Want to read Slashdot from your mobile device? Point it at m.slashdot.org and keep reading!

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×
Ximian

Mitch Kapor Joins Ximian Board of Directors 220

Posted by timothy from the adding-more-monkeys dept.
miguel writes: "Today we announced that Mitch Kapor has joined our Board of Directors. He is one of the co-founders of the EFF and Lotus (You can learn more about Mitch here.) In other news, I want to point out guys to our Latest Evolution beta which comes with SSL support (IMAP and SMTP), Pilot syncing and LDAP in the default build. The team at Ximian has been busy fixing every bug you guys have reported (feature requests will have to wait until 1.0 ships, we are in feature freeze now) and we are closing bugs faster that you can report them. What are you guys going to do about this huh? HUH?"
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.

Mitch Kapor Joins Ximian Board of Directors More

Mitch Kapor Joins Ximian Board of Directors

Comments Filter:
  • It is very satisfying to see Evolution getting the amount of attention it needs. Ximian has been critized on here for half-assing major projects. If this is their response, we're in for some high quality desktop environment! Way to prioritize, fellas.
    • It seems like a basic question. Ximian obviously produced packages and makes them avaliable through Red Carpet.

      But on my system the `Evolution Snapshot' channel is filled with Evolution *support* packages but not Evolution itself. I have no binaries or packages containing the word Eolution in my system evven though I've downloading everything avaliable via Red Carpet, including everything in the Evolution Snapshot channel.
    • My biggest gripe with Evolution is that there didn't seem to be a way not to get HTML E-mail messages. I don't like HTML in my E-Mail for a variety of reasons, not the least of which being that I don't like giving spammers free hits on their web pages (Which can also be used to track which E-mail addresses are valid.) E-Mail should remain passive and until that's an option I will continue to use mutt.
      • Evolution will not load images in HTML email unless you want for it to load them. If it doesn't load the externally-referenced files, then there are no "free hits on spammer's web pages." You can set it to load all images, never load images except by request, or to load images if the sender is in your address book.
  • Glad to know that we have a man who has a vengance against Microsoft (Excel) ready for round two. However, maybe it's not so strategic to have on board somebody whose already lost to M$, but rather somebody who beat them at something and continues to do so, like somebody from Adobe.
  • You guys are doing a great job, keep up the good work Miguel et al.!!!

    Who can resist the mascot stuffed Rupert [thinkgeek.com] either?

  • Deja Vu (Score:2, Funny)

    by czardonic ( 526710 )
    A company called Microsoft makes a product just like this. I think they call it Office or something. Actually, it might have come out a little earlier than this Ximian thing.

    Check it on on their site [microsoft.com].
    • I looked into that software. It's really hard to find a stable version for my operating system [kernel.org], it's more expensive than my word processor [wordperfect.com], and it was just extremely bloated. Plus I've heard that one of the owners has a [mugshots.org]
      criminal record.

      Naw, I prefer the alternatives.

      • I looked into that software. It's really hard to find a stable version for my operating system [kernel.org]

        Well that's a shame. Problem is, there appears to be no Ximian support for MY operating system [microsoft.com]. Too bad these Ximian folks are copying the idea AND making the same mistake of ignoring alternative operating systems [mac.com]!

        • Re:Deja Vu (Score:2, Funny)

          by Chakat ( 320875 )
          Problem is, there appears to be no Ximian support for MY operating system

          [gtlinc.com]
          Perhaps you didn't look hard enough? I mean the answer is as clear as the nose on my face [macgimp.com] Yeah you need to compile it right now, but its still beta, give it a couple months.

  • Previous Doubts... Lifted? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Brontosaurus Jim ( 528803 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @02:46PM (#2437306) Homepage
    I've always been a little wary of Ximian... they seemed mostly talk and not enough action. Sure they had _some_ stuff, but it was never really up my alley.

    I have to say though, this time I think I might just start to like them. They seem, from reading the link, like they really care about what we have to say (even if it's not so nice some times ;) and are willing to listen.

