Jeremy White And Mad Penguin On CrossOver Office 3

SilentBob4 writes "Today, a review of CrossOver Office 3 (written by Preston St. Pierre) as well as an interview with the founder of CodeWeavers Inc., Jeremy White (written by Adam Doxtater) have been published for mass consumption. It looks like CrossOver Office/Wine has come a long way since the dark ages of Linux science. Congratulations to the developers on both teams on a job well done. The interview with Jeremy is better than any I have seen recently."

Comments

do we still need it?

[xlyz]

I feel less and less the need to run Windows software

Re:do we still need it?

[gmuslera]

The nice thing is not needed it, but having that alternative available. In a future something could make you need to run a windows program (for whatever, from firmware configuration to certain places idiot policy on required browsers/software/etc) and you'll prefer to have some way to run the desired software under linux that boot windows.

Re:do we still need it?

[Rignes]

I think there is a nitch for Crossover. While many Linux home users don't feel the need to run Windows applicaitons anymore, there are plenty of businesses that feel they need to run MS Office (some even have it as a requirement to do business with others). I think Crossover is a great way to offer a stepping stone for businesses. As in, they can ditch the expensive Windows Operating systems and change to Linux while their users can still use the applications they already know.

In my mind it gives a middle ground step between being 100% Microsoft and changing to 100% Linux/OSS. As in, individual users are very dynamic and can change all their stuff at once if they so choose. Must businesses take things slower and think about making such drastic changes.

Crossover just gives them a stepping stone that breaks a big change into smaller, easier to swallow, chunks. Also, it breaks up the learning curve, it gives users a chance to learn Linux first, then to learn an Office alternative if they so choose.

Brian

Re:do we still need it?

[yog]

Well, each person's needs are different. Since you don't need it, you can save your $60. But I still have a lot of uses for Windows software, and Crossover has saved me from having to go boot up my Windows laptop, to wit:

- IE 6.0 -- some sites simply won't work with Mozilla. Rather than mess around, I can easily run IE now right on my Linux desktop, view the offending page, and later whip off a scolding message to their webmaster.

- MS Word 2000 -- sometimes I have to save a document in Word format, and I need a way to confirm that Open Office did the right thing. Word 97 Viewer is useful but I feel safer when I can easily edit a document using the native tool.

- Photoshop 6.0 -- works terrifically! I am an enthusiastic GIMP user, but it's nice to have all the best tools for a job, not just some of them.

- Finale 2001 -- Finally, I can view and print my music from Linux! Works like a charm. Think I'll d/l Finale 2004 and see if that works....

- MS Excel 2000 -- for occasional use.

- MS Powerpoint

- Efax Viewer -- I wish they'd send faxes in some more obvious format like jpeg but anyway this works great with crossover.

- H&R Taxcut 2002 - the only thing wrong with it was that it would crash when I clicked "Help". Now if Turbotax worked, I'd be happy as a clam.

- Palm apps that come packaged as .EXE or use a SETUP.EXE, like f'r'instance Adobe Acrobat for Palm. I can safely execute these programs, let them "install" to my fake_windows directory, then grab the Palm .prc files and manually install them.

- Little Windows freeware or shareware utilities that do stupid little things and expect you to send $20, like finding all the images inside a DLL or EXE. I can d/l these, try them out, etc., from the convenience of my Linux desktop. Often they have strange glitches but the general functionality is usually intact.

I wish Dreamweaver MX 2004 worked in wine. Maybe Crossover 3.1???

Re:do we still need it?

[mvdw]

I think there is a nitch for Crossover.

Here the bastardization of the english language is complete. Interesting that the word "niche" (pronounced 'neesh'), can be mis-pronounced as 'nitch' by so many people, that it will then become phonetically mis-spelled as "nitch" by someone.

What's next? "My computer has 512k of level 1 catch"?!?

They removed multi-user support!

