Slashdot Mirror
Corel Linux Beta Program
Gameaholic writes "Corel is currently looking for beta testers for the upcoming Corel® LINUX® operating system. Corel LINUX is a Linux distribution specifically designed for desktop computer users. It is based on Debian and includes KDE as well as new applications and enhancements from Corel. " The battle for the desktop continues.
Ok, I'm all for yet another distribution... and I think Corel has the punch to pull it off. What I really want is a distribution that is friendly, simple, and pretty enough that my mom will go get it, install it, and run it.
:)
Right now we have several niches... Slackware for the "I want to do it all myself" hardcore type, redhat and mandrake for the middle of the crowd bunch who either don't have the time or inclination or just plain want a "push button" install but still want a nice hackerish system, and debian for the long-haired suspender-wearing "here's a nickel, kid, buy yourself a better computer" crowd that wants an easy to build, clean system with all the power and a lot less glitz. What we still don't have (although redhat and mandrake seem to be trying to get there) is a distribution for our moms. Maybe Corel can fill that niche, maybe not, but at the very minimum anything they do to move towards that is good for the linux community as a whole.
Best of all, if Corel just manages to pull it off my mom just might quit calling me and asking me to troubleshoot her windows problems.
-- Gary F.
Among the FAQ's is:
I suspect this one falls into the old "RTFM" category.
D. Keith Higgs
CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library
My office has been taken over by iPod people.
Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvolds, at least in the U.S.A. Technically Corel is a Canadian company, but I suspect that they will abide in general by U.S. trademark laws, since a large percentage of their business is with the U.S.
According to their FAQ, they won't release source code until they make their final release. Doesn't that violate the GPL? I thought you always had to release source if you released binaries...
The cake is a pie
But the thing I see people overlooking is the fact that this is most likely a limited beta program. From the site:
Ok so now everyone on /. is rushing in their forms, etc. You have to pause and think that Corel more than likely doesn't want too many geekmeisters like most slashdotters testing the thing. Yeah, there will be openings, but I bet that they are more interested in useability testing and interface bugs than security right now. What i'm attempting to drive at here is that their server is probably being swamped by the /. effect and thus making it difficult for johnny aolScriptKiddie to sign up for the program. now i'm not saying that johnny is any better at using linux than the general reader around here, but hey, this might be a way to pull johnny out of his stupidity as an AOL lamer and maybe get him on a decent OS and possibly let him learn a few new things too. I guess what I'm saying is that, from the perspective of the general advancement of linux, this story shouldn't have been posted: simply because of the tendancy /. has to flood sites with eager people.
I don't know that Corel is having any problems, although I did read someone's post about having script errors on the beta submission page... I'd have to guess that they are feeling some strain.
So for linux's sake, don't slashdot Corel!! :-)
just my $0.34
(oh, and sorry about the italic tags. This post is not lynx compatible. :-)
From a motherboard manual, error beep codes: S-L-L-L-SS: Speaker Error
Not really. Some idiot tried to trademark "Linux" as a music-related term, and then sue Linux the kernel for infringement. As part of the settlement, the trademark was assigned to Linus, so Linus now owns a worthless trademark for the word "Linux" that only applies to some narrow music-related field. Even if it was broader, the trademark would be unenforceable by now, since Linus has not vigorously protected it (barely at all). Does Debian have a written contract allowing them to use the term Linux? What about Red Hat? SuSE? Slackware? If not, they're all in violation of the trademark, and since Linus hasn't done anything bout it, his claim on the trademark can be assumed to have been reliquished.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
OK, they made a few boo-boos regarding forms and generic requirements documents. Please consider that the office staff don't necessarily understand Windows or Linux, they've been given boiler-plate copy by someone who does, and they'll have to get new boiler-plate now.
They'll also have to comply with existing software licenses - which means if any Beta tester asks them for the source of an already GPL-ed program that Corel is distributing, Corel will have to give it to them. It might take a bit of explaining to get this through to them, but the Debian folks can handle that quite well. If Corel wants to put the GPL on any entirely new stand-alone software, it's Corel's choice when they do that, and they have the right to hold back the source until the GPL goes on it.
Expect some growing pains as a formerly windows-centric company ventures into Linux. Give them a little time.
Bruce Perens
Bruce Perens.
