Corel releases Photo-Paint for Linux for Free 193
Corel has released Photo-Paint for Linux for free. You can go to their web site and download it (there are packages for RPM and DEB although its compressed with .tar.gz). Good work, Corel. Their FTP seems to be full, so could someone make a mirror please?
Go here to avoid clickthru EULA license bullshit (Score:1)
Full version: ftp://ftplinux2.corel.com/pub/linux/PhotoPaint9/Co relPHOTOPAINT9Lnx.tar.gz [corel.com]
or
or
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:3)
$.02, -=nft1999=-
YEEHAW! (Score:1)
count me as a Happy Camper!
Re:Completely illogical? (Score:2)
You have a point about unix dying out, but it is tangential to my point. My point was about the core users of Linux/Unix being programmers and hence the killer apps being programming tools.
If you need apps for different purposes, either write them yourself/pay someone to write them/wait for someone else to do that.
With the tools available, you have the first choice too.
Well, when you want to present project ideas to more programmers over a network, HTML works better.
Re:Links to download (Score:1)
Re:YARGT (Score:1)
There's still a lot to do before it can really compete with professional vector drawing programs, but my users seem to be quite satisfied with what it already offers.
I'm the only developer, so any help to improve it would be appreciated.
Completely illogical? (Score:2)
Right. So the software that allows you to actually *accomplish something* is all shite, and the software that is merely designed to *enable* the useful stuff is great?
What Linux needs is not more legacy comercial software. ... What Linux need is to continue its high standards and the world will change around it.
Whatever. If you want to change the world, you have to affect the majority of people. To affect the majority of people, you need to actually touch their lives somehow. Linux is a great tool for a few particular jobs - servers, development, geek-toy. I'm a designer. Linux is absolutely out of the question, much as I'd like it not to be.
I need Illustrator (or an equivalent vector gfx app). I need an excellent and flexible raster imaging app. I need full featured, reliable, plugin-friendly audio editing apps, and a working sequencer. And something that's in perpetual development with out-of-date "stable" releases, that may not eventually be maintained (and this happens on a much shorter timescale than in the commercial world), is not suitable for professional work.
Quit deceiving yourself. Linux is great, sure. No argument there. And I appreciate all the work that goes into open source apps - and some of them are excellent, unparalleled even. But Linux is not everything, and open source isn't either.
Linux does not need to become what it's fighting against.
Why not let it be everything that it already is, and more? If the OS/FS movements are as strong as you think they are, take a cue from Microsoft - embrace, extend, and extinguish commercial software.
Typing, by the way, I can do on my TRS-80, or even a typewriter. Wow.
What about Loki (Score:1)
I would go out and by $50 Internet Explorer for linux if M$ would also port DirectX to linux (no, i wouldn't use IE, since i used netscape under wintendo, too). Simply to show them that their investion is rewarded. (i'll pretend i do not hate them
just my 50^(-1) bucks
---
The big question was a good one. (Score:1)
Actually, I'd guess that was phrased correctly the first time. I'm constantly going between Illustrator and Photoshop - the interoperability of vector and raster editing apps is extremely important.
Native file formats are horribly important too, but not as important as being able to do all your work in the first place... it's not as important for me to be able to translate correctly between Illustrator and Freehand. (Damn good thing too - thank you so much, Macromedia. OT- why is Illustrator more successful exporting SWF than Freehand?)
Re:Links to download (Score:1)
No, you just have to do a lot of attempts. I'm getting it right now, using wget. It's dog slow though.
Re:Pixel32 (Score:1)
From the BeOS FAQ [be.com]: "BeOS supports ATAPI and SCSI Zip drives...." I knew I shoulda gone SCSI :)
Re:Links to download (Score:1)
I too got bounced from the links above . . .
but a little snip from the url gave me ftp://ftplinux2.corel.com/pub/linux/PhotoPaint9/ [corel.com]
which seems to be fine to show all the DL's you might want
(FYI : 1.CorelPHOTOPAINT9Lnx.tar.gz (182,520 KB) - A complete archive that will install on both Debian-based and RPM-based distributions
2.CorelPHOTOPAINT9LnxDEB.tar.gz (91,989 KB) - Will install on Debian-based distributions (e.g. Corel® LINUX® OS, Debian GNU/Linux)
3.CorelPHOTOPAINT9LnxRPM.tar.gz (92,601 KB) - Will install on RPM-based distributions (e.g. Red Hat, SuSE, Linux-Mandrake, TurboLinux, Caldera OpenLinux)
May save you some time too :)
Only why is it that I get the idea in my head all these WINE ports are designed to cripple acceptance of Linux on the desktop.
I mean fill the machine up with emulated boatware to the point it chokes . . . won't Win2k suddenly look efficient and attractive (*NOT*, but you get the point?)
I agree with the Abandonware comments elsewhere *but* not for financial health reasonsUntil Corel does a native port they haven't abandoned PhotoPaint, they've abandoned Linux
Maybe they'll pull out a native version for $$$$$ just as soon as they get a user base, but only much, much later on.
