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Corel

Corel Linux Beta Program 160

Posted by Hemos from the trying-make-it-on-the-desktop dept.
Gameaholic writes "Corel is currently looking for beta testers for the upcoming Corel® LINUX® operating system. Corel LINUX is a Linux distribution specifically designed for desktop computer users. It is based on Debian and includes KDE as well as new applications and enhancements from Corel. " The battle for the desktop continues.
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Corel Linux Beta Program More

Corel Linux Beta Program

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  • We need this kind of distro (Score:3)

    by Foz ( 17040 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @08:11AM (#1679840)
    Ok, I'm all for yet another distribution... and I think Corel has the punch to pull it off. What I really want is a distribution that is friendly, simple, and pretty enough that my mom will go get it, install it, and run it.

    Right now we have several niches... Slackware for the "I want to do it all myself" hardcore type, redhat and mandrake for the middle of the crowd bunch who either don't have the time or inclination or just plain want a "push button" install but still want a nice hackerish system, and debian for the long-haired suspender-wearing "here's a nickel, kid, buy yourself a better computer" crowd that wants an easy to build, clean system with all the power and a lot less glitz. What we still don't have (although redhat and mandrake seem to be trying to get there) is a distribution for our moms. Maybe Corel can fill that niche, maybe not, but at the very minimum anything they do to move towards that is good for the linux community as a whole.

    Best of all, if Corel just manages to pull it off my mom just might quit calling me and asking me to troubleshoot her windows problems. :)

    -- Gary F.
  • CORL has been fairly steady at this price too.
    I am sure the stock would go up upon the distribution release. It probably won't jump like an IPO but I expect 400% rise over time. That is only about 20 bucks a share.

    More interesting is what microsofts reaction to all of this will be. Perhaps they will target distributions rather than Linux as a whole with FUD. Or, as I think, what if they bought into a distribution? That way they could play both sides of the fence.

  • LAUGH

    Are you smoking crack or what? Debian package management suite is and was far superior to anything that redhat had. dpkg/dselect/apt, never break and are pretty much rock solid. You can sync your system with ftp mirrors with just 2 commands. Hell you can upgrade the whole system with apt-get dist-upgrade command from ftp/http/cdrom/whatever. dselect and apt also take care of dependencies and conflicts automatically. There are other benefits too, these are just a few that I got from top of my head.

    RedHat LAGS in this area, sorry.
  • It's kind of a similar philosophy to BSD, in that the OS consists not just of a kernel and a set of basic stuff, but of everything. In a BSD this is true because everyone's running THE official BSD -- no distros. In Debian, there's the same kind of mentality. By comparison, RedHat's distro is sparse (granted most of the difference is in packages that very very very few people are interested in).
    As a Debian & (Free|Net)BSD user, I think the "OS is the distro" thing should be clarified a wee bit. The actual OS parts of the free *BSD's consist of a far lower number of packages than Debian. The strategy there is to have the core stuff in the base OS and the application stuff in the ports subsystem.

    Similar, yes (there's one ports.tar.gz or pkgsrc.tar.gz for the OS), but it does lead to different results. For instance, the stuff in ports is not treated as an integral part of the system in FreeBSD, so each package in the ports subsystem can be updated on an as-needed basis by the port maintainer. That means if you need to keep some non-core thing updated, it's easier to do that with *BSD.

    Of course, I've heard rumblings about solving the problem Debian has had with staleness by releasing packages tested for 2-3 months as ready to go into the stable distro. That would be a Good Thing, imho.


  • I would think that the installer would be a important item that needs beta tested. If so, it would only make sense to get users that want Linux and Windows to co-exist on the same machine. (A bare drive install being somewhat of a no-brainer.)
  • I'm pretty sure it would be considered distributing - the beta-testers are not employees or contractors. You can't override the GPL with a non-disclosure-agreement.

    Bruce

  • WINE doesn't require windows, but I think it needs a fat filesystem =(

    Just need to encourage developers to recompile their apps in Linux. But what I would like to know is... when a windows app is compiled with WINE, is it just as good as if it was full ported to Linux?

    AussiePenguin
    Melbourne, Australia
    ICQ 19255837

  • If you read carefully (I'm sorry, I'm a real bastard for choosing my words very finely and carefully [which is why I often look like a total idiot if I post -anything- when I haven't slept enough], or at least trying to), I never really said that Linux was fragmenting.. yet. We are, however, highly, and I mean highly, fractionalized. Can you really disagree with that? Everyone has their favorite distro. Some have uses for different distros, but for most of us, I'm pretty sure we stick to one distro or another.

    I also think the more contributions the better. All I'm saying is that we should be careful, and not repeat the same mistakes. It took a lot of hard work and chance to pull this off so far (I don't really remember thr last time a free OS captured the public's attention like this), so it would be good not to screw it up. :)

  • I cannot be the only person out there, who buys
    all the parts separately and builds his own PC.
    The hard-drives usualy do not come with Windows,
    although I know that you can purchase HD with
    Linux already on it (VAR, I believe?).

    Once a friend wanted to dome a favor and tried
    to install some Windows on my PC for me, but then
    he was unable to do it. The boot disk never
    recognized CD-ROM - and the Windows were on CD.

    So, that's why I do not have Windows on my
    machine. I am not proud of it, I am actually
    sorry for it, because my PnP sound card setup
    runs only on Windows.

    In turn I installed Linux on his PC and set it
    up in less than 2hours.

    Petrus
  • they'd just release the source code if you gave them a legal threat

    AussiePenguin
    Melbourne, Australia
    ICQ 19255837

  • LAUGH



    Are you smoking crack or what? Debian package management suite is and was far superior to anything that redhat had. dpkg/dselect/apt, never break and are pretty much rock solid. You can sync your system with ftp mirrors with just 2 commands. Hell you can upgrade the whole system with apt-get dist-upgrade command from ftp/http/cdrom/whatever. dselect and apt also take care of dependencies and conflicts automatically. There are other benefits too, these are just a few that I got from top of my head.



    RedHat LAGS in this area, sorry.
  • You may be right, but one thing to know is that wall street has already been notified that Corel is betting on Linux. At 5 25/32 (NYSE closing price) Corel's stock price is 3 X higher than its 52 week low of 1 9/16.

  • They're package management system has lagged behind Red Hat's due to lack of developers for a while.

    Has it? Is there a feature in RedHat's system allowing you to automatically update from a server? (I honestly want to know, I'm not trying to start a flameware here). That feature is one of the major reasons I use Debian.

