[vox] IDC: Downturn to drive Linux adoption

[Bill Kendrick]

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 05:01:06PM -0700, Jacob Taylor wrote:
> http://news.zdnet.com/2100-9595_22-279162.html?tag=nl.e589

Haven't read it yet, however..


<snip>
> I hope this economic pit will actually be a positive event for Linux
> and open source.
<snip>

So I started the "Tux Paint" project back in 2002 to fill a gap in
Linux -- it had no kid-friendly paint program.  As time went on,
and Tux Paint was ported to Windows and Mac, people started calling
it an alternative to KidPix, which I suppose it is.

A few months ago, I discovered Google Trends, and out of curiosity
plugged in 'Tux Paint vs KidPix'.  Further curious, I decided to
go see what was at the kidpix.com website.  (We obviously have a lot
of info about development, but also an online gallery of art,
so I wondered what kind of stuff the comparable proprietary software
had on their site.)

KidPix.com redirected to TheLearningCompany.com, but the page it landed
on was broken.  So I went to the root of TLC's website to discover
that -- literally the day before I looked -- the entire contents of
TLC's website was removed and all that's there is a notice that
their software is no longer available for purchase online, only at
retailers.

Ouch.

So apparently Tux Paint is recession proof, but KidPix[*] might have
been killed by it.

[*] To confuse matters, there are two versions of KidPix on Mac.
One was by Broderbund (The Learning Company), the other by a
company called MacKiev.  Apparently people really prefer the latter,
and it ran on OSX while the 'other' KidPix took a few years to catch up.

-bill!
(still not 100% sure what happened to TLC.  Checked Google News on
and off ever since, and have a friend who worked there long ago,
and has some connections.  A lot of mergers and crap have confuzzled things.)