Stories about: Helix Code

It's been a while since I've looked at Evolution, the GNOME project's answer to Microsoft Outlook. While some serious progress has been made between 0.2 and the current 0.8 release, there is still work to be done before 1.0 goes out the door later this year.

The future of Linux on the desktop is beginning to take shape at LinuxWorld Expo here this week, with developers of desktop environments for both Gnome and KDE lining up support and offering a peek at their visions of the future.

In August 1999 I ran into Miguel de Icaza and Nat Friedman in a gift shop not far from the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo (LWCE) in San Jose. Among other things, Friedman and de Icaza were kicking around the idea of forming a company. Later the same year they did exactly that in founding Helix Code, a company whose sole mission has been to bring the GNOME desktop to new levels of completeness, polish, and ease of use. In August 2000 I ran into the dynamic duo again at the LWCE in San Jose. This time it was at the GNOME party.

Linux supporters were ecstatic when the financial markets responded extremely favorably to the IPOs (initial public offerings) of open-source companies. However after the unprecedented hype behind launches like VA Linux Systems Inc. and Red Hat Inc., share prices plummeted, leaving companies desperate to reorganize. Now, it seems that the shareholders were not the only victims, but that Linux's chances on the desktop also became something of a casualty of share dividends.

Oddsmakers in this town probably aren't betting against Linux, but the operating system's users and vendors both believe that its old-style command-line interface makes it a long shot for moving beyond its current niche as an Internet infrastructure building block.

The Linux operating system is a more practical solution than proprietary operating systems, especially in developing countries, its supporters claimed in a panel discussion about the open source platform at Comdex earlier this week.

Once upon a time, Linux lacked a Windowslike desktop. So enterprising folks at Trolltech AS put together a Windowslike desktop called the K Desktop Environment (KDE), based on a graphical interface toolkit called Qt.

With more than 150 commercial Linux vendors at the LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, including industry heavyweights such as Compaq Computer, IBM, Computer Associates, Red Hat , and Corel, it was easy to overlook the people and organizations that truly make Linux what it is. Many attendees were no doubt taken in by the glitzy marketing blitz, by the magicians, acrobats, and flashy displays. Personally, I went to the Expo to meet the community. I wanted to know what was going on with the people who actually created Linux as we know it today. They are the ones who started developing for Linux on an old 386. They are the people who generally don't get paid a dime to work on their beloved operating system. I wanted to talk to the folks who get their hands dirty with Linux, the ones involved with KDE, GNOME (not Helix or Eazel), and GNU.

I had less than a day to spend at this year's LinuxWorld Conference & Expo in San Jose, Calif., so I decided to focus on the announcements made by a couple of computing-industry behemoths. Dell Computer Corp. and Hewlett-Packard Co. would have their time in the spotlight on the keynote podium, so I left those particular biggies to their own devices and checked up on IBM Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc.

Big announcements and large attendance signaled to the world that Linux may have come of age at the fourth LinuxWorld Conference & Expo last week.