Slashdot Mirror

prostoalex writes "CNET News says Corel will introduce a native Linux version of its WordPerfect Office product on April 15th . This will be a pilot project, as Corel executives want to find out whether it's worth competing with the other products (namely StarOffice and OpenOffice)." The piece mentions: "Corel previously produced a Linux-native version of WordPerfect 8, released in 1998, and offered a Linux-translated version of WordPerfect 9 in 2000, when Linux was still a cornerstone of the company's broader strategy."

securitas writes "Jupiter Research has issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution. Software Assurance clients will see the lowest costs and SA-have-nots will see the highest costs. The rationale is that Microsoft's strategy of integrating server and client software, as it has done with the new Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2003 suite, will force costly upgrades and licenses. Ultimately the goal is to transform Office into a platform instead of a collection of applications. Analyst Joe Wilcox says, "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear." This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice. More on costs and integration at Jupiter/Wilcox's Microsoft Monitor Blog."

prostoalex writes "Ottawa-based Corel, known for its CorelDRAW, WordPerfect, Painter and Bryce products, has been acquired by Vector Capital Corp. for $124 mln. with the intent to get de-listed from Nasdaq and Toronto stock markets and go private. 80% of shareholders approved the deal, according to the story. At certain points of its corporate history Corel was a Linux vendor and even partially owned by Microsoft. Microsoft paid $135M for 25% of the shares, so Vector Capital paying $124M for 100% stake looks like a pretty good deal." It's been over a month since this was first announced, but it's actually come to pass now.

prostoalex writes "Ottawa-based Corel, known for its CorelDRAW, WordPerfect, Painter and Bryce products, has been acquired by Vector Capital Corp. for $124 mln. with the intent to get de-listed from Nasdaq and Toronto stock markets and go private. 80% of shareholders approved the deal, according to the story. At certain points of its corporate history Corel was a Linux vendor and even partially owned by Microsoft. Microsoft paid $135M for 25% of the shares, so Vector Capital paying $124M for 100% stake looks like a pretty good deal." It's been over a month since this was first announced, but it's actually come to pass now.

Gord Bowman writes "For anyone familiar with XML and, specifically, with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), you may be aware that SVG is increasingly being used for the creation of data-driven Web applications. But everyone has been doing so by handcoding script and/or XSLT, without the benefit of an IDE to help. Seeing such a need for a tool, my company (Corel) set about creating one." and 'lo, dSVG was born. Gord Bowman is the lead developer of dSVG and would like you to take a look at the dSVG specs (you can find the link, in the full article) and offer your comments.

"It quickly became apparent that while getting a grasp of XSLT is difficult and time-consuming, even more time-consuming was all the scripting it took to create the level of interactivity required on the client via script. Thus we set about creating a library of generic script functions that would assist developers in creating their Web apps. But it didn't take long to realize that this was no good--you can't data-map and transform (via XSLT) functions like you can markup. And, unlike markup, it's much more difficult to auto-generate and customize script via an authoring tool. So I set about designing an XML markup language, implemented with script (so as to work in any SVG viewer), which would describe UI controls and behaviours, so as to facilitate the creation of SVG-based Web applications.

It was a programmer's dream. I was essentially being paid to develop a new kind of programming language. One that, like XSLT, is XML-based but is more procedural in nature and thus easier for the average developer to grasp. It's also easier for non-developers to grasp it, thus bringing SVG and application development to a whole new class of user. A year later, dSVG (Dynamic SVG) was unveiled to the public as part of the Corel Smart Graphics Studio. And as of yesterday, the full dSVG 1.1 Specification and Test Suite became available for download.

The UI controls were designed to allow complete customization of appearance, and to allow for use with forms without being tied to a forms-specific model. The behaviors were designed to be generic and higher level than DOM methods, so as to be more intuitive to non-developers. The resulting markup language allows data-driven Web applications to be created with little or no need for scripting.

While script is very useful and powerful, markup has many advantages:

- markup is more easily understood by non-developers
- markup can be easily data-mapped and transformed using XSLT
- markup can be easily generated via an authoring tool and customized by the author
- markup is semantically meaningful, promoting interoperability on the authoring side
- markup can be standardized, thus helping the adoption of SVG

dSVG was implemented with script so as to work in different SVG Viewers. However, Corel has proposed dSVG to the SVG Working Group in the hopes that through a collaborative effort, dSVG will lead to the eventual creation of standard markup for UI controls and behaviors. These could then be natively implemented, bringing about even more advantages:

- faster
- less data to transfer
- less need for a script engine on small devices (which can take up a significant part of the footprint)

The dSVG 1.1 spec and test suite was posted for download with the goal of allowing the developers and non-developers to experiment with the markup and to provide feedback. This feedback will help me to improve upon dSVG and will also help the SVG Working Group to better assess how the developer community feels about such standard markup being added to the spec for the purpose of developing SVG-based Web applications.

I hope you will take the time to read through the dSVG spec, try out the test suite, and perhaps even create some of your own content. As the creator, I am obviously passionate and excited about dSVG. And having seen how quickly even non-developers can create Web apps, I feel certain that XML-based programming makes sense and is the way of the future. But being a long-time reader of Slashdot, I would love to hear what the Slashdot community thinks. dSVG may not lead to world peace, but I think it has the potential to change the fundamental way in which Web applications are created.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Sincerely,

Gord Bowman
Lead Developer, Corel Corporation"

Gord Bowman writes "For anyone familiar with XML and, specifically, with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), you may be aware that SVG is increasingly being used for the creation of data-driven Web applications. But everyone has been doing so by handcoding script and/or XSLT, without the benefit of an IDE to help. Seeing such a need for a tool, my company (Corel) set about creating one." and 'lo, dSVG was born. Gord Bowman is the lead developer of dSVG and would like you to take a look at the dSVG specs (you can find the link, in the full article) and offer your comments.

