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Corel Shuts Down Open Source Development Site
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 ;)
The icon is actually a year out of date anyway. :-) They have a new logo now.
Not too long ago I caught a TV news story about the JonBenet Ramsey mess out in Colorado. I'd read about the episode earlier in the NY Times, and aside from a certain revulsion to the sordid details I'm certain all readers felt, I really hadn't reacted to or thought much about the case. But there on the TV screen was footage of JonBenet herself performing at a pageant- all dolled up in mascara, lipstick, pearls, vamping for the camera, and to be perfectly blunt about it, using some very adult sexual cues. It then crossed my mind is it entirely inappropriate that a healthy adult male respond to sexual stimuli that mimic almost perfectly those of a healthy adult female?
Note that I used the words "respond to" not the words "act upon" - the distinction is crucial. It's obviously not appropriate for anyone to have sex with a child that young, but is it wrong to desire it, or at any rate to manifest some of the symptoms of that desire?
Consider the following hypothetical situation A man is sitting in front of a roaring fireplace after a superb evening meal, enjoying the last glass of '86 Latour. There is absolutely nothing on his mind more serious than trying to decide between a snifter of Remy Martin Napoleon or Hennessy X.O. cognac. Outside a horrible winter storm rages. Nursing the last sip or two of wine, he crosses the room to a window near the liquor cabinet and amuses himself for a short while by watching the helpless passers by several stories below bending over against the wind, wading through slush, falling on the ice, etc. . He pours a generous snifter of cognac and before returning to his fireside armchair punches a TV remote to catch a weather update. Sipping his cognac, he nods off to sleep and awakens just in the middle of the JonBenet news story. Not knowing of the horrible crime committed, he watches her little pageant number, entranced. At the end of the number she turns and faces the camera, smiles and ever so subtly lip-syncs the words "fuck me". Now at this precise point in time and under these circumstances is it wrong for the man to feel his penis start to stiffen? It's an interesting question, but one I gave no more thought to till I caught a new product announcement in one of the European business journals I subscribe to.
It turns out that a German company, Cybernetika A.G., has completely cornered a heretofore unrecognized market with the introduction of their Cyber-Fraulein 3000 which has to be the world's most absolutely high-tech love doll. In fairness to the company, I should point out that their own literature stresses that the CF3000 is sold only to bona fide law enforcement agencies and penal institutions for the purpose of rehabilitating repeat criminal pedophiles. Well, we will see.
The customer base for the United States should prove interesting, for some marketing whiz at Cybernetika has made the doll a perfect life-size replica of, you guessed it, JonBenet Ramsey herself. Now German companies are not known for their sense of humor, macabre or otherwise, but when my tears of laughter had dried I realized I had to examine one of these dolls. I got a hold of Dieter von Stroelitz, executive V.P. of Cybernetika and was given the sad news, yes, at this time CF3000 is sold only to law enforcement agencies in the U.S., but in Europe the sales are a bit more "relaxed" as he put it. No problem, an old family friend is county sheriff in a midwestern state that shall go nameless. Call him "Earl", not his real name. Despite being law Earl has a great sense of humor, and has come through before with nifty toys like cans of mace and the odd submachine gun from a drug bust. A nice guy to know. I gave him a call and he said what the fuck, if he doesn't have to fork over any cash he'll get one. A couple of months later I get a call from him and he's laughing so hard he can hardly talk. "Get your ass out here to see this" is about all I can make out. I borrowed a buddy's Merc, grabbed a few bottles of Jack Daniels and got out of town on I-80, cruise set at 75 mph.
This doll is a piece of art. The skin and muscle tissue are a new DuPont polymer marketed as "Dermastyrene". The skin is eerily soft and lifelike. CF3000 uses thousands of small nichrome heating wires throughout the body that connect to a central heating element (110v. AC) that raises the body temperature to a nice 98.6 F. Reprocessed shark cartilage forms the "skeleton", and all joints are fully functional including jaws, neck, and hips. Even the internal organs are accurately represented by silicone filled sacs. Weight 68 lbs. , height 4'3". Hair is real, human, long and blond. JonBenet comes dressed in white anklet socks, cowboy boots, short blue denim skirt, white satin crotch less panties (!), light blue halter top, and beige cowboy hat. Hair and makeup are perfect. Additional outfits are available from the manufacturer. A small set of batteries (which recharge as JonBenet warms up) is provided for playback of about 30 recorded voice messages. A set of dip switches near the AC outlet control language (English, Norwegian, German, Swedish, or Dutch) and message playback mode Auto, Manual or Off. Auto provides random playback. In Manual mode a gentle tug on JonBenet's cute ponytail elicits a message. Some of them are real gems. "I'm wearing my crotch less panties just like you wanted Daddy" or "Ooooh, you're so BIG inside me Daddy" were two of my favorites. In both Auto and Manual mode occasional moans and whimpers are added. Sound quality is superb.
The company literature states that "all three of the sexual orifices are fully functional and incredibly lifelike." I asked Earl, "Hey, you give her a whirl yet?" He took a long pull from my last bottle of Jack and sneered at me, "Shit boy, I wanted to save her cherry for you." There remained the obvious problem of how to test this doll. We thought a little bit, and I asked him, "Who you got in the cells upstairs?" "Already working on it," he replied. There was a knock on the door and a junior deputy came in and handed Earl a file. He started thumbing through it. "Lets see, we got here one Rafael Hernandez, visiting us for grand theft auto and possession with intent to sell, his ass goes up to Joliet in a couple of weeks, two priors for sexual assault on a minor. He's our man!"
