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Corel To Test WordPerfect For Linux
prostoalex writes "CNET News says Corel will introduce a native Linux version of its WordPerfect Office product on April 15th . This will be a pilot project, as Corel executives want to find out whether it's worth competing with the other products (namely StarOffice and OpenOffice)." The piece mentions: "Corel previously produced a Linux-native version of WordPerfect 8, released in 1998, and offered a Linux-translated version of WordPerfect 9 in 2000, when Linux was still a cornerstone of the company's broader strategy."
as a Beta Tester for Wordperfect Office 2000. And even the final version it just stank. It seemed to use Wine to emulate most of the program and what didn't work in wine they reprogrammed to work for Linux. So I wouldn't say that WP 2000 was a Native Linux App, It just kinda Ran in it barely. WP 8 on the other hand ran quite well because they ported the Unix version and not the windows version. I liked WP as a word processor much better then Word or Star/Open Office. It seemed to well designed for word processing and it did it well. But the WP 2000 for Linux was to sluggish and looked to much like the windows version to fit into the linux desktop, and it required a lot of junk most linux apps didn't need and made loading on a remote X difficult (Which is what I did a lot in college when I was beta testing it because I like to work on the schools Sun Workstations with the Unix Keyboard and the 19" monitors) so when a good version of Staroffice came out I started using that because it worked well with Linux and Solaris (even though the install was stupid at the time)
What I always found odd was the fact that WP hasn't been ported to the Apple Mac OS X environment. They could probably do some good business because a lot of the time the Apple users only use office is because there is no decent alternative. Appleworks just stinks, OpenOffice is not quite there yet for the mac. WP would be a good more affordable solution on the mac platform as well.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
You could say that WordPerfect was effectively unusable. As this didn't change with the update of WP 7 to WP 8 (AFAIR), I stopped trying. At that time, I got the impression that Corel was not quite sure about the competitiveness of their own product and preferred the option of letting it die slowly.
I hope that the people at Corel finally understand that there IS a problem and start fixing it.
Prehaps as Corel see that the Windows market is lost they are trying to made headway back into the Linux market when Open Office is the leader. Will it be back to a world of incompatible filetypes again?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
I remember trying out WordPerfect 8 for Linux back when it was first released, and being shocked at just how awkward it was to use. The port had obviously just been a code-for-code translation from the original WP, and although experienced WP users would probably feel at home, it felt less attractive than writing in LaTeX to me!
I think Corel wants to expand their market share, not just port users across to a new OS; to do that, they need to compete with the others named (Staroffice, Openoffice) and not just turn up. IMHO Corel will have to have put a far nicer UI on top of their product before it'll get accepted by anyone not already a WP nut...
If WP9 was far superior to 8, then I apologise to Corel (and hope 'office does well) but I didn't even try 9 because of how awful 8 was. That's the danger in bringing an externally-developed product into a new marketplace - it needs to sing its own strengths whilst merging into the choir... Hopefully Corel has got it right - more competition can only strengthen all the players.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Wow, what's the point of this? OpenOffice has already made strong headway in the linux market, and from what I remember Corel wasn't that great the last time they put it out for linux. Given their dismal market share I doubt there is going to be much of a market on linux...
Definitely worth of competiting, even with OO and Star Office in the field. More competition means more innovation ... competition in Linux market may also boost creativity in other markets more important to Corel at the moment ... you never know until you try.
Yeah but can it check your mail, manage your datebook, provide emotional support, evaluate elisp, surf the web, read Usenet and fix your car like Emacs can?
Keep the faith, share the code
Ha ha ha, real good one guys, is this idiot holiday OVER YET?
Lawyers tend to use WP verses the rest of the world. So perhaps that could get the lawyers to switch to Linux and like Linux then we could have a powerful allies who can say IAAL.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Ok, I always welcome new serious products for Linux, but this seems very odd. WP doesn't even sell well in the win32 version. What makes them think it will be any different on Linux? Just wondering
Underholdning.info
Does that means xlib, qt or gtk?
I'm one of the lucky few to get one of the last copies of Corel Draw 9 for Linux.
It makes up for one of the largest gaps on Linux to date. Professional grafics tools.
It's also heavyly base on Wine, but it runs smooth and over the course of the last 2 years I've done some serious work with it.
I'd wish Corel would join with Trolltec and start porting their apps to QT, making them copmletely plattform agnostic. A lot of people would be willing to make the switch from Macromedia and Adobe back to a solid Draw and Photo Paint if only they would run on Linux.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
Does anybody have a non April 1 confirmation on this?
I have read two annuncements on this and both were date April 1.
Personally I think it sounds "too good to be true". Maybe it is?
For a nice date: Call strftime(3C)!
I can get *serious* amounts of work done with WP5.1. Everything since has been downhill. So how well does the classic mode work on WP11?
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Seriously, WordPerfect has a number of functions with regard to advanced document formatting that Open Office.org, for all of its usefulness, lacks. Plus, there's the ever-wonderful option to actually view the document code, and manually correct the hidden formatting bugs that inflict themselves on my Word and OpenOffice.org use from time to time.
It will also be a boon as I ease my mother's business onto Linux, since they interface with a number of law offices who still use Word Perfect.
Finally, I've had good luck with the WP file format and KWord, my preferred word processor (because I use Qt and am a bit lacking in the ram dept for OOo's liking), easing both file exchange with my mother and providing a convenient power-formatting application for stuff i've sketched in Kword (no, it isnt framemaker, but i'm a college student who has to write 30 page papers, not a doc writer). So i'm all for it.
The worst that can happen is that it fails, and since Corel isnt exactly a huge F/OSS contributor these days, that's no major loss either.
U.S. War Crimes blog. Email for free Mandriva support.
Saying that WP files can be read elsewhere because they use XML is like saying one IM program can connect to all others because it uses TCP/IP, or configuration files for one program will work for all other apps because they're plain ASCII.
XML, by itself, is not a format, people!
The only versions of WP I've used were version 3 (on DOS) and versions 7 and 8 on Solaris (and never used any of them extensively). But I think WP now supports the OASIS Open Office XML Format. If so, what's to prevent me from moving seamlessly between OO.org and WP, depending on the job?
I think there's a market.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
Using XML makes it far easier to write the code that reads the format. If you use an XML format you can't be acc#used of lock-in because if a developer wishes for his app to read your format then all he has to do is hook an xml parser and interpret it. Now take that in comparison with an encrypted binary format...
I bought WP8 when it as first released for Linux, and I had mixed opinions. On the one hand, all the WP features were there. On the other hand, the GUI was the bastard child from Hell; absolutely awful.
I very intentionally did not buy the version 9 suite since it was not Linux native. I would buy the Corel Office suite if three conditions were met:
1) All Corel Office applications were present and fully functional.
2) All the applications were Linux native.
3) The applications did not use that horrendous looking Motif toolkit. Qt would be the ideal framework to use for this.
My workplace uses Corel Office, so I would buy the Linux version just to be able to use it at work (I do all of my new work on Linux) instead of having to go into Winblows.
Then Corel got ahold of it, and the added feature sets were late in coming but full of promise, but the damn program just never worked. We got accidentally on some kind of instant-updates-at-all-costs program, maybe because I was vocal on Compuserve at the time, so I can't fault Corel on the number of update CDs we received each month. But the thing just didn't work.
