Blog: Pete Loshin

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But Who Will Use Clippy on Linux?

Bear with me: this one has almost nothing to do with business intelligence, unless you consider creating a clone of a brain-dead piece of proprietary software to Linux an example of "business intelligence, lack of".

I followed this link, Clippy v1.00 because it was described as a free download of the (notorious) Clippy Assistant. I thought, excellent, just what I need: an annoying pseudo-sentient digital "assistant" to "help" me get through the day.

Too bad, it's Windows-only. And it's just one of dozens of "prank" programs offered by RJL Software. Far be it from me to tell them how to do their business, but their claim to be:

...the providers of unique software solutions for today's changing market. RJL Software offers a wide range of Software and Services for the Windows environment.

falls a little short since so much of their software is April Fools type prankery.

Anyway, Googling "clippy open source linux version" came up with this: Clippy for Linux, Digg.com entry that points to this project: Vigor. As you can see from the screenshots, Vigor is, like many open source programs, both less-polished and more entertaining than the proprietary version. But it's still only at version 0.016, so there's room for improvement.

I'm optimistic though, as I was able to install Vigor quite easily on my Ubuntu desktop system with Synaptic Package Manager.

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