Re:Mirror (Score:1)
No wonder you're not getting moderated up. Every moderator's probably too busy leeching from you, or trying to get into the elite 15 users allowed. (:
Bart
Re:Gimp and xpaint? (Score:2)
Re:Logical? (Score:1)
Re:The big question (Score:1)
I'm wondering how many of the neat filters that ship with the Windows version come with the free Linux version. The Win version has Terrazzo and Impressionist, which while not terribly practical are a hoot to play with. ^_^
G
Maybe not... (Score:1)
Releasing the FIRST VERSION of their first linux products for free can be seen as a gift to the community that helped them.
After that, if you need the new versions (remember, noone will force you to upgrade to linux 2001 with new and incompatible syslibs) you can buy them, if you're done with the old one, fine.
Ciao,
Rob!
Re:What is corel's plan? (Score:1)
They must see Linux as taking over Windows in the next few years, so they want to have deep roots in before the whole industry turns to Linux.
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
Another question: Are there many truly new programs coming out these days? By that I mean programs that serve a function no program has served before. It seems to me that a lot of non-game commercial software is office stuff or communication stuff, and there's already a vast array of those. And if anything really new does come out, it's rarely (ever?) available on Linux right away, and by the time someone does get around to porting it twelve OS projects are already underway to clone it.
-Erf C.
Re:This is Good News Because... (Score:1)
This is about the Gimp (Score:4)
This is not new for Corel. This is the same company that for years gave away older versions of Corel draw with Diamond Video cards. Some motherboards come with Perfect Office 8 and there is a deal that should see Corel Linux and Office for Linux distributed in the same way. I haven't seen any signs of that yet though.
It's sad but one consequence of Linux' rapid growth is that Corel will likely go under before Microsoft is able to clearly measure our impact on the desktop. KOffice will be the next Office Suite to dominate the market and even that will not have the percentages that MSOffice holds now. My advise to Corel is to help out. Do your damnedest to work with everyone else who needs to Import MSOffice files and work with some kind of standard XML.
If file formats are removed as a serious market factor then Corel will be able to squeeze 4 or 5 years of solid sales out of it's clear user interface and strong feature set lead. Otherwise it will get crushed between MSOffice and KOffice.
PS : I do know about Gnome Office but it has quite a ways to go before it is near the Office of today. The main problem is that GOffice was designed and built in different camps with varied loyalty to the Gnome core. Eventually the various parts will be fully integrated but since they were not designed that way from the ground up it will take time.
I only hope they and KDE work towards a standard XML interpretation. That way I can continue to share even the most complex of documents with others regardless of what they choose.
As for the others. Applix and StarOffice both want to become the next MSOffice and dominate in the same proprietary way. This is why they are doomed to the same fate as OS/2. Corel at least is desperate enough to and well designed enough to look at such radical options.
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:3)
Honest, I'm not trying to troll. It's just that this story is the latest to make me wonder about the financial viabillity of Linux as a targetted OS for commercial software.
I don't think this is a troll. It's a perfectly valid question and basically the same question I asked myself when I read this.
If these companies keep giving everything away free, there is no way they can maintain financial viability. Giving Photo-Paint away free is hardly going to get Corel out of the financial hole they are in now. Giving Photo-Paint for Linux away free is going to backfire on Corel and the linux software market in general.
I look on Corel's website and notice that the same software for Windows costs $495 or $149 for upgrade. [corel.com] A quick glance and one might think 'hey, why pay $500 for the windows version when I can get the linux version for free?'. This is all well and good in the short term, but what is going to happen is that software developers will look at this and think 'why should I develop a Linux version of Foo Program if no one will pay money for it when people are willing to fork over $500 for the Windows version?'
Now this isn't to say I want to pay $500 for a paint program. But I *AM* willing to pay something. If they made this software [for both platforms] available on their eStore for a reasonable price [say, $20-$50] then I think in the long run it would be better for the Linux software industry. At the very least, selling a product for $20 as opposed to giving it away would at least slow Corel's downward spiral if not stop it.
Are there ANY Linux software companies that are making a profit? I don't mind paying for software but jeez that crap is so expensive! $99 for an upgrade to Windoze?!? $500 for a drawing program? People are lucky to be able to afford a computer let alone $500 for a drawing program [yeah it's cheaper than others...they're overpriced too :) ]
Ender
Re:OT: Web-based image editing program? (Score:1)
Also try out Text F/X [corel.com] which is also powered by Corel PHOTO-PAINT 9. This is really cool for web designers. Create your text, choose the font and size and run various effects on it. For awesome 3D results, click the Plastic checkbox.
Re:Mirror (Score:1)
Sheesh, lots of wine stuff in there. I assume that all GPL issues are taken care of?
Re:Unfair. (Score:2)
Re:Um, what about WordPerfect? (Score:1)
Re:Did anyone get this to run on mandrake 7.1? (Score:1)
mv
ln -s
Essentially, the wine executable that ships with Mandrake is a shell script that calls the wine-strip executable. This could be fouling up somehow. They apparently do this so you don't have to issue command-like arguments such as "-debug" or "-winver win98". Ugh.
Re:PPaint3 vs. GIMP (Score:1)
Ask Opera Software [opera.com]. Supply a better product, and they will pay.
vr
It's about time. (Score:1)
Maybe not even free, but this way I'll at least try it eventually.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].
Re:PPaint3 vs. GIMP (Score:1)
Re:Why am I not surprised... (Score:1)
Re:GPL (was: Re:Mirror) (Score:1)
Re:yay. (Score:1)
(I was going to to a comparasion, but there doesn't seem to be any feature list on Corel's page for the program. Is there a list of features anywhere?)