Our word processor was WordPerfect. It was wonderful around 5.1. I beta-tested its Postscript drivers and this was in the days when the Apple rep ran away because he couldn't believe a Laserwriter was being driven by a PC through the serial port. We loved WP. Then Corel got ahold of it, and we had to move on to a product that, well, actually worked most of the time. So we went to Word, but it was a struggle because everyone tried to use WP secretly. What's wrong with a "Reveal Codes" option? Nothing. Why doesn't Word have one? Because the people who design it don't use it for creating pretty language. But we simply couldn't keep using WP, because it broke enough files to affect our ability to perform as a publishing house.
We also used Xara, which was cheap and powerful. Bugger me, Corel got ahold of that, too, and killed it.
Corel's the sort of company that one would love to support as a kind of perpetual underdog, but the reality is that there's been something perpetually wrong with their development cycle: stuff just gets buggier, and buggier, and buggier until it's too frustrating to use.
I'm sure there's room for a Wordperfect-like product, but it's a real shame Corel is the vehicle to provide it.
If WordPerfect Office uses XML, then most likely the formats will be well-documented, making it relatively easy to convert files from one format to another.
If Corel don't want this to happen, it'll use binary formats and not XML.
The IT section color scheme sucks.
Ummm. Emacs.
Or actually all of them.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
If it's a decent, usable port (ie, printing and fonts don't require a PhD to set up), and doesn't have a myriad of libc-version-compatibility problems (something that people seem to ignore, but is a valid, serious issue with distributing software for Linux), then I will be one of the first in line to buy WP/Linux. I started with my thesis on WP5.1 for VMS and for DOS. I used 6 for DOS professionally, and skipped the first few Windows versions.
8 for Linux was a bit awkward but it worked, reliably, and I enjoyed it until suddenly it wouldn't work anymore because of my libc version. 2000, well, I really liked the consistency of the Linux and Windows versions; however, printing was difficult and reliability was awful (most crashes were font-related, though, and I blame Wine for many of them).
Another post asks "Why WP when OpenOffice is out there?" You might also ask "Why OO when Word is out there?" or "Why Gnome when there's KDE?" or even "Why Linux when we have Windows?" It's about choice. Some people, myself included, dislike OO immensely. Why? Because it imitates Word, both the UI and the underlying structure of how it formats documents. I've hated Word and its imitators since the DOS version.
I'm not going to argue about whether or not Reveal Codes is philosophically correct or not. *I* like it. *I* am the consumer, and it's what I prefer to use. I hope it's successful; right now I use VMware to run the Windows version, but would much prefer to run natively.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
I sure hope WP for Linux is cheaper than what they're asking for what they've got now. I love wordperfect. For Windows, it's my word processor of choice. My main gripe about OO.o is that it tries to mimic Word's organization and functionality rather than WP's, but for $300 (USD), I'll stick with OO. I think most Linux users are with me. Maybe they'll have a student discount or allow you to pick it up for a measly $20 when purchased with hardware like you used to be able to with WP 10. I'm hoping. I'd really like to see this take off.
The problem with that is that it's still:
1) A Windows app. It doesn't use ANY special features of Linux/Unix
2) Still slower than GTK+ for many things because it's abstracting the Windows API to the X11 one and has to do many things in an inefficient manner to duplicate Windows behaviors.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
For once something is happening on Linux just in the nick of time. WordPerfect is just starting to make its mark out there on the street. It should be in a position to give Microsoft a run for its money.
It also looks like Back to the Future Part II will be a big smash this weekend and OS/2 should revolutionize desktop computing.
Looks like the 90s are going to be almost as exciting as the 80s have been.
RP
I fail to see what the point is though, especially after Microsoft used their devious October 2000 investment in Corel to turn the then-Linux powerhouse into a submissive .NET supporter and last year Microsoft engineered the even more devious privatization of Corel using Paul Allen's money and a motley crew of former Microsoft executives, "joint Corel and Microsoft consultants", all apparently planned by Microsoft's investment and business development unit (which makes MS money work for MS business strategy), made infamous by the recent SCO funding revelations.
Is the Corel management perhaps finally under some kind of investigation and this "proof-of-concept" WordPerfect (wordprocessor only?) dealie is supposed to prove the new MS-leaning owners' credentials as "genuine independents"?
Will Microsoft be soon promoting a new Gartner study claiming that Linux productivity app market is dead because nobody is buying a recompiled and nearly 10 years old WP8?
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
Given the low cost of Star Office and Open Office is this venture commercially viable? Word Perfect needs to offer a much higher quality product to be good value. Star Office and Open Office use freely available file formats, does Word Perfect? vendor lock-in is something people are trying to avoid by moving away from Microsoft Office.
Linux users will probably stick to OpenOffice/StarOffice.
.lib incompatibility).
They should release WordPerfect that is native to Mac OSX.
The geniuses at Corel will probably wait until they discover on their own that Linux users will refuse to pay for WordPerfect--by then Mac OSX will have an office suite distributed by Apple and their window of opportunity will be gone.
This is almost as stupid as Borland not making their C++ compilers use the same name-mangling & object format as Visual C++ (doesn't matter who's is better, go with the defacto standard you morons because there's no telling how many developers stayed away from C++ Builder because of
I have yet to find a word processor that I like for serious work that runs on Linux. I'm by no means a "feature cripple," and I do a lot of stuff with a text editor, but sometimes I need more. OO.org, in my opinion, is unbearably clunky and just weird. KWrite is fine for my own stuff, but not if I plan to give it to anyone else (in soft copy, that is.) Abiword or whatever it's called was about the same as KWrite when I used it a few times. I'm currently happy with MSWord for Mac running under Mac-On-Linux on my yellowdog machine. That way I get the refinement of Word without having to bow down to the evil master (or at least, bow down as far as having to actually try to boot a windows machine.)
Am I missing something? Maybe this Corel thing will fill the bill.
(and by the way, O.T., yellowdog linux + simultaneous OS X + ibook = Nirvana.)
Evil is the money of root.
1. Fire entire development team
2. Develop good, stable word processor that supports open formats for Linux
3. Port abovementioned to MacOS
4. Market effectively
5. No need for ???, just profit!
Seriously, I always liked Corel products. I used CorelDraw 3 and 4 (I think, could have been 4 and 5) for quite a while. Yes, they were buggy as heck, but they were nice programs otherwise. When they ported CorelDraw to Linux I was extatic... for about an hour or so. Then it crashed. And crashed. You get the picture.
I just wish they would hire someone that understands something about software development. Yes, it's great to have a new version of your software to sell every 9 months or so, but if people stop using it, the porfitability suffers a tad.
I've got mixed feelings about this whole thing. On the other hand I hope they pull it off just to see another major player enter the Linux field properly, but on the gripping hand I believe their abysmal stability will kill this off fast and effectively. All the best to everyone on the team if anyone happens to read this. Please tell your boss the public wants stable software
Sigs for Nerds. Sigs that Matter.
We used it to scan specs and generate a Smalltalk/V Win "Proof of Concept" on the CommonDepartmentalFinancialSystem I was working on back in the early '90s.
It was an open file format and I could strip out all the formatting code and parse just the content.
There were other things about that were good, like linking files and so on, but the open files were great.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
"Make it fit." Many an undergraduate's paper has been stretched from seven to ten pages with that little gem, and it's so much more visually innocuous than the standard tack of big chunky margins and 14-point font.