"It quickly became apparent that while getting a grasp of XSLT is difficult and time-consuming, even more time-consuming was all the scripting it took to create the level of interactivity required on the client via script. Thus we set about creating a library of generic script functions that would assist developers in creating their Web apps. But it didn't take long to realize that this was no good--you can't data-map and transform (via XSLT) functions like you can markup. And, unlike markup, it's much more difficult to auto-generate and customize script via an authoring tool. So I set about designing an XML markup language, implemented with script (so as to work in any SVG viewer), which would describe UI controls and behaviours, so as to facilitate the creation of SVG-based Web applications.

It was a programmer's dream. I was essentially being paid to develop a new kind of programming language. One that, like XSLT, is XML-based but is more procedural in nature and thus easier for the average developer to grasp. It's also easier for non-developers to grasp it, thus bringing SVG and application development to a whole new class of user. A year later, dSVG (Dynamic SVG) was unveiled to the public as part of the Corel Smart Graphics Studio. And as of yesterday, the full dSVG 1.1 Specification and Test Suite became available for download.

The UI controls were designed to allow complete customization of appearance, and to allow for use with forms without being tied to a forms-specific model. The behaviors were designed to be generic and higher level than DOM methods, so as to be more intuitive to non-developers. The resulting markup language allows data-driven Web applications to be created with little or no need for scripting.

While script is very useful and powerful, markup has many advantages:

- markup is more easily understood by non-developers
- markup can be easily data-mapped and transformed using XSLT
- markup can be easily generated via an authoring tool and customized by the author
- markup is semantically meaningful, promoting interoperability on the authoring side
- markup can be standardized, thus helping the adoption of SVG

dSVG was implemented with script so as to work in different SVG Viewers. However, Corel has proposed dSVG to the SVG Working Group in the hopes that through a collaborative effort, dSVG will lead to the eventual creation of standard markup for UI controls and behaviors. These could then be natively implemented, bringing about even more advantages:

- faster
- less data to transfer
- less need for a script engine on small devices (which can take up a significant part of the footprint)

The dSVG 1.1 spec and test suite was posted for download with the goal of allowing the developers and non-developers to experiment with the markup and to provide feedback. This feedback will help me to improve upon dSVG and will also help the SVG Working Group to better assess how the developer community feels about such standard markup being added to the spec for the purpose of developing SVG-based Web applications.

I hope you will take the time to read through the dSVG spec, try out the test suite, and perhaps even create some of your own content. As the creator, I am obviously passionate and excited about dSVG. And having seen how quickly even non-developers can create Web apps, I feel certain that XML-based programming makes sense and is the way of the future. But being a long-time reader of Slashdot, I would love to hear what the Slashdot community thinks. dSVG may not lead to world peace, but I think it has the potential to change the fundamental way in which Web applications are created.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Sincerely,

Gord Bowman
Lead Developer, Corel Corporation"

Gord Bowman writes "For anyone familiar with XML and, specifically, with SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics), you may be aware that SVG is increasingly being used for the creation of data-driven Web applications. But everyone has been doing so by handcoding script and/or XSLT, without the benefit of an IDE to help. Seeing such a need for a tool, my company (Corel) set about creating one." and 'lo, dSVG was born. Gord Bowman is the lead developer of dSVG and would like you to take a look at the dSVG specs (you can find the link, in the full article) and offer your comments.

"It quickly became apparent that while getting a grasp of XSLT is difficult and time-consuming, even more time-consuming was all the scripting it took to create the level of interactivity required on the client via script. Thus we set about creating a library of generic script functions that would assist developers in creating their Web apps. But it didn't take long to realize that this was no good--you can't data-map and transform (via XSLT) functions like you can markup. And, unlike markup, it's much more difficult to auto-generate and customize script via an authoring tool. So I set about designing an XML markup language, implemented with script (so as to work in any SVG viewer), which would describe UI controls and behaviours, so as to facilitate the creation of SVG-based Web applications.

It was a programmer's dream. I was essentially being paid to develop a new kind of programming language. One that, like XSLT, is XML-based but is more procedural in nature and thus easier for the average developer to grasp. It's also easier for non-developers to grasp it, thus bringing SVG and application development to a whole new class of user. A year later, dSVG (Dynamic SVG) was unveiled to the public as part of the Corel Smart Graphics Studio. And as of yesterday, the full dSVG 1.1 Specification and Test Suite became available for download.

The UI controls were designed to allow complete customization of appearance, and to allow for use with forms without being tied to a forms-specific model. The behaviors were designed to be generic and higher level than DOM methods, so as to be more intuitive to non-developers. The resulting markup language allows data-driven Web applications to be created with little or no need for scripting.

While script is very useful and powerful, markup has many advantages:

- markup is more easily understood by non-developers
- markup can be easily data-mapped and transformed using XSLT
- markup can be easily generated via an authoring tool and customized by the author
- markup is semantically meaningful, promoting interoperability on the authoring side
- markup can be standardized, thus helping the adoption of SVG

dSVG was implemented with script so as to work in different SVG Viewers. However, Corel has proposed dSVG to the SVG Working Group in the hopes that through a collaborative effort, dSVG will lead to the eventual creation of standard markup for UI controls and behaviors. These could then be natively implemented, bringing about even more advantages:

- faster
- less data to transfer
- less need for a script engine on small devices (which can take up a significant part of the footprint)

The dSVG 1.1 spec and test suite was posted for download with the goal of allowing the developers and non-developers to experiment with the markup and to provide feedback. This feedback will help me to improve upon dSVG and will also help the SVG Working Group to better assess how the developer community feels about such standard markup being added to the spec for the purpose of developing SVG-based Web applications.

