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Corel

New Distribution: Corel Linux? 99

Posted by HeUnique from the surprise-surpise! dept.
ZDNET UK made an Interview with Corel's executive vice president of engineering Derek Burney, he's talking about Corel helps the Wine Project. But the biggest surprise is that Corel is going to release a new Distribution which is aimed to the "avrage windows user". (thanks to Linux Today for the news
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New Distribution: Corel Linux? More

New Distribution: Corel Linux?

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  • Joe Bloggs? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    "ZDNet UK News: What are you going to do to get Joe Bloggs to use Linux instead of Windows."

    Is Joe Bloggs the British equivalent of Joe Sixpack?

  • Joe Bloggs? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Actually, Joe Bloggs I think originated with a test prep company called The Princeton Review. [review.com] They use Joe Bloggs to represent the average, ordinary student, who is very predictable in that he gets all of the easy questions on a test right, exactly half of the medium questions right, and none of the hard questions right. If you can figure out what Joe would do on a hard question, you can cross that answer choice off.

    I'm sure that the author of the question didn't mean it in the test preparation context, but I'd be willing to bet that he/she (sorry, can't be bothered to go back and check) at one time took a preparation course from The Princeton Review and just unconsciously integrated the name Joe Bloggs into his vocabulary as a synonym for Joe Blow, John Doe, Joe Shmoe, Your-average-Joe-on-the-street, etc...

    - posting anonymously because I forgot who I am
  • If someone is following Corel, he/she will see that Corel really Loves KDE (they donated 6 workstations for the KDE development), and if they'll have the wine functional to run out-of-the-box Windows applications, then they got a winner. But on Linux world, since Wine is GPL'd, Caldera, Redhat, S.u.S.E, debian and other could easily do the same. Now add that LSB (Linux Standard Base) is moving to finalize all the settings and Redhat Linux will have the same settings that Caldera Linux have - so it's a win win. JUST do not modify the kernel, Corel..
  • That does it. I think I'm gonna buy Corel stock at market open tomorrow. I've been thinking about it for a long time, and now it's a ways off its high. Wish I would have bought it at $2, I've been thinking about it even since then. Missed THAT opportunity royally. But it will probably go up big time next week.

    (It's a little over $4 now, down from a little over $5.)
  • Wait, Corel is helping Wine so they can port CLOSED SOURCE applications! Oh horrors! How can Corel be OK but KDE not, when KDE actually INCLUDES SOURCE and Corel's products don't? Stop posting this hypocrital crap.
  • ... from Microsoft.

    Okay, so if I could take my copy of Windows that MS refused to give me a refund for, and install it in a Linux dir somewhere (like I did with Softwindows for Irix a few years back), and then be able to run Windows apps within Wine, I'd be marginally happier.

    But then again, I could just get that new OS switcher app (forgot what it's called) and run that as well...

    What's the difference?
  • I've had success with several games, a hex editor (I had to put in a stub for some clipboard functions), a clipart-browser I played around w/ a while ago...

    The recent rate of development has been accelerating, also. In most of the projects I've had there's a long period before I have anything of visible functionality; Once it starts working right, however, the pace accelerates greatly. WINE has, within the last there months, started working right. I'd call Corel's time estimates to completion realistic.
  • Op-tion-al. Not required. You can CHOOSE to licence the DLLs from Microsoft and use 'em if some of your apps need them to run correctly. Otherwise, you don't.

    And there are plenty of reasons not to use the switcher; I run a few servers in the background and don't want my clients to occasionally lose service; Likewise, I don't want to lose the MP3s I'm playing when I switch to an app running on the win32 side, or stop the large compilation in progress. And I don't like the idea of paying $200 (or whatever it is) for that thing anyhow.

    So there's a rather big difference.
  • Posted by Ronin1:

    I have one question Will Paradox be part of the Linux effort. I for one sincerely hope so.
    Remove the 1 to email me.
  • ...would be the North American equivalent.

    --

  • Why is it that when Wine is mentioned on slashdot, the exact same ignorant posts are made? Here are some corrections to the frequent anti-Wine postings:

    1. It does run lots of applications; some of them are functional enough to be useful and others only require modest debugging. However, there are still many unusable applications, too. They will be useable soon.

