Corel Wordperfect Office 2000 for Linux Beta Test

KiWiB0RG writes "Corel has opened Wordperfect Office 2000 for beta testing. The only requirements is that you run Linux, using kernel 2.0.30 or greater, and have experience in one of these software packages -> Wordperfect, Quattro Pro, Corel Presentations, CorelCentral and/or Paradox. "

Comments

Bah

[rosewood]

Finally I can do my homework in linux

Re:Bah

[m3000]

You could have used Star office. That's what I use.

Re:Bah

[Uart]

I've been doing _MY_ homework in Linux for over a year now. WordPerfect 8, StarOffice, the GIMP pretty much covers what I need for school.

Re:Bah

[MattXVI]

No kidding! WP 2000 for papers and reports, and Mathematica has been available on Linux for years. Also, homework is so much easier on a platform on which I own no games...

Re:Bah

[Goonie]

If you need Mathematica to do your analysis, you need (La)TeX for your presentation.

Re:Bah

[jilles]

and what do you use to share our documents with your classmates?

Re:Bah

[jilles]

and what do you use to share your documents with your classmates?

damn should 've used the preview :(

Re:Bah

[preed-man]

Output everything to Postscript.

Force them to find an interpreter; there's even ghostscript for Win32.

That's what I do with my physics labs; of course, it's physics with other geeks who know what Postscript actually is, but...

Re:Bah

[jilles]

You'd be a terrible person to work with. Suppose we'd be writing a report together. And I'm not using TeX, are you going to put me in position where I either remove all the gibberish from a stupid ascii file and then do the layout manually or will you let me print your document and let me figure out how to integrate the printed version with the document. Duh.

Postscript is not a format that's very suitable for editing. TeX is particularly lousy for exchanging documents. Basically all the exports to other wordprocessor fileformats are
A one way, no way to read back an rtf file and maintain the layout
B pretty lousy (HTML, rtf, wordperfect)

"That's what I do with my physics labs; of course, it's physics with other geeks who know what Postscript actually is, but..."

I know what postscript is and I know its only good for forwarding it to the printer (if your lucky enough to have a postscript printer). I found that ghostscript reads most but not all posscript so in most cases it is possible to get a printed version of the document.

Re:Bah

[MattXVI]

Every time I've asked a professor to email me an assignment, they have always sent a Tex file. They just assume you have access to a Linux system. BTW as far as I have seen there is no free Tex interpreter for Win32. Maybe I'm wrong. Anyway, Tex is standard.

Re:Bah

[Fnkmaster]

For physics and other scientific documents, there's really no alternative to TeX for now. And for that matter, for that type of document, TeX is exactly what's called for. Symbol heavy, text light documents with lots of funky characters where exact layout matters, and presentation style is important, and maximum flexibility is required -- that's what TeX does well, and that's why we (physicists) use it. Obviously Postscript isn't a good format for document exchange since it's not exactly human-editable.

Re:Bah

[Anonymous Coward]

There are several TeX interpreter in Win32. MikTeX is just one and I happen to be using it, w/ NTEmacs of course

Re:Bah

[elflord]

You'd be a terrible person to work with. Suppose we'd be writing a report together.

If you're writing a report together and you need to use mathematica, then you are probably both using TeX. If you are writing a document that has a lot of math in it, a conventional word processor is not up to the task ( not even close ). People who are writing the report need to use a decent tool for the job. People who are merely reading the report can use a PS or PDF viewer.

Re:Bah

[SoftwareJanitor]

Obviously you aren't really a student. If you were, you'd know that in the academic world teamwork is called 'cheating'. Code re-use is called 'plagurism'.

In case you are wondering, this is called 'sarcasm'. But only slightly.

...

[Signal 11]

If I find Clippy in this thing....

--

Anyone heard anything from Corel on this?

[PsychoKiller]

Just thought I'd ask... I applied 2 days ago, and haven't heard from them yet.

It would have been nice to get an automatic notice saying that it is being processed.

Compatibility issues...

[ColinG]

...will this have good import filters for Microsoft office as well as Star Office files?
It would really be good to have all my files accessible on one place...
Another question I have is does it co-operate with window managers... separate windows instead of the fake windows that StarOffice generates?
What about swap space? Again, compared to star office, is it still going to sink my 64 MB ram, 64 MB swap computer into oblivion?

That explains it.

[mrsam]

I've been wondering why Corel's stock has been on a tear this week. It almost doubled since August, with most of the gains coming in the last month.

One thing I didn't like about WP 8, and I hope that they fixed this in WP 2000, is that the Linux version of WP 8 was pretty much a port of the DOS/Win product that did not take advantage of the Linux platform. I really thought it was quite silly to have application-specific printer drivers and fonts, in this day and age. That's so... 80s.

I gave up on WP 8 when I realized that I was spending more time fiddling with the printer driver, then playing with the program. I also so that it was rather strange that a word processor does not have a "Print Preview" function. I managed to hack one up by setting up a postscript printer driver that fed ghostview. That was fun, but I don't think that Joe Sixpack should be expected to live with something like that.

Although I don't have the time to beta WP2000, I'll definitely give WP 2000 a spin once its available. Although I didn't end up liking WP 8 very much, it was definitely a solid product which I'll keep my eye on.

Wish list for WP (is it too late, for one?)

• Support for X or TT fonts.
• Remove all that nonsense with the printer drivers. Spit out Postscript, and let the printer driver handle it.
• How about a REAL print preview function?
• Work on the import of MS Word files? Last time I tried it, WP completely butchered a rather simple Word document.
• A cuddly penguin, scribbling on a tablet, for a logo.
• An install script that automatically adds an icon or a menu entry for Gnome, KDE, or Afterstep. Come on, this is not rocket science. Took me a grand total of three minutes to figure out how to have my RPMs install the icons.

--

Re:That explains it.

[Spiv]

I also so that it was rather strange that a word processor does not have a "Print Preview" function.

I suspect the idea is that you're using a WYSIWYG word processor, so Print Preview is redundant. You want to see what's going to print, you zoom out to Full Page. I've found it works well for me.

Anyhow, I am looking forward to this. I have liked WP ever since I first used it (WP5.1), and I still like how it's a word processor which does what I tell it to, rather than deciding for me what I want done. (Unlike certain unnamed products).

Re:That explains it.

[MattXVI]

Well, There's more to a print preview than that, though, isn't there? If you are in WSIWYG on your screen, that takes into account most formatting. But a print preview also takes into account the quirks of the printer driver. Those two things can be very different, even with high quality hardware and software.

Re:That explains it.

[MichaelH]

Remove all that nonsense with the printer drivers. Spit out Postscript, and let the printer driver handle it.

Uh, that's why there's a printer driver provided called... wait for it... "Generic Post Script Passthru". You just tell it which queue to which it should pass the output.
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net

Re:That explains it.

[Zagadka]

...the Linux version of WP 8 was pretty much a port of the DOS/Win product that did not take advantage of the Linux platform. I really thought it was quite silly to have application-specific printer drivers and fonts, in this day and age. That's so... 80s.

Don't get me wrong, I'll take Linux over Windows any day, but I'd have to say that one of Linux's weaknesses is no real support for system-wide printer drivers. Most Linux and Unix apps assume that you've got a PostScript printer. If you don't you have to use something like ghostscript to act as a filter for your printer.

There are numerous problems with this setup. For one thing, ghostscript is complicated, rather badly written in places, and crashes far more often than I'd like. To get an idea of how hokey the ghostscript code is, try compiling it with '-pedantic -Wall'. You'll see tonnes of "variable x may have not been initialized" warnings...

Using PostScript as the API for communicating printers is just a bad idea. PostScript is Turing complete. That means there's all sorts of analysis you simply can't do to the stream sent to the printer. It isn't even guaranteed that the printer will ever finish (the halting problem). It would be a lot simpler if there was a drawing API, sort of like a subset of X, but for paper. Or heck, an XML-based page description language. Just make sure it isn't Turing complete.

If Linux actually had decent printing system, then WordPerfect wouldn't need its own. As it is, printing is one of Linux's biggest weaknesses, IMHO.

Re:That explains it.

[Raven667]

Try looking at CUPS the Common UNIX Printing System. It aims to remove many of these shortcommings. CUPS is supposed to be able to give printer capability information back to the application, like every other OS, so that it is easy to change from Portrait to Landscape or whatever. It is compatable with BSD and SysV printing systems but its native protocol is the new IPP Internet Printing Protocol. I haven't had time to play with it but it looks like it should take Unix printing at least into the 90's.

Re:That explains it.

[tweek]

I've been testing out CUPS at home with my Epson Stylus Color 440. It prints jsut as slick as it does from the windows box. I think I'm going to have to buy a single user version now. The print drivers just kick entirely too much ass.
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece

Re:That explains it.

