Mitch Kapor's Outlook-Killer 371
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.
Was it just me.. (Score:5, Funny)
I've been looking.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:I've been looking.... (Score:3, Insightful)
The mail functionality is there and the calendar is getting there, although it is very basic right now.
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.
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.
Re:I've been looking.... (Score:3, Interesting)
But then again, Evolution is meant to be an alternative to Outlook, with the least user training required to transition.
But like I said, I'm surprised that they haven't been sued yet. Maybe cause it's freeware.
Re:I've been looking.... (Score:4, Informative)
Outlook's main interface may be becoming commoditized (assuming this layout is an Outlook first). Other PIM implementations, like the default Palm calendar, allow multi-day views simular to Outlook. I seem to remember a third-party Palm app that squished ToDo items in that view too.
It may very well be that there is nothing for Microsoft to do. I would imagine they would put their considerable legal resources to work if they thought they had a case. Freeware or not.
Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Interesting)
Even though, I'm all for a free (as in speech) alternative. I especially like the server-free solution they're laying out, although I'm curios about how that will be implemented. I really hope someone will take the initiative to hack some syncing with palm-devices into this thing as well. I Outlook-syncronisation is one of the main features that still attracts users to Outlook..
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Interesting)
NetBIOS is pretty much limited to Windows, and it's kludgy on other OSes. Plus it's proprietary and somewhat unreliable.
Netbeui (Score:3, Informative)
If you run NetBIOS over TCP/IP, you start introducing the computer browsing services which acts as a cache for locating machines. This helps to reduce the amount of broadcast packets flying around, and makes NetBIOS slightly more scalable. Then you have WINS and all that sort of stuff which solves most of the other issues, if you want to go to an NT domain model.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Informative)
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?
Re:Evolution.... (Score:4, Informative)
Typical slashbot that didn't read the article, eh?
It uses P2P, with a no-server, freenet style data distribution model... think that's lightweight???
Well, even if the binary was small enough to fit on an ARM based proc, you would still have problems with the amount of bandwidth and always-on connectivity that P2P implies.
Now if they managed to make some soft of satellite *mobile* program that attaches to your always-on desktop/laptop app, that would rule... but then again, that would be a different approach, and so far, this project is still vapor.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
It may not run in Aqua, but Evolution does run on Mac OS X.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for anything that does an end-run around exchange.
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.
Re:worse still Re:Serverless browsing .. (Score:3, Interesting)
And while your comment is correct for a Simple basic P2P network it's not true for an Advanced P2P network.
With an advanced P2P network you have advanced topologies, pre-emptive retival, caching, Super Nodes, Node Proxies, etc.
The problem is that advanced P2P products are still under development (same with clustering which is similar to P2P on a lower level - single box vs lots of little boxes) whereas client server and thin client products have been out for a long time and lots of people understand them.
The problem with P2P is that it is more complicated.
Taking you example but using the minimum number of connections instead of the maximum number as you did. In this instance it looks either like a single line OR a star or multiple stars connected together(this is still a P2P network although far from optimal).
2 Computers = 1 conection.
3 Computers = 2 connections.
100 Computers = 99 connections.
Now email is P2P already and was always designed to be P2P as it the Internet. Now if your talking about scaling can you imagine the specs you'd need for a single server or a single cluster of servers!
I don't suffer from instanity!
I enjoy every moment of it!
Re:Evolution.... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Think about it.
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Funny)
Does that meean this software will come into common use and become the de-facto standard everywhere except America's Bible-belt?
Re:Evolution.... (Score:5, Funny)
Evolution, on the other hand, is taking aeons
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."
Re:Evolution.... (Score:4, Informative)
Go look at ecco first. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Evolution.... (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
you should probably upgrade to gcc3.2
Re:sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
--
Evan
Re:sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sorry (Score:3, Funny)
Re:sorry (Score:5, Funny)
Hmm, I think you mean Kaporware.
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.
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...)
Re:good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry, but this is just not right. Outlook (9x or 200x) is at least as vulnerable as Outlook Express, and probably more so. More often than not the MIME header, buffer overflow or Windows scripting host exploits that affect OE work just as well in Outlook too. And then it's also susceptible to malicious VBA code.
That said, Outlook isn't all bad. For one thing, few people actually have to pay for it, because MS likes to throw it at you as a package deal every chance they get (like say when you buy Microsoft's word processor & spreadsheet, or client licenses for your MS mail server, or a Pocket PC). It's also pretty easy to use - witness the abundance of Windows software that rips off its interface these days, like Evolution does as well.
One annoying thing is that it used to be possible to share information among Outlooks in smaller workgroups without having to go all the way to an Exchange server, using a concept called Net Folders. It was a bit quirky but inexpensive, unlike Exchange. And unlike Bynari InsightServer, which is currently the only way to sort of emulate an Exchange Server on a Linux platform.
More than a new (type of) client, what I'd really love to see is a free open source Exchange Server type program that would be usable with both Outlook and Evolution. Make Exchange unnecessary and let everyone use the client they're used to/like/got for free from MS.
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.
Re:good idea (Score:3, Informative)
I use Outlook 2002 (XP) (which has the same security as 2000 + SP1) and absolutely nothing is allowed to execute.
Until the next flaw is found, of course. Mind you that the post I was responding to was talking about Outlook 2000.
I got the Klez virus sent to me. Just for yuks, I opened the message, carefully watching and using McAfee to trap anything in case Outlook let it slip through. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
And this proves what?
I think you're making up the buffer overflow stuff (can I see a link, please?)
Sure, just click a few posts up.
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.
Re:good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm the guy who owns the mailserver and I have to support 20 or so people with Outlook related problems. I may be crazy, but it's well documented that I have an abundance of time to spend on Slashdot.
So there are a few possibilities here:
-I'm more competant than the guy you have maintaining the mail system.
-You're spreading FUD.
- You're uninformed about what the problem really is.
- You're using OL2k in an unsual or custom way.
- You're supporting a great deal more people than I am.
Now, listen carefully: I am not claiming that OL2k doesn't have defects. If it doesn't support SSL well, then I cannot defend that. We aren't using that here. We're not using an Exchange erver. (I've heard that's a fair source of a number of problems.)
I can tell you that the rules do work fine, but they have a few drawbacks:
1.) They ignore HTML. So if somebody sends you a mail that says 'Hamdingers' but it's bracketed with HTML tags, it won't get picked up of a rule says "delete all messages that say 'Hamdingers'.
2.) The rules wizard only sort of works in IMAP. Since the body of the message isn't downloaded through IMAP until you open it, the Rules Wizard cannot respond to any message that has a rule that applies to that section of the message.
3.) Attachments disappearing sounds more like a server problem than an Outlook problem. Lots of attachements flie around here all the time and we haven't had a case of disappearing attachments.
So take your pick. At the very least, I hope my notes on the Rules Wizard is useful to somebody. MS does a terrible job of telling you what the Wizard's limitations are.
To be fair, though: I've tried a number of rules on various clients and OL2k by far has the most sophisticated and useful. One of these days I'm going to learn VBA so I can write even fancier rules.
Note to mail developers: Anything you can do to enable scripting or programming on an email client will be a big win, expecially when fighting SPAM.
Re:good idea (Score:3, Informative)
I'm storing it in Outlook, then synching the phone up to it. My previous cell phone did not have a sim card. So I needed a solution to the 'How do I maintain my numbers?' problem. The only way I had back then was to buy an expensive cable to hook the two since it did not have an IRDA port.
Now, as for the SIM card, you are absolutely correct that it's a safer way to store your numbers. However, the main reason I got interested in backing up my numbers in the first place is that my first cell phone was stolen. The sim card would have done me no good then. Today, though, if my cell phone were lost or stolen my laptop'd have a good backup of my numbers. Plus, I synch up with my PocketPC as well, so my contacts are retained on it. So today, if I lose my phone or my laptop, I still have a backup.
Re:good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
err okay. I'm going to politely share something with yout: It is a pet peeve of mine to be accused of being an MS salesperson just because I see the positive sides of one of their products. I use OL2k at work because I choose to. I wish I was an MS salesman because then it'd be worth arguing with people about it. But I'm not. If you want any definitive proof of that, look at this part of my post:
Do you really think that an MS salesperson or evangelist would point out exactly what is needed to produce a competing product to OL2K?
As for the rest of your post, the arguments you make are that the features are 'not new'. I never claimed that MS invented/created/envisioned/or even innovated. What they did do was put it all together in one useful product.
"So, this is a "run out and get outlook" post that is written as if none of us heard of these things before Outlook."
I find that comment amusing. Most people here are either Linux users or stay as far away from anything made by MS as possible. At the same time, I do see comments along the lines of "Replace Outlook with some other mail client", which says to me "Maybe they don't understand what it is that makes OL2k useful." To put it another way: how could you see a good chunk of the
In any case, no, I am not an MS salesman or even an evangelist. The point of my post was to explain why the article isn't talking about the development of 'yet another mail client', but rather an app that covers personal organization. I was trying to clarify what this program has to go up against.
Re:good idea (Score:5, Informative)
Eudora is full of spyware my friend. I switched from eudora to evolution for that reason.
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.
[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.
Re:[OT] Re:good idea (Score:3, Insightful)
Btw: what kind of processor are you running that it doesn't have enough cycles to burn to encrypt/decrypt mail?
Outlook features to avoid (Score:3, Informative)
-------------
* IBM PROFS was the worst. The original Prodigy 300-baud 24x40-character mail system was heinous also. The homebrew Kermit-based system we used that crashed when receiving more than 200KB of mail was about on par with MSMail in those days...
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.
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
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.
Re:Cool apps (Score:3, Interesting)
Speaking as a fully qualified geek, Agenda is an amazing piece of software and the team was thinking totally out of the box. It's not useful to think of it in Outlook terms; it's another beast entirely.
Poke around with google and you can find out much more about Agenda. Two references to chase down: 1) Agenda: A Personal Information Manager, CACM, Jul 1990, Vol 33, No. 7 (Kaplan, Kapor, others),
2) There's also a patent (5,115,504)on some of its core ideas, so that should be some good slashdot flamebait. The patent describes Agenda's internal data structures and algorithms. I have no idea how this patent influences the Kapor's current work. Presumably IBM owns the IP from its Lotus purchase.
Agenda was a complete failure in the market. It wasn't like any word processor or spreadsheet or database program, and the market gave it a collective, "huh?" No doubt Kapor knows all this and wants to take Agenda's intelligent inferencing database and make it useful in an email/calendar/browser/P2P setting.
It's a good thing.
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.
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
Kolab (Score:3, Informative)
It still isn't ready but, you can find it here [kde.org].
On the client side Ximian's Evolution rocks and has been available for a while.
Re:I -want- a server (Score:3, Interesting)
LDAP, iCalendar and IMAP (Score:3, Informative)
For calendars and to-do lists, you can simply store the calendar data on a WebDAV share. Apple's iCal is doing that. The file format for the calendar data is documented in an RFC, i.e. it's an open format (iCalendar). I think that for a large calendar, speed might be an issue, though, I've heard rumors that iCal is pretty slow (but I don't have a Mac, so I cannot comment on this). Anyway, there are free WebDAV servers available modules for the Apache HTTPD server.
For contacts, you could probably use LDAP. There are free LDAP servers available (openldap).
For E-Mail, IMAP is the obvious choice. There are plenty of free servers available.
For instant messaging (you haven't mentioned it, but the project this story is about is going to include it), there is Jabber.
So the only thing that might be a problem is calendaring (speed issues, see above), but I don't think it would be too difficult to "invent" a better protocol if one should be needed.
The real problem, however, are applications, not servers. I don't know of any integrated Windows application that handles all of the above protocols, so if you want to migrate your servers to Linux in an environment with Windows clients, you're out of luck unless you're also planning on switching your clients to Linux. Developing a good Windows-based alternative to Outlook that relies on open protocols is necessary, imho, and it will help Linux on the server.
This doesn't mean that a server for Linux that supports the Exchange protocol wouldn't be a good idea, but using open protocols certainly is better in the long term.
Re:LDAP, iCalendar and IMAP (Score:3, Informative)
$500K Gone Today (Score:5, Funny)
Way to support a new non-profit open-source organization!
i thought the real outlook killer (Score:3, Funny)
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?
Vapor but still a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
I may be in the minority, but I hate the Mozilla mail client. It just doesn't work for me.
I refuse to use Evolution
In fact, right now I use Palm Desktop for my PIM (even though my PDA has been without batteries for 9+ months due to inactivity) and Eudora for my email. I would love the -functionality- of Outlook including reliable synchronization with integration with a good email client.
If I had that, I would switch to Linux as my primary work machine (currently I experiment with several distributions and my off-hours machine is Linux, but my work desktop still runs Windows).
My point is, why should they contribute to projects they don't like? It's their time and it sounds like they have adopted project directions that many of us have been wanting for a long time
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.
They need a copy editor to edit their copy (Score:5, Funny)
This surprisingly clumsy phrase was clumsy but surprising to me.
steveha
Frontpage news (Score:3, Insightful)
(head scratching)
Oh yea. I remember. Hey, Taco, I'm going to invent a perpetual motion machine the day after tomorrow. For real. Not vaporware. Honest! I demand my story submitted.
Re:Frontpage news (Score:5, Informative)
are we seeing the birth of the P2P PIM? (Score:3, Insightful)
Inter-operaterability with other systems would most likely be ignored whilst prefering to encourage transistion and migration from one system to another. That way they'll be able to get you to move your data over and use it right away, but not talk with the Exchange server requiring an Evolution like connector (which is not open or free).
I wish them luck. I can remember sitting in a bar discussing the pros and cons of coming up with a competing product to Exchange and Outlook around about a week before the first time I saw Evolution mentioned, which was on Slashdot.
I hope that they can pursuade the Mozilla people to allow people to use it if it's that much better.
No server? (Score:3, Insightful)
Q. Protocol? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Q. Protocol? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Q. Protocol? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Q. Protocol? (Score:3, Informative)
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!
Groove Networks, Mitch Kapor & MS$ (Score:3, Informative)
1. Mr. Kapor is on Groove Networks board of directors, isn't there any conflict of interests...
2. IMHO the OSAF target features are quite similar to Groove's...never mind the spesific technology used...
3. MS had invsted $51 million in Groove, and to my best recall parts of Groove were integrated into Outlook (or at least there was intention for such integration)
One may only wonder if:
a)Mr. Kapor is looking for a silver bullet against Gate's embrace & extend strategy? as well for Groove financial status?
To make a long story short, why not open & port Groove Networks source code? would it not be simpler? Groove shall still be the best party to package it as well tailoring new business components...
excess verbiage error (Score:4, Funny)
Note to reader: this is not a flame! I'm just joking around. It's funny, laugh.
From the article:
A couple of paragraphs ago, it became clear that I could not take all of Mitch Kapor's claims seriously while at the same time fully realizing my internal goals of being honest to myself and others. This gave rise to an important idea, which is that (maybe) Mitch has been in marketing far too long. I felt it was important to continue reading so that I could be fully informed. All of which is to say that I have to keep reading while Mitch drones on and on about "product" and "deferring work" and more "product".
At this point, a small team has spent the better part of a year thinking through the problem space and developing a theory to explain wtf Mitch's problem is. (Their answer? Five tons of flax! (see ddate(1) or your peneal gland for more info)) I've made a number of fundamental decisions about the quality of the weblog I've just read and have arrived at a (not preliminary) set of conclusions:
The part that really got me was the first line of the second quoted paragraph. Yes, I understand what he means by "thinking through the problem space", but I can't ignore that he actually phrased it that way. Guys, the only time a programmer should talk of "problem space" is when she or he is writing code that handles one. E.g. an expert system that has to search its database to find the "best" answer to the user's querry or a (chess-like) games program that has to search the tree of valid moves to find a good one or a root finding program that has to search in the x-y plane (or the x-y-z space or n-dimensional space) for the set of points where f(x[1],x[2],...,x[n])=0.
Now go talk amongst yourselves while I "think through the problem space" of how to quit being a slashdot bum and go get a job. :-P (I know, I know. The answer is obvious...)
Don't re-invent the Wheel (Score:3, Insightful)
Wheels get re-invented ALL the time. It's called PROGRESS. What? You didn't realize that progress was cumulative? That everyone stands "on the shoulders of giants"? Every post, it seems, that says ANYTHING, someone drags it out "What's the point? We've done that with x?"
Bozo. You folks are supposed to be thinkers. So think.
No Wheel, no rubber tyre - no rubber tyre, no tractor - no tracter, no avocado farm - no avocado farm, no Guacamole for the masses!
And then where would we be? Mmmmm?
Okay, so I'm a _little_ off topic but at least I have my chips and dip.
Definition of outlook killer (Score:3, Insightful)
That is the only requirement. Anything that does not do this is be defininition not an outlook killer, in that I will still be forced to use outlook at work. Something I can just drop in frees a whole box from runnign Windows.
I have thought of using Evolution with the connector, but haven't taken a look at it yet.
Read slashdot from the groupware client!!!! (Score:3, Funny)
That of course means that
Imagine the anxiety just waiting for that pop-up window saying: "Your message has been replied" or "You've been moderated insighful".
And believe that some of us are
This is the article from the Mercury (Score:2, Informative)
Kapor, a pioneering developer of personal-computer software, is definitely not nuts. And it's no surprise to see the founder of Lotus Development now leading an unorthodox project that could have an outsized impact.
For more than a year, 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.
As with other open-source software, the source code (programming instructions) will be freely available along with the working program. An early version of the calendar part of the software should be posted on the Web by the end of this year, and version 1.0 of the whole thing is slated for the end of 2003 or early 2004.
