“Lycoris does what I mentioned a few days ago on this site. It lets a person sit down and gets some work done without ever needing to crack the hood. Mandrake, Red Hat, and many other Linux versions are equivalent to buying a kit full of parts and tools and building your own car. Lycoris is like going to the dealership, plunking down the cash, and driving away. […] Lindows offers the same thing. But Lindows costs $129, rather than $29. And Lindows requires a yearly subscription plan of $99 a year. Whereas the Lycoris plan is included in the one time purchase price. And Lindows is proprietary, you cannot download it for free. Xandros also claims to be aimed at the windows user. But Xandros costs $99 and is proprietary. You can’t get it for free either. So much for choice. Lycoris is now running on both my systems.” Read the blog entry at TheForge, by Barry Smith.
Editorial About Lycoris on a Blog Entry
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
Follow me on Twitter @EugeniaLoli
oh well…not that i’m complaining. this guy nailed it.
Why not? It is an editorial. What difference would it make if that was posted here or NewsForge, or if it was posted on a blog entry? The article has the same “meat” that would have been posted in one of these articles we see lately on news sites, so there is no reason to stop reporting on it, if it is well written and offers an opinion after experience.
I have tried both Lindows and Xandros .. I hadn’t even really considered Lycoris, until now
I recently installed Lycoris on a test pc at work for evaluation and its a very nice and easy distrobution to use. For a linux distrobution that only costs $29.00 its useability makes it a snip. Don’t get me wrong about the big player distro’s, I like SUSE 8.1 and its one of my main OS’sa lot but Lycoris is just nice.
I believe you can buy Xandros for $39.00 without the Codeweaver stuff…
OSnews readers – again SciTech asks for your input. Would you like to see SciTech support this Lycoris in the soon to be released SciTech SNAP Graphics for Linux?
Well, this question is not quite right… If you will support Linux, all the 2.4 kernel distros should be pretty compatible with your drivers on most distros, so there is no point on specifically supporting Lycoris or Lindows or Xandros but not the others. All you have to do is do some tests on most well-known distros to make sure that your generic binary works fine on most of them, and you are ok. No reason on supporting Lycoris but not support Lindows, for example. A generic Linux binary is more preferable IMO.
YES!!!
I tried it. I kind of liked, but I kept having problems with logging in. I would get it installed and everything would work fine until reboot. After I rebooted I would never be able to get into any user accounts. It was like the reboot was eating them. I wasn’t proficient enough with linux to set everything right at the time. Oh well. Chances are I had a bad iso or there was a bug that has since been fixed. Chances are I would have continued using it for awhile had it not been for this problem.
I like Lycoris too – easy to install, easy to use, “root” is not treated as a real person, and the included apps are enough to get started without being overwhelming. But now I have to upgrade a graphics card driver and Nvidia doesn’t release Lycoris driver packages. I guess it’s off to the support forums or the documentation.
-Bob
Eugenia – You are correct from a technical standpoint. However, once SciTech, puts its stamp of support on a particular OS, we are then obligated on behalf of our customers to take extensive steps to track that OS. This includes keeping the latest versions available in our Lab for continued testing and ongoing certification…
By doing this we are able to ensure the high level of compatibility, performance and functionality that customers demand. Besides our QA team would never let me claim support for any OS unless they had run exhaustive tests on it regardless of similarity to other OS’es.
Cheers!
When I bought Xandros for $39 it came with Crossover office and Plugin.. I don’t know exactly why… oh well… :p
> By doing this we are able to ensure the high level of compatibility, performance and functionality that customers demand
Supporting Lycoris would be very nice indeed, but is SciTech already or plans to support Red Hat, SuSE, Debian and Mandrake? We like it or not, these distros have the most users (altogether more than ~80% of the linux userbase), so these should be the first distros that SciTech should focus first before offering support for smaller OSes. Lycoris and Gentoo are nice, but they are small so financially for you might not be a great financial deal, so my advice would first be to the wellfare of SciTech and if you are way too rich over there, then sure, support every OS under the sun!
What is it? Oh and unless it is a virus… support gentoo!
I’m wondering whether you are buying a licence or just media and support?
What commercial dists (Xandros, Lindows, Lycoris, Libranet) are freely installable, copyable, and or downloadable (legaly, I mean)?
I’m happy with Debian (on PPC no less), but would like to be able to make a good recomendation to Windows using friends (who aren’t willing to pay much $100 for to try Linux).
