Create new mailing list wine-isv?

[Robert Shearman]

Peter Beutner wrote:

> Michael Jung schrieb:
>
>> On Friday 16 December 2005 10:49, Peter Beutner wrote:
>>
>>> Wine is _not_ just a different toolkit. Just look at all the "nasty" 
>>> stuff
>>> wine has to do to emulate the windows process environment. 
>>
>>
>> I guess in the long term a project like wine, if successfull, doesn't 
>> have to live with the restrictions put up by the environment. If I 
>> understand correctly, the reason we have to do this nasty stuff, is 
>> because the kernel is missing functionality, which the NT kernel 
>> provides. Linus has stated that he thinks the Wine project is pivotal 
>> for Linux success as a desktop operation system. The kernel guys have 
>> been pretty cooperative before and I'm sure if we tell them what we 
>> need, or even better help out implementing it, Wine could be just 
>> another toolkit, perfectly well integrated _with_ the Linux environment. 
>
>
> Let's just look at the problem with the memory layout. Wine relies on 
> the possibility to load certain codes at fixed addresses as this is 
> how it works under windows.
> Linux choose exact the opposite direction, i.e. try to ensure that 
> libraries are loaded at random places in the memory. This is not a 
> missing feature it is a complete different design decision. And I 
> seriously doubt that the kernel/or glibc guys will import the security 
> flaw from windows to always load code at fixed positions.
> So wine will have to live forever with it's custom preloader hack to 
> emulate the windows process environment.


You don't seem to realise that you can execute wine-pthread or 
wine-kthread directly instead of executing wine-preloader. I doubt 
companies using Wine will care (since the same security flaw will affect 
Windows and will have to be patched with urgency) and if they do then 
they can compile their app as a winelib app, which uses the OS's dynamic 
loader and whatever security benefits come with it.

Your arguments seem to centre around complaining about the baggage that 
Wine brings around with it, yet that we emulate the Windows environment 
so well is the very reason that a Wine port is so much cheaper for 
companies than a full port.

-- 
Rob Shearman