The Lycoris Development Team is hard at work finishing Desktop/LX Update 3, and release candidate 1 is now available. All users can use the Update Wizard to update their systems to build 127, available from the mirrors. It includes many more bugfixes and user improvements. Update 3 is slated for an early September release.
Whoa… dejavu
…when Lycoris Update 3 is finalized, and I’m looking forward to 2007, when they get around to using KDE 3.0.
I’m a Lycoris fan, but I too wonder about how far behind they’ve fallen regarding KDE. Lycoris has done great work, but the advancements of KDE itself are, I think, so great that it negates much of what they’ve done. Of course, they are after the ordinary home user who probably doesn’t know anything about that, so I can only speculate that this is the reason for the lack of concern about this.
But sadly, by that time, KDE 5.5 will be out.
I dont see debian or xandros and the other KDE2 based distors getting flamed and trolled over it. Have any of you used Lycoris? You should atleast try it before disregarding it.
Maybe they’re working so hard to blow everyone away with the KDE3 enabled Beryl-release (if it’s still called that way), that they’ve just forgotten to put KDE3 into the Amethyst releases… Just a guess though
Next week I will deploy Linux in a small business (1 internet server, 1 print server, 6 workstations). During the last two months I have tried out different distributions to see what I could use on the workstations (for the servers I will go with RedHat), and Lycoris would have been a serious contender, if only it supported KDE 3.
But I can and will not use a distribution whose authors are unable to integrate such an important piece of software after it has been out for such a long time.
You know, I was thinking the same. I don’t want Debian or Xandros to get flamed, let alone Lycoris. But probably all the people that complain have never even tried Lycoris.
Complaining like this won’t do anything. All it will do is make you guys look like 2 year olds.
And yes, I have and DO use Lycoris.
Hey, I don’t care wether KDE 2 or 3 is included. In any case Lycoris gives use one of the most usable, easiest-to-operate and fastest Linux distros around… They should deserve props for that instead of flames…
I was just joking
ok all ya ppl complaing about like of kde3 and stuff ya or more then likly not there target audince they aint after the linux geek who knows everything
there goal is to make a easy to use distro that windows user could be able to use with easy of use wich they have done
Thom – Yes, sorry. I should have read your post more carefully. What I said isn’t directed towards you, but the others who complained
Specifically the oens who were mentioning dates (2005, 2007, etc…)
blah – exactly.
Its funny, in every Lycoris thread, the only complaint people have is KDE3. This distro must be amazing!! Ive never seen a distribution with only one problem before.
Good work Lycoris!
nice one contrasutra!
I think their next order of business is to include the kde3 libs so you can run all the kde3 apps like k3b. further to that, i think I’ve heard that they will include the newest kde at the time into update 4.
Beryl will be a totally new distro built from scratch, and will use all the latest tech available at that time. I hope they’ve got their eyes on ark linux, as they seem to some of the only guys out there are truly trying to innovate…with their user management system.
lycoris rules on the desktop, and one of the reasons is that their releases last a while. they don’t run on the same old 6-9 month release sched that so many others do. some people like that….me being one of them. lycoris is number one on my computer, but i still install many others all the time to play aroud with them.
Well said, very well said!
Buy Lycoris and help finance SCO’s lawsuit against Linux. Lycoris uses SCOs products in their version of Linux.
Nothing!! What is important is it is stable and it works! Those two qualities are difinitely present in Lycoris. Please to those who keeps on complaining about the lack of KDE3, will you use Lycoris first, full time as an OS for a month before saying any bad things about it. If after that time you still miss KDE3 in terms of productivity/stability let us know. Comments should be based on facts you know.
My friend got a linux computer with lycoris installed and it was a piece of crap. KDE wasnt the only thing that was outdated. Glibc was outdated and also there was no gcc. Lycoris has got a lot more problems then thier desktop.
I use build 46 (stable) as my primary Linux distribution, and have used it for several months. I have downloaded the rc build but have not yet tried it.