[jilles]

Your wysiwig screen may contain all sorts of stuff that won't make it to the paper (outlines of graphic frames, paragraph break characters, table cell borders, etc.). I is rather convenient to be able to switch to a screen that just shows what is going to be printed.

"I have liked WP ever since I first used it (WP5.1)"

hmm. I have had long sessions with wp5.1 where I tried to fix the layout after changing the printerdriver. I had this star lc 20 printer in those days, the driver for that printer sucked.

I never really liked the 6.0 dos version (my computer was too slow for it). Later when I got a computer with win 3.1, I tried some of the windows versions. They were rather poor at that time.

Eventually I installed word 6.0. Which was still a bit flaky. After that came word 95 which is the best word version I encountered. Word 97 is too bloated. Last year I installed framemaker. If you want consistent layout and a friendly GUI, framemaker is a good compromise.

My main problem with framemaker is that the user interface is a bit primitive compared to word and wordperfect. Basically it's apple interface ported too windows. As a result it is a bit flaky in the look and feel. But, hey, it works and it doesn't mess my generally complex documents up.

Re:That explains it.

[m2]

Just for the record, WP8 is essentially the only piece of Windows software that's still used by my sister... I know she'll be happy when WP2k/Linux comes out. I'll be happy to get rid of that I-have-window-manager-delussions piece of software on some boxes...

An install script that automatically adds an icon or a menu entry for Gnome, KDE, or Afterstep. Come on, this is not rocket science. Took me a grand total of three minutes to figure out how to have my RPMs install the icons.

(I don't use GNOME, I don't use KDE) AFAIK, with GNOME this might be possible in a distrubution neutral way, with KDE I don't have any idea, but with AfterSTEP and the like, you are getting dangeously close to distribution-specific stuff that I would not like to see in WP2k or any other product for that matter... and I'm a Debian user, I hope Corel has got some pretty decent working experience with Debian, they know for sure they have to stick one file in one directory to get the thing installed on every window manager's menu, but it's still distribution specific (darth! why won't the other distros see the light and admit that menu is a great idea...)

Re:That explains it.

[Anonymous Coward]

To get an idea of how hokey the ghostscript code is, try compiling it with '-pedantic -Wall'. You'll see tonnes of "variable x may have not been initialized" warnings...

There is no technicial problem in the following code, style is another issue, but compile it with 'gcc -pedantic -Wall' and gcc will complain "`x' might be used uninitialized in this function."

void program_exit(int);

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
int x;
if(argc > 1) x = argc -1;
else program_exit(0);
return(x);
}

void program_exit(int exit_status)
{
exit(exit_status);
}

Re:That explains it.

[SurfsUp]

I'm downloading CUPS now, BUT, as the site says:

The Common UNIX Printing System utilizes GNU GhostScript 4.03 to convert PostScript files into a stream of raster images.

So CUPS's function would appear to be to translate bitmap files into the (usually goofy) languages of various printers. This is an important function indeed, and providing such a function in Windows only, not in Dos, is one method Microsoft used to raise the barriers products that might have competed with Windows. (ramble: but in retrospect, THANKYOU Bill, for not making Dos useful enough to dominate forever. That's one down, one to go)

So, CUPS is another important piece in the puzzle for us. Now - why is CUPS 2.0-oriented and not 2.2? Is it time to pay more attention to the printer problem? Or should be wait until there are more newbies on board so that people are more in the mood to pay us for working on this gungy stuff?

Re:That explains it.

[Anonymous Coward]

I worked for the company that did the port for Corel. Here are some answers:

> Support for X or TT fonts

See http://members.bellatlantic. net/~smithrod/wpfonts.html for information about getting your fonts of choice in WP 8 for Linux.

> How about a REAL print preview function?

We only had a small handful of programmers, and most of our time was spent getting the port done, and working out the bugs. Basically, we took a subset of WP8 for Windows features, and ported them to the Unix version. We didn't have time for anything else.

> Work on the import of MS Word files?

We utilized a third party filtering program. We were lucky to even get MS Word 97 import functionality before release.

> An install script that automatically adds an icon or a menu entry for Gnome, KDE, or Afterstep.

I agree. I actually added this ability (for KDE at the time) as a post-install option, but it never made it in to the release. Oh well.

Part of the reason WP 8 for Linux works the way it does is because it is a legacy application. It has more than four million lines of code, and the engine was ported straight from assembly to C with as few changes as possible (to make code transplants easier during the assembly days). It was a pain to maintain, and Novell and Corel didn't put much money into it. I'm happy that it works as well as it does.

I hope that satisfies your curiosity :)

Re:That explains it.

[Zagadka]

There is no technicial problem in the following code, style is another issue, but compile it with 'gcc -pedantic -Wall' and gcc will complain "`x' might be used uninitialized in this function."

Yes, but if you look at the code in ghostscript, you'll see that it isn't a trivial situation like that. Most of the places I looked at had switch statements inside loops. I haven't investigated it in great detail, but it looked suspiciously like it was scanning though the input, and initializing certain variables in only some of the cases in the switch statement. If that's correct, then it's possible that invalid input would make ghostscript use the values of uninitialized variables.

Even if the code was correct at one point, I doubt that it is now. Bad style generally leads to errors, especially in programs that are old and have many maintainers.

Hrm.... blank page response?

[Nuke Skyjumper]

After filling out my beta test form and clicking 'submit', the document contained no data. re-submitting just told me i can't send it twice.

hrm.

Re:Hrm.... blank page response?

[snort]

i got that then i tried again and got an SQL error generated by MS SQL server blah if they're gonna do the linux thing, get rid of the MS crap jeez

Re:Compatibility issues... Yes.

[William Tanksley]

Yes, it'll have nearly perfect compatibility with MSWord -- WP 2000 is great on my (Windows) system. Microsoft keeps trying to change, but Wordperfect MUST be comatible of it's to survive.

Ack

[DonkPunch]

...couldn't complete the form... ...too many questions... ...stop... ...please... ...no more questions... ...Why do you need to know my blood type?... ...Why do I have to ask to beta-test your product?... ...Why are you being so picky about your testers?... ...I just want to help you make a better product... ...Please... ...I like WordPerfect... ...I have a registered version... ...I want to try the new version... ...no more questions... ...I give up...

Re:Ack

[wilkinsm]

...Why do you need to know my blood type...

It's a holdover from the Windows age, when they bundled crash insurance with the software licenses.

As Katz would say, welcome to the POST-Microsoft age.
*** BEEP! ***

Re:Ack

[Raven667]

I would like to try it to but their script crashed when I hit submit in KFM. I tried to go back and resend the form but got a MS ODBC error. I tried to go to the top level of the server and work my way down but they haven't even gotten rid of the Netscape Enterprise Server default homepage. Then I tried to complain about it on Slashdot last night and Blackbox WM crashed. Arrrgggghhhhh!!!!!

PS and By-The-Way: Anyone else having a problem with Blackbox & Netscape. Whenever I get a logon popup box in Netscape, Blackbox crashes taking every other window with it and dumping me back to KDM.

Re:Ack

[Raven667]

Disregard the previous message, I just hopped on over to the Blackbox website and saw that they have a newer version. The changelog states that they have applied a fix to this particular problem, I am recompiling now. BTW, thank god for setup.sh, it is automatically building a RPM from the tarball I downloaded to replace the Blackbox RPM that I have installed currently. Y'all should try it, setup.sh builds RPMS from any tarball that is built using GNU Autoconf and has a LSM file.

Re: OT Ofc97/2k bitching.

[Inoshiro]

Don't you mean clipit? Just click the X, it learns to F-off :-)
---

Lots of questions

[Anonymous Coward]

If the install is half as painful as the beta-test questionaire, I predict a failure.

Windows Version?

[Deus Optimus]

Anyone else find it disturbing that the application for a Linux product beta test indicates "Windows version" as a required field?

Re:Windows Version?

[Raetsel]

I think it's funny. They're stuck in a rut. Again. I applaud them for supporting OS-diversity, but perchance there are one too many windows-using drones in their marketing and legal departments...

Seems to me that Corel had this same stuck-in-the-(legalese)-mud when they released their distro beta. I'm sure you all remember.

Perhaps their marketing department isn't ready to believe that some people get along just fine without Microsoft's help. Naah... that'd never happen...

Having only briefly looked at the page, I think it'd be neat if the "Windows version" would accept an entry of "no." Or perhaps they're referring to a windows manager...? Either that, or they're weeding out the wanna-bes by watching for those who just blindly type "Windows 98" in there.

I mean, really, are windows users the kind of people you'd want testing your software??

Re:Windows Version?

[KenCrandall]

Heh,

I put XFree86 3.3.5 -- that's what I'm using...

- Ken

Re:Windows Version?

[ToadChild]

It also asks what TSR (Terminate and Stay Resident) programs you have running... and those are from way back when in the DOS days.