    2. Wine includes implementations of everything you get with Windows 95/98/NT. Not all of them are complete. There is already a framework in place for Win64, whenever Microsoft gets around to that. You don't need to buy or license anything from Microsoft. Wine has it all.

    3. Microsoft can't change the API more rapidly than Wine can reimplement it. If they change the API, developers have to change their applications, too. Sure there will be new DLLs and occasional changes to the API, but it's not that big of a project once Wine has caught up.

    4. Wine will not kill the commercial interest in Linux. In case you haven't noticed, Linux is popular because it is a way to break the Microsoft monopoly. Other companies want a neutral ground to compete on. They want everything to move to alternative OSes. Commercial apps will stop if Linux is perceived to fail. It doesn't matter. We'll be back eventually.

    5. Wine is for legacy applications and their code (ie. all Windows applications and their code). It's just like dosemu, console emulators, fat-based filesystems, SMB, and every other old technology which still has a large installed base. Why not be compatible? They're going to be replaced by superior alternatives eventually, so there's no harm in making the present a little more convenient by supporting legacy systems.

  • GPL (Score:1)

    by TedC ( 967 )
    JUST do not modify the kernel, Corel..

    Isn't that the whole point of the GPL, being able to modify and improve code in any way the user sees fit?

    TedC

  • ...why not just roll with it and encourage development of killer apps designed on a good OS rather than a sucky one? WINE just gives app developers an excuse not to.

    I agree.

    There's no doubt that the guys working on WINE are some of the best programmers around; it's too bad they're expending the effort promoting a really ugly API.

    Windows is a disease that can't be cured; we ought to stomp it out while we have the chance.

    TedC

  • QT is still as much private property as ever and KDE is foolish for basing a 'libre' system on it. The lines are just blurry enough now for most people not to complain as readily.
  • It will be interesting to see if they build their own package management system or use an existing one. It will also be interesting to see what they do about the DE...

    I'm intrigued (though I doubt I'll actually use something aimed at the normal luser)
  • It's not the new users. It's the legacy apps. No-one will ever port Jedi Knight to Linux. I have a CD that might as well be a coaster until Wine finishes. Same for CivII (CivIII won't be CivII, they have good odds of breaking it). Same for any number of lesser-known programs such as that word-processor from a company in Redmond (which I still say is the only good thing ever to come out of there..if it didn't have macros..). I want to be able to run programs that were written for Windows. Period.

    Daniel
  • This means they will probably start with something like "Linux Mandrake" and polish it until it shines. Then they will slap the big Corel C on it and call it there own.

    KDE will be the center of this equation, even more so than the the 2.2.x Kernel ( everybody has that :). Other enhancements I would expect from a Corel Linux for Windows users is that They will set up Fax as a printer and make it pop up by default if you select print to that printer. ( I.e. You can use Bitfax before the brain is turned on. Why is Megety+SendFax so much more difficult ? )

    Corel is clever enough to not make Corel Linux less free than other distribution. I think this is a perfectly legal and efficient name btw. It will sell a hell of a lot better than any other name they could come up with. They already have extensive distribution channels in place ( 2nd only to MS as far as I know ).

    Best of all is a quote I got from a DieHard Windows user ( meaning he installed and liked the IE4 BETA ) more than a year ago. "If Corel released and Operating System I would buy it as soon as It came to Jamaica and if it didn't come I would go to Miami for it. Even if I was the only person to buy it".
  • Libraries should use the LGPL. It is enough like the GPL to prevent severe proprietary abuse, but does not cause problems for those that prefer to write apps with the BSD license.

    I Really do Hate reading this level of BS.

    1 : The QPL is MORE FREE than the GPL. This is because the QPL allows you to link QPLed code against any Free/OSS license.

    2 : The LGPL dose ALLOW and ENCOURAGE the development of 100% proprietary software. If LibC, GlibC and the Kernel headers were not LGPL there would be no commercial apps for Linux at all. Not WordPerfect, Not Netscape nothing.

    3 : The Only people who have to pay to use QT are those developing proprietary apps. If you use a GPLed lib you just can't do that and your app must be GPL too. If you use LGPL then it's free for all ( encouragement I call it ).

