Emulation

Can't quite find an Open Source application that does exactly what your current 'must have' application does? or maybe you have but it doesn't run natively on your chosen platform? Perhaps an emulation environment is all you need to solve the problem. Open Source software is available that can provide a unix like runtime environment on Windows platforms as well as a Windows like runtime environment on Linux.

CYGWIN

CYGWIN is a Linux-like environment for Windows. It consists of two parts: A DLL (cygwin1.dll) which acts as a Linux API emulation layer providing substantial Linux API functionality and a collection of tools, which provide Linux look and feel. Cygwin is not a way to run native linux apps on Windows. You have to rebuild your application from source if you want it to run on Windows. It is also not a way to magically make native Windows apps aware of UNIX ® functionality,like signals, ptys, etc. Again, you need to build your apps from source if you want to take advantage of Cygwin functionality.

WINE

WINE is an Open Source implementation of the Windows API on top of Unix. Wine does not require Microsoft Windows, as it is a completely free alternative implementation of the Windows API consisting of 100% non-Microsoft code, however Wine can optionally use native Windows DLLs if they are available.

CodeWeavers

CodeWeavers

Win4Lin

Win4Lin