Interview with Joseph Cheek of Lycoris

Glykoriza writes "Lots of talk lately about the future of Linux in the desktop. Red Hat wants to have a piece of the pie, while Lindows seems to do well too. Lycoris seems to do great as well, they released their latest beta a few days ago, and they have already made deals with retailers, like Fry's. OSNews hosts an interview with Lycoris' CTO and founder, Joseph Cheek."

Comments

What the interview didn't bring up...

[captain_scarecrow]

is that Mr. Cheek announced in the Lycoris forum sometime back that Lycoris, following the lead of Caldera, is going to per-seat licensing for business use- thus joining the ranks of those selling Linux outright.

That's really too bad, it had a lot of promise for that niche.

Where can I Dowload a free Lindows ISO?

[DanThe1Man]

This is not a question to Joseph Cheek, but to the linux community reading /..

It said in the article about Lindows:
LindowsOS is based on a distribution of Linux, which is covered by a license that requires it to be made freely available for modification and redistribution. However, a system designer who used an unlicensed version of LindowsOS would not be able to use Lindows.com's logo or join the LindowsOS Certification program, and would receive no technical support.

So, where can I download a free Lindows ISO without the logo?

History repeats itself

[pieterh]

This reminds me so much of the period before Win3.0 came out. Lots of companies making valiant efforts to produce the 'best desktop'. IIRC, Microsoft beat them all largely because it produced VB and with it, a way for millions of amateur developers to make Windows applications.

I remember using GEOS, a GUI that kicked Windows' ass mightily. I remember trying to find tools to build GEOS applications. Zilch.

Today, Windows is totally out of reach of amateur developers. It is one of the most complex development environments imaginable. And Microsoft seems to be heading at full speed towards even more complexity with every new technology it brings out.

This creates a wonderful opportunity. Instead of aiming for 'end users', Linux desktops should aim at amateur developers who want a free and simple workbench for writing the kinds of applications that made Windows 3.1 rule the world.
Imagine a really simple programming environment for excellent web applications, running on a database that is as easy to use as Access, with as many widgets as you can dream of.

This is the kind of thing that will start the revolution. Not cheaper Window-like boxes.

Re:History repeats itself

[Art Tatum]

This creates a wonderful opportunity. Instead of aiming for 'end users', Linux desktops should aim at amateur developers who want a free and simple workbench for writing the kinds of applications that made Windows 3.1 rule the world.

You are talking about GNUstep. For many years, the OpenStep API and development tools have been far superior to *anything* else in the Windows or UNIX world. The GNUstep project has already got usable alpha clones of the NeXT development tools that are a joy to work with. Take a look at this mail client developed quickly with GNUstep tools. It runs on GNUstep platforms and Mac OS X.

The GNUstep project is actively tracking the additions made to Cocoa (what Apple decided to call OpenStep after buying NeXT).

GNUstep frameworks and applications will build on most UNIXes, on Mac OS X (obviously), and win32 platforms. Support for the GUI backend is Alpha on win32 but is progressing.

GNUstep has a database framework much like NeXT's Enterprise Object Framework and a web development system much like WebObjects. Also available is a 3D framework, music and sound frameworks, a networking framework, an email framework, and others.

Like Apple, you can write your applications in Objective C or Java. Unlike Apple, the GNUstep project provides several other language options: Ruby, Guile, and other scripting languages by way of StepTalk.

Funny claim...

[gentix]

The article claims that "Red Hat is warming to the use of the Linux operating system on desktop computers, a difficult market where customers are picky and Microsoft is the leader."

Most customers aren't that picky, but just go along with the mainstream of users and do not understand the power of open source systems such as Linux. The majority just wants text processing software, solitaire, and some internet capabilities, and seem to think Microsoft software is user friendly and Linux software is complex as hell. If customers were in fact picky, Microsoft would have a very hard time competing with these open source software systems, since they provide more stability and speed at much lower cost. How's that for user-friendly? Easy of use is becoming less of an issue in later distributions of Linux and and you don't have these big-brother issues as with XP and the coming Palladium...

No, customers being "picky" hasn't got much to do with it, but many customers are just ignorant.

How user friendly is it to have to push "start" in order to shut down a computer anyway?

Re:What makes Fry's special?

[mccalli]

Can they really do better than Dell, Gateway, or any other dedicated system builder who has attempted to provide Linux systems and given up?

Yes.

People can see the OS first, rather than just picking a drop-down off some web site. Besides, although I don't know about Gateway Dell buried their offering so deep it was almost impossible to find on the site. You had to go in via some special URL - if you just went through to order a laptop via the normal route, you wouldn't have ever seen Linux as an option.

Also, as far as I remember, the Linux option was actually made more expensive on Dell machines than buying a Windows license.

Cheers,
Ian

Re:What makes Fry's special?

[zandermander]

Dear Obvious Guy,

Obviously you've never been to Fry's. They are a California-based electronics chain but far, far better than CompUSA, Best Buy, Radio Shack....

I have had the pleasure of living near a Fry's for 9 months and, basically, it is a Slashdotter's wet dream. You name it geeky/gadget/electronic/radio/software... they've got it.

I hope you too one day have the chance to visit a Fry's.