because you don't want to have different islands which cannot talk to each

other. We consider connectivity as the biggest thing that Corel is doing for

Linux. We have our Windows experience and while we don't expect Windows to go

away, we do expect Linux to be just as important as Windows. Much of the work

that we will be doing on applications will be shared between the platforms.

How is Corel helping the Linux community?

We have been doing work with Corel Linux in the GPL or Mozilla open source

licenses. The Wine work that we are doing is been put back into the community.

The Corel File Manager, all of which we wrote ourselves, has been put back into

the community. We are actually very supportive of the open source concept. On

the applications side we don't see those as being open source because there are

dozens and dozens of third party utilities that we select, tune-up and include.

That's what makes a very rich applications because the core software is only

part of the source. It is the other utilities that make them useful. As we

have to pay royalties for many of these, its impossible to give them free.

Which are the big vendors who have agreed to pre-install Corel Linux on their

systems?

PC Chips, that makes more motherboards than anybody else is installing Corel

Linux as we speak. We are working with other big vendors too which we will make

announcements over the next 6 months. I think a lot of end-user computer

manufacturers are waiting for applications such as Corel's office applications

and graphic applications to be available before they can really offer a

consumer product. We will have those available soon and we expect them to make

announcements then.

There are some installation-related issues regarding Corel Linux 1.0. What is

Corel doing about those?

There are some issues regarding legacy hardware such as ISA, which has not been

as automated as the latest Bus. The fact is that developers are now focusing

on the high volume situation first. It will take a lot before it can cover

every legacy hardware and this is typical of any Linux distribution.

Corel had the Netwinder Project, which for some reason did not take-off and

Corel decided to spin it off. What was the reason behind that?

The project has divested to rebel.com, and we are an active partner there. They

are doing very well and just went through a private round of financing. They