    I don't belive there is a need for this feahttpture to be rolled into the rpm codebase. autorpm [freshmeat.net] is quite good at pulling updates from a distribution company web site automaticaly. It's quite good at keeping an rpm based system up to date from any number of mirrors ( handles mirror rotations and such).

    With other utilities such as rpmfind [freshmeat.net] and the very useful rpm database at rpmfind.net [rpmfind.net], an admin of an rpm based system has all the tools they need to manage the system.

    OMNSHO, a system to act as a front end to all three would be an even better boon to the community.
    --
    James Michael Keller

  • Yet, if you actually take the time to follow that link labeled Corel® LINUX® Beta Q & A [corel.com] you will see that there is no requirement for Windows of any kind. I found a lot of useful information on that FAQ page. I doubt that I'm elegible as a newbie but I know a number of people who probably would be candidates.

    Among the FAQ's is:

    "What are the requirements for becoming a beta tester for Corel LINUX?

    We will select users based on their experience with Linux®, the diversity of hardware at their disposal and on their software testing experience. In addition, we are reserving spaces for some KDE and Debian developers."

    I suspect this one falls into the old "RTFM" category.

    D. Keith Higgs
    CWRU. Kelvin Smith Library

  • How good is it? Does it automatically do the security upgrades that are official from redhat's site. I remember ages ago when I used redhat some of the security stuff (putting Xwrappers or something) required a fair amount of hand installing.. i.e. it wasn't just rpm -i (or -u or whatever it was) packagename. It would be nice to have these things select particular distributions from the www.rpm.org as some of them seem more stable and properly configured than others. Also does redhat have a package listing/ftp manager yet i.e. some sort of ncurses/graphics based list of all the current packages w/ descriptions off of various ftp/http sites which we can run search/find/grep etc on and then have it automagically install that new package and its dependencies from the appropriate site? Sort of like a nicer, easier to use version of www.rpm.org (This is one of the other sooper nice features of debian that converted me over a while back. I'm not trying to start a flame war w/ debian/redhat either, i'm really curious because i'd like to switch back to redhat actually (5.1 was the last one I used) as they are doing (imho) a much better job getting releases out.

    -avi

  • So much for me previewing, IIRC it's ftp and / or mirrors of them, not web sites as I typo'ed above.


    --
    James Michael Keller

  • Because they are a closed-source company, who is trying to ride the open-source roller-coaster.

    meanwhile I am gettin the error, "document contains no data"

    Mofo page is busted.

  • ...ask how the "Cathedral and the Bizarre" model can be merged with...

    "Cathedral and the Bizarre"! hahaha...I love that!

    dylan_-


    --

  • Look at their Beta Requirements:

    [...]
    Windows® 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT® (4.0)
    [...]

  • The beta is going out now and the final release is is planned for December? There's optimism for you.
  • If it's any consolation, MS is talking about releasing nine different versions of W2K.

  • Why didn't Corel just stick to graphics apps? Seems like they'd have less to worry about that way ;)

  • I don't think Corel gets it (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    In my mind, Corel doesn't understand what makes Gpl software do so well. They want to have an inhouse beta programme and not release source code until the final release date? What makes Gpl tick is having the source code out in the hands of countless devlopers before it is 'released.' If only they were to do this, I think they would find Corel Linux to be alot better than it would be otherwise.
    As for myself, I wanted to download Corel Linux when the beta came out. I am not a Linux guru, nor am I a computer idiot either. But I am annoyed that they are doing this and I think that I am not alone.
    Cowpland (sp?), I am hope you are listening. Look how easily people have been alienated by Redhat for who-knows-what reason, Corel is walking a dangerous path.
  • my PnP sound card setup runs only on Windows

    Personally, I prefer to stick to 'genuine' Creative Labs cards (they are better supported even under Windows -- or so my Windows using friends say). I have been able to successfully get a couple of generic clone sound cards working under Linux, the first being a "Digital Research Labs" (free after rebate from CompUSA) which uses the ESS 1869 chip set. I used the isapnp utilities to initialize the card, and then the RedHat sndcfg utility could be persuaded that it was a SoundBlaster and it worked. The second card is an old (pre PnP jumperless) Aztech Sound Galaxy 16, which I was able to get working with the OSS drivers supplied with SuSE. As far as I can tell most sound cards can be made to work with Linux with a little bit of research. Being impatient, its generally easier for me to just get a Creative Labs card...

  • Re:Why the (R) on LINUX (and why all caps) (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @06:56AM (#1679875)
    Linux is a registered trademark of Linus Torvolds, at least in the U.S.A. Technically Corel is a Canadian company, but I suspect that they will abide in general by U.S. trademark laws, since a large percentage of their business is with the U.S.

  • Re:WINE? (Score:1)

    by Zygo ( 8449 )
    Wine can be used to recompile Windows applications to run on Unix. They work as well as the windows application binary running under the WINE emulator, really.

    Wine is not really an emulator, it's just a very very different implementation of /lib/ld-linux.so.2, libpthreads, libX11, etc.

  • No source for the Beta? (Score:3)

    by ucblockhead ( 63650 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @06:57AM (#1679877) Homepage Journal
    According to their FAQ, they won't release source code until they make their final release. Doesn't that violate the GPL? I thought you always had to release source if you released binaries...
  • I get lots of coldfusion errors.

    Something about a templage on E:\

    Ikes!

    Jim
  • Of COURSE they have to distribute the source to beta testers. That's under the GPL. However, they can tell the beta testers under contract NOT to exercise their rights to redistribute it.
  • Unfortunately, the ideology of open source doesn't work as well with corporate wealth as some might like. Look at the RedHat --> Mandrake issue. Mandrake is essentially a copy of Redhat customized in some ways. When Macmillian was looking for a Linux distrbution, they went with Mandrake instead of RedHat, though Mandrake does not exist with out the RedHat. For a company like Corel, they're going to try to differentiate their OS from the others. Its a lot harder to do if the pieces of source you release end up soon thereafter in other distributions.

    Over the next few years, I think we're going to see several Linux distributions do this - look at Caldera and their install program. Caldera released their code only after its product had been on the market for a few months. ITs only a matter of time before REdHat holds its innovation tight to its chest until its had time to propagate as a RedHat technology.

  • Another issue we've all overlooked... (Score:3)

    by [Dilbert] ( 49749 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @08:28AM (#1679881)
    Before I go on to finish the subject, I want to say that I agree with the insightful few that have noted that Corel is possibly interested in testing "upgradability" from Win9x/NT (actually, I probably don't need the quotes - in most cases, linux is an upgrade from winblowz.) But also, please note that that page is probably a generic beta info page and noone's fixed it yet.

