disk space is a big problem.  If you would like to make a 
contribution, please contact me by email.

***************************************************************
WHO'S WHO

	Thanks to the following people for their generous
contributions of time to this project.

	Martin Ayotte
	Erik Bos
	John Brezak
	Andrew Bulhak
	John Burton
	Peter Galbavy
	Miguel de Icaza
	Alexandre Julliard
	Scott A. Laird
	Peter MacDonald
	David Metcalfe
	John Richardson
	Johannes Ruscheinski
	Yngvi Sigurjonsson
	Linus Torvalds
	Karl Guenter Wuensch
	Eric Youngdale

	Thanks to the following people and organizations for their
generous contributions of money and equipment:

	Syntropy Institute
	James Woulfe

***************************************************************
HISTORY

	The Wine project is an attempt to write something with similar 
functionality to the WABI that was developed by Sun.  The basic goal 
is to be able to take a MS-Windows binary and run it under X-Windows.  
Currently Wine is supported by two operating systems: Linux and NetBSD.
Other operating systems may be supported in the future.  The finished 
product will essentialy consist of two parts:

	a) A program loader, which will load the Windows binary into
the virtual memory of the user process, provide a means for adjusting
the ldt of the processor so that the 16-bit segments that are
typically used with Windows binaries will work correctly, and provide
a means for calling the Windows binary in the first place, allowing
the Windows binary to call back to the 32-bit mode program, and
finally allow the 32-bit mode program to call back again to the
Windows binary (i.e. Windows callbacks).  In each case, the arguments
being passed will have to be pulled from the appropriate stack and
loaded on to the other stack (there will be a 16 bit and a 32 bit
stack).  Finally some application specfic DLL libraries will have to
be loaded, and dynamic linking will have to be performed.

	b) The second part of the finished product is an emulation
library, which takes calls to Windows functions, and somehow
translates these into calls to X11 in one fashion or another, so that
equivalent functionality is achieved.

	It should be pointed out that the Windows binary will be
running directly - there will be no need for machine level emulation
of the instructions.  Sun has reported better performance with their
version of WABI than is actually achieved under MS-Windows -
theoretically the same result is possible under Wine.

	The project got started as a result of discussions on
comp.os.linux in early June of 1993.  A mail channel was set up for
discussions, and this directory was created.  At the moment, all of
the files that are uploaded are in the private directory in a hidden
directory.  The reason for this is that the program is really only of
use to developers right now.  Once something is ready for public
consumption, it will be uploaded to a publicly visible directory.
-- 
Bob Amstadt
[email-masked]

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