Though it is my personal judgment that the two who have responded so far don't truely know the answer to my question, for the sake of argument, I will refute what has thus been presented. From Jan: "Not every user will be able to find those 3rd-party repositories." Well, most people coming from windows will be able to find those repositories. The winehq website presents very clear directions on how to set them up, and it involves cutting and pasting two commands. This is a matter of opinion, and is also besides the point, since you can just download the latest version. You don't need the repos. "Maybe some companies want to say that their software works with "WINE in Ubuntu X.YZ", which can't be guaranteed with "random" upstream versions." If companies are relying on a specific release of wine, why include only one? Why not include all of them, like the winehq website does here: <a href="http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/index.html">http://wine.budgetdedicated.com/archive/index.html</a> From Onno: "You could make the above argument for all available software anywhere ie: Why ship a kernel when you can download it from <a href="http://kernel.org/" target="_blank">kernel.org"</a> <a href="http://kernel.org">kernel.org</a> did not seem to have a .deb package built specifically for Ubuntu Gutsy, which is what I'm running. "Why ship Firefox and Thunderbird when you can get them from <a href="http://mozilla.com/" target="_blank">mozilla.com"</a> Again, no packages. > Your understanding "that much of ubuntu software is upgraded on a 6 > month basis to ensure compatibility" does not ring true to me. If you > understood it, that is, really understood it, then you would know that > wine isn't an island. It relates to all the software around it, the > kernel, the windowing system, the hardware abstraction code, etc. > "Ensuring Compatibility" isn't just wine, its the whole lot. So, are you trying to say that the version of wine in the ubuntu repos is more compatible than the one in the winehq repos? Keep in mind, that the winehq version is built specifically for Ubuntu Gutsy (in my case). Additionally, keep in mind, that the version in the ubuntu repos is probably not supported by anyone. I expect that the wine community supports only the latest version, and the ubuntu community diverts any wine related questions to the wine community. > Now long-time Ubuntu users know that this process isn't 100%, that is, > unexpected things still happen, incompatibilities still creep in and > bugs still get unearthed, but at least you're working within a known > problem scope, that is, the goal-posts move every six months, but they > don't move every minute, which is what you're proposing. With wine, the situation is different. In terms of getting apps to run on wine, wine IS an island. I don't know of any ubuntu specific support for wine, the only support is on the wine website. And that website does not support the package that is in the Ubuntu repos. So, in terms of getting things to work on wine, those six month goal posts don't apply. Again, wine in ubuntu is unsupported and outdated. No, you did not answer my question. Why is it included when a better version is so readily available. OR, why not include the updated version in gutsy-backports? Or even proposed? Dan