Wine Desktop Entry erroneously calls wine an "Emulator"!

[Alexander Jones]

Binary package hint: wine

...in 8 languages no less. This is simply wrong.

See /usr/share/applications/wine.desktop

The "wine" process should be named "Wine Windows Executable Loader" or, if you think that's too scary, even if most accurate, "Wine Windows Program Loader" would be an alternative.

(Please don't consider calling it "Windows Application Loader". The term "application" is too abstract and doesn't correspond correctly with executables.)

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
Date: Wed May 28 21:05:38 2008
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.04
NonfreeKernelModules: ath_hal nvidia
Package: wine 1.0~rc1~winehq0~ubuntu~8.04-1
PackageArchitecture: amd64
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: wine
Uname: Linux 2.6.24-17-generic x86_64
UnreportableReason: This is not a genuine Ubuntu package

[Nick Ellery (nick.ellery)]

I would agree with this. I think that Wine Windows Executable Loader makes the most sense. What is the current term used?

[Nick Ellery (nick.ellery)]

Also, this might be best reported upstream here: http://bugs.winehq.org/

[Andrew Starr-Bochicchio (andrewsomething)]

A look at the diff.gz shows that the package is installing it's own .desktop file. So this is a distro issue not an upstream one.

+++ wine-1.0-rc2/debian/wine.desktop
@@ -0,0 +1,15 @@
+[Desktop Entry]
+Type=Application
+Encoding=UTF-8
+Name=WINE
+GenericName=Wine Win32 API Emulator
+GenericName[ru]=Эмулятор Win32 API
+Comment=Launch your Windows programs
+Comment[ru]=Программа для запуска приложений для ОС Windows
+NoDisplay=true
+TryExec=wine
+Exec=wine %f
+Terminal=false
+Categories=Emulator;
+MimeType=application/x-ms-dos-executable;application/x-msdos-program;application/x-msdownload;application/exe;application/x-exe;application/dos-exe;vms/exe;application/x-winexe;application/msdos-windows;application/x-msdos-program;application/x-zip-compressed
+Icon=wine

[Scott Ritchie (scottritchie)]

Andrew that's the wrong package (there was a small moment where the Debian package was synced into Intrepid on accident, it's replaced now).

Anyway the desktop file responsible is part of the upstream source, in tools/wine.desktop.

I agree it should be "Wine Windows Program Loader", however mainly because it's about user expectations. Wine is in a sense "emulating" Windows, and people do argue this, but what matters is what the user expects the function to do upon reading the text. We impart better information by calling it a "Windows Program Loader" than a "Windows Emulator" because when users see "emulator", they might think Wine does something more than just open and run the application.

[Launchpad Janitor (janitor)]

This bug was fixed in the package wine - 1.0.0-1ubuntu4~hardy1

---------------
wine (1.0.0-1ubuntu4~hardy1) hardy-backports; urgency=low

  * Automated backport upload; no source changes.

wine (1.0.0-1ubuntu4) intrepid; urgency=low

  * Re-add dh_installchangelogs to install this changelog (LP: #242072)

wine (1.0.0-1ubuntu3) intrepid; urgency=low

  * tools/wine.desktop: associate wine with .msi files
  * tools/wine.desktop: change to "Wine Windows Program Loader"
    - retranslate all current entries (LP: #235593)
    - add ca, pt, pt_br, it, da, nb, nn translations

 -- Scott Ritchie <email address hidden> Wed, 02 Jul 2008 10:14:04 +0100