If I could buy a Libranet or Xandros CD and burn copies I would be happy.
seems to me that you’re not quite getting that it’s really one OS, with multiple distributions. Linux hasn’t really fragmented to the point of SVR4, yet. Eugenia’s right, if XiG can do a pretty generic install system for Linux, so can you…
just curious, but after watching you advertising for a while now, what exactly is it that you’re bringing to the market that Accelerated-X doesn’t do better? will it be competitively priced?
According to the Lycoris EULA you are not allowed to use the free download version in a commercial setting or distribute that free version in a commercial setting. If that is not proprietary, then I don’t know what is. In the words of Joseph Cheek, founder and CTO of Lycoris:
“Our license does state that you can take the GPL stuff and do whatever you want with it, in accordance with the GPL. it says this for all of the open source licenses, too, not just GPL. but because the software in the desktop/lx product [and our others too, like ppak and gamepak] are not all GPL, we can place any restrictions on the proprietary components we like, including the requirement that you pay per seat for commercial use. yes, this does differentiate us from mandrake and RH and others, and keeps us from being free software purists. i can live with that.”
Remember that next time you go talking about how much better Lycoris is than Red Hat and Mandrake. And least Red Hat and Mandrake don’t restrict third-party distribution or tell you what types of computers you may install their free download product on.
You can only do that with Lycoris, and still, if you do that, I think you only have support for the first machine you install to (and register with), and the rest will be unsupported.
As for the rest of the linux distros you mentioned and also SuSE, you are not allowed to copy their ISOs AFAIK.
You can do so freely for mandrake, Gentoo and red hat though.
I love Lycoris! Here is a tip if you buy it or download the iso:
After installation, before you use the update wizard, put the CD back in and it will open. You can install more software. In particular, KMail and Konqueror. Mozilla is the default for browsing and email, but if you want to use K&K, install them before you start updating.
Also, be sure to go the the Lycoris Community site, there are really friendly people there.
“And least Red Hat and Mandrake don’t restrict third-party distribution or tell you what types of computers you may install their free download product on.”
you guys are too used to free as in beer, the only way they’re actually going against the spirit of the GPL is by including non-free software in the first place. maybe the free ride is getting close to over on the commercial Linux distros?
oh well, that’s why the Debian project was started, I guess.
>>you guys are too used to free as in beer
I’m not talking about free as in beer. Lycoris saying you can’t freely distribute the free-as-in-beer download version means that the distro is not free-as-in-speech. That is what I have a problem with.
I wouldn’t mind if they didn’t offer a free download iso, they’re not required to. But I do mind when they say you can’t distribute the copy you download for free OR bought from them any way you want to. That’s no better than Lindows or Windows.
Free as in speech is what I am intent on preserving, otherwise we’ll be no better off with Lycoris/Lindows/Xandros than we currently are with MS.
from your post:
“Our license does state that you can take the GPL stuff and do whatever you want with it, in accordance with the GPL.”
as they state, do what you want with the GPL stuff.
“Lycoris saying you can’t freely distribute the free-as-in-beer download version means that the distro is not free-as-in-speech.”
an ISO layout can be copyrighted(see OpenBSD), so it is their IP. they include software under their license on the ISO, sorry gotta follow their rules. any GPL software contained in the ISO can be redistributed. so, what’s the problem?
the NT Server Resource kit has GPL’d software on it(done properly with license and source), would you expect that you can just burn a copy for whoever?
as for Lindows and Xandros, they’ve both followed the rules, too… Lindows has an anon ftp with source code available, and Xandros makes source available, as well…
If new users coming into the Linux world don’t think that preserving the GNU spirit of Linux (as in no digital choke-chain Eula telling you where you may install the OS and whom you may share it with), then what’s the point of using Linux at all? You might as well stick with Windows XP if that’s how you feel.
From the Free Software Foundation’s web site:
“Watch out, though–a number of companies that associate themselves with the term ‘open source’ actually base their business on non-free software that works with free software. These are not free software companies, they are proprietary software companies whose products tempt users away from freedom. They call these ‘value added’, which reflects the values they would like us to adopt: convenience above freedom. If we value freedom more, we should call them ‘freedom subtracted’ products.”
And this passage is talking about free-speech (libre) not free-beer (gratis) when it uses the word “Free”.