Build 46 is very good. The only difficulty I have with it is a lack of drivers for my sound card. Not really a problem with Lycoris as I have the same problem with EVERY Linux distribution I used. I have an “off-the-wall” sound card and not enough interest to purchase and change out an nVidia or one of the other popular sound cards.
E-mail and the browsers work. I am able to produce documents and spreadsheets that I can email to co-workers who use Microsoft products. I am able to edit and print photographs from my Kodak digital. I am able to use my scanner.
Best of all, I was able to get everything up and running with a minimum of hassle, no cost for any software, and no “training” period. The software (all of it) was easy enough to figure out. Of course, this is a result of a background both designing and teaching computer operating systems (and application software) for thirty-one years.
I expect future releases of Lycoris to be just as easy, faster, and better integrated on the desktop. I also expect they will go to KDE3 at some point. In the meantime, if you are in a hurry, install KDE3 yourself.
Mike
They used Caldera Linux before SCO was even around. You cant possibly blame them. The whole industry accepted Caldera as a friend (hint: UnitedLinux).
“…when Lycoris Update 3 is finalized, and I’m looking forward to 2007, when they get around to using KDE 3.0.”
I realize that I will come off as being a BSD zealot here (please keep in mind that this post is off-topic), but if it’s up to date KDE you want, then FreeBSD is a good choice. I’ve found that their ports collection when not broken (never seen it happen in something as popular as KDE) is always up to date. In general I’ve also found KDE to run faster on FreeBSD than on any Linux distribution I’ve tried.
Slightly more on topic, a friend of mine has used Lycoris for a while now, and swears by it. He says that despite the ancient version of KDE, it’s really quite usable and friendly.
“Glibc was outdated and also there was no gcc”
Look at what you are basing your view, “Lycoris is crap”… GCC and Glibc. It is very tiring to say this again and again. Lycoris is not for the geeks or those people who want to compile thier own apps. The regular user wont care if glibc is outdated. They wont miss GCC because they wont use it. But if you are really looking for GCC, Lycoris has a Dev CD that contains it. Again please base your bashing in facts.
I’ve used it, and I thought it was anicent looking then – 3/4 of a year ago. Plus it is slow, unstable and has hideous icons, not to mention the wallpaper. The pack in apps are weak, and no make tools make it a bit*h to get more. Look at the zealots over at lycoris.org, with “But Lycoris KDE has over 1000 improvements!” Whoopdedoo. KDE 3 prolly has over 10,000.
And GNOME is still better.
Is there an advanced method for installing Lycoris other than the standard click-and-go?
The standard method of installing Lycoris never works on my hardware, an AMD Athlon-based and a Compaq notebook with PIII-450MHz and 192MB of RAM, which I have no problems install other distro (RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Debian, Slackware, etc.) The installation either hung or produced message that basically said the hardware are not qualified! I had tried several versions without success.
Famous CooCaChoo quotes. My favorite OSNews poster. Don’t let those ATTBI trolls keep you down man!
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3718#107138
then grab your wallet and buy the bloody commercial solution that is apparently superior or would that actuallt require moving out of your parents basement, get a job and actually be responsible for something once in your misserable and pathetic little life.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4242#132108
Submitt stories from Kuro5hin? I might as well post the latest issue of the North Korean Daily times relating to the “great leaders” attitude to the west.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3568#100464
The reason why a large number of people don’t realise is because the majority of people are moronic simpletons.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3984
As for Word, are you joking? are you really that stupid?
Why are you such a clueless moron.
Please, someone buy this lady a clue
where have you been? hiding under a rock?
By another clue lady (jeepers, two clue orders within one post, must be a record).
I really couldn’t believe someone would be as stupid Ana O´Neemus unless they were a troll.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=4258#132898
I can’t believe people actually believe that Rotor is a full implementation of .NET. Are people here THAT stupid?
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3718&offset=45&rows=60#10…
Blame the idiot who made the first post and some how tried to relate it to X.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3833#113181
Nothing is worse than a company b*astardising a great design for the yuppy generation who have more dollars than sense or style.
