| Developer(s) | Darwine Project |
|---|---|
| Stable release | 1.0.1 / 2008-10-24 |
| Preview release | 1.1.21 / 2009-05-08 |
| Development status | Discontinued (Winebottler is the Intel Mac replacement) |
| Operating system | Mac OS X, Darwin |
| Platform | PowerPC, IA-32 |
| Type | Compatibility layer |
| License | GPL, LGPL |
| Website | darwine.sourceforge.net |
Darwine was a port of the Wine libraries to Darwin and Mac OS X (the Wine project provides source code for OS X but not binary builds). The Darwine project intended to port and develop Wine as well as other supporting tools that would allow Darwin and Mac OS X users to run Windows applications and to provide a Win32 API compatibility at application source code level.[1]
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Darwine was originally intended to support compiling of Win32 source into Mach-O/PowerPC binaries for Macintosh computers. The project was now combining Wine's program loader with QEMU, an x86 emulator, to allow running of Win32 binaries on Mac OS X for PowerPC. However, Darwine's focus shifted due to the Apple–Intel transition. Darwine on new x86 Macintosh computers could run Windows programs (if compatible with Wine) natively — resulting in speeds comparable to Mac specific programs. The Darwine project stopped active development in late 2006, but was later revived and new builds — without code changes — were created, starting in mid 2008 by other developers. Version 1.0 was released on June 17, 2008, the same day as version 1.0 of Wine.
On May 29, 2009, kronenberg.org stated that "As some might have read on Wine-Devel, Darwine is dead for good. The OS X port of Wine formerly known as Darwine is now Wine." It was also stated that in future kronenberg builds Darwine's WineHelper app would be replaced by a new one called WineBottler.
The Wine project provides source code for OS X but not binary builds. During the course of the Darwine project several developers had released prebuilt binaries, available for download in a DMG disk image for easier installation. At the time, ports were being built for Mac OS X 10.4 "Tiger" and 10.5 "Leopard".