'Lame Duck challenge' met, so software is free

Credit dropping gas prices with a free software offer on Tuesday for Mac users.

By RANDY SALAS, Star Tribune

Last update: October 27, 2008 - 8:07 AM

President Bush gets a lot of grief over the economic woes that have occurred under his watch, but now people can thank him for something spiffy: Free software. It comes courtesy of the Great American Lame Duck Presidential Challenge.

In July, St. Paul software developer CodeWeavers came up with the gimmick to make its products available free for a day if any one of five positive (but seemingly unlikely at the time) things happened during Bush's last six months in office: gas drops to $2.79 a gallon, milk drops to $3.50 a gallon, U.S. jobs exceed 138 million, the Twin Cities median home price returns to $233,000 or Osama bin Laden is captured.

Bingo on No. 1.

When CodeWeavers CEO Jeremy White saw that gas was $2.79 a gallon during a recent fill-up, "I screamed, 'Woohoo!' Then I yelled, 'Oh, crap!' as I realized every American can now have my software for free -- kind of upsets my fourth-quarter revenue projections," he said.

So on Tuesday, all of CodeWeavers products, which allow Mac and Linux users to run Windows applications, can be downloaded for free -- instead of $40 each -- at the company's website, www.codeweavers.com.