Actually I don't believe that is correct at all. From what I remember, the person who filed the original trademark that prompted the court case that ended with the trademark being assigned to Linus specifically claimed the trademark on "computer operating system software" and then tried to hold up the Linux distributers and book publishers for money. You may be getting the "Apple Records" vs. "Apple Computer" case confused with this one here.
As for having to "vigorously protect" a trademark, IANAL, but I don't see Debian, Red Hat, SuSE or Slackware (or any of the other distros I know about) as having tried to usurp the trademark. They are not calling something that is not Linux, "Linux". Furthermore, every Linux distro I've seen has specifically acknowledged Linus as owning the trademark, and as being the original author of the Linux kernel. I don't believe that you necessarily need a contract, written or otherwise, for using a trademark provided you do so within the framework of the trademark law.
So therefore I'd say that no enforcement action on Linus's part has been necessary, so there would be no reason to assume that his trademark has been relinquished.
At any rate, if a trademark is relinquished because of falling into general use, it means that nobody else can claim that term as a trademark.
If someone has good reason to believe I'm wrong (especially a lawyer), then let's hear why...
So yeah, there has to be something made clear here: part of the reason Debian works so beautifully is that the distribution itself consists of ~3000 packages maintained by various people, all held to the same standards.
:)
:), the first thing I do is a
... I do :) in like 4 months, since there hasn't been a working version of gtkglarea. Unlike RedHat, there's no rufus repository with tons of builds of different versions of everything. On the other hand, in my experience (ran RedHat for a long time) a lot of stuff on Rufus didn't work because it was impossible to meet its dependency requirements, since there was no central control over the type of machine it was built on. In Debian, the latest version of each package in the Stable or Unstable (woohoo unstable!) trees is always built to work with the latest of everything else. It's only because of this that the auto-installed dependency thing works at all.
... let me set up a masquerading ppp line machine in about 3 minutes (of course less 45 minutes toying with isapnp to get the bloody pnp modem to work :). I just answered the config questions, gave it the network info, phone number, account, and password, and BANG! it worked. Hehe, way easier than doing the same thing years ago under Slack 3.2 :)
:) It's pretty ugly, and not to be approached if you mind rtfm'ing ...
The result is that for 99.5% (at least that's the number on my system) of stuff you want, you use the distro's official version/build, which is guaranteed to work perfectly. On my system, I have ~530 packages installed. There are only 3 that are not native Debian packages -- the only 3 things I've found that I wanted that weren't available. So I downloaded the rpm and installed 'em with alien
It's kind of a similar philosophy to BSD, in that the OS consists not just of a kernel and a set of basic stuff, but of everything. In a BSD this is true because everyone's running THE official BSD -- no distros. In Debian, there's the same kind of mentality. By comparison, RedHat's distro is sparse (granted most of the difference is in packages that very very very few people are interested in).
Whenever I find out about a new program I find I need (happens all the time, this is Linux after all
dpkg -l "*progname*"
to see if there's already a Debian package. Exactly 3 times, there hasn't been one. If Debian wasn't behind on processing developer applications (they're focusing efforts on catching up with bug reports) I'd have already built debs for these apps.
Sometimes the system doesn't work so well: as an example, there hasn't been a working version of XTraceroute (maybe you don't consider that essential
The result is impressive.
I've run a lot of both distros. I came to the conclusion Debian was superior because it has everything in a compatible, working version. That makes my life a lot simpler. In addition, Debian packages have Config scripts that make setting up a lot of stuff stuff easy even if you're not familiar with the specific config file formats
Man, that was way offtopic. I do intend to try Corel's stuff tho. I hope the license on their config stuff is good, cause Debian's idea of a "user-friendly" install is, the "voice" of the person who asks you various questions and tells you what's going on (in text mode) during the install, is pretty chatty and likable
IANAL either, but I thought that it was required to license a trademark in order to sell a product using that trademark as a name. RedHat labels its products as "RedHat Linux," not "RedHat OS which contains the Linux(r) kernel." If Red Hat wants to call their product itself "Linux," and Linux is a registered trademark, I think it would be necessary to obtain a license to do so (perhaps for free, but it'd still have to be done officially).
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
(whether they know it or not).