    But the thing I see people overlooking is the fact that this is most likely a limited beta program. From the site:

    How many people will be testing Corel LINUX?

    In order to ensure that the beta testing process can be properly administered, we will be limiting the number of registered beta testers for this first round of testing. The exact number of testers has not yet been determined.

    Ok so now everyone on /. is rushing in their forms, etc. You have to pause and think that Corel more than likely doesn't want too many geekmeisters like most slashdotters testing the thing. Yeah, there will be openings, but I bet that they are more interested in useability testing and interface bugs than security right now. What i'm attempting to drive at here is that their server is probably being swamped by the /. effect and thus making it difficult for johnny aolScriptKiddie to sign up for the program. now i'm not saying that johnny is any better at using linux than the general reader around here, but hey, this might be a way to pull johnny out of his stupidity as an AOL lamer and maybe get him on a decent OS and possibly let him learn a few new things too. I guess what I'm saying is that, from the perspective of the general advancement of linux, this story shouldn't have been posted: simply because of the tendancy /. has to flood sites with eager people.

    I don't know that Corel is having any problems, although I did read someone's post about having script errors on the beta submission page... I'd have to guess that they are feeling some strain.

    So for linux's sake, don't slashdot Corel!! :-)

    just my $0.34

    (oh, and sorry about the italic tags. This post is not lynx compatible. :-)

  • Not really. Some idiot tried to trademark "Linux" as a music-related term, and then sue Linux the kernel for infringement. As part of the settlement, the trademark was assigned to Linus, so Linus now owns a worthless trademark for the word "Linux" that only applies to some narrow music-related field. Even if it was broader, the trademark would be unenforceable by now, since Linus has not vigorously protected it (barely at all). Does Debian have a written contract allowing them to use the term Linux? What about Red Hat? SuSE? Slackware? If not, they're all in violation of the trademark, and since Linus hasn't done anything bout it, his claim on the trademark can be assumed to have been reliquished.
  • Someone holding RHAT could buy 16 shares of CORL for every one of RHAT. Even at its current price, Corel is still a bargain. Earnings for CORL are out on monday and should be 9-14 cents a share which will be second profitable quarter in a row. Corel had a few bad years digesting WordPerfect and knocking heads with Microsoft but it used to be a $20 stock when it just had CorelDraw. With a Linux distribution, office suite and graphics program (plus their Windows cash cows) they could do very well.

  • Give them a little time, OK??? (Score:5)

    by Bruce Perens ( 3872 ) <bruce@perens.com> on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @08:45AM (#1679887) Homepage Journal
    Folks,

    OK, they made a few boo-boos regarding forms and generic requirements documents. Please consider that the office staff don't necessarily understand Windows or Linux, they've been given boiler-plate copy by someone who does, and they'll have to get new boiler-plate now.

    They'll also have to comply with existing software licenses - which means if any Beta tester asks them for the source of an already GPL-ed program that Corel is distributing, Corel will have to give it to them. It might take a bit of explaining to get this through to them, but the Debian folks can handle that quite well. If Corel wants to put the GPL on any entirely new stand-alone software, it's Corel's choice when they do that, and they have the right to hold back the source until the GPL goes on it.

    Expect some growing pains as a formerly windows-centric company ventures into Linux. Give them a little time.

    Bruce Perens

  • I agree. I thought I was fairly knowledgeable but it still took me hours just to set up SuSE 6.1. The Corel demo at LinuxWorld Expo installed in 10 minutes! PS: Dilbert's mom already uses Linux.

  • IIRC, WINE can be configured either to use existing Windows .dll's that are installed on the machine, or to use its own native versions. I believe one of the goals of the WINE project is to re-implement the non-free Windows libraries, just as LessTif freely re-implements Motif.

    I heard something a few months ago about Corel contributing resources (manpower?) to the WINE project, but haven't heard anything about this in quite a while.

  • Yes indeed they are. In fact WWW.linux.corel.com still has job listings for people to work on their WINE input. Corel sees WINE as a significant aid to their desire to produce LINUX ready products.
  • They can tell them, but they cannot legally prevent them from doing it. If the beta testers are not considered in-house, then they can stop them, but if they aren't, the beta testers can do whatever they want with the binaries/code.
    ---

  • Are you smoking crack or what? Debian package management suite is and was far superior to anything that redhat had. dpkg/dselect/apt, never break and are pretty much rock solid. You can sync your system with ftp mirrors with just 2 commands. Hell you can upgrade the whole system with apt-get dist-upgrade command from ftp/http/cdrom/whatever. dselect and apt also take care of dependencies and conflicts automatically. There are other benefits too, these are just a few that I got from top of my head. RedHat LAGS in this area, sorry.

    I haven't used a debian install before, so I'm not going to get into which is better with debian folk. However just because rpm's own codebase dosn't have those features is irrelivent. Other packages handle those functions you belive it lacks, work just as well doing the same things. They don't replace, but work with rpm. Rpm handles the package databasing, installing, removing, etc. Autorpm has all the networking code to go out and check the ftp servers and download anything new - and if you set it to - update the rpms. It's especially good when you point it at redhat's update dir on the ftp server, so when I read something on bugtraq or redhat-list about a patched package update -- it's already on my system.

    Rpmfind handles finding and meeting dependencies. It too, simply uses the rpm system - vs bloating rpm itself with functions.

    The problem with automagickal download and installs is it only works when your system is rolled in a consistant basis. Ie BSD's ports collection system is great - it will download and install anything needed to install the package you needed in the first place. However that only works because the entire system is set up to do version checking for libraries and such. It's also a source based system. If your dealing with binaries - as most people using rpm do - you get into all sorts of problems.

    If you always use say --sources for your rpmfind call, and recompile the src.rpm files all the time you get the same effect.

    The downside is not every package is going to be up on an ftp server in rpm format. I think what rpm really needs is a much better source/binary rpm packaging system. More exactly a front end that generates .spec files. Rpm handles the generation just fine. That way if you can't find anything but tarballs of the latest and greatest file you - or the developers or packge mantainers - could create a standard .spec based on a valid template. Something where you could move around and tag files as documetation, binaries, etc and pick the paths. And output a valid .spec file.

    That wouldn't help for when you have to create patches against the source Makefiles to add in rpm environment vars, but even that could be automated by such a system looking for hard coded paths in Makefiles and such.
    --
    James Michael Keller

  • AFAIK Wine uses its own DLLs if you don't have the native Windows DLLs present, or don't want to use them....
  • If they don't include full source for all GPLed software or if they require any sort of non-disclosure or non-redistribution agreement, just give RMS a call and the matter will be taken care off. The FSF sure could use a nice "donation" (a.k.a. out of court settlement).

