On Fri, 03 Nov 2006 20:22:39 -0800, Roy Lewallen
wrote:

why is it so hard to get open-source Wine to work?

Hi Roy,

Non portable design issues inherent in self-serving Microsoft
products. [This is not an aspersion on EZNEC or similar products or
vendors, it is simply the fact of life when you are tightly wed to the
Microsoft platform.]

M$ is a marketing company, not a development company. Ask any vendor
facing Vista, especially those whose Security niche market (Symantec,
McAfee) is being blind-sided.

M$ is claiming to have gotten it (Security) right this time. Of
course, this claim is indistinct from any similar claim made in any
week's press release for the past two decades. Their LATEST release
of (proprietary) Internet Explorer came complete with a feature that
allowed hackers to take over your machine. This news, too, is
indistinct from any industry weekly press release for those same
decades.

The sub-text response to your question is, "Why would Wine try to
emulate everything given this level of jeopardy?" At some point (and
as you basically offered Tom) you simply start over and do it right.
The alternative is that dedicated soul who finds their mission in
bringing down the evil empire by burrowing into every line of reverse
engineered code.

M$ and other industries think they dominate through sheer force of
numbers. One Jon Lech Johansen proved that both Hollywood and Apple
cannot summon up enough engineering head count to withstand being
whipped by a single individual. Of course, both Hollywood and Apple
relied on Marketing to do the Security issues, not their legions of
design engineers (many of whom are equal or better than Johansen).

73's
Richard Clark, KB7QHC