Playing Nice: Reviews of CrossOver Office, WineX 4

JimLynch writes "One of the more common questions experienced Linux users get asked by those considering migrating from Windows to Linux is, "Will my Windows applications run under Linux?" Thanks to the folks at CodeWeavers, the answer to that is yes--for some applications, anyway." And Dan Dole writes "Linuxlookup.com staff member Rich reviews Cedega (WineX 4.0), give it a 20/20 score & Editors Choice Award. "The release of Transgaming's newest version of WineX, renamed Cedega, was met with considerable enthusiasm and interest in the Linux community last week. So much so that their server was inaccessible the day of release. Cedega is claimed to be much improved, offering the ability to play recent games released for Windows "seamlessly and transparently" under Linux. They provided me with a copy, and I was curious to see if it lived up to the hype.""

Comments

Prevent it?

[DaHat]

I'm forced to wonder if an application developer could put enough logic in their code to prevent it's running under Wine. It'd be an interesting attempt to prevent 'unauthorized' distribution of their product if they only authorize it's use under Windows.

Re:Prevent it?

[DaHat]

One word: Support.

How many software houses are going to want to support their application running under an unsupported operating system?

Oh yes, they can clearly say "We do not support running _____ under Linux, do so at your own risk" but that does not prevent the inevitable calls and e-mails, asking for support, hoping that an answer exists or worse... that they did not read the warning.

If Wine were perfect and could handle ANY Windows app then yes, it might be advantageous for a publisher to sell to Linux users for use under Wine... but lets face it, it's not perfect, it can't handle all apps.

The best way to avoid support for something is to prevent it. My favorite example, VMware... ever try to install VMware inside of a VMware VM? The install shield says no, saying that it is not supported. Period. And with that go any possible support issues down the line of someone having problems which could be caused by such a setup.

Also, when I said unauthorized distribution I did not mean 'piracy' I meant (and said) use under an unsupported/unauthorized operating system.

Re:"The answer to that is yes"

[aardwolf204]

How do we expect to be able to say YES to "Will my windows application work under linux" when we cant say 100% YES to "Will my windows application from 1995 work on windows XP?"

Re:MOD PARENT DOWN!!!

[IamTheRealMike]

But the same is true of Windows. Patches Microsoft has released to Windows have broken applications before, and new versions of Office they released are not always runnable on older versions of Windows.

I don't really see your point. Your asking for guarantees you don't even get with regular Windows.

Re:WineX is nice, but....

[Azureflare]

Are you saying that WineHQ/Transgaming/Codeweavers aren't supporting the linux community?

Because if you are, you're wrong. They aren't supporting the segment of the linux community that says "Ohh Noo Nothing but native linux apps for us, windows sux0rs and must burn in hell!" They're supporting the segment that says "Hey, I've used windows for a long time, and I like linux a lot, and I'd like to be able to play/run my windows stuff on my linux box. Can you help a guy out?"

There are plenty of developers in the world. These people are supporting that segment of the linux community that desires the ability to run windows applications on linux.

We can debate all we want about if this is a good strategy in the long term. But there's no doubt that these companies are strongly supporting (parts) of the linux community.