I don't make my windows boxes serve, and I don't use linux for the desktop. If my company had Macs, they'd have their own place, too. It's not like everything has to run every piece of software all the time. Jeeze.
yay. (Score:1)
my linux boxes are all have server lives. none of them are desktop units.
Money. (Re:This is about the Gimp) (Score:3)
Microsoft has no choice but to keep raising the price of it's software. Sales volumes are not growing fast enough to justify the stock valuation ( even after 1/2 of it dropped off ). When the total hardware of your PC costs under $300 paying another $300 for OS and Basic Office productivity becomes a pain. Dropping a grand for the retail boxes is just insane.
MS doesn't have features to justify the high sales volumes it has. That is rather the result of nobody else being able to read the files consistently.
All but two of the people I know who bought MSOffice retail did so because they had trouble reading new files. Those two bought it because the older version they had was too unstable to use on the systems they had. One couldn't get Access to start at all.
If and only if the file compatibility issue can be dealt with in a complete and consistent way Microsoft Office will go down and MS won't be able to do much about it.
Re:Corel's Market Niche (Score:1)
Not good when Word has had an 80%+ marketshare since 1993 or so.
Re:Discrimination? (Score:2)
MicroSoft on the otherhand did overprice Unix versions of their software in order to kill the Unix market. For instance SoftImage (purchased by MicroSoft, later sold to Avid) was less than half as expensive for the NT version, despite the fact that the Unix (actually Irix) version already existed and did not need any work from them (and certainly did not get any!). MicroSoft could have done many other less evil or illogical things (including discontinuing the Unix version) but did this rather convoluted action to try to make NT look better in comparison.
If Corel's programs required some library or proprietary module that was only on Corel Linux I would say they should be screamed at, but their current actions do not seem evil in any way.
is this a real port? (Score:1)
___
But they will survive... (Score:1)
It would be great to see them make a come back. As long as they don't go under then it's just a matter of time until they can get back in gear.
So if they were to start GPLing more code, where would they finally start making the cash? GPL until it's popular and then start coming out with some new products to sell?
Re:Completely illogical? (Score:3)
Unlike any other OS, Linux's desktop "Killer Apps" seems to be programming tools. Not good if you need to get any work done, but presumably all of those programming tools will eventually produce programs that do something other than assist in writing programs.
Adobe should get in gear (Score:1)
www.sheepdot.org - Why everyone hates me
Mattress Tags (Score:1)
I always tell myself, at least I don't work in a mattress store.
Pixel32 (Score:3)
On a related note, Pixel32 [pixel32.box.sk] has promised a Linux port of their excellent (far better than PhotoPaint, IMHO) photo manipulation program. You can register until the end of July for $32, get the WinDOS version, and then get the BeOS and Linux versions for free later when they come out. (After that it's $50).
Re:Logical? (Score:1)
Judging by your message, when it's Netscape, Star Office, Word Perfect, etc.
The disadvantages of proprietary software suck (and I say this as someone who develops it), but the advantage of having multiple developers spending 40+ hours a week working on a proprietary program is hard to beat.
Well I'll never use it (Score:2)
I'm not even one of these "all things must be under GPL or I will storm the head offices with a flaming pitchfork" types. I have just made the obviously crazy, frivolous decision to use a processor other than the x86. I'd be glad to run it if they would simply compile it for LinuxPPC and let me download the binaries.
I might use WordPerfect too, but wasn't there some sort of security problem if you wanted to do something crazy like let multiple users have access to it?
Re:What is corel's plan? (Score:3)
The three things that they have given away, Corel Linux, Photo-Paint, and WordPerfect 8 have been for good reasons. The first two are because the market value of Linux and a product like Photo-Paint is zero, Linux for obvious reasons, and Photo-Paint has to compete with the GIMP.
As for WordPerfect 8, my guess is they wanted to gain their marketshare back. By catering to the Linux community they hoped that people would use it, and then pay for the full WordPerfect Suite 2000, with WP 9. Also, if they want to be able to sell their products they need Linux to grow, and with one of the biggest complaints about Linux being that it has no real commercial and home use products (although FUD, it is what a lot of people believe) they needed to show that there is in fact everything that you can get on Windows for Linux.
As for your question about MS
Re:Corel's Market Niche (Score:3)
Re:The big question (Score:1)
Good that you asked this question, because many who are going to d/l it may have the impression that PP8 lacks this functionallity.
The equivalent concept in PP is "objects". You can have many, select which you work on, show or hide, control their transparency, apply drop shadows and merge. Every time you create a new text a new object is created. It's a little clumsy at first but works fine.
I like PP very much, it is one of the very few reasons why I still have a DOS partition. For those with the bandwidth, enjoy!
Re:Are you sure it's free? (Score:2)
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
If Autodesk would port AutoCAD to Linux I'd buy it so fast it would make your head spin. And AutoCAD costs $2500 on the street.