    I guess this is YABOOS (Yet Another Benefit Of Open Source): The corporations that help out are by default less evil.
  • From the press release [ximian.com]:

    "Ximian, Inc., the leading open source desktop company"


    Hmmmm, I wonder if TrollTech would take issue with that claim. I don't think throwing another computer industry has-been (VisiCalc? Will that even run on Win98?) on the board is going to give Gnome any edge over KDE.

  • Looks Great (Score:2, Insightful)

    by XBL ( 305578 )
    Can it import messages and addresses from Mozilla mail?

    • Re:Looks Great (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Yes, it can.
      Mozilla Mail uses a standard mbox format and evolution has had an imported for as long as they've had evolution packages.
    • I have to admit that despite all its security problems, MS did pretty well with the Outlook interface. It worked great syncing up to my Visor.

      Then my company got bought out and the new HQ forced GroupWise on us. If I could get a client that had an interface closer to Outlook, interfaced to GroupWise, synced up to my Visor and had the stability of Linux (well, as close as it could get running on Win2k), that would Be Great.

  • The team at Ximian has been busy fixing every bug you guys have reported (feature requests will have to wait until 1.0 ships, we are in feature freeze now) and we are closing bugs faster that you can report them.

    I've been hoping to get this bug [ximian.com] fixed for a while now. What are you going to do about that? Huh? Huh?
    • Well, they are asking for more info. Are you sure the SMTP server at earthlink is not at fault? Can you do a tcpdump on the connection (both when sending and receiving?
    • Cripes. A lotta talk when all you need to figure out who the culprit is is download Ethereal [ethereal.com] and run it with a filter of 'port 25'.
    • It could be earthlink's smtp server. For example, with sendmail, you can set MaxMessageSize. I saw with a user once who was sending some larger attachment where it'd get "truncated", I increased MaxMessageSize and had them send it again...problem fixed.

  • impressive work (Score:4, Interesting)

    by johnycanal ( 209707 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @02:51PM (#2437335) Homepage
    Nice work. Evolution is turning out to be a sweet piece of software. Any idea when we can start building our own iCal servers? I haven't seen much open source iCal server activity out there.

    I can't wait to boot the exchange box out the door.
  • ROFOL
    I'm probably going to download it and USE it!

    Great work, keep it up!
  • Most Linux projects WILL be half-assed unless started by a company or someone who is otherwise funded. People with just spare time to work with but still hold a seperate job would find it hard as hell to code something for themselves (more likely to be half-assed) than to code something for everyone (pride reduces half-assedness). Be thankful we get what we get, unless you all want to code it by yourselves. Point is, don't complain if you didn't make it and can get it for free.
  • Probably a dumb question, but does Evolution run under KDE or only under Gnome? I guess you could extend that question a bit... what determines whether or not certain apps are dependent on a specific window manager?
    • It will work under any window manager (or at least it did the last time I tried it). Applications that use KDE or GNOME rarely need to be running under KDE or GNOME, they just need you to have the KDE/GNOME libraries installed.

    • Re:does it work under KDE (Score:3, Informative)

      by miguel ( 7116 )
      Evolution works with X, so it will run on KDE, CDE, GNOME, E, WindowMaker, and pretty much anything else
    • AFAIK you can run KDE and GNOME apps under one another as long as you have all the proper underlying api libs installed. The window manager is can be from either KDE, GNOME or something else like WM or Blackbox. I prefer KDE apps + WindowMaker.
    • Yes, it does work. You need a bunch of Gnome libraries, but it does work fine under KDE when you're done. Run the installer from ximian, but don't have it change your desktop whe it's done. I did this and it added all the apps properly to the K menu, and they work just fine.

    • It's not a window manager issue. Evolution (and any other GNOME app) should run under KDE as long as you have all of the necessary libraries present. Despite all of the trolling between advocates of one desktop over the other, they actually interoperate pretty well. A GNOME app will still look like a GNOME app when run under KDE (and vice versa) which offends some people's aesthetic sense, but they should operate just fine.