My job now was to prep JonBenet for sex. I plugged her in to warm up and found the 3 "body fluid" boxes. Each box held 20 or so plastic packets of fluid for each of her three orifices. There was a simulated saliva with a kind of minty odor for her mouth, a slimy goo labelled "vaginal lubricant", and an incredibly funky grease for her little butt hole. I put on latex gloves and applied the three packets as instructed. By now JonBenet was beginning to warm up nicely. Earl came back downstairs and let me in on the plan. There was a small kitchen and lounge on the first floor. A one way mirror in the lounge allowed officers to watch the room from a hidden hallway near the duty desk. Rafael had been told he could mop the kitchen in return for extra exercise room time, and had readily agreed. When JonBenet was fully warmed up I carried her to the lounge and had her "nap" on the sofa with her little blue denim skirt hiked up to reveal a generous portion of her white satin panties. The effect was damn good, I had to admit. Earl got one of the female officers to sit with Jon Benet and pretend to work on a crossword, while a deputy got Rafael in leg irons and led him down to the lounge and kitchen. When he came in the female officer whispered to Rafael, "Try not to make much noise, her parents were killed in a car wreck and we just finally got her asleep." Rafael nodded silently in reply. He began to putter around in the kitchen then started mopping the floor. After about 5 minutes another officer stuck his head in the lounge and addressed the female officer, "Martha, phone for you, line two". Martha said "Thanks" and got up and left the room, closing the door behind her. Rafael peeked through the kitchen doorway, nervously looking around. Earl and I watched through the one-way. Outside the lounge door six deputies waited with batons, pepper spray, and stun-guns. Rafael got a dust mop from the kitchen closet and started pushing it around the lounge floor till he was next to JonBenet's sofa.
"He's gonna take the bait, I can feel it", said Earl.
Rafael sure as hell looked nervous. Beads of sweat on his forehead, licking his lips, his eyes darted about the room.
"Look, he's got a hard on", I whispered.
"Earl counted, "One, two, three..."
At 3 1/2 seconds Rafael let out a subhuman cry, dropped the dust mop, and grabbed JonBenet by the throat, picked her up, and slammed her head against the top of a heavy oak table.
The blow would have easily killed a 6 year old. Rafael dragged her waist up to the table edge, tugged her panties down (I guess he was too eager to notice they were crotchless), unzipped himself and got down to business.
"When do the cowboys come in?" I asked Earl.
From the look on Rafael's face, that wouldn't take too long. After less than five minutes of furious strokin', he pulled out and shot three monster wads across her peach fuzz, denim skirt, and halter top. He pushed the body forward on the table and rolled her over on her side with her ass near the table edge. He dropped to his knees and started tonguing her little butt hole.
"Get him", Earl barked into his radio. The lounge door burst open and Rafael stood up and tried to get his tool back in his trousers, but the two deputies with stun guns were on him too fast. After a few zaps Rafael was on the floor, and the stun gun detail stepped quickly aside. Three deputies with batons worked him over while one with pepper spray stood off to one side shooting the liquid in his eyes and mouth as he screamed. When they figured all the fight was out of him, they stood him up and cuffed his hands behind him. Martha, who had been "baby sitting" JonBenet went over to her and felt her wrist.
"I'm not getting a pulse", she announced.
"I didn't mean to kill her, so help me God!" Rafael pleaded.
Earl strode into the lounge while I stayed at the mirror. "Get that piece of shit back in his cell", he ordered. Two of the deputies hustled Rafael, penis still dangling from his fly, out of the lounge and over to the elevator. It didn't take too long for the general population to learn that he raped and killed a 6 year old girl while being trusted with cleaning duty. Poor Rafael, it seems he cut himself pretty bad shaving the next morning. Bled to death, in fact.
Earl had all sorts of plans to use JonBenet as a decoy in a couple of local spots. I would have loved to hang around and check it out, but my buddy needed his car back. Martha had cleaned up JonBenet and tested the heating and voice functions. All OK. You gotta hand it to the Germans, they really know how to build shit.
On the drive back east I got to thinking. While Cybernetika had built her as a rehabilitation tool, it seemed to me that CF3000 was going to be much more of a hit as an entrapment vehicle for police, unless some liberal shithead poo-poos it in court. Also, I had to get a hold of Dieter von Stroelitz at Cybernetika to formally request (beg) that CF4000 be a full sized copy of Princess Diana. There must be tens of millions of men who would love to bend Lady Di over the side of the bed, lovingly adjust her tiara, then ram their stiffy dog up her shit chute while she whimpers "Ooooh, don't be too rough with me my little budgie," in that lovely British accent.
What about the wonderful Linuxcare topic? That should have been taken down years ago -- or better yet, never created.
I know there's some work being done on improving the interface to kscd, and while their mockups are nice, code would be even better.
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
How many front page articles does it take to get your own icon? -- Dan
[quote]Guess I can retire this topic icon [/quote] Corel aren't going away as far as I know. Just not doing open source any more. Many people think that non-open source is just as important as open source software. In fact probably more so.
Sig is taking a break!
I think open source is a great idea just like free love but I don't think it will ever really succeed. I think that a lot of open source sites are headed in the same direction as Corel's. The problem you can't make money off of open source. You can't survive in a capitalist society if you can't make money.
My theory about open source is that Linux in particular is being privately funded by IBM, Sun, AOL and other big companies with the sole intention of breaking up Microsoft. I have no doubt that Linux will be sucessful in eventually becoming the predominant desktop OS. After all, how can Microsoft even with it's monopoly power compete with a product that is free that has similar or better performance?
The benefits to Wine aside, one of the most unique parts of the Corel Linux distro and the apps is that, not only did it improve relations with the mainstream users used to M$ office suites, but it was one of the few distros that you could actually keep your Windows partition and still have Linux functionality (albeit in one huge honking file). All you had to do was double-click a Windows icon, and Windows disappears to be replaced by a user-friendly X desktop, and then back again when you're done.
This would've gone a long way had it been better promoted and developed, to expose the masses or attract the curious and adventurous Windows folks into the realm of Linux and its other software. Sad, but I hope someone else picks this idea up and markets an easy-to-use distribution just for Windows users.
Open source or not, working and then giving away your work will not give you money, and won't make a software company work...
Is it because they no longer consider Open Source viable or have they run starch dry of any funds, and consider it wasteful to be spending on something they feel is not going to give them a good Return of Investment in the short run.
Also, what becomes of the employees in the Open Source wing? It would be awful if they're left high and dry... probably other companies like IBM and VA Linux should try absorbing them. Gee.. I always thought Corel with its eye-candy would be a great enticement for Linux. Ah well...