Michael: Today you accept proprietary wallpapers and icons in Linux distros, tomorrow proprietary applications. The next day, proprietary window managers. When does it end? The path Lindows/Xandros/Lycoris are leading us down is a slippery slope where a Linux OS is nothing but proprietary software with a few GPL utilities and a GPL linux kernel thrown in.
There is more to the GPL than just having to provide the source code. Read Section 6, specifically.
“If new users coming into the Linux world don’t think that preserving the GNU spirit of Linux (as in no digital choke-chain Eula telling you where you may install the OS and whom you may share it with)”
are you saying I’m a new Linux user trying to get over on the GNU spirit??? lol.
just to remind you that there is a lot of spew available on the FSF’s website, I’ll quote you my favorite:
—————————————
Linus Torvalds is the “posterboy” (other people’s choice of word, not ours) for his goals, not ours. His goal is to make the system more popular, and he believes its value to society lies in the merely practical: its power, reliability and easy availability. He has never advocated freedom to cooperate as an ethical principle, which is why the name “Linux” is mostly disconnected from that principle.
Linus publicly states his disagreement with the free software movement’s ideals. He develops non-free software (he said so before a large audience at a “Linux”World show), and even makes it necessary for fellow developers of Linux, the kernel, to use non-free software to access his source repository. He goes even further, and rebukes people who suggest that engineers and scientists should consider social consequences of our technical work–rejecting the lessons society learned from the development of the atom bomb.
There is nothing wrong with writing a free program for the motivations of learning and having fun; the kernel Linus wrote for those reasons was an important contribution to our community. But those motivations are not the reason why the complete free system, GNU/Linux, exists, and they won’t secure our freedom in the future. The public needs to know this. Linus has the right to promote his views; however, we think our much larger and pioneering work should promote our views, not his.
Gallo: my point isn’t that I dislike the GPL, or even that I like proprietary software…
my point is that sometimes free software isn’t all it should be. in those cases, I’m more than happy that there is non-free software available. I would personally love to see a nice, tight Linux distro specifically designed for CAD/CAM workstations. with a better implementation of X11 targeting 3D CAD/CAM applications. stuff like CrossOver Office isn’t so bad either…
when it’s just Lindows or Xandros(without the extras), then yes… they are ‘freedom subtracted’ distros, but I hope that we’ll soon start to see more value added distros. if that requires non-free software and no free downloads, so be it…
better to be partially free than to have to go totally proprietary.
Why so many people think that when somebody writes a software application, they should just hand it over to you along with the source code and say “Ok, do whatever the hell you want with it.”
While there’s definitely nothing wrong with the above approach, it does seem a little awkward that people [i]expect[i] someone to just hand over something to you that it took them months or even years to create.
Of course, I am not advocating spyware and things of that nature, but Gallo is right … you have to draw the line somewhere, but this whole ‘gimmie’ attitude just seems too far in the wrong direction.
The problem with distributions like Lycoris and Lindows is that they take advantage of free software in order to sell their product. I mean that in itself is not totally bad but the whole point of GPL is that the code improved upon and continuously updated and then given back to the community. If Lycoris/Lindows start restricting that then they are just milking other people work just to earn a quick buck. IMHO they are no better than other more mainstream software companies and they shouldn’t try and align themselves with open source or the GPL.
> While there’s definitely nothing wrong with the above approach, it does seem a little awkward that people expect someone to just hand over something to you that it took them months or even years to create.
Agreed again Darius. We seem to think alike.
These distros should open source only what is needed, for example all the GPL code, but whatever they have created by themeselves, they have the right to keep and not share! They are companies at the end of the day and they need to survive! And if a distro does not boot or doesn’t work correctly without this “extra written” software, then it is better not to release any semi-working ISOs, but only release the tarballs of the modified GPL software.
And this is exactly what Lycoris does, so please people drop the whining.
> The problem with distributions like Lycoris and Lindows is that they take advantage of free software in order to sell their product.
This is not a “problem”. This is absolutely LEGAL and even GOOD, as long as they return back the modified GPLed software!!
> the whole point of GPL is that the code improved upon and continuously updated and then given back to the community
If RMS had a problem with the current bundling of GPL software in other kind of software, then he should write a GPL 3.0 saying that GPL software should and only be used with GPL software. For example, to not be able to create commercial/closed software with Linux, neither run any commercial/closed software on it, neither produce any! THEN, yes! I would say “sure, stop bundling GPL apps with your distro and stop making a profit out of it”. BUT the way it is now, it is absolutely legal and absolutely right to do what Xandros, SuSE, Lycoris and others are doing, *as long as they return the GPLed mods*!