[Dwonis]

Argh! Multi-user support is no longer in the standard version of Crossover Office. I'm tired of people assuming that home users don't run multiple user accounts.

Re:They removed multi-user support!

[Dwonis]

Hmm. It looks like you're right. I paid 54.95 (USD, I think) for Crossover Office 1.0.0 Downloadable.

I guess I owe the guys at CodeWeavers an apology.

Although, I *still* think multi-user support should be *standard* with *all* Linux-based software, I'm probably going to buy Professional anyway.

As a side note, it seems that CXOffice 3.0.0 Standard (not Pro) comes free if you have a CXOffice support extension.

Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[haX0rsaw]

I would argue that an application of this nature, is, in the long term, a bad thing for desktop Linux.. in the same way that OS/2's Win16 support actually served as a detriment to that platform...

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[arvindn]

No it won't. This has repeatedly been gone over before. The difference compared to OS/2 is the community. Do you think all of us linux zealots are going to stop writing apps if wine becomes good enough? :-)

There might be a slight tendency for commercial software vendors to not bother porting their apps to linux because of wine, but that's becoming harder and harder as linux edges closer to critical mass. And with heavyweights like IBM and Novell behind linux, I wouldn't be too worried.

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[e6003]

I disagree. There are far greater pressures for switching platforms (such as the MS licensing fees hike and the pressure to upgrade to give MS another cash injection - not to mention Sasser and Blaster) now than there were 10 years ago when OS/2 was at the peak of its fitness. Like it or not, MS Office at least has become the standard and if you want to persuade the corporate users to switch, you need to support it. Also recall what Disney said about Photoshop - it was the last thing that kept them switching their animation studio over to 100% Linux desktops, so they paid Codeweavers $15k to support it.

There was no real incentive to switch to OS/2 from Windows as the state of the market was then. 10 years later there is, and I don't think the comparision is valid any more.

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[IamTheRealMike]

Can you actually show that Win16 support acted to the detriment of OS/2, or is that just an assumption you've made - "other people on Slashdot keep saying it so it must be true" ?

Actually, I've seen some pretty compelling arguments from people who used OS/2 at the time that Windows support did not harm it, and in fact probably helped - they have claimed that the main reason OS/2 failed (and of course there were many) was that IBM didn't market it well: they weren't even selling machines with it on themselves at one point.

Regardless, whether it hindered or helped OS/2 is largely academic. Application support is one of the big things currently stopping a mass migration to desktop Linux, along with inertia/lack of experience and some general immaturities in the technology. Nat Friedman of Novell has said that app compat is the number one blocker for their sales team.

So Wine really is necessary, simply because it doesn't make sense to rewrite every desktop program in the world to use the Linux APIs. To be frank, humanity has better things to do.

Disclaimer: I'm a Wine developer so am somewhat biased. But on the flip side, I wouldn't be working on Wine if I didn't think it was important.

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[Spoing]

Agreed. I'm getting borred with folks draging up OS/2 when Wine is mentioned. The two aren't similar enough to draw an useful comparison.

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[Ploum]

Well, with $15k, you can hire some opensource developpers and start your own image editor (by forking the Gimp).

Or, better, you hire somes developpers to work on Gimp.

Is it really more expensive to do that ?

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[neverkevin]

15k is like the 3 month salary of 1 programmer. I doubt 1 programmer can turn the Gimp into somthing usable in 3 months. Adobe has spent 15 years and millions of dollars to get photoshop where it is today, a company would have to pay more then a few k to get any program to the level of photoshop.

Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2

[CliffH]

No,

OS/2s Win16 support (and Win32 lest we forget) was not the reason that platform went by the wayside. There were a TON of reasons that went by the wayside including marketting (IBM is starting to get better at this), amount of knowledge needed to administrate OS/2 boxes (was more than Windows 3.x and 9x boxes), cost (OS/2, for the most part, cost more), and did I mention marketting? :) I was a TeamOS/2 member at one time and I tried to do my part to spread OS/2 around (got about 15 people to switch in the end) but damn IBM didn't help matters one little bit. On top of everything else, we had the lovely lovely FixPacks? Anyone remember those? Nothing like 20+ floppies, get 18 disks in, one bad floppy, start from Step 1 sort of thing.