I'm sure this had nothing to do with the $135 million investment from Microsoft Corp, not.....
= zd nn
http://zdnet.com.com/2100-11-525751.html?legacy
This shows that open source as a concept needs to be refined. The success or failure of open source all depend on companies supporting it. Sure, the nerds will use it anyway but for wide-spread usage company support are vital. We will not see success if money can't be made, thats just the way it is.
I like the idea of having the source-code and beeing able to modify it, but maybe a compromise is needed anyway?
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.
Linux community != Open Source community.
As far as I know, there were never open source or free (libre) versions of Draw or WordPerfect. Releasing a linux binary is not contributing to the open source community.
I am aware they contributed some other packages, but the big two were never offered.
This seems to be the trend now that the novelty and excitement surrounding Linux has died out.
It is not a sound business model to develop apps and games for Linux for several reasons.
1: Linux doesn't control enough of the desktop market.
2: Most users of Linux apt-get (or the RedHat equivalent) their software. (eg: aren't going to pay for much)
3: It's difficult to develop for every distribution. Most commmercial software is made to run on RedHat. I use Debian. I'm SOL.
4: Those who use RedHat and consider buying software worry about products being discontinued, like this.
Same thing happened to Loki. They did a really good job porting games to Linux, but sales were pathetic.
I remember going into Electronics Boutique a year ago. They had a rack with the $50 Linux software right in front of the store. I went into the store last week all the software was gone. Was it sold? No. It was moved to the back of the store and marked down to $9. I bought Loki's release of Quake II for the tin it came in.
I wouldn't buy software when a semi-working version is available for free. Especially if I thought it would be discontinued.
The List of Grievances with Slashdot.
Anyone have any idea what the sales figures were like on their Linux division products?
Corel Draw and others were practically emulated through the Wine libraries. If they mean business they should have made native Linux apps. The idea of having CMYK support under Linux is a bit of a wet-dream at the moment...
They did however give out free CD's at Defcon and other interesting conferences (I've still got a few). So to say that they were entirely half assed is wrong, they did actively pursue support. Their distros were not all that though.
Corel Ventura would have been excellent for Linux, because it is a pretty neat DTP solution and Linux really needs some heavy duty DTP software that can be used in production environments.
e4 e5
Guess I can retire this topic icon ;)
.NET to FreeBSD, which is a very big deal. Don't write Corel off just yet. ;)
I know you're kidding, but Corel is still doing interesting things in the Unix community that the Slashdot crowd will probably be very interested in, particularly the port of
DISCLAIMER: I work for Corel, but I do not speak on their behalf. My opinions are my own.
----- rL
is a nasty slut akin to Pamela Anderson, but I'd still do her.
I'm sure this had nothing to do with the $135 million investment from Microsoft Corp, not.....
It doesn't. If you have called Corel to try to order any of ther Linux products, you will find that they are all "out of print" and are not available for purchase. If you ask why, you will be told that there was absolutely no demand -- not enough interest in the products even to justify keeping a few copies around for sale.
Linux users just don't by software (except me, who bought WordPerfect Office for Linux and Corel Draw for Linux during the brief moment when they were available, and use them every day).
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
- Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect.
They didn't help anyone but theirselves (No trolling intended).
If we had the sources we could continue the work, but we have not, and every single Linux user that chose their products (plus every single company that bought N licenses) now is screwed.
We should consider pushing a licensing scheme that helps closed source software customers to avoid situations like this one: a company can sell closed source programs, but it should be forced to open its source once the product has been discontinued, or the company closes for some reasons.
I recently converted to Debian and was glad to see distributions such as Corel and Progeny that are based on Debian actually give back to the community. Unfortunately I never tried their versions because I knew that just this sort of thing would happen. While giving back to the community is a good thing, the focus must be on making the product generate cash flow. Sometimes it seemed to me that the project leaders had more religious zeal than business acumen. That's great as long as the money's there, but now it seems these companies have bled all their cash away, leaving the community right where it was before.
This may be a little offtopic but please bear with me.
Has anyone had success in running TFC (The Half Life mod) in linux using wine? I've been able to load Half Life, but can't get TFC to work.
See the forbiden post Here
Remmeber when they've started to build a 100% Java office "we're going to show people what is Java", and at the end said "it is not possible" .... few month latter a new start-up made the thinkfree office that is 100% Java !
... but firm like Mandrake or Suse still go on their way with wonderfull distro !
...
.net port .... what a fun yet ... and the best time here was that some people trust in their announce !!!
.net stuff on any non microsoft OS ?!?
.... even the people on the mono project know i am right :o)
... are fust following !
Remember when they've started on linux saying "we are going to show people what is linux", and few month later they stop their linux project
The Borland episode was also quite funny
Recently th've announce a
Who can trust a real compatible port of Microsoft
No one because it will never exists
At the same time, The 1.4 version of the J2SE is out at the same time on Linux, Win32, Solaris and MacOSX, HP-UX, SavaJe,
Do not trust on vaporware, just trust on released things.
DuKS.
they actually had ported their programs to Linux. I suspect we wouldn't be mostly using staroffice/openoffice if they'd done a native port.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
In the fiscal quarter ended 11/01, they lost 12 cents per share, and in the three quarters prior thereto they had profits of 1, 2, and 2 cents per share, respectively. The per-share loss for fiscal year '02 (ending 11/02, based on two analysts' estimates) is exepcted to be 22 cents per share. In FY '03 they are expected to make only 6 cents per share.
Having a profitable company give back to the community by supporting an open source web site is a good gesture, but Corel needs to focus on more important things at the moment.
Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
...to save Linux from the deadly Word Perfect virus. Everything that Word Perfect has touched since MS first brought out Office has died a horrible pathetic death. The original corporation died quickly, and sold the product to Novell. They were a monster, kicking serious MS butt in the network. All but irrelevant now, alas, they've pretty much disappeared since buying the Cursed Code. Now Corel is the latest victim, going from a strong company making great products to a confused drifter with decent ideas but a total failure of execution. If we're lucky, Corel broke it's ties to Linux before the WP curse could spread to it. Otherwise, Linux would be doomed to bloat, lack of direction, costly failed attempts to expand presence on users desks...oh, damn, too late. Maybe there's still time to fix it, though.