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3727#107900
what the hell do you think is going to run on the server which these applications will need to interact with? think about that sunshine before making such stupid remarks.
Confronted with his wrongness:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=3487#98039
Oh, your[sic] such a guru. A genius amongst the unwashed masses, how could I ever question such wisdom
http://www.osnews.com/moderation.php?news_id=4225#131574
it says they live with their mum and dad. When they get out into the big band world I beat they won’t be able to afford broadband let alone dial up on a wage from KFC as the garbage changer and table cleaner.
Apart from the fact that Lycoris uses an obsolete version of the KDE technologies, Lycoris and their other leech sucking cousins like, Lindows, have never given back to the KDE community, despite their success and popularity.
Is it so hard for a business as successful as theirs to sponsor, at most, one full time developer to work with the KDE team? Or at least contribute one or two of their “supposedly” proprietary hacks to the same community that is partially responsible for their success.
While my gripe is hardly on technical grounds, but rather on ethical and philosophical controversies, I trust you can at least share my perspective on why I consider some corporate entities to be leechers. Yes, sadly, leechers also exist in the open source environment too.
So next time you point accusing fingers at Microsoft regarding their business practices and philosophies, do not hestitate to give examples corporate entities ripping off the hardwork and sweat of thousands, if not millions, of people around the world working for open standards, open sources and freedom, while these corporate entities mock their efforts in the name of profits. Ain’t life a bitch.
Regards,
Mystilleef
They can’t afford to. They’re founder funded and no financials are public. I would wager that they just have enough to pay their bills.
Seriously though, next time Joe Cheek flys into my town on his private jet i’ll mention that to him ….maybe he’ll buy all the kde developers new computers too.
Some of the posters here seem to think that any criticism regarding the failure to include KDE 3 in Lycoris is just trolling (or at least gratitious bashing), by people who have not even bothered to give this distribution a try.
Not so.
I have extensively tested Lycoris, I even had Amethyst (Build 46) installed on one of my low-end systems at home for several months. I liked it’s simplicity and user-friendliness, from the installation process to the day to day use – everything just worked out of the box, and it all had a very clean and organized look and feel to it.
But when it comes to deployment in an office setting (as I wrote before I am about to install Linux in a small business), it’s just not acceptable that those guys are unable to keep up with very important pieces of software that have been out for quite some time.
KDE 3.0 was released on April 3rd, 2002, while the KDE 3.0 betas had been out since December 2001 (which means that the integration process into Lycoris should have started about 20 months ago).
The differencies between KDE 2.2.2b (in Lycoris Build 127)
and KDE 3.1.3 (released July 29, 2003) are huge, and I am not going to bore you with a complete list (you can go to kde.org for that).
But rest assured that there are very valid reasons why people ask for KDE 3 inclusion into Lycoris. Everybody of course has his/her own.
As for myself, the features I miss most are the Kiosk Framework (a permission based system to restrict the users choices and actions, on a per-application basis) and the improved Network-printing support (complete administrative control over multiple print queues and the queued jobs, drag’n’drop printing, print job scheduling and prioritization and so on), as well as the Calendaring/Group Scheduling functionality.
As long as those improvements are not to be found in Lycoris, I will be unable to deploy it. That’s all there is to it. No trolling, no bashing – just criticism from someone who would like to use this distribution, but can’t, because the people who publish it were unable to integrate software that has been out for over a year and a half.
As a side note:
RedHat has KDE3 since 2002/05/06 (release 7.3)
SuSE has KDE3 since 2002/04/22 (release 8.0)
Mandrake has KDE3 since 2002/09/25 (release 9.0)
Lindows has KDE3 since 2002/11/18 (release 3.0)
Libranet Debian has KDE3 since 2002/09/04 (release 2.7)
Slackware has KDE3 since 2002/06/18 (release 8.1)
Furthermore, KDE is not the only outdated component in Lycoris Build 127. There are other important packages that should be updated. Gcc and glibc were already mentioned. What about gtk+ (latest stable is 2.2.2, Lycoris comes with 1.2.10)?
