The Wine project wiki includes the statement, "Wine requires a DIB engine... [that] can properly handle... DIBs." In Wine, Win32 APIs allow direct use of Windows applications in Linux. A rejected patch to the DIB engine by Massimo del Fedel led to lengthy discussion about bug421 in developer mail. Chris Howe gave air to some of his feelings in a posting: "...the Wine website still lists 'write a DIB engine' as a requirement, and every time someone does, the patches dissapear down a hole because they're 'not right'." Communication among developers seems to be in short supply, because he continues with, "Someone document what 'would be right", or take 'write a DIB engine' off the list." Most of the criticism is targeted at Wine chief maintainer Alexandre Julliard, who responded with, "A large part of the task is precisely to come up with a good design, validate it with a prototype, and then convince people (especially Huw [Davies] and myself) that your design is good." The bug tracking for bug421 began February 2002, with Julliard's last entry May 23 2009, the basis for a comment on the Slashdot portal that "Usually it is extremely frustrating for developers when the goalpost is constantly moved."

In any case, del Fedel seems to have lost any interest in the matter. His response to whether the architecture issues were resolved was, "Not by me... I made my engine because I was needing it, but Alexandre [Julliard] doesn't like its architecture, so it won't be merged even if, IMHO of course, it could be done as an 'alternative experimental driver' in parallel to the current winex11 one... But Alexandre didn't like that solution, ever." Other developers nevertheless seem to maintain enough interest to keep the DIB engine running. As to a question whether del Fedel can provide his code, his response was, "Can do on next days. But I need some place where to put the precompiled DLLs... I guess [neither] the bug421 page nor here are good places for it."

The commentator on Slashdot posed a provocative question, "When is the right time for project members to fork when their chief maintainer does not respond anymore or pursues an adverse commercial agenda?" This was based on an announcement from CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White in a blog that DIB engine work (and other "unsexy" initiatives) would take second priority. Alexandre Julliard is the chief technologist for Wine at CodeWeavers, which employs numerous developers working on the CrossOver proprietary solution, service and support based on open source software.