What does it take to run a third-party DLL under Wine?

[John Conneely]

Hi!  I need help determining the feasibility of writing a wrapper around
a DLL so that I can call it from a Linux machine, perhaps as a SO.  I'm
looking for either a member of this list that could contract with us for
support, or pointers to a more appropriate place where I can search for
such a person.  If you're interested in learning more, please read on -
otherwise, thanks for your time!
 
The DLL in question is one that interacts with call recording equipment
in a telephone switch.  Our customer has an incoming call center where
they currently use windows machines on the desktops of the telephone
agents.  They're looking to replace these desktops with Linux machines,
and are trying to convert to a 100% non-Microsoft shop.  This DLL has
five or six function calls that presumably communicates over the network
with the switch.
 
My initial thought was that we have three choices of how to architect a
solution:
 
1)       Port the code to Linux.  I eliminated this as a choice because
we don't have the source code for the DLL.
2)       Use some kind of RPC mechanism (COBRA, SOAP, etc.) to have the
DLL running under windows on a server.  This would work in principle,
and apparently it is the preferred solution by the maker of the DLL.
However, it violates our client's no-Microsoft-code mandate, and our
customer has rejected this as a solution.
3)       Write a wrapper to use the DLL running under WINE.  This is
what I am pursuing now.
 
I'm looking for someone who has done #3 for other DLLs, and understands
the issues that might come up in getting a third party DLL to run under
WINE without active support from the DLL's authors.   I myself have used
Linux quite extensively but have not had the opportunity to use WINE
directly, so we will likely need some help in setting up our WINE
environment.  We've got funding to pursue this, so if you can show me
that you've done something like this before, we will pay you to first do
a feasibility analysis on the DLL in question, and then implement it.  
 
Thanks!

John
 
 
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