Re:Windows Version?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why don't you give Corel a little bit of credit. The fields obviously represent information that they feed to their bug-tracking database and if you fill in n/a I'm sure someone will "get it". I doubt they are going to create a brand new database just to make sure all of us linux crybabies aren't upset when we see scary words like Windows. If you don't want to take the time to supply useful information about yourself then you probably wouldn't take the time to submit a useful or complete bug report either.

Re:Windows Version?

[Anonymous Coward]

3.3.5. Why what version of Xwindows are you running?

WP 2000 for Win..

[apater]

We just started using this at work, and it has quite good import filters, as well as a lot of other things. I only hope the *nix version is faster. We have ancient P75's at work.

Re: OT Ofc97/2k bitching.

[coreybrenner]

> ... see also monoply. Umm... don't you mean monopOly? If you're going to make incendiary statements, do it well. :-) --Corey

Re: OT Ofc97/2k bitching.

[coreybrenner]

Well, I'll be goddamned. I clicked preview, and the thing looked just fine. I clicked submit, and it turned to shit.

Rob, fix it.

Wah.

--Corey

Link does not work..

[Axe]

... Overloaded?

Re:Link does not work..

[Deosyne]

The proper term is "Slashdotted" or "the Slashdot Effect". Its a common disorder that affects websites privelaged enough to be referenced in a Slashdot story; symptoms range from slow response to odd error messages. The Slashdot Effect has been known to cause sysadmins to go into screaming fits when their systems start crashing from the sheer mass of accesses while marketing people have been known to spontaneously erupt in orgasm when the Slashdot Effect passes through.

Of course, it could just be an NT server running normally. :)

Deosyne

Re:Link does not work..

[m3000]

Sorta off topic, but I was thinking about the slashdot effect in English yesterday. Our teacher was saying that words are made up a lot for specialized area's, or to teach something. So what immediatly popped to my mind was "slashdotted". It pratically is a word, if you know what it means. But to just about everyone who hasn't visted Slashdot, you'd have to explain it to them. And um, I'm stop babbling now. : )

Re:Link does not work..

[Anonymous Coward]

SHUT UP!

Wow, all of a sudden "Slashdot fx" is a "hip term".

Re:Link does not work..

[Baggio]

Hmmm... Netscape enterprise... http://nas.corel.com/ Server is doing fine, looks like they pulled the page...
Time flies like an arrow;

Re:Link does not work..

[Deosyne]

No, actually it was a cheap attempt to make someone laugh and raise my karma by posting something humorous, but I'm guessing that it fell flat on both accounts. My apologies for not being funnier; I will beat myself with a fish-scented rubber hose daily until I can correct this deficiency.

But only if you promise to start taking your medication like the nice doctor asked you to. :)

Deosyne

Re:That explains it... silighty off/on topic

[delld]

Here is something interesting on printing & linux off of the Corel job site... seems they are look'n for a print'n geek. ps. Any good - non listed - geek jobs available in ottawa??

[Offtopic (sorry)] Props to you

[GnrcMan]

I managed to hack one up by setting up a postscript printer driver that fed ghostview. That was fun, but...

Sorry, I was just struck by the little things that indicate a true hacker. You're cool!

--GnrcMan--

have you seen this?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know how many of you have tried to download the beta of WP2000, but they practically want to know when you first burped and last fucked (to quote some book I read sometime in the last 6 months or so).

First, they want name, address, etc. The standard stuff. CPU type, computer 'make and model number' whatever that means. CD-ROM type, printer make and model, printer ram, plotter or etc. How about your video card? Its ram? Your monitor make and model? How about mouse? And your sound card? Got a scanner? OS and version? (mind you, this is on a page that only lets you download a LINUX version of the software...what the fuck do they THINK my OS is?!?) Windows version? Isn't that covered in OS and version?!? Network? Scan software? HD and compression? Other TSRs? Font manager? They don't need half this stuff for legitimate development reasons.

I don't know how much this info's worth but I'll bet for the cost of pressing a CD (and they probably don't even do that. I'll bet you've got to download the software anyway) they get over $50 worth of information.

Sorry about the rant. Usually, I like Corel, and wordperfect in particular (though the windows versions have all sucked big-time. 5.1 for dos (IMNSHO) was the best one they made. Still use it, in fact) but this is such a blatant effort to invade my privacy, it's sickening.

Re:have you seen this?!?

[Yarn]

Maybe its to see if you're *REALLY* interested. It'd also be a good way to check that you know what you're talking about.

Re:have you seen this?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're going to be of any use as a beta tester, then all that information has a purpose. If you log a bug, the in-house QA team will use all of the information you suppplied to try to duplicate the problem. If you just want to get Wp2000 and just dick around with with it and not log any useful bugs, you're not really of any use to the beta program.

Re:have you seen this?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you considered lying?

Re:have you seen this?!?

[A. Lynch]

Granted, quite a few of the items aren't necessary. But it was almost the exact same template I filled out for the Corel Linux beta test. Which leads me to believe that its a standard form that Corel uses for all of its beta test.

And I don't blame them for not removing items, like the bit about TSR's. How hard is it to type n/a ? Or even be enterprising, and equate "TSR" with "daemon"?

Seriously, do you want your developers spending more time on developing or making sure the application for beta testers is perfect?

corel for java?

[leddhead]

were corel not doing a word perfect suite for java a couple of yrs ago? i distinctly remember using a beta copy once. or was it some other suite? anyways i am surprised that w/ todays much more powerful pc's and all the advances in java tech that its not being marketed as aggressively as i would like. i mean certainly you have much more people using a platform other than windows than two yrs ago, so i would think the cross platform deal w/ java would be a lot more appealing than a couple of yrs ago.

Re:corel for java?

[bhirt]

The product never made it. They dropped it shortly after the 2nd Annual JavaONE. It was a pretty cool idea -- it's too bad they never followed through on it.

Re:corel for java?

[Raven667]

Corel Office for Java (I might still have a beta on Zip disk somewhere) would have been a good product but it was a bit ahead of the times (Moore's Law). Hopefully they still have the sources kicking around somewheres, to compete with the Web versions of Sun StarOffice and MS Office. While it does seem like a dumb idea, with the current state of bandwidth, to do this it might be a buzzword and checkbox item in the future. They might get left out, labled as an also-ran, even if the technology is pointless (think Push/Channels)

In the future, when any two arbitrary points on the Internet have the bandwidth of a T3, then it will be feasable to centralize and have whole Office suites in Java. But it is pretty pointless now.

Enough babbling from myself.

Re:corel for java?

[Anonymous Coward]

I just never really could understand how byte beats bits. Java is great idea for programmatic epoxy but other than that it is not an end all. I love the Qt idea far more. With all the moores law going around every programmer takes it upon themselves to devour my poor little machine. HP thinks hey moores law we can send processing back to their machine. Now my PC is like a good 486 with the printer on. Did I buy a K-6 that would have made me a god 10 years ago so some one could make 10 calls to change directories?NO. Now with Qt I might have to recompile oh my, and ship another binary on one of those expensive CDs( I mean they are so shinny they must cost a lot). I long for, I dream of native code. Hey Perl is great for quick and dirty just love it. Java in its place can turn native code nightmares into a better way but a monster like WP I think not, I did not believe it 5 years ago and I still do not.

The application form is too long

[SurfsUp]

I was going to sign up for the beta program, until I saw the application form and I decided not to - 35 mandatory fields. I don't want to submit to a rectal examination just to join a beta program. I don't want to give away that much personal information, either. Man, corel should be bending over backwards to get techies to join the beta program. Why can't I just sign up with my slashdot id??

While I'm in rant mode, corel should make sure the download is not just a cgi script, but also has a straight url. Big downloads do get cut off, and with a cgi script I can't use nice programs like getright. (yes, I'd boot to windows just to use getright)

Re:The application form is too long

[/dev/kev]

Why can't I just sign up with my slashdot id??

Because these days, a slashdot account is sadly no guarantee of any kind of cluefulness whatsoever.

yes, I'd boot to windows just to use getright)

My brother raves about getright, too, but I don't see the attraction. I'd rather stay in Linux and use wget or snarf.

Re:The application form is too long

[gargle]

"Big downloads do get cut off, and with a cgi script I can't use nice programs like getright."

I thought newer versions of getright detect and intercept downloads in browsers, and this works even when a cgi and not a direct url is used.

Re:The application form is too long

[Deluge]

I was going to sign up for the beta program, until I saw the application form and I decided not to - 35 mandatory fields

I think they're hoping that only the most rabid techies will sign up for this, and aren't interested in 'casual' beta testers.

I think I can offer a reason for this too - I worked as part of my co-op work experience at Corel, doing QA...

The bugs they receive from beta sites that we have to duplicate and pass onto the developers are often atrocious - and naturally this time they decided that they, if we're gonna do a public beta, we're gonna accept only those who are willing, from the start, to give us the whole story.