Come to think of it, everything that the original Office competed with died messily, with huge collateral damage to everything close to it. 123 didn't go alone, even Lotus is now just a division of IBM. God help us all if Bill G can find the phone number of the sorcerer he hired for that job again. Yikes.
You're just jealous 'cuz the voices talk to *me*
The paranoid might see a conspiracy as Microsoft now owns 25% of Corel but Corel CEO, Derek Burney, said recently that they are still looking at selling the Linux apps. Since their recent cash problems they have had a razor sharp focus on not offering products unless they can make a profit. Some have said that they should still offer them even if it was only a software download off their web site or CDs with pdf manuals. Burney said they are looking at that but then there are the support costs to consider. Copies of WordPerfect8 are still around and since it is native to Linux it still runs on all distros. WordPerfect 2000(L) is available for download on Morphious. It has the full suite but since it runs on WINE it can be a bit harder to install. I remember when I had it installed at work. A secretary who had never heard of Linux before sat down and started to use it with no problems since it was identical to the windows version. Corel was criticised at the time for trying to imitate windows and not being Linux enough but when it comes down to it you want something people can easily use if you want to get companies to switch over. I hope they can get back to selling it in the future.
Today's vices may be tomorrow's virtues.
If they instead concentrated on making their applications work perfectly on linux (complete with easy installer for the large dists), and spent the extra energy on helping along other ease of use efforts that would be a good thing. Look at Ximian for an example.
I know Corel made a real try to jump into open source, but their release of WP was a sad case. As a long-time WP user, I jumped at the chance to buy WP for Linux. It should never have been released. It was the only proprietary software on my machine, and it was the most buggy and crash-prone. In using Wine and porting their Windows-based product, they brought with them all of the problems with Windows.
I could never use WP for anything useful. When I called tech support to exchange it for the real Windows version (which I could run in Win4Lin), they blew me off.
Sorry, but companies need to step up to the plate if they're going to support linux. This isn't your father's Windows world. People expect better.
(As an aside, I've recently switched to LaTeX and have been happy ever since.)
The question many of us in the fetish community have been asking for some time is:
Where is the warehouse full of those rubber 'Tux the Penguin' buttplugs that they included in the Corel Linux package? Surely when Corel Linux tanked there must have been a large surplus of them available.
Many fetishists bought the Corel Linux package specifically for that butt plug, but now the lil' thing is wearing out.
An alternative would be for ThinkGeek to start selling a Linux Torvaldes rubber butt plug. This is a money making opportunity, someone take advantage of it!
My Linux friend. You will see every .com software company shut down their activities so surprinsingly if they continue to commit the same mistakes that they've been doing.
.DEB and so on... something that is easy and works everywhere.
Corel's attempt to "port" their applications to WINE instead of writing a native port, really contributed for the Corel Linux ruins. I have heard that Microsoft forced Corel to shutdown every Linux-related projects, in favor of a monetary help. Bad Corel administration.
But Corel did not do mistakes only on OpenSource. It did mistakes also on the commercial environment. Serious mistakes on its CorelDRAW graphics suite. More specifically programs like CorelPHOTO-PAINT and other eternally-changing accessories apps. (Remember Corel DREAM 3D? )
Adobe did the right steps and took advantage over the competitor weaknesses.
Loki is another flop that opted to make money out of WINE, instead of making a native port of the games it used to sell.
The next big flop will be LINDOWS. Another aberration using WINE.
Apart from all those mistakes. I have seen mentioned that the variety of distributions complicates the maintenance of a program. Oh well... very good point. That is why Linux itself should adopt a pretty standard installation shield, that does not work like RPM, that is not a TAR.GZ and that is not a
And finishing, OpenSource can't be a full reliable source of income. Not for everybody at least.
Corel was a good company when they focused on graphics products, but for the last 9 years, they have jumped on every bandwagon they could find:
- they were going to compete with MS Office
- they were going to port all their apps to Java
- they were going to build a network computer
- they were going to port all their apps to Linux
The problem with jumping on a bandwagon is that eventually you have to jump back off. Interestingly enough, Corel has a reputation of laying off their experienced workers and replacing them with fresh meat. I think this is how they ensure that their employees remain motivated and indoctrinated with each succesive failure.
It is definitely possible that Cowpland was the problem and that Corel will make a comeback now that he's gone. They offered me a job many years ago. Thankfully, I had other offers.
-a
How to rationalize theft.
Corel did a lot of damage to the free software community by distributing WP 2000 only as Windows binaries with a version of WINE that only worked on some Linux distros, and left all the BSD people out in the cold.
Corel totally missed the point. A native WP (similar to WP8, only not so unbeliveably buggy) would have been cool, but they didn't do it.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
I've read articles about 1/2-way down and STILL haven't seen any good trolls! What the hell are we coming to, people?
There are a lot of posts about WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux and its dependence on Wine, as well as about instability. Gotta add my $0.15 (it's longer than $0.02).
I bought the product right at release, and it's true: it was based on Wine. However, it was a "special" in-house version of Wine with modifications to get WordPerfect Office 2000 to run, and the Corel Wine was much faster than the WineHQ Wine at running Office applications. In addition, because Corel Wine and the WordPerfect Office 2000 binaries for Linux were tweaked for each other, they actually worked (and do work) very well together.
We musn't forget that Corel is a smallish company and WordPerfect Office 2000 is a Windows product. To do an entire native port would have been a herculean effort and probably beyond the company's realistic abilities, certainly it would have been impossible in the time frame in which they were able to release WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux.
Not to mention that many Linux users are applauding TransGaming for their Wine support and calling Wine the best way to bring Linux to the masses... You can't have it both ways; if it's good enough for TransGaming, there's no point in saying that it shouldn't be good enough for Corel.
That said, there were some problems -- the installer of the original release only properly supported the major distributions (i.e. Debian, Corel, Red Hat) while minor distributions (Caldera & others) had some trouble and required by-hand rpm'ing in some cases, or other tweaks. There were also behavior problems with non-KDE-1.x desktops which led to some crashing and other effects likely to generate a poor first impression of the product. I know of several users who returned their Corel Linux products almost immediately.