I am seeing a lot of posts here to the effect "Corel Linux is designed for newbies, and so Beta Testers should be newbies." While I can see the angle these people are coming from (and i suspect Corel agrees with them) may I beg to differ?
I think that Corel Linux should have a large number of Wizard level Beta testers. Certainly a lot of newbies need to test it to, but I think at least half of the users should be experienced Linux users.
Why? First, because It is not impossible for an experienced user to construct a simple interface. If it is, we are all doomed. Bluntly, an experienced user who is bothering to consider user interface issues will come up with BETTER suggestions than a non-experienced user, simply because of his wider experience.
Second, Experienced users might actually fix the bugs!. An novice user is unlikely to fix a bug, even if it's just a missing entries on the start menu! Certainly, any non-transparent bug will not be diagnosed in a meaningful way.
Third, An experienced user will do a better job of reporting the bug. C'mon -- how many of us have gotten help desk calls to the effect of "It doesn't work right".
Finally, a non-experienced user will accept bugs that an experienced linux user would not. People who've never run Linux before are used to rebooting their computers three times a day!!! They will accept bugs that I would report (and likely fix).
For the reading impaired: I am not saying corel needs no novice users -- I'm just saying that's not ALL they need.
If Corel Linux is going to be a success in the market they are aiming for, it needs to be much better than windows. Making it better from a novice users point of view is going to be an uphill battle -- the things novice users care most about (pretty pictures) are already reasonably well done in Windows. Corel need all the help they can get if they are going to compete.
-- Slashdot sucks.
Actually, I think that is just a generic page that is used for all of their Beta programs. I don't think that Corel Linux requires Windows. I can't think of any legitimate reason it might.
Love the generic (and incorrect) links on the side of the page linked to above - specifically "Minimum Requirements". Guess I don't meet them,
as I don't have "Windows® 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT® (4.0)" installed.
Even the actual form is rather silly. "TSRs"? "Windows version"? "Type of documents you produce"? The first two are pointless for evaluating
a Linux product and the third's probably cut from a form about Wordperfect. I really hope Corel's actual distribution is a lot well thought out than
their web site advertising the beta test is.
Still, the FAQ link is somewhat encouraging, though there are potential problems with this:
| Will Corel be releasing the source code for applications it has created such
| as the Corel File Manager?
| Corel will be making the source code available for such applications. The
| exact terms of the license under which the source code
| will be distributed has not yet been announced.
People who care won't like it unless it's GPL.
-- Rick
I am wondering why a Beta Test has to be closed to only a few chosen applicants? Is the spirit of open source to allow everyone access to your code for peer review?
Of course it requires windows! That way for each beta tester they get that is one LESS windows user out there.
It's brilliant!
Now lets see we need about 80 million beta testers......
Bitcoin pyramid: Join here: http://www.bitcoinpyramid.com/r/1427 it's FREE!
I've noticed a lot of posts commenting on their beta test requirements. In paticular the windows requirement. I don't think it's a typo, or an out of date page. The Corel distribution is "specifically designed for desktop computer users."
I think really what they mean is that it is meant for people migrating from Windows desktops to Linux. So, if you're not running Windows now, they won't be able to guage the friendliness of the migration. Let alone if you don't even have Windows, you won't run into configuration problems if you're a Linux wiz who wants to go mess with Corel's config files.
The same applies for Macs.
Joseph Elwell.
Corel is a familiar name to most Windows users, definately the most visible software company (besides the recent marketing of RHAT) to jump in with both feet. Seeing them get serious about Linux could be a VGT in winning some converts. I think they're on track... a beta now, a release before the EOY... most of the work has already been done by those of us using Debian GNU/Linux (on which CL is based). I would guess the 'beta' part would be the installation and package management. Debian is fantastic 'under the hood,' but the face is pretty ugly. If Corel could beautify the interface on apt and the installation, that'd be marvelous. Imagine this: a five CD set, with CL, CorelDraw/Linux, Corel Office/Linux, for $99. Think a lot of people would jump at the chance to have practically all the software they'd ever need for $99? I'd be quite interested in that. Linux needs Corel Draw, and could use a great distro that isn't RedHat. It'll make RH, Caldera, SuSE, and the rest better. Competition is good. And Corel gets points for using the fantastic Debian package system, allowing for painless software installation and upgrades, something the other commercial distros sorely lack.