Update 10/28: Welcome, Digg fans. CodeWeavers' site is getting crunched under the massive demand for the free versions of CrossOver, so there is now a minimal site at down.codeweavers.com that will accept your email address; you will be mailed your registration code in the next couple of days.

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Three months ago, CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White offered a challenge to another CEO -- the nation's chief executive, George W. Bush. If the president achieved one of White's six "Lame Duck" goals during the twilight of his 2nd term, White would make Windows-API enabler & WINE GUI CrossOver free to customers for one day. Some considered White's proposal a great motivational tool for GWB; others found it smug, partisan and kind of a goofy way to promote the company's products, but in any event none of his six challenges seemed to be on the path to achievement, so that's where the story should have ended. CrossOver is a fine way to run Windows apps on your Mac, but as a force for political change, not so much.

Then a funny thing happened on the way to January 20th: due to global economic conditions and through no fault of the president, the price of crude oil dropped precipitously and the cost of gasoline moved in parallel... bringing the average price per gallon in Minneapolis down to the target $2.79 level called for in White's goal #1. Can anyone say "Taco?"

The Star-Tribune is reporting that White is planning to follow through on his pledge: on Tuesday 10/28, all CodeWeavers products (CrossOver Mac, Linux & Games) will be freely downloadable. One license per customer, and we assume that the free licenses will be for the standard versions of the apps. Update: Word from CodeWeavers execs is that the free license will be for a download-only flavor of the Pro version (!), including the Games optimized build and the option to share a Windows 'bottle' among multiple users on the same machine. You will have to choose either the Mac or Linux product for your free copy (and I'm looking forward to the stats on that split once the dust settles). Pro licenses are eligible for support/update renewals after one year for $35.

You might argue with White's politics or his promotional instincts, but you can't argue with free software. CrossOver Mac normally retails for $40 and requires an Intel machine running either Tiger or Leopard.

Update 2: A number of commenters have pointed out that the original challenge rules said the giveaway day would be on the first of the month following the goal, meaning Nov. 1 instead of Oct. 28. CodeWeavers' press release confirms that the giveaway day will be 10/28 and not 11/1. The giveaway runs from midnight to midnight CST.

Thanks Austin!

Mike Rose and I were chatting about this on the Talkcast a few weeks back -- virtualization and emulation programmers get all John Locke from Lost when you try to tell them what's not possible. And so when the guys at CrossOver heard that Google wasn't releasing Chrome for the Mac, they decided to put together a release themselves. CrossOver Chromium is a proof-of-concept release of the Chromium browser (which Chrome is built off of) that allows Google's base code to run on Mac and Linux platforms.

It's designed to show off just how well Wine works to bring Windows-based code to other platforms, and wake Google up to the fact that if they wanted to port Chrome over, they could. CrossOver says they did this to prove a point (and the point seems proven), but it's likely not only that Google wants to run the code natively, but that they wanted to focus on their largest audience first, which anyone can tell you is likely still the Windows crowd.

Even CrossOver says their version isn't ready for prime-time yet, they just wanted to show how fast it could be done. Let this be a lesson, Google: don't tell virtual software developers what they can't do.

CodeWeavers has released CrossOver 7.0 for Mac, adding support for Microsoft Office 2007, Adobe CS and CS2, and improving "online banking integration" in Quicken 2007 & 2008. Unlike Boot Camp or virtualization solutions like Parallels and VMware, CrossOver allows you to run Windows software on your Intel Mac without actually running Windows. Other changes include various bug fixes and improved support for IE and "modern Linux" distros like Ubuntu.

CrossOver 7.0 is $39.95 for the Standard edition and $69.95 for the Pro edition that includes CrossOver Games and more support. A demo is available for download.

Thanks to everyone who sent this in!

MacWindows reports that CrossOver (which was already doing pretty well with Windows games inside OS X) is planning to release a gaming-optimized version of their virtualization software. It'll be called CrossOver Gaming, and while we're not actually given details of how it's going to be "optimized" for games, we are told that it will be compatible with more Windows games than ever before.