    --

  • Not really, it is mostly just a simple statement of fact. I imagine a lot of (for example) Mac owners could say the same thing. Although, unlike them, I have had to go out of my way to keep from buying any copies of Windows (like buying mainly only used hardware or building it myself). It would be a much bigger feat for a Mac owner to be able to say they had no copies of MacOS, since it is even more difficult to buy Mac hardware w/o MacOS than it is to buy PC hardware without Windows. It wouldn't be much of a statement if I said I owned no copy of OS/2 or BeOS, or whatever, since it is easy to buy hardware without them. If it weren't for Linux and/or the *BSD's, I probably wouldn't own any x86 PCs.

  • | People who care won't like it unless it's GPL.

    What you mean is people won't like it unless it's free. If Corel is writing applications that aren't derivative from GPL, like a word processor, they're going to look for a profit model, so they might release the source, but not the rights to redistribute it.

    It's interesting the line that's being drawn. They're not making Linux for the open source crowd. They're making a platform to lure 'normal' desktop users, so they're borrowing some conventions from the Linux world, and keeping others to keep in business.

  • I've volunteered for this program under (I presume) one of the slots reserved for Debian developers.

    If they actually send me a disc, I will indeed ask for the source to the GPL'ed stuff on there, and see what they say. Under the terms of the license, they cannot turn me down, though they may attempt to violate the spirit of the GPL by charging me an outrageous copying fee. Then again, maybe it won't be a problem.

    Incidentally, the parts of the Debian XFree86 packages that aren't modifications to the original source code (i.e., almost everything in the debian/ directory of the source package is under the GPL, and a lot of it is copyrighted by me. (Granted, none of this stuff is essential to getting a working XFree86 system, but it does help.) So I will be making my request not just as a GPL licensee but as the author of some of the modified code (if they have in fact made changes).

    I have nothing against Corel, and I am glad that they are basing their product around Debian, but I'm not going to let that blind me to the fact that if we don't defend the GPL -- if we don't insist that companies large and small abide by software licensing terms just as they have with the consumers of their proprietary software, then a large part of the point of the GPL is lost.

    I hope Corel does the right thing. It's really no harder than making the .diff.gz available on a website (the .dsc would be convenient but is not essential).

  • I'm glad that Redhat has all those things (and much more!), but that still doesn't explain why you claimed that Debian needs help when you've never used it.

    In fact, Debian's package system IS highly superior to Redhat's. Redhat's package format has some things which Debian's doesn't, but the system itself is SO much better it's not funny.

    You can completely upgrade an entire Debian system from one release to any later release with a pair of commands and a /etc/apt file change (clearly documented and very simple).

    You can even order apt to get the sources and compile them for you and then install the result (although this is brand new).

    Everything's automated, and what's even more amazing, everything's automatic. It works! The first time I ran apt it was to upgrade from a seriously outdated and somewhat hacked-about 1.2 system; the upgrade went entirely flawlessly, and I'm still running the result.

    Redhat is a pain to upgrade in comparison. You have to boot into an installation program.

    And that's not even counting the programs which display available programs for you -- Debian's had those for FAR longer than Redhat.

    I don't want to sound anti-Redhat -- they're a GREAT distro. However, to say that Debian need to learn from Redhat in packaging systems is to reverse the situation.
  • The binaries that Corel are release are strictly for beta testing. It's not considered a true software release in the sense of the term. I'd say cut them some slack. Let them get their finished distro out the door, and if they still aren't supplying sources, then maybe complain. But right now, they're really just showing their progress on the project that they've undertaken. I think that once something reaches 1.0, then the GPL release the source clause can kick in, but until then, let the developer choose when and what to release back.

    If i download the kernel, decide I want to port it to run on Coleco Vision consoles, and simply rename the sources to reflect the fact, am I obligated to return the "changed" source at the end of each day? Or can I decide (okay, I've made enough progress to release my code).

    For instance: Rob doesn't post a new tarball everyday when he fixes a minor glitch here or there. He makes releases as he has time and when he thinks he's made enough progress to merit it.
  • I'm guessing that they are wanting people with Window's to see how their HardDrive partitioning system works. I think (I could be talking out of my ass here) that Corel was supposed to have some new HD Partition deal, or perhaps has some form of PartitionMagic with it (which would require windows, or at least DOS).

  • Yes, some people at Corel devote a lot of time on WINE. I know Gavriel State is one of the leaders of the project, and he gave a small lecture at the Ottawa Linux Symposium about it!
  • That's just silly. Requiring windows would make their potential user base a subset of what it was before. Sure, this would mean every customer they had was a windows user, but it doesn't mean they'd be getting any more windows users that way, just less non-windows users.

  • Re:Why the (R) on LINUX (and why all caps) (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @09:22AM (#1679906)
    Actually I don't believe that is correct at all. From what I remember, the person who filed the original trademark that prompted the court case that ended with the trademark being assigned to Linus specifically claimed the trademark on "computer operating system software" and then tried to hold up the Linux distributers and book publishers for money. You may be getting the "Apple Records" vs. "Apple Computer" case confused with this one here.
    As for having to "vigorously protect" a trademark, IANAL, but I don't see Debian, Red Hat, SuSE or Slackware (or any of the other distros I know about) as having tried to usurp the trademark. They are not calling something that is not Linux, "Linux". Furthermore, every Linux distro I've seen has specifically acknowledged Linus as owning the trademark, and as being the original author of the Linux kernel. I don't believe that you necessarily need a contract, written or otherwise, for using a trademark provided you do so within the framework of the trademark law.
    So therefore I'd say that no enforcement action on Linus's part has been necessary, so there would be no reason to assume that his trademark has been relinquished.
    At any rate, if a trademark is relinquished because of falling into general use, it means that nobody else can claim that term as a trademark.
    If someone has good reason to believe I'm wrong (especially a lawyer), then let's hear why...

  • looks to me like they cant handle all the requests for beta testers because their application process is not running very smoothly...

  • To me, from what I saw here [corel.com], the screenshots shown for the installation and stuff look like they're running in MS Windows. I could be wrong though as the only X window managers I've used were icewm, AfterStep and fvwm.
  • My guess is that they want to keep tabs on what's happening with the testers, not just get flooded with email from 10000 different people with "It doesn't work" type bug reports that are pretty much useless in the testing procedures. Keeping the pool of testers somewhat small at first allows you to keep in touch with them and make sure their problems are being dealt with.

  • Care to post a link to a source where I could verify that for myself? After all, Linux is under the GPL, not the BSD license.

