This is a Q&A conducted over e-mail with DesktopOS & the CTO/founder of Lycoris, Joseph Cheek.
Interview with Joseph Cheek CTO and Founder of Lycoris
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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That was most certainly the worst interview I have ever read. Could the questions have been any more standard and lacking insight?
Lame, lame, lame. Lame questions, lame answers.
And I ~like~ Lycoris…
“That was most certainly the worst interview I have ever read. Could the questions have been any more standard and lacking insight?”
Yes, Laura Didio could have given the interview instead.
oh sorry you don’t like it.
In the future they will be much better, this was the first interview with DesktopOS and Lycoris so it was just a small one with basic questions to get started.
It’s pretty good for someone who probably has no experience interviewing and did it all via email.
Maybe you could help come up with some questions for the next interview?
The subject says it all really. Wonder when one of these “60+” will work on an updated KDE and support for gnome applications. Lindows has some 65 odd employees, they manage.
I think the questions were OK, but the answers…either this Lycoris guy was in a very bad mood, or he is definitively not a pro. When a big company approaches him to talk about Lycoris as a desktop solution, will he answer the questions that way? Hope not!!
Tim1980: good try, but next time don’t worry about making “basic questions just to get started”, you won’t scare the guy with more “juicy” questions – they should be ready for it.
Thanks Rod, I’ll take that onboard
Thanks Jason 🙂
maybe you could get permission from someone to interview them, and then post a topic on desktopos for users to submit questions?
It’s funny, but you don’t actually hear so much of them lately. It’s true, they have a good image (logos, themes, etc), but I can’t really see their place in the market right now. Lindows or Xandros are far ahead in terms of brand recognition and marketing. And now that Lindows’ got Everaldo, I think we’ll see a nice default theme in their next OS.
Too bad for Lycoris they can’t keep the pace with the other Desktop oriented distros. I tried Lycoris around three years ago, and it had features others distros didn’t (I mean from the regular user’s point of view). Back then Lindows was just the name. But I heard Lycoris is using old software also, like KDE 2. I guess I just can’t understand we’re they’re headed.
<<Proud to live in the birthland of Linux>>
The questions were pretty ok, the answers were lame and too short.
With so many people, anyone could start making a kick ass distro. Look at Slackware, 1 man does it (almost) all. Now if that man would get have another 59 man around to make the distro n00b and user friendly the product would rock (and no, I’m not talking about slackware here, just using as an example, slack still rocks!). Imagine a new Lycoris, with a light framework (like slack), rpm based (it is as far as I know), with the latest KDE and Gnome, and some easy to use guy tools. Gnome wouldn’t even be required, just the libs necessary to get gnome apps going. And yes, 60 people are more than enough. And no, you don’t need to patch the 2.4 kernel with odd patches to get more performance, because you won’t. You don’t need to screw glibc and so on. So basicly you would concentrate man power in designing a desktop friendly distro, because the apps are already there, and bether than ever.
Think about it Lycoris people, what’s so hard about it?
If you have ever visited the Lycoris forums you understand the answer part. All of Joseph’s posts are very short and really plain. He really shoul work on being a better communicator. I think it would help move his product forward faster. He really only said they would move forward and want to make money through all of his answers. That’s all I gathered.
He didn’t say there were 60 employees. He said the total number of people working on a full-time, part-time, contract and volunteer basis are 60. That’s a completely different thing. It’s not like they have 60 employees on their payroll.
And, just like slack, Joe is the one guy that does most of the coding.
Lycoris is fading fast. Instead of focusing on polishing their core product, they expand into competitive (and difficult to reap financial rewards from) market of the handheld?
Stop losing focus, diluting your brand, and taking marketing lessons from Gateway!
PS-Compare and contrast this interview with Kevin C from Lindows.
Takes forever for them to ship product.
“He didn’t say there were 60 employees. He said the total number of people working on a full-time, part-time, contract and volunteer basis are 60. That’s a completely different thing. It’s not like they have 60 employees on their payroll.”
The statement is empty of information, and at the very least is misleading.
“And, just like slack, Joe is the one guy that does most of the coding.”
Are you kidding me!! Then what are the other 59 doing??
Tim gave it a good try, but these people who keep coming up with excuses for Lycoris need to hang it up. The company is doing very little to help themselves out, I have a hard time understanding why others keep coming to their rescue so to speak.
“The company is doing very little to help themselves out, I have a hard time understanding why others keep coming to their rescue so to speak.”
You have to understand the lycoris community to figure that out. The lycoris community is the glue that holds it al together….
Further to that, if Joe could stop being so stubborn and give the users what they want – in the form of updated KDE (which is on it’s way), and gnome libs, they will have arguably the best desktop linux for home users around. Why Joe can’t see that beats me, but they would sell their OS like crazy if it had those things.
It does appear that my comment made last night was just as lame as the interview. I should have been more specific and offered something constructive. So here are some things I would have asked:
– What updated software packages are being integrated into the next Lycoris version?
– How does Lycoris intend to market/advertise to new users unfamiliar with Linux?
– Does Lycoris offer anything appealing to current users of larger distos such as Mandrake or Red Hat?
– Do you think that not offering Lycoris as a free download is helpful or harmful to the distribution’s popularity? …to the distribution’s profit? …to the distribution’s long-term success?
– Are OEM deals successful financially? Does Lycoris have any plans to increase OEM distribution?
– What retailers have been selected to carry Lycoris products in order to gain market exposure?
– How does Lycoris differ significantly from Lindows, another distro aimed at Windows-switchers?
Always good to throw in some fluff too, like:
– How do you see Linux’s future in relation to Windows?
-Bob
joe actually says so in this thread on their site:
http://www.lycoris.org/viewtopic.php?topic=9942&forum=33
while it may be true that lycoris wont ever support gnome
i happen to have most if not all the package needs for gnome1 libs
ive even gotten gnucash to work
Lycoris is a dead dog in the middle of the road almost ready to have it’s innards splattered so the buzzards can pick at it. The idiots who run the group cannot do things like add support for key updates or for the longest time get USB mouses working… and with update 3 they have the audacity to charge even higher prices for their distro. If you want a noob distro, go with Lindows and Xandros.. those products do the same job with even more class than lindows. Their support is a joke, the gamepak and ‘office suite’ (Open office repackaged) weak… give us a break. While the idea might be good, it comes off poorly.