Additionally, the new version will actually be a subscription model-- instead of just buying the software, you'll pay $5 a month (presumably for quick updates on brand new games). Other than that, we're not quite sure what advantage CrossOver's system will have over, say, running games in Windows via Boot Camp (seems to me that if you have the hardware to run Windows games, you have the hardware to run Windows and games at the same time), but we'll have to see-- CrossOver says the new Gaming version is due sometime later this year.

[Via IMG]

The latest version of CrossOver, Codeweavers' Mac and Linux application designed to get Windows games and applications working on those systems, has been released. CrossOver 6.2, now available, features a number of different updates both to increase compatibility and to make Windows applications run faster than ever.

And first among these updates is the fact that it will now run Team Fortress 2 right out of Valve's new Orange Box, as seen in the video above (caution: awkward narrative and bad acting ahead-- skip to about 2:09 to see the actual product). They're also saying it features improvements when working with Outlook, and, in the strangest feature description ever, they say it really will work much faster-- when you install Leopard.

CrossOver is available as a free trial on their website, and to promote the new release, you can get it for 10% off when you enter "zomg" as a special deal in the shopping cart. Has anyone tried running TF2 in Boot Camp yet? If that doesn't work so well, and you've really got to play Valve's new game, CrossOver might be the way to go.

[via IMG]

Reader Greg Taylor advises that Codeweavers' WINE-based Win32 application runtime Crossover is due for release during Macworld. The release version should be downloadable for registered users sometime this week.

It remains to be seen how well Crossover will do up against more traditional virtualization approaches like Parallels and VMWare. It's true that Crossover lets you run Windows apps without the overhead (or licensing cost) of Windows, with varying degrees of compatibility; but with Parallels' new Coherence mode allowing mix-and-match Windows applications 'floating' in the Mac UI, and enough RAM, it may not be an easy sell.

The virtualization market for the Mac is hot. Crossover, a WINE link environment for Windows apps on OS X, has just released their Release Candidate 2 for public testing. Release candidates traditionally signal that a product is almost ready for primetime. I haven't had a chance to play around with this release yet, but all it has to do is actually work to be better than my experience with earlier iterations of the beta.

RC 2 introduces support for Quickbook, improvements to the web browser in Quicken 2007 (who knew Quicken had a web browser?) and several other improvements.

The beta of CrossOver Mac is free to use for 60 days, but the final product won't be.

We missed this a few days ago, but Crossover Mac, CodeWeaver's WINE environment that allows you to run Windows applications along side OS X applications, with no need for virtualization, has been updated to Beta 2. What's new in b2? Lots, apparently. There are "dramatic" performance improvements and bug fixes for full screen mode, case-sensitive file systems, CPU detection, and the registration process, to name a few. Now I haven't personally used Crossover yet, since I'm supremely satisfied with Parallels, so I can't confirm that those updates are actually there, but I'm willing to give the developer the benefit of the doubt on this one. If you're using it, please chime in with your thoughts.

Thanks, Mike!

If you've sated your Tetris lust through Quinn and you're looking for something a little meatier to play, you might want to check out this kludge a CodeWeavers forumite has used to get Half-Life 2 running on an Intel Mac.

Armed with the beta of CrossOver Mac, user JustinD downloaded Gordon Freeman's alien-blasting adventure through Valve's Steam service and proceeded to shoehorn it onto his MacBook. It isn't pretty since you can't use anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering, and there's pop-in, missing video, and other surprises, but, hey, it's Half-Life 2 on your MacBook.

I don't have an Intel Mac lying around to try this out, so hit the comments if you get it working.

[via Joystiq]

Hawk Wings has tracked down another Mail theme for Thunderbird by the name of TigerMail. While I know we've blogged one before, I can't track it down. From what I remember though, TigerMail is a much more accurate reproduction of the Tiger Mail look and feel. But if Panther Mail's look and feel is more your style, CrossOver might just be the Thunderbird theme for you.