    • Yes, it does work under kde. As with almost every app that exists, it depends only on the libraries of the window manager (gnome, in this case).
      An app wouldnt work in a specific WM only if it did weird things, or if it where something like an applet, that depended on some "visual" part of the WM, wich, by definition is actually NOT the WM, it is a Panel, part of a Desktop Environment...
      A WM just manages windows, and if it does it in the correct way, ANY program would work under it.
    • The question is not whether it will run but whether it will integrate. Can I drag and drop between konqueror and evolution? Can I drag an url to a new message? What about Koffice (cut and paste without losing layout)? What about themes? The better it integrates the more useful it is.

  • Evolution and IMAP (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Why does every IMAP implementation for linux try to retrieve EVERY message when checking for mail, instead of messages with ID numbers above where it last left off?

    I have a huge mailbox, and Evolution, Aethera, Kmail, TradeClient, Bynari Insight, and every other IMAP client all do the same damn thing. It takes 20 minutes to check for mail everytime I do it. And Kmail was the only client I've used that was able to find all of my folders. Argh!

    • Re:Evolution and IMAP (Score:2, Interesting)

      by iamsure ( 66666 )
      Because that is what the standard requires. Imap doesnt lock the mailbox, so you can have two IMAP clients accessing the mailbox simultaneously. As such, you could easily use say, Outlook, and its wonderful rules for filtering, while viewing in something simple like pine.

      Since it is doing so, it needs to verify the mails against one another.

      Sadly, the IMAP standard does not outline a use of things like md5sums and order lists.

      In other words, its easy, and it fits the standard.
      • Sadly, the IMAP standard does not outline a use of things like md5sums and order lists.

        Not true. The IMAP standard says the server has to assign each mail message a unique ID number (UID) that is presistant accross sessions. I well-behaved client can detect any new or deleted messages by requesting a UID list from the server (a very quick operation). Since messages cannot be altered through the IMAP protocol (only deleted and re-appended), a UID list would even catch messages that were edited and resaved (ie. the unsent or drafts folder).

    • Try Sylpheed

      The best IMAP implementation I have seen thus far.

    • Re:Evolution and IMAP (Score:4, Informative)

      by rudedog ( 7339 ) <{dave} {at} {rudedog.org}> on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @04:08PM (#2437677) Homepage
      Evolution doesn't do that for me. With a mailbox with 1200 messages, it took about 10 minutes over a DSL link to get the headers. The next time I ran Evolution, it only took a couple of seconds to open that folder. I can't say the same for kmail, which does download the headers every time. Evolution also lets me see all of the folders on the server if I check the "override server's namespace" option and set the namespace to be empty.

      This is all against a Cyrus 2.0.16 imap server.
      • I can't speak on evolution vs kmail, but I use netscape communicator, and the IMAP performance i get has improved dramatically by migrating from uw-imap with mbox folders to courier imap with maildir folders.

        This was primarily a change to accomodate move to qmail from sendmail, but the performance increase is tremendous. I routinely open mailboxes with hundreds of messages (over a variety of lines, from 128K to 100Mbit) and i've had no problems with speed. You might consider changing your mail server file format (if you run the mail server) to increase your performance. Otherwise, my general experience is that IMAP (header listing) performance should be equivalent or better to that on a NNTP server.

        -earl

  • ximolution (Score:3, Interesting)

    by layyze ( 216392 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @03:00PM (#2437384) Journal
    I personally think that Ximian has been doing a great job with Evolution. I first used it early in the beta stages. It was a promising piece of crap. Now it is just about the finest piece of graphical mail and organizing applications out there for *nix. Granted, I don't really use it, but it is nice to know that something with that many features is now available. If we want to convert over desktop users we need apps like this - friendly, easy to use...etc...etc. Either that or we could all be whiny elitists running Debian and KDE.
    Of course I'm a whiny elitist running Slackware and Blackbox (but Galeon over all other browsers) so bite me.

