this post was submitted on 27 Oct 2023
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And it is an emulator these days. Their own website says it and it's obviously one just thinking about it for a second. The reason it started with that acronym was because originally you could take Windows source code, compile it against winelib and run it natively. It is an emulator when actual Windows binaries are executed against it.
I suppose I am not sure entirely what constitutes an emulator and what doesn't, but I always thought an emulator mimics (emulates) a certain systems architecture, i.e. has to be slower by design than the real thing. In wine, however, windows system calls are replaced / re-routed to the underlying linux system calls which are often much faster, which is why wine often exceeds windows in performance executing windows binaries (assuming you can get them to run at all :)
WINE has a FAQ on the matter - https://wiki.winehq.org/FAQ#Is_Wine_an_emulator.3F_There_seems_to_be_disagreement
Short story, it depends what you use WINE for and the perspective you're looking from. I think from a binary's POV that thinks it is calling Windows OS it is emulation.