I am Sartre of the Borg. Existence is futile.
Oh, the interface itself wasn't too horrible, but it had loads of very irritating screen repaint problems.
I hope they do better this time, although Open Office and others have progressed to the point where it's kind of hard to see why you'd pay money for an office suite -- especially for Linux.
jim frost
jimf@frostbytes.com
I did use WordPerfect (I guess it was version 8) back when a Linux version was available. It worked great for me, and I still think WP is the best word processor.
People seem to complain when it looks like the GUI is hacked to work with Linux or whatever... sounds like something like this calls for wxWidgets (formerly wxWindows), since this toolset provides native GUI elements on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X.
The Mac desktop market dwarfs Linux the same way that the Windows market dwarfs it.
Actually, No. In terms of sales, both Mac and Linux desktops are each 3-4% of the desktop market. Sales is not a good measure of Linux though, as its freely distributable. Also, a considerable number of desktop systems are purchased as Windows and then have Linux installed, so the Linux could well be at least a few percent higher. Incidentally, this implies that MS Windows sales don't correspond to use.
Two years ago I would have been jumping up and down over this. I was a WP user for a long time and really wanted a good version for Linux. But it's too late now and it's going to cost too much for Linux users (on the whole). I might still need it a little bit, just to translate all of my WP files into something that OpenOffice can read, but I wouldn't do any new work in it. Here's why:
OpenOffice just released 1.1.1. They will likely release 2.0 sometime this year. Meanwhile, users of closed software will wait for fixes. I've gotten used to Mozilla/Firefox, OpenOffice, and a host of other programs that are released much more often than anything in the closed source world.
Beyond that, I've gotten used to not paying for these products. I'll give back in other ways (including donating money to support, just the same way that I support Public Radio), but I won't pay over $100 (US) for software any more. It doesn't fit my budget, it doesn't fit my view of how things should work.
All that said, were I still working at my old school which was a Mac shop, I would buy WP for Mac in a heartbeat. That they aren't developing for Mac baffles me. That's where commercial software ought to focus when they're looking for something other than Windows.
WP had a great run. the 5.1 version was insanely great. But the time for WP is likely past.
Now, if someone would implement the Reveal Codes feature in OpenOffice, every WP user could switch and I could be completely happy with OpenOffice.
Yeah, I'm as old as my UID would suggest.
Why enter the market now? Didn't they learn their lesson before?
I used and loved WP on Unix from 5.1 through 8. I still have WP6 and WP8 on one of my Linux boxes to manage the occassional old document.
WP's user interface had clunky spots, but it was *predictable*. StarOffice drives me crazy in a few places-- Getting rid of extra lines at the top of the page sometimes seems impossible, and Good Luck if you have a table at the top of a page and want to insert lines above it.
But WP's most impressive feat was the file compatability. From 5.2 onward, files were forward- AND backward-compatible. The tagged-block structure file format had been thought out well, and as new features were introduced, they were added to the format in such a way that older versions of the app could open and use as much of the newer files as possible. Compared to Word, it stood out as just plain Good Engineering.
... that winelibs layer made it slower than hell - that's the main reason I went out and bought StarOffice in college. Unless this one is truly native (no wine) nobody will go for it. Too bad they didn't take all this down time they've had (selling very little along the lines of WP I"m sure) and port it to Qt so it could run natively on every platform. If it was truly native I'd consider buying it but it would have to have come a looong way to beat OpenOffice, which just plain rocks.
In fact, scrap that - I'm sticking with OO (Mac and Linux).
The heat from below can burn your eyes out
Then they came out with WPO 2000 which ran on Wine. While they did make many fantastic enhancements to wine, they should have never released their product on top of wine (I told their developers this). A native port would have been much more stable, better-received, and more widely supported.
I encouraged the adoption of WP Linux in my shop. We were WP only on all platforms. However, in the last 2 years, everyone is shifting to Word. I now try use OO, but often have to use Word due to esoteric formatting issues that I have to support.
The questions for Corel now are:
Note: WP file support by OO would benefit BOTH parties as OO is the market leader in the Linux space, there are still many loyal WP users but moving from WP to OO and viceversa was a PITA (OO 1.1.1 can finally import word docs exported by WP 7/8 Linux, the native WP support for OO is under development).
Let's not forget that they failed to even support their Linux products. Many, many patches and bug fixes were made available for their Windows products, however, they never released any patches for their Linux product.
I have a legitmate copy of WP2000. They treated us with little to no support, and little to no patches. The version was fairly buggy. It crashed. I will never again buy a Corel product; at least not for Linux.
Open Office now does everything Corel offered they would do for us back in 2000. Open Office works and is getting better every day. Best of all, even Open Office 1.0 wasn't nearly as buggy of WP2000 was. I've come to depend on OO. In the mean time, Corel can take their WP and "F" themselves with it.
WordPerfect 8 wasn't the first version released for linux. I have a version of WP 6.0 thats dated April 3, 1996. I guess that makes tomorrow the 8 year anniversary of WP on Linux. It was distributed on the Caldera Internet Office Suite along with the NExS spreadsheet and ZMail. The CIOS was the companion CD to The Caldera Network Desktop v 1.0, the first linux distro that bright eyed Linux start-up Caldera (now SCO) put forth.
But all that is ancient history now. How things have changed in the last 8 years.
Then use TeX.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Corel-Draw would not have much competition on the Linux platform, but WordPerfect will.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Oops, forgot the link.
Keep your eyes to the sky.
Since today is apparently the day of walking dead software, when can I expect a linux version of Wordstar?
There is no reasonable defense against an idiot with an agenda
:wq
Ok, moderators, so I'll spare you the "I know I'll be going to modded down for this" line. However, as I value my karma, I post this as an Anderson Consultant, eeerr ACcenture.
...if the support for .doc files were good. Why? Right now, I am forced to use Word to communicate with my colleagues. We do maths, and need both graphs and equations. Word is hopeless in this, but it's what other people I work with (and for :-D) require. OOo isn't good enough at translating the documents to/from doc (even though inputting equations is more similar to LaTeX than Word!). It takes forever to start-up, eats up a lot of memory, and seems awkward to use . I would buy Corel WP (which I had for the Amiga, v 5.1. Excellent!) if:
If they cater for the users with PII and little memory (loads of offices, NGOs...), then I think they have a reasonable chance of success.
My org is a WP shop. We are also heavily invested in Novell's NetWare, eDirectory, and ZENworks. I'm excited by the prospect of a native WP! With OO.org to handle occasional Word documents (worst case: Crossover office/Wine/etc.), I could actually see switching to Linux on the desktop.
No more viruses, spy/adware, Bonzi Buddies, or the other million annoyances that go along with Windows. (I know, we would get a new and exciting batch of annoyances for SuSE.)
I agree with many posters saying Corel screwed the pooch last time. Here's hoping they don't do it again.
"No prints can come from fingers / If machines become our hands." -- Jack Johnson
Has anyone thought that IBM may have had some influence in this regard?