I hope you will take the time to read through the dSVG spec, try out the test suite, and perhaps even create some of your own content. As the creator, I am obviously passionate and excited about dSVG. And having seen how quickly even non-developers can create Web apps, I feel certain that XML-based programming makes sense and is the way of the future. But being a long-time reader of Slashdot, I would love to hear what the Slashdot community thinks. dSVG may not lead to world peace, but I think it has the potential to change the fundamental way in which Web applications are created.

I look forward to hearing your comments.

Sincerely,

Gord Bowman
Lead Developer, Corel Corporation"

mgeoffrey writes "Corel announced that Vector Capitol will acquire Corel by buying out all outstanding shares at $1.05 a share. They are buying 22,890,000 shares. Vector Capitol has published a full report." Looks like the natural continuation after Microsoft sold off their Corel holdings.

mgeoffrey writes "Corel announced that Vector Capitol will acquire Corel by buying out all outstanding shares at $1.05 a share. They are buying 22,890,000 shares. Vector Capitol has published a full report." Looks like the natural continuation after Microsoft sold off their Corel holdings.

PizzaFace writes "Microsoft resuscitated Corel two and a half years ago, paying $135 million for a quarter of Corel's equity ownership. Corel talked then about bringing its products to .Net, and even hinted that it might use its Linux expertise to port .Net to Linux. Since then, Corel gave up on the Linux business and isn't talking anymore about .Net, but is instead riding its XML hobbyhorse. So Microsoft is selling its stake in Corel to a VC firm for $13 million, taking a 90% loss on the investment."

nexex points to this Financial Times article, which says that HP has dropped Microsoft Word from the software lineup in the personal computers it sells to customers. From the article: "The move follows a decision last week by Dell Computer, the number two PC maker, to replace Microsoft software. Both companies said they would offer WordPerfect productivity software from Corel of Canada instead of Microsoft's Works, a scaled-down version of its top-selling Office software." Nexex writes:"I think it should be noted, MS Works does include the full version of Word."

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

evil_one writes: "The end is finally here for Corel, who released a Debian based linux distro a couple years ago (now owned by Xandros) Has announced that they are shutting down their Open Source Development web site as of March 1st. As many readers already know, Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect. It's sad to see this, especially with the amount of work that Corel has put into Wine and their other projects, which include add-ons to KDE." Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)

AntiNorm asks: "I recently installed Mandrake 8.0, and after taking much time to get it working, I found that the free version of WordPerfect 8 would not install. The same thing happened under Redhat 7.0, although it installed and worked fine under RH 6.2. It appears that the binaries (wpinstc and wpinstg) that are called by the installation scripts are unable to find a particular file or library that they need, but I haven't been able to figure out anything beyond that. Has anyone else had this problem? If so, is there a way to get around it?" Update: 05/10 04:27 PM by C : Another similar question hit the bin, today, except this one is about Wordperfect 2000. Are the same problems from WP8 inherited in the latest version? Read more, below.

eadint asks: "I've been using Linux since 1996 and about a year and a half ago when Corel Office 2000 for :inux was released I finally got rid of my Windows partition and started using Linux as my sole operating system. Recently I upgraded to Red Hat 7.1 and I haven't been able to install it on my computer. I'm hoping for some advice on this and also hoping that I don't have to downgrade my OS. I can definitely notice a difference in speed with 7.1"

zhensel writes "In Corel's latest Linux newsletter, they comment on the "spin-off" of their Linux distro reported here recently. In an apparent attempt to capitolize on the recent woes at Suse, however, they also confirm the release of the second edition of their operating systems targeted at european markets for the low, low, price of ?4.95 (or a few hundred megs of bandwidth). In addition, they promise increased development for their Linux productivity software. " I kinda think its just spin, the kinda stuff you say when you're going down like "Duck and Cover"

Newsforge (also owned by the sinister Andover keiretsu) is reporting on Corel's latest move in the world of Linux - an advance in the retrograde direction. Corel apparently plans to sell off its Debian-based distro, but retain WordPerfect and CorelDraw. Yahoo and Linux Today also have stories.

PySloth wrote to us with a link to InformationWeek that speculates about what Corel might be doing differently soon. One of the possibilities is the sale of their Linux operations, which would be odd concerning the .NET portion of their deal with Microsoft.

aibrahim asks: " I recently found out about W3C Specification for Scalable Vector Graphics from the Adobe SVG site. So I was looking around for programs that would allow me to work with SVG on Linux, or any OSS system for that matter. Adobe plans on making almost their entire product line work with SVG, including Photoshop. Corel has released an SVG Filter. Yet, I couldn't find a single product with a Freshmeat search that mentions SVG. Looking on SourceForge reveals two projects: Gill and Savage. Neither of these projects have posted any files as of 9/2/2000. Are there any free software projects with a usable SVG product? Can anyone comment on when any such project may come to fruition? Lastly, since Adobe is including SVG features in Photoshop has anyone even mentioned it to the GIMP ^[?] develeopers?"

Mike Bouma writes "Amiga and Red Hat are working together to provide the foundation for exciting games and consumer content for the desktop, set-top-box, game console, and handheld market. This announcement follows monts after the disclosure of Amiga`s relationship with the Corel Corporation. The Amiga SDK can now also be bought at Redhat.com. Also take a look at this review which includes benchmark comparisons of the Java performance of the Amiga SDK running hosted on Redhat 6.1 and native Linux Java implementations."

I get a steady trickle of e-mail from Microsoft employees who dislike many of their employer's actions, and I know many good, concerned reporters who work at ZDNet, the Washington Post, USA Today, and other media outlets who do not follow any secret "editorial agenda." There are plenty of real conspiracies out there. We shouldn't waste our time making up fake ones, and we should never assume that all employees or associates of a company or government agency are part of a faceless, marching mass that always does exactly what its leaders want.

