From owner-freebsd-hackers Fri Jun 23 20:36:49 1995 Return-Path: hackers-owner Received: (from majordom@localhost) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) id UAA06362 for hackers-outgoing; Fri, 23 Jun 1995 20:36:49 -0700 Received: from sentinel.synapse.net (sentinel.synapse.net [192.197.166.1]) by freefall.cdrom.com (8.6.10/8.6.6) with ESMTP id UAA06356 for ; Fri, 23 Jun 1995 20:36:47 -0700 Received: from windchime-01.synapse.net (windchime-01.synapse.net [199.84.52.253]) by sentinel.synapse.net (8.7.Beta.5/8.7.Beta.5) with SMTP id XAA03960 for < hackers@freefall.cdrom.com>; Fri, 23 Jun 1995 23:36:41 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199506240336.XAA03960@sentinel.synapse.net> X-Authentication-Warning: sentinel.synapse.net: Host windchime-01.synapse.net [199.84.52.253] didn't use HELO protocol Date: Fri, 23 Jun 95 23:36:39 EDT From: evanc@synapse.net (Evan Champion) Reply-To: evanc@synapse.net (Evan Champion) To: hackers@freefall.cdrom.com Subject: Caldera Network Desktop Sender: hackers-owner@FreeBSD.org Precedence: bulk Now, I know this isn't quite appropriate for the hackers list but I think you'll see what I'm getting at in a little bit. A company called Caldera has come out with yet another Linux distribution. This one is quite different, however. Check out to see what I mean. The highlight of this product is called the Caldera Network Desktop. It is sort of a Mac-like, Windows-like, OS/2-like interface for Linux. It looks *really* hot and I think it will do great things for the Linux community, which means it will do wonderful things for the UNIX community in general if it is able to draw a few more people off of Windows. Now, when I as a guru look at FreeBSD, I know it is far and away superior to Linux. Being a BSD fanatic, I don't even want to go near a Linux system. I like BSD, I love FreeBSD. The problem that I see is that when it comes to graphical interfaces, FreeBSD isn't really as strong as Linux from what I have seen, and certainly has nothing to go up against this Caldera offering. My question would be would someone from Walnut Creek and/or the FreeBSD gang be interested in shipping a copy of 2.0.5-RELEASE to Caldera with a suggestion that while Linux is all well and good, BSD is where it's at and FreeBSD is the platform to do it on. At the worst WC loses $39.95 in a sale of the product, but I think if we could get something like the Caldera Network Desktop for FreeBSD it would be fantastic for the FreeBSD project and who knows, maybe WC can negotiate some distribution rights with Caldera and make back that $39.95 in a flash. Or maybe the FreeBSD project members should look around and try to come up with their own desktop for FreeBSD (maybe based on the COSE desktop). At any rate, I think that the interface is where the battle lines will be drawn and I want to ensure that the package that I love is able to fight back with a competitive if not superior product. Just my humble opinion. Evan -- Evan Champion evanc@synapse.net * Visit our World Wide Web Server Director, Internet Systems * at Synapse Internet *