Google Contributes to WINE
Regardless of the security and simplicity arguments made for and against Linux, there are some users who simply cannot switch to the free operating system due to legacy software requirements. That situation may soon improve, however. The WINE project has existed for fifteen years attempting to emulate the Windows API so applications can run natively on Linux without requiring a licensed copy of Windows. Many of the most demanding applications proved difficult to port, though, owing to undocumented APIs and the complexity of the underlying emulation code.
Google’s programmers are using their development time to improvements to the WINE codebase and have already made significant headway into porting difficult professional applications like Adobe’s Photoshop CS2. Public improvements to open source projects are common from Google as they have gained much acclaim in the past for the patches and upgrades provided to the MySQL project.
Similarly tagged OmniNerd content:
- Linux Goes to 3.0, by VnutZ almost 2 years ago
- Compiled PHP for Speed, by VnutZ over 3 years ago
- Undocumented API Reverse Engineering Accelerates Firefox 3, by VnutZ about 5 years ago
- How to Create a REST API in Rails 2.0, by dhinchcliffe over 5 years ago


Add a Comment
Email This
Statistics
Print Friendly
Write an Article