There is no problem, only some people here are trying to make it sound like a “problem”, while there is none legally.
And drop the “ethical” problem. There is none. It is absolutely perfect, right, great, fantastic and even BENEFICIAL for the GPL software to get exposure via a semi-open platform. What Lycoris and Xandros and SuSE do is absolutely FINE.
Think Apple and how they re-used Konqueror’s core. They open sourced back that part, but they didn’t open their whole OS just because they use some GPL software here and there. Let’s be realistic here! Using GPL software and giving exposure to it, is even beneficial in the long run for the GPL itself and its goals on how to get more popular.
And no, while I believe that OSS has its place and I respect it and use it and like it and support it, I don’t believe that all code should be open. Not the nuclear reactor’s code anyway.
On using a weblog as an article.
Absolutely. There is some great writing on weblogs.
One of the mozilla news sites posted a story based on
something in David Hyatt (Safari developer) weblog.
Weblogs, like web newsites that have talkbacks embody the
dynamic features of where the Web truly lives: dynamic
interaction. Is it any surprize there will be gems (& junk) to be found there?
Sites without this feature are like statues compared to
living breathing dancers.
…there are 3 kinds of lies. Lies, damned lies, and Blog Entries.
If you’re going to compare Lycoris to Lindows, at least get the facts straight.
1) Lindows cost $129, and includes 1 year of Click-N-Run. That cost covers ALL of the computers in your household (up to 5 I think). Lycoris costs only $29, but each Lynx code will set you back another $29.
2) Lindows comes with StarOffice downloadable, which you can use forever, even if you don’t re-up with Click-N-Run. Lycoris suggests their Productivity Pack – basically a rebadged OpenOffice. Cost of Productivity Pack – $49.95.
Do the math…the costs are not THAT much different.
3) While Lycors has some real strengths, their Lynx software service is a pain in the butt compared with Click-N-Run. I’ve had to reload Lycoris a couple of times, and every time I did, I had to email to have my serial number reset. With Click-N-Run, I have a user name and password, and the server remembers me…
P.S. I am a registered user of both Lindows and Lycoris, and while I prefer Lindows, I also like Lycoris, and use both. Competition is good for the desktop. I just hate to see one-sided pinhead observations accepted as fact…
God, at least someone (Eugenia) understands the GPL and reality. Others just don’t get it.
Taking “advantage of free software”?? Huh? If someone writes software and releases it under the GPL, which clearly states that it is perfectly ok for someone else to package it and sell it, as long as it includes the source (which you get with Lindows, Lycoris, and Xandros) then no one’s taking advantage of anyone! Geez, you people!
“the whole point of GPL is that the code improved upon and continuously updated and then given back to the community. If Lycoris/Lindows start restricting that then they are just milking other people work just to earn a quick buck.”
I know for a fact that Lycoris and Xandros have contributed their tweaks to KDE 2.2.2 back to the community. That’s what they’re required to do and that’s what in fact they do.
God it makes me so mad to read dumb posts by people who CLEARLY have not even bothered to read the actual GPL or put any thought whatsoever into their arguments.
Grrr…..
Yes, we see a lot of this on forums… people don’t understand, or simply misunderstand.
I guess the reason that some Distos don’t want you copying
the iso which they make freely available has to do with
encouraging purchases. They want it possible but not too
easy.
They provide these for the “try before we buy” and die hard
“free beer” crowd.
They are hoping that for most it will be just easier to buy a cd.
By copying the cds and distributing them you are monkeying with the “tipping point” but in the wrong direction as far as they are concerned.
Also, if you have to go their site, they can at least
keep their traffic count up, maybe get an ad click,and of
course a chance to pitch you on why you should buy .
It is hard to argue with someone who says you can get it
free if you want to but please get it free through us.
===================
As to which components and apps should be free and which
proprietary, this is tricky, but I would say this.
I think the original idea was to have a free platform that no one controlled, ie a true and open standard.
So anything that is so fundamental that it control of it can be leveraged to effectively control the computing
experience should be ideally free.( as in speech)
Anything else can be proprietary.
File formats should not be proprietary. Look at the havoc
.doc has wrought. Adobe Photoshop being proprietary allows them to charge a premium price but I don’t envision how Adobe could leverage it to controll the Desktop and beyond.
So the Kernel,Fundamental Apps like Browser,WP,spreadsheet, infrastructure like tcp/ip free.
