news

[Collins]

On Thu, 9 May 2002 20:57:08 -0400 (EDT) "Gerry Doris"
<gerry at dorfam.ca> wrote:
> 
> > On Thursday 09 May 2002 19:13 pm, dep wrote:
> >> fyi, we did a little interview with ransom love an hour or so
> >ago;> it's up now:
> >
> > Sorry, but I don't buy the 'tough market' as being the sole reason
> > for their  demise.   I still 'lurk' on the Caldera List and I
> > cringe everytime I see  someone struggling mightily to compile
> > something or upgrade something else  because Caldera 'forgot' or
> > didn't include it in their stealth distro.
> >
> > I gave up on Caldera two years ago when the hand writing was on
> > the wall that  they were no longer interested in the retail market
> > and I have never looked  back.
> >
> > I think they've lost it.
> >
> 
> Caldera was the first distro that I bought many years ago and I was
> reasonably happy with it.  However, I also felt that they were
> moving away from me and I gave up on them.
> I hate to see Caldera in the fix they're in but it really is a tough
> market.  SuSE has also struggled at least in North America.  Redhat,
> inspite of all the criticism they get seem to have the correct
> vision and seem to be just getting stronger while the rest are
> suffering. Gerry
> -- 
> "The lyfe so short, the craft so long to learne" Chaucer
> 

Thinking back, I think Caldera is getting its just rewards.

Caldera was, for me too, the very first successful distro that would
actually load on my old, slow, SIS card plagued PC, and it led me to
the Caldera Users List.  Once Caldera began to lag with releasing a
new version, and I began to experiment with other distros, I
discovered that there were some better ways to slice the butter.  In
particular, I discovered that other distros actively courted Beta
testers and shared the results freely with all, wheras Caldera kept
everything tightly locked away.

In short, as I reported in the past, Caldera was and is an extremely
closed proprietary company that just happens to base part of its
operation on Open Software.  Once I became fully aware of that fact,
it was adios Caldera for me.  The final stroke was the requirement to
pay for something that was steadily dropping behind in the race.

This is not to say that Caldera has not produced some workable
products, but I've grown too fond of the total sharing (we're all in
this together; what I know is what you know) that a product like
gentoo (or debian or LFS or etc.) has to offer.

Yes, it's a tight market everywhere.

-- 
Collins Richey - Denver Area - WWTLRD?
gentoo(since 01/01/01) 2.4.19+(ext3) xfce-sylpheed-mozilla