There's no real need for SLUG people to make a Live CD setup for
Xandros. Don't forget, this is a *commercial* software company that is
*not* releasing most of their work under GPL. Besides, Warren Woodford
has already done everything they want with Mepis. Come to think of it,
he's done just about everything Bruce Perens wants to see UserLinux do,
except Warren has used KDE as his base. (And for commercial resale work,
yes, he has a QT development license.)
I have introduced Warren and Xandros Chairman Rick Berenstein to each
other. It's possible that they can work together.
Warren is an old-school "crazy genius" programmer. IMO, he and Klaus
Knopper are the two smartest people working on Linux distro packaging
today. He's created Mepis from scratch -- and has written his own
installer -- in less than a year, working alone, while Xandros (and
before Xandros, Corel) has had more than 25 programmers working for over
3 years to get where they are now.
Warren has a great "Live CD" distro going, with a super-easy install
procedure once you get it running from CD. And while Mepis lacks some of
the visual polish Xandros has, I find it superior in some ways, notably
speed and stability.
Mepis is also much closer to open source ideals than Xandros. It updates
directly from debian apt servers, not from private ones, and KDE apps
are not renamed or refaced with the original authors' credit removed.
I've wanted to do a "Point and Click Linux" book/video combination for
quite a while. This was originally going to be a SUSE-sponsored project,
and they're still willing to sponsor it, but I'm a little worried about
putting a lot of heart into something involving SUSE now that it's
becoming part of Novell. SUSE/Novell probably will -- and should --
concentrate on mid-to-large-sized businesses rather than end users,
small businesses, or hooking up with small/medium-sized computer
vendors. I will happily make user-level Linux training material for
SUSE's target customer base, and there's more money in doing that than
in making/selling retail books/videos, but not everything in life is
about money.
I'd prefer to do this project with either Xandros or Mepis as the base.
For one thing, apt-get is simply the easiest *mature* Linux application
packaging and distribution system there is. Xandros has added a little
Windows-style "stuff moving from one place to another" download/install
progress graphic that makes it look just as cute as Windows
InstallShield. Warren has simply modified KDE's package manager and
hasn't built in as much cuteness (because he's left the text messages
rather than made graphics), but his setup is actually a bit easier to
use, and tells the user what's happening more effectively.
Forget Lindows. Xandros is what Lindows promised to be but never became
except in Michael's dreams (and hype). And Mepis lacks only CodeWeavers
CrossOver Office and Plugin to have the same functionality as Xandros.
I've introduced Warren to Jeremy White of CodeWeavers, and he will be a
CodeWeavers reseller soon. He'll also hook up with Win4Lin and
Transgaming shortly, and he's hired an artist to help him make the
screens look cuter.
Xandros will autodetect some hardware better than Mepis. Mepis will
autodetect some hardware better than Xandros. SUSE and Red Hat/Fedora
will detect other hardware better than either one, but is not as good
with some hardware as Xandros or Mepis, especially laptops. Ian Murdock
-- Debian founder, Progeny CEO -- would like to see a single,
open-to-everyone cross-distro hardware database, since right now distro
preference is often a case of hardware roulette more than anything else.
I agree with Ian that this is silly. But SUSE, Xandros, and Lindows are
keeping much of their hardware detection routines proprietary so they
won't be able to be part of this unless they change some corporate
attitude, which they might. IMO, hardware detection scripts ought to be
part of the LSB and/or managed by OSDL rather than "secret sauce" for
each distro publisher.
I've been using Xandros and Mepis back and forth for several weeks on
two machines, one desktop and one laptop. I'm settling on Mepis as my
"daily driver" for a number of reasons -- mostly the speed and stability
I already mentioned. (Xandros may be very proud of their custom -
proprietary - file manager, but I've had it crash a number of times,
while Warren's plain-jane Konqueror does not, and I actually find it a
little easier to use.)
Now comes the BIG difference between the two distros: Xandros has a
large staff and high overhead -- 25 developers on staff, plus a CEO and
other top people who live in high-cost NYC and NY suburbs -- and must
take in major amounts of money to survive. Warren is one guy working
alone in Morgantown, WVA, so if he gets 100 or 200 registrations per
month (and his registration is voluntary) he makes money, no problem.
And he's *getting* those registrations without really trying.
Mepis development is much faster than Xandros'. When you look at the two
side-by-side, and remember that you're looking at the work of one person
for one year compared to the work of 25+ people for three years, the
difference is scary.
The disadvantage of dealing with a one-man shop, of course, is, "What if
55-year-old Warren gets sick?" Warren is aware of this, and has hooked
up with his local University (WVA), which is now supplying him with grad
student helpers, plus he has some other volunteers around the world
he'll soon be able to pay at least a little to work with him. He's not
broke, just cautious. And Warren's two main business advisors -- Johns
Hopkins professor Milad Doueihi and me -- are both big advocates of
conservative "pay as you go" company-building, rather than venture
capital and burn rates and the rest of that nonsense.
Plus, since Warren's work is all open source, if something happens to
him or his little company, Mepis carries on.
Also FYI: Warren spent many years successfully developing large-scale
financial applications. Ernst & Young uses his work to this day, and
many of their corporate clients know Warren favorably. To show you how
powerful a programmer and development team leader Warren is, note that
he and a couple of people working for him were turning out accounting
utilities as good as (some say better than) the hundreds of people
working for Arthur Anderson in Sarasota before Anderson came apart.
What I would *like* to see happen in my role as Linux advocate and user
is for Xandros and/or their parent Linux Global Partners (LGP) to fund
Warren as -- possibly -- the Xandros equivalent of Fedora; as the open
source, community-based, end user, development distro, with Xandros
concentrating on corporate sales and service.
LGP is flush right now. Rick Berenstein and his partner Willy Roseman
originally funded Ximian (then known as Helix), which Novell bought
earlier this year with cash -- $40 million in cash. Rick and Willy are
not hurting for money (nor are Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman or the
rest of the Ximian crew).
Or perhaps it's better for Warren and Mepis to stay independent. He and
I have talked about jointly publishing a "Point and Click Linux Kit"
complete with a Mepis demo CD that can be installed directly from the
demo with a few clicks, either alone or alongside other operating
systems, a DVD instructional video, and a heavily-illustrated
instruction manual, with Warren offering (optional) Mepis subscriptions
at a reasonable price ($30/year seems about right) that would include
access to private servers carrying Debian unstable programs certified to
work smoothly with the rest of the Mepis package, plus some commercial
software (Crossover, StarOffice, Win4Lin, Transgaming etc.) at heavily
discounted prices to sweeten the pot, plus another "spiff" or two we
haven't thought up yet.
This pattern ought to make a decent amount of money while allowing basic
Mepis to remain free/free without compromising quality.
Does anyone have any thoughts about any of this? If so, I'd love to hear
them.
- Robin
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