Genealogy software proprietary.
To sum up important things should be standard, standards
should be open and free.
yeah, i guess blogs can contain good stuff. i take back my strange comments.
a few things though. lycoris is available as a free download, and you’re allowed unlimited use on non-commercial machines. it is a distro for HOME USERS after all. why not charge for business use?
as a home user, if you want support and access to a super easy web based install system (IRIS), then you pay. You pay once, not every year, and it’s good for as long as the current series Amethyst is around. When Beryl gets developed, you’ll have to buy a new certificate to support it. That’s fine by me.
“3) While Lycors has some real strengths, their Lynx software service is a pain in the butt compared with Click-N-Run. I’ve had to reload Lycoris a couple of times, and every time I did, I had to email to have my serial number reset. With Click-N-Run, I have a user name and password, and the server remembers me…”
that was fixed a long time ago tonymus. the only time you will need them to reset it is if you change your hardware, and it’s a way to restrict access to a per machine basis.
i could comment on many more things, but eugenia and a few others covered the bases well enough.
“Lycoris Rules! All your distros are belong to us!”
eugenia and darius.
I can see your point of view…can it be described like this?
“what’s the point of gpl software if companies cannot utilize it (fully) to become more successful, in turn helping gpl software to be more widely used?”
I can also see the viewpoint of “what good is gpl software becoming popular and widespread if it ends up producing another microsoft? (or ruining the original intent/value)”
these are just two possible viewpoints that lay on a sizeable spectrum.
I think in the end, both are valid and balance well.
1, It’s vital that companies are allowed to explore all the possibilities that gpl software has to offer.
2. It’s also important that individuals are allowed to explore the potentitial of gpl software.
3. lastly, entities like FSF, are neccessary to help maintain the balance. they keep *explore* from morphing into *exploit*
What specifically have these disto’s done to improve the state of linux today? I’m talking about features code etc. Most of what they have done is just cosmetic IMHO, that’s just taking advantage of the work done by the KDE,GNOME, debian developers. Lindows is to worst one when it comes to this, their distro includes nothing new or revolutionary, its just a repackaged KDE distro with a graphical front end to apt-get.
While I may disagree with what you guys are saying about these distros at least I’m not calling you names, please lets focus on the facts not insult each other.
>What specifically have these disto’s done to improve the state of linux today? I’m talking about features code etc.
Not much indeed. They returned some bug fixes, but overall, for the linux state, they have done nothing coding and standard-wise. In fact, Red Hat and SuSE and Mandrake have done a lot more, code-wise.
However, you forget something important: they don’t have to do anything! There is not a law or a license that says “in order to have a desktop distro, you need to participate in projects that advance Linux, otherwise you are bad.”
Unless if things have changed since early fall, when I used Lycoris (and they could have), than Lycoris has a huge, huge, huge flaw which makes it completely unacceptable as a desktop replacement.
What is this huge flaw you ask? Simple, it doesn’t include Gnome. Now, I’m fine with using KDE (outdated 2.X version by the way…at least back then), but the problem comes in to play when you want to install programs…a ton of them have dependencies which come with Gnome. It’s almost impossible to install half the programs out there because of this. Everything gives you errors, and tracking down dependencies doesn’t help, as the dependencies have dependencies. Simply including Gnome would have solved this, but they mistakingly left it out.
Aside from that, it’s RPM based. After switching over to the Libranet distribution, which is Debian based, I will never switch back to an RPM based distribution. Talk about user friendly…it’s the only way to go. Installing programs works with out fail 95% of the time for me, and it always automatically downloads and installs all dependencies for me. Not only, but I don’t even have to hunt down and download the program. I just tell it to install a program and supply it’s name, and it downloads it for me and installs it. Simple as can be and works great.
Also, Lycoris’s fonts are ugly by default, but that’s tolerable or potentially fixable.
One good thing I have to say about Lycoris is that I felt very comfortable with their desktop. They did an excellent job helping the Windows convert feel at home.
They need to update KDE, include Gnome, and (wishful thinking) switch to Debian in order for them to get a thumbs up in my back. At least include Gnome. That’s all I’m really asking.
I can see your point of view…can it be described like this?
“what’s the point of gpl software if companies cannot utilize it (fully) to become more successful, in turn helping gpl software to be more widely used?”
No, I’m speaking more in general terms here – nothing to do with GPL per say. My point was that I really disagree with those who say that software which is not free (as in beer) and/or does not come with source code is somehow ‘evil’ or ‘immoral.’
