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While we may not see a Duke Nukem Forever build anytime soon, WINE (Wine Is Not an Emulator) -- now preferably written simply as Wine -- has gone gold after a decade and a half in beta.
The 1.0 release of this Windows compatibility layer for Linux allows non-Windows (x86 based Unixes including Linux, FreeBSD, Mac OSX and Solaris) users to run their Windows apps without having to install a virtual machine.
Users only casually familiar with Wine may think of it as a tool used back in the Windows 3.1 days, but in actuality, the big apps like OfficeXP, Quicktime and even Max Payne (a DirectX 8.0 game from 2001) work without a hitch. WineHQ.org maintains a list of applications which work flawlesslly on an out-of-the-box Wine installation.
According to the Wikipedia entry, in a 2007 survey by desktoplinux.com of 38500 Linux desktop users, 31.5% of respondents reported using Wine to run Windows applications.
Wine is one of a number of solutions for individuals and IT managers looking to move to Linux without requiring users to change to open-source equivalents of their required apps, but the advantage is that this one doesn't absolutely require the purchase of a Windows license. Microsoft has generally not made public statements about Wine.
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