What I mean is, if I know the guy who wrote the program for windows, would I be able to take his original code and compile it for linux?
This is a needed, work specific program, that I'd rather just be able to run natively.
I don't mean to be vague, I suppose I'm asking more theoretically.
I'm not exactly a newbie, but I'm no developer, either. I'm approaching it with the thought that if it's just down to the code, it ought to be able to be done.
Am I right here, or should I just mess around with wine?
If it's possible, I'd like to give it shot, if nothing but for the learning experience.

Cheers.

That really depends, if it's just a console program you may have to change the names of a few functions and maybe replace any compiler-specific macros/functions so that it will be compatable with your Linux compiler. If it's a program implementing the Windows GUI API then there will be alot more work involved. Maybe you will have to just rewrite it, but you could use alot of the same code from the Windows source.

Essentially, it's a user interface to a HUGE database. And that's describing it in simple terms. It's more complex in terms of what you can do with it, how it can be manipulated/etc.
Of course, I haven't even yet seen how it was written.

I have an idea of seeing an industry-specific package for Linux, and this would be a major step. Granted, I'm probably half dreaming, but everything has to start somewhere.