    - yet another sleep-deprived post.. yay! -

  • Who really cares anyway?
  • Coral lost the battle for graphics apps on the PC to Adobe (and rightly so). They're now hoping for a fresh start and to jump up their user-base by getting on Linux before the others - only thing is Linux still requires that you to know what your doing (You can't just hit 'ok' whenever a box comes up: Windows is now going to try and detect your hardware [ok] - Windows is now going to restart your computer [ok] - Windows has discovered a conflict and is now going to crash [ok]). So they want Linux onto the desktop of designers ,and those that like everything GUI, as soon as possible so they can sell to more people. Therefore it makes perfect sense for them to help improve it in this area and at the same time they get to bundle up all the work already done and create a new distribution - hey, more money and it just happens to work perfectly with their apps... (look at office/ie/outlook/windows integration - you can do alot when you can tweak a system from all sides). Jotham Maybe this is a future trend... Kai's PowerDesktop(tm) with HUGE buttons may be the next one out.
  • No, that's KDE for sure. Look at the panel at the bottom of the screens.
  • I thought Slashdot types were supposed to be pretty smart, but wake up here. That "Minimum Requirements" page is just a generic link that they have on all their beta-testing page. It's assuming that you're testing a Windows program (which 95% of Corel programs are). Sure, maybe somebody could have updated, but let's maybe talk about something else, which is actually relevant?

  • But... (Score:1)

    by doomy ( 7461 )
    wanna play quake? or quake? or maybe quake? how about just plain old quake? well there is no real chose right? Lets all play quake. Quake?
    --
  • I don't think your idea makes much sense.

    Wouldn't Corel want the the largest possible pool of people to choose their beta testers from? And when they pick those beta testers, will they want "AOL lamers" who have no previous experience with Linux with which to evaluate the beta, or people who have actually used linux before?

    I don't think they'll be mad at all if their servers are /.ed. Would you be mad if there was overwhelming interest in *your* upcoming product?
  • Some idiot tried to trademark "Linux" as a music-related term

    No, this is not what happened. Someone tried to trademark Linux as a "computer operating system software" and then sue for infringement.

    Here is the record from the US Patent & Trademark office. [uspto.gov] For more information on the whole episode, check out this press release [iplawyers.com] from the law firm that handled the case for Linus.

    Word Mark LINUX
    Owner Name (REGISTRANT) Croce, William R. Della, Jr.
    Owner Address 33 Snow Hill St. Boston MASSACHUSETTS 02113 INDIVIDUAL UNITED STATES
    Owner Name (LAST LISTED OWNER) TORVALDS, LINUS
    Owner Address 3665 BENTON STREET APT. 36 SANTA CLARA CALIFORNIA 95051 INDIVIDUAL FINLAND
    Attorney of Record CATHERINE MCCAULEY-LIBERT
    Serial Number 74-560867
    Registration Number 1916230
    Filing Date 08/15/1994
    Registration Date 09/05/1995
    Mark Drawing Code (1) TYPED DRAWING
    Register PRINCIPAL
    Published for pposition 06/13/1995
    Type of Mark TRADEMARK
    International Class 009
    Goods and Services computer operating system software to facilitate computer use and operation; DATE OF FIRST USE: 1994.08.02; DATE OF FIRST USE IN COMMERCE: 1994.08.02

  • Ever since CorelDraw 6 (Corel's flagship product) CorelDraw's quality has been going down the drain. Every version tops the previous in the bloatware category. Things that used to take 2min on a 486/66 take 4min on a Celeron 366.

    If the quality of Corel Linux is similar to CorelDraw I think, no - I KNOW I'll pass.
  • Disclaimer: IANAL

    am I obligated to return the "changed" source at the end of each day? Or can I decide (okay, I've made enough progress to release my code).

    If you distribute daily binaries, you should distribute daily source as well, but you don't have to - you can simply make it available upon request instead. Anyway, if you never distribute your changes as binaries, you don't have to ever distribute the source either.

    By the way, the GPL doesn't claim to give you the right to 'release' things, it gives you the right to 'distribute' them.

    For instance: Rob doesn't post a new tarball everyday when he fixes a minor glitch here or there. He makes releases as he has time and when he thinks he's made enough progress to merit it.

    Rob is the copyright holder - he can do whatever he wants with it.

  • This is pretty offtopic, but (Score:3)

    by aheitner ( 3273 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @09:49AM (#1679927)
    So yeah, there has to be something made clear here: part of the reason Debian works so beautifully is that the distribution itself consists of ~3000 packages maintained by various people, all held to the same standards.

    The result is that for 99.5% (at least that's the number on my system) of stuff you want, you use the distro's official version/build, which is guaranteed to work perfectly. On my system, I have ~530 packages installed. There are only 3 that are not native Debian packages -- the only 3 things I've found that I wanted that weren't available. So I downloaded the rpm and installed 'em with alien :)

    It's kind of a similar philosophy to BSD, in that the OS consists not just of a kernel and a set of basic stuff, but of everything. In a BSD this is true because everyone's running THE official BSD -- no distros. In Debian, there's the same kind of mentality. By comparison, RedHat's distro is sparse (granted most of the difference is in packages that very very very few people are interested in).

    Whenever I find out about a new program I find I need (happens all the time, this is Linux after all :), the first thing I do is a

    dpkg -l "*progname*"

    to see if there's already a Debian package. Exactly 3 times, there hasn't been one. If Debian wasn't behind on processing developer applications (they're focusing efforts on catching up with bug reports) I'd have already built debs for these apps.

    Sometimes the system doesn't work so well: as an example, there hasn't been a working version of XTraceroute (maybe you don't consider that essential ... I do :) in like 4 months, since there hasn't been a working version of gtkglarea. Unlike RedHat, there's no rufus repository with tons of builds of different versions of everything. On the other hand, in my experience (ran RedHat for a long time) a lot of stuff on Rufus didn't work because it was impossible to meet its dependency requirements, since there was no central control over the type of machine it was built on. In Debian, the latest version of each package in the Stable or Unstable (woohoo unstable!) trees is always built to work with the latest of everything else. It's only because of this that the auto-installed dependency thing works at all.

    The result is impressive.