Unfortunately, the response from Corel to these problems was mixed. A new installer script was released, but a service pack to fix the crashing and non-KDE problems was never made -- which is a damn shame, because the CVS version of Corel Wine hosted at opensource.corel.com did fix both the crashing and the non-KDE-1.1 behavior bugs, leading to a very functional office suite for Linux. Some in the WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux community even packaged the CVS of Corel Wine up as an RPM and released it that way, and I continue to use the "unofficial" Corel Wine RPM to this day, every day, with my copy of WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux.
So, there is no denying that Corel may be partly at fault for releasing an undertested product and then stupidly failing to release fixes which already existed and were downloadable (albeit in difficult to use form) from their Web site.
On the other hand, seen from Corel's point of view -- very poor sales and rampant piracy (which I saw myself in several offices) -- it may have been difficult to justify spending any additional capital on the Linux products once they had been launched. The problems with smaller-name distributions and non-KDE window managers likely generated lots of tech support traffic from a few squeaky wheels and a high number of product returns, while at the same time sales were (apparently) very slow. To this day, it's surprising to me just how many Linux users positively bristle when I tell them that I actually paid for WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, rather than use an open-source alternative -- almost as though I were a Benedict Arnold for actually buying software.
All in all, it's just a sad thing altogether, because Corel was one of the few companies that really did take the plunge and release and market Linux products, and (once you got them installed properly) both WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux and Corel Draw for Linux work very well -- better than most anything available for Linux to this point.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Actually, Loki folded due to stupidity, not lack of market... they tried to do too much too fast and got in a financial hole... by the time they tried to pull back costs to a reasonable level it was too late, so they folded.
Guess I can retire this topic icon
As others have pointed out, you shouldn't retire it. I might suggest updating it, though.
-Erik
Linux will never overtake windows until there is a lot more phone based tech support. I work as a Microsoft phone tech, and although we aren't the most technical people in the world, we seem like Gods to 90% of our callers. Very few of them understand that it's an entry level job that comes with two weeks of training.
after Microsoft invested in Corel they now probably HAVE to shut down all Linux support and development or Bill will pull his money out... along with heavy penalties for breach of contract... no more Corel after that.
> This would've gone a long way had it been better promoted and developed, to expose the masses or attract the curious and adventurous Windows folks into the realm of Linux and its other software.
I think the jarring contrast between the UNIXisms of the Linux desktop and the familiar (and therefore expected/desired) Windows desktop would have many such explorers wondering why Linux has such "strange" or "different" or "wierd" conventions when the Windows ""standards"" were availble to be copied.
> Sad, but I hope someone else picks this idea up and markets an easy-to-use distribution just for Windows users.
Several companies are doing just that nowadays.
In the short term, the success of Linux in the
server market depends on big corporate supporters
like IBM. IBM takes responsibility for any bug
that appears in Linux installed on its servers;
of course, IBM spends thousands of hours in
testing Linux in order to ensure as few bugs as
possible. So, potential customer feel safe in
buying IBM servers running Linux. Now, throw
in HP and Compaq as Linux supporters, and Linux's
success in the server market is assured.
The desktop market is a bit different. Success
depends on the presence of a killer application.
The #1 application that most people run is a
Web client or an ISP client like AOL's client.
If all the ISPs ported their clients to Linux,
then the success of Linux in the desktop market
would be assured. However, even to this day, AOL
still has not produced a Linux version of the AOL client.
In the long term, the success of Linux depends
on Linus gradually relinquishing control over
Linux. Linus has done an excellent in developing
Linux. To his credit, Linux is the first OS to
successfully knock Sun and Sun Solaris from the
#1 position in servers.
However, as Linux develops, it grows too large for
one person to handle. The development of Linux
should be managed by a committee with Linus being
its chairman. The committee would be part of the
GNU organization under the auspices of the Free
Software Foundation. In this way, if anyone
(including Linus) retires from the committee,
the retirement will have little impact on Linux.
Linux will continue into perpetuity.
Being an operating system (OS), Linux is the single
most important piece of software in the free-
software movement (since all other pieces of
software must interact with the OS). Other free
OSes exist, but since Linux has the largest share
of the free-OS market, Linux is the most important
OS. If we (including the ISPs) rally around Linux,
it can attain 50% of the OS market for desktops.
Linux being a dominant OS would be a boon for software-
application developers (and the American software
industry) since developers would know all internal
facets of Linux by virtual of it being a free, open OS.
Applications could be easily upgraded to run on newer
versions of Linux. (The opposite is true for
applications developed for Windows, a notoriously
closed OS.)
two weeks?
All you ever tell people is to reformat the hard drive and re-install windows! It took you two weeks to learn *that*?
In the short term, the success of Linux in the
server market depends on big corporate supporters
like IBM. IBM takes responsibility for any bug
that appears in Linux installed on its servers;
of course, IBM spends thousands of hours in
testing Linux in order to ensure as few bugs as
possible. So, potential customer feel safe in
buying IBM servers running Linux. Now, throw
in HP and Compaq as Linux supporters, and Linux's
success in the server market is assured.
The desktop market is a bit different. Success
depends on the presence of a killer application.
The #1 application that most people run is a
Web client or an ISP client like AOL's client.
If all the ISPs ported their clients to Linux,
then the success of Linux in the desktop market would
be assured. However, even to this day, AOL still
has not produced a Linux version of the AOL client.
In the long term, the success of Linux depends
on Linus gradually relinquishing control over
Linux. Linus has done an excellent in developing
Linux. To his credit, Linux is the first OS to
successfully knock Sun and Sun Solaris from the
#1 position in servers.
However, as Linux develops, it grows too large for
one person to handle. The development of Linux
should be managed by a committee with Linus being
its chairman. The committee would be part of the
GNU organization under the auspices of the Free
Software Foundation. In this way, if anyone
(including Linus) retires from the committee,
the retirement will have little impact on Linux.
Linux will continue into perpetuity.
