“When Lycoris released a new version of its popular Linux
operating system, Desktop/LX 1.4, this week, it also debuted a new
application integration infrastructure, nicknamed AI2
(A-I-squared). The company claims that AI2 ‘bridges the
gap’ between commercial Linux applications and the Linux desktop.
Already, one major Linux application vendor, NeTraverse, has had
its flagship desktop product, Win4Lin Workstation, integrated with
Lycoris’ Desktop/LX operating system using the AI2
system. But is AI2 really as revolutionary as Lycoris
claims? Even if it is, does it matter?“‘You can code to the Linux Standards Base, or to Red Hat or
SUSE,’ explained Joseph Cheek, CEO of Lycoris, in a recent IRC
conference, ‘but it’s a pain trying to support all these different
systems. With AI2, you don’t have to. You just ship your
standard products and let AI2 do the integration for
you…'”