The Wine Project Releases Wine 0.9, Declares Its Open-Source Initiative Ready For Commercial Testing

ST. PAUL, MN - (October 25, 2005) - The Wine Project, the community of free software developers dedicated to opening Linux and other POSIX compatible operating systems to Windows applications, today announced the completion of the core architecture for Wine, an open-source project that allows Windows applications to run natively on Linux. Now available as Wine version 0.9, the tools and libraries are functionally complete and ready for commercial testing and optimization.

As one of the most anticipated initiatives in the open source movement, Wine has been long considered a key to establishing Linux as a practical desktop operating system for both personal and large-scale enterprise use. With Wine, computer users do not need to buy a Windows license to run Windows applications. The utility allows many popular Windows productivity and game applications, from Internet Explorer and Microsoft Money to World of Warcraft and Diablo II, to operate smoothly without the Windows operating system.

"Wine 0.9 marks the beginning of 'prime time' for Wine," said Alexandre Julliard, lead coordinator of The Wine Project. "The application has undergone major redevelopment in recent months, reflecting the work of hundreds of developers around the world. Wine 0.9 is now a stable application with solid support for all Linux kernels. While work remains to be done before Wine can stand on its own, we are excited and encouraged by this major milestone."

Among the most significant accomplishments reflected in Wine 0.9:

• Winecfg.With the completion of winecfg, developers no longer have to create customized configuration files for initialization and application settings;
• Separated DLLs.Wine 0.9 features a full set of dynamic link libraries, removing the need to download DLLs from Microsoft;
• Installer support.many application installers have been tested for reliable operation, making the likelihood high for a smooth install of many Windows applications.

Wine has been recognized by Microsoft as "the most popular third-party translation technology in use." The application provides a development toolkit for porting Windows source code to Linux and other Unix-like operating systems such as FreeBSD and Solaris. It also offers a program loader that allows many unmodified Windows programs to run on x86 processors using those operating systems.

Wine development has benefited from the extensive and continuing commercial/technical support of CodeWeavers Inc., a Minneapolis-based software developer specializing in Windows-to-Linux solutions. Alexandre Julliard, in addition to his commitment to Wine, serves as CodeWeavers' chief technical officer.

Wine is also available from CodeWeavers as a commercially-supported product known as CrossOver Office. CrossOver Office 5.0, unveiled today by CodeWeavers, incorporates all the core technology of Wine 0.9.

Commercial and private users are encouraged to download Wine 0.9 for operational and technical testing. To learn more about Wine, to become a part of The Wine Project, or to download versions of Wine 0.9 suitable for use with any of the major flavors of Linux, visit www.winehq.org.