Ok, enough criticism for today.
See you nice people.
To “Mystilleef” Please do not confuse Lindows for Lycoris.
Lycoris Source Code is freely available to anyone and the KDE team to download from any of the FTP’s.
Also I know that some of the Lycoris team are members of the KDE team and both KDE and Lycoris are members of desktoplinuxconsortium.org
Lindows is the OS that does not give Source Code out for free, you have to pay them for the OS first, and Lindows is not a member of desktoplinuxconsortium.org but they do sponsor KDE look.
Lindows however has lots of money due to Micheal Robinson being a multi-M$,$$$,$$$.
Joseph Cheek is not anything of the sort. He is a hard working Linux geek (in the nicest possible way) who is trying to build his own company from nothing and he does not have 1/2 the people working for him that the other guy has.
——————*************************——————
To “Kaspar Utz”
Besides the fact you think all the most important packages in Lycoris Desktop/lx Update 3 RC1 are way out-dated…
Do you like the user-friendly features in Desktop/lx?
Have you seen the new screenshots of RC1 yet? It has a new Window Decoration and a new background, they are very nice in my personal opinion.
Here are some screenshots of RC1
http://www.tuxreports.com/modules.php?set_albumName=album35&op=modl…
Oh and I have a question for you.
You say you used Lycoris for a long time but gave up on it…
Did you ever buy anything from them? Give them a donation?
If not then how do you expect them to have the funding to provide the features you want? Did you ever ask for them at the Lycoris Community web site?
My point is there are ways to get things done for you in the world and most of them involve money my friend.
As you know Lycoris current market is NOT demanding KDE3 right now in Update 3. If they had and they where all paying customers I bet we would have it.
So maybe if your company pays for Lycoris and asks Lycoris staff to fix something I bet it would be done so quickly.
🙂
It depends on what kind of business you are running. For myself, I can operate a technical writing business quite nicely using Lycoris. Prior employers of mine include a technical Headhunter firm that would have had no problems at all with the default packages included in Lycoris.
Once again, they are targeting the non-tech Windows user. The objective is to wean people off of Windows and onto Linux. Once the terrified newbies gets the basic idea of freedom, then they can start digging into the nuts and bolts.
Why would the standard Windows user ever want to access GCC? What possible use would they have for it? The vast majority of end users can barely turn a computer on, much less customize it. What Lycoris does it to provide a comfortingly similar framework for people who neither know nor care about whats under the hood. To them a computer is a tool, nto a Leggo set. They don’t give a rat’s backside about GCC, and mentioning make to them will simply provoke a blank stare of incomperhension.
Lycoris offers a simple, non-geek way for the regular people to use Linux. It is easy to use, it works, it is stable, and frankly, nobody outside of the tightly knit Linux community even knows what KDE is, much less cares.
Does it work? Yes. That’s all the Lycoris target market needs to know.
KDE is not just a GUI, but a development framework that works with the GUI. Having an outdated version of KDE means that the Lycoris developers have to do resort to potentially clumsy and crufty maneuvering in order to make KDE3 apps work.
Thank you BSmith that was very well said and I agree with you 100%
—-
To J. J. Ramsey; what KDE3 apps is Lycoris trying to get to work with KDE2? ummm? None. Please try to know what you are talking about first.
Lycoris does include QT3 libbs in Update 3, that is all at the moment. All KDE applications are still for KDE2.2 at the moment…
…is hurting you without you knowing it. GCC…Glibc…gtk…
who cares in th world outside of Linux! As long as I can write/publish documents, make emails and surf the net, play games, listen to CDs and MP3s and rip CDs that all that is to it. Dont need no fancy GUI that will almost always gets buried under a running app or two. Once you start an app, you wont care if you are using KDE2 or KDE3. Are you always looking at the transparency effects of KDE3 while surfing the net? I dont think so.
To “Tim1980”
> Do you like the user-friendly features in Desktop/lx?