I think there is room in the software world for both open source and proprietary, and I recognize the strenghts and weaknesses of each. Of course on the proprietary side, many people will point out that some companies take it too far with outlandish EULAs and invasive product activation (and I’m speaking more Turbo Tax than Windows XP here) and things of that sort, but I also think it’s a bit extreme to shun anything that’s proprietary simply because of the deeds of a few ‘bad apples’. That’s about the same thing as labeling all open source software as crap just because you tried out a couple of open source apps you didn’t like.
However, you forget something important: they don’t have to do anything! There is not a law or a license that says “in order to have a desktop distro, you need to participate in projects that advance Linux, otherwise you are bad.
Well they don’t HAVE TO but because they don’t a linux geek like me will have trouble getting too excited by them. To me they are just exploiting the current linux buzz in the business world. If they don’t innovate they will have a hard time staying in business.
> a linux geek like me will have trouble getting too excited by them
EXACTLY this is WHY Lycoris has MADE CLEAR that their market share IS NOT Linux geeks, but Windows users!!!!
>What is this huge flaw you ask? Simple, it doesn’t include Gnome.
Yes, this is their design decision. It is not a flaw. It is a decision on the kind of apps they want to support!
Even windows users don’t like to get ripped off… but i guess you get what you pay for. Lycoris is fairly cheap when compared to windows xp/2000.
What Lycoris has done is very specific. They are trying to develop (and are suceeding, I think) a distro truly for the home user. To simplify things, they chose one DE, KDE. They are totally focused on this to the point where they do not feel the need to rush and get KDE 3.x in it – they have very specific things they do to try and make the user experience as easy and pleasent as possible. Their artwork is the big thing, more important to them than the latest KDE. When you first see it, you immediately think XP. And, there is a resemblence that allows the user some familiarity. But, actually, after awhile you notice that it has its own look and feel and is very enjoyable. This extends to the Productivity Pak too.
I’m stupified by this criticism. They are not exploiting the work of others in some freeloading way – this is, in fact, the very fruit of OSS and the GPL.
No, I’m speaking more in general terms here – nothing to do with GPL per say. My point was that I really disagree with those who say that software which is not free (as in beer) and/or does not come with source code is somehow ‘evil’ or ‘immoral.’
I don’t think most (or even many) linux users think of all proprietary software as evil. However, most linux users do feel extremely passionate about open source software in general and the gpl in particular. I am not talking about just an intellectual admiration of the gpl either. I am talking about passionate concern, real emotional attachment, almost to the point of religious sometimes.
When a company comes even close to breaking the terms of the gpl it makes a lot of people very angry. This reaction is to be expected when you are a member of the minority (as linux users are). It is often easy to feel attacked or threatened even when no harm was meant or something was a misunderstanding.
I totally understand (and agree with) your belief that proprietary business models will still work with software and are not evil in any way. However, it doesn’t mean that I don’t get upset when I see the gpl abused or infringed upon. I truly love open source software, both the idea of it, and the software itself. It hurts to see it abused.
> it doesn’t mean that I don’t get upset when I see the gpl abused or infringed upon.
And I would be upset if that would happen, too. But in the case we discuss here, the GPL is not abused, neither infringed upon. It is the idea of the people that they have about GPL that is infringed upon. Legally speaking, and RMS agrees wtih that, Xandros, Lycoris and SuSE did not infringed upon GPL neither abused it. What RMS is saying is that he doesn’t want to see the label “GPL” and “Free Software” on OSes that are not 100% Free (they are in fact more like 98% Free, as most of the software IS Free Software). He just doesn’t want people to capitalize based on these *marketing* terms. But RMS never said that these distros are “infringed upon” the GPL illegaly. If they abused the GPL, they would be in courts now. Are they? No.
>>Taking “advantage of free software”?? Huh? If someone writes software and releases it under the GPL, which clearly states that it is perfectly ok for someone else to package it and sell it, as long as it includes the source (which you get with Lindows, Lycoris, and Xandros) then no one’s taking advantage of anyone! Geez, you people!
That is not ALL the GPL says. The GPL also says that works based on GPL software MUST ALSO BE GPL. It also says that you can’t place additional distribution restrictions beyond the scope of the GPL. If you think that all the GPL says is that you have to release the source code, then you obviously have NEVER READ THE GPL.
