Should WINE Be In Ubuntu’s Main Repository? Yes.

Those who use the Ubuntu operating system understand that when you go to Add or Remove applications, there are "main" apps and then everything else.

The "main" apps obviously work the best. These are the ones that are in Ubuntu’s main file repository, such as Mozilla Firefox and the OpenOffice suite.

WINE is currently not in Ubuntu’s main repository. It has been proposed that it should be.

My opinion? Yes, it should be there. Absolutely.

For those not in the know, WINE allows you to run certain Windows applications in Linux, BSD and Mac OS X. I say "certain" because WINE won’t run all Windows apps, but it covers a good amount of them.

Some would say "Why not just run a virtual session with Virtualbox under Linux to get all your Windows apps?" Yes, you could do that. But then you need a Windows license to install the operating system legally even in a virtual environment. With WINE there isn’t any OS-licensing necessary because you don’t need a Windows OS to run a Windows app. In addition, every time you want to run a Win app in Linux the non-WINE way you have to either "boot" the virtual OS, wait, then use it or physically restart your computer in a dual-boot Win/Linux style. This can get annoying quickly.

At present if you want to run WINE in Ubuntu you have to specifically choose the non-main repositories from Add/Remove. It installs and works, but the point is that if WINE came as a bundled app with the Ubuntu OS and resided in the main file repository, this makes it much more accessible. It also lets more people know that yes, you can run Win apps in Ubuntu without the need to install/use a Windows OS virtually (or dual boot, etc).

Whenever I need to run a Win-specific app in Linux, I always try WINE first. If it works, that’s awesome because it’s faster and more convenient than doing it any other way.

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