Posted by
ryuzaki0
on from the and-somebody-somewhere-cares dept.
Scowling writes "It's been confirmed now that Cowpland has resigned from Corel in order to pursue opportunities supporting Linux start-ups." What sort of support he can provide for them remains to be seen considering Corel's history of with Linux (Releasing Word Perfect:Good, Screwing Debian: Bad)
Corel's package management tool was linked against both libqt (version 1, not 2) and libapt (Debian's package management library, and GPLed). This was construed as a breach of the GPL, but was sorted out after the maintainer of libapt gave permission for it to be used. As well as this, the beta agreement stated that further redistribution of the software (pretty much all GPLed, remember) was forbidden.
I don't know, though. They sound like mistakes made by people who haven't really checked the GPL properly on one hand and an overzealous legal department on the other. Both were resolved fairly amicably, so I wouldn't call it "screwing" Debian.
Probably no one will give a satisfactory explanation of what Corel is accused of, or ask for their side of the story. Instead, Slashdot editors will make off-hand comments about it which will be accepted as truth by most readers without any further information. This is fairly typical.
I do appreciate getting opinions from the editors, and I know they aren't striving for objectivity in any way, but it would be nice to have links to the old stories that explained these topics so that readers can decide for themselves if Corel is truly evil or not.
FUD and Misinformation about Corel
by
Sleepy
·
· Score: 5
There's some FUD about Corel these days, and the Slashdot/Linux community does not do it better when they abandon responsible journalism with slanted posts like "Corel screwed Debian". Back up your assertions, or shut up I say. Corel did not screw Debian -- screwing someone is deliberate and somethng I usually reserve for Microsoft (like they screwed Bristol, Spyglass, Citrix, Apple, Netscape and the regular user who doesn't understand they've been screwed...)
It's safe to say that Debian more than any other distro, adheres to the "Free Software" philosophy. As such, there will be factions all over the map. Some do not want ANY commercialization of Debian and those fence-sitters have their fingers on the trigger itching for any company to make a mistake. Well, Corel made mistakes. Corel made mistakes with licensing, and Corel made some technical decisions that could be interpreted as mistakes (or arrogance). I do not think Corel has bad karma like say Microsoft or Sun, or we wouldn't see tremendous GIFTS such as WINE patches, free Corel Photopaint (amazing app!), and a staunch promotion of Linux knowing this can't turn them around overnight... and then some of us feel the need to spit in their face.
These people are still working their asses off to mature a necessary part of the applications market knowing that they've got another painful amputation/layoff on the way. If Corel disappears tomorrow, I feel they have made a positive impact on Linux that is every bit as good as Red Hat's, even if they were clumsy at times.
Corel made some technical decisions to break compatability with Slink (if you were not careful). What did that give them? It gave them a clear lead over anyone else in terms of usability from a Windows-convert point of view. Sure, it's all window dressing: the Printer Setup Wizard, Samba Wizard, the neat fonts, X-based dselect clone, the flash bootup and shutdown screens that look better than WIndows, and an installer my grandmother could sail through in 20 mins (it even handles booting NT correctly). This is all stuff you won't see as GPL'd Linux tools until 2001. I ran Corel 1.1 in the office, and 3 coworkers were so impressed they copied the CD. They've never run Linux before. Me, I run Debian Potato w/ some Woody, but if it weren't for the still-awful browser landscape in Linux I'm sure it could replace Windows for MOST people rather than some people. (Yeah, I know the browser stuff is getting better... Galeon w/ Gecko has motion blur these days it moves so fast).
Leave the FUD to that computer illiterate guy at ABC News -- he'll be writing gardening advice in a few years;)
If anything, Corel increased Debian's popularity by allowing people unfamiliar with Linux to get started with it. Doesn't sound like "screwing Debian" to me.
Personally, I use Slackware. There is nothing better than.tgz packages (and I'm not being sarcastic -- I hate it when package management software bitches at you "PACKAGE X IS NOT INSTALLED" when in fact it is installed; you just compiled it by yourself instead of installing a retarded package).
Slashdot Mirror
Corel's package management tool was linked against both libqt (version 1, not 2) and libapt (Debian's package management library, and GPLed). This was construed as a breach of the GPL, but was sorted out after the maintainer of libapt gave permission for it to be used. As well as this, the beta agreement stated that further redistribution of the software (pretty much all GPLed, remember) was forbidden.
I don't know, though. They sound like mistakes made by people who haven't really checked the GPL properly on one hand and an overzealous legal department on the other. Both were resolved fairly amicably, so I wouldn't call it "screwing" Debian.
Probably no one will give a satisfactory explanation of what Corel is accused of, or ask for their side of the story. Instead, Slashdot editors will make off-hand comments about it which will be accepted as truth by most readers without any further information. This is fairly typical.
I do appreciate getting opinions from the editors, and I know they aren't striving for objectivity in any way, but it would be nice to have links to the old stories that explained these topics so that readers can decide for themselves if Corel is truly evil or not.
There's some FUD about Corel these days, and the Slashdot/Linux community does not do it better when they abandon responsible journalism with slanted posts like "Corel screwed Debian". Back up your assertions, or shut up I say. Corel did not screw Debian -- screwing someone is deliberate and somethng I usually reserve for Microsoft (like they screwed Bristol, Spyglass, Citrix, Apple, Netscape and the regular user who doesn't understand they've been screwed...)
;)
It's safe to say that Debian more than any other distro, adheres to the "Free Software" philosophy. As such, there will be factions all over the map. Some do not want ANY commercialization of Debian and those fence-sitters have their fingers on the trigger itching for any company to make a mistake. Well, Corel made mistakes. Corel made mistakes with licensing, and Corel made some technical decisions that could be interpreted as mistakes (or arrogance). I do not think Corel has bad karma like say Microsoft or Sun, or we wouldn't see tremendous GIFTS such as WINE patches, free Corel Photopaint (amazing app!), and a staunch promotion of Linux knowing this can't turn them around overnight... and then some of us feel the need to spit in their face.
These people are still working their asses off to mature a necessary part of the applications market knowing that they've got another painful amputation/layoff on the way. If Corel disappears tomorrow, I feel they have made a positive impact on Linux that is every bit as good as Red Hat's, even if they were clumsy at times.
Corel made some technical decisions to break compatability with Slink (if you were not careful). What did that give them? It gave them a clear lead over anyone else in terms of usability from a Windows-convert point of view. Sure, it's all window dressing: the Printer Setup Wizard, Samba Wizard, the neat fonts, X-based dselect clone, the flash bootup and shutdown screens that look better than WIndows, and an installer my grandmother could sail through in 20 mins (it even handles booting NT correctly). This is all stuff you won't see as GPL'd Linux tools until 2001. I ran Corel 1.1 in the office, and 3 coworkers were so impressed they copied the CD. They've never run Linux before. Me, I run Debian Potato w/ some Woody, but if it weren't for the still-awful browser landscape in Linux I'm sure it could replace Windows for MOST people rather than some people. (Yeah, I know the browser stuff is getting better... Galeon w/ Gecko has motion blur these days it moves so fast).
Leave the FUD to that computer illiterate guy at ABC News -- he'll be writing gardening advice in a few years
If anything, Corel increased Debian's popularity by allowing people unfamiliar with Linux to get started with it. Doesn't sound like "screwing Debian" to me.
.tgz packages (and I'm not being sarcastic -- I hate it when package management software bitches at you "PACKAGE X IS NOT INSTALLED" when in fact it is installed; you just compiled it by yourself instead of installing a retarded package).
Personally, I use Slackware. There is nothing better than