GetRight

[Anonymous Coward]

Uhhh, why use GetRight when there's "Downloader for X" and that KDE GetRight clone (sorry, forget it's name)? Just search Freshmeat and never have to reboot to download huge-ass files again...

Re:GetRight

[SurfsUp]

why use GetRight when there's "Downloader for X" and that KDE GetRight clone (sorry, forget it's name)?

Why don't you try to remember?

Re:GetRight

[Starselbrg]

Don't be so lazy. It took me 10 seconds to find it on slashdot. It's called Caitoo. Go check it out.

Re: GetRight

[SurfsUp]

Don't be so lazy. It took me 10 seconds to find it on slashdot. It's called Caitoo.

Yes, thanks. Well you must be fast because it took me 30 seconds to get to the page and find it - and another minute to determine that one of the two hits returned by the search wasn't applicable. I guess I didn't make my point clearly the first time. 90 seconds per geek - needless waste of geek time. Multiply that by 1,000 geeks, that's, um, 25 hours - time that would have been better spent debugging Mozilla or something. That is why the original poster would have been more thoughtful to do the search himself, then post specific information, ideally, a link. Sure, it's also good to say "I just searched freshmeat to find this", that's useful too. Notice how the posts that include specific links to useful things tend to get moderated up immediately.

Re:GetRight

[Pug]

Wow, I'm amazed that no one has mentioned wget. I've used GetRight myself many times (not the X clones of it), and can say that I very much prefer wget. It's fast, free, has a better interface, and is standard on all Linux distros.

Yeah, I'm a wget addict.

Quite possibly the stupidest form I've ever seen.

[Otto]

Printer RAM? Come on...

We've got 5 Printers around here, over a dozen computers, running everything from NT to redhat 6.1, to debian, to windows 98..

What the hell do they expect but for me to put "varies" on everything?

bleah


---

Bad Choice of Words?

[pen]

Isn't WordPerfect Office a pretty bad choice for a name? Why not just call it Corel Office? Last time I checked, the word office wasn't trademarked, and many different companies were making products called Office.

The reason I'm asking this is that if I didn't know any better, I'd think that this is just WordPerfect and a few little addons, not an entire package (word processor, spreadsheet, presentations, etc.).

--

Re:Bad Choice of Words?

[Pope]

Why? Because then people know that WP still exists.
How many people out there seem to call Word or any other MS application "Microsoft?" "Yeah, I got Microsoft 6?"
Also, Corel Office would imply that it has something to do with Corel's other products, Corel Draw and Corel Paint.
So, to sum up this incomprehensible comment, WordPerfect Office is OK by me.
And just because my sister works for Corel doesn't mean I'm biased :)

Pope

Re:Bad Choice of Words?

[manly]

not bad at all.

As the other post alluded to, WordPerfect is a significantly more recognizable franchise than Corel. And in reality, WP is the only killer-app among the bunch.. the rest are also-rans. Excel and Powerpoint dominate their categories even more than Word does its.

Re:Bad Choice of Words?

[timeless]

Corel makes a lot of products, including at least two office suites.

• WordPerfect Office represents the traditional Office
  • WordPerfect - a word processor (the corner stone, well respected by many)
  • Quatro Pro - a spread sheet
  • Presentations - a presentations package and other additional components.
• Corel Print Office - Represents a collection of Corel's classic applications
  • Corel Print Office(TM) 5
  • Corel Photo House(TM) 5
  • Corel® WEB.DESIGNER 2
  • CorelCENTRAL(TM) 9
• CorelDraw Office (I think this one counts)
  • CorelDRAW 9
  • Corel Presentations 9
  • Canto® Cumulus® Desktop LE 4.0 - award-winning media asset management

To your point of why WordPerfect and that it implies nothing else.

• For people who remember and respect WordPerfect, Office implies that there's more to the product than WordPerfect which itself has had many native addons which enabled you to make it do almost anything to begin with.
• For everyone else there would be a lot of confusion, what would it mean to say "I bought Office, and did this and that" people generally omit manufacturer names. When a company is trying to gain marketshare it can not afford to be confused with the primary product on the market.

Actually, before it was called Corel WordPerfect Suite 8, which I thought was logical but apparently everyone expected the word Office in the title.

Old form, Stupid questions

[/dev/kev]

The form appears to be pretty old, and has some questions (and answers) which are pretty stupid:

• Computer type (386SX/486/Pentium) - heh, waiting for the AMD vs Intel wars to break out...
  
• Windows Version - For a Linux product?!?
  
• Scanning Software - uhhh, do they mean virus scanning? Haven't touched one in years - no need. And this is Linux!
  
• Hard Drive Data Compression - speaks for itself really. Or maybe this is to weed out people who are stupid enough to compress live volumes. :)
  
• Additional TSRs - Like that's applicable these days. And again, this is Linux.
  
• Font Manager - eh?
  

These wouldn't be too bad if they weren't mandatory...

Re:Old form, Stupid questions

[Hallow]

Yeah, they used the same generic form for their linux distro beta signup.

Good news is, it's being released at comdex, a buddy of mine is going, should have my copy as soon as he gets back... too bad I can't go.. friggen college.

Re:Old form, Stupid questions

[David E. Smith]

It's obviously a generic form. Sigh.

Anyway, I guess scanning refers to scanners, i.e. reading pictures.

Sign up form

[pvthudson]

Did you see how long that form was, I can't believe all those fields are required! I wouldn't be surprised somewhere in there was the address where you need to send in your urine and a stool samples.

No download available

[h2odragon]

After going through the questions (varies, varies, O-, too long, etc) I got a response that said "Only those accepted will be contacted".

I loved WordPerfect, from (IIRC) 2.0 on a Victor 9000 under DOS 1.0 up to 5.1, whereupon it started to suck. I've tried WP8-Linux, actually bought a shrink-wrapped copy from a store, and found it too slow to use with moderately complex layout. A two column, single page document should not take 90 seconds (!) to scroll down one line. This on a PPro-233 with 196MB of RAM. I don't need WYSIWYG; I'd love the old character based interface, but that's not available anymore without per-user licenses.

There's a really great word processor and decent layout program in there still, struggling to get out. If Corel had any sense they'd release the source to public scrutiny, put up with the derisive comments about it's quality or lack thereof, and accept the assistance of all of us fans. I'd understand if they didn't want to do this with the latest and greatest; so give us the code to 5.1 and let your users save the product.

Re:No download available

[Pointman]

The program has never handled numerous frame very well. Even 7 and 8 under Winbloz, which were vast improvements over the early "DOS in a Window" versions 6.0, 6.0a and 6.1.

Version 8 for Linux is ok,but as others have pointed out, they really do not understand the *nix way of doing things. And this product is likely to be only marginally successful until they do.

"compatibility" is more than just kernel version

[/dev/kev]

There's no mention anywhere of whether it requires glibc2 (or 2.1) or if it can also run on libc5 systems. I know that it's 95% likely it'll be glibc2+ only, and that irks me.

Also, if it's dynamically linked (and it should be, static linking on an app that size would be pure evil), then there's library version issues..

You'd just expect Corel to be at least slightly clueful when it comes to these issues, rather than just quoting a kernel version. OTOH, they're probably just testing it with Corel Linux and couldn't care less about other distros....

what the?

[tmuller]

Corel hasn't figured it out yet huh?

Error Occurred While Processing Request

Error Diagnostic Information

ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL

Server]User 3 not allowed in database 'b etarep' - only the owner of this database can access it.

SQL = "exec GetElements 1"

Data Source = "betarep"

Date/Time: 11/13/99 00:11:03

Browser: Mozilla/4.7 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.13 i686)

HTTP Referer: http://slashdot.org/

Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\applicationform.cfm

Query String: bp_entity_id=2

I would have thought they used their own product!!!!

Re:what the?

[Pointman]

Of course you can judge what database server a site is using when the site hangs on the first click on a link.

I'm waiting for M$ to start blaming Linux for their SQL 7 problems in their debug dumps, too.

Apparently Corel don't read their own press, or they'd be running Linux Netwinder Server. Oh yea, they sold that....

btw, after I spent 3 hrs answering the questions, my form went in with minimal fuss. But then again, my _REFERER_ didn't say /. either.

Re:what the?

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course you can judge a foaming anti MS Linux supporter by the first thing that spews from his mouth.

How many times has Slashdot been unavailable compared to the MSNBC tech bbs? Answer the MSNBC tech bbs hasn't been unavailable. Which runs NT?

Main page

[/dev/kev]

The main Corel Wordperfect for Linux page is at

http://www.corel.com/betaprogram/index.h tm

in case you're interested in perhaps reading some stuff about it, rather than just the direct link to the application form. There's not that much there, though. :)

Re:Main page

[Anonymous Coward]

The "Apply Now" button is dead on that
page as well.

Re: TSRs ?

[Forge]

I asked if they ment daemons :)

Committed to Linux???

[planet_hoth]

Look at what I get when I click the link to fill out the beta-tester application...



