radarhunter
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A tiny St. Paul, Minn. software business has become a savior of sorts to the Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) Latest News about Google online search giant, which needed its help adapting the popular Picasa photo-organizing program for use on non-Windows computers.
A modified version of Google's Picasa, released last month, runs on the Linux operating system instead of Windows XP. To pull off this software engineering feat, Google tapped St. Paul-based CodeWeavers and its longstanding expertise in making Windows programs work on Linux personal computers.
CodeWeavers, founded 10 years ago, has 20 employees and annual revenue of about US$1.5 million.
Eye on Linux
The new Picasa is important, Google said, because it wants to make more of its widely used software available to non-Windows users. Several of Google's programs now run on Macintosh Latest News about Macintosh machines. Google also has its eye on Linux because of that operating system's reliability and its potential as a desktop-computing alternative to Windows and the Mac OS.
The key to putting Picasa on Linux is a CodeWeavers technology dubbed Wine. The free "open source" software, long in making by volunteer developers around the world, lets Windows programs work without the Windows operating system.
CodeWeavers rolls Wine into its commercial CrossOver software, which lets users run the likes of Intuit (Nasdaq: INTU) Latest News about Intuit Quicken, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Latest News about Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Office on their Linux machines. But Wine remains a work in progress, which means Windows programs run with varying degrees of stability.
Google said it worked with CodeWeavers to modify Wine, which allowed Picasa to work more smoothly on Linux machines. Google then made those Wine improvements publicly available at no charge, in the open-source tradition, for use with other software-development projects at CodeWeavers and elsewhere.
The bottom line for the two businesses: Google got its Linux-based Picasa quickly -- in about one-fifth the time required by other means, it estimated -- and CodeWeavers' Wine effort took a leap forward.
Wine "is amazing computer science," said Chris DiBona, Google's open source Latest News about open source programs manager. The fact "that we made it better for everyone, I love that."
Into the Mainstream
Google is working on a Linux-based Google Earth, its Windows and Macintosh program for virtual globetrotting. Making such mainstream software available for Linux is essential to popularizing the still-nerdy operating system, DiBona said.
Picasa for Linux still lacks such features as CD burning and non-English menus, but it already appears to be a hit online. The software was the hot topic on tech blogs and other geeky forums Friday.
In a parallel software-development effort, CodeWeavers is adapting Wine for use on newer Macs that use the Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel processors found in Windows and Linux PCs. Once perfected, CodeWeavers' CrossOver Mac software will allow Mac users to run Windows software right on their Mac OS X Latest News about OS X desktops.
The Mac is key to CodeWeavers' future, potentially more so than Linux, said CodeWeavers Chief Executive Jeremy White.
"There are far more people genuinely using a Mac to do productive work," he said.
A modified version of Google's Picasa, released last month, runs on the Linux operating system instead of Windows XP. To pull off this software engineering feat, Google tapped St. Paul-based CodeWeavers and its longstanding expertise in making Windows programs work on Linux personal computers.
CodeWeavers, founded 10 years ago, has 20 employees and annual revenue of about US$1.5 million.
Eye on Linux
The new Picasa is important, Google said, because it wants to make more of its widely used software available to non-Windows users. Several of Google's programs now run on Macintosh Latest News about Macintosh machines. Google also has its eye on Linux because of that operating system's reliability and its potential as a desktop-computing alternative to Windows and the Mac OS.
The key to putting Picasa on Linux is a CodeWeavers technology dubbed Wine. The free "open source" software, long in making by volunteer developers around the world, lets Windows programs work without the Windows operating system.
CodeWeavers rolls Wine into its commercial CrossOver software, which lets users run the likes of Intuit (Nasdaq: INTU) Latest News about Intuit Quicken, Adobe (Nasdaq: ADBE) Latest News about Adobe Photoshop and Microsoft (Nasdaq: MSFT) Latest News about Microsoft Office on their Linux machines. But Wine remains a work in progress, which means Windows programs run with varying degrees of stability.
Google said it worked with CodeWeavers to modify Wine, which allowed Picasa to work more smoothly on Linux machines. Google then made those Wine improvements publicly available at no charge, in the open-source tradition, for use with other software-development projects at CodeWeavers and elsewhere.
The bottom line for the two businesses: Google got its Linux-based Picasa quickly -- in about one-fifth the time required by other means, it estimated -- and CodeWeavers' Wine effort took a leap forward.
Wine "is amazing computer science," said Chris DiBona, Google's open source Latest News about open source programs manager. The fact "that we made it better for everyone, I love that."
Into the Mainstream
Google is working on a Linux-based Google Earth, its Windows and Macintosh program for virtual globetrotting. Making such mainstream software available for Linux is essential to popularizing the still-nerdy operating system, DiBona said.
Picasa for Linux still lacks such features as CD burning and non-English menus, but it already appears to be a hit online. The software was the hot topic on tech blogs and other geeky forums Friday.
In a parallel software-development effort, CodeWeavers is adapting Wine for use on newer Macs that use the Intel (Nasdaq: INTC) Latest News about Intel processors found in Windows and Linux PCs. Once perfected, CodeWeavers' CrossOver Mac software will allow Mac users to run Windows software right on their Mac OS X Latest News about OS X desktops.
The Mac is key to CodeWeavers' future, potentially more so than Linux, said CodeWeavers Chief Executive Jeremy White.
"There are far more people genuinely using a Mac to do productive work," he said.