Let's start with Microsoft. Remember when they asked us to pull some reader posts? That was the work of a few people in an obscure legal department, not a case of a leering, drooling Bill Gates calling a cowering subordinate and screaming, "Slashdot sucks! Kill Slashdot, kill, kill, kill!" And obviously not everyone at Microsoft agreed that it was a good idea to keep the matter alive, because it has since been allowed to die quietly. (We haven't written anything further on the subject because there has been nothing to say. No news is good news.)

There is no giant, singleminded conspiracy at Microsoft, just thousands of people trying to get through the day. This is how things really work at any large company. Good decisions get made and so do bad ones. Projects get started. Some of them work out and some of them don't. Orders issued from the top sometimes get carried out effectively and efficiently, and sometimes they don't. I often suspect that some of the worst software (and the worst Web sites) I see are so crappy because the workers actually putting them together are unenthusiastic about management's plans and are either consciously or subconsciously dragging their feet -- or, in this case, their coding fingers. I'm not implying any employee conspiracy, either; these tend to be individual decisions that, collectively, may look like a consipracy to an outsider (or a boss) when there really isn't one.

Now let's take a look at one of Slashdot readers' favorits media whipping boys: ZDNet, which is now part of CNET. If you look closely, you'll see that ZD is no more organized than rush hour traffic in Paris. There are dozens of publications listed on the ZD main page. Some of them deal with Linux all day long, some are pure Windows, others concern themselves with consumer electronics and are only interested in things like camcorders or stereo gear. Jesse Berst is often treated as if he is the boss of this whole thing. He's not. He is the front man for one little piece of it called AnchorDesk . Berst has nothing to do with PC Magazine or Yahoo! Internet Life or GameSpot , all of which are also part of ZDNet.

The people who write for all these separate publications never meet. Most of them don't even know each other. They have no idea what ads are going to run where, so even if they wanted to pander to a particular advertiser they'd have trouble doing it effectively. The guiding rule at a big media mill like ZD or CNET is to have usable copy to fill all the pages every day, and they have a lot of pages to fill. Editors at these places are help-short and constantly looking for new freelance and staff writers. They don't have time to sit there and say, "Oh my, we need more stories today that make Microsoft look good and Linux look bad."

Offline media workers are similarly rushed. In many publishing companies (including Andover.net) close contact between editorial-side employees and and business-side employees is discouraged. There are journalistic organizations that act as watchdogs to help keep editorial content free from business or outside influence. These groups avidly publish instances of improper behavior. Now and then, their work gets direct results, but more often the influence is subtle; a media outlet that gains a reputation among journalists for altering stories or trying to taint them to satisfy advertisers has trouble recruiting and retaining high-end writers, and almost always sets itself on a downward quality spiral.

Remember, the shortage of competent writers and editors, especially in tech-oriented fields, is almost as acute as the shortage of competent programmers. This has not always been so, and may not always be so, but right now there is no excuse for a tech media writer to accept conspiracy-level censoring from a publisher.

Now we'll talk about the biggest and most perfidious influence I believe does exist throughout media everywhere, even though it is not a conspiracy per se: denial of access.

Imagine a celebrity besieged by reporters. Imagine that you're the press agent for that celebrity. Your client has one interview time slot open this week. You have a dozen writers begging for that interview, all of whom have audiences of approximately equal size. One of those writers has always been "nice" to your client, six of them have been (in your opinion) fair but not necessarily nice, and five of them have written primarily negative stories about him or her.

Which writer gets the interview?

Twenty years ago there were hardly any celebrities in the computer industry. Even Steve Jobs and Bill Gates were thrilled to speak openly, off the cuff, to reporters from magazines that had only a few thousand or even a few hundred subscribers. Now the people at the top of the computer business tend to be as infected with celeb-itis as movie stars and top-end politicians, and as cautious about interviews as any other group of celebrities. It has gotten to the point where interviews with computer industry honchos are about as informative as Jay Leno's interviews with actors and acresses pushing their upcoming movies.

Worse, in many cases the hardware or software itself is the celebrity in question. A tech-news writer, like a political writer, is under a certain amount of pressure to break news ahead of his or her competitors. Getting pre-release access to new products can make or break careers in this field. And who gets the most "sneak peeks" at new stuff coming out of Redmond or Cupertino or wherever? Writers who are A) generally negative; B) generally fair and unbiased; C) usually full of "Golly! Gee Whiz!" praise for any new piece of hardware or software that falls into their hands?

Pretend, for a moment, that you're a PR person for Apple. You have only 20 demo/review units of the new G21, equipped with GNU/Hurd-based MacOS 40.2 and a 3.6 GHz Intelorola available. Of the 100+ reasonably well-known computer journalists who have requested pre-release units to review, which ones will you choose? If you don't select the Mac-boostingest people in that whole crowd, then you're not a good PR person.

Computer trade journalists know that this is how the game is played. I used Apple as an example, on purpose, because they have the worst reputation among computer journalists for playing the "If you want to see our latest stuff you'd better be nice to us" game. According to posts to some of the private online journalists' e-mail lists I'm on, Microsoft is evenhanded compared to Apple, and other companies vary widely in the level of journalistic favoritism they expect to have shown toward them in return for easy access to their latest products -- and easy interview access to their key people.

But none of this is a conspiracy. It's quite Randian, really, in that a whole lot of individuals are performing in ways they perceive to be in accordance with their own (or corporate) best interests. No one can plausibly argue that computer manufacturers or distributors have any legal obligation to hand out review products in an evenhanded manner. It's a fact of life that Tuxtops or Corel are going to send Slashdot editors their products before they throw demo units at Windows Magazine , just as Microsoft is going to display the exact opposite bias.