    4 : The QPL allows you to make and Redistribute modifications to QT. That is Open Source and Free software. For all you people with no knolage of english or lacking the ability to think for yourselves RMS, ESR and Bruce Perens all say it's OSS/Free thus saving you the effort of having to think for yourselves.

    AC. If you don't know what you are talking about, shut up.

  • AC. If you don't know what you are talking about, shut up. People like you just make us look like illiterate morons. Can't you read ? HTTP://www.troll.no/qpl

    You have no idea what freedom is and you have no idea how to read a license and understand what it means. If you did you would understand that the QPL allows everything the GPL dose.

    This includes taking the whole archive and forking the code.

    It includes sending out patches to your customers or to everybody on the web when you find them. It includes sending out RPMs of the complete patched version without so much as asking Troll Tech.

    In fact the only thing that the QPL doesn't allow is linking proprietary applications to QT. For that you need the $1,299 "Professional Edition".

    I fail to see this as a problem. If Corel wants to use QT for Corel Draw they can pay this fee and recover it when they sell the app. If they think the price is unreasonable they can use GTK or Lestif without paying a cent or they can shell out some money for Motif or one of the gazillion Linux compatible GUI Libs. The Apps will still work on the KDE desktop.
  • 1 : The QPL is MORE FREE than the GPL. This is because the QPL allows you to link QPLed code against any Free/OSS license.

    You can not link GPL code against QPL code, no matter what Troll Tech says. Authors may grant an exception, but often this has not been granted. The QPL is not more free. I can't fork the tree in any practical way. Who cares? Libraries should use the LGPL, not the full GPL. (apps can use the LGPL too)

    Incorect. QPL-0.92 is GPL compatible READ IT HERE [troll.no]. Somebody got copyright Lawyers to verify it. Basicaly the conclusion was that either the GPL was incompatible with all Licenses but the GPL itself ( including the LGPL, BSD and X Licenses ... thus rendering Linux an ilegal product in any form ) or it can be linked against Licenses which alow the things the GPL demands. I.e. Redistribution of modifide source.

    2 : The LGPL dose ALLOW and ENCOURAGE the development of 100% proprietary software. If LibC, GlibC and the Kernel headers were not LGPL there would be no commercial apps for Linux at all. Not WordPerfect, Not Netscape nothing.

    Proprietary software itself is not evil. I would not object to a QPL application. System libraries must be totally free, without even a hint of doubt. Non-free libraries limit my choice to use free or proprietary software as I see fit. In particular, Qt sticks me with a pseudo-free system.

    I like to use the DFSG to determine what is free and what isn't. Somebody on Debian proposed modifying it in such a way that the QPL wold fall outside. The problem is that such a modification wold kill around 1/2 of Debian. The "patch clause" was invented by TeX. QPL-0.92 makes it optional. This means the QPL alows all the GPL dose and then some.

    3 : The Only people who have to pay to use QT are those developing proprietary apps. If you use a GPLed lib you just can't do that and your app must be GPL too. If you use LGPL then it's free for all ( encouragement I call it ).

    Why discriminate against people? Those that want to use a totally free system should get to have it, without Qt popularity limiting their choice of software. Those that want to use proprietary software should not have to pay a Troll tax.

    Ohh. So you want Troll Tech to provide a charity service to let you develop and sell proprietery aplications with the lib they wrote without paying for it or contributing your source code to the comunity ?

    4 : The QPL allows you to make and Redistribute modifications to QT. That is Open Source and Free software. For all you people with no knolage (sic) of english or lacking the ability to think for yourselves RMS, ESR and Bruce Perens all say it's OSS/Free thus saving you the effort of having to think for yourselves. I want the right to get a group of fellow hackers together and fork the Qt development as needed. Xemacs, OpenBSD, and egcs would not exist without such a right. If you thought RMS supports you, think again: "The new license is inconvenient and inequitable, so it remains desirable to avoid using Qt."

    The QPL grants this "right".

    Simple. Set up a CVS server and put QT there. Then all you have to do is get people to contribute changes to it under the GPL that they don't want Troll Tech to use ( If the changes are QPL then Troll can take them but it must keep the resulting total QPL ).