Bob
Listen to my latest album here
I think the answer to Corel's problem is simple. Corel should sell their own version of OpenOffice as Sun does. Corel could include features such as grammar checking, templates, images, sounds, WordPerfect file format support, WordPerfect shortcuts, tutorials and technical support. That's how other companies are making money from free software but I guess Corel just doesn't get the concept yet.
ayottesoftware.com
I think they can just release the sources for people to try out, under a license that protects their interest and enough people will tweak, tune and compile it to make the whole thing feasable.
Good thing the building blocks of "Linux on Desktop" are being put in place gradually.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
My mom has done medical transcription on WP5.1 for the better part of two decades now.
She's taken courses on Word and all that. However she's still far, FAR more productive on the copy of WP5.1 for DOS that I bought way the hell back when, and she actually started on WP back in the 3.* days.....
And even now, not having actually used it in several years, I can STILL twitch out most of the shortcuts.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
*** "Freiheit ist immer die Freiheit des Andersdenkenden". -- Rosa Luxemburg ***
Maybe it is just a delayed Aprils fool, but I would buy a native Linux version af WP the second it was released.
My whish list would something like this:
It should be based on WP 12 (only for the editor tracking features)
QT-based to look good.
Aspell, so minor languages can get a decent spelling control.
CUPS for printing.
Well, one can dream.
Because the last "8" version was hard coded in the installer so that it would only install on one, then getting very old, linux release of their own. If you had the balls to dare make a new kernel install, the installer was dead.
I've still got that package in its original box on the shelf above me, and AFAIC they owe me about a 90 buck refund (interest accrues on money loaned does it not?).
It has never, and I even copied the script to my HD where I could edit it, been able to install and run here.
I called them at the time, (on my nickle!) and was basicly told that if I wanted support, to install their old crappy version of linux. Early 2.2 series kernel and all...
'scuse me but fsck 'em, and the camel that rode in on them.
Gawd, am I glad 4/01 is over...
Cheers, Gene
Apple sales figures came from: http://www.macminute.com/2003/03/12/desktopsales. (3.8%)5 .html (suggests 2.8% in 2003).
Linux desktop sales:
http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/2267
Given the success I've been having with OpenOffice lately, I think I'd probably more inclined to try out StarOffice first if I were deploying this for a business.
Too bad....WordPerfect was once my favorite word processor.
A goal is a dream with a deadline
That's what I want from Corel on Linux. Seen lots of complaints lately about not having a good path away from Microsoft Access. I know you can import the datastructure from Access, but not sure about the forms. Regardless there seems to be a clearer path from Access to Paradox than from Access to Sun's Base.
If Corel does the Professional version with Paradox then they will have something, I think. I like Paradox because it is relational and even _I_ can create forms and queries and reports in it. I know it is really old hat, but as a path from Access? Why the heck not?
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
There are plenty of nice word processors for the *nix desktop. The big issue is M$ Word compatibility. The word processes that do it best ( OO, StarOffice ) have big SLOW cloogy interfaces no one likes. A need for any more newword processors for *nix could be settled if the various OSS word processor developers: - establish an OSS project that did nothing but make a portable module/class that did nothing but translate M$ Word files. All of the projects could contribute to this module and all of them would have the latest, greatest M$ compatibility at the same time. This would also ( god I hate this term ) save each of the projects the work of "having to reinvent the wheel" in regards to keeping up with M$. - establish a standard OSS file format set for all OSS office projects. Again, this would save them and new projects the work of making/maintaining their own. It would also help loosen the grip of M$ *.doc and *.rtf as the defacto standards. People would know that if they saved their files to *.oss that EVERYONE else would be able to read it. M$ may even be pressured in modifying office to save into *.oss. What the *nix desktop doesn't need is another word processor app.
According to this page: Word Perfect Office 11 Paradox is part of the package.
I'd buy the complete suite just to get that, on linux.
-- Henriette's herbal -
And when it fails, they'll blame Linux.
Corel's track record with these "pilot" programs is very, very poor. They release lots of software for a release or so. It's buggy because it was pushed out of development to make the market window. They don't make any patches, because they're waiting to see if the market will snap up the software before devoting more resources. The market steers clear because the product is a buggy piece of junk. Corel drops the software, claiming the market wouldn't support it.
They do the same thing on Windows, but look at their Linux examples. WP7 was pretty solid. It was developed and supported by another company. WP8 was developed by that same company (SDLC, iirc), but transfered to Corel for development right before release. As a result, it had problems. It was supposed to ship with new printer drivers SDLC had developed to take better advantage of ghostscript and higher-res pictures. They weren't there. It had a huge, major bug where placing text over images could slow it down insanely. Don't even try making an image background! There were a few other minor bugs I don't recall.
If you spent a few hundred dollars on the server edition of WP for Linux, did you ever get things fixed? Of course not. If you bought the personal version, did they get fixed? Nope. Those bugs were fixed, but the only fixed version was released as part of Corel Linux OS Deluxe, and it wasn't even publicised as being fixed.
Still, WP8 was the best release they made for actually editing documents. Naturally, with WP9/WPO2000, they got rid of all that infrastructure and went with Wine.
What did that buy us? Still more, new bugs. Mostly because their version of Wine was buggy and under constant development. It would periodically crash and you'd have to erase your preferences dir, getting rid of any customization. They made a couple unofficial Wine updates in conjunction with their Corel Graphics release, but never released an official service pack. Which would have helped, since some of the bugs required code fixes in the WP code.
The best way to get WP and Draw running was to get the wine source from their CVS, and futz with the startup scripts to get it working. Except shortly after Draw was released, most of the Linux developers were canned.
Throughout this process, I was a C_Tech volunteer, trying to support these products on their newgroups. People kept coming up with the same bugs and I kept asking the product manager when we'd see a patch. He kept saying he'd like to, but upper management wouldn't approve the work unless they saw the software selling more. Eventually I resigned as a C_Tech when it became clear that there would never be a fix.
This is how Corel operates. They come up with some great idea, throw some money at it, but fail to follow through. I'd like to hope this will be different, but they screwed it up when the competition for a good word processor was much less than it is today, and I don't see them getting it right this time.
Seems like the Microsoft money ran out, and they need to get a linux investment real quick now so Microsoft can pay 'em to drop it again. ;)
<tinfoilhat mode="off">
--
Given enough personal experience, all stereotypes are shallow.
My wife has recently been quite frustrated with Microsoft Word because the lawyer she works for uses an antiquated version of WordPerfect, and the two apps don't work well together at all. Since she'll soon be an attorney, she was looking into what types of document producing software she should purchase in the future when she buys a new laptop. She mentioned to me that she had read on a lawyer related website or magazine or something that many lawyers actually prefer WordPerfect to MS Word.
This is interesting, because if you think about it, what does a small law firm need most? A good word processing application (no "Office suite") and security from prying eyes for that client/attorney priveledge. Hmmm... Linux can be much more secure than Windows, and with the addition of a lawyer's favorite document processing application, WordPerfect, we may just see a new niche for Linux...
You are absolutely correct. I would love to see Corel Draw for Linux.
On the other hand, I don't need another word processor for Linux. I have a great one already.
We need more consumer-quality software running native on Linux. I'm gonna buy a copy when I see it at Fry's. Hell, I bought a copy of Microsoft Office, and I truly believe they are what's wrong with software today. I applaud Corel's efforts.
I've got a friend who's at Standard and Poors, where Ventura is used to publish thousands of pages a month. Reports that include single tables that go on for 50+ pages.
