Scott Ritchie, an Ubuntu MOTU, posted a suggestion on the Ubuntu Development mailing list today that Wine (what?) be put into Ubuntu’s main repositories (what?).

Wine is a piece of software that allows Windows applications to run natively on Linux. The problem is that not all applications work perfectly through Wine. Some applications work perfectly, while others don’t even install. Furthermore, as it stands, Wine is something of a power user tool. It is usually poorly integrated with the system and the hit-and-miss application support , despite the help provided by the AppDB, can all be a pain to deal with. This is not to say that Wine is not improving. Recently, Wine celebrated their 1.0 release after 15 years of development. You have to give them credit for their work (reimplementing pieces of Windows on top of Linux is no easy task ), but that does not change the fact that there are still some rough edges.

These rough edges are exactly why the current proposal is not to just drop Wine into Ubuntu’s main repositories suddenly and then move on. Instead, Wine would be gradually eased in, much as Compiz Fusion (what?) was, along with integration work. The eventual goal would be out-of-the-box recognition of .exe’s and Windows software discs and invisible integration between Wine applications and regular applications, particularly in terms of files.

This sort of integration could mean that new Ubuntu users could easily install their existing Windows software inside Ubuntu, significantly easing, and in some cases enabling, the transition to Ubuntu. Unfortunately, there is also a risk that it frustrates new users instead, since not all applications will work. To ensure that integrating Wine is a purely positive move, it is important to remember three things:

1. Implementation is key. This is the biggest thing to keep in mind. If you just dump Wine’s code into Ubuntu it might technically “work,”but no one will like it. If instead, you gradually ease Wine in and integrate it  wellwith the OS, it will be received much better. It is absolutely essential that, if Wine is chosen to be included in main, its implementation will be well thought out.
2. Don’t over promise. Wine is great, but it can’t work miracles. If it is advertised as a way of allowing you to run any Windows application perfectly on Ubuntu, people will be disappointed and feel that it doesn’t work.
3. Give users some idea of what will/will not work. The user’s experience could be greatly improved if they were able to see if an application will work easily. Perhaps an Ubuntu-specific version of the AppDB could be created. The information from there could then be used to add some sort of indication of the application’s compatibility status to the application’s icon. For example, I might download an EXE and find a green check on its icon, indicating that it was expected to work.

If the decision is made to include Wine, it is important that everything is done with caution and the end user’s experience in mind. That is not in any way intended to say that it is a bad idea, in fact it is a great idea, but it is very important that Wine’s integration is done correctly.