Slashdot Mirror
Caldera OpenLinux 3.1 Reviewed
Patrick Mullen writes: "The Duke of URL has just posted its review of Caldera's OpenLinux Workstation 3.1. Caldera is probably best known for going against the grain in the Linux world and is the first Linux distribution to introduce per seat licensing. Version 3.1 has made a lot of advances such as full OEM testing, but is it worth the per-seat licensing?" Is this any different from other distributions' "power packs," which bundle Free software with proprietary? According to the Caldera site, you can download the ISOs as well as the source to the server and workstation varieties of Open Linux on a (eh?) "single, non-commercial license."
For the umpteenth time:
Caldera provides free downloads of the source code to all GPL software in their distribution. The also add no legal restrictions to those software packages.
The distribution as a whole, though, is not GPL and therefore carries a license that Caldera feels happy with. It may be a sucky license and I won't use their distribution because of it, but its their party and they can do what they want.
OpenLinux WS has been out for a long time (many months). Most people wouldn't have realized that because Slashdot never posted a story to recognize that fact. This is why the packages seem a bit dated by now. Next time, before you flame a distro, check the Updates Directory which will show you a version of OpenSSH at 2.9.
Also, if you want the latest and greatest KDE, have no fear. Plenty of core KDE developers are employed by Caldera, so right from the official KDE FTP sight, you can spend the day downloading 2.2.1. I installed it on my workstation (yes, I use OpenLinux Workstation at work) and it works fine. 2.4.2 was the latest kernel available at the time of release, and since there have been no gaping security holes and that kernel has proven fairly stable, there's no reason to mess with a good thing.
Finally, I don't have too much to say with the licensing thing. Of course it was a business decision. As you might expect, with Caldera's stock hovering around 30 cents they're doing all they can to generate revenue. I wish them the best in these tough times.
Do we really want one Linux company?
There is no such open source/free software license because such a restriction would actually violate both the free software philosophy and the open source definition.
Also, something released under a license with that restriction would never get distributed too widely: Basically no OS could include the package. The only major Linux distribution that could include the package legally would be Debian, and they won't do it because they won't ship anything that isn't free.
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
Going offtopic, so posting anonymously.
I tried Gentoo. It's a great distro, bringing together the best of Slackware and OpenBSD. The advantages, IMO, are the ports-like system and that you have to do everything by hand. Also you can install in a ReiserFS.
The ports system, called portage, is great. If you use GNOME, for example, apps will be compiled with GNOME support; else, only with Gtk. The same works for sound, you can specify OSS x ALSA, esd, etc.
I have been using gentoo now since rc5 was first released. It's really good. A little buggy, but what do you expect from a pre 1.0 release?
The portage system is a great idea and they are fixing bugs with every release. Rc6 is definitely usable.
Can't hurt to check it out, right? The only real problem is the install, but if you know chroot, there isn't a problem.