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Corel releases Photo-Paint for Linux for Free

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the very-good dept.

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?

2 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. Very Good? Or Very Ominous? by John+Murdoch · · Score: 5

    With all respect to those who think this is a positive thing, we must seriously consider whether this isn't so much FreeWare as it is AbandonWare.

    A few facts gleaned from The Motley Fool:

    • Stock presently trades at 3-7/8
    • Stock just slightly higher than 52-week low
    • Stock precipitously down from 52-week high of 44-1/2
    • Corel listed 1,320 employees on June 1, but announced plans on June 6 to lay off 320
    • For the quarter ended 2/29/2000 the company's loss expanded to C$21.3 million--on revenue of C$44 million--before extraordinary items
    • (Note: Corel's latest quarter ended 5/31/2000, but Corel has not yet posted results.)
    • Corel's public filings with financial authorities publicly stated that without a significant infusion of cash Corel may not be able to continue operations through the end of the year.
    • Corel is now back trying to raise money in the Canadian equity markets (they are in the "quiet period" before a public offering)
    • In light of the above, Borland/Inprise bailed out of their planned merger with Corel.

    In short, I think that Corel is a company that is in serious financial trouble. I think it is far more likely that Corel is doing this not for PR--but because they're going to eliminate PhotoPaint development, support, etc. as part of their announced C$40 million cost-cutting campaign.

    Don't get me wrong--I have a lot of regard for Corel. Ten years ago I was writing PostScript code generators for calibrating imagesetting equipment--and developing books and periodicals with Corel Draw and Ventura Publisher (now owned by Corel). I subsequently was a sysop on the VENTURA forum on CompuServe, and did a lot of technical illustration with Corel Draw. I've retouched hundreds of photographs with PhotoPaint.

    But I think this is a sign of Corel going into the tank--not a sign of positive developments for Linux at all.

    sic transit gloria....

  2. Re:PPaint3 vs. GIMP by suwalski · · Score: 5

    PhotoPaint 3 was made in 1992. It's not very good.

    Photo-Paint 8 is excellent. It it completely cross-compatible with Adobe PhotoShop, that's with file format and layers, and filters, has a debatably easier to use interface that PhotoShop, and is not in any way weaker.

    I use both regularly. There are some things that are easier to do in one program, and some that are easier to tdo in the other. I just use them intermittedly, as the file format is interchangable.

    Lately, however, I've only really been using PhotoShop for lens flares (this plugin was not licensed to Corel). The programs are otherwise equal, and I don't see why you would think that Corel is admitting to having an inferior product! They're not.

    Corel just wants to show this product, so people can download for free and see that Corel wasn't talking crap when they said that they were porting everything to Linux.

    Just my CDN$0.02.