Running Windows applications on Android may soon become easier—in certain cases, at least—thanks to the Wine project and CodeWeavers, which are creating a port of the open source compatibility layer for mobile platforms.

Wine is open source software that lets users run Windows apps on Linux and some other Unix-like operating systems. It's technically not an emulator, but emulating apps is essentially what it does. The basic Wine platform is free, but CodeWeavers sells a value-added commercial implementation called CrossOver.

A primitive Wine implementation has already worked on Android for more than a year. A few days ago, however, CodeWeavers announced plans to ship a version of CrossOver for Android. That would bring a more user-friendly Wine implementation to mobile platforms.

There are some major caveats, though. One is that CrossOver for Android will only support Intel-based devices, which constitute a minority of the mobile market. Tablets and phones with ARM chips would not be able to run the CodeWeavers product.

The other limitation is that most Windows apps would be difficult to use on a tablet or other mobile device, since Windows apps are usually written for traditional PC platforms with keyboards and mice. For that reason, it's not yet clear how useful the new product would be, or how CodeWeavers would attract much commercial interest in it.

Still, Windows apps that are touch-friendly presumably would be subject to fewer usability issues running in CrossOver. Plus, greater cross-platform compatibility for Android environments can never be a bad thing. Whatever comes of this latest CodeWeavers initiative, it certainly won't be a bad thing for the open source community.

CodeWeavers said CrossOver for Android should appear within the next several months.