A few years ago he was given the task of figuring out how to make Quark do the same reports. With $10,000 worth of plug ins, plus some custom development on a plug in, Quark could do most, but not all of what Ventura was doing.
A new version of WP (Hopefully with improved font management) would be a great productivity-improver, and potentially allow us as a company more freedom to choose OS'es. Now if I can just convince the upper management that we need to get our key databases away from Access, I'll be in great shape.
You can't have a battle of wits against an unarmed opponent.
Mac will *NEVER* grow its marketshare. It is what it is, and aint getting any bigger. Linux on the other hand, is seemingly poised for a significant boost in market share. So it could very well overcome mac in just a couple of years. PLus, there is a Mac version of MS office. On linux, they don't have to compete with that 1000 pound gorilla.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
There is only one feature that is lacking in the other office products: 100% perfect MS Office interoperability. The first product to nail this perfectly will lead Linux onto millions of business desktops.
Remember, Visicalc was DOS' killer app, and Excel was Windows' killer app... it is quite likely that an office product will be what finally pushes Linux over the edge.
I have GIMP, which does everything I need for photo editing. No need for photopaint.
I have sodipodi which... uhmm... wait...
Yeah... they need to make a native version of CorelDraw.
(PS: No offense intended to the sodipodi devs... they work hard, I know... but it's a far cry from CorelDraw's level).
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Have you tried AbiWord ? It runs on Win, UNIX and MacOS X (new!), using native GUI toolkit in each case.
http://www.abisource.com/
Hub
Sooner or later someone has to come to the conclusion that the Office app has been done. It has been done to death. OpenOffice is great and well beyond what the average user needs. Then there is Koffice and gnumeric and AbiWord. All of which are also well worth the time to use and enjoy. The "improvements" that come woth the MS Office each release are for most people minute ie: clippie is now a cat....
So if Corel want's to make some software that runs on the Linux platform, they should make something that we don't have. Maybe some compitition to Macromedia, Adobe or Apple. Then maybe there would a product that they could sell.
Also several years ago there was a market of people that were longing for WordPerfect. But now those people have either retired or learned to use the the current offerings and have forgotten their WordPerfect ways.
Hotchchacha!!!! ;P
[ROWR!]
Un-news
I think rather than fuck with wxWankery at this point, I'll wait a bit while more GTK+ native ports occur.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
....ewwwwww!
:P
That's like strapping a boat motor to a cheetah.
Love your country always, but respect your government only when it deserves it. -- Mark Twain
If it will relaly interoperate with the MicroSoft defacto standard formats as well as the OS world standards, and if the price is reasonable, and they can make it work on the version of Linux we run, we'll buy it. And it needs to replace the Outlook stuff, too.
With that and a rock solid, reasonably complete (meaning the vast majority of functionality) project management product that reads and writes MSProject files, I could dispense with Microsoft on all but a handful of specialized systems.
My life as IT Manager would get a lot easier.
The problem is that those Linux stats are completely bogus. The Apple ones have to be reasonably accurate because it's a public company and has to file reports on its financial health. Linux number are just fabricated guesswork. A sanity check is simple enough, too: How big is the Linux section at CompUSA? If Linux were anywhere near Macs as far as desktop market went, there would be at least as much hardware and software on the shelves marketed towards it. That is not the case. Don't kid yourself; some of us geeks use it as a primary desktop, but that's about it. Everywhere else, and especially in corporate environments, it is used to run specialized, in-house software. The sooner advocates admit there is zero desktop appeal, the sooner they can fix that little Linux problem.
At the time that the Linux port of WP8 was released the office-suite market for Linux was wide open. As I recall, there were few choices and none of them were very comfortable to use. Admittedly, WP fell into this category.
Corel could have learned from their experience and pursued a vigorous development stategy, but instead they waffled on the issue and here they are trying to find a niche to fill. Fighting for market share against MS Office on Windows is an uphill battle at best, and now OpenOffice has a firm foothold on Linux and will run on almost any platform.
They had their chance and blew it, so I guess 'Too Little Too Late' sums it up nicely.
Actually, Corel once had a pretty solid linux distribution based on debian. They sold it with the WordPerfect office suite. It was a very promising distribution. Promising enough that microsoft bought a 30% stake in Corel and several months later Corel dropped all work on linux related projects and started rambling on about a new windows strategy. It sounds like that didn't pan out and now they are looking to try linux again. I believe that microsoft sold some or all of their stake in Corel some time ago. If Corel would have kept on the linux path, their is a good chance that they might be in the position OpenOffice is today. Unfortunately, that opportunity has passed them by. Novel has realized that developing products for the Microsoft platform is fruitless and they are moving over to linux. As microsoft develops more and more functionality and integrates it into windows, more and more big software companies are going to realize that developing for the microsoft platform is fruitless. Microsoft develops it's own media player and integrates into windows. Microsoft will be integrating it's own firewall software and anti-virus software pretty soon. Some big software companies will stand by and watch as their markets dry up. The smart ones will be watching for their linux opportunity. And when that opportunity comes, it may only come once.
You are incorrect, this is NOT built into the API. The hooks are there for you, but you must register a 'comparison' function that will be passed 2 elements from the listview's column the user is attempting to sort and it must return less then, equal to, or greater then. If you don't provide this function, then no sorting can take place!
I'm sure there's a way to provide this functionality in wxW as well, but most authors choose not to do it (perhaps other OSs don't support it?).
My biggest complaint about wxW, or maybe it's more about wxPython, is it's slow, bloated and memory hungry.
DJ kRYPT's Free MP3s!
Corel hasn't been that Linux-friendly in the past. They also historically ignored the "little" players with their application releases. Well, I've got StarOffice and OpenOffice now, so I no longer am looking for WP or Corel Draw on any platform.
If you aren't Microsoft, don't ignore the smaller players in the desktop PC field. You never know when Microsoft is going to use their monopoly power to take over your userbase.
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Just wondering , aside from Microsoft (who wont touch linux with a bargepole (thank god to some extent!)) are there many companies left that dont see that working linux into their business model is part of their future?
...
We've got Macromedia , Novell , now Corel ; all on the case! and of course the old stalwarts such as IBM & Co. Whose left ? Adobe ?
Nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Is there anyone out there using any of the old Corel Linux products right now...?
WordPerfect will need a vi compatibility layer...
That's what I want from Corel on Linux. Seen lots of complaints lately about not having a good path away from Microsoft Access onto Linux. I know you can import the datastructure from Access into Paradox, but not sure about the forms. Regardless there seems to be a clearer path from Access to Paradox than from Access to Sun's Base.
If Corel does the Professional version with Paradox then they will have something, I think. I like Paradox because it is relational and even _I_ can create forms and queries and reports in it. I know it is really old hat, but as a path from Access? Why the heck not?
I'm thinking about it, therefore I might be.
Amen to that! I bought the Wine version of CorelDraw but it was useless: Slow, bugged and always crashed after approximately 10 minutes usage. I'd love to see a native Linux version of that one. Without the crashes, of course.
Actually, it is too bad that Novell didn't keep the WP suite.
Imagine what Novell would have now. A powerful server (Linux/Netware), a great desktop (SUSE), and an office suite for it (WP).
That would have been a turnkey system.
April Fool's Day was yesterday. Get over it.
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
> If Linux were anywhere near Macs as far as desktop market went, there would be at least as much hardware and software on the shelves marketed towards it.