But I suspect, though of course I haven't any hard evidence at all, that Autodesk has a private arrangement with Microsoft. At that time AutoCAD was supported on MS-DOS, Macintosh, and several flavors of Unix. But five or six years later that list of platforms had been whittled down to one: Win32. Just recently Microsoft assimilated Visio, but in the process, for some mysterious reason or another, as part of the deal Visio spun off its Intellicad division, which had been selling a clone of AutoCAD for about the tenth of AutoCAD's price. Now why did they do that? I'm just guessing, but I think that Microsoft long ago agreed not to gobble up Autodesk as an appetizer, as they pretty obviously [fourmilab.ch] have been able to do for the last decade, in return for Autodesk dropping all other platforms.
And I also suspect that it's lots of under-the-table business like this, rather than some impalpable attitude problem amongst Linux users with regard to commercial software, that explains why so few vendors of commercial software for Win32 are willing to port their products to Linux. If this is only a paranoid fantasy, then it's one I share with Judge Jackson and the DOJ antitrust division.
Yours WDK - WKiernan@concentric.net
Re:Yes there is! (Score:2)
However, the frames idea leaves so many possibilities open that it's just too good to pass up. You could (theoretically) embed ShockWave Flash files into your KWord documents. Or put the contents of a word document on the internet as part of a document template HTML page in real time, with updates ocurring as you change the file... it's some crazy awesome stuff. I'm excited.
Re:Pixel32 (Score:2)
I'll say this again. The biggest mistake the Gimp has mad is that their "stable" version is that it's like a year old and doesn't really compare to other graphics manipulation programs. Hello guys - FEATURE FREEZE PLEASE! The "developers version" is fabulous. I couldn't live without it. It's a beautifully written app and does everything I need from a graphics program (except CMYK).
And it's GPL. So don't pay $500 for Photoshop or even $50 for Pixel32.
Um, what about WordPerfect? (Score:2)
Anyway, he rightly points out that Corel was giving away WordPerfect too - yet people were still buying copies of it.
Hell, The Offspring's Americana album was one of the top mp3's being swapped, yet the album sold many millions of copies.
I too go out and buy packages even though I can download them in a few minutes over the net. I have purchased lots of Linux distros, programs, etc. I could have just as easily spent 14 hours downloading all 6 of the SuSE 6.4 ISO images, yet I went out and paid $35 for the box. Why? Because I wanted to! (Plus, I got some userfriendly.org stickers!)
Red Hat sells lots of boxes, so does Debian, Mandrake, Caldera, and Cheapbytes.
Somebody is buying, because I don't quite have THAT much money!
Re:Links to download (Score:3)
Very Good? Or Very Ominous? (Score:5)
With all respect to those who think this is a positive thing, we must seriously consider whether this isn't so much FreeWare as it is AbandonWare.
A few facts gleaned from The Motley Fool:
In short, I think that Corel is a company that is in serious financial trouble. I think it is far more likely that Corel is doing this not for PR--but because they're going to eliminate PhotoPaint development, support, etc. as part of their announced C$40 million cost-cutting campaign.
Don't get me wrong--I have a lot of regard for Corel. Ten years ago I was writing PostScript code generators for calibrating imagesetting equipment--and developing books and periodicals with Corel Draw and Ventura Publisher (now owned by Corel). I subsequently was a sysop on the VENTURA forum on CompuServe, and did a lot of technical illustration with Corel Draw. I've retouched hundreds of photographs with PhotoPaint.
But I think this is a sign of Corel going into the tank--not a sign of positive developments for Linux at all.
sic transit gloria....
Re:WTF? (Score:2)
Oh Great (Score:2)
What the hell? I really thought Corel would have more sense than that. I'm more worried about MetaCreations' software - I used to work for MetaCreations. It really saddens me to see such innovative products (not 'Microsoft innovative' - really innovative, both in functionality and user interface) just go down the drain. Corel had better get their act together, or sell those products to a more competent company.
Blast it all to hell.
The GIMP 1.2 interface isn't half bad, actually (Score:2)
It's a shame GPL'ed mainstream-compliant color calibration probably can't be done without intellectual property lawsuits from Pantone. That's the big weakness I see remaining with GIMP.
Re:Intel Binary only? (Score:2)
Nuintari has no sig
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
As an individual, there are precious few pieces of software I'll pay for on a free OS platform, given the free software that is already available. First off, I won't pay for any development tools whatsoever. I love the free stuff much more than I ever did any IDE I've ever used (and paid through the nose for, most times). I also won't pay for office productivity programs - the Lyx is great for the few things I need to prettyprint, while the text tools give me more power than I've had in a long time over every other file. Spreadsheets are different, of course, but then there's Abs and sc, and they're fine for me. The free Email, USENet, and IRC clients are better on the free *nix's than their counterparts on Windows.
So what would I pay for? Well, I'd buy a good vector drawing program for my wife, if there was one. I've tried to get her to use Sketch, but she really wants CorelDRAW! It's the one package she misses from her Windows days.
And yes, I do buy the occasional game from Loki, although they're only installed on my wife's machine. I really don't care very much for today's games.
In short, as a developer, I find nothing lacking in the free *nix world. But, that stands to reason, doesn't it? My wife, as an artist and computer enthusiast, finds the free *nix's to be great OS's with great programs, but she does long for a really good vector drawing tool and the occasional commercial game. And she's willing to pay to get 'em.
Now, to answer the question as to who would buy commercial software for a free OS, I'd say that most of it will be purchased by businesses eventually. I'd love to move us to a rock-solid OS at work, and I'd even keep MS-Office if it was available in a free *nix version. We'd still be better off, and the PHB's would be satisfied.