    The difficulty is that you will not find a single programer who is capable of leading the development of a GUI library who will do the work. You can't do it and neither can anyone who whines about the QPL being unfree.

    There used to be a Harmony project dedicated to making an LGPLed QT clone. It could have been complete in another 9 months or so. As soon as the developers read the QPL they stopped working on it. All of them.

    Why don't you pick up where they left off ? Harmony is still on ftp.kde.org and if you can't find it I have it on my hard drive.

    The final source of contention is that the QPL isn't GPL compatible. Check out the last 50 posts on kde-licensing ( the log can be found under kde.org )

  • Silly boy, you won't have to licence anything from MicroSoft unless you are buying an app from MicroSoft. If you are using a Windoze app from some other vendor then all the necessary dlls will come with that particular app.

    WINE provides a free implementation of all the DLL's that are a part of the Win32 API, which is the only thing any Windoze app needs to run.

    You *really* don't need *any* code outside of the application itself. The reason you got screwed with SoftWindows on Irix is that it used cheesy emulation technology, which required a copy of Win95 to work. WINE is different. Wine Is Not an Eumlator. WINE does not require a single byte of data from Win95/NT.
    ----

  • I think... :)
    WINE lets you use native windows .DLLs, correct?
  • Someday we'll all sit back smokin cigars and drinkin whiskey, laughing about all this...

    It would be nice if Troll Tech opened QT *all* the way, but they only opened it enough still controll it, and I'm sure they really weren't opening it as much as they did just to kill Harmony now. Really. This new license is slightly less divisive than the old one, the net effect being we argue amongst ourselves over what "free" really means. TT is just picking their battles and using well meaning people on both sides as shields and cannon fodder.

    I use KDE for one month and I don't like it for additional reasons. On MY system (P120/32MB/20GB) it is slow and swaps constantly - even more than Windows 95 with the damn browser extensions. I haven't tried Gnome .99 yet, which may be just as bad on memory - who knows. Opening KDE and Netscape 4.5 on 32 megs causes about a 40 meg swapfile so that even opening a terminal window takes 6 seconds, and I seem to have more mysterious Netscape and X crashes than I ever did without KDE. YUCK!

    I like the idea of a *fast* window manager + a launcher program, more than I need a desktop. AfterStep is SO sweet. I think the 1 thing many here can agree on is, fwvm95 really sucks...
  • Uhh, don't all the linux distributions use the same kernel? I think so, although I haven't personally used all of them. I know RedHat does things a little differently, but then again with GPL'd applications your point really is completely wrong.

    Source code availability makes this problem completely incorrect, although as a BeOS user you don't see it like this.
  • Nope.

    True, Joe Bloggs is basically the British equivalent of John Doe, but it didn't come from any SAT prep course. It's been around a LOT longer than that. I find it more likely that the creator of the prep course had a British background.

    -dave0
    --

  • Well, all I can say about Corel is that I am still waiting for CorelDraw 3 for OS/2, CorelDraw 4 for OS/2, CorelDraw 5 for OS/2. All promised, none delivered.

    As a further note, It is funny to see Corel bitching about java when I have CorelOffice for Java on one of my harddrives around here.

    Corel is nothing more than a bunch of opportunists. Rest assured, they will ditch this band wagon at the first sign of trouble.

    Of course I could just be bitter about all the other products they promised us & never delivered on.
  • No, what I am refering to is that Corel promised us an upgrade to CorelDraw 2.5 when IBM was moving 1 million copies of OS/2 a month. When CorelDraw 4 came out, we were assured that the OS/2 version would be out shortly. Then CorelDraw 5 came out, the OS/2 users were _still_ waiting for an upgrade . In interviews during this period they asked us OS/2 users to keep the faith, it would be out shortly. I am still waiting. Well, not really, I moved on. But I learned to take anything than Corel says with a truck load of salt.

    Corel buggered out long before IBM did. Just about the same time WordPerfect killed WP 6 for OS/2 (3 weeks before gold code).

    They were also going to be the first software house to give us a JAVA based office suite (No one on this side of the pond had heard of Star Division at the time.)

    They bugged out on that too.

    On the other hand, that 20% share includes my mom. I picked up Corel Office 7 for a _very_ good price last summer ($29.95 w/ a $30 rebate).