  • KDE integration (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seems like most corporations are using KDE these days. Is Ximian working on KDE integration, for business clients? Seems like they would otherwise miss out on the vast majority of Linux installs in the workplace.

  • Evolution Progressing Well (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Been using evolution for email for about two months now, and it's been very good. I would recommend it to anyone as the best email client available for Linux.

    As far as what we'll do about it...use it. I've two complaints: 1.) You can't set what font to use in html email messages, and 2.) No calendar server. If you could achieve MS Outlook scheduling/calendaring functionality or better, you would have the potential 'Killer' application for Linux that would allow offices to migrate away from MS...
  • . . . So, should I know this guy? . . .


    Sure, you should. Don't you know anything about the history of the Personal Computer? Don't you remember VisiCalc?


    The 1978 release of VisiCalc, an electronic spreadsheet and the first personal productivity application, changed software development from a hobbyist's pursuit to a burgeoning industry. Personal Software, the publisher of VisiCalc, bought Tiny Troll from Mr. Kapor as a companion product to VisiCalc and hired him to be a product manager in Silicon Valley. Wanting more autonomy, he left Personal after only six months to found his own company.


    Although users loved the concept of the VisiCalc spreadsheet, they were bumping their heads against its limitations. Realizing this, Mr. Kapor cofounded Lotus Development in 1982 with Jonathan Sachs, a programmer from Data General, and came up with Lotus 1-2-3, a second-generation spreadsheet that better addressed the needs of business users.



    To get the new company off the ground, Mr. Kapor convinced the former Morgan Stanley analyst andthen-novice venture capitalist Ben Rosen (who had cofounded Sevin Rosen Funds theprevious year) to put $1 million into the startup. Mr. Kapor admits that he in fact knew very little then about running a business; nevertheless, as an executive at Lotus until 1987, he developed what are now considered standard business practices for software companies. Lotus executed the first big advertising campaign for 1-2-3 in the business press and was the first to train computer dealers on a large scale. In 1983, the year it was released, 1-2-3 generated staggering revenues of $53 million and propelled Lotus through its initial public offering. In 1984 the company tripled its revenues, to $156 million. But when Lotus became a big business, Mr. Kapor jumped ship. "Because of Lotus's hypergrowth, the company was soon dominated by the details of day-to-day management," he says. "But I wanted to think long term and bring big ideas to market."


    After Lotus, Mr. Kapor rediscovered his interest in the future of technology. He became enamored of the precommercial Internet and the social possibilities of virtual communities. But he was equally horrified by some of the government's early attempts to sanitize Internet content. In 1990, to protect the organic and unregulated potential of the Net, Mr. Kapor and the social activist John Perry Barlow cofounded the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), thefirst grassroots coalition to call attention to both the social andpolitical dimensions of networked communications. (For more on Mr. Barlow,see "What Does John Perry Barlow Do?,"March 1998.)


    In 1994, once the EFF was going strong, Mr. Kapor decided to turn his full attention to financing and advising technology startups. Although as an entrepreneur he had been suspicious of venture capitalists, he became a limited partner in VC funds and also made direct investments in startups, working closely with Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and AccelPartners. Mr. Kapor believes he is finally using his strengths --identifying ideas with staying power and getting them off the ground -- andnot getting bogged down in the politics of large organizations. Hecurrently sits on the boards of RealNetworks, which develops real-timestreaming audio and video software; Allaire, which makes Web applicationdevelopment software; and several younger startups he declines to name.


    Looking back at his 20-year involvement in the technology industry, Mr. Kapor says that "the days of the Apple II and Tiny Troll feel like Jurassic Park, especially if you count in Internet years." Speaking like a former teacher of meditation, he adds, "I try to send the message that business does not have to be ruthless and self-interested -- that even in the frenzied pace of the technology market, a fundamentally long-term approach still matters."