In the long term, though? I agree with Neal Stephenson's assessement. Any useful piece of software is eventually reimplemented as free software. If the commercial software providers keep sitting on their kiesters, churning out 10 year old software with annual feature upgrades, then eventually they'll be overtaken by freely implemented versions and they'll have no business left.
So in the long term, I see very few mainstream apps being purchased. Shrinkwrap software will just about disappear. Custom and semi-custom software will still be sold to businesses, and shrinkwrapped free software will still be available (as will commercial games), but the rest of the stuff you see in the software department of your local Best Buy will eventually fall by the wayside.
Unfair. (Score:3)
As for you people bitching about this not being OpenSource, get over yourselves. Corel is releasing a product to further their business. That's what companies do. You can bet that RedHat would close up Linux in an instant (if they were allowed to.) The contingent that won't use PhotoPaint just because it is not OSS is relativly small, and frankly, I doubt Corel cares about you. There is an art of managing consumers. Only cater to those you know can affect your business. The hardcore OSS community is a very small contingent, and thus Corel can piss you off all they want and not affect their business...
Corel (to Stalinite): Ha ha, this isn't Open Source!
Stalinite:No! (Goes over and talks to another user.) Look, they're not releasing this open source. Boycott them. Burn their products!
Normal Consumer:Get away from me! I'll use this product all I want... It's FREE. As in no moolah.
Re:OT: Web-based image editing program? (Score:2)
PhotoPaint *9* (Score:2)
The place where PhotoPaint shines over PhotoShop is it's brush support. You can do some extremely cool things with orbits, for example. You can tune pretty much any brush parameter you can think of, and even have some of the parameters vary randomly (within set limits) over the course of the stroke.
And you can paint butterflys with the Image Sprayer. 8-)
PhotoPaint for Linux also comes with a tutorial that shows you how to put together a custom KDE desktop theme.
More Info Here (Score:2)
http://www.corel.com/Technical_Marketing_Document
It looks like it can import GIMP (xcf) files.
Re:What is corel's plan? (Score:2)
They aren't giving away everything, and they hope to make money on the stuff they are giving away by 'network affect.' Corel has a huge stable of Office/Graphics/DTP programs, most of which haven't been released for Linux yet. What they have given away:
- Work done on WINE to help porting their programs.
- Work done on KDE to offer a more comfortable environment to their existing users.
- WordPerfect. The Word Processor, not the Office Suite. The Suite they charge for, whichever platform.
- The downloadable distribution. They still charge, of course, for shrink wrapped distributions that include their commercial software.
- Now, Photo-Paint. Which is a nice little gadget, but only a component of the commercial product they would like you to buy, CorelDraw. My bet is they intend it mainly as a convincer, to show everyone that they are making progress on CorelDraw for Linux, and that it will be worth buying.
Don't expect to see programs like Bryce, Catalyst, and Ventura to become freeware. Do look for them to be ported to Linux, and do look for Corel to start working out hardware partnerships and trying to convince businesses that use these programs to run them on Linux instead of Windows.Re:Good package, but still won't download it. (Score:2)
Many of the design decisions in Linux (including GNU and X11) system are aimed at the power user. I use Linux precisely because its engineering tradeoffs are aimed at the power user.
If we followed your suggestion and "recruit outside experts" who know how to build applications for the "non-geek" majority, we'd end up with a system for the non-geek majority. If I wanted to use that kind of system, I already have multiple excellent choices, foremost Windows and MacOS. Windows and MacOS are well adapted to the needs of non-geek users, and the tradeoffs they made were driven by those needs. If Linux starts seriously addressing those needs as well, it will turn into a system that will not be very different from them. In fact, it has already started, where system administration and other parts of the system are driven by the needs of graphical configuration tools, rather than easy configurability with a text editor.
I don't want Linux to take over the desktop; I'm happy if it merely occupies a niche for powerusers. And I believe that niche can be large enough to keep companies interested in providing drivers and tools.
Re:GIMP's UI sucks ass! (Score:2)
And, as the other fellow posted, the pre-1.2 series actually has a very nice UI. I havn't had a chance to try PhotoPaint yet, but I bet it's one window with sub-windows inside it, a-la Opera browser. No offense, but that concept was thought up partially due to limits in Windows, and is simply a bad user interface. It sucks up screen real-estate, and makes working with more than one app nearly impossible.
If PhotoPaint has a window for each image being worked on, I apologize.
Dave
Re:Completely illogical? (Score:2)
Linux appears to be moving towards user friendliness, but it still is driven by the OS for programmers concept. So given that the main customer for any unix is a programmer, it is but natural that the killer apps should be programming tools. That is what is/was most demanded in this environment.
I hope that we will get better *productivity* apps, but my production requirements as a programmer are met by those programming tools
They are productivity apps for me.
Office suite? HTML often is good enough for my requirements. What I need is better printing support, and I will be contributing to that after I finish my exams (couple of days more to go
Oh, now, really. (Score:2)
Re:But they will survive... (Score:2)
As for how to make money once a product GPL's to the community? It would have to be that they package or add-on or distribute or support better than others (which, compared to Linux software vendors, they do, except support).
But, hey, I'm worried enough that I sold before it dropped off the board. Wishful thinking had already cost me my gains, I didn't want it to cost me my initial investment.
