

Ask HN: Will windows programs now run on Linux and Mac OS? - chintan39

Does open sourcing .net means Windows Softwares&#x2F;Games may work on Linux and Mac OS?
In future someday?
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Piskvorrr
Not really. .net apps have already been running on Mono, with varying success;
there are also cross-platform apps built on .net - none of this should change
significantly.

As for unmanaged apps - this changes nothing.

Two things could happen: a) the open-sourced .net will allow for better
implementations on other platforms, and/or b) MS will later step in as a
patent troll and try to undermine Mono this way, SCO-style. While option B
seems unlikely (the open-sourced code seems to be licensed quite freely), MS
has played the Embrace-Extend-Exterminate card too many times for me to be
entirely trustworthy.

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opless
With the exception of wine.

Short answer: No.

Longer answer: Probably not. Anything that P/Invokes native code (regardless
if it's a system dll, or the apps own dlls) it will just not run. They will
crash/throw exceptions when called. Since these apps won't expect themselves
to be running on a non-windows operating system the exceptions won't be caught
and crash. This will probably include many, many 3rd party controls.

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jussij
As of today and as has been the case for several year now, many Win32 based
Windows softwares/games already run just fine on Linux and OSX thanks to Wine:

[https://appdb.winehq.org/](https://appdb.winehq.org/)

