CrossOver 14.0 Makes Installing Windows Apps Easier

[peppercats]

A whole bunch of WINE's core developers are on CodeWeavers's payroll, including Stephan D?singer, the developer of the CSMT work. If you're a regular WINE user, buying a CrossOver license is a good way to support WINE development - even if you continue to use WINE instead. Yes, WINE accepts donations and I'm sure can both use and appreciates them, but paying for your rent and your meals - iow, paying a salary - requires a volume and an organizational structure that the non-profits behind even big FOSS projects usually do not have. Your comment is along the lines of "you'd have to be dumb", but financially supporting work you directly benefit from is a smart thing to do.

Buying CrossOver is a good way to support OSX WINE development*
(I've purchased CrossOver)

[newwen]

Who would buy CrossOver when you have Wine? I mean you can't even get CSMT with CrossOver.

I would. In fact, I've bought it. That way I support wine development

[Sho_]

Buying CrossOver is a good way to support OSX WINE development*
(I've purchased CrossOver)

CrossOver is available for Linux, and much of the codebase is shared across platforms. As Dukenukemx pointed out by bringing up the CSMT work, a lot of what happens on CodeWeavers' payroll benefits early-adopter Linux users like the ones on Phoronix first, long before their OS X-based customers. Besides, your best option to affect the resource allocation inside CodeWeavers is still to vote with your wallet.

I'm just saying that paying for software isn't some inherently icky thing. If you spend your money wisely you can for example create and/or preserve jobs that get more of the stuff done you're interested in seeing done.

When it comes to looking at CodeWeavers in particular with a critical eye, it'd be more about which bits they keep closed for their products. But overall I think they've been a pretty good FOSS citizen and have a healthy relationship with WINE upstream (unlike, say, TransGaming).

[kenjitamura]

Who would buy CrossOver when you have Wine? I mean you can't even get CSMT with CrossOver.

CSMT is in crossover. It's been in it for a long time. Stefan Dosinger had it implemented in Crossover well before he even started maintaining a repository with CSMT patches for wine.

Edit: Here's the announcement for CSMT in crossover from November 2013: https://www.codeweavers.com/about/ge...ress/20131112/

The key to CrossOver 13 is a new series of technical enhancements referred to internally as “The Command Stream.” The Command Stream allows CrossOver’s underlying open-source technology, Wine, to process graphical commands separately from CPU-related commands. “This means there’s no waiting around for the GPU to finish what it’s doing,” said White. “Command Stream passes redraws to the GPU just the way it likes it—hard and fast. And everybody gets instant gratification as a result.”

[FuturePilot]

What the hell is with the Ubuntu 5.10 screenshot?

[tmpdir]

When it comes to looking at CodeWeavers in particular with a critical eye, it'd be more about which bits they keep closed for their products. But overall I think they've been a pretty good FOSS citizen and have a healthy relationship with WINE upstream (unlike, say, TransGaming).

Overal I got the feeling they are NOT good FOSS citizen, I will not renew my licence when my 12 month's are over.

I've seen some bug discussions with logs and precise reproduction paths an what not a respectable developer could wish for in a bug report. They discarded the bug because the user mentioned he had the same problem in Wine and in Play On Linux. I get that that they want bug reports based on wine, bug discarding when also tested on Play on Linux is on step to far for me. Also an windows licence is cheaper in the long run, although this fact is less important for me.

[TheBlackCat]

People who tried a trial version and like it more then wine Differences if someone care about:

Comes with one-click installation for Windows applications
Comes with a graphical installer for Windows applications
Comes with Bottles (portable virtual Windows environments)?
Seamlessly integrates with your desktop environment
Is consistently tested against a supported application set
Comes with product support
Price

https://www.codeweavers.com/products/faq/differences/

So in other words, it is basically just q4wine?

[Mike Frett]

Idiotic

I have the version of CrossOver they offered for free last year but I rarely use it. I actually find vanilla Wine to be easier, go figure. There is absolutely nothing difficult about installing a Windows game or app via vanilla wine. Right click the exe and select install with Wine; really, how hard is that?.

I think people are getting darn lazy and down right stupid or something.

[curaga]

Did they really use motif in 2005?

[Luke_Wolf]

I have the version of CrossOver they offered for free last year but I rarely use it. I actually find vanilla Wine to be easier, go figure. There is absolutely nothing difficult about installing a Windows game or app via vanilla wine. Right click the exe and select install with Wine; really, how hard is that?.

I think people are getting darn lazy and down right stupid or something.

Well here's the thing... just vanilla wine is nice if you want to install everything into one wine_prefix, however it sucks if you want to run multiple prefixes which is why Q4Wine, PlayOnLinux, and CrossOver exist. The advantage of running multiple prefixes is that it makes wine blow up less often and you can set up your compatibility tweaking on a per-prefix basis.