Ok, I'm done ranting because even I see I'm not making too much sense. In short, Win16 compatibility wasn't the downfall of OS/2, IBM and OS/2 were the downfall of OS/2. Still an excellent system even today with some excellent concepts, but buried by no marketting effort. No mindshare equals no market penetration equals no apps (I know, there were a lot of shareware and a good bit of commercial stuff out) equals no mainstream users equals dead product.

CliffH

Re:Wine

[j0hndoe]

Actually because Wine is LGPL, Codeweavers is forbidden to make proprietary changes to the main codebase (and they supported this change, it used to be a more liberal license). All the really do is package it up, make nice installers, provide support, same as any other "good" company based on FOSS software.

MS Office has been runnable with Wine for years, so your argument kinda goes down the drain.

Too little, too late.

[panamahank]

In looking at the list of Gold apps, and those are the only ones that matter since partial functionality sucks, I don't see a single app that I need that isn't already done well enough by Linux. It would be nice if they had fully functional Access compatibility, since one of my customers has subscribed to a service that uses an Access database, and records can only be downloaded in Access format. It really sucks to have to have a dual-boot computer just to convert those records.

Re:Too little, too late.

[miyako]

Actually, many of the silver apps work wonderfully as well. YMMV, but I have found that the majority of the functionality works perfectly in the silver apps, except for maybe a little quirk here and there . Even the bronze apps work well for the most part if you are not using any of the exotic features of the app, and they will sometimes crash for seemingly no reason (but then again, many apps do that on windows too). Although I have not used Access (ever, windows or under crossover), I would suggest downloading the free trial and giving it a shot, you may be suprised.

Re:They do Contribute as well

[j0hndoe]

That's true, and I certainly wasn't intending to minimize that. My post was specifically referring to the value adds that give people a reason to buy their product instead of using the free version of wine.

They not only contribute, they employ full-time the Wine maintainer! Anyone who disses on Codeweavers for being "proprietary" is either a troll, or doesn't have a good handle on the facts. (probably both)

access and project

[millahtime]

Access and MS Project are two programs that a lot of business use. Especially companies that do business with the military and big 3 auto manufacturers.

Where I work there needs to be open source software that can work with these files and probubally perfect functionality in wine for them.

More to the effect there needs to be an open source counterpart.

Crossover is a serious application.

[aussersterne]

I am a former "wine hater" who was never able to get it to do anything useful. It turns out that a large part of making Windows applications work properly in wine is managing the registry and which libraries will be native/non-native for each application.

This is Crossover's value-add to wine: it takes care of all of the wine details for you, so that you don't have to be a wine coder with all of the detailed Windows .DLL and registry knowledge that implies, just to make Windows applications work.

I have to use MS Office XP for my work in print media and publishing. I also need Photoshop from time to time, though with GIMP 2.0 this need is greatly reduced.

MS Office XP, Internet Explorer, Photoshop, and Windows Media Player all work perfectly under Crossover with Wine. I will never have to use Win4Lin or VMWare again or cope with a full Windows desktop again!

Now that I have seen wine actually work, and work brilliantly, I believe in it to a much greater degree.

Re:Crossover is a serious application.

[aussersterne]

I'm working on a masters' thesis right now and have just used Word XP in Red Hat 9 for nearly seven hours straight, with styles, tables, graphics, footnotes, etc.

Two days ago, I spent nearly 12 hours straight in Word XP working on a complex document, with revision marks, for use in a publication.

1) I don't find it to be slower than in its native environment (PIII-900, 512MB RAM)
2) It has not crashed on me since I installed it several months ago (neither has Photoshop 6)

I'm sorry you haven't had the same experience!

