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Corel Linux Advisory Council
Hos writes "Saw this press release this morning. Looks like they have an interesting list of members (Linus, Larry Augustine, Bob Young), though it doesn't say whether thy will be speaking or not. "
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I see this as Corel and others attempt to find a way to understand what the Linux community would consider acceptable, and what not, much more so than a way to influence Linus and others heavily. The amount of CEO's on the list tell me that there won't likely be much technical discussion, and likely will be much discussion about what business models would be viable for a company that wants to support Linux.
Brett consistantly whines every single time someone signs on to Linux. He absolutely cannot stand the fact that Linux is popular and is continuing to gather steam. He has a personal vendetta against RMS and FSF, though he will protest that it isn't the case, his posts are often laden with anti-RMS, anti-GPL, anti-FSF, and anti-Linux slurs. He has been shown the door a number of times on various fora, and been told to get lost on the BSD lists as well. Nothing seems to make him happy but spreading his FUD.
...yeah, I thought so.
Well, Brett, Linux is here, it's here to stay. So you just better get used to that FACT. If you love your beloved BSD so much, and I don't think anyone has a problem with that. Work towards making BSD more successful intead of crying on the lists about Linux this.. blah blah blah.
What have YOU done for BSD lately?
We? Do you work for Corel? If not, you're perfectly welcome to form your own Linux Advisory Council with board members of your own choosing. (I'd really recommend not having a jackass like Stallman on it, though.) Then you can have your own conferences and release your own press statements instead of imposing your warped political correctness on this particular group. Corel is a publicly traded company (i.e., their raison d'etre is to make money, just like Red Hat and soon VA Research), so it comes as no surprise that they'd like to focus a group that they formed on the business side of things. As a fan of capitalism, I think this sounds much more appealing than Yet Another open source mutual wankfest.
Cheers,
ZicoKnows@hotmail.com
One can only hope. I'd like to see Philips open up their hardware more, they make some good stuff.
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Open mind, insert foot.
I also had problems understanding exactly what they are trying to do here... If you go to the fact sheet it just lists the names of the advisory council members (again). Sure, they have a nice mixture of companies and influences, but most of the members are CEO's. I guess we just have to have faith in the members that we know we can trust, Torvalds, Hall, etc.. that they will keep this thing on the right track.
Can I complement you on your flaming skills?
Most people might've fallen into the trap of
attacking BSD, thus fuelling his paranoia and
lending weight to his criticisms. But you
very precisely attacked him and only him.
If only more people knew how to flame
responsibly, we'd avoid having so many flame
wars.
I was impressed by the very balanced mix of members. KDE and GNOME. Debian and Redhat. Penguin and VA. Yes, it would have been nice if a FSF member were included, but it looked like they were concentrating on Linux in particular and not free/open software in general.
I'm just wondering what they'll do?
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
There is supposed to be an audiocast of the meeting but instead of a link to the location they have a pair of brackets? I guess somebody forgot to fill that in before sending out the press release!
To quote verbatim:
"This event is a unique opportunity for leaders in the Linux community to meet and discuss ways to ensure the success of the operating system (OS), and to accelerate the development of the OS and its applications."
further:
"In addition, the forum will provide a central voice for the open source community."
That does not sounds strictly commercial to me, unfortunately. In my mind, the success of the OS depends not on groups like Corel, but on the programming community which created this thing in the first place and whose motivation is being slowly eroded by closed-source competition (like Corel's WordPerfect, which despite the noble talk about following what Corel's own CEO calls the "ideology" of the Linux movement, won't be even Open Source(tm), much less free.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
It's a Linux Advisory Council, not a Open-Source Advisory Council.
Go away, troll.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
>In addition, the forum will provide a central voice for the open source community
You may be right, they do state in the article that they are concerned with commercial aspects, but not specifically. And the above statement would mean not specifically Linux either.
I am greatly pissed off because Corel did not invite me to the Advisory Board. You should be pissed off, too.
'scuse me?
Is this the same Debian that has been getting slammed for being too militantly free? Is this the same Debian that is considered to be a marginal player because it isn't commericial enough? Is this the same Debian that is the only Linux distribution to carry the word "GNU" in the name? Is this the same Debian that is the only Linux distribution worthy of carrying the GNU name (IMHO, of course)? Is this the same Debian that wouldn't include KDE because it wasn't careful enough about free software licenses? Is this the same Debian that refuses to ask for permission to ship software that is "free so long as you ask", on the grounds that it isn't free to re-redistribute?
No, I think you'll find that Debian is still rather more careful about remaining free than most distibutions are; talk to the developers; if you don't get laughed at or ignored as a troll (which you are, BTW), they'll tell you that Corel!=Debian, even if Corel is based on Debian.