Mirror (Score:2)
I'm trying to get the others as well...
wow! great news (Score:2)
bye,
-jimbo
Good package, but still won't download it. (Score:2)
But I still won't download it. It isn't so much better than the Gimp that it's a "must have" for me. On the other hand, PhotoPaint would take away from the Gimp user community. Every bug report or feature request sent to Corel is a bug report or feature request not sent to the Gimp developers. The more people learn its UI, the less likely they will be to switch to a free software equivalent, no matter how good.
Software lives and dies by its users. The value of Microsoft Office isn't in the software itself (which is mediocre) but in the thousands of hours each serious user has invested in becoming familiar with its UI and quirks, the millions of files people have in its proprietary format, and the bug reports and feedback they have sent to Redmond. Even a very high quality free office suite can't displace MS Office at this point because it won't read all the old data flawlessly and because it just won't be familiar to users, quirks and all.
I'm not religious about not using proprietary software and I do use some. But if there is a "good enough" free package, I'll stick with that. In this case, I think there is. And much as I wish Corel success in general, I still hope others will do the same.
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
I think the problem you are looking at has more to do with the idea of critical mass than the "give me everything for free" mentality common to a certain segment of the Open Source community.
It takes a certain amount of development capital to build up the foundational pieces for a modern GUI, and Linux is just reaching that point with Gnome and KDE. With the foundations built, however, it becomes progressively easier to deploy the kind of advanced applications which power users and corporations are willing to shell out the bigger bucks for. It also requires a "critical mass" of users willing to shell out the money to make the more advanced development possible.
So perhaps it's a chicken and the egg type thing -- is it "if you build it we will come..." or is it "we'll build it if you'll come..." ??
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
Another key factor is that most commercial software packages do not make their fortunes selling boxed software to individuals. They make the real money licensing software to corporations.
That is the real weak spot in getting Linux on the desktop. Until Linux is widely used by corporations that license thousands of copies of whatever software they use, producing shrink-wrapped, commercial Linux software will be a low margin business. Once Linux products acquire a reasonable share of the corporate market, use by individuals will snowball, and the commercial Linux applications market will be as viable as with any other OS.
I believe the main thing standing in the way of this right now is the unwillingness of suits to accept Linux as a legitimate product, which goes directly back to the point I mentioned first, that people don't trust a free product.
In fact, many users (corp or individual) will put themselves thru all manner of contortions in order to hide from themselves the fact that they were ripped off when they bought a commercial package.
This is true not just in the world of computing. It is human nature. Often times, a persons self-esteem or professional reputation is dependent on the perception that they made a right decision. They cannot admit that they could have gotten a better product for less (or for free) because it would mean admitting that they were wrong...
An example: I know of at least one major US corp whose policy disallows Linux, per se, but allows ports Linux-native apps to Solaris. While the ports are pretty trivial, the relative cost is not.
IMO, the best thing that could happen right now to further acceptance of Linux would be the appearance of some reasonably priced, commercially shrink-wrapped linux versions of some trusted and useful software packages. KDE/KOffice would spread faster if Joe Shmoe IT guy could write a purchase order for 500 copies and have a reasonable expectation of getting something that Sally Secretary could use, and that would make him look good to his bosses. If the product is free, he is going to have to ask permission to bring it in, and sooner or later some one is going to ask "where'd this come from" and they're going to wind up thinking it was created by a bunch of weirdo interenet geek/hacker types, and want it of the LAN on general pricipals.
A couple tangental points:
Running Linux is hardly free. I pay for hardware, bandwidth, and software (when I can get it). It is a lot cheaper than running e.g Windoze, but owning and operating any kind of a system is never 'free'.
I will always have issues with companies like Corel, AutoCAD, and others who want to charge more for one copy of their software than I paid for all the hardware on my LAN combined. Overpriced is overpriced, no matter what OS you run.
Dilbert wuz here
I was going to download it... (Score:3)
1. You certify that you are not a minor and that you agree to be bound by all of the terms and conditions set out in the license below. downloading and/or using corel photo-paint for linux will be an irrevocable acceptance of the terms and conditions of the license.
Don't they learn?
Re:Very Good? Or Very Ominous? (Score:2)
"For Corel, there is no long term."
And he wasn't smiling.
Re:What the heck? (Score:2)
1. create scandalous, obscene, defamatory or immoral works using the Image(s) nor use the Image(s) for any other purpose which is prohibited by law;
Does that mean I cannot use it to create more Bill-Gates-as-Hitler images?
Damn right. Who are you to defame Hitler?
PPaint3 vs. GIMP (Score:2)
Its hard to sell a product when your competitor is giving theirs away for free. Just ask Netscape.
Bowie J. Poag
Logical? (Score:3)
I'm not complaining, mind you. This is definately a step in the right direction (commercial apps released for Linux). But IMHO the timing is a little too perfect... But maybe I'm just pessimistic.
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Re:Very Good? Or Very Ominous? (Score:2)
So what if it went up rapidly siz months ago? So did Red Hat [yahoo.com], VA Linux [yahoo.com] and every buzzword compliant dotcomm when Linux and dotcomms were hotter than chinese mustard in hell but currently they are extremely down from their highs.
As for your claim that it's all good for Corel in Canada here's a Canadian Reuters report [yahoo.com] that says otherwise.
