Jeremy White And Mad Penguin On CrossOver Office 3 113
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."
do we still need it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:5, Interesting)
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: (Score:1)
But Office takes most of the price! (Score:2, Interesting)
> Operating systems and change to Linux while their
> users can still use the applications they already know.
But Office is the most expensive part of the Windows desktop! And so CXOffice doesn't save you that much... If you pay, say, $60 (a year!) for Mandrake (I paid $120), and ~$60 for CXOffice, you're not that far from Windows.
Now OpenOffice is a totally different story... but it doesn't work for me as yet.
Ah, and right, I didn't have to pay for MD
Re:But Office takes most of the price! (Score:1)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:1)
My major stumbling block is Quickbooks and related tax software. GNU Cash just isn't up to speed, and I don't see where my auditors would be happy with my using it.
I sure would like an acceptable alternative, because Intuit's forced upgrade practice is absolutely rotten. I also don't like that there is no real export facility for transactions.
I've read
Re:do we still need it? (Score:4, Insightful)
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"?!?
Re:do we still need it? (Score:3, Funny)
Makes sense. Its there to catch the references to your main memory before they have to go out there...
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
My dictionaries list both pronounciations as correct. Guess it's time for you to find something new to whine about.
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:1)
Err ... something new to wine about, perhaps?
{Groans}
Re:do we still need it? (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:3, Interesting)
The only thing tying me to Windows at the moment is the fact that all our clients use it, and I need to make sure that everything is flawless in that browser too.
I'm going to try this out when I get the time to set up a proper Linux setup, and if it works - you have a switcher. ;)
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
I've had Internet Explorer working on my work computer under Linux for going on 4 months now...
without crossover office.
It works... and sadly it works faster than Mozilla under wine. (no flame intended.. my observation)
I use Firefox as my primary browser, but as you said it's nice to see that it's flawless under IE also.
Re:do we still need it? (Score:5, Interesting)
- 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
- 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? (Score:1)
-IE 6.0
I don't use it at all. I haven't encountered any sites I need to visit that don't support Firefox. Then again, there are very few sites I _need_ to visit and IE is difficult to get working in vanilla wine.
-MS Word 2000, Excel, Powerpoint
I have all 3 installed and run great under wine but rarely use them. Only for sending to businesses that must have
Re:do we still need it? (Score:2)
You can get Efax to send faxes as Tiff attachements.
My account is setup that way - in Windows the Microsoft Picture and Fax viewer does a great job - KDE will open them just fine as well.
We Still Need It (Score:2, Interesting)
I run Photoshop with it
I'm (still) trying to run our proprietary network with it
It's the only Notes client on Linux
It got my Quicken off windows
We have an application that uses it to write spreadsheets in genuine MS format
And it's about 50 bucks.
Damn nice software, as Agent Cooper said.
Re:./ed (Score:1)
They removed multi-user support! (Score:4, Informative)
Re:They removed multi-user support! (Score:2)
I think I can live with that (although the presumption that home users only use one account still irritates me).
Re:They removed multi-user support! (Score:3, Interesting)
Again, I could actually be talking from my posterior. I don't remember for sure what the pricing used to be.
Re:They removed multi-user support! (Score:4, Informative)
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 (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:5, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:1, Funny)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:5, Interesting)
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: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:1)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2)
GIMP is already usable.
Just like you have to spend millions on kernels like Linux or BSD. Or things like Apache, XFree86, Mozilla ... ad infinitum?
Most Free software will get to the same featureset standards of their commercial equivalent eventually. And some ARE the standard in the respective industries they're used in. Most will get there
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Apart from the GIMP threat, don't most major software firms have an interest in seeing Microsoft brought down a bit to prevent them being such a threat?
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2)
Re:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:4, Insightful)
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 (Score:4, Insightful)
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:Hmmm.. Makes me think of OS/2 (Score:2)
For all the Lotus Notes users... (Score:3, Interesting)
No kidding? (Score:2)
What about Desginer and Domino Administrator 6.x too?