  • one of the great things about lotus NOTES was the SERVER

    you had revision control and ACLs + logging for documents/databases which could be exported as basic HTML

    keys and directory's(phone books) stored in a nice central place

    Plus SYNCing of documents/databases/email/directory's

    That was really nice

    yes there are products that do this now but you have to kludge them all toghthter and admin is still a bit of a nightmare (OpenLDAP, procmail and zope)

    what they should do is use and XML backend (publishing becomes easy) and LDAP (phone books + auth through a PAM module) combined with a IMAP server which understands OpenPGP that can sync to other servers set up around the world

    lots of documents are placed on the corp intranet but they are spread all over the place geographically speaking what would be cool is of it could figure out you are in say France and pull over a copy of that dept intranet who is in US and then next time someone asks for it when they are in France they get a response straight away

    anyway hope their client (eventually) will work with lotus notes

    regards

    john jones
    • one of the great things about lotus NOTES was the SERVER

      One of the great things about Lotus Notes STILL IS the server - (now called Domino) - it serves up everything you mentioned via the web.

    • what they should do is use and XML backend (publishing becomes easy) and LDAP (phone books + auth through a PAM module) combined with

      What exactly is so great about LDAP? I've always found it cumbersome to work with, compared to a traditional-style RDBMS. You can throw together a PGSQL, MySQL, or hell, even a SQL Server database and put phone numbers in it, why use a strange, flaky thing like LDAP? Unless you're stuck in Java and have to use JNDI or something, but here LDAP is a conscious choice. I don't get it...
  • My understanding is that Ximian is merely a 'distro' of GNOME. So, why would I use Ximian instead of GNOME? The way I see it, I can use all the same applications on GNOME. In fact, I hear from others I can use many applications on GNOME that I cannot use of Ximian because of Ximian libraries. For instance, a newly released Mozilla version or Galeon may not work on Ximian. If this is not true, please let me know. I just don't see the point of Ximian.
    • For me, the main reason for using ximian gnome is that they make it really simple to install gnome with an automated installer, and they include an updater, red-carpet, which makes updating the desktop easier.
    • Ximian Gnome = Gnome, you are right about that. What Ximian offers is a super slick installer (Red Carpet) and you can buy support. About certain things like Galeon having issues, this is true, but has nothing to do with Ximian. Basically, many of the up and coming applications like Evolution and Galeon are using developing libraries (like Mozilla, GAL, GConf) and so there is to be expected some incompatabilities. Each piece may have "stable" releases along the way, but as a system, unless you are running raw GNOME 1.4.1, you are running a developing system. Though, if you stick with what's in RedCarpet's channels, you should have few or no issues and you will get a chance to use all this cool software before it is all realeased together.

    • Re:Why Use Ximian? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by steveha ( 103154 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @03:56PM (#2437612) Homepage
      My understanding is that Ximian is merely a 'distro' of GNOME.

      More or less correct.

      So, why would I use Ximian instead of GNOME?

      Um, this is like asking why you would use Red Hat instead of Linux. Ximian is a distro of GNOME. When you use Ximian you are using GNOME.

      To answer the question of why you would use Ximian, let's consider how you can get GNOME:

      You can get GNOME from your Linux distribution, and then get updates only when your Linux distro provides an update.

      You can get GNOME stuff as sources, and build on your own machine.

      You can get the Ximian GNOME packages, and get updates from Ximian.
      If there is a fourth option, I cannot think of it right now.

      So, if your Linux distro provides you with updates as often as you wish, just stick with that. If you like building from source, go ahead and do that. If you want updates more often than your distro gives them to you, and you want someone else to build the packages for you, go with Ximian.

      As for me, I use the "unstable" branch of Debian; and I get updates within a few days of any new release. Debian had Gnumeric 0.71 within two days of when it was released. So I have no interest in getting Ximian packages. But I think many people find it convenient to get updates from Ximian.

      steveha

  • I have been following Evolution for some time now. I have tried every release since beta 1, which was more like pre-alpha quality IMO. But, it's really starting to shape up quickly now. Beta 5 (the latest) fixes SO many bugs I could never name them all.

    For anyone looking for an Outlook/Eudora replacement, this is it.

    Personally, I use the Mozilla mail client because it's got mail and news together with the same interