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Mitch Kapor's Outlook-Killer
Posted by
michael
on Sun Oct 20, 2002 04:15 PM
from the ten-paces-turn-and-draw dept.
from the ten-paces-turn-and-draw dept.
Kent Brewster writes "In the San Jose Mercury this morning: 'For more than a year, [Mitch] Kapor and his small team have been working on what they're calling an open-source "Interpersonal Information Manager." The software is being designed to securely handle personal e-mail, calendars, contacts and other such data in new ways, and to make it simple to collaborate and share information with others without having to run powerful, expensive server computers.'" Kapor explains his intent in his own words.
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Was it just me.. (Score:5, Funny)
Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
"Have I mentioned it's going to run on Macintosh, Linux, and Windows and will not require a server"
Evolution is not exactly intended to be run on a Windows Box or a Mac...
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Insightful)
There's no mention that it will run on PDAs. In fact it sounds like it's not intended to. I think it should. If it's a really lightweight app, it should run on a PocketPC.
(Yeah, Microsoft, dont' feed the trolls, blah blah blah. Stay with me folks.)
The very last line of The Article says "In the era of the WEB, are PC applications obsolete?" I think, for an "outlook killer" the answer has to be yes. Not having a handheld version of a LIGHTWEIGHT, MULTI-PLATFORM PIM seems to completely miss the point of that whole "market space." Leveraging that portability onto the PDA-space would enhance this product's Outlook-killability.
You can get PDAs with 400 MHz processors and 64MB RAM nowadays, with WiFi those things are capable of playing in realtime. Why ignore that?
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Without a server, clients need to simply discover each other. Rendezvous will allow then to do this, clean and without user intervention (i.e. no typing in someone's computer name or IP). The protocol of transer will be TCP/IP, however I believe you're refering to the structure of the datagram, i.e. what goes into each packet that is sent, which is entirely up to the designers.
I don't think Rendezvous is overrated at all. I think it's the way things should have been done 10 years ago, and it's almost sad that it wasn't.
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
It may not run in Aqua, but Evolution does run on Mac OS X.
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Being an evolution user (and former Outlooker) myself, I was curious to see what he plans on doing. But from what I see on his features page [osafoundation.org] I only noticed a couple features that interested me. (Naturally YMMV)
Mail:
- auto-archiving of old mail
Information Sharing & Exchange- integrated Instant Messaging and presence management (Jabber)
- remote peer-to-peer browsing of others' data
- flexible security model to control access
- file and document sharing
- remote queries, e.g., look up address in another person's contact list
- automatic updating of information from remote sources: receive new contacts, changes to existing contacts automatically (publish-subscribe)
AccessEvolution seems to have all the other features already in place (although some may only be accessible via the Exchange connector). I'm sure they would be able to add the others without too much difficulty.
Apologies for the total cut & paste job.
Parent
worse still Re:Serverless browsing .. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is why we have servers (LDAP, email, etc.) but they don't have to be expensive... P2P doesn't scape THAT well for the corporate workstation, and instead, people tend to rely on networks of servers and networks of workstations instead.
So although this might be nice for the small office, I have serious questions about its scalability.
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Think about it.
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Evolution, on the other hand, is taking aeons
Parent
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
"Recent open source groupware products and projects (Evolution, Kroupware) use Outlook as the baseline for design and functionality, an approach which benefits users by being familiar, but doesn't take design risks which could have big pay-offs for users in power and simplicity. We're trying to re-think the PIM in fundamental ways and expect to be judged in terms of our success in achieving that goal. We're building the product on using up-to-date architectural components (peer-to-peer networking, integrated instant messaging, an RDF-compatible semantic database) and are not saddled with legacy code. At the same time, we will be fully compliant with a variety of open standards, such as iCal, vCard and the Jabber protocol."
Parent
Go look at ecco first. (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
I send you these files to ask you advice (Score:5, Funny)
=)
sorry (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps this is a bit exaggerated but I've simply experienced too many disappointments with software which does not exist yet.
Anyway, still I wish good luck to this project!
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, I've always had problems trying to get non-existant software to compile. Even when I do it never seems to run.
Parent
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
you should probably upgrade to gcc3.2
Parent
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
--
Evan
Parent
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I think you mean Kaporware.
Parent
good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, I'd love to see popular email programs support background encryption, something that happened behind the scenes without the users notice, so even the most inept id10t could handle it. It's ridiculous that 90% of the world is sending it's email around in cleartext. Are we just begging the FBI or the NSA to read our minds?
Re:good idea (Score:5, Insightful)
OL2K is more than an email prog, it's got a lot of cool things going for it. You've got the calendar, the todo list, the sticky notes, and contact list. This may not seem all that interesting until you synch up with an device such as a PDA.
I have an Ericsson T-68. It has an IR port (and bluetooth) and synchs up with my laptop. My laptop is running OL2K and has my contact list on it complete with phone numbers and email addresses. If I update a contact with a new phone # in Outlook, then it appears on my cell phone. In other words, if I buy a new cell phone, I don't lose all my phone #'s. Pretty cool considering I didn't have to buy a $120 cable to link the two.
The todo list has been a surprisingly useful feature on my phone as well. I do not carry my PocketPC around. My laptop's not on all the time. So what happens when I need a reminder? Well, I enter something to do in Outlook, the phone grabs it and will alert me. This may not be interesting to all of you, but it is to me. Nearly forgot my gf's birthday is on Tuesday and I need to go buy her present today!
Anyway, this isn't a 'Run out and get Outlook!' post, it's a "here's why people use it" post so that it's clearer why something like what is mentioned in this article is so interesting. MS basically has no competition in this area because nobody else seems to understand the value of it. The only app I can think of that could have given OL2K a run for it's money is the Palm Pilot desktop. It had similar features, though I don't remember it having mail. (note: I'm not saying it wasn't a mail client, I'm saying I don't remember it having one.)
Until OL2K has competition, it is really hard to replace Office. Until Office is replaced, Windows cannot be replaced. (in a bidness setting...) As a matter of fact, that's why I'm not using Star Office right now. I'm too dependent on OL2K's org features. Might as well install the rest of Office while I'm there.
Parent
Re:good idea (Score:5, Interesting)
Outlook is actually a decent program with far fewer vulnerabilities than Outlook Express. Also, since a corporate deployment of Outlook is in a controlled environment, server-side antivirus solutions are possible and make a whole lot of sense. Properly set up, Outlook can be a good solution to an office communication problem.
(Of course, I still hate Exchange, but the users don't seem to mind...)
Parent
Re:good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Does this mean that O2k or 98 is vulnerable because of OE? No. (Actually there is ONE vulnerability that's OE's fault, I'll explain that in a bit...)
O2K has similar features to OE, but the default security settings are better. It makes better decisions about what kind of scritps can be run and what type of attachements can be called. If you want my opinion, I suspect that the reason OE's security settings are further behind is to give O2K a 'more secure!' rating on the marketing brochures. I cannot substantiate that of course, but it does amaze me.
There is one O2k vulnerability involve IE that really frosts me. If you save a message as a file in O2k, then the extension is '.MSG'. If you save a message in OE as a file, the extension is '.EML'. Can you see the problem with the two different extensions? You can have O2k installed, but if you double click a message saved in OE format, then
I have friends who think they need to forward every chain letter that goes around, and a good chunk of them use OE to do it. So they are forwarding a
I have a piece of advice for ALL of you that are using Windows: Reroute the
With that said, I feel pretty confident with O2K. My company's run Outlook since it first came out and we've only had one virus actually get through and cause any problems. The damage caused was not a result of a flaw in Outlook, but rather a flaw in the person who decided to open the mail.
Interestingly enough, that virus picked exactly the right believable message for the user to open it, so I don't entirely blame him. We used to have an employee with contacts in the gov't. He got a message one day that said "Take a look at these FBI pics..." Heh. Of all the 40 or so random messages that email picked to display, that was the one that would have pretty much guaranteed it'd be opened. Given the context of things going on around that time, it would have been akin to recieving a message like "Check out these pictures of my baby" recieved from somebody who had given birth a week earlier.
Your mileage may vary, but you'll understand why I will stick with 2k and not bother with XP or future versions of Outlook until a.) I have a better choice or b.) Microsoft pulls out its compatibility crowbar and demands I upgrade.
Parent
Re:good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Well, take for instance the vcard Buffer Overflow vulnerability [securityfocus.com] that was unique to Outlook 2000.
The long GMT date field bug [securityfocus.com] bug caused a buffer overflow which allowed running arbitrary code in all versions of Outlook, as well as in some versions of Outlook Express.
Seeing as Outlook uses Internet Explorer to display HTML content, just like Outlook Express does, it inherits IE's flaws as well, as was demonstrated in the Buffer Overrun in HTML Directive [cert.org] flaw.
As for VB scripting being turned off by default now, that may be the case with Outlook XP (2002) or 2000 with all security patches applied, but I can assure that wasn't the case back in 2001 when the Anna Kournikova Worm and other similar exploits scourged through the Outlook community.
Parent
Re:good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Eudora is full of spyware my friend. I switched from eudora to evolution for that reason.
Parent
Re:good idea (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2220hq.html [eudora.com]
I've been using Eudora for years, including 5.1, and I can't recall any other times Eudora was accused of being spyware, so unless their response is false, it's not "full of spyware".
I do keep meaning to switch to a fully Linux-based client, but email seems to be one of the big issues for me. I have tried Evolution, KMail and at least 4 others but never quite find it as usable. I spend probably 50% of my work time answering email.
Of course, this whole thread is off-topic.
Parent
[OT] Re:good idea (Score:4, Insightful)
sensitive material. There's a performance cost,
a risk of future unreadability, there's the key-
distribution problem, and of course the difficulty
of making everyone's implementation compatible.
There are good reasons to encrypt everything, too,
I'm just saying it's not black and white.
Parent
Chandler (Score:4, Funny)
Code-named ``Chandler''
At least it wasn't named after the same character from 'Friends'...
People might have worried that the software would take after the character... get a bit bloated and be a bit sarcastic. :)
More Useful URL (Score:5, Informative)
Nah, the *real* Outlook-Killer (Score:5, Funny)
more outlook features (Score:5, Insightful)
-user-scripting capabilities
This might not end well...
I guess they can't screw things up worse than Outlook though.
Parent
Why not start with Mozilla's framework? (Score:5, Insightful)
I mean isn't that the whole point of open source, not having to re-invent everything but to expand and improve on what's already out there?
Maybe I'm missing something.
They are using some of Mozilla (Score:5, Informative)
Jason
Parent
Cool apps (Score:5, Interesting)
From the feature list, this takes care of 80% of the needs that keep business people using windows just to have Outlook calender functions. Agenda was replaced by Symphony and Symphony wasn't the simple freeform database/calendar app that Agenda had been.
Agenda was allowing complex datamining from freeform databases before the term 'datamining' existed. If this is going to be an extension of Agenda, then much coolness is ahead and many people will be interested in trying Linux just to run the new Agenda.
Sorry to be negative, but... (Score:5, Insightful)
Am I missing something, or is this story a little premature?
Why not wait until, say, a single line of code has been written before proclaiming it an Outlook killer?
I wish these guys all the best, and hope they succeed - this just feels more like anti-M$ fud than any real news yet.
Re:Sorry to be negative, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Anthing is better that Outlook/Exchange:
A dead rat.
Moldy cheese.
Uncooked noodles.
Hell.. a pure vacume in deep space doesen't suck as much as Outlook does.
Parent
I -want- a server (Score:5, Insightful)
I want to store my calendars, to-do lists, contacts and mail messages on a central server. I want a variety of clienjs, from fat clients to web-based, on a variety of platforms to be able to connect to it.
There's no shortage of client-side software on Linux to handle this. It's the server-side centralisation that's missing.
Cheers,
Ian
$500K Gone Today (Score:5, Funny)
Way to support a new non-profit open-source organization!
Summary of Goodies... (Score:5, Informative)
Sure it's vaporware (or Kaporware, if you prefer), but it's likely to be an interesting project.
I maintain that the Mozilla project isn't just a browser. The code developed will fuel the next ten years of browser development. You can make a similar claim about OpenOffice and office suites.
I'm going to guess that this project will do the same thing for office and personal information managers. It's an important announcement and I'm looking forward to following its development.
Ummmm (Score:5, Interesting)
So far the only info on the site are a rundown of the technologies they've "evaluated". However, they talk about using Jabber as a P2P transport - but Jabber is server based. I've not seen any demos of a p2p version of jabber either. Have they actually thought this through?
Cross platform UIs (Score:5, Insightful)
Example: one of the worst interfaces I've seen is Ethereal. Excellent program, very useful, but the interface bites.
Python (Score:5, Interesting)
Pretty neat. I've been meaning to swap some books in Safari and check out the Learning Python... I guess I finally have some reason.
This whole project sounds great - but why is there no code available? Supposedly a small group of core developers have been holed up for a year designing this thing... so where's the code already? Man, I can announce an Outlook Killer and throw some html up on the web too. But then again, I'm not Mitch Kapor...
-Russ
Re:Python (Score:5, Funny)
I've been meaning to swap some books in Safari and check out the Learning Python... I guess I finally have some reason....
but why is there no code available?
When you learn Python, you'll find that it's high-level, dynamic nature allow you to accomplish a great deal in only a few lines of code. So no code in Python probably contains more functionality than no code in C.
You'll also find that whitespace is an important part of Python syntax. So look closer--that "no code" could contain a lot of significant whitespace.
Parent
They need a copy editor to edit their copy (Score:5, Funny)
This surprisingly clumsy phrase was clumsy but surprising to me.
steveha
Potentially dangerous features (Score:5, Insightful)
In order to displace Outlook, I suppose people will demand these features. But let's hope the OSA Foundation does a better job on securing these features than MS!
Re:Frontpage news (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:I've been looking.... (Score:5, Insightful)
No. Not even close. Not trolling here, just talking reality, my friend.
Think Ximian Evolution -- but that's such a verbatim copycat of Outlook that I'm very surprised that they haven't been sued yet.
Parent
Re:I've been looking.... (Score:5, Informative)
Yes and no. Screenshots would make it seem like an Outlook clone. And Evolution does mimic some of Outlook's functionality. But they're actually quite different.
So what's the same? Layout is simular. Mail, calandering, tasks (todo), contacts. Summary. And that's about it.
Outlook has memos and a journal. It has a more advanced flagging system. And numerous other tidbits and features I'm probably completely unaware of. It also has better integration. For example, you can create an appointment with an email note in the appointment's notes by dragging an email to the Calendar. No such functionality in Evolution.
But Evolution has its own features. Its searches are better. I prefer the way it threads messages. And its vfolders have proven to be rather amazing once I started to understand their use. Evolution also has nice touches such as quick access to email source and headers. And it is rather sane when handling potentially abusive HTML email (ie: by default, it won't load images from remote sources until told to).
Yea. Evolution and Outlook look simular. And they're bound to compete in one way or another. But they're hardly identical.
Parent