I think you'll also find, should you ever care to become educated, that freedom includes the right to build a commercial product on top of a free product, so long as the relevant licenses aren't violated. One of Debian's original goals was to build a system that others would be free to use for any purpose; this includes building a commercial distribution on top of it. You'll also find, should you care to look, that Corel is doing a *lot* of work under the GPL, including wine and winelib. I personally think Corel "gets it" better than most, and is actually leading the pack when it comes to commercial software companies and free software.
I look forward to the day when I can give my father a Debian CD set with Word Perfect and erase Windows from his hard drive.
That is just so naive.
The minute Microsoft walks away from the DOJ case - regardless of the outcome - they are going to come down hard on the open source community.
I'm not only talking about FUD; they'll be vigorously protecting all their intellectual property. You can also expect to see a number of free software packages withdrawn as the copyright holders are sued for infringement of Microsoft patents etc.
This is going to be very bloody and if we don't at least keep up our end of propaganda war - and that means fighting dirty, just like they will - we will lose everything we have gained so far. Just remember they have billions of dollars to lose, and a legal obligation to protect their shareholders' investment with any means at their disposal.
Faced with an onslaught like that I don't think moral high ground is going to be a winning factor somehow.
Consciousness is not what it thinks it is
Thought exists only as an abstraction
--Nicholas Petreley
My apologize to fat Lithuanian midgets and the women who love them for using them in a humorous post. If you are a fat Lithuanian midget or a woman who loves one, I hope you'll notice that I positioned you as superior to the rest of the human race in an attempt to offset the potential offense. If it didn't work, I suggest you boycott whomever it is that makes you feel better to boycott.
Yup - companies don't generally make investment decisions based on dejanews or altavista search results and informal e-mail with package maintainers.
This Linux Council provides a way for a company to send over their CEO and VPs and chat about Linux with other bigwigs over a nice lunch. It also allows Linux folks to promote open source development right at the top.
The only real equivalent right now is probably RedHat's marketing department, so a vendor neutral group seems like a good thing.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
This is like the jedi council and Linus is yoda.
That was a joke right? Look closer it says Zenguin.
Debian is represented there, i'm sure debian would always act in the best interest of FSF. It's also nice to see Gnome and KDE represented on this board. Anyway, this is a good thing, I hope the best for Corel and wish them luck with their new dist (which hopefully would be pretty stable due to debian's stability, build a good gui on top of that and you got yourself a nice OS).
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They can have whoever they want on their little board. Given that this is a Corel effort, I wouldn't count on said board even existing in twleve months, so there's no need to get in a tizzy.
Your post reminded me of my college days, when the campus nazis insisted that any decision making board have "representation" from groups X,Y and Z (you fill in the blanks).
I was amazed to see Philips was on this list.
I had a hard time with their "Brilliance" screens, that are the winmodems of screens.
(they need software called customax)
I've been fighting trapezoid shapes until I gave up and settled for a lower resolution and scan rate,
because they're "customax" is windows only.
I found a reference for OS/2 but the actual driver could not be found.
Since I live in Israel I have to contact their middle-east support center,
which is conveniently loacted in Saudi Arabia.
They don't have email addresses for support not sales nor anything,
So I couldn't even had the pleasure of hearing that they don't have plans to support linux.
My opinion is,
that they only want their name to be on "a linux thing" because "linux is THE buzzword and we like buzzwords".
I say, until they prove to help linux, just fuck 'em.
---
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I'm going to live forever, or die in the attempt.
The desktop isn't the only missing piece. Some others are:
;-), since most of them don't even know what a Journaling FS is.
* Broader hardware support (eg. USB, MPEG-2, bleeding edge video and sound support)
* Better support for highly SMP systems (16 processors and up)
* Better support for huge files and memory
* Journaling FS
* Better ACL support
* Better Palmtop/small graphics support
All of these are being worked on. Most of these can even be managed now, but with a lot of convolutions. The desktop is all that's needed to get the Press in line (and maybe a bribe or two
----
Open mind, insert foot.
Yes, THAT Debian!
There is little chance its developers will laugh at my earlier post, as you mention. From way back then, I was a Debian developer also, from way back in time, when we had one mailing list for everything. We grew up together, but from now we will grow appart.
Something in the article made me say, "Hmmmm":
"The Corel Linux Advisory Council will attempt to address issues and propose solutions to create an environment which helps Windows(r) operating system vendors to understand the possibilities of Linux...."
/* Deep breath, asbestos underwear on */
The wording makes this group sound a little like a counter for the recently-announced Microsoft Linux disadvisory group. I don't know if this is a Good Thing(tm) or a Bad Thing(tm). Is this group going to be focused on advocating Linux, attacking Windows, or both?