I mostly agree with your point in general, but not this statement. If your target customer base could download just about any program you needed for free, as a software development company, why would you think that selling software that does the same thing would be a good money-making idea? Unless you're really good, have great new ideas/features, are just porting between platforms, or have preexisting customer base, there is little reason to write it.
Hardware? There is no such thing as Windows Hardware, so any PC hardware on those shelves is "Linux hardware."
I never see Mac hardware OR software in stores. That could just be because I am not looking for it, but there is certainly MUCH MUCH less of it, at least.
Assuming they get it right, this could be a Very Good Thing. I mean, really, OO.o is about on a par with Word, but that means it's got a long way to go before it's as good as Word Perfect.
I'll probably end up buying a copy just to see how well it works. If it works well, then I'll grab a few more.
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge?
Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
I just bought the cd version of Corel Linux 1.0 in order to get the deb package of WordPerfect 8.1. It was only 2 dollars on eBay. It still works even in Debian unstable. You just have to fiddle with the dependencies a bit.
You can still download WordPerfect 8 for Linux and install it, though the legality of this isn't completely clear. Corel at one time made it available for free download. Several sites continue to offer it and Corel has done nothing to stop them. See the WordPerfect on Linux FAQ for more info.
WordPerfect 8/8.1 is a lot faster than OpenOffice, and more importantly, it reads WordPerfect files. A lot of law offices have all of their documents in WordPerfect.
There is a pretty good WordPerfect filter for OpenOffice (LibWPD), but it's hard to compete with the real thing.
I think this will cause many law firms to consider switching to Linux.
I guess after it tanked with Corel, the developers managed to buy their rights back--Xara X is going strong. I bought a copy just last year--it's a splendid little vector-drawing app, and it's still quite cheap. Doesn't seem to be under a huge active development schedule, though.
--
Here (damn, I know there are better available, this was off the top of my head).
The filtering in Corel WP8 stopped working some 1.5 years after the initial release of WP8 for Linux. Corel then effectively dropped support. Read all about it: o.sessink.nl/~valentyn/wp8fix/corel.html
I wrote a fix, see http://o.sessink.nl/~valentyn/wp8fix/, and I vowed never to buy Corel again. They stink.
my other sig is a 500 page novel
If your target customer base could download just about any program you needed for free, as a software development company, why would you think that selling software that does the same thing would be a good money-making idea?
I'm not the one thinking of putting out a pricey office suite for a free OS. Ask Corel that one. You support my point.
Hardware? There is no such thing as Windows Hardware, so any PC hardware on those shelves is "Linux hardware."
You must not actually try to use Linux as a desktop system, then. Do you imagine you can just pick up any new gizmo off the shelf and it'll plug-and-play with Linux just fine? There are these little things called drivers that are a hit-and-miss proposition for Linux. Most hardware has Windows support straight from the manufacturer, but most manufacturers don't support Linux at all. Even Linux gurus lament about simple printer problems. Unless we're all open about these real issues so that they can be fixed, the platform won't actually be ready for the desktop any time soon.
I never see Mac hardware OR software in stores. That could just be because I am not looking for it, but there is certainly MUCH MUCH less of it, at least.
From a market share perspective, yes, you should expect to see 1/20th the Mac stuff you see of Windows stuff. The important thing, though, is that often time boxes with the Windows sticker have the Mac sticker as well; manufacturers support the Mac. Where is that elusive Linux sticker? If you really think you can claim there is a desktop market on par with the Mac, you need that kind of evidence. It's just not there. Sad but true.
Combine this with Bill Gates new time machine... go back in time and watch what happens!!
I bought WP8, great product that failed on newer distros.
I bought WPO 2000. Horrible, horrible product. Crashes like crazy. Were there any patches? Not on your life.
What Corel needs to sell is their company. I wouldn't buy a single thing from them until they prove to me they'll support it. They could just as easily resell WPO2000 with patches to "test the waters".
They had their chance.
SYS 64738 NO CARRIER
There would be a market for their imaging apps and Paradox, I am not sure if Linux needs yet another word processor... Corel has lots of other applications in their portfolio which linux does not have eqally good equivalents for. A linux port of Paradox would be heaven sent!
And when he actually dies, no one in the slashdot community will ever believe it.
Much like most of the slashdot community will never use Google's GMail, because "It doesn't exist! It's only an April's fools prank!".
Ceterum censeo Microsoftem esse delendam
There are two different subjects here, and they're not incompatible. One subject is Linux marketshare, the other subject is the market for commercial Linux software. Droleary is talking about the latter; everyone else is talking about the former. It's not even a disagreement--it's just people talking past one another.
I don't think there can be any honest dispute over the fact that if you include servers, Linux has already surpassed Mac in marketshare, and if you exclude servers, Linux is catching up rapidly. However, you also cannot dispute the fact that commercial software vendors are in no hurry to make Linux versions of their software.
These are not mutually incompatible. People only buy software when their existing software was not adequate. People used to buy web browsers and now they do not--does this imply that nobody uses web browsers anymore? Linux users had really shitty choices for word processors as little as three years ago. If someone had released a decent commercial Linux word processor back then, they'd have gotten close to 100% marketshare. Now Linux users have more than one good word processor, web browser, and e-mail client to choose from. They wouldn't buy commercial equivalents because they simply do not need them.
This is the bittersweet state of Linux today. Commercial vendors don't touch it--because of this, good OSS versions are created--then the commercial vendor belatedly creates a Linux port and nobody buys it because the OSS version is already good enough. Thus Linux marketshare grows and the "Linux software" section at CompUSA remains full of tumbleweeds. Commercial software vendors are putting themselves out of business by not supporting Linux at the level its marketshare warrants (i.e. more or less the same support level as MacOS). They are handing over the software market for the only growing desktop there is to OSS software that they never will be able to compete with on price.
It's funny 'cause it's true?
We do not live in the 21st century. We live in the 20 second century.
and Good Luck if you have a table at the top of a page and want to insert lines above it.
I agree there is no "good way" to deal with it, but it's possible. The way I do it is to turn on the "direct cursor" (look for the cursor icon on the left of the page) and click the far left corner of the table. Hit enter, and the table moves down a line. Like I said, I admit that it's a bit clunky and something the OOo people should work on, but it _is_ possible to deal with if you use OOo as your primary office suite.
501 Not Implemented
A previous post mentions "Let's hope Corel doesn't screw this up" - they will.
Another post mentions "someone should be fired" - They were! there's only about 12 people left cuz that's all they can afford.
Yet another post mentions "Too little too late" - this is Corel's motto.
Let's be serious, this is the linux equivalent of splitting the vote. If they were smart, they would help develop OpenOffice. Corel just doesn't get it.
Corel CEO (Derek the TOTAL LOSER Burney) in conversation:
-We are going to be a graphics company! Yay Anyone remember CorelDraw? No?
-OK we'll be a linux software company then... What do you mean Corel Linux blows?
-OK we'll be an office suite company then... Oh, Microsoft cornered that market 20 years ago... nuts. But we can still compete with Microsoft Works family pack!!!
-OK then we'll be a graphics company...
-I know! how about a Linux software company!!!!
do you see where i'm going with this?
Ohhh! Pay Dirt! A pair of half-eaten choco-pants!