The Lycoris guys make RPMs for nVidia – they can be had from their FTP site. If you don’t find em, ask for help in the forum.
> The GPL also says that works based on GPL software MUST ALSO BE GPL
EXACTLY. But do you understand what THAT means?? You obviously don’t. The works based on GPL is NOT the whole ISO/operating system! It is just pieces of CODE *derived* directly from a GPL code!! So, when you take for example libXML and you modify it and you name it libEugenia, then that libEugenia will HAVE to remain GPL !! THIS is what the GPL says! But the GPL does NOT say that a whole distro, created by many different pieces of software has to be 100% GPL, because simply, there are pieces of software written by these companies which are NOT based on GPL *code*. And these pieces of software (about 2% of the whole distro for these companies) are PERFECTLY LEGAL to NOT be open sourced!!! Because they are NOT derived from GPL code!! Which part of the GPL you don’t understand??
Does osnews have an irc channel?
No.
You are right in it… 😉
it should… some of these discussions would be alot cooler to have in real time.
Are the required libs included? Can it run these programs without modifications out of the box?
No. There’s talk on their community site of a contributed KDE 3.x, but basically it won’t. Lycoris are focused on usability to such a degree that they don’t care overmuch about KDE 3.x at this point.
That’s bad then. Who will continue to develop for KDE 2.2? Lycoris is not Windows. I do get the point, basicly what they are trying to do is create a world where there will not be a need for a new programs. So the way I see it is, what they try to do is, “here, use this, you don’t need anything else” I repeat Lycoris is not Windows and not anyone said it is. My point is, Windows 98 programs run on Windows 95, Windows Me programs run on Windows 98 because it is all based on the same Win32 APIs, talking about backword compatibility. How is Lycoris planning to create new programs for their OS and update the existing ones. They can’t stick with what they have because they’ll stay at the past and they already are in the past. Lycoris inherits KDE2 problems, and one of these is the clipboard problem. Highlight some text and the text gets copied to the clipboard (this was present the last time I used Lycoris and it was present through all of the KDE 2.x family) Are they going to be any future updates of the email program they use Kmail and lots of other KDE programs. I hope you see my point and I don’t mean to offend anyone’s feelings but this is my view only.
I beleive there are only 5 (?) or so core programmers at Lycoris. KDE 3.x will be ready with the next major release, but they can only do that much at a time. This is not a simple matter of KDE 2 or 3 — their version is highly optimized with more than 1000 little changes to it. If you look at their site, you will notice that there is the game pak + the office pak as well and they had to set priorities for these inbetween, because if you deal with Walmart and alike as partners, you have to meet deadlines, etc… I would guess.
So YES, you will get KDE, only not quite today but it’s in the works and everybody is expecting it soon. Be patient, it’s not like you drop dead if you have to bear with KDE2 for another little while. Either way, if you want to have a look at it, it’s not a lost download for you – you can bring your ISOs up to date once KDE 3 arrives to Lycoris and you will only have to download a fraction of the distribution, not the entire CDs again. Grab em now, get an idea tof what they are up to and if you like what you see, update your ISOs when it’s done… 🙂
It’s a nice article, Lycoris definitely has it’s place. Has anyone tried the productivity pak? Is it just based on KOffice? Am I better off sticking to StarOffice 6?
If you’ve already purchased SO6, yes, you’re better off to stick with that. he Productivity Pack is based on open office, and tweaked to work better with Lycoris, and there’s added templates, cleaned up layouts, separation of the web writer portion….it’s a nice product. I haven’t tried to install it on any other distro, but I bet it would cause problems due to Lycoris’ customizations.
Lycoris is my favorite distro because it has some personality right out of the box. It has a “feel” that I don’t find with some other distros. Mandrake has it’s own sorta feeling too, while I find Red Hat very corporate (which is their goal), yoper very bland and boring (though fast), and on and on…..
Some of the biggest plusses of Lycoris:
preintalled flash
preinstalled java
preinstalled wine
properly sets up fstab to access other drives
small footprint due to carefully chosen programs
not big issues when you know how to use linux and are comfortable doing this stuff yourself, but for a total newbie, Lycoris is a breath of fresh air…and downloadable for free!! try it, and if you like it – buy it. I really like their strategy, and I’ve bought Lycoris when it was still Remond Linux at build 43. I’ve also bought the prod pack, and pre ordered the game pack.
Plus, Joe Cheek is just a good guy who is accessible, and cares about what he’s doing.
