RSSCodeWeavers offers free wares for a day
By Angela Gunn | Published October 28, 2008, 2:48 PM
A one-day offer of free software has servers at CodeWeavers Digg-ing out of a hole not unlike the one the OpenOffice.org project found itself in a couple of weeks ago -- the performance pit of extreme popularity.
Back in July, the CEO of CodeWeavers issued the "Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge" to the White House, saying that if President Bush met one of several economic or security goals, the company would offer their wares free for a day. As of October 14, Osama bin Laden was still on the loose and the jobs market is still appalling, but the price of gas has dropped sufficiently for Jeremy White to make good on his promise. (Nothing in the challenge said the price drop couldn't be caused by economic chaos. It really does pay to be specific.)
Through the end of the day (Tuesday, midnight CDT), CodeWeavers is offering fully unlocked builds of four of their programs: CrossOver Mac Pro, CrossOver Games Mac, CrossOver Linux Pro, and CrossOver Games Linux. All four Wine-based titles allow various Windows programs to be run on the Mac or on Linux. The Pro titles normally sell for $70; the standard versions are $40.
As of 1:30pm CDT, the offer has overwhelmed the CodeWeavers servers; a stripped-down page gives basic download info and promises the necessary serial numbers will be e-mailed in a few days. Our attempts to retrieve the download were successful, if a little slow; a company spokeswoman estimates that over 400,000 copies of the software have been retrieved so far today.
"We have extended the period where you can register the serial number until November 30th 2008."
http://lameduck.codeweavers.com/
http://register.codeweavers.com/
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Great, I find out about this an hour late. There's nothing on the site about a giveaway now :(
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Funny thing is this is the best advertising they could ask for - 90% of the folks downloading would never have otherwise - and droves more will want it when they see it in action. I have crossover for mac (paid for) and it has always proved to be solid. Am snagging the linux versions now :-)
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Can you say bittorent.....?
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They'll be surprised once they find out that if it stops being free at some point I will no longer use it, then.
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Bittorrent!
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Excellent. I wouldn't say mine was *unbearably* slow -- if I hadn't been paying close attention, frankly, I probably wouldn't have thought much about the speed one way or the other. (No sense getting impatient in any case, since the serial numbers won't arrive for a while.) I must admit their servers are doing well under the circumstances, wouldn't you say?
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Intersting. Mine downloaded at a reasonable speed.
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mine was fast, too. got all four copies in less than two minutes.
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