Code-named ``Chandler'' after the late mystery novelist Raymond Chandler, the software will run on the Windows, Mac OS X and Linux operating systems. Initially, it will be aimed at individuals and small businesses, but it's also being designed as a platform upon which other developers can build useful software and services of their own.
The planned features alone would make the project noteworthy. If the desktop software world needs anything, it's more innovation in the once-competitive area of personal information management, now overwhelmingly dominated by Microsoft's inelegant but overwhelmingly dominant Outlook, part of Microsoft Office. No sane venture capitalist would fund a company in the financial vacuum created by the Microsoft monopoly, Kapor says.
That makes the Chandler business plan perhaps as important as the product itself. Kapor, founder of the software company that sold the influential and hugely successful Lotus 1-2-3 spreadsheet program in the 1980s, is funding the initial work through a non-profit foundation. Why does this matter? For one thing, it may succeed. For another, it could be a model for other such projects.
Kapor, who has remained active in the industry as an investor and cyber-activist (he co-founded the Electronic Frontier Foundation), says he has committed up to $5 million of his money. But he wants to make the project self-sustaining by 2005 through a variety of funding sources. These include sponsorships and contributions from outsiders -- he likens this to one of National Public Radio's fundraising strategies -- as well as selling services and collecting licensing fees from people who want to build commercial applications on the Chandler base.
Call it a socially conscious, post-bubble strategy -- ``to have an impact and be self-sustaining, not to generate revenue, profits and a high market capitalization,'' Kapor says.
The legal vehicle is called the Open Source Application Foundation (www.osa foundation.org). Including Kapor, the project team numbers eight. All but one (a marketing specialist) are programming veterans. It will grow to 14 when fully staffed, Kapor says.
If the software lives up to the developers' plans, it will have wide appeal. It should be highly adaptable to personal tastes, with robust collaborative features. I'm especially hopeful about a feature to build in strong encryption in a way that lets users protect their privacy without having to think about it.
The Chandler architecture builds on other open-source projects. These include Python, a development language and environment that's gaining more and more fans among programmers, and Jabber, a communications infrastructure that started life as an instant-messaging alternative but has evolved into a robust platform of its own.
One of the Chandler developers, Andy Hertzfeld, is volunteering his services. Hertzfeld is well-known in the software community, partly for his key role in creating Apple's original Macintosh and Mac operating system. An open-source company he co-founded a few years ago, Eazel, died during the Internet bubble's immediate aftermath.
``I hope we make a great application that I love to use myself, and that eventually millions of people will enjoy using,'' he says. ``Hopefully, we'll be able to make e-mail a lot more secure, without encumbering the user with technical detail. We can make accessing and managing information of all kinds more convenient if we're lucky. And we'll be helping to pave the way for free software to displace proprietary operating systems at the center of the commercial software industry.''
The paid team members aren't going to get rich on this deal. Non-profits don't go public, and they don't grant options. ``What matters,'' says Katie Capps Parlante, a developer, ``is creating something I'm really proud of.''
How much does Kapor's longstanding antipathy toward Microsoft count in this effort? ``I've gone to great lengths to make sure that my strong feelings are not a motivation,'' he says. Negative motives are ``not enough to sustain a five- to 10-year effort.''
Still, it's possible that only someone like Kapor could put together and lead such a thing. He's rich, with an unusually powerful sense of social justice, and he enjoys the development process. It's fun, he says, and that's one reason to do it.
But the Open Source Application Foundation also could be a template for other efforts to restore some choice and spark more innovation in markets where dominant companies have squeezed out serious competition. I'd like to see some foundation fund an ongoing effort to ensure that files in Microsoft Office formats can be translated, opened, changed and saved with competing programs. Microsoft has used its proprietary formats as part of an effective lock-in strategy. I'd also like to see foundations help keep Internet standards from being locked up by commercial interests, as some now threaten.
For now, it will be fascinating to see if Kapor and his team succeed. This is potentially a big deal.
``No,'' muses Kapor, ``I don't think it's crazy.''
Re:Fortunatly, though (Score:2, Informative)
It isnt an Outlook-Killer for
Re:Outlook sucks, Act rocks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Well Act didn't just program itself, did it?
Re:Mitch Kapor's Outlook-Killer? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:almost (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:almost (Score:4, Informative)
HP developed it and used to sell it as Openmail, but they don't sell it any more [hp.com].
Now it's been picked up by Samsung [samsungcontact.com]. Here's [samsungcontact.com] the FAQ.