Error Occurred While Processing Request

Error Diagnostic Information

ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]User 3 not allowed in database 'betarep' - only the owner of this database
can access it.

SQL = "exec GetElements 1"

Data Source = "betarep"

Date/Time: 11/13/99 00:11:44
Browser: Mozilla/4.61 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.12-20 i686)
Remote Address: 207.75.178.101
HTTP Referer: http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=99/11/12/193520 3&mode=thread
Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\applicationform.cfm
Query String: bp_entity_id=2


...kind of disappointing from a company supposedly committed to Linux. :P Color me unimpressed.

Re:Committed to Linux???

[Eagle7]

Try again - its fixed.

Re:Committed to Linux???

[CAB]

It seems that their beta programme has been /.'ed.
Their MS SQL (????) table is full:


Error Occurred While Processing Request

Error Diagnostic Information

ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Can't allocate space for object 'LongAnswers' in database 'betarep' because the 'default' segment is full. If you ran out of space in Syslogs, dump the transaction log. Otherwise, use ALTER DATABASE or sp_extendsegment to increase the size of the segment.

SQL = "exec SaveApplicationForm 2, -- CUT a lot of personal data-- "

Data Source = "betarep"

Date/Time: 11/13/99 11:05:43
Browser: Mozilla/4.6 [en] (X11; I; Linux 2.2.14pre4 i586)
Remote Address: -- CUT --
HTTP Referer: http://nas.corel.com/cfscripts/betarep/application form.cfm?bp_entity_id=2
Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\submission.cfm


MS SQL???? They should be ashamed!


Best regards,
Steen Suder

I just wanted first post

[rosewood]

Actually I just wanted first post and I had to move quick SO

shades of OJ..

[Pope]

If you don't SUBMIT you must ACQUIT
Or something stupid like that.

Pope

Hope this is better than the windows version

[Anonymous Coward]

WP Office 2000 for windows is the most broken piece of crap released under the name WordPerfect to date. There are features advertised on the box that are either unuseable or that haven't been implemented yet. Quattro Pro was so broken in the initial release that (the 46mb) service pack 1 contains a complete replacement. You can download and run SP1 by itself and get a (nearly) working version of QP. Every single beta version we tested was more stable than the final release. I hope they aren't going to make the same mistake with the Linux version. Of course, they don't have to worry about beating Microsoft to market so maybe they won't try to release it 6 months before it's ready. Even if it does work as advertised, I don't think it's the killer app everyone is looking for. That would require 100% interworkability with MS Office, and WP's conversions are mediocre at best. Presentations' conversions of Powerpoint are totally unworkable. Corel needs to do a much better job in this area if they hope to lure customers away from windows. Also, printing under Linux in general is pretty bad. Printing is pretty important to people using word processors. They could really do the Linux community a favor by releasing the source for 5.1, the last version that actually worked as advertised. 5.1 has such a loyal user base, they could probably convince alot of customers to migrate to Linux of they offered support for 5.1 only on Linux.

Re:Hope this is better than the windows version

[Anonymous Coward]

Some features which work with Windows WP versions 6.1 through 8, such as secondary page numbering, are broken in the windows release of WP 2000. If Corel does nothing more than port the product over to Linux, I suspect that the quality of the word processor is not going to improve over older versions. maybe the beta period will give them the oppotunity to fix some of the bugs.

OpenSource-not

[AndyElf]

While I did not expect Corel to go as far as to make Corel Office OpenSourced in any way, one could hope that such thing as beta testing of it would be more open. That really turns anybody down having to write a 3-page essay "Why do I want to be a Corel beta-tester". Man, dig on it: I am lending *you* my resources to find *your* bugs. They could at least learn from a company whose product they use -- Allaire (site is running on NT using ColdFusion with back-end to MS SQL as we all see from error messages): it was almost a no-brainer to become HomeSite or ColdFusion beta-tester. Well, you get only 1 honest answer then: email. Let's see what happens.

Ass Raped Monkey

[Greyfox]

I hope they compiled it for glibc this time. The last Corel WP I saw was compiled for libc5 and didn't particularly like my system (If I tried to do a table, it would crash.)

Some people might like their bloated word processors, but I'll stick with raw LaTeX, thanks. Doesn't suck down all my memory and I invariably get better output than that of any GUI word processor I've ever seen.

note to all companies

[nocent]

Thought about trying WP2000. Saw the form. Thought better of it.

Note to Corel and all other companies:

Don't make these mandatory forms that people have to fill out before using your product. You will gain NOTHING from them. NOTHING! except a bunch of useless fake data.

There is no way for you to verify any of that information. Even if some people do fill in the correct information, the false data will simply screw up any analyses you plan to do on it.

GIGO. Garbage In. Garbage Out.

Re:note to all companies

[tweek]

Actually this is an official standard beta testing registration. You don't even get to download it when you finish the form. They actually have to approve you. One funny note about the form is that it asks about the version of windows you run on the form. i think n/a will suffice ;) I don't consider X as Xwindows. There was also a section on current software you use most. I put staroffice 5.1, gimp 1.1 and vim 5.2 ... I can see the application readers now

"Gimp? VIM?"

hehehe
"We hope you find fun and laughter in the new millenium" - Top half of fastfood gamepiece

Re:note to all companies

[FauxPasIII]

I had staroffice, siag office, the gimp, and vim in there, and just to round it out I put init and bash. =)

Re:note to all companies

[Anonymous Coward]

You're operating under a misconception if you believe that filling out the forms will allow you to download the beta. That's not the way Corel runs its beta programs. This is a closed beta program, and only those selected will receive the beta, which will be sent on cd-rom via Fed-Ex. The questionnaire is so that they can be sure to get an assortment of testers that are skilled on all the apps, and so there's a reasonable range of system hardware and software configurations, different Linux distributions, etc. And for the folks who took offense on the questions about their Windows version, a major focus of Corel's effort is on dual-boot systems, so they can wean folks away from Windows (e.g., their own Corel Linux sets up by default as a dual-boot system). Corel will want to ensure that files generated with the Windows version of WP Office 2000 behave properly when opened with the Linux version, and vice versa. In short, good and valid reasons for the questionnaire; perhaps a need to better explain why they're asking all the questions, and how they intend to run their beta program. --From a frequent participant in Corel's beta testing programs.

Yeah, I noticed that...

[Svartalf]

And I responded "N/A (Riiiiight....)" to the question. I'm a little concerned about that- seems at least someone there doesn't "get it".

The problem with Postscript - right on

[SurfsUp]

Using PostScript as the API for communicating printers is just a bad idea. PostScript is Turing complete. That means there's all sorts of analysis yousimply can't do to the stream sent to the printer. It isn't even guaranteed that the printer will ever finish (the halting problem). It would be a lot simpler if there was a drawing API, sort of like a subset of X, but for paper. Or heck, an XML-based page description language. Just make sure it isn't Turing complete.

Postscript isn't going away any time soon, and the glitches you mentioned will be eradicated over time in classic open-source style. The turing-complete problem isn't a horrible problem because the postscript-generating program can limit itself to generating postscript commands that are known to produce predictable results.

You can use the turing-complete features of postscript judiciously without taking the risk of your printer never halting. E.g, for doing things like headers and footers - you don't download the whole text every page, you just make up a function and call it. Not that it really matters that much with a fast printer connection.

But basically, I agree with you, why does a printer language have to be turing-complete? If it does, then why don't we make every darn interface in the whole computer turing complete? IOW, what's so special about printers?

Postscript is so firmly entrenched, though, that an alternate solution would have to be really compelling to make any headway. The easier to implement, the more compelling. So, what's easy to implement? I'd say, start with Gecko :-) and do what had to be done to it to make it render everything a printer has to render. We need that anyway (probably) so we do things like write full biz documents and books, using HTML+CSS.

Then we'd need a kickass way to talk to Gecko. XML would fill the bill, as you said.

Re:The problem with Postscript - right on

[redhog]

What's so negative about an API being turing complete? Ok, it will be impossible to prove some sets of API calls, but that's the same problem as with computers in general... I think it's an advantage - generally you don't use all of the nifty features, but some day, you realize you need them! And I still can not understund why there is not some basic (on the same level as tcp/udp) network protocol that implements scripting (Send this to foo, and her answer to bar, and his answer to me)!

Re:The problem with Postscript - right on

[Prince Caspian]

Postscript isn't going away any time soon, and the glitches you mentioned will be eradicated over time in classic open-source style.

Unfortunately, I don't think even the power of open source will overcome the problem mentioned. It's been proven that the halting problem is not computable.

"Bugs are harder to cope with than features, because they are less well defined and less well designed."

Re:The problem with Postscript - right on

[Zagadka]

Postscript isn't going away any time soon, and the glitches you mentioned will be eradicated over time in classic open-source style. The turing-complete problem isn't a horrible problem because the postscript-generating program can limit itself to generating postscript commands that are known to produce predictable results.