    How do these people stay in business?
  • Funny, I've been running Lotus Notes on Wine since
    late last year. It has some cosmetic problems but
    otherwise is very functional (can't dettach docs
    either). But, My reboots to windows are now measured
    in weeks instead of hours.
  • "For the clueless, that means just say no to KDE." is slightly different from "Matt, you are forbidden from using KDE", n'est-ce pas?

    So quit you whinin', boah!

    Of course you can use KDE, no one's going to stop you (except for those little voices in your head). Hey, you can use Windows if you like. Do Windows users feel that RMS forbids them their software? No? So what's *your* problem?

    The KDE contingent may go off on their own merry little way, but what RMS says is true: for FREE software, having a proprietary lib underpinning it is a bad idea. Most of those who have seen GNU grow from the early 80's understand this. There are some newcomers that believe otherwise, however. Fine. People can believe whatever they want. Hell, there are some people that think that Windows is neat. The KDE advocates are just a little less clueless than that lot.

    Those of us who wish to see a FREE system develop have other ideas.

    The tragedy is that the direction of the industry is determined by what the majority feels... even if they're wrong.

  • That's the comment that I noticed the most, in the interview.

    100% compatibility of Windows API will accomplish diddly squat. That's only the start. Then you need to supply a clone of all the zillions of DLLs that you have splattered all over the place underneath \windows , before you can actually take a shrink-wrapped Windows app, and have any chance of running it.

    Corel is being very optimistic here.

  • When will you guys SHUT UP. I've already had to wade thru 1,000 KDE/GNOME/GPL/QPL/LGPL/... messages that are unrelated to the topic. Open your ears & listen -- We're talking about COREL giving FREE HELP to the Wine team so that it can be COMPLETED IN 6-9 MONTHS!!!
    Why aren't you excited about this ? It's the kind of boost that Linux needs right now. I could be running my older (irreplacable) apps under linux and get back the 4GB of disk holding windoze on my PC.
    You guys are like those old farts you meet on the train that can turn any subject into talking about there ilnesses...
    "Nice day, isn't it ?"
    "Yes, but I don't enjoy it now my piles are so bad. And don't *mention* my gammy leg!"
    "I didn't, but..."
    "KDE Sucks! Gnome R00lz!... Or is it the other way around ?"

    ............ad nausium.

    The big news here is that MOST windows licences are held by CORPORATIONS who have a huge investment in Windows apps developed in-house at HUGE expense, and who CANT move over to Linux/BSD/etc, even though in some cases they really WANT to. If they have a reliable means of dumping Windoze that gives them a more reliable platform with reduced costs, they'll JUMP at the chance.
  • I just put in my buy order for 100 shares at 4.25.
    Its about time for this company to make a serious comeback. I want to see MS sweat a little.
  • Hey, I know..
    We should all get together and start a big software company and start making guidelines for applications, we can start by "embracing and extending" proprietary protocols. Or, better yet, get rid of this whole open source crap. Thats whats muddling up the community.
    We can call it Lino$oft.
  • Sound Forge works really well w/ 990131. Few minor cosmetic problems, and the not so minor problem that saving crashes wine. Note, this can probally be worked around since IIRC Sound Forge does all of it's operations directly to a disk file, so saving just renames the file or some such voodoo. I really like WINE. If you think you can do a better job, do it. Don't complain, help.
  • > Here we go, a quote from the man himself:
    >
    > The new license is inconvenient and inequitable, > so it remains desirable to avoid using Qt.
    >
    > For the clueless, that means just say no to KDE.

    Now maybe I'm reading this differently than you but that very much seems like a commandment not to use KDE, "just say no to KDE." This is what I'm complaining about, people blindly following RMS without thinking. If you honestly believe that by using KDE you will give QT controll of Linux, fine, don't use it. I don't give a crap what you do. But DO NOT tell me not to use it. It's my computer and I will do what I want with it.
  • If Qt were allowing people to download a "free" desktop they owned, and admitted it, noone would blink an eyelid. The trouble with KDE is that they are pretending that it is free in a completely different sense. Corel, on the other hand, for the moment are being honest about their ambitions and getting the respect for that.
  • When Derek Burney was talking about other companies that might benefit from Corel's work on Wine, he gave as an example:
    "That will make it easier for other vendors,
    like Adobe..."    .

    Do his employers know how eager he is for Corel to be taken over by Adobe?

    Otherwise, quite a good interview... with attitudes like that, maybe there is hope for humanity after all.
  • I thought we were done with this nonsense! KDE is fine, just fine! GNOME is fine, just fine! I prefer KDE, not because I'm a capatalist pig opposed to the GPL, but because right now it's simply a better product! A lot of things GNOME does it does wrong. The whole anti-aliasing thing, while a neat hack, is the wrong way to do it. I don't have a better suggestion (actually, I do: re-write X), but that's the way it is. KDE is open source, QT has an open source license now. RMS is probably just trying to cover his butt by complaining about it. He thinks ANY license other than the GPL (including the LGPL) is inconvenient and bad. That, I can't agree with. He's just being an egotistical maniac. I mean, I'm as Communist as the next guy, but really! Insisting on a license just because you created that license is just plain megalomania. I have read the QT license, it seemed perfectly suitable to me (not that I'm an expert). I'm rambling now, so I'll stop.
  • WINE is great in that those of us who switched from windows, or are in the process thereof, (like me...) can still retain the functionality of their current crop of windoze programs. but the fact of the matter is that we want developers to start developing for Our Favorite OS(tm), no for an implementation of a lesser OS on linux!! WINE is becoming a crutch to converting everyone to linux. That's not the point. WINE has to regain its focus!
  • The ones that are built in to Windows are the API, which is what they are trying to emulate (ie: rebuild). Anything left comes with the app and is added by the app's install program. They will get added whether the underlying layer is "true" Windows or Wine.


    --
    - Sean
  • If Wine comes about with the ability to run any Windows program, and runs them more faster, cleaner, and safer, then Bill might as well find a nice motel to settle into because his time is up. NO business would pay for Windows machines when all they need is a free Linux with that can run whatever apps they need. There will be a period of switching where developers begin seeing Linux as a good platform, and we all get cross-platform code. MS would die, then Wine would die, then everything would be Linux. Total world dominations! That's what it's ALL about!
    :)
    Corndog Out
  • I mean, it seemed like a good idea at the time -- attract users to Linux and they can still run their Win apps.

    But now that the commercial app community (Corel, Sybase, Oracle, IBM, Applix, etc...) sees the momentum shifting away from Windows, why not just roll with it and encourage development of killer apps designed on a good OS rather than a sucky one? WINE just gives app developers an excuse not to.

    Now, if the various desktop folks could just all agree on a drag'n'drop model...
  • OS/2 positioned itself as a "better Windows than Windows". It could run Win16 applications, but its kernel was more stable. This is exactly the same argument with Linux/Wine. Unfortunately, Win32 is more difficult to clone. It's a moving target. By blurring the line between OS and application DLLs, Microsoft makes Win32 a mess, but it's a mess that Microsoft owns and no one else can easily clone..

  • Who the !@$!@$! is communist here? Communism looks somewhat attractive on paper, but it sucks because of human nature. Who the hell wants to live in a brain-dead hippie utopia? I'd much prefer a society of individuals and idealists. I don't know who the 'next guy' is, but communism is pretty dead =P
  • I don't agree at all..
    The worst thing that could happen to linux is the development of only one distribution/GUI. It will give too much power to it, even if their intentions are good (the competition between Gnome and KDE shows what kind of problems may appear).
    The strength of Linux is its diversity.
    One should be able to find what he wants easily.

    However, it's true that there should be a distribution for beginners (that is currently RedHat)..and why not Corel?
  • One is left with the impression that Corel won't port their stuff if Wine gets 100% compatible.
    How would I copy from Quattro Pro and paste in Word Perfect if the first uses Linux' APIs and the second works through Wine? Or are they planning to spare themselves even the Word Perfect porting?
  • I'd like to respond to some of the issues raised here regarding Corel's entry into the Linux distro market. In some cases I've taken quotes from other postings and in other cases I've summarized many concerns into one question.

    Is Corel going to produce a "proprietary" distro?
    Not a chance. The distro development team here has been part of the Linux Open source community for quite a while and recognizes how impractical and unsuccessful that strategy would be. You can expect our distribution to be highly compatible with existing distros.

    Corel will produce WordPerfect to run only on Corel's distro?
    One of our prime directives at Corel is that applications aren't tied to operating systems so you can be sure that we'll continue to try to make WP and other Corel products compatible with as many distros as is practical.

    Will Corel support the StrongARM (NetWinder) architecture?
    Our first priority is x86 but support for the NetWinder is expected to follow.

    Is Corel fragmenting the market?
    Actually, we feel we're helping to bring it together. By putting resources into developing the Linux desktop and building a distribution that doesn't diverge from current distros, we hope to add momentum to the Linux groundswell.

    What desktop are you going to choose? KDE or GNOME?
    I think there have been enough flame wars on this topic. I'm going to sidestep that for the moment and say that we're evaluating each GUI on its own merits and will make a choice that's appropriate for our Linux strategy. (OK, I admit that sounded pretty darn evasive).

    Why would Corel want to make Linux more like Windows?
    No question this a touchy subject with some in the Linux commmunity... Here's my best shot at explaining what we're trying to do. There have almost always been complaints about the various incarnations of Windows - some more extreme than others. However, I would hope most people can agree that Windows 95 (for example) provides some features that are appropriate for the people who are expected to use it. Just as the Mac OS led the way in making computers easy to use for non-technical users, Win95 is generally easy to use for your average business or home user. The UI is generally predictable and consistent and it's pretty good at dealing with the average user's hardware. It sometimes has infuriating crashes, and frustrating error messages, and a proprietary code base, but there are a lot of people out there who aren't affected much by those problems. While this is certainly a debate that can go on for years, I'd simply like to acknowledge that, like it or not, Windows has some good features. Let's learn from what they've done right (and wrong) and get it right on Linux. If you agree we need a desktop on Linux, then the world is going to expect it to be similar to (though not necessarily exactly the same as) Windows, Macintosh and other GUI OS environments.

    "And Red Hat and Corel shall lead us all..." ?
    Well, thanks for the compliment but that's not exactly how I see it. Corel's experience with Windows application programming has certainly given us the ability to constructively contribute to the WINE project (we're part of this collaborative project) and our experience in GUI environments should serve us equally well in contributing to the open source development of a killer desktop for Linux. If we can provide some leadership in these areas, then we're strengthening Linux as a whole and our position as a key vendor. Finally, our position in the retail market should help us lead Linux into distribution avenues it hasn't previously reached. So, in some ways, Corel can be a leader. But Linux, by it's very nature, defies dominant leadership. It's the extraordinary group of developers worldwide who have made Linux what it is today and who will take it to where it goes in the future. We're part of that community and will lead where we can, but ultimately the leadership will go to whoever the Linux community chooses to follow.

    Will Corel "waste effort duplicating stuff better done by people with years of experience"?
    Good question. No, we won't. We're not going to re-write the kernel or write a Web server from scratch. Those things are already taken care of. We don't want to re-create the wheel and, quite frankly, couldn't possibly expect to duplicate Linux in any kind of reasonable time frame. What we hope to contribute to development is our expertise in the areas of Windows (WINE), GUI design (desktop), and ease of use (install and desktop). Finally, we'll provide even wider distribution for the world's best operating system. We're doing what we do best and leaving the rest to what others do better.

    I hope I've shed some light on what we're doing and why. We're not ready to announce a lot of detail right now but as we move further in the development cycle, you'll hear more. While Corel is in business to make money and it is understandable that believers in OSS development might be skeptical, I hope time will show that we're conscientious members of the Open-Source community. We want to keep our initiatives for the operating system in sync with other users and developers (like the group here on Slashdot). We hope our development benefits the majority of the Linux community. I think it's unlikely we could succeed if we took any other approach.

    Erich Forler
    Product Development Manager
    Corel Desktop Linux
  • this is good news, something else to get the blind windows users over to the linux side.
  • kde is definitely the better choice for 'average win users' (no, i don't have anything against gnome & co.). and if this distribution succeeds in converting only a single win user to a linux user, ANY means is appropriate.

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