If the group intends to attack Windows, I wonder if The Linux Community, Inc. really wants to play that game. It might give them less room to complain about MS FUD attacks. It also means taking on one of the most well-funded PR machines of our time.
Perhaps it would be better to take the high road and talk about what Linux CAN do -- leaving out the "...and Windows can't".
I also wonder if they will concentrate on technical OS features, or the overall benefits of using Free Software. That's probably a whole 'nuther issue, though.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
This thread has pretty much answered some questions raised by Corel's press release announcing our Linux Advisory Council meeting June 14-15, but I'd like to clarify a few points...
Corel's goal in setting up the Council is to bring leading Linux and OSS community members together to discuss our Linux initiatives, the direction of the platform, what needs to be done to strengthen it and promote it, and how to best meet the needs of users. Obviously, we're also interested in getting feedback that will help us develop and market our products more successfully. But the main point of this meeting is to get together a good representative group of Linux and OSS advocates and developers for constructive discussion - people and organizations who have the welfare of Linux at heart, who want to see its continued growth and prosperity.
Part of the meeting agenda is slated for discussion of how commercial Linux development intersects with OSS development. We believe that the development of a broad range of applications and the refinement of the Linux desktop are critical to accelerating its wide-scale adoption as a mainstream OS. And we think that the participation of vendors like Corel and those represented on the Council will help key that effort. But this meeting is foremost an exchange of ideas. While we're going to try to get it right from the start, this will be one of the first meetings of its kind and, realistically, we're not going to cover every issue or community concern in one session. We hope to continue with these Advisory Council meetings in the future, and build on what we share and learn.
ZDNet News (http://www.zdnet.com/zdnn) and ZDTV Radio will be hosting an hour-long live webcast interview with Council members and Corel representatives on Tuesday, June 15 starting at 3 p.m. ET. Within the next couple of days, Corel's Linux Users Network community Web site (http://linux.corel.com) will have an e-mail link for advance submission of questions for the panel.
Mark Lipson
Manager, On-line Communications
Corel Corporation
im not sure where i read about this before but i think, esr is gonna be there too.
While there are representatives of other open source products on the market, one contingent is conspicuously missing: BSD UNIX. It appears that Corel has intentionally excluded the developers and users of a flavor of UNIX that's markedly superior to Linux. Why?
--Brett Glass
Bash anyone who dares to point out that Linux isn't the only option -- and that it's an inferior one, at that. Your responses, and the others above, exemplify the duplicitous behavior of the "Linux Faithful." You have nothing with which to defend your religion, or your promotion of your attempts to hitch yourself to the Linux bandwagon, but flames.
--Brett Glass
Debian choose to sit on a council that is commercial in nature and aims to pave the way for Corel's proprietary products (paradox, wp, etc,.). The goal is not free-software. The goal is to turn Linux into a Windows98 that has ls, sed, cat, and an /etc directory. The press release mentions vaguely about "core principles" of the Linux community, but not a single word about free software. This is what comes across to us who are Debian users: screw free-software if we must, we would rather make Debian famous!
IMHO, this is a Good Thing (TM) for Linux.
They've been very careful to attack the messenger rather than addressing the issue.
Fact is, Corel is hurting itself by embracing Linux rather than BSD UNIX, because the GPL -- which is designed to prevent it from profiting from its work -- will undermine its efforts.
Rather a shame. I'd wanted to see Corel arise as a worthy competitor in the marketplace. Alas, it's unable to "think different."
--Brett Glass
Actually, I'm not surprised that so many companies have signed onto the GPL/Linux scam. It's exactly the same foolishness that caused so many of them to fall into the trap of developing for Windows exclusively, not long ago, even though Microsoft's intentions were clearly hostile.
The GPL is likewise hostile to these companies, and they'll be caught short by that in good time. Sorry if you, and others in various online fora, are so unable to stand hearing the truth that you attempt to shout it down.
--Brett Glass
What we need is a voice, maybe several, to look out for the end users. To make anything commercial, you need a company that will chase after details.
"Chasing after details" has been neglected in favor of rushing out the latest and greatest kernel, kde, glibc, etc.
Linux has just been impossibly difficult these last few months.
I mean, I hate to start that old flame war up again, but it'd be nice if there were more than one "free speech" advocate on the board- or even anyone with a political agenda at all. While I generally agree with RMS, this board (which seems mainly corporate) doesn't even have an OSI representative- so the politics of free software are likely to be completely swamped by making money, which is undeniably Corel's goal. Even if you don't agree about the politics, we must remember that there *are* politics to this- we *are* trying to change the way people think and do business, not just provide a new method by which the old forms can attempt to make profits.
~luge
IAAL,BIANLY
Corel forms this Advisory Council to address the deperate "Desktop" issue (i.e., application software for business people), which is now considered the main if not the only missing piece for Linux to achieve World Dominance.