    I've run a lot of both distros. I came to the conclusion Debian was superior because it has everything in a compatible, working version. That makes my life a lot simpler. In addition, Debian packages have Config scripts that make setting up a lot of stuff stuff easy even if you're not familiar with the specific config file formats ... let me set up a masquerading ppp line machine in about 3 minutes (of course less 45 minutes toying with isapnp to get the bloody pnp modem to work :). I just answered the config questions, gave it the network info, phone number, account, and password, and BANG! it worked. Hehe, way easier than doing the same thing years ago under Slack 3.2 :)

    Man, that was way offtopic. I do intend to try Corel's stuff tho. I hope the license on their config stuff is good, cause Debian's idea of a "user-friendly" install is, the "voice" of the person who asks you various questions and tells you what's going on (in text mode) during the install, is pretty chatty and likable :) It's pretty ugly, and not to be approached if you mind rtfm'ing ...
  • No, thats just a windowfied look, it's kinda hard to tell if you haven't been using it in a while. Look at the fonts and the buttons, that's just windowfied. Not windows.
  • IANAL either, but I thought that it was required to license a trademark in order to sell a product using that trademark as a name. RedHat labels its products as "RedHat Linux," not "RedHat OS which contains the Linux(r) kernel." If Red Hat wants to call their product itself "Linux," and Linux is a registered trademark, I think it would be necessary to obtain a license to do so (perhaps for free, but it'd still have to be done officially).
  • After all, Linux is under the GPL, not the BSD license.

    If the people doing the IA-64 port are not considered to be "copying" or "distributing" amongst themselves the modified Linux kernel, GNU libc, etc. they're doing for the port, then the GPL doesn't oblige them to make the source available to others, nor does it mean they can't stop any of those people from "distributing" the programs or the source to the programs to others.

    The impression I have from what I've seen is that the NDA will end when Intel releases all the details of IA-64 (unless I've missed something, they haven't released the full details, just those details that would be used by application developers).

  • I myself think we need more software support in the way of applications.. not in the way of more Linux distributions. Ugh. More GPLed drivers also good.

    I already have trouble tracking all of the Linux distributions we have now (actually, for the most part, I don't even bother any more). It's getting to be almost as bad as the fact that we have something like 80 or so flavors of Unix. Do we really need to fractionalize even further? I'm all for choice, but when fragmentation begins to occur on a widespread scale, that's not neccesarily a good thing.

    Isn't fragmentation the entire reason why Unix fell to Windows in the first place (seems like a good thing to keep in mind since Linux is "a UNIX-type operating system")? While we may not always be able to make the BSD folks happy (I like the three flavors of BSD [yes I'm ignoring BSDI because it's commercial, of course] about as much as any other free OSes), it would be nice to have a little bit more coordination among the different distros. It would be sort of annoying to see a lot of software crop up that only runs on a specific distro. I mean, I like Red Hat and all, but I don't think I have too much use for software that is specific to Red Hat (remember.. not everything that is going to be released for Linux is going to be GPLed or whatever, which would make it easier to port like crazy if we really want to if it was).

    Besides, when there are so many different choices (a la 80 flavors of Unix), the average end-user becomes rather confused about what to get and so chooses whatever is popular (which is why I doubt Red Hat will lose its popularity lead any time soon.. popularity only tends to breed even more popularity in this industry because you can use your popularity as a leverage.. people go for what's hot, after all). A little bit of consolidation couldn't hurt.

    At any rate, I don't think it would be a good idea for me personally if I decided to buy software from a company whose caps lock key gets stuck when they are typing in the name of their product and neglect to fix it, IMHO. The only places I tend to see all caps are in places where the author apparently doesn't want you to read the all caps in order to see what is really written there (like, say, legal statements, licensing agreements.. the really important parts of them, anyway). Seems like a product name would be an odd place to test out that particular technique.

    Laugh. It's funny.

    - yet another sleep-deprived post.. yay! -

  • Back way back when... Corel purchased the ailing Wordperfect Suite. When they did this, Microsoft began looking at them as a competitor instead of a partner. As a result, Corel lost it's status as a Microsoft development partner and Microsoft stopped sharing advanced coding information with Corel. I think that Corel took this a little bit personally...
  • You've obviously missed my point.

    I agree that they want people who know what they're doing and a lot of general interest. Therin lies the key: general.

    We all know about linux already. We already support it. Even though Linux is a buzzword these days, people don't really know what it is. If Corel wants to spread their Linux as an alternative to Windows, one that is easy, etc, hey need to test the definition of "easy" on Johnny AOLScriptKiddie. I've been down this road with BeOS. They don't want to portray it as a Windows competitor, so it's going down the tubes with the MacOS. I think that Be is GREAT and would make an EXCELLENT home user system. But they don't tout it that way. Now Linux, OTOH, is MUCH harder to install. I know how, I run it, etc. But it's not just like click and go.(ala BeOS, or *gag* windows) Corel has to have a lot up their sleeve to get this onto people's desks instead of WinXX. And to do that, they need testing by the market they're pushing for, not by us geeks. Let the geeks play with debian and slack and RH (i'm distro agnostic, by the way). Whatever good things we bring to linux in general, Corel will add. My bet is if they have people coding stuff for their distro, those people have enough geek friends to pound out those sort of bugs. But Corel will need to do serious testing on EASE OF USE, not bugs.

    Whew, that was tiring.

    Time to go play quake. :-)

    Again, another $0.265 from me. Like it matters in the grand scheme of life anyway.

  • And that is why you dont upgrade.... I just did a little reformating, and away I went with Potato: and it works great! apt-get dist-upgrade does wonders...

  • (Note: this is a reprint of this comment [slashdot.org]. It is more on-topic here.

    The good things about Debian are that it is technically sophisticated and stable (even the so-called "unstable" versions are very stable), and that it is developed by thousands of hackers which means there are more packages and newer versions. (There are currently... 3944 packages in potato.)

    The bad things about Debian are that it takes way too long between stable releases, and there isn't a GUI for install, package management, and configuration. Hopefully Corel's contributions will fix all of the bad things, making the perfect free operating system!

    (Note that currently the Debianistas are undergoing a crisis about their organization and personality issues and many are dissatisfied with how things are done. I considered mentioning this chaos in the list of "bad things about Debian", but I thought about it and realized that all of the hundreds of packages that I use still work great and that from my perspective as a Debian user the only thing I can legitimately complain about is the lag time between stable releases and the lack of idiot proof, pretty GUI tools.)

    (Also note that I said "the perfect free operating system" instead of "the perfect free Linux distribution", because Debian can be layered on top of any suitable kernel, in theory. Work is already progressing on Debian-GNU-Hurd. Anyone want to build up a Debian-OpenBSD for me? :-))

    Read all about it in the Corel's Linux Distribution white paper [corel.com] or visit linux.corel.com [corel.com] for news and job openings...

    Zooko

  • Indeed, all the pages are under the "betatest" directory. The Linux page is actually "News" - it only takes the focus because it's the most recent product being tested. Most of the info there is generic.

    The design is a bit unfortunate. In fact, it's a bit of a stumble. But there aren't any hidden messages about Windows dependencies or anything.