Article Text

[aldoman]

Server is dying:

For those of you who might not be familiar with what Wine actually is, let me clarify. Even though some of us enjoy a sip of wine every now and then, this is not what we are talking about today. We are referring to a package that allows Windows applications to run on Linux... outside of an emulator. Wine uses an open source Windows API (application programming interface) to allow modified Win32 binaries to run in a UNIX/Linux environment, completely free of Windows. Think of it not as an emulator, but more of a compatibility layer, or translator if you will. The status of the Wine project can be found here.

CodeWeavers is at the head of the pack in Wine development and deservedly so. They produce the most well packaged, capable distributions of Wine available. As Jeremy has stated, development is in the hands of their customer base and supporters. Whatever the customer wants the customer gets, and so it should rightfully be. Mr. White knows his business. You can see which applications are getting all of the attention at the CodeWeavers Top List page, and it's actually pretty interesting to see what apps are getting pushed to the top. Take a look.

Well, enough of the small talk, let's carry on with the interview. Enjoy!

Mad Penguin: First of all, I'd like to thank you for taking the time to sit down with us today to answer a few questions. I guess the first thing I'd like to know is more personal than anything... why Linux? What was the motivational factor(s) behind developing software to run Windows applications on Linux?

Jeremy White: Well, it's a fairly long story. I've always been a geek. I've loved programming on computers since I was 11 and had to sneak into the Radio Shack to do it, and I've also always loved computer games. Early in my career, I grew quite proficient at communications and networking programming. I was working on a project for a customer that had a Solaris system. But, they were across town, and I had to drive over there to work on it, and I couldn't afford a Sun of my own. So, instead, I installed and starting developing against Linux (circa 94 I'd say), and then just migrating the code once it was done.

So that's when I fell in love with Linux, and when we started having at least one Linux box around all the time.

Now fast forward to about 1997. One day, at lunch, I'm talking to a few new hires (young kids) that had never played the original Combat cartridge in an Atari 2600. This struck me as horrible
cultural illiteracy on their part, and so I set off to find an Atari 2600 emulator to correct this horrible flaw in their education. Along the way, I stumbled across the Wine project, and thought that it was the most audacious project I'd seen in a long time. I thought then (as I think now) that if Linux could become a truly Windows compatible operating system, it would allow for an explosion in new computing choices, and I'd get to feel like that kid at Radio Shack again.

Further, in 1996, I had founded CodeWeavers so I could do work I considered meaningful, challenging, and fun, and although we did some fun projects, I was really looking for a mission. Of course, I had a day job (and a young kid), so I couldn't really do much with Wine then. But I kept dreaming, and then one day, it being the 90s and all, I decided to pursue a business built around Wine and helping people port Windows software to Linux. I successfully landed some venture capital, asked a bunch of the Wine developers to come on board, and that's really how we got started on this mission.

MP: I'm interested in learning how quickly CodeWeavers evolved into the full-blown business it is today. How long did it take you to realize that it had become an actual business and would require your undivided attention? What was the one even that made you sit back, take a deep breath, and think “whoa I am in over my head”?

JW: I think I've actually answered that one a bit in the previous question; the truth is that CodeWeavers s

Project and Rational Rose!

[oujirou]

Where I work we use MS Project, Rational Rose and StarTeam, all tied closely together. Up until now myself and some other Linux zealots in the company were forced to use Project and Rational Rose from a Windows 2000 Terminal Server machine which was good enough for us and bad load on the server.

But now MS Project really runs under cxoffice, and that's great, although having a native Linux project planning and managing application would be much better. Alas, MrProject is still not good enough for us. :(

On the other hand, Rational Rose still doesn't install, and we were never able to make native Linux version if Rose run. Maybe somebody had more luck making the thing work?

BTW, StarTeam runs on Linux natively just perfect, perhaps because it's a java application. :)