I'm not suggesting that PostScript go away. I don't mind printers understanding it. I just don't think it should be the API that application programs use to talk to the printer.

And no, nothing, not even the open source movement, will erradicate the halting problem. It's been proven mathematically.

Finally, saying that an application program can "limit itself to generating postscript commands that are known to produce predictable results" is similar to saying OS's shouldn't have memory protection because applications can "limit themselves to accessing memory in a ways that are known to produce predictable results". The fact is, many applications don't. Many times I've tried to print things "2up", only to find that the application was generating postscript that circumvented it. A proper printing API wouldn't allow that.

And even if it weren't for these problems, does it really make sense that application writers should need to learn PostScript in order to print? That's like requiring people to learn the X protocol if they want a GUI. There should be an actual API something like Xlib, or at the very least a simpler page description language, like one based on XML.

Intense questions

[Starselbrg]

I started filling out the questions, but then stopped when I realized how long it was. I mean sheesh, does the thing give you an anal probe? I wants to know all of my personal information plus everything I know about computers, everything I do for work, and everything about my computer.

How do they decide if you're "qualified"? Does someone actually read it or do they run it through a bot?

Re:Intense questions

[MissNachos]

That form was too funny.

Re: OT Ofc97/2k bitching.

[mcrandello]

Well, what corey said but also check out 98lite.com . Some other poster put up the address in another thread and...anyways it supposedly *really* boosts Win98's speed and stability (assuming it's 98 you're using.


mcrandello@my-deja.com
rschaar{at}pegasus.cc.ucf.edu if it's important.

TTF

[Kyobu]

My biggest complaint about WP8 for Linux was always that it won't support TrueType fonts. Yes, I know about ttf2pt1, but it would never compile for me.

LaTeX

[mouseman]

Some people might like their bloated word processors, but I'll stick with raw LaTeX, thanks. Doesn't suck down all my memory and I invariably get better output than that of any GUI word processor I've ever seen.

Agreed. The only time I use anything else is when I get some annoying Word files at work, or worse, am required to submit something in Word format. Usually then I fire up StarOffice. If WP does at least as well as soffice at importing word files, I would happily use it instead.

Somewhat offtopic: I recently started using LyX, basically a WYSIWYG front-end to LaTeX that's actually pretty cool. I find it nice when creating documents containing lots of greek to actually see what the formulas are going to look like. It even supports macros (though only in math mode). Plus, it's open source! I used it to write a conference paper submission and found it way smoother than hacking the raw LaTeX. Not everything is as intuitive as one might hope -- I had a few points of confusion early on, mainly because I didn't RTFM, but the developers were quite helpful and set me straight.

Granted, LyX still has some stability problems (i.e. it randomly dumps core) but since it makes emacs-stlye emergency backups, in addition to creating recovery files just before giving up the ghost, I've never lost a single keystroke of data, unlike some other word processors I've used.

I just hope that...

[Anonymous Coward]

... I'll be able to run it OpenBSD and FreeBSD.

If not, I'll be pissed.

Re:I just hope that...

[MissNachos]

Yeah, I'm crossing my fingers on that.

Re:I just hope that...

[prodeje]

Shouldn't the linux binary emulation which I've heard soooooo much about work?
...

Re:I just hope that...

[elflord]

That's kind of like saying you can run Corel Office for windows using Wine. Actually, the binary emulation is OK and works for several apps, but it is not perfect.

corel draw 4 linux?

[ost]

say i wonder when they're going to release corel draw for linux... i'm quite fond of this peace of software! sure, xfig is nice too, but draw still is my favorite... didn't they release an older version of draw for linux once? does somebody has the url for downloading it? tia...

Re:corel draw 4 linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their plan is (as far as I can remember) to release WP office 2000 in Q1 '00 and CorelDraw Suite in Q2 '00.

Re: OT Ofc97/2k bitching.

[MrHat]

Not to nitpick, but 98lite.com points to some cheapo internet access provider. I'm guessing it's 98lite.net that you want.

98lite basically just replaces elements of the Windows 98 installation (mainly the shell) with those from Windows 95. I guess you get to keep the kernel, but lose the Internet Explorer based shell.

Sure hope you're wrong

[Anonymous Coward]

about WP O 2000, I just bought it for work. The print quality seems to be up to snuff on WinNT4.0/release 1165. There is a problem with mail merging, though. When I send 10,000 letters down to the (Linux) print spooler, it'll send them only one at a time. Ties up the computer for the whole day. I'm using the WinNT LPD port to print to the queue, maybe I should look at SAMBA.

Normally, I use WP6.0c on DOS for this task. Run it under Win3.1 using the TCP/IP driver I found on the MS website. That sends everything down in 20 minutes, then I reboot to Linux.

MS Word just blows up with this size merge file, puts files all over the place in any old subdirectory. Really ugly.

10,000 names? That's a small merge file. Entire forests tremble when I sit down to massage my lists. I'm one of the worst members of the DMA. But I don't do email mass mailings. Forgive me, Mr. Vixie, for I'll never do anything to wind up on one of your lists.

How did they get this far so fast?

[frank249]

I was wondering how Corel ported all these major league programs(WP, Quatro, Paradox, Presentations, Central etc) to Linux in such a realativly short time? WP9 I can see since they already had WP8 for Linux. Even then WP9 had a lengthy beta developement before it was released last summer. The other presumably had to be done from scratch. I know they have been big contributers to WINE and Wine lib but from all accounts WINE is still very much in the alpha stages. Someone mentioned that Inprise now has a strategic alliance with Corel. Inprise also had investment from Microsoft and a contract to develop some RAD developer's tools. Could they have a set of WIN APIs and or source code and could they have passed this on to Corel? Far fetched but even with 600 software engineers, getting a full office suite ported to Linux in under a year is quite an accomplishment when notepad still crashes under WINE. Any comments?

Re:How did they get this far so fast?

[Pascal Q. Porcupine]

They probably used winelib (aka libwine), the basis of Wine. Wine is not an emulator, but an alternate binary loader which dynamically relinks Windows programs to winelib. Kinda screwy. :) I wouldn't be surprised at all if Corel just used winelib to 'port' (i.e. recompile) their Windows programs for Linux; I believe their whole interest in supporting Wine was specifically for this point. (After all, any functionality added into winelib gets implicitly added into Wine.)
---
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

Re:How did they get this far so fast?

[Anonymous Coward]

> They probably used winelib (aka libwine), the
> basis of Wine.

Yes. Corel**** for Linux will be indeed the Windows-version running on winelib. Nothing less and nothing more (apart from the fact that it will try to meet the KDE-look).

Re:How did they get this far so fast?

[Anonymous Coward]

Corel used the Wine lib-c libraries to port WP Office 2000 to Linux, and made a major commitment of engineering resources to rush that Wine tool's development, including hiring subcontractors Macadamian and Cygnus to help. The incredible work they and other Wine developers did will drastically simplify the task for other Win32 developers who wish to port their own apps.

Interestingly, Corel has also been working on porting Wine itself to other platforms such as the PPC and StrongARM. They're gearing up to spit out applications on multiple platforms in rapid succession, and I suspect they used their new Wine tools to port their recent MacIntosh offerings.

The port of Win32 WP Office 2000 to Linux will necessarily result in a product that is different. As only two examples, the Windows version uses the Win32 common dialogs extensively, including the file manager, and the exchange of data between the address book and other applications is via extended MAPI. There we're talking Microsoft code that won't be making the trip. So a lot of the underlying plumbing has to come out.

Corel is also having to replace completely its systems for handling fonts and printers. You can find a good discussion of the problems they face in that regard at http://members.bellatlantic.net/~smithrod/wpfonts. html (.)

A big gain for Linux is resulting from Corel's Linux involvement through its deal with PC Chips. In preparing to launch some 20 million copies of Corel Linux and Linux WordPerfect Office 2000 on cheap PCs in the coming year, PC Chips has 70 engineers working full time developing Linux drivers for a wide range of peripherals. So this one bundling deal alone should more than double the installed Linux user base worldwide, in a single year.

Finally, you might take note of the Linux hardware compatibility guide Corel just released in conjunction with Corel Linux OS. http://linux.corel.com/products/linux_os/hardware. htm (.) I've seen no comparable collection of information on the web. I hope they'll get it out of PDF format and into a searchable database soon.

pem@televar.com (,) Links Administrator,
http://www.qwkscreen.com/WPLinuxLinks.html
http://www.wpwin.com/links.html

XFree86 3.3.3.1!

[bdrasin]

...was my response!

:-P

One request..

[prodeje]

Please, for the love of god, use DIFFERENT widgets. Motif is way too ugly when there is GTK. If not GTK, atleast use QT.

Lets hope all the beta testers will strongly request this.
...

Re:One request..