  • Why corel really does need Guru Users (Score:3)

    by Amphigory ( 2375 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @12:51PM (#1679941) Homepage
    (whether they know it or not).

    I am seeing a lot of posts here to the effect "Corel Linux is designed for newbies, and so Beta Testers should be newbies." While I can see the angle these people are coming from (and i suspect Corel agrees with them) may I beg to differ?

    I think that Corel Linux should have a large number of Wizard level Beta testers. Certainly a lot of newbies need to test it to, but I think at least half of the users should be experienced Linux users.

    Why? First, because It is not impossible for an experienced user to construct a simple interface. If it is, we are all doomed. Bluntly, an experienced user who is bothering to consider user interface issues will come up with BETTER suggestions than a non-experienced user, simply because of his wider experience.

    Second, Experienced users might actually fix the bugs!. An novice user is unlikely to fix a bug, even if it's just a missing entries on the start menu! Certainly, any non-transparent bug will not be diagnosed in a meaningful way.

    Third, An experienced user will do a better job of reporting the bug. C'mon -- how many of us have gotten help desk calls to the effect of "It doesn't work right".

    Finally, a non-experienced user will accept bugs that an experienced linux user would not. People who've never run Linux before are used to rebooting their computers three times a day!!! They will accept bugs that I would report (and likely fix).

    For the reading impaired: I am not saying corel needs no novice users -- I'm just saying that's not ALL they need.

    If Corel Linux is going to be a success in the market they are aiming for, it needs to be much better than windows. Making it better from a novice users point of view is going to be an uphill battle -- the things novice users care most about (pretty pictures) are already reasonably well done in Windows. Corel need all the help they can get if they are going to compete.
  • The way the GPL works is quite straightforward.

    First, you don't have to release any changes you make.

    Second, anyone to whom you distribute any GPL'd software must be granted the rights that you were granted, under the GPL. That means that if you sell a person a CD containing e.g. the Linux kernel, you have to make available the source, either in the same distribution, or with an offer good for (I believe) 2 years.

    Third, the rights under the GPL (remember IANAL) do not preclude a contract (ie: NDA) being signed by beta testers. True, the beta testers must have their rights fulfilled under the GPL. However, Corel can have the beta testers sign an NDA which says "even though we have these rights, we won't exercise them" (these rights being redistribution, perhaps modification (though peer-review should be encouraged in this situation)).

    I hope this clears things up. If you've any further questions just ask.

  • Those seem to be their generic Beta requirements. Note the references to Macs below it. I bet no one remembered to change the page.

  • Re:Corel LINUX... Requires Windows. (Score:3)

    by SoftwareJanitor ( 15983 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @06:58AM (#1679944)
    Actually, I think that is just a generic page that is used for all of their Beta programs. I don't think that Corel Linux requires Windows. I can't think of any legitimate reason it might.

  • DOH! Looks like they could fix their beta test minimum requirements section.

  • Get on the ball, Corel! (Score:3)

    by Rick_T ( 3816 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:02AM (#1679946) Homepage
    Love the generic (and incorrect) links on the side of the page linked to above - specifically "Minimum Requirements". Guess I don't meet them,
    as I don't have "Windows® 95, Windows 98 or Windows NT® (4.0)" installed.

    Even the actual form is rather silly. "TSRs"? "Windows version"? "Type of documents you produce"? The first two are pointless for evaluating
    a Linux product and the third's probably cut from a form about Wordperfect. I really hope Corel's actual distribution is a lot well thought out than
    their web site advertising the beta test is.

    Still, the FAQ link is somewhat encouraging, though there are potential problems with this:

    | Will Corel be releasing the source code for applications it has created such
    | as the Corel File Manager?
    | Corel will be making the source code available for such applications. The
    | exact terms of the license under which the source code
    | will be distributed has not yet been announced.

    People who care won't like it unless it's GPL.

  • Re:No source for the Beta? (Score:3)

    by .pentai. ( 37595 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:02AM (#1679947) Homepage
    The world does not revolve around the GPL and neither does Corel.

    Every standard utility in there that is GPL'd has its source available (from the author). Any in-house software doesn't have to be GPL just to be included with linux.

  • Re:No source for the Beta? (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Perhaps what it means it that they won't release their own code under the GPL until they have it in a state they deem acceptable as a first-release, while all the previously-GPL'ed code remains.

    This, presumably, only applies to stuff which stands alone - since any modifications to a GPL program would obviously have to be GPL from day one. However, they have lots of stand-alone code, from what I understand - notably applications such as WordPerfect, which AFAIK is not now nor is planned to be GPL, or any OpenSource license.

  • Open Source vs Beta Test (Score:4)

    by __aanonl8035 ( 54911 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:05AM (#1679949)
    I am wondering why a Beta Test has to be closed to only a few chosen applicants? Is the spirit of open source to allow everyone access to your code for peer review?
  • ...if you assume they have a windows based installation program that they want the beta group to test. I don't know if that's the case, though.
    --

  • Requires Windows..Is a direct MS attack! (Score:5)

    by Ken Broadfoot ( 3675 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:06AM (#1679951) Homepage Journal
    Of course it requires windows! That way for each beta tester they get that is one LESS windows user out there.

    It's brilliant!

    Now lets see we need about 80 million beta testers......

  • | What you mean is people won't like it unless
    | it's free. If Corel is writing applications that
    | aren't derivative from GPL, like a
    | word processor, they're going to look for a
    | profit model,

    I was talking mainly about the distribution. I don't think anyone really expects Corel to open up their word processor or any of the rest of the office suite. It'd be nice if the system utilities are free (as in the GPL sense), though.

    | It's interesting the line that's being drawn.
    | They're not making Linux for the open source
    | crowd.

    Of course not. But they *do* want the open source crowd to test it for them. ;)
  • Yes, that is KDE, but the installation window (the second screenshot) looks to be Windows.

  • Sorry, sometimes I just feel motivated to motivate others to put some weight behind their comments. Thanks. :)

  • why not attack Cygnus for holding back source code to the GNUPro tools that are available as binaries only?

    Because the only stuff from Cygnus available as binaries only isn't GPLed? The GNUPro FAQ [cygnus.com] claims that "As part of our commitment to Open Sourceware, Cygnus provides source code with all releases of the GNUPro Toolkit." (Note that "provides source code with all releases" doesn't necessarily imply "makes the source code available from our FTP site"; they don't have to make the source conveniently available, they just have to make it available to those to whom they've distributed the binaries - and can't prohibit those to whom they've distributed the binaries from further redistributing binaries or source to GPLed programs).