This makes sense. And I s'pose if one used tabs to distiguish columns, and newlines for rows, then the text file would be quite easily readable with a text editor. To be able to extract the data from the files with only a text or hex editor is important; as an example my brother lost a days worth of work last year because his handheld took a dive right in the middle of a write operation, the data file was corrupted, and the data lost. I tried to look through the file with a hex editor, but it was in Pocket Access format, and I was lost. So Pat had to go rewalk a couple of transects, and regather data.
Excellent insight; thank you. However, the format used for collection is different than that used for manipulation; For example, when I collect data, I collect it plot by plot. Each plot contains tree data, veg data, and wood debris data. However, when put into their database ( 'they' being the Oregon Dept. of Forestry in this case; more info on the survey format here), it is separated into tables by tree, veg and debris data, not by plot. XML tags make it easy to extract all the data into arrays. Also, it seems that by not just assuming that info in a certain 'field' in a tab/newline-delineated is of a certain 'type', but rather it's explicitly defined via a tag, one would be far less likely to screw up data translations.
Anyways, please point out errors in my thinking. I do appreciate the input; it really helps.
(tig)
Ignorance and prejudice and fear
Walk hand in hand
So I have to completely agree with you.
But don't forget WPO. It's still superior to OO and MSO for many things.
Corel, where is the Macintosh version?
mbbac
"Unless we're all open about these real issues so that they can be fixed, the platform won't actually be ready for the desktop any time soon."
What an odd thing to say.
First of all how much more open can "we" be then to have ESR publicly humiliate CUPS developers? Is there some other definition of open you are thinking about?
Secondly do you or anybody else in the world think that if we were somehow more "open" the vendors would write linux drivers? How does being more open put any pressure on vendors to write drivers?
I would like you to explain to me how yelling and screaming at open source developers and calling them names will cause hardware manufacturers to write drivers? That's the part I don't get. You apparently have some insight into this matter so please explain it to me.
From my perspective the only way hardware manufacturers will write linux drivers is if linux market share grows. The only way it can grow is if there is more hardware support. It's a chicken and egg problem.
Personally I think the problem will take care itself pretty soon. Corporate adoption of linux will grow, non us countries will continue to migrate to linux, hardware manufacturers will take notice, more drivers will get written, home adoption will follow.
It's inevitable. People are just impatient that's all. Rome wasn't built in a day.
evil is as evil does
WordPerfect/Linux is no different from any other word processor: it must import/export M$ Word documents at least as well as does Word itself. If Corel opens the source for those components, they might be usable in other apps, like OpenOffice.org. That would mean Linux users could have the best of both worlds: personalized features in a debloated word processor, that plays nicely with the poor suckers stuck with the original Word. That levelling playing field would hasten the day that all these apps interoperate on published XML formats.
--
make install -not war
The conspiracy theorist in me wonders about the timing of this. If I recall correctly, WordPerfect 12 is the first release since Micro$oft divested its shares in Corel... the previous Linux versions vanished remarkably close to the announcement of the Micro$oft bailout of Corel.
I have contacted Corel several times about WordPerfect for Mac OS X. I have users that are asking me for it, even though the last version of WP for the Mac came out many years ago.
It seems to me that there's a real possibility of Corel making inroads into the Office monopoly on the Mac platform as there are many Mac users who shun anything Micro$oft, but wind up using Office due to the lack of a viable alternative. Oddly enough, Micro$oft's biggest (percentage-wise) monopoly is Office on the Mac. Corel needs to move quickly on this, however. As Mac users move themselves into OS X, they are becoming less inclined to run things in the classic mode.
Personally, a new WordPerfect port to Linux would be a great plus. As others have mentioned, the WP9 package was more of an simulated port - a lot of it was done via WINE. That's better (at least to dedicated WP users like myself) than no WP for Linux, but a native version would be even better. I'm waiting for the 15th and will order it. I just hope that they do a good job, and bring some other titles to Linux (Bryce would be fun!)
I think they're about 4 years and one office suite too late.
This is still the only spreadsheet I know that can handle more than 65,536 rows without any problem at all. This alone would be great to have on Linux.
Both of these assertions are incorrecect.
/usr/lib/corel/wine. It set the WINEPREFIX up to be ~/.wpo2000. Thus, it was explicitly designed to *NOT* interfere with any other Wine incarnation.
1) The Corel version of Wine was able to run other apps if you wanted it to. Certainly it was optimized for WPO, and you had to muck with some startup scripts to get it running other apps.
2) The WPO install specifically put all of its Wine related files in
BTW, CodeWeavers Crossover products were not available until over a year after WPO2000 Linux shipped.
As I indicated above, the problem that most users ran into with the suite was the FontTastic font server requirement, and issues relating to that, NOT the Wine stuff.
Take care,
-Gav
Gavriel State, Co-CEO & CTO
TransGaming Technologies Inc.
This means that people who paid for a well-supported linux office suite, ended up with it breaking and them holding both pieces. Trying to get WP9 or WP8 working on a current day distribution is like pulling teeth. Corel released a buggy product, then dropped any support for things like software updates. In fact, the most you can find on their ftp server is a simple 'install' script.
So, when asked why the animosity? I'd have to say it might have something to do with being dropped like a bad habit, after having paid through the nose for their software. There is no reason why the community should trust Corel not to do the same thing all over again.
I'm stunned. Really stunned. Goodbye XP. I couldn't keep linux up all the time because I've been using WP since the 80's. Ask those who type 100+WPM what they have to use to keep it up every day (i.e., legal secretaries), and they *all* use WP.
Interestingly, this allows the thousands of law firms across the country to go to linux if they wish for their secretaries. Unfortunatley though, the attornies are all still stuck in Windows to run various specialized legal packages.
As others have mentioned, your numbers a somewhat broken.
"Linux has, by some estimates, 20-30 percent of the server market, but it has gained little traction in either the corporate or consumer desktop market. In 2002, shipments of Linux desktops totaled 2.8 percent of the market, up from 1.7 percent in 2000, according to IDC. " --taken from the newsfactor.com story.
the article clearly states that at the end of 2002, approximatly 2.8 percent of desktops shipped linux. The Mac article appears to refer to the same year. So in 2002, Apple had about a full percent of the market more than Linux, I haven't seen any numbers for 2003.
I ran WP (5.1 I think) on DOS, and liked it. I could work in console mode, similar to an xterm today, and flick into GUI mode easily to see what something looked like. Of course I could hide and reveal codes - one feature that Word and its clones seem to lack.
Now I mostly use Abiword if I need a word processor. It's a very nice program, but it's strongly based on MS word. I don't like composing documents in a GUI. I don't want to see my document rendered in a font that's designed for laser printing - just use 'misc-fixed' or neep on the screen.
Besides, I'd like to access documents over dialup. X over dialup is too painful.
I guess most people like me use a text editor and a typesetter like troff or Tex. But I find that a bit annoying for letters and stuff.
Does anyone else want a ncurses-based word processor? Could I still enjoy WP 5.1 as much as I did, or has vi spoiled me with its fast navigation and terse commands? Is it possible to make a word processor with most of the vi functionality?
I thought April Fools day was over...
Viv
Gmail invites for ip
Actually, programmers who have worked on a bad product have valuable experience that can help make a good product. Experience teaches, but uniformly successful experience probably doesn't teach as much.
