CrossOver Linux and Mac free on 31 October

Posted by Alexander Deliyannis
Oct 29, 2012 at 09:48 PM

Read about it here:
http://www.codeweavers.com/about/general/press/20121029/

The press release is written tongue in cheek but it is genuine and valid. On 31 October you can register for a free copy of CrossOver for your OS with updates available for one year (you can still use the software afterwards). If you already own a license, you can extend support for one year more.

Interestingly, the offer is part of a promotion for people to vote in the US Elections, but is available outside the US too.

CrossOver is the commercial version of Wine, which allows one to run Windows software on Linux and Mac. It is not a virtualisation platform, so you don’t need a Windows license. In true GNU/Linux tradition, Wine stands for Wine Is Not an Emulator.

Does it work? In my Linux machine I got Brainstorm to install, run and register with a few clicks. Brainstorm itself is officially unsupported, so the few clicks required represent the long winded version of installing Windows programs. For supported programs, you just load and run its ‘CrossTie’, and it takes care of the rest. As one can imagine, there’s no guarantee that an unsupported program will run, or run properly with all features available.

More here http://www.codeweavers.com/products/faq/differences/