  • They haven't released any binaries yet. It's still in-house. That's means it's not released. Circular logic, but true. Until they DISTRIBUTE it, the GPL does not kick in. You may not like it, but tough, that's the GPL. Even though the beta testers may not be Corel employees, Corel Linux has still not been released.

    When Corel puts the distribution up on a generally accessible server, or begins selling it, then they have released it. As long as Corel employees or its contractors (including beta testers who have to fill out an application first) are the only ones with access to the programs, they are not released.

  • Re:We need this kind of distro (Score:3)

    by Timbo ( 75953 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @10:53AM (#1679966) Homepage
    I disagree. I think it would take one hell of a distribution to make Linux usable by your average joe and i don't really see the point in this anyway. I am often phoned by my windoze using friends asking to come and help me fix their machines. Now I often find that they've done something stupid like locked it into DOS mode of something. If linux was marketed like windows and sold to average (i.e. non-computer literate) people, all hell would break loose. I have a friend who works in a computer shop who is frequently asked whether windoze software will run under linux. He gets quite irate at the number of ppl asking this.

    My Point is that windows does have a place in the OS market - that of user-friendly-if-very-crap-and-unreliable-os-for-n on-computer-literate-ppl. I also think it should stay this way. I disagree with ppl who damn Microsoft outright. What they do for the average population is good. However, I do not accept microsoft's attempts to corner the server market and their disregard for standardisation. But that is another matter....
  • "But this doesn't sound as if Corel is truly dedicated to the GPL"

    Pardon me for asking, but why should Corel be "truly dedicated" to the GPL? This is strange term to use, and one usually reserved for religions, political causes and spouses. The closest of the above would be a political cause (because the worshippers keep telling me it's not a religion).

    I'll ignore the question of why the cause should be an individual license and not Free Software itself, but ask instead "why should Corel follow your cause?" Aren't they allowed to have their own causes? Aren't people allowed to think differently than you without arising the suspicions of the citizens committee? And most importatnly, why is no one is talking about possible violations of the Artistic license, or the QPL, or the MPL?
  • Of course, this depends on whether using beta testers is considered "distributing". I don't think it is, but IANAL, and I'm not sure whether this issue has ever been before a court.

  • Requires Windows 95 + (Score:3)

    by jelwell ( 2152 ) on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:08AM (#1679973)
    I've noticed a lot of posts commenting on their beta test requirements. In paticular the windows requirement. I don't think it's a typo, or an out of date page. The Corel distribution is "specifically designed for desktop computer users."

    I think really what they mean is that it is meant for people migrating from Windows desktops to Linux. So, if you're not running Windows now, they won't be able to guage the friendliness of the migration. Let alone if you don't even have Windows, you won't run into configuration problems if you're a Linux wiz who wants to go mess with Corel's config files.

    The same applies for Macs.
    Joseph Elwell.

  • Another good thing for Linux (Score:3)

    by terrified ( 89447 ) <efarris AT yahoo DOT com> on Wednesday September 15, 1999 @07:11AM (#1679978) Homepage
    Corel is a familiar name to most Windows users, definately the most visible software company (besides the recent marketing of RHAT) to jump in with both feet. Seeing them get serious about Linux could be a VGT in winning some converts. I think they're on track... a beta now, a release before the EOY... most of the work has already been done by those of us using Debian GNU/Linux (on which CL is based). I would guess the 'beta' part would be the installation and package management. Debian is fantastic 'under the hood,' but the face is pretty ugly. If Corel could beautify the interface on apt and the installation, that'd be marvelous. Imagine this: a five CD set, with CL, CorelDraw/Linux, Corel Office/Linux, for $99. Think a lot of people would jump at the chance to have practically all the software they'd ever need for $99? I'd be quite interested in that. Linux needs Corel Draw, and could use a great distro that isn't RedHat. It'll make RH, Caldera, SuSE, and the rest better. Competition is good. And Corel gets points for using the fantastic Debian package system, allowing for painless software installation and upgrades, something the other commercial distros sorely lack.
  • Come on, what better way to test it than to dump it on an ftp site and let people try the distro? Even Red Hat drops their alphas/betas out there as a preliminary to actually releasing a burn.
  • Guess that ultimatly boils down to where the beta testers fit legally. If beta testing with a select group of people who applied, it still could be considered inhouse. Meaning that you are part of the development group. And what they do distrubution wise among the developers is strickly up to them. And of course, the source legally has to be supplied if asked for, but then you are simply removed from the beta testers, which means they don't have to supply you with the source. As you arn't a recipient of the binary. Now this is all hypothedical on my part. But this doesn't sound as if Corel is truly dedicated to the GPL. It seems the GPL is something it being forced to work around, than something they are wanting to work with.
  • That is a valid point, however, I would think that they would also want people to test installation on machines w/o Windows installed at all. I know I certainly would have no interest in purchasing their distribution if it requires Windows in order to install, especially since it would effectively add $90+ to the price given that I don't own a copy of Windows. I know I can't be the only person out there who doesn't have Windows.

  • Well it appears, as they are using the name Linux that they are releasing a distrubution of a GPLd software. So one, they can use the license given to them properly or they can try to skirt around it by finding loopholes and what not. Hopefully this is not their intentions, but I was just simply pointing out that they arn't following the licensed they choose for themselves by making a linux distrubution. (and no I would not consider myself a GPL fanatic, accually I'm not all that concered personally as I still primarly run M$ windoze. But I do believe, by personal feelings that all software that interoperats with other software should be open for inspection. All driver specs should be open so that the hardware can be used to its full potential. And that all file type artitecture should be open (aka wordprocessor document formats, graphic formats etc.) So that anyone can compete on a level playing field. Is this too much to ask???!!
  • I find it hard to believe that every distro has personally asked Linus (or his lawyers) for permission to use the Linux trademark. Slackware has been using it since before it was registered - did Patrick ask Linus for licensing of the trademark after it was trademarked?

    I still think the whole trademark is invalid - if you look at the filing, it's all wrong. It claims August 1994 as the first use of the word, when it was in use long before that.
  • Okay, the question now is this:

    When Wall St. gets wind of the fact that Corel is coming out with their own Linux distro, will it's stock (which is currently at something like 5 3/4) suddenly become really really valuable? I mean, even if the distro ends up sucking ass, won't it increase like gangbusters just on what RHAT did?

    I for one am betting it will; I'm taking some of my profit from RHAT and putting it into CORL and crossing my fingers -- the worst that can happen is I'll have to pay less taxes next year.

    Hopefully Wall Street is as much on crack as I think it is, and I'll see ya'll while I'm flying over in my private jet. =)

    ----

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