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208 lines
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<title>A Fantastic Interview with Wine's Man Alexandre Julliard LG #52</title>
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<H4>
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"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<H1><font color="maroon">A Fantastic Interview with Wine's Man Alexandre Julliard</font></H1>
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<H4>By <a href="mailto:frc@linuxsolutions.com.br">Fernando Ribeiro Corrêa</a> and Luis Strano</H4>
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<EM>Originally published at
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<A HREF="http://www.olinux.com.br/interviews/10/en">
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http://www.olinux.com.br/interviews/10/en</A></EM>
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<H4>Olinux: Tell us about your background?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> I've studied computer science at the Swiss Federal
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Institute of Technology. I've been working in software development for
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the last 10 years, mostly in embedded software (routers, payphones,
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etc.), and I've been working as a hobby on the Wine project since its
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start in 1993.
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<H4>Olinux: Explain shortly the Wine's History and Organization? What<61>s
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its main purpose?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> Wine started in 1993, and I've been the maintainer
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since 1994. The main purpose is to allow running Windows binaries under
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Linux (and other Unix systems), as well as to allow people to recompile
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their existing Windows source code to build native Unix binaries without
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having to modify the existing code.
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The organisation is along the "benevolent dictatorship" model; all the
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changes are submitted to me, and I have the final say on what gets or
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doesn't get into the source tree.
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<H4>Olinux: What is your main work in real life? Are you full time worker
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for wine?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> I'm working for the company CodeWeavers; part of my job
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is to work on Wine, the other part is to work on custom development jobs
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for customers. At the moment this includes doing Wine development on
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behalf of Corel, so yes I'm mostly working full-time on Wine, at
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least for now.
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<H4>Olinux: What you do in Wine?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> A little bit of everything... my speciality is mostly
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in the low-level areas like memory management, threading, etc. Plus of
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course studying incoming patches and merging them into the source tree.
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<H4>OLinux: Are there business companies or any other type of
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organization that finances Wine development? How did Corel investment
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and support change wine<6E>s development?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> There is no organisation putting funds directly into
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Wine, but there are companies having people work on Wine; of course the
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major contributor in this area is Corel, with a lot of people working
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full-time on Wine.
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Corel's involvment has done a lot for Wine, mainly by addressing areas
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of the code that had been a bit neglected until then, and also by doing
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extensive testing of all their office suite under Wine and fixing all
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the problems they encountered. Wine is definitely much better now than
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it would have been without Corel's help.
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<H4>Olinux: Everyone in Wine's staff is a volunteer?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> No, since there are people at Corel working on it as
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part of their job.
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<H4>Olinux: How people are organized and what are tools are used to
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control the results of the work being done in different projects and
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parts of the world?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> People communicate through mailing lists, and all the
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code is in a CVS repository accessible read-only by anybody. All the
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changes are reviewed by me, and then stored in the CVS tree where
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anybody can test them.
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<H4>Olinux: How many people are working for wine nowadays? Are you
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satisfied with the results?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> It's hard to say exactly how many people are working at
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any given moment, but I'd estimate it at 30-40 active developers. I
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think the results are very impressive, particularly when compared to the
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amount of resources Microsoft is putting into Windows.
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<H4>Olinux: Are there anything that can be done to improve
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productivity?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> Having more people of course; better documentation of
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the Windows API would help a lot but I don't think there is much to hope
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for from Microsoft in this respect.
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<H4>Olinux: Describe the active projects and their core activities? How
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are the tasks divided and co-ordinated in terms of content and
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staff?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> There is no formal organisation in sub-projects. Everybody works on what he wants to, and coordination is done through the mailing list and CVS tree.
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<H4>Olinux: How would you answer Bill Gates statements that Linux wasn't
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any danger to Microsoft monopoly because it was decentralized and
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uncoordinated?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> Linux is a danger to Microsoft precisely because it is
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decentralized. There isn't one company that you can buy or put out of
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business, so the usual Microsoft tactics do not work against Linux.
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<H4>Olinux: Do you see any problem regarding quality of software
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development and maintenance due associated to the volunteer work?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> I think the quality is usually better with volunteer
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work, since people take the time to do things the right way, and also
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take more pride in their work since it is published for the whole world
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to see.
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The main problem with volunteer work is that the parts of the code that
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are less fun to write get less attention; this is why it is a good thing
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to have both volunteer and paid developers on the same project.
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<H4>Olinux: How do you describe wine achievements in 90's and what are
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the prospects and goals for 2000? When users will have a perfect version
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of wine?</H4>
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<STRONG>Julliard:</STRONG> Wine has come a very long way, from the initial 16-bit
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support to now nearly complete support of both 16- and 32-bit APIs, OLE,
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DirectX, etc. We are getting to the point where the core of Wine is
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complete, which should lead us to the first general public release,
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hopefully sometime this year.
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The perfect version that runs 100% of the applications with 100%
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compatibility is probably never going to exist, but a version that is
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perfect for a certain number of tested applications is certainly
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possible; and in fact today's Wine is already perfectly good enough for
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certain applications.
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<P> <EM>The OLinux site also has more Linux interviews.
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<UL>
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<LI> English:
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<A HREF="http://www.olinux.com.br/interviews/">
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http://www.olinux.com.br/interviews/</A>
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<LI> Portuguese:
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<A HREF="http://www.olinux.com.br/entrevistas/">
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http://www.olinux.com.br/entrevistas/</A>
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</UL>
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</EM>
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<H5 ALIGN=center>
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Copyright © 2000, Fernando Ribeiro Corrêa and Luis Strano<BR>
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Published in Issue 52 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, April 2000</H5>
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