[Dwonis]

Absolutely! My dad was getting so pissed off at WP8 yesterday. He was trying touse the down-arrow on the scroll bar, but it was so small that he kept clicking inside the slider, causing a page-down, which was very irritating. He asked me to do the mouse for him, because he couldn't do it properly.

Bottom line: Motif widgets suck.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."

Re:One request..

[Anonymous Coward]

Check this out for more info on the widget set: http://www.integrita.com/cgi-local/lwgate.pl/WINE- DEVEL/archives/1999-11/date/art icle-24.html

Re:One request..

[Raven667]

QT would make sense since it is available for Windows as well as Unix. They could relink all their programs to QT and have instant portability with one codebase while still keeping the Windows versions. Since they are using KDE extensively for their Corel Linux, and Office will probably be a big draw for that platform, it would be a no-brainer.

Re:One request..

[Raven667]

That's why I have never understood why GTK tries to emulate the Motif look/feel. Why didn't they use something more NeXTalike, GNU already has the GNUStep project and WindowMaker is the official WM for it. Everybody liked the NeXT interface, I don't see what benefit they have from going their own way--except to be anti-KDE/QT.

Try a modern distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

RedHat 6 ships with Xfstt preinstalled and configured. It works great. You're text is in preety microsoft(spit) verdana for me right now.

Re:Try a modern distro.

[Kyobu]

I know that. I'm not a retard. I, i turn, a reading your comment in Netscape with MS Georgia, which is a nice screen font, even though I hate MS just as much as everyone else. WP8 still doesn't support TTF. Furthermore, you can't install more Type 1 fonts, even if you have them, unless you buy the registered version.

Re:Try a modern distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

You claim to not be a retard with this kind of sentence structure?

". I, i turn, a reading your comment in Netscape with MS Georgia, which is a nice screen font, even though I hate MS just as much as everyone else."

Maybe you should try Hooked on Phonics before your next post, or try reading a basic english grammar book.

Re:Try a modern distro.

[Anonymous Coward]

I missed two letters. Boo hoo. Maybe I could have separated the sentences, too. You obviously don't have much to do in your spare time.

Legal Re:I just hope that...

[Anonymous Coward]

It should not only run, it should be legal to run it too...

-T

it died quickly

[Anonymous Coward]

Something has to be said for a company who doesn't even trust their own product right?

I think I am changing my mind about applying for application.

------paste---------
Error Occurred While Processing Request

Error Diagnostic Information

ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Can't allocate space for object 'LongAnswers' in database 'betarep' because the
'default' segment is full. If you ran out of space in Syslogs, dump the transaction log. Otherwise, use ALTER DATABASE or
sp_extendsegment to increase the size of the segment.

PhotoPAINT

[Dwonis]

When they port CorelDraw, PhotoPaint comes with it. I never actually used CDW, I just started photopaint and started drawing.

Anyone who knows of a simple, geometric shape drawing tool for the Gimp will cause me to love the Gimp forever.
--------
"I already have all the latest software."

I guess you've never run a Beta Test before

[DragonHawk]

As a developer, I can attest to the following: It is not possible to have too much information about a Beta Test system. I would really prefer an exact duplication of the test systems at the molecular level, but unfortunately, this sort of questionnaire is the best thing possible.

First of all, they are going to have to cull a list of a few testers out of the hundreds, if not thousdands, of applicants. To do that, they are going to want to pick canidates who are knowledgeable about computes, have experience with all the software involved, and have a wide variety of software, hardware, and configurations in use.

Once you get to the actual test, the exact combination of hardware, kernel, drivers, daemons, libraries, desktop environment, and everything else up to and including their background image, can make a difference. If you don't think so, you've never had to operate a Beta Test before.

I found their survey perfectly reasonable, although their were a few (excusable) DOS- and Window-ish questions on it ("TSRs" are "daemons" on Linux, etc.).

A couple of specifics --

OS and version is legit - you can run Linux programs on BSD as well, plus there are different distributions of Linux that can be considered different "OSes" depending on your definition of the term.

Windows version is legit - they could want to know if you have Windows install in a dual-boot configuration. (It could be simple stupidity, but neither you nor I know for sure.)

Commoditizing Office the word

[Anonymous Bullard]

People tend to call Microsoft Office just "Office". Corel ought to try and level the playing field by calling their package simply Corel Office, #1 to build the brand and #2 to commoditize the word Office (further than already with "WordPerfect Office") to strip MS from the current "monopoly" on that word, i.e. Office.

When people say they're using "Office", the question that should follow is: "from Corel or Microsoft?". That may make people say aloud the "monopolist word" and perhaps cause some subliminal introspection as well.

They can still sell WordPerfect under its distinct identity and promote it as a key component of the Corel Office. However, using WordPerfect in the suite's title creates the illusion that WordPerfect is the only component of any value in that Office suite, a low value proposition what comes to full Office suites.

Besides, eventually there will be Corel Office Deluxe that also includes the graphics applications that Corel is historically best known for. You simply can't bundle them under the name "WordPerfect Office". Last but not least, the word "WordPerfect" is probably associated by many as a perpetual runner-up while "Corel" has been gaining status as a contender for the crown (Corel's graphics apps, Corel's Office suite and Corel Linux the distro).

Re:COREL == INCOMPETENT

[Panaflex]

Okay, as someone who interviews alot of people in a year.. I HAVE to answer this.

First off.. PEOPLE LIE. They say they've managed project X which consisted of buzzword buzzword buzzword. For instance, "I wrote the classes which interfaces an Oracle database into the java application. I used inheritance and operator overloading.. blah blah"

5 minutes later, I'll ask him.. "What is a byte?" Couldn't answer the damn question!

Now, I don't go asking API questions, but I make sure they know types, arrays, pointers, etc.. But I would ask generic questions ABOUT an API. (What does the Xt lib do in X windows?)

The point is that there are too many potted plants masquarading as PROGRAMERS. They read Dr. Dobbs, and PC Week, and can spit buzzwords at you all day. But when you get down to specifics, the thin vail crumbles.

I asked a DBA position candidate (first question, honest) how to insert a row. He actually added a "where" clause. BWAHAHAHA!

So, there is a minumum technical interview required. Some places would require a very deep interview for their projects. (Think "router design and programing" at Cisco!)

I don't think it's necessarily about doing a "better job" - but I do think it clues the interviewer into if the candidate will be able to operate with a core competancy to DO the job.

The other half of the equation is motivation. People that are _not_ motivated, but have the skills are also potted plants.

Pan - from the hellfire known as "Saturday Work"

Re:COREL == INCOMPETENT

[Anonymous Coward]

For a co-op position? I doubt Corel wastes their top level resources on co-op interview assignments so I'm not surprised the interview was lame. Co-op students are a dime a dozen and if it turns out that you have talent, so much the better. If not then it's only 8 months (or 4) until you're out the door. I'd say Corel was being pretty COMPETENT by not wasting too much time on an arrogant student.

What product?

[hatless]

This is tiresome. Corel doesn't have a SQL database server in their product line,nor do they have a web app server. What do you mean by "their own product"? Corel Linux? With PHP3 and Postgres?

Why should their Linux Desktop Apps Group waste their time reinventing the wheel and learning PHP when Corel already has a generic beta-tester signup form handy? It's not as though this is, say, Sun, still running a web store written with Dynamo when they own not one but two competing app servers.

Lord knows I've never seen a MySQL or Postgres database throw errors when a tablespace fills up and there's no room for more extents. Not.

Babies.

It's a BETA TEST version

[Len]

Don't make these mandatory forms that people have to fill out before using your product.

It's not a released product yet, it's a beta test. The purpose of this release is to get a bunch of people to test WP under real-world conditions, to find the bugs and deficiencies that didn't show up in QA.

Naturally, they want to know the exact h/w and s/w environment that WP is running in, to be able to reproduce and fix the bugs that you report.

Typically, when a bug is reported, a programmer tries to reproduce it and says "Gee, it works on my machine." Now what? Is it some weird quirk of the software, or is it a bug in one of your device drivers or a hardware incompatibility? They can't get anywhere without knowing your system configuration.

Corel's questionnaire has a couple of strange questions ("Windows version"), but I guess it's just their standard kitchen-sink beta testers' form. Also, since it's an "open" beta, they may be trying to make sure that they get users who are seriously interested in using the software and helping them to find and fix any bugs it has.

You will gain NOTHING from them. NOTHING! except a bunch of useless fake data.

Why in the world would people lie about this stuff? Unless they want Corel not to be able to fix the bugs they report.

I've been involved in beta test programs from both sides. Companies that do beta testing really work hard to get useful feedback from their users and fix the bugs they find. Beta testers are brave and dedicated souls, who put their computers at risk in order to help make software safe for everyone else. (And to be first on the block to play with some nifty new stuff.)

