There are a number of offerings that are derived from the standard Wine codebase in some way or another.
Some of these are commercial products from companies that actively contribute to Wine.
These products often try to stand out or distinguish themselves from Wine, e.g. by offering greater compatibility or much easier and flexible configuration than your average standard Wine release. As such it is often a good idea to shell out some bucks for the commercial versions, especially since these companies contribute a lot of code to Wine, and plus, I'm sure they'll be happy about your support...
Table 1-1. Various Wine offerings
Product | Description | Distribution form |
---|---|---|
ReWind | ReWind is a Wine version derived from the old BSD licensed Wine tree (it's the "completely free" BSD license fork of the currently LGPL'ed Wine). Due to its BSD license it can't incorporate some Wine patches that get licensed under the more restrictive (or: protective) LGPL license by their authors. | Free, Open Source: BSD license |
CodeWeavers CrossOver Office | CrossOver Office allows you to install your favorite Windows productivity applications in Linux, without needing a Microsoft Operating System license. CrossOver includes an easy to use, single click interface, which makes installing a Windows application simple and fast. | Commercial |
CodeWeavers CrossOver Office Server Edition | CrossOver Office Server Edition allows you to run your favorite Windows productivity applications in a distributed thin-client environment under Linux, without needing Microsoft Operating System licenses for each client machine. CrossOver OfficeServer Edition allows you to satisfy the needs of literally hundreds of concurrent users, all from a single server. | Commercial |
CodeWeavers CrossOver Plugin | CrossOver Plugin lets you use many Windows plugins directly from your Linux browser. In particular CrossOver fully supports QuickTime, ShockWave Director, Windows Media Player 6.4, Word Viewer, Excel Viewer, PowerPoint Viewer, and more... | Commercial; Demo version available |
CodeWeavers Wine preview | The Wine preview is a usually slightly older Wine release that's been tested as extra stable. It includes the graphical installer winesetuptk, allowing for easy configuration. | Free, Open Source: LGPL license |
TransGaming Technologies WineX | WineX is a Wine version derived from the old BSD licensed Wine tree, with currently better support for Direct3D and DirectX software than standard Wine, and with added copy protection support for multiple types of copy protection e.g. used in games. | Commercial; free CVS download of reduced version (no copy protection support etc.) |