Yes. I loved them. Lycoris was the first distribution I ever tried where I could just put in a CD full of .avi files – the CD would automount and open – and I could click on any file and Xine would start playing it back, with full quality audio and video (most distributions don’t even recognize my sound card, so that was pretty amazing, especially if you consider that it installed in a few clicks with no technical informations from me).
> Have you seen the new screenshots of RC1 yet?
Yes, I have seen them, they look nice – thanks.
But the problem is, as I was saying, not about eye-candy: RC1 sure looks nice, but lacks many features I need (all to be found in KDE 3).
> Oh and I have a question for you.
> You say you used Lycoris for a long time but gave up on it…
> Did you ever buy anything from them? Give them a donation?
I would not say that I used it (the systems that I work with, my main home PC and my Toshiba Laptop, both run RedHat), but I installed it on an old machine I had at home and I played around with it a little, from time to time.
I have not ever purchased anything from Lycoris, and I have not given them any donations.
> If not then how do you expect them to have the funding to provide the features you want?
Well, as I see it, I buy a product once it has the features I need. I don’t fund a company to implement them. Why should I pay in advance?
Mind you, I am not against supporting open source companies. I buy every boxed RedHat release that comes out.
But I would not donate money to Lycoris in the hope that some day they might decide to implement KDE 3. That’s not how a customer/company relationship should work, in my very humble opinion.
The only projects I would consider supporting with donations are non-profit ones.
> Did you ever ask for them at the Lycoris Community web site?
No, I haven’t. I have been at the “Greenhouse”, and I’ve seen that there has been already some discussion about the topic (inclusion of KDE 3) and that others have already made that specific request many times – so I did not bother to write. “Me too” messages are annoying.
> My point is there are ways to get things done for you in the world and most of them involve money my friend.
Well, I get your point, but I don’t think I should pay Lycoris to implement a feature I need in their distribution, just as I don’t pay Ford to make their cars the way I’d like them. It works the other way around, for me.
I tell every company out there who wants to listen to me what I, as a potential customer, would like, and the first company to give me what I need gets my money.
> As you know Lycoris current market is NOT demanding KDE3 right now in Update 3.
> If they had and they where all paying customers I bet we would have it.
Lycoris’s current market? Do they even have a market?
Nobody I know has ever bought anything from Lycoris, so far.
If they really have a market and they are happy with the market they have, and their customers are happy with what they get, then that’s ok. They don’t have to listen to me, of course. I wish them the best of luck.
——————
To “BSmith”
> Once again, they are targeting the non-tech Windows user. The objective is to wean people off of Windows and onto Linux.
> Once the terrified newbies gets the basic idea of freedom, then they can start digging into the nuts and bolts.
I understand their concept, and I like the idea.
> Why would the standard Windows user ever want to access GCC? What possible use would they have for it?
> The vast majority of end users can barely turn a computer on, much less customize it.
A standard Windows user will probably never need to access GCC directly, but it is very likely that at some point such an user would like to install a program downloaded from the Internet (a game or an application), and a lot of stuff out there has to be compiled in order to run.
Even some of the programs that come with auto-installers who take care of everything need to be compiled. If you have an outdated GCC version or outdated libraries, many programs will not compile.
The standard Windows user will be frustrated and will not understand why it’s not working. He might even blame the fault on the program, not realizing that the problem lies with a distribution that ships outdated stuff.
> What Lycoris does it to provide a comfortingly similar framework for people who neither know nor care about whats under the hood.
> To them a computer is a tool, nto a Leggo set. They don’t give a rat’s backside about GCC, and mentioning make to them will simply provoke a blank stare of incomperhension.
That’s just stupid. Gcc as well as glibc are fundamental components of a Linux system. No matter if you are an experienced Linux guru or a novice Windows convert, it is good for you to have up to date versions of those components on your system.
I would even go as far as to say that it is in fact much more important for the novice Windows convert to have those up to date versions installed, because Linux gurus can obviously take care of the updating by themselves, while the poor ex-Microsoft customer totally depends on the distribution he is using.
So, I am convinced more than ever that Lycoris should update those packages as soon as possible, and then keep them up to date in the future.