You are thinking WP9, aka WP Office 2000. WP8 was a motif app. Looked ugly as hell, but was one speedy motherfucker and worked great. (compared to the other word processors of the time)
According to the article, they are under different ownership now and don't have MS funding anymore . . . so I think things just might be different.
It's not even a disagreement--it's just people talking past one another.
Wow, a clueful AC. You must be new here! :-)
I don't think there can be any honest dispute over the fact that if you include servers, Linux has already surpassed Mac in marketshare, and if you exclude servers, Linux is catching up rapidly.
I agree with that. The problem with that "catching up rapidly", though, is that Linux has a long, long way to go on the desktop. People around here don't see it, but in the bigger picture Linux hardly exists as a desktop market for hardware and software products. Because of that, many Linux advocates are becoming Mac advocates when it comes to the desktop, too, so I'm left to wonder for how much longer you can really say Linux is gaining in market share. It's still kicking ass in servers, which is where I mainly use it, but I would not bank a company on it for desktop applications.
Now Linux users have more than one good word processor, web browser, and e-mail client to choose from. They wouldn't buy commercial equivalents because they simply do not need them.
Exactly right. I laughed and laughed when people were trying to defend the lack of shelf space for Linux software by saying that it was because the free stuff they could download was so good. That was my point on why Corel is stupid for making Linux a target before the Mac! They would be far smarter if they simply re-branded distributions of free software (e.g., Corel's GIMP) and put it in boxes next to the hardware at Walmart or wherever they thought they would get sales. Yeah we know we can get those things for free on the Internet, but if Bubba is just picking up a computer for his wife's birthday, he wants something that works he can put in the cart next to it, not an instruction booklet no how to download the source and compile it.
First of all how much more open can "we" be then to have ESR publicly humiliate CUPS developers? Is there some other definition of open you are thinking about?
How about the people who are called out openly admitting they have issues they're not going to address because there is no "geek factor" in it? More to the point, it should not be humiliating for software to not do something easily unless it made claims that something is easy to do. That is why CUPS is not at fault for the printer issues, but the fault rather lies in the general Linux community making claims that Linux is ready for the desktop. It's not. Stop saying it is.
Secondly do you or anybody else in the world think that if we were somehow more "open" the vendors would write linux drivers? How does being more open put any pressure on vendors to write drivers?
ESR wasn't having a driver problem. That is moot, though, because the issue is that the action of the community has zero to do with vendor support. It's the profitability, and if there was a profit to be made in the Linux market then vendors would be all over it. Apple usually shows a profit for themselves and their suppliers, and so vendors usually show support for that platform. Until that happens in the Linux market at the same level, everyone needs to stop saying Linux will crush the Mac on the desktop this year or next year or within 5 years.
From my perspective the only way hardware manufacturers will write linux drivers is if linux market share grows. The only way it can grow is if there is more hardware support. It's a chicken and egg problem.
Yes; thank you for admitting there is a huge problem in the fanboy predictions of a pending huge Linux desktop market takeover. Getting that admission is like extracting teeth, though, and that is what I mean when advocates need to be more open. A frank evaluation of the platform strengths and weaknesses is what is needed for people to actually see a Linux desktop market in the future.
Personally I think the problem will take care itself pretty soon. Corporate adoption of linux will grow, non us countries will continue to migrate to linux, hardware manufacturers will take notice, more drivers will get written, home adoption will follow.
Yes, yes, followed shortly by world peace and everyone holding hands singing Kumbaya. Because that is the way the world works, right? People can surely sit on their asses and their problems will take care of themselves!
It's inevitable. People are just impatient that's all. Rome wasn't built in a day.
Rome fell. Is that the sort of inevitable conclusion you want for Linux?
"How about the people who are called out openly admitting they have issues they're not going to address because there is no "geek factor" in it?"
There will always be those people. Just like there will always be people calling open source users terrorists and communists. Deal with it.
" but the fault rather lies in the general Linux community making claims that Linux is ready for the desktop. It's not. Stop saying it is."
But it is for most people. Sure if you have some weird printer you can't get a driver for it but for the most common printers there are drivers. When people say it's ready they don't mean for 100% of the people just the vast majority of them.
"Until that happens in the Linux market at the same level, everyone needs to stop saying Linux will crush the Mac on the desktop this year or next year or within 5 years."
Linux will crush the Mac within five years. I already outlined the scenario. Corporations will adopt linux (not mac). Foreign countries will standardise on linux (not mac). As adoption grows vendors will write drivers because they can no longer afford to alianate corporations and the chinese market. It will happen.
"A frank evaluation of the platform strengths and weaknesses is what is needed for people to actually see a Linux desktop market in the future."
What makes you think this is not being done? You are overly pessimistic and other people are overly optimistic but vast majority of the people are pragmatic. Take an honest look at how far linux desktop has gotten in the last two years and project two years from now. What do you see?
"People can surely sit on their asses and their problems will take care of themselves!"
nobody is sitting on their hands!. Stop making shit up. Thousands of people all over the world are coding their assess off every day. IBM, SUN, HP, redHat, Novell are vigorously marketing to corporations and countries. Thousands of startups are selling services, and appliances. Exactly how blind are you to be completely ignorant of all that. Linux is moving and growing because millions of people push to make it happen every day. Because giant corporations are spending billions of dollars to improve the product and market it.
Just because you are spectator (and a detractor) doesn't mean everybody else is. Wake up and look around you.
"Rome fell. Is that the sort of inevitable conclusion you want for Linux?"
It's inevitable. All things die. you will die, America will die, linux will die, microsoft will die. Nothing last forever. No empire, no individual, no company no matter how big and powerful lasts forever. Linux will grow, it will dominate, it will die. No way of getting around that.
evil is as evil does
Apple had about a full percent of the market more than Linux, I haven't seen any numbers for 2003.
I said that Apple and Linux had at least 3-4% each of desktop sales. Well, 2.8 is around 3%, and a full percent more than that is around 4%.
What is broken about that?
The original post was implying that the Linux desktop market is as small compared to the Mac desktop market as the Mac is to Windows. This is clearly nonsense.
I've got hundreds of drawings in Corel Draw 8, and there is nothing I can do with them in any current Linux app that I know of.
Tech Public Policy stuff
just linking an app against winelib is much more cost-effective than having to buy new hardware and port it to some Mac-API.
Kill several birds with one stone. If Corel are keen to port to Linux and OS X, which share a *nix backend, they could do worse than use GNUStep
I believe there once was a version of WordPerfect for NeXT/OpenStep, so dig up the old code, Corel!
As when they made enhancements to wine, they would bring GNUStep into prominence as a toolkit viable for commercial-grade apps.
I actually think these types of products are bad for the Linux desktop. Why? Because they are usually done half-a$$ and over priced. Corel's Linux version better be pretty darn good to make someone pay $299 for it over Open Office. If Corel's Linux version is not better then Open Office, I can see a big press statment about the failure of commercial products on the Linux desktop and how Linux desktp users are cheap and don't want to buy commercial software (which is very far from the truth, I personaly would love to see more commercial offerings). I guess I am jumping the gun and should wait to see what Corel puts out. Though I do have two previous attempts to base my judgment on, and I think this version will be a mess as well, and will only scare away more commercial companies who may have been considering a Linux version of their products.
If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land,
it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy. -James Madison