If all you wanted out of Corel's WordPerfect beta program was a quickie preview, and you don't feel like filling out the form, well, fine.
--

Re:COREL == INCOMPETENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Your points are well taken. I realize that a lot of people lie, especially on their resume's. I'm pretty sure that the reason some employers decline to interview me is that I don't put enough buzzwords on my resume (eg, I've done work with Visual Basic but would never put it down, I don't put down SQL because I don't want to do database stuffg, etc...). Some employers actually like this, because they can be pretty sure I'm not lying about my skills and listing every buzzword I've ever heard of.

The main thing is that I wish they had at least asked things that don't insult my intelligence. It actually seemed like they were looking for some "hired gun" to just sit there all term doing menial work, maybe debugging or something, who would have no real esponsibility, and would do anything creative. If they want to see if I'm lying, ask me something in line with what I've already talked about.

One company comes to mind where I had mentioned my involvement in the design of a very OO system. Instead of asking me "what is inheritance" like Corel, they asked me what I thought was the most powerful concept in object oriented programming, and WHY. (Of course in this case the answer was polymorphism and not inheritance.) This led to a more general conversation about software design, and my philosophy on various things, and of course I babbled on about how great patterns are. After a short time the interviewer stopped quizzing me and I got the sense he was asking me questions simply because he was interested in my opinions on various things. That was probably the most enjoyable interview I've ever had, and although I ended up turning down their offer for a more attractive opportunity, I came out of it thinking that was a company I wouldn't mind working at. I can't say the same for Corel.

I've gone to a lot of interviews, so I've seen what employers look for. I've been asked a lot of easy C++ questions and I don't mind answering them (sometimes it's kind of funny, usually after a couple of questions they either start asking me harder questions or say "ok, enough of this"). The thing is that the Corel guy, although he was a developer, gave me the impression that he hardly even knew about the things he was asking. It seemed like he was just following some script they gave him, instead of really trying to find out what I know and am capable of.

5 minutes later, I'll ask him.. "What is a byte?" Couldn't answer the damn question!

Maybe it just really threw him off? I know if I was asked something like that, I'd be thinking "WTF? Is this some kind of trick question?" I'd still answer it but would probably be pretty confused that I was asked something like that. :)

BTW, you used the term "core competency". Do you have any idea how annoyingly PHB-like that term sounds? You should be moderated down for using a term like that. :) (j/k of course)

that's the way it has to be

[Anonymous Coward]

If you can't fill such a simply questionarie, how come do you expect to be chossen as an ACTIVE beta tester? They expect that the beta testers would fill lengthy reports about their's findings. So, stop crying.

Re:COREL == INCOMPETENT

[Anonymous Coward]

Corel may be making a good short-term business decision by finding cheap labour, but they're making themselves look like hypocrites when they go crying about the "brain drain" to the US, and how they can't find any good employees. If they're not going to invest in recruiting full-time employees starting with when they're still in University in co-op programs, then of course they're never going to find good talent.

Loads of companies invest a lot of money in hiring co-op students, and give them real work, with serious responsibility. These companies hope they'll be able to hire these students full-time and often then do. These companies are also usually very successful. Corel hasn't been successful at all, and gee, I wonder why. They treat their co-op students like cattle, and that's why they have problems finding talent.

And this is not just me being arrogant (but so what if I am)... there are real examples to support what I'm saying. I've heard bad things about Corel from friends who've worked there, and they apparently have a bad reputation throughout Ottawa's hi-tech industry. The whole company is screwed up. They totally messed up on the licensing of their Linux distro, and it's obvious they're just grasping at straws now trying to latch onto the most convenient bandwagon, without any long term strategy, no leadership, no vision, no management, no talent, NOTHING.

I like the office assistants; especially the clip

[Anonymous Coward]

Figures; something I actually like by Microsoft
and they take it away...

Re: Word Perfect has more brand recognition

[Anonymous Coward]

duh

Re:COREL == INCOMPETENT

[Panaflex]

Well, I guess in that case, instead of asking technical questions.. they should have real techies asking questions. I'll agree with you 100%.

And yeah, I admit it, I have mastered PHB talk. I had to... ;-)

Pan

Re:hilarious

[Anonymous Coward]

biatch

Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had no probs compiling it.

An AC

Re:Really?

[Anonymous Coward]

I had no probs compiling it.

oops, I should have tested before I posted. The code does make gcc complain when '-O' is added.

Whine

[Anonymous Coward]

Too many people whine and you're one of them. You spent more time counting the mandatory fields than I probably spent filling them out. OK, not exactly, but I'm sure you get my point. As a previous poster stated, these are perfectly legitimate questions. They want to get a diversified group of testers. Sure, you say just open to everyone, but it's actually found that a smaller more focused testing group will uncover more bugs than a totally open let's get 200,000 people involved kinda thing. Seems contrary to logic but it's true. There might be millions of Linux users, but only a handful probably report bugs. The reason is most likely the level of commitment of most testers is nil. But, if you let them into an exclusive testing group and treat them well, they will give you better feedback.

Re:"compatibility" is more than just kernel versio

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know much, but I have this question.

Does the library versions matter if it's really a Windows Application running on top of WINE?

I don't see how it could. And that's what WordPerfect Office 2000 Suite is. A Windows application running on top of WINE.

NT Techweb unavailable

[Anonymous Coward]

Slashdot is unavailable more often than I would like. And slow to boot.

However, Slashdot is for fun, the Microsoft Techweb is important to my job. It has been down far more often and/or slow than I care to count.

I really hated the whole month that it returned nothing but the first 200 articles for a given category regardless of what your query string was. Meaning, it returned nothing but useless crap for a full month. I repeatedly e-mailed them and informed of their problem, as I'm sure hundreds of others must have, but it took them a frickin month to fix.

Re:NT Build

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not in front of an NT computer right now but I could have sworn NT 4.0 started with build 1310.

Hopefully SGML/XML is part of the Linux version

[nedron]

The most disappointing part of WP 8 for Linux is that it doesn't include the SGML support that the Windows version has. Hopefully, this new beta will have this support.

BLASTED THING.. I HATE YOU HATE HATE HATE

[Lonesmurf]

I completed EVERY SINGLE BLASTED HATEFUL EVIL TERRIBLE CRAPPY USELESS form entry.. and then it spit out this:

Error Diagnostic Information
ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation)

[Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Can't allocate space for object 'LongAnswers' in database 'betarep' because the 'default' segment is full. If you ran out of space in Syslogs, dump the transaction log. Otherwise, use ALTER DATABASE or sp_extendsegment to increase the size of the segment.


SQL = "exec SaveApplicationForm 2, '10043', 'Rami', 'James', 'Altec Lansing R&D Israel', 'Arlozorov 18', 'Ra''ananna', '66', '43608', '99', '+972 053 550306', '', '', 'RJames@altecmm.com', 'Intermediate', 'I work creating user interfaces and graphics for Altec Lansing.', 'Testing document Letters General use documents', 'We are a dynamic working environment that needs a high level of efficiency and productivity. Incorporating Linux and Corel Office could be a boon to our business.', 'I currently test softwares from a broad spectrum of types, including: Audio software, Alpha-stage sound algorithms, Graphics softwares, Internet applications, etc.', '', 'Adobe Photoshop', '5', 'Graphic', 'Microsoft Word', '', 'Word Processing', 'Adobe Illustrator', '8', 'Graphic', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', '', 'Pentium3/550Mhz 256 Megs RAM', 'Generic Hand-built machine', 'Hitachi DVD', 'HP Deskjet 880', 'None', 'None', 'S3 Virge', '16', 'Mag DJ707', 'Microsoft IntelliMouse', 'SoundBlaster LIVE!', 'HP ScanJet 5P', 'None', 'Red Hat Linux 6.1', '98 Second Edition; Millenium Beta', 'Yes', 'HP Software', 'No.', 'None', 'None'"

Data Source = "betarep"


Date/Time: 11/14/99 03:01:00
Browser: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 5.0; Windows 98; DigExt)
Remote Address: 212.150.159.2
HTTP Referer: http://nas.corel.com/cfscripts/betarep/application form.cfm?bp_entity_id=2
Template: e:\dox\cfscripts\betarep\submission.cfm


NOOOOOOOOO!!!!

--

BLAH!!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Error Occurred While Processing Request Error Diagnostic Information ODBC Error Code = 37000 (Syntax error or access violation) [Microsoft][ODBC SQL Server Driver][SQL Server]Can't allocate space for object 'LongAnswers' in database 'betarep' because the 'default' segment is full. If you ran out of space in Syslogs, dump the transaction log. Otherwise, use ALTER DATABASE or sp_extendsegment to increase the size of the segment.

KDE?

[JamesKPolk]

Well, we'll see how much longer Corel relies extensively on KDE, once KDE 2 is further down the pipe. All of those marketing and legal people, who seem to be running the company, will not like to hear about KOffice, I think.

Re:Quite possibly the stupidest form I've ever see

[Otto]

What the hell do they expect but for me to put "varies" on everything?

Funny to be replying to myself, but..

I got accepted into the beta.. sweeeeet!

---