For me the issue isn't so much that Corel cheated, by why anyone would care? WordPerfect on the Windows platform will take an unstable platform and make it positively unusable. The only reason WordPerfect survives today is that MS has chosen not to incorporate the legal layout specializations that WordPerfect uses to guarantee that 99% of the legal offices in the US use WP. You can do the same thing in MSWord, but it is simpler in WP. If you look at the way their office suite completely pollutes and modifies a Windows system you would be concerned for your carefully optimized Linux platform. Corel has no problems with modifying critical settings in Windows without informing the user, and I find it unlikely that will change just because it is running on Linux. You need to consider more than whether a company claims to be Linux friendly and see if they have been freindly to any other OS in the past. The problem of compatible code across multiple platforms is the big hangup in all major applications. Even MS who is the largest software developer for the Mac platform is finding it difficult to maintain feature and functionality parity between the Mac and Windows applications. If Corel had to modify the Wine libraries then fine, but how does that flow back into the general Linux package? How do you keep different modifications becoming incompatible with each other? That is already an issue on the Windows paltform because developers think they can replace and existing dll with their own. At some point the OS moves forward and if the special dll doesn't keep up then problems appear. But how do you diagnose this kind of problem? Even MS has trouble with that. How do you know you need to upgrade the special dll? The scariest issue that was previously identified in this thread had to do with the relationship between Linux distributions. There is no such thing as acceptable deviations among distributions if Linux intends to become the dominant OS. It is one thing to be an excellent alternative, but another to succeed and survive based on superiority. As long as there are real or perceived issues between the distributions then Linux is vulnerable to other OS alternatives, even MS getting their act together (unlikely, but possible). I again point to the downfall of Unix as the next great OS to save the world. The same things were being said about how the differences were minor and it required a recompile and it was all being blown out of proportion, but the perception that became reality was that there were significant differences in the the Unix versions. It wasn't hard for Novell first, then MS to capitalize on this perception. When an application or hardware will not install on our distro, but will on another I become a bit more disenchanted with the whole process, but tend to react by not purchasing the hardware or software. I am tired of all the stuff that is only supposed to work with RedHat, and they won't even talk to you if you have a real Linux distro (see how I've so easily slipped into the camp supporting, or at least acknowledging differences in the distros). Mark Thornton San Marcos Internet, Inc. 512-393-5300 -- To unsubscribe send e-mail to suse-linux-e-unsubscribe@suse.com For additional commands send e-mail to suse-linux-e-help@suse.com Also check the FAQ at http://www.suse.com/Support/Doku/FAQ/