Re:No kidding? (Score:2)
Re:No kidding? (Score:2)
Too little, too late. (Score:4, Insightful)
access and project (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
Re:MDBTools can read Access Database (Score:1)
Re:Too little, too late. (Score:1)
When you include the silver ones there's quite a bit.
I use Crossover almost completely to hit web sites that were writting for IE only. There's only two that I hit regularly, but even one was annoying, and I'd been unsuccessful at getting the dweebs who wrote the sites to fix their code. It works
Re:Too little, too late. (Score:4, Interesting)
where's the copies when you need em! (Score:1, Funny)
Crossover is a serious application. (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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. (Score:1)
Re:Crossover is a serious application. (Score:1, Interesting)
1) MS Office is visibly slower than in its native environment.
2) These apps crash even more often than under Windows.
For me, Word XP under CrossOver becomes unusable after about 10-15 minutes of use (it seems to go into a 30 second CPU-torturing loop after each keystroke by then). Maybe because I use WindowMaker and like to switch desktops.
Also, Visio 2000 won't install at all even though it is supposedly supported. Not to mention any newer versions of Visio.
As long as th
Re:Crossover is a serious application. (Score:5, Informative)
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!
Re:Crossover is a serious application. (Score:2)
You use it to enhance the functionality of applications, but not as an end in itself.
Re:Crossover is a serious application. (Score:1)
After all, MS Word isn't an end in itself either, a nice, persuasive masters' thesis is the desired end. So MS Word is obviously a utility.
But wait! A nice document also isn't an end! The policy changes advocated by the masters' thesis are the desired end. Therefore, the masters' thesis is merely a utility!
But wait! The policy changes also aren't an end in themselves! The resultant changes in the environmental and social status quo are the desired end! Therefore the poli
Jeremy White is an AI? (Score:1, Funny)
Jeremy White (written by Adam Doxtater)
I knew it! I wonder what language Jeremy is written in...
Article Text (Score:3, Informative)
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
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
transgamming references (Score:1)
cheers
Re:transgamming references (Score:2, Informative)
Wine switched to the LGPL license, so transgaming can no longer use wine's code without any worrries about what will happen.
If you google for ReWind, you'll find that most of transgaming's code is going in there. and perhaps some of the people who code for wine also submit their changes to ReWind, which transgaming can use.
Also, transgaming provides all their code via CVS, with the one exception of the code that handles anti-piracy mesaures. -- Translation: You can grab transga
Re:transgamming references (Score:2)
Transgaming could give changes back to wine, but they don't want to. They'd rather charge money for them.
Originally, the Wine project allowed people to modify and resell Wine without giving back the changed source code. But Transgaming built a business on doing that, and the Wine guys didn't feel like doing volunteer work for a corporation, so they changed Wine to a license that Transgami
Review Text (Score:1, Informative)
CrossOver Office is an excellent program based on the Wine project. This program optimizes Wine and allows users to eas
Project and Rational Rose! (Score:3, Interesting)
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.
I'm kicking myself... (Score:1)
MSN Messenger (Score:2)
Re:MSN Messenger (Score:1)
If you read the comments ... (Score:2)
Compliments to Crossover Office and Moderators (Score:2)
To Jeremy: geek power all the way!
Re:Wine (Score:5, Insightful)
MS Office has been runnable with Wine for years, so your argument kinda goes down the drain.
They do Contribute as well (Score:2)
With out them, wine would still be years behind.
Re:They do Contribute as well (Score:3, Informative)
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)
Re:CodeWeavers owns the copyrights (Score:2, Informative)
> switch to LGPL, they also convinced them to assign
> the copyrights to CodeWeavers.
This is totally incorrect. Each and every Wine developper retains full copyright to his work. Thus CodeWeavers is not in a privileged position and must respect the LGPL exactly like all other Wine contributors.