I have questioned the whole idea of using free, manufacturer-supplied review units more than once, even those that are short-term loaners instead of "keepers." I believe there's temptation on the corporate side to make sure review units are just a little better-tested than those sold to the general public. But while reviewers who stick to buying products anonymously through normal channels may give slightly more honest reviews than those who rely on company-supplied units, they will never get anything to review before it is released, so an ethically pure reviewer will often be left far behind those who are a little more (shall we say) flexible. This is especially true of magazine writers whose deadlines may be weeks or months before publication date. I have come to accept the incestuous relationship between computer product reviewers and the people who supply those products as a fact of life. I don't necessarily like this way of doing business (even when *I* do it), but I don't think it's part of any grand conspiracy to dupe the public.

Bigger companies also have a tendency to enclose "reviewer guides" with demo products to make sure reporters know all of the product's good points so that they can (hopefully) cover them in their articles. Indeed, you can just about write a credible-looking, if uncritical, "review" from most of these guides without ever actually testing the product yourself. I regard this as the worst thing that can happen, the equivalent of writing a "news" story about a politician directly from his or her press kit. And stories that are nothing but rewritten PR pieces appear every day in all kinds of media, about all kinds of topics. The sad secret of PR-rewriting is that it can be a bonanza for a free-lancer. Take (for example) a press release about a potential new cure for [insert disease here] from researchers at [insert university here]. A hungry freelancer can easily reword the statements in that press release to produce at least three or four stories for different media, ranging from the medical trade press to regional general-interest publications. Even at low-end freelance rates, a rapid typist who does this can crank out $1000 worth of stories in a single morning. Do this six or eight days a month, and you have a nice little income to support you, and still have most of your time free to work on your (inevitable) novel, go sailing or whatever else strikes your fancy. Again, no conspiracy, just individual greed. Editors are supposed to detect and prevent this sort of thing, but they are generally overworked and have "news holes" to fill, so lazy journalism often slips by their eyes -- and not only from freelancers. In-house writers, especially on small and understaffed publications, face the same temptation to cut corners -- and often yield to it.

And now, on to the great (gasp!) Slashdot editorial conspiracy. Real life around here is that this site is run, day to day, by about six people, all of whom are independent to the point of uncontrollability. We share many common biases, and CmdrTaco sets the overall tone of the site, but that's it. One editor might post a story another wouldn't. Jon Katz writes what Jon Katz feels like writing. Hemos is ... Hemos, and also determines which books whould be reviewed, and by whom. Timothy picks stories and SlashBack material on his own, Cliff chooses "Ask Slashdot" material, and Emmett decides what stories he should cover, all by himself. Sure, we kick stuff around and ask each other for advice, and CmdrTaco will sometimes issue general directives about kinds of stories he'd like to see more often and other kinds he'd like to see less often, and these directives get followed to a certain extent, but when you come right down to it the ruling principle around here is "Chaos is Better Than Order."

No human-run organization operates with Borg-like singlemindedness. People are incapable of that kind of groupthink. Not even the old Soviet Union achieved it. This is why I am leery of so many of the conspiracy theories touted here and elsewhere. Face it: once you get behind their public masks, Microsoft, "the mainstream media," the U.S. Department of Justice, and many of our other favorite alleged conspirators are no more organized than Slashdot, and are no more capable than we are of sustaining any kind of secret agenda for any length of time -- at least not without getting caught.

Zalgon 26 McGee writes: "Corel has announced the sale of their GraphicCorp division to Hemera, according to a report on CBC News Online. Is this just another step in Corel's death spiral? A way to hide assets from creditors? Or some of the bold leadership Corel needs to find their way again?" Weren't we asking the same questions last week?

Corel has released Photo-Paint for Linux for free. You can go to their web site and download it (there are packages for RPM and DEB although its compressed with .tar.gz). Good work, Corel. Their FTP seems to be full, so could someone make a mirror please?

petard writes: "CNet is holding an OS death match between Corel GNU/Linux and Mac OS 9. An advocate of each is invited to answer the question of which is better on the desktop in the areas of Installation, Interface, Applications, Hardware Compatiblility and Internet Support. At first I thought it was flamebait, but the article is reasonably well done and highlights genuine strengths and weakness of each OS." It's really easy to say, 'Yeah, well, wait for Eazel,' but this comparison is a hard reminder that people think about the here and now, not just the soon.

I'm pretty pleased to see this one: Corel has put their internal CVS tree up for read only access so that they can more easily sync their code with the official branches. You can see more at the Corel Open Source Web site.

Frank249 writes "Corel Draw 9 for Linux appears to be on or ahead of schedule. They are currently advertising for beta testers. This is a good sign and confirms what was reported in today's ZDNet Linux article, that the wine libraries are close to production quality."

Corel has been making big waves in the Linux world lately, and Michael Cowpland is the man at the top of Corel. One question per post, please. As always, the 10 - 15 questions sent on will be those moderated highest, with additional culling (if necessary) done by Slashdot editors and hangers-on. We select questions shortly after 1200 EST on Tuesday. Answers are scheduled to appear Friday mid-day. So ask away, and moderators, get those points sharpened up and ready to go!

Conan Albrecht asks: "A lot of hype is being made about Corel's new Linux file manager (and its Windows look). Can those of us on other distributions try it out without installing Corel? Corel's site seems to expect users to burn an install CD. Is there another way? What comments do Corel Linux users have about the new file manager. How does it compare with KDE, GNOME, or others?"

rawlink writes "Corel has announced that they are working w/ GraphOn to support their Bridges client software on Corel Linux. This will allow the Linux client to access Windows apps over a network connection, much the same way that Citrix does." I hope this won't be too expensive; it could instantly enlighten the minds of a lot of people wondering what the next OS for their LAN should be...

This week Bruce Perens ^[?] learned the hard way that Open Source development has become a popular spectator sport. Or, as I described it a few days earlier, a performing art. Like it or not, things are changing with Open Source development, with the Internet, with the way online news is gathered and spread, and with Slashdot. More ->

If you didn't read (or don't feel like going to) the story linked to above about Bruce's little foot-in-mouth moment, I'll summarize it for you: After getting (IMO justifiably) frustrated over some terms in the license for Corel's new Debian-based Linux distribution and Corel's refusal to change them, Bruce posted a little note on the debian-legal discussion list that said, in part, "It's time for us to bring suit against Corel for this 'can't download unless you're 18' stuff. That's not in our license and they know it."