It's a good thing Corel doesn't listen to folks like you, or they would have disappeared back in 1988. . . . You don't work for Adobe by any chance?
Your vehement support of a company that is by all rights on it's way to bankruptcy regardless of facts thrust in your face leads me to believe you have some ulterioir motive to defending Corel, perhaps you are a stockholder or employee?
Discrimination? (Score:3)
i can see windows users sitting there going "hey, i paid $lots for Corel Suite, why are Linux users getting it for free?". essentially, they are discriminating on the grounds of operating system. Imagine if it was like that the other way round, a software product you wanted to use that was free on a platform you didn't like, but you had to pay to use it on your platform of choice?
i am all for corel going in and giving the gimp some good competition - and even beating macromedia and adobe and others to the OS - this can only bring better products through competition. but the cross-platform payment issue does raise this interesting question. where does it go from here? does microsoft sue corel because they're discriminating against windows?
fross
Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:3)
What you don't pay for in cash, you pay for in other ways:
* you don't get a CD (or you have to burn your own).
* you don't get a printed manual.
* you have to download it, and it's big.
* you don't get technical support.
* you don't get all the perks and thrills that the commercial version packages with it.
Why this can work
Because Corel is giving it away to people who wouldn't ever have bought it anyway. They're not losing sales.
Their commercial offering is going to sell based on its added value: its manual, CD, tech support and a ton of goodies.
Professional users will continue to pay for it based on the added value being worth the price.
The trick is for Corel to make sure the added value is valued...
--
Yes there is! (Score:2)
So, my solution was to pay (a lot of) money for CRISP. It's not ideal, but it does have all the neat features I enjoy from CodeWright at work and so it makes me more productive when I'm using Linux. That in itself is worth every penny.
There are other needs in the marketplace. KOffice is gonna be good, but I don't think the average user wants to put up with a FrameMaker style word processor. Heck, I've used FrameMaker and I'm pretty sure I don't
Corel is doing this for the wrong reasons, BUT... (Score:3)
Corel is really just trying to jump onto the Linux buzzword bandwagon to increase their stock value and maybe make a bit of cash in the long run (by packaging cool Tux toys with the commercial version of their distro, maybe). Obviously, they wouldn't be releasing all this free stuff for Linux if they had not been totally screwed over by Microsoft's business practices that forced WordPerfect out of the market. Corel still doesn't get that they should release source or at least provide binaries for Power PC, Alpha, etc.
However, this is still a good thing for Linux. Maybe not for most Linux users who want source code, but for people who want to see Desktop Software they've heard of on Linux.
Word Perfect Office is a competant office suite, and supports filetypes from MS Word. Corel's graphics package , to my knowledge, provides more mainstream graphics tools than the GIMP.
This will hopefully make people realize that one can use Linux for a desktop OS once they get used to something that looks and feels different than Microsoft Windows. With Corel giving their stuff out for free (even without source), people can check out Linux as a Desktop without it costing them much cash.
Of course, what I'd really like to see now from Corel is support for BeOS and other Operating Systems. I'm sure they could do it, and it would help people see that there is not only one alternative to Microsoft Windows, but many.
User Interface (Score:4)
The UI is VERY customizable -- you can configure the toolbars, menus, dialogs, and keys to be whatever and wherever you like.
The GIMP is a great project, and I applaud everyone who has put effort into it. I hope PhotoPaint can serve as a wake-up call and inspire the GIMP people to do some serious UI work.
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Re:Linux and commercial software (Score:2)
Anyone who pays $500 for PhotoPaint is getting rooked big-time. The suggested price for the full CorelDraw suite [corel.com] is $695, and I don't think anyone sells it at full retail. The CorelDRAW suite is worth spending money on, but PhotoPaint is not. For far less money one can buy Paint Shop Pro [jasc.com] which takes care of almost everything PhotoPaint can do, and if you're looking for full Photoshop compatibility for your service bureau, Photoshop is only $114 more through Adobe [adobe.com] and cheaper on the street.
Prices for many of these programs seem steep for home use, but the main market for these programs is professional users, who can write off the cost of the program as a business expense (saving 28% or more in the US), and who will use the program to make money. $700 is a lot of money, but if the program saves you 7 to 14 hours over time, it's paid for itself.
YARGT (Score:2)
Oh well.
+---+
It was announced a while ago. (Score:3)
Links to download (Score:4)
CorelPHOTOPAINT9Lnx.tar.gz [corel.com] 182520 Kb Wed Jun 28 21:00:00 2000 Unix Tape Archive
CorelPHOTOPAINT9LnxDEB.tar.gz [corel.com] 91989 Kb Wed Jun 28 20:54:00 2000 Unix Tape Archive
CorelPHOTOPAINT9LnxRPM.tar.gz [corel.com] 92601 Kb Wed Jun 28 20:56:00 2000 Unix Tape Archive
Linux and commercial software (Score:3)
It seems to me as if the Linux culture is based around everything being for free. Maybe there will be some revenue model that will allow this to become mainstream in the future, but for the immediate success of Linux, I wonder the following: is it possible that larger software companies are unwilling to release their main products on Linux because they're worried they won't be able to make money?
Honest, I'm not trying to troll. It's just that this story is the latest to make me wonder about the financial viabillity of Linux as a targetted OS for commercial software.