Being an operating system (OS), Linux is the single
most important piece of software in the free-software
movement (since all other pieces of software must
interact with the OS). Other free OSes exist, but
since Linux has the largest share of the free-OS
market, Linux is the most important OS. If we
(including the ISPs) rally around Linux, it can attain
50% of the OS market for desktops.
Linux being a dominant OS would be a boon for software-
application developers (and the American software
industry) since developers would know all internal
facets of Linux by virtual of it being a free, open OS.
Applications could be easily upgraded to run on newer
versions of Linux. (The opposite is true for
applications developed for Windows, a notoriously
closed OS.)
I believe Mandrake could do this in the past - I still have a copy of 7.2 on my Mum P200. My experience was that the system would run too slowly (even the swap was a file) for people to be bothered to use it regularly. Oh yeah, SUSE have a run off CDROM distro that does something similar. Add to this that they tend to only work with FAT (I believe NTFS writing is still unstable) and you realise that this isn't such a viable solution after all.
Ya think?
Maybe you should have retired that logo last January when Corel announced their new and improved logo.
Not that I really like the new logo with that strange looking bald guy. But lets get with the times eh?
"The scientist describes what is; The engineer creates what never was." - Theodore von Karman
The Survival of Linux
In the short term, the success of Linux in the
server market depends on big corporate supporters
like IBM. IBM takes responsibility for any bug
that appears in Linux installed on its servers;
of course, IBM spends thousands of hours in
testing Linux in order to ensure as few bugs as
possible. So, potential customer feel safe in
buying IBM servers running Linux. Now, throw
in HP and Compaq as Linux supporters, and Linux's
success in the server market is assured.
The desktop market is a bit different. Success
depends on the presence of a killer application.
The #1 application that most people run is a
Web client or an ISP client like AOL's client.
If all the ISPs ported their clients to Linux,
then the success of Linux in the desktop market would
be assured. However, even to this day, AOL still
has not produced a Linux version of the AOL client.
In the long term, the success of Linux depends
on Linus gradually relinquishing control over
Linux. Linus has done an excellent in developing
Linux. To his credit, Linux is the first OS to
successfully knock Sun and Sun Solaris from the
#1 position in servers.
However, as Linux develops, it grows too large for
one person to handle. The development of Linux
should be managed by a committee with Linus being
its chairman. The committee would be part of the
GNU organization under the auspices of the Free
Software Foundation. In this way, if anyone
(including Linus) retires from the committee,
the retirement will have little impact on Linux.
Linux will continue into perpetuity.
Being an operating system (OS), Linux is the single
most important piece of software in the free-software
movement (since all other pieces of software must
interact with the OS). Other free OSes exist, but
since Linux has the largest share of the free-OS
market, Linux is the most important OS. If we
(including the ISPs) rally around Linux, it can attain
50% of the OS market for desktops.
Linux being a dominant OS would be a boon for software-
application developers (and the American software
industry) since developers would know all internal
facets of Linux by virtual of it being a free, open OS.
Applications could be easily upgraded to run on newer
versions of Linux. (The opposite is true for
applications developed for Windows, a notoriously
closed OS.)
providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect.
Nice to provide things that are never released for purchase.
I have tried several times to buy both those items, nobody carry's them and repeated calls and emails to Xana-whatever-their-name-is resulted in non-responses.
I still want to buy them, but I can't.
Anyone have a link to where I can actually buy thes products? I'm guessing it's now a liquidator or old product retailer.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
One thing that wasn't pointed out is that Corel
is switching from something which is losing money
to BSD development, which is making Corel money.
That's exactly what you are forced to do when you get into bed with Micro$oft.
I have to say that I saw this one coming all the way. The minute they accepted the bailout money from Microsoft, I knew they were goners. The only thing I regret is that Corel's software products were some of the most polished in the world. Having them as an ally would have been advantageous. Microsoft knew this though and immediately invested in them on the condition that they work for them.
>My theory about open source is that Linux in
> particular is being privately funded by IBM,
> Sun, AOL and other big companies with the sole
> intention of breaking up Microsoft
+2 yeah. Why don't you give the boy +20?
Shure, linus was an agent long ago.
And seriously, did you think that the whole "Secret Billion Dollar" project at transmetah was a processor? Hahahaha. I can only but laugh at you.
Remember a while back when Microsoft tried to buy Corel? That was blocked by the SEC if I recall, but that didn't stop Microsoft from investing in Corel and thereby gaining influence, even if it is behind the scenes under the table influence. It was right around this time that Wordperfect for Linux was dropped as a future product, Corel Linux itself was dropped, Wine development ceased, and the price on the windows version of their Wordperfect Office suite was raised significantly. Coincidence?
The Wordperfect suite was beginning to make some inroads into Microsoft's market share before this happened. I remember you could get the Wordperfect suite for a couple hundred bucks while the Microsoft suite was five hundred if you were lucky (not counting upgrades). Now the price is higher and its progress into MS-Office territory has slowed or stopped.
Sounds to me like a case of Microsoft castrating the competition by investing in it, just like they did with Apple, although in Apple's case it was investing to keep the company alive as token "competition" rather than to remove a real threat.
Lee
Muslim community leaders warn of backlash from tomorrow morning's terrorist attack.
Plain and simple,Corel Office was way too expensive for most users to be an incentive to buy.A price of 80-100 CAD (50 - 70 US$ for those of you south of the border)would've give them the volume to make up in lower price.It's simply called not knowing the market you're trying to sell to.
As for Corel Linux...that deserves no real comments,a distro incompatible with it's parent or other distros (one huge kde package ) with an "all or nothing" installer (never fixed) and completely out of sync with the fast evolving Linux software (can we say here Debian unstable).
Plain and simple,bad management and expectations clouding the reallity.
The best way to escape from a problem is to solve it. Alan Saporta
There seems to be this intended but mistakenly wrong theme that Linux is
...... so on and so on...
dying here.
Where the fact is that Linux was much more dead last year and the year
before and so on and so on, then it is today as it enters more and more
government supported uses and propogates into different types of consumer
devices and
Linux is spreading further and further and just because there are cases
where it appears to not have made investors money doesn't mean that it's
not generating value. For if it wasn't generating value, then it certainly
wouldn't be growing and extending into new areas and uses. Value doesn't
have to be in the direct stockmarket holder form of money.