Almost immediately, a Slashdot reader submitted Bruce's comment to us, and Hemos ran it as a story as soon as he checked to make sure that yes, Bruce had really written that comment. The Slashdot story got over 300 remarks added to it within two hours of its initial appearance, many of which said that Bruce had over-reacted to Corel's licensing intransigence, and many more which lambasted Slashdot generally, and Hemos personally, for having posted a "private" message on Slashdot without getting Bruce's permission in advance.

Bruce was an active participant in the Slashdot discussion that followed Hemos's post and, in the end, backed down his original "we oughta sue" statement. Hemos apologized for the post. And the comments kept on coming, because that's the nature of Slashdot.

There was also some e-mail exchanged between Bruce, CmdrTaco, Hemos, and myself. It was not vituperative. We all like and respect each other. Bruce has my home phone number, and I have his (somewhere). But that e-mail exchange led to this article, because this entire incident, and the way it got blown out of proportion, is a prime example of changes in the nature of online discussion, Open Source development, and Slashdot's role in it all.

Coincidentally - it had been scheduled to run for over a week - yesterday we had an Ask Slashdot piece about the demise of old-fashioned, local dialup Bulletin Boards. There was a lot of nostalgia expressed for the days when your "online community" was 20 or 30 people who all lived near you, and you could all get together now and then for a soda or a beer or whatever. There were no Anonymous Cowards in that kind of environment. Sure, people used screen names like "BBBopper," but if you were a member of the community, you knew that BBBopper's real name was "Bernard," where he lived, and where he worked.

I miss those days, and I'm sure Bruce does too. You could say damn near anything on your freewheeling local BBS, and if you *really* put your foot in your mouth you could either delete your comment or ask your friendly sysop to delete it for you. But it didn't really matter. The chances of a vituperative neighbor or a reporter for the local newspaper reading your post were virtually nil, and even if they were reading, so what? Back then, hardly anyone paid attention to the few weirdos who spent their nights dialing into each others computers.

Fast-forward to now: there are days when Slashdot does well over one million pageviews. Reporters from The Wall Street Journal (Hi Lee!), CNN (Hi, Ian!) and even Al Gore campaign staffers (Hi, Ben!), read Slashdot regularly. Stories that break here are often picked up by general-interest media or serve as inspiration (we say politely) for their own reporting. And Slashdot readers obviously subscribe to discussions like debian-legal, so the distance between a hasty mailing list post and the front page of a national newspaper can be as little as two clicks.

Calling your favorite mailing list "private" or "obscure" does not make it so. If any idiot who has a valid e-mail address can subscribe to it, it is not private. As for obscurity, that depends on the poster. An offhand comment made by Al Average is unlikely to make it into either Slashdot or the Wall Street Journal no matter where it originally appears. A comment by Bruce Perens or Richard M. Stallman or Steve Ballmer or Linus Torvalds or Larry Ellison or anyone else perceived to have "weight" in software development matters is another story. These people are celebrities, at least to Slashdot readers, so their words are going to be taken seriously, analyzed, and quoted, requoted, and even possibly misquoted as heavily as news of Cher's latest love affair will be discussed in the movie gossip tabloids.

In this "celebrity" context, there are two main differences between Bruce Perens and Cher:

• 1 - At least one billion people have heard of Cher, while only a few million (at most) have ever heard of Bruce Perens.
• 2 - Bruce Perens is more important than Cher, especially to Slashdot readers.

Despite her greater popularity, in the overall scheme of things Cher's "boy toy" adventures are inconsequential. But when Bruce advocates a lawsuit against Corel for violating the GPL, even if he rapidly recants, he's effectively putting any investment Corel has in Linux at risk. Just the thought of a threat of a suit can make investors leery of putting money into Linux-based ventures, because all this GPL and Open Source stuff is still alien territory to most "mainstream" stock market and other investment players. Whether or not a suit is justified or even possible, the idea that one could be brought is sure to be discussed by bigwigs at IBM, Red Hat, Oracle, Sun, and many other companies that have staked all or part of their future on Linux.

A better comparison than Bruce:Cher is Bruce:Alan Greenspan. If Alan Greenspan goes out to eat and tips a waiter 20% and makes a lame (but overheard) joke about waiters demanding higher tips because of the booming economy, two dozen financial pundits will immediately try to figure out if Greenspan is planning to raise interest rates, and the stock market is sure to blip one way or another in response to the "news" of Greenspan's "statement."

Like it or not, if Alan Greenspan makes his remark in a public place it is fair media game. As long as he is quoted accurately, there is nothing he can do about the appearance of his offhand sentence in newspapers and as discussion fodder on talking-head TV shows. Bruce Perens is nowhere near as influential as Alan Greenspan, but within the confines of the Open Source/free software community, his words may have more impact on investment behavior and are, therefore, more important to Slashdot readers who hold shares in Red Hat and other companies that live and die by Open Source software.

I growled a little at Hemos for later adding a "Maybe I shouldn't have posted it" apology to his piece about Bruce's comment. It was an amicable growl; we work together as a tight team around here, and we all accept the fact that each Slashdot author and editor is an individual with his own point of view. But I don't (personally) believe we should ever apologize for running legitimate news, including speculations made in public forums by Open Source celebrities. And Bruce Perens is not only a legitimate public figure in the Open Source context, but is one largely because of his own actions. Bruce is not a reticent person. He has requested Slashdot coverage of his pet projects many times, and often as not he's gotten it. This time, he got coverage when he neither requested nor desired it, and was unhappy at the kind of attention focused on him.

