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Corel Linux coming Online - NOT
Several people wrote in to point out that Corel appears to be uploading Corel Linux to
their FTP servers. I see no official announcement from Corel yet on their site as of yet, but we'll update the story when it comes out. Check out their current sneak preview online.Update: 11/04 04:14 by H :Thanks to MarkLCorel for sending us update - Corel will be kicking off their distro on Nov. 15 @ Comdex, complete with party and Webevent. Neat - however, the current material online is just testing stuff - so stop downloading already.*grin*
Sure, maybe it'll start this way for Corel, but they have much to learn. However, donating help to the Wine project is way cool.
Mostly, the licensing will tell. I'm sure they'll have to release some of their enhancements. KDE is GPL'ed, any kernel patches which aren't modules will have to be released, and technically any GPL'ed modified and distributed packages will have to as well. (either they're exactly the same as Debian's, which is fine, or they need to show us the source.)
A lot of people would be thrilled for a decent, native Office port to Linux. Or, for that matter, IE5. However, I'll stick to WordPerfect 8 or StarOffice for now, and I personally prefer Netscape, and like Mozilla. :) I hope no one would turn away from Linux just because Microsoft ports products to it. That's stupid. You don't have to buy them... (besides, what's the likelihood that they could do a decent Unix port? IE5 for Unix blows chunks!)
Sure, Linux is cool and all, but if a company really wanted to release an expensive Unix OS and not worry about all this crap, they'd base it on *BSD. (just like MacOS X, where Macintosh releases whatever bits of code they want to, and holds onto the good stuff) Since Corel is basing it on Linux, they are showing some commitment to releasing source code, and we'll just have to make sure they understand the distinction.
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pb Reply rather than vaguely moderate me.
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate.
C'mon, guys -- Beta Two just went out to testers DAYS ago. Keep your pants on. It'll get finished eventually, but I can guarantee you it's not done yet.
A few new files sitting on an FTP server do not an early release make -- especially when one of the new files says in plain English "This is not Corel Linux."
Fact checking is a good thing in the journalism biz.
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Consult, v. t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
The point of the exersize, from Corel's perspective, is the bundled "Corel Office Suite". So no, the whole distro won't be free software.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
That's exactly my point. The probability of Adobe entering the Linux market is nill, and you can be damn sure Microsoft isn't going to buddy up with Linux any time soon. So? That means Corel has an edge over these other companies, and pretty much says "nyah nyah, I did this and you didn't."
And if the other companies DO join the bandwagon, they'll be accused of following suit. POOF. Instant PR for Corel.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
If you need something now, it's a no-brainer. Go with Caldera. You can always change your mind once Corel's is released.
For what it's worth, though, I can report the Corel's Beta 2 installs and runs just peachy on an IBM ThinkPad 600, with only a couple minor snags, which I'm sure will be ironed out before release.
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Consult, v. t. To seek another's approval of a course already decided on.
That's Debian, not anything else.
Note that this is a longstanding well known fact. See the April 21 Strategic Alliance Between Corel, KDE and Debian announcement.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
There is a problem with the Corel company and internationalization issues. One of the reasons for an almost 100% success of Microsoft in the office markets in countries like Poland was the speed in which they internationalized their products(*). Corel was always lagging, or failed to do so at all. By internationalization I not only mean translating help messages - there are basic issues like displaying special characters. Do you know that you can type the polish "ogonki" in WordPerfect for Linux only with one font? All others display them not correctly (esp. the slashed 'l') or don't display them at all.
I wonder whether this will be also a problem with the Corel distribution, which is clearly aimed in the first place at american market. There is no problem with the internationalisation of RedHat, Debian, and SuSE does a great job in translating it's yast into a couple of dozens different languages. And one of the success of Linux in countries like Poland, Japan or Russia is it's flexibility in this respect.
See: Corel's Contributions to the Wine Project
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Its high quality - Dell Inspiron 7000. I believe the 7500 is the same thing, with the newer graphics chip (which I have, ATI Rage mobility-P) and same or faster CPU (400mhz). I was able to get FreeBSD and Caldera both on, but still having pains getting the xfree86 config file working. For some reason, just not getting the tricks on the linux laptop pages to work... xfree4 should support it, so if I don't get to an installafest for help...
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
Well Corel is contributing extensively in the Wine project. Their contribution is valuable in both running other Windows-software on Linux and developing winelib for porting Windows software to Linux.
IMHO Wine is an important piece of software to help people to move away from Windows. Most have at least one critical app that they have to run on Windows. That's a major reason not to change OS. Wine can break that hinder and help Linux gain more users.
Um, doesn't it count that Corel will be 'giving back' a *real* office suite and graphics tools?
Sure, they're not open source. It just means they have to work *all* that much harder to compete with an open source alternative. But if in the end they make a product that much better and useable, than the open source version, then everyone wins. I'd certainly pay to get the best; if open source was the best, I certainly use that. Currently Photoshop best suits my needs, not GIMP, so I Photoshop!
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Here's why business can be a win-win.
Corel gains marketshare and profit. They stay alive, and their engineers & families get to eat.
Corel gains mindshare and access to a strong community; the issue with a strong community is that they have to be strong members...
We get access to a world class office suite and graphics hardware, which Linux is sorely lacking. So it's not Open. If Open is in their best interest and they know it, they Open; if it isn't, they don't. If it is and they don't know it, everyone suffers
We get a 'friendly' OS along with a powerful one: Linux, and Debian to boot
We get the stability, reliability, and open nature of Linux
So everyone wins if Corel pulls this off.
-AS
-AS
*Pikachu*
Ask Ean @ Novare; I believe he's known as "Special Advisor" for SPI.
There's a hot bed of Debian folk here in Dallas; probably a year and a half ago this was something of a hot topic, and Ean and I held somewhat varying positions, I being "less paranoid," and not a Debian participant, and he being "more paranoid," and heavily involved with Debian.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
hmm.. so which should I install.. Corel or Caldera? I want a nice, easy-to-use distribution for my laptop, so when I need to bounce in and get to work on vacations, or go show off Linux I can have a nice grapical front, but with the srong UNIX CLI and apps. Only problem so far is getting the video to work, but that either just takes messing with xfree's config file, or waiting for v4.
"Open Source?" - Press any key to continue
I get the impression that Corel is putting out a Linux Distribution, pushing WordPerfect for Linux, and contributing to the community just to thumb their nose at the other companies (i.e.: Microsoft) who can't edge into the market. Yeah, the Linux community is getting support from a big company, but it forces you to wonder why they're doing it. Look at the Beta of the Corel distribution. If they were really into the effort of Linux as LINUX instead of Linux as "just another product", they would have made damn sure nothing violated the licensing. But they're rushing.
Corel is running fast, and they're holding scissors. Let's hope they can jump where they might trip.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
Actually, it is based on Debian. Disclaimer: I haven't tried it. It is different from Debian first of all because it incorporates KDE; Debian does not include KDE because of potential legal issues (no flamewars, just a fact). Corel has also apparently put quite a bit of effort into the areas of both installation and configuration, creating some KDE-based front-ends that look quite nice from the screenshots. It is also presumably different from Debian because Corel will provide official support for your purchase, whereas Debian does not market or officially support their product.
I've heard great things about Debian, and since Corel is based on Debian, would it make much sense to install a minimal Corel to take advantage of the easy install, then use Debian's package manager to keep everything up to date in the future?
I've got a Debian CD on its way to me right now, and I can't wait to give it a shot. Red Hat's been good, but I want to try out something else.
If tits were wings it'd be flying around.