Yes, the GPL does say that Lycoris etc. has to release their GPL code. Which is exactly what they do. They contribute their fixes to KDE back to the KDE developers and they provide you the sources of their entire distro. However, just as Eugenia states, that does not mean that any distro maker can’t add on their own non-GPL software. That’s not what it means at all.
You omitted the very next section of the GPL you are referring to, which states: “If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works.”
SuSE is a perfect example. 99.99% of their distro contains regular GPL stuff. However, their YAST tool is proprietary and they restrict its use and distribution. There’s no problem there. The GPL, in fact, encourages this sort of stuff because it recognizes that it is the best interest of Linux as whole (i.e. the Big Picture) to have companies, developers etc. working on both proprietary and non-proprietary software. If a company comes up with a value-added feature, like YAST, the theory is that it gives them a competitive edge in attracting users. The more users that find YAST helpful and easy to use, the more Linus users there will be. The more Linus users there are, the more demand there is for all kinds of software, proprietary and non-proprietary. That’s why the GPL encourages this sort of behavior.
Folks need to understand once and for all that the GPL does not mean there has to be free downloads, or that a company cannot charge for it’s distro, or that there cannot be proprietary software included. That is NOT what the GPL provides. The GPL requires that you provide the sources.
Read the GPL here:
http://www.linux.org/info/gnu.html
It’s not long. Please read it carefully.
Now, you can argue all you want that companies that do these things are not living up to the “spirit” of GPL software, or that they are not as good a choice as 100% free (both as in source and as in cost) distros such as Debian, Mandrake, and Red Hat. That’s a perfectly fine argument since that’s an argument about moral choices. But don’t throw “GPL violation” without truly understanding what the GPL says and what it requires.
>>Now, you can argue all you want that companies that do these things are not living up to the “spirit” of GPL software, or that they are not as good a choice as 100% free (both as in source and as in cost) distros such as Debian, Mandrake, and Red Hat.
That is exactly what I said in my original post that started all this. I was pointing out that Lycoris Desktop/LX is proprietary software, not libre as lots of people seem to think it is. I didn’t say that they’re violating the GPL, I’m saying that distros that aren’t all-GPL aren’t as good a choice as distros that are in the long run, because it could lead to another Microsft choke-chain EULA scenario like we see today and a world where the dominant linux distros are all-proprietary save for the kernel and maybe a couple GPL utilities. What would that accomplish? How would that be better than the way things are today? Remember, there used to be lots of different kinds of DOS and lots of different window managers that ran on all those different kinds of DOS. The way it all ended up being one through proprietary incompatible “value-added” extensions could happen again in the linux world.
The separate and barely related point Marcus was making is that the GPL is about more than just providing source code. That’s a myth “freedom-subtracted” proprietary “open-source” companies want to make people believe.
I’m saying that distros that aren’t all-GPL aren’t as good a choice as distros that are in the long run, because it could lead to another Microsft choke-chain EULA scenario like we see today and a world where the dominant linux distros are all-proprietary save for the kernel and maybe a couple GPL utilities. What would that accomplish?
Um, nothing.
How would that be better than the way things are today?
It wouldn’t. But people seem to be insisting on ‘Linux for the masses’ and in such cases, some things HAVE to be proprietary. Why? Because most of the world runs on Windows and Windows is proprietary, and there are only so many things you can ‘hack’ or ‘disassemble’ to make work in Linux to GPL it. For the other things, you’re going to need help from companies who control file formats, and if their apps (or whatever) proprietary on Windows, there’s no way in hell they’re going to GPL them on Linux (not in most cases anyway).
People who think that one day a free and open OS is going to dominate the desktop need to stop living in a fairy tale, because it’s never going to happen, unless you can do something about that thing called Corporate America.
I have not been able to access lycoris.org for the past two days. Is it me or is thier site down.
Gallo, I think I know where you’re coming from, but I don’t think your scenario would happen. As long as there is the kernel and the other major components that are GPL, it seems to me that everyone would have an equal opportunity. There may be distros like Lycoris, that are highly modified for ordinary Windows users and, on the other hand, hard core Linux distros that we have now. I realize that Red Hat could become *the* dominant distro, but they would never have the power of Microsoft as they do not own the kernel along with a lot of other stuff.
lycoris.org is down for because of a power outage.
go to freenode.net #lycoris for irc access, or you can use web based irc through a site called tux-apps.com. you’ll see a link for web chat on the left side of the page.