To J. J. Ramsey; what KDE3 apps is Lycoris trying to get to work with KDE2? ummm? None. . . . All KDE applications are still for KDE2.2 at the moment…
And you don’t see this as a problem? Lycoris users stuck with antiquated versions of KDE apps?
Please try to know what you are talking about first.
I do know what I’m talking about, and you yourself pointed to the problem.
so I have I right to criticize. Lycoris was actually the distro that turned me on to Linux in the first place. The first distro I ever used (and paid for) was Caldera OpenLinux (whoops!). It installed nicely but it was unusable crap. I can’t remember if this was 1999 or 2000, I think 2000, but at that time there really was no comparison between Linux and Win98, Win98 blew it out of the water, and OSX was still a year away. So I went back to Windows. I dabbled with Mandrake a little later, didn’t like it either. Then I tried Lycoris Desktop/LX Update 2. Finally, a Linux distro that worked! Installation and hardware support blew me away. But I very soon got thirsty for the latest KDE (which was 3.0 at the time). It’s pretty easy to install on top of Lycoris, but it makes the system a little buggy. I also started to realize how outdated all of the applications they include are…and I mean every single one. There is also no Gnome support, which meant I couldn’t run Evolution. I switch to Red Hat 8.0 and I like it a lot better. Then I switched to Mandrake 9.1 and I liked it even more (better multimedia support out-of-the-box than Red Hat) and that’s where I’m at right now.
I drop back into the Lycoris.org discussion boards once in awhile to see what is going on. It’s really kind of quaint, Lycoris users are like the Amish of the Linux world. They use outdated technology and think that’s all there is. Most of them think it’s impossible to run Gnome applications in KDE. And so many of them are so highly fanatical and defensive of Lycoris they won’t accept even the slightest criticism. Lycoris users are, in my experience, worse than Mac users in this regard. Dissent will NOT be tolerated.
I’m also not a fan of their EULA, which states that the download edition is free for personal use, but must be per-seat licensed in a commercial setting. Why? Because lycoris contains “proprietary components”. What are these “proprietary components”, I asked Joseph Cheek (founder of Lycoris), and the answer I got was “wallpaper and icons”. So including proprietary wallpaper and icons is enough to ignore the GPL and require per-seat licensing? Apparently. Must be something in the water over in Redmond.
I thank them for turning me on to Linux, and I paid them their money, but now that I know more about Linux, its rapid development pace (strap in, it’s fast!), and the letter and spirit of the GPL, there is no way I would use or recommend Lycoris to anyone, not even someone new to Linux. A newbie should be on Mandrake.
You obviously haven’t dropped into the boards recently. Your statement that, “Most of them think it’s impossible to run Gnome applications in KDE.” is a bit off. There are addons available from the Lycoris download section that allows you to run things like Evolution. Although since I do not bother with Evolution and have no interest in it, I cannot vouch for the effectiveness. I do know that the Lycoris community membership have produced and made available addons that allow someone to run KDE 3 applications.
As far as their EULA, that’s a personal matter. I haven’t seen much evidence of paranoia on the part of Lycoris. Since the ISO is free to download I perceive the EULA as more in the nature of a request than a demand. Unlike Lindows, or Xandros, et al Lycoris does not try to demand anything. They make their product available in compliance with the spirit of the GPL, and then they ask people to pay for it IF they are going to use it to make money. This seems eminently fair to me, but it is up to each user to comply if they choose to do so. Nobody is coming with federal marshals to beat down your door for having an unlicensed copy of Lycoris.
I will admit that Lycoris users tend to be very protective of “their” distro. That is because, more than any other distro I have seen, Lycoris fosters a sense of community among their users. Most of the long term users that I have seen commenting on the forums tend to admit that they use other distros as well as Lycoris, but still they keep coming back.
Which applies to me also. I switched over to Knoppix not too long ago. But you know something? It just isn’t as much fun to use. It is a superb product by every measureable standard. Knoppix is easy to install, easy to use, technically cutting edge and fast. But it just doesn’t feel as comfortable to me as Lycoris.