I called this little essay "The Spotlight is a Harsh Mistress" because (RAH reference aside) this statement sums up my main point here: that once you open a press floodgate everything passes through it, not just what you want. And the piece I wrote earlier this week about Open Source and free software developers becoming more like stage performers than reclusive poets was as much of a cautionary tale as anything else. Yes, there are adoring Open Source fans out there, but those fans are as fickle -- and demanding -- as any other kind of fans, and when you have the combination of celebrities and devout fans, paparazzi lurking in the bushes are almost inevitable.

Slashdot is not exactly in the paparazzi category (I like to think) but we are certainly a prime source not only of Open Source and free software development news, but also of community gossip. What "we" post officially is far less than 10% of the site's total content. The rest is uncensored remarks by readers. While you can choose to only read posts other readers (moderators) decide are worthwhile, you always have the option of reading Slashdot in all of its fierce, chaotic glory simply by setting your threshold to -1. (Our boss, CmdrTaco, absolutely insists on this "no censorship ever" policy and we all back him up fiercely on this one!)

Even if you are not logged in as a registered member, you can set the moderation threshold on each individual article as you read it. My personal Slashdot reading preference is a setting of -1, with comments nested instead of threaded. And, believe it or not, I read almost every comment attached to almost every Slashdot article almost every day. There are suprising gems (and some great humor) buried in the mass if you take the trouble to look for them.

Is Slashdot going downhill? Probably, in some ways. It's not the cozy little Web site I discovered several years ago, when it was new and crude and 30 comments on an article was big-time. But by that same standard both the Internet and Usenet have been going downhill almost since day one. First the original Unix heavies grumbled about letting the non-CS (but still research) people in. Then all the researchers grumbled about letting the students in, and how they polluted discussion groups with trivial conversation and dirty jokes and filled up mail servers with stupid chain letters. Then the unwashed mass of Prodigy people hit, over one million strong, and irritated everyone who was already on the Internet, and then they complained about all the "clueless AOLers" who followed them.

But newbies don't stay newbies forever, either on the Internet in general or here on Slashdot. Two or three years from now, I assure you, some of the same AC kiddies who are now going "Whoo! First Post!" will become settled members of "the community" and will grumble about the next Slashdot newbie generation's silly games, whatever they turn out to be.

And two or three years from now Bruce Perens will be a dignified Elder Statesman of the burgeoning, ever-growing Open Source and free software community, and he will be aghast at some of the things that less media-worn people say in forums they considered private but really weren't, and the whole circle will continue to grow, with new, fresh faces always coming on board -- and some of the old ones departing for one reason or another.

Perhaps, too, we'll see the advent of more "members only" forums with strict privacy restrictions, somewhat like the old private BBS operations, and those will be where "online celebrities" hang out and let down their hair with one another, just as some film celebs only feel comfortable at private parties guarded by thuglike doormen who keep out anyone who isn't on a tightly-controlled guest list.

But I would personally rather see total openness, here on Slashdot and in as many other places as possible. Sure, mistakes will be made. You'll make some, Bruce Perens will make some, and I'm sure I'll make (more than) my fair share as well. To me, this is the point of Slashdot; to level the playing field and treat all comers exactly the same, on both their good days and their bad days; to provide a well-lit, well-known "space" where both silly and serious debates can take place, opinions can be aired and debunked, and even (once in a while) a mind or two can be changed.

Caspian writes "There's an interesting-- and disturbing-- clause in the EULA for Corel's new Linux distribution-- namely, you can't download it unless you're over 18. No mention of an exception for those with parental permission is mentioned. As one who first used Linux at 13 or 14, and first installed it himself at 16, I'm shocked and very much upset. Thoughts?" We've got the offended section of the EULA attached below. Interestingly enough, Corel Linux is based on Debian which has a huge percentage of minor aged developers. Apparently they aren't even allowed to download their own code.

The snippet in question is very close to the top of the EULA. Here are the top few lines-- read for yourself, or read it off of Corel's site here:

End User License Agreement
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING "ACCEPT" BELOW:

1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE.

Caspian writes "There's an interesting-- and disturbing-- clause in the EULA for Corel's new Linux distribution-- namely, you can't download it unless you're over 18. No mention of an exception for those with parental permission is mentioned. As one who first used Linux at 13 or 14, and first installed it himself at 16, I'm shocked and very much upset. Thoughts?" We've got the offended section of the EULA attached below. Interestingly enough, Corel Linux is based on Debian which has a huge percentage of minor aged developers. Apparently they aren't even allowed to download their own code.

The snippet in question is very close to the top of the EULA. Here are the top few lines-- read for yourself, or read it off of Corel's site here:

End User License Agreement
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING "ACCEPT" BELOW:

1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE.

Caspian writes "There's an interesting-- and disturbing-- clause in the EULA for Corel's new Linux distribution-- namely, you can't download it unless you're over 18. No mention of an exception for those with parental permission is mentioned. As one who first used Linux at 13 or 14, and first installed it himself at 16, I'm shocked and very much upset. Thoughts?" We've got the offended section of the EULA attached below. Interestingly enough, Corel Linux is based on Debian which has a huge percentage of minor aged developers. Apparently they aren't even allowed to download their own code.

The snippet in question is very close to the top of the EULA. Here are the top few lines-- read for yourself, or read it off of Corel's site here:

End User License Agreement
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING "ACCEPT" BELOW:

1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE.

Caspian writes "There's an interesting-- and disturbing-- clause in the EULA for Corel's new Linux distribution-- namely, you can't download it unless you're over 18. No mention of an exception for those with parental permission is mentioned. As one who first used Linux at 13 or 14, and first installed it himself at 16, I'm shocked and very much upset. Thoughts?" We've got the offended section of the EULA attached below. Interestingly enough, Corel Linux is based on Debian which has a huge percentage of minor aged developers. Apparently they aren't even allowed to download their own code.

