Google is once again showing their support for the open source community by sponsoring improvements to Wine. Wine, for those of you unfamiliar, is a free tool available for Linux which lets you run some Windows applications without needing to run Windows in a virtual machine. I think Wine says it the best: “Think of Wine as a compatibility layer for running Windows programs.“
There’s no word on how much money Google has thrown at the Wine developers, but it must be a considerable amount since a lot of fixes have been checked in to the software to get Photoshop CS2 already working. As of right now Photoshop CS3 doesn’t even install, but with Google’s virtually bottomless pocketbook that should definitely be on the horizon.
As with most things running on Wine there are some known issues with Photoshop , but the fact that these improvements are being offered for free is a huge plus. After all, if Google wasn’t sponsoring the improvements they would probably be part of the paid-only CrossOver Linux which is created by the same developers.
So kudos to Google for providing some financial backing to the open source community!
Google Open Source Blog [via APC / image via LinuxScrew]
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Tags: Freeware, Google, Software, Linux, Photoshop
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Wine needs ALOT of work….Nuff’ said.
When trying to run apps from one platform on another it’s pretty complicated. I think the fact there are developers out there that spend time making this happen is great. I don’t think this will replace Cossover Linux or Windows, but it’s great for those people who don’t have the extra cash to spend to buy the extra package. In the end it’s also great advertising for Google.
It’s definitely not perfect, but the people who really want to make the switch to Linux will definitely find it useful. I’ve also been seeing developers making sure their Windows apps work with Wine, which is nice. The first one that pops into my mind is PortableApps.com
The developers definitely deserve a lot of credit, and I think that as Linux gains more popularity the interest in Wine will also increase. And it will be companies like Google who are applauded for helping them when they were still young.