What is wine?
 

I've heard a lot about wine, and I have freespire and ubuntu 07.
What is wine, and is it better or worse than than freespire or ubuntu?

Wine is an API (basically application layer) that allows some Windows programs to run on linux. You can install Wine on any linux distro. I believe Ubuntu has a package for it already in the repositories.

Wine is a Windows Emulator ... so you can run Windows applications in Linux.

As oppose to explain it ... you can find out exactly what wine is from their website: http://www.winehq.com

There was also that really antique beverage....

from what I understand about Wine, it takes the calls to DLL's and such that a Windows program would normally make, and translates them into appropriate Linux system calls to .so librarys and drivers.

I just have to stipulate (and I'm quoting directly from the website) Wine Is Not an Emulator.
There are also lists on the internet (which can be found through a quick google search) which will tell you if a program has been known to work, or not work, with Wine. :)