Re:Links to download (Score:2)
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Re:PPaint3 vs. GIMP (Score:5)
Photo-Paint 8 is excellent. It it completely cross-compatible with Adobe PhotoShop, that's with file format and layers, and filters, has a debatably easier to use interface that PhotoShop, and is not in any way weaker.
I use both regularly. There are some things that are easier to do in one program, and some that are easier to tdo in the other. I just use them intermittedly, as the file format is interchangable.
Lately, however, I've only really been using PhotoShop for lens flares (this plugin was not licensed to Corel). The programs are otherwise equal, and I don't see why you would think that Corel is admitting to having an inferior product! They're not.
Corel just wants to show this product, so people can download for free and see that Corel wasn't talking crap when they said that they were porting everything to Linux.
Just my CDN$0.02.
Re:Very Good? Or Very Ominous? (Score:2)
Right. One of the joys of the American financial system is the transparency--when somebody makes a statement like that, all you have to do is look at the numbers. Or in this case, at a graph of Corel's stock performance over the past year, like this one. [msn.com] Which pretty effectively shows Corel's stock price running up to 44-1/2 in late December, and more or less tanking over the past six months. The Titanic sank faster, but not by much.
And while we're looking at numbers and pretty pictures, let's look at Corel's balance sheet [msn.com]. Which shows that Corel's current assets (cash and receivables) are a mere C$10 million more than its current liabilities. For a company doing C$60 million a quarter, that is a very, very hand-to-mouth operation. Which is not a pretty picture.
Or we could look at Corel's cash flow statements [msn.com] which document that Corel has less than 30 days worth of cash on hand.
The biggest concern I have, though, is that Corel hasn't yet released their second quarter results, despite their second quarter having closed a month ago. I don't know if this is unusual for Corel or not--but typically publicly-traded corporations I'm familiar with release their numbers by the 15th. (In fact I once was shipped to Japan on less than 18 hours notice by a client, in order to make sure that they reported results by the 15th.)
As I wrote earlier, don't get me wrong--I'm not a Corel-hater. I was an avid Corel user in 1988 (and I still have the Corel Draw 1.0 manual on my shelf to prove it). OTOH, a lot of corporations are trying to claim credit for "Open Source" in order to score points with the Linux crowd when all they're really doing is laying off developers. (Read: Netscape, Borland/Inprise, etc.) I think that's what Corel is doing here.
No--in fact I posted my note (and this one) with my full name, and with the URL of my business displayed in the message header. And, (ahem), I'm not posting as an Anonymous Coward.
My guess: they'll have to shrink a lot first. (Score:2)
Right now they're getting all the pain of open source (low price) and none of the gain (code donations). They need to go on a job-cutting spree, encourage the code donations (GPL), and hope that their products can be nurtured by the community long enough for them to gain momentum and revenue. Of course, if they GPL everything, it won't necessarily be Corel that gets to cash in on the momentum...
This is why commercial software companies need to be wary about opening established products too fast -- they've already made the investment in their commercial products, and opening them up just undermines their ability to make a short-term return.
BTW, I feel for your stock story -- I got in at 4 last June, watched it go to 45, and then finally gave up and sold at, you guessed it, 4. Kinda like a bad dream -- no harm done but a lot of lost sleep along the way!
PhotoPaint (Score:2)
It's geared more towards image editing rather than creation (though you can do this too). This is somewhat in contrast to Gimp, which seems easier to use for new logos and suchlike. Though I'd expected it to be slow (like parts of StarOffice), it actually is pretty responsive on my PII350.
Photo Paint is very good (Score:3)
Comparing Photo Paint to the Gimp is tricky, because the Gimp is such a beast in many ways, at least when you view it through something other than eyes of zealotry. Telling a graphic artist to use The Gimp is like telling a programmer to use lcc over all other compilers. I'm not flaming The Gimp, just pointing out that its main benefits have always been (a) it's free, and (b) it runs under Linux.
Re:Very Good? Or Very Ominous? (Score:2)
Yeah--it usually does. Stock prices frequently don't accurately assess the value of a company when the price is soaring. But when the price is crashing, it's generally because the market has the company figured out.
Corel just announced their results for the most recent quarter. It isn't pretty: here's a link to a couple of articles on The Motley Fool [fool.com], quoting Canadian papers.
I'm sorry to see them in this shape, and I hope they survive. But things do not look good for Dr. Mike and friends.
Re:User Interface (Score:2)
That's just your personal preference. I prefer the GIMP UI. I just couldn't get the hang of PhotoPaint. With GIMP, everything is in an intuitive place (for me). I just didn't find the same with PhotoPaint. Still, it has some nice effects that GIMP doesn't (yet), and I have been using both, and will continue to do so...
Corel's Market Niche (Score:4)
Corel's software isn't beautiful (their Office package is a hell of a lot better than M$, but could be improved), but where they really excel is that my mom has no problem installing and using their products. They're intuitive, they're pretty, there's a lot of hand-holding involved.
And, strangely, people like my parents--and all the business execs and fat cats their age--prefer to pay for their software. "You get what you pay for," they say. "That's the way I was raised, and that's what I think."
In conclusion, paying for software is only good if you somehow can't figure out how to use free software--but anything that brings Linux more mainstream is also good.