winequartz.drv Mac OS X UI discontinued?

[James McKenzie]

Comments on Adam's message

Adam Strzelecki wrote:
> Hi Emmanuel, hello Wine developers,
>
> Since Wine passed 1.0 (woohoo!) maybe someone from the direction can  
> revise Mac support? Even there're numerous Emmanuel efforts to provide  
> Mac UI driver instead of X11, it will be always pushed aside, and  
> sentenced to death, because it is not in official sources.
>
>   
Mac OS X support is really not on the radar, from what I can determine.  
Remember the original goal of Wine was to allow Windows programs to run 
on a Windows API for Linux and UNIX.  Mac OSX switched from a 
proprietary system to FreeBSD/OpenBSD after the project started.  Also 
add that a parallel project was started to allow Windows32s programs to 
run on OS/2.
> I know Alexandre Julliard's decision about NOT taking any Objective-C  
> sources (.m) into the Wine, but maybe this can be revised, anyway  
> all .m rules will be only present on Mac platforms. Using Objective-C  
> is only way to make fair support for Mac OS GUI, as those whole GUI  
> system is objective.
>   
There are several reasons why ObjC code is not allowed in the Wine 
project.  First, the code cannot be examined by Alexandre.  He does not 
have the desire to build it.  I don't know if he does or does not own a 
Mac.  The second is that Wine is and continues to be written in 'c'.   
ObjC code may cause problems with 'straight' c compilers, like those 
that are included with Linux.  This happens even if ObjC code is wrapped 
in selection statements as the compiler must 'read' through all of the code.
Thus, all Mac specific code has to reside outside of the main Wine 
project.  I highly recommend that we revive the Darwine project and 
place Emmanuel's and others code into this project's add-on code.  We 
can also help with the PowerPc to X86 emulator that is needed by the 
older processors to properly work with X86 code.
> Moreover then what's the point of keeping winex11.drv and all GUI  
> driver infrastructure in Wine if nothing else but X11 is NOT accepted  
> into official source?
>
>   
Because there may be additional code to support the Windows GUI 
framework, which is within the scope of the Wine project.   One purpose 
of Wine is to emulate the API of an older version of Windows without the 
need to have virtual machines.
> Forgive me what I say now, but I just it would be more fair if someone  
> from Codeweavers just said that Wine's official support for Mac OS X  
> is against their business with CrossOver and this is the real reason  
> they reject winequartz.drv from Emmanuel Maillard.
>   
Maybe this could be further queried as:  "What is CodeWeaver's offical 
stance on supporting a Mac OS X native user interface when the code 
becomes stable and supportable?" and "Would CodeWeavers consider 
bringing Emmanuel on as a paid employee at that time to ensure that the 
code is maintained?"
> Frankly I'd really pay for CrossOver or Wine, if it was what 1.0-1 is  
> but with native Mac UI, so each wine process has it's own dock icon,  
> and no X11 is needed and native Mac font system.
>   
I would also do such a thing, even if it were in the future plans of 
CodeWeavers.  I would like to see a more programs be given a native Mac 
OS X GUI 'wrapper'.  However, this may take years (as in the 
OpenOffice.org and NeoOffice.org projects) or be found not practical; 
this is the case for several projects.  Keep in mind that what we want 
may not be possible or financially reasonable. 

James McKenzie