This is why there are so many Linux distros I guess. There is something for everyone. You techno-philes go on with Mandrake or whatever. Send your kid brother and your granpaw over to us at Lycoris, and we will take care of the grunt work of getting them started on something they can actually use to get some work done, leaving you guys free to concentrate on wringing ever increasing power out of the compiler.
BTW, I noticed that you said in 1999 or perhaps 2000 you were unsatisfied with Linux and went back to Win98. May I repsectfully point out that in 2000 Win98 was almost 3 years old, which is considerably older than Lycoris is right now? How come it is perfectly ok to use Windows versions that are 2, or 3, or sometimes even 5 years old, but Lycoris gets reamed for being a couple of years behind the bleeding edge?
Some of us like using technology that has the bugs already worked out. We enjoy knowing that it works, and we can trust it. Not everyone feels taht way, but some of us do.
Why do I keep hearing people bashing Lindows? Its true that when they first started they weren’t abiding by the GPL, but they’ve corrected that now, and Id like to think the community can forgive.
“The spirit of the GPL”? The GPL MANY times says its fine for someone to charge.
And Mr.Robertson has given a lot of money to the community. It sponsers kde-look.org, it donates to KDE, GAIM, and some others. They are hardly “just taking”.
>>As far as their EULA, that’s a personal matter. I haven’t seen much evidence of paranoia on the part of Lycoris.
I didn’t see much paranoia on the part of Microsoft regarding their EULA in 1998, and I think we all got burned by that complacency. Now I see it coming a mile away. If the stars changed position and the earth turned upside down and Lycoris became the dominant desktop OS, I highly doubt we would be any better off than we currently are with MS. I have spoken with the lycoris developers (four of them anyway, are there anymore?) and they couldn’t care less about the ethics of free software or the GPL. All they care about is making money at wal-mart…I’m paraphrasing, but that’s basically the party line I hear from them. Stay away from this distro, because if you ignore ethics now it will come back to bite you in the ass later. I’m working on learning Gentoo just so I will never be dependent on a single company’s distro…because a company can change management overnight.
When Lycoris does move to KDE 3, what will everyone find
to complain about?
“while the poor ex-Microsoft customer totally depends on the distribution he is using.”
That is why there is the Lycoris IRIS, whare you can download additional programs for Desktop/LX, so that these ex Win users dont have to worry about any GCC nor Glibc. Again, views should be based on facts.
>>When Lycoris does move to KDE 3, what will everyone find
to complain about?
By that time everyone else will be using KDE 4. 🙂
>>”The spirit of the GPL”? The GPL MANY times says its fine for someone to charge.
I’m not against the charging, I’m against calling your distro proprietary because of wallpaper and icons and restricting its distribution because of it.
Pulidzz wrote:
“That is why there is the Lycoris IRIS, whare you can download additional programs for Desktop/LX, so that these ex Win users dont have to worry about any GCC nor Glibc. Again, views should be based on facts.”
So Lycoris is deliberately keeping their distribution out of date (and thus incompatible) in order to lock users into their application gathering platform?
I don’t like this one bit, and in fact this is just another reason not to use Lycoris. Even ex-Windows users who are not technologically very competent should not have to limit themselves to what Lycoris provides through IRIS (which is very limited*).
This also applies to Lindows and their Click-and-run service, but at least Lindows provides up to date kde, gcc, glibc and gtk+ packages so that their users have a choice.
* for a comparison:
(This is what a Lycoris user can get)
http://www.lycoris.com/webservices/iris/index_html
(This is what a RedHat/SuSE/Libranet user can get)
http://www.linuxberg.com/
http://freshmeat.net/browse/
I agree, views should be based on facts.
what would be earth shatteringly different between a stable version of mplayer that can be downloaded from IRIS (compiled with GCC 2.95) as opposed to a Redhat Severn version of the same apps (compiled with GCC 3.2). Do they both play the same types of media? Yes. Do they work the same? Yes. Do they both give you the same functionality? Yes. I rest my case.