Talk:First beta of Windows API 'Wine' released

News?

I've moved this back to develop rather than adding a notnews tag. Personally I think Wine is obscure — as far as the general public is concerned. However, if fleshed out I think it could be news; it would have to include details about commercial competitors, and a gentle introduction to what open source is. Brianmc 09:40, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

While Wine is somewhat obscure this is a major release of an important linux program. While I agree this tory needs work, I do not believe we need to mention its competitors. The story is about Wine being released, unless someone wants to include the fact the new CrossOver Office was also released, the story should just be about the event that is news. --Cspurrier 15:35, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

My concern was that most people, even those who are computer savvy enough to have heard of Linux, may well not have heard of the project. They may, on the other hand, have heard of some of the other projects that give Windows environments on a non-Windows OS. Admittedly, I'm not familiar enough with Wine to come up with a good description that is accurate. The revision currently in place reads well, but are there any other categories it can be added to? I suppose a country or continent is out of the question as it is an OSS project that may have contributors from all over the world. (Yes, you can interpret that as me having no objection to it being published, I'm sure it was a lot of work to get where they are and they deserve some press.)

As a final thought, how about listing some of the well-known applications that can now be run under Wine? Brianmc 16:39, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Would it be correct to say, The long-term goal of the Wine project is to provide an environment on a non-Windows computer that allows software which conforms to the published Windows application interface to operate without having to a copy of Windows? Sorry, as a non-user I can only go on what others tell me and I think all the GNU and API stuff will confuse the non-technical readers. I think the beta term has been publicised enough by the likes of Google for that not to be an issue. Brianmc 17:34, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Isn't the article name wrong?

The news is that the first beta of wine has been released. That this beta is called "0.9" is not news. Could this be renamed to "First beta of Wine software released"? or if the actual release will be called "1.0", it could be "First beta of Wine 1.0 software released". 85.28.66.218 17:09, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

How about Wine beta for commercial inspection — Windows applications without the operating system. Yes, if I didn't have to stay NPOV it'd be without the operating system you love to hate. Brianmc 17:38, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Wine is not a windows emulator. Wine just provides the Windows API. Optimix 15:40, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Why WINE is news

I've noticed some discussion here that the release of the wine beta is simply not news because it is only an issue relevent to Linux users that desire to run windows programs. However, it is significant becuase as wine's ability to properly run windows programs is enhanced, it allows more users to switch to Linux while still retaining the ability to run windows software. This has significant implications because, if wine were to one day be able to flawlessly run windows software, it would open up the Linux/Open Source market and cause many users to switch over to Linux, a potential revolution in the way people use their computers and erosion of Microsoft's lead in the Operating System market.

Even better than telling us would be to tell the public - that's what the news article is for. I'll give it a go. Bill3 02:11, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

This is not news, wikinews is not just for computer geeks. And wine will never correctly run all windows software, microsoft will see to that. -- posted by User:66.82.9.55

Back to publish

In a few minutes I plan to move back to Publish. I think all concerns raised here have been addressed in the article, and the article has filled out, and October 26th will start to gather dust tomorrow. Bill3 02:48, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Looks horribly POV to me. "Grant these freedoms" indeed. --Sdfisher 03:35, 28 October 2005 (UTC)

Sources

The article reads like its sources - press releases. Or a movie announcement. Please find additional sources which critique the software, it's current status, and so on. Anything in addition to the press release. - Amgine / ^talk

That's strange. I wrote most of the text, and I hadn't read the press release!

Now that I look at the PR, I see that the article has an explanation of emulators that is different and a bit more detailed, it has an explanation of what it means for Wine to be free software and licensed under the LGPL, an it contains an explanation of how Wine solves vendor lock-in problems (I'll add the term "vendor lock-in" to the article, since it might be familiar to readers).

Wine is the only free software emulator for Windows, as far as I know. This is normal in the free software community, since software developers can cooperate with eachother, they usually choose to do so instead of competing. If someone can add information about proprietray Windows emulators, that might be good, but I'm not sure if any exist. I know there's a popular tool that allows you to run multiple operating systems simultaneously, but the name escapes me - and it's not an emulator anyway. Wine works without having a copy of Microsoft Windows. Wine's "competitor" (thinking out loud), is Microsoft Windows.

The only un-sourced information I could find in the article was about the license, so I've added a source for that. If there's anything else unsourced, please mention it here and I'll find a source for it (or remove the unsourced info).

All complaints seem to be addressed, so I'll move back to publish in a few minutes. Bill3 15:50, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Bill3, what I mean is, it sounds like a press release because there appears to be no critical examination. You might want to look at some of the many other news coverage of the software and this release - via google is one option. You might also wish to use some of these as sources.

When you are only examining documents from the software project, you probably aren't getting more than one point of view. This likely will limit your ability to give a balanced coverage to the event. - Amgine / ^talk 18:04, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

You want the article developed further in a certain direction. This is not what the {{sources}} tag is for. For what the article says, sources are adequetly cited.

You should have changed the {{Publish}} tag to a {{Develop}} tag.

The practical difference is that with the develop tag, this story would appear in the "Stories in development" area, and people could see it and help out.

...and other procedural problem is that mis-reporting the problem leads to someone wasting their time trying to fix the wrong thing (while the news gets staler).

I don't have much time right now. If this article isn't published in later today, it's only good for the bin. I'll try to develop it more if I have time, but if someone else can do it, please do. Bill3 19:47, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

Ok. Done. I'll soon remove the {{sources}} tag. Bill3 23:57, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

I want the article developed to an NPOV standard, not a "certain way". Wine is a very interesting concept, one I would like to try out. I already use a windows emulator on a Mac OS X installation when I must; you would probably describe it differently as it technically emulates the chip and msd and thus allows a windows installation which runs under Darwin and inside Quartz.

I did correctly apply the Sources tag. At the time the only sources from the article were from the Wine project and were extremely unlikely to be completely accurate regarding valid criticisms of the system. Now there are two other projects which rely on the Wine project, and are commercially tied to it, and are equally unlikely to be unbiased sources. Did you consider using some of the information in the Wikipedia article to support this news article?

The goal at wikinews is to provide balanced news reporting. Wikinews is not a place for press releases; yes we have policy against doing press releases. There are other ways this article could have been covered which would have obviated the issue, and would probably have been less frustrating for you. An interview with some of the development team, or a more critical (critical does not mean negative! it means to examine closely, as in a critique!) rewrite of the press release (see devx's article) or even a report of downloading/installing/testing the software might each have been simpler.

I am sorry if I came across as negative on this article; it just reads to me as though it was not written with much objectivity. - Amgine / ^talk 03:12, 28 October 2005 (UTC)