It seems to me that the abstraction manipulation methodology of applying
selective connotations in marketing practices is heavy at work here. In a
place where you'd think there is to be more naturally supportive of linux
community it seems to be exposing Microsoft viral infilteration of not
only Slashdot but given article of recent, perhaps the OSDN organization.
And to think MS accused Linux, or more specifically the GPL as being a
Viral License. Typical act of making a claim against another and then
commiting it yourself. As was perhaps first done by Bill Gates yelling
"Piracy" and making TIME Magizine front Cover for it.
What of Corel, really?
They are a business for profit and as any successful business which also
contribute to Open Source Software and even to GPL and GNU software knows,
you generally don't make it your main business. Perhaps the rule should be
10% to commonwealth baseline development?
Many have said support is where you make your money with linux, yet a
Corel employee mentions here that their Linux based products resulted in
more call for support that they were not charging for (due to selling
closed source linux based products for profit which included free support.)
Perhaps they needed to get everything set on the same page, rather than
mixing pages from closed source practices and open sources practices?
Corel has for years been struggling and thru various partnerships. That is
a clear indication that it's not a Linux or other product problems but
rather an internal business control problem, probably one called
management.
I by a lot of commercial software for personal use (several thousand dollars worth a year) and Corel Office for Linux was one of the few I've regretted buying. It once again proved that Wine should not be pursued as a legitimate means of providing Linux apps. It looked like a Windows apps, acted like a Windows app, and was, in fact, a Windows app!
* As is generally the case, my opinions do not reflect those of my employer.
Is it just me, or does it seem funny that Corel have said: "...this site will no longer be available as of March 1st, 2002...", and on the very next line: "At Corel, we have developed a strong commitment to the Open Source community..."?
People always complainn about the failures in the Linux community, however the percentage of success in the linux community is greater than the Windows community.
You see, in all industries most businesses fail, in the technology industry most businesses have failed, all the dot coms that went down, all the software companies that Microsoft put out of businessl, you honestly think Linux companies are abnormal because most of them are inn the red? Most companies period are in the red.
If you use Linux, please help development of Autopac
Corel acted like a drunken sailor. Instead of hard work and patience, they sought instant gratification. If they had narrowed their focus and toughed out the rough times, they might have been a contender.
Corel has helped the community on a huge scale, providing the Linux world with versions of Corel Draw and Corel WordPerfect.
Really? Where can I go download them? Where's the source code?
I'm sick of these stupid comments. Proprietary software is NEVER 'helping the community.' It is purely seeking one's own self-interest. I'm not trying to make a moral case here. Just call things as they are, people.
Sun doesn't give a damn about selling Solaris. They care about selling hardware; and they make fucking *great* hardware. If Linux ran as well on high-end hardware as Solaris, Sun would be... well, maybe not *happy* to get out of the OS business, but *willing.*
They don't make money off their OS. They make money off their hardware. Linux does not yet scale as well to multi-processor machines (that is, hardware with *dozens* of processors). When Linux *does* support this class of machine as nicely as Solaris, Sun will most likely offer Linux on the high-end, as well.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
The point is that people get exposed to Linux somehow, in an easy fashion. Sure, it's not going to have an ideal performance ratio, but if people see what they are and aren't missing from M$ products, they may just make the switch. The other thing is to couple it with a boot manager repartitioning tool to facilitate migration.
I own tons of Microsoft Windows software from companies that have disapeared and gone down the tubes. This "risk" exists for all platforms.
About the only thing I see having gone from the Linux world are all the make-money-fast-and-get-rich startups. Loki didn't succeed but, dare I point out, lasted longer than a large number of Windows gaming companies I know.
There are lots of significant developments in our community happening that have interesting potential for the longterm.
Finally, let me assure you that the novelty is not over for those looking for a platform that isn't controlled by a single company that forces upon its customers a paradigm shift every two years.
Sure a lot of air bags got deflated last year, but thats a good thing in the long term for Linux-- not a bad thing.
Do not spread "09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0" over the internet, thank you.
mmm 'K ... but uhh "capitalism" can't survive without vast public investment, without selfless non-profit oriented labour (like raising kids, reproducing, etc). When will people learn that what they think of as "capitalism" (it's not clear what most people think this is ...) is not some kind of "reality" that all social and economic activity must deal with ... it's just a way of organizing society (i.e. commercial and adminstrative law, the division of wealth, access to poltical power, etc.). Whole societies and eras of history were organized completely differently - around religion, tradition, etc. They came and went ... so will "capitalism".
Capitalism is unique only in its quality of being highly "productive" by some raw measures (but it's destructive and wasteful too ... its productivity allows for plastic Disney characters that are manufactured in China to be shipped by airplane to air conditioned McDonalds in Texas - wow what an accomplishment!). The other unique thing is that it is currently the predominant legal and economic system of most (not all) societies - it is layered over many other traditional forms of of social relations of course, on which it depends in various ways. Because we live in a temporal universe and capitalism exists "now", many (especially the young and those averse to analysis) believe that it is the "end" of history, or the "last and best" system. They seem blinded to the massive changes that capitalism has itself undergone in the last 50 years or to the tension and contradiction inherent in a hyperproductive system which does not distribute wealth (or opportunity) in a politically sustainable way.
BTW historically speaking the software industry was essentially a creation of government, as well, money is the creation of government, the legal system on which economic activity rests is maintained by government. In fact all the things that are of importance to social life where one cannot "make money" fall outside of the purview of capitalism.
Of course some argue that the ability to profit in certain domains (e.g. by raising children or treating the ill) is simply a function of the relative "freedom" afforded by given societies to do so (and that capitalism and this freedom go hand in hand). But whether one society chooses to allow more or less of this "freedom" is completely arbitrary and is not related to some fundamental quality of human beings or human societies. Denmark and the U.S. have different health care systems. Danes are free to worry less about their aging parents affecting their bank accounts, Americans are free form corporations that are more competitive than existing firms and thus to make money caring for the elderly. Maybe Danes are worse off than Americans ... it's hard to measure these kinds of things. It's clear Danes and Americans are both better of than the people of Mali and that capitalism hasn't functioned too well in terms of closing the gap between Mali and developed countries. I wonder how long it will take ?