The snippet in question is very close to the top of the EULA. Here are the top few lines-- read for yourself, or read it off of Corel's site here:

End User License Agreement
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING "ACCEPT" BELOW:

1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE.

Caspian writes "There's an interesting-- and disturbing-- clause in the EULA for Corel's new Linux distribution-- namely, you can't download it unless you're over 18. No mention of an exception for those with parental permission is mentioned. As one who first used Linux at 13 or 14, and first installed it himself at 16, I'm shocked and very much upset. Thoughts?" We've got the offended section of the EULA attached below. Interestingly enough, Corel Linux is based on Debian which has a huge percentage of minor aged developers. Apparently they aren't even allowed to download their own code.

The snippet in question is very close to the top of the EULA. Here are the top few lines-- read for yourself, or read it off of Corel's site here:

End User License Agreement
IMPORTANT: READ CAREFULLY THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE FOLLOWING AGREEMENT ("LICENSE") BEFORE DOWNLOADING THE PRODUCT. BY CLICKING "ACCEPT" BELOW:

1.YOU CERTIFY THAT YOU ARE NOT A MINOR AND THAT YOU AGREE TO BE BOUND BY ALL OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS SET OUT IN THE LICENSE BELOW. DOWNLOADING AND/OR USING THE PRODUCT WILL BE AN IRREVOCABLE ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF THE LICENSE.

Everybody and his sister seems to have submitted at least one of these links: First, Mozilla build M11 is out. Go for it! Check this Mozilla.org page for details. Second, there's a Linux port out for Napster. We already mentioned it earlier here, but apparently a lot of people missed the reference. Go get it already. And third, Corel Linux is now available - if you can handle a 311 MB. If you can't burn a CD, compile your kernel with loopback support and try 'mount -t iso9660 -o loop 6.1-i386.iso /mnt/cdrom'

Drog writes "Corel Corporation is officially launching their Corel Linux OS at Fall COMDEX in Las Vegas today via webcast at 1:15 PM PST (4:15 PM EST). Corel Linux Beta 2 has garnered a fair amount of praise thus far. A lengthy review written on Oct. 28 can be found at over at TechRepublic. " The TechRepublic story does require a free login, yadda-yadda.

KiWiB0RG writes "Corel has opened Wordperfect Office 2000 for beta testing. The only requirements is that you run Linux, using kernel 2.0.30 or greater, and have experience in one of these software packages -> Wordperfect, Quattro Pro, Corel Presentations, CorelCentral and/or Paradox. "

Several people wrote in to point out that Corel appears to be uploading Corel Linux to their FTP servers. I see no official announcement from Corel yet on their site as of yet, but we'll update the story when it comes out. Check out their current sneak preview online.Update: 11/04 04:14 by H :Thanks to MarkLCorel for sending us update - Corel will be kicking off their distro on Nov. 15 @ Comdex, complete with party and Webevent. Neat - however, the current material online is just testing stuff - so stop downloading already.*grin*

Several people wrote in to point out that Corel appears to be uploading Corel Linux to their FTP servers. I see no official announcement from Corel yet on their site as of yet, but we'll update the story when it comes out. Check out their current sneak preview online.Update: 11/04 04:14 by H :Thanks to MarkLCorel for sending us update - Corel will be kicking off their distro on Nov. 15 @ Comdex, complete with party and Webevent. Neat - however, the current material online is just testing stuff - so stop downloading already.*grin*

Several people wrote in to point out that Corel appears to be uploading Corel Linux to their FTP servers. I see no official announcement from Corel yet on their site as of yet, but we'll update the story when it comes out. Check out their current sneak preview online.Update: 11/04 04:14 by H :Thanks to MarkLCorel for sending us update - Corel will be kicking off their distro on Nov. 15 @ Comdex, complete with party and Webevent. Neat - however, the current material online is just testing stuff - so stop downloading already.*grin*

Several people wrote in to point out that Corel appears to be uploading Corel Linux to their FTP servers. I see no official announcement from Corel yet on their site as of yet, but we'll update the story when it comes out. Check out their current sneak preview online.Update: 11/04 04:14 by H :Thanks to MarkLCorel for sending us update - Corel will be kicking off their distro on Nov. 15 @ Comdex, complete with party and Webevent. Neat - however, the current material online is just testing stuff - so stop downloading already.*grin*

M|U writes "Michael Cowpland, CEO of Corel, has been charged with three counts of violating securities law. CBC Newsworld has the story online, along with more details. Apparently trading of Corel stock was halted prior to the announcement. " The Corel booth at ALS has no comment at this time. The alleged current violations are insider trading, according to CBC. Update: 10/14 05:18 by H : Corel has responded in a press release. Dr. Cowpland is "looking forward to finally have the chance to clear his name..."

Innominius Cowherd gave us hook-up to a letter from Judith O'Brien, of Corel. As she says: "The restrictions on reproduction and distribution of the Beta version of Corel LINUX contained in the Beta Testing Agreement are intended to apply only to those components of Corel LINUX that were independently developed by Corel without the use of Open Source software. ".

Gameaholic writes "Corel is currently looking for beta testers for the upcoming Corel® LINUX® operating system. Corel LINUX is a Linux distribution specifically designed for desktop computer users. It is based on Debian and includes KDE as well as new applications and enhancements from Corel. " The battle for the desktop continues.

While it's been known that for the last few months Corel has been hacking on Debian GNU/Linux to create a distro of their own, they have finally begun demoing it at LinuxWorld. Our friends at LWN were given an early demonstration, and have posted review of it to accompany their coverage of the event. The juicy stuff is that the install is very simple, and a beta should be out before the end of next month. Corel also seems to have updated their Linux site. Thanks to Mindjiver, we now have a link to screenshots.

Wyle writes "Corel has a FAQ about its upcoming Linux Distro" Answers a lot of real questions like why they chose Debian, and more.