Unlike the dot-bombs, Corel has been in a period of slow, steady decline. I heard an anecdote while working for a law firm some months ago. To wit: Apparently Bill Gates' father is a big lawyer muckety-muck somewhere and Bill questioned him on why it is that almost all lawyers and law firms in the U.S. were married to WordPerfect. (This was true of every law firm I ever dealt with, and that includes District Attorney offices on every level. Whenever I needed to produce a document that needed to be shared I had to convert it from Word into WordPerfect format.) The answer he got was twofold: (1) Inertia. That's just the way it is and it's always been that way so why change? and (2) There were some WordPerfect idiosyncracies that WordPerfect had that MS Word couldn't duplicate. What those are in particular, I'm not sure, but I would guess it involves hot-key commands (which are plentiful in WP) and "Show Control Codes" or some such function that lets you edit and touch up all the hidden commands that actually perform the special formatting for the WSYWIG output. Lawyers wouldn't even consider moving to a word processor that couldn't do that. I know I've struggled with Word formatting quite a bit as I'm sure everyone else has. Eventually it gets so frustrating that you just give up and settle for letting Word do what it wants to do.
At any rate, Bill decided that MS Word should be the legal Word Processor Uber Alles and directed his minions to make it so. As of today, he still hasn't succeeded in his goal AFAIK. The MS investment in Corel might be directed toward continued progress in that regard. As soon as Microsoft can supplant WordPerfect as the word processor of choice on legal desktops everywhere (at least in the U.S.), WordPerfect's and Corel Suite or whatever's usefulness will have ended.
Lawyers and law firms may just be the biggest single user group of Corel's office suite left. They may be the only customers that keep it alive. There are certainly enough of them to keep WordPerfect (and possibly Corel itself) alive for some time to come. When they finally switch (resistance is futile), WordPerfect will probably die and Corel will finally execute it's final CFIT. That's aviation terminology for "Controlled Flight Into Terrain".
Imagine, Microsoft - the Evil Empire - at long last in bed with not only its own lawyers, but all lawyers everywhere - Satan's Spawn on Earth. The Horror.... the horror.....
me no americanese well good me say off of doubleplusgood me twat werk redmund no stick haha
Lucius Sour
I work in the audio industry and pressed CDs cost fuckall. Ring a local pressing plant and get a quote on 5000 CDs with cases and printed inserts. 5000 comes in expensive, as the glass masters cost. These people are looking at pressing runs of 10000+
The most expensive part is the case. That's why the majors are always asking you to buy cardboard digipacks- they cost even less than fuckall. They fall apart double-quick too, so you have to buy another!!
With music media the problem is distribution. I wouldn't be surprised that the reason I find it difficult to get the Deb/Mand/RH CDs is due to dist. issues. That's why I couldn't buy Loki games. Not for want of trying.
I want to buy! Get it?
Lucius Sour
I work in the audio industry and pressed CDs cost fuckall. Ring a local pressing plant and get a quote on 5000 CDs with cases and printed inserts. 5000x comes in as pretty expensive compared to long pressing runs, as it's the glass masters that cost. After these are made the CDs cost next to nothing. These people are looking at pressing runs of 10000+. Cost each... bugger all.
The most expensive part is the case. That's why the majors are always asking you to buy cardboard digipacks- they cost even less than fuckall. They fall apart double-quick too, so you have to buy another!!
With music media the problem is distribution. I wouldn't be surprised that the reason I find it difficult to get the Deb/Mand/RH CDs is due to dist. issues. That's why I couldn't buy Loki games. Not for want of trying.
I want to buy! Get it?
Lucius Sour
sorry all
(Beer)Connection skip
Lucius Soused
Will Linux take over from Windows NT (remember that?)
Not Likely!!
Lucius Sour
Corel dropped a big advantage. I can use that old CD to install under an older version of Red Hat and ship .wp documents to most government offices. Those same offices won't touch unstable MicroSquish formats. You would think that they could have sold plenty of this. How on earth did they let such a huge advantage slip away like that? My siser is a lawer, she curses her desktop daily.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I mean, word perfect for linux didn't run at all on redhat or mandrake. After spending serious cash on the package I expected to work fairly well on a tuned system. And for all you linux zealots out there, I tried the message boards and chat rooms. Web sites that claimed to have the answer to the problme, well they don't work, and several have totally different steps to solve the problem. All the people out there bitched at me for not using kword or abiword or whatever. And Corel did nothing but redirect me to the Xandros, don't I get a little support, like when I buy a boxed redhat dist? Anyway, point is, I'm glad to see this part go down.
Mark me a flame or a troll, if you must, but I speak the truth.
LinuxWorx
Spelling errors are intentional as are gramatical error
As I understand it, its quite simple.
Word don't work [well enough].
And whereas most people just don't notice, or overlook minor quibbles like not counting words correctly - Courts do. I seem to recall an appeal being tossed because it exceeded the number of words allowed, having been typed in Word. (Words count footnotes, if I recall the problem, which Word doesn't count)
And until those sorts of problems are fixed, Word simply isn't usable in a legal context.
And now, since WordPerfect is considerably cheaper than Word, and the lock-in favors WordPerfect, that's unlikely to change unless Corel really severely screws the pooch, and/or folds.
Addison
Corel makes horrible software anyways ... the whole graphic design industry laughs at their products ... the desktop publishing industry is full of people who know nothing at all (ex: quark is still around!) (another ex: adobe is being forced to still put out pagemaker since lots of those morons dont want to learn indesign ) .... if you want to do graphic design or desktop publishing .... throw away your crappy watercooled mess of a skyscraper x86 clunk box ... and buy a mac with some adobe software! while you are at it ... wake up and realize that ports with pins are old ... and isa has been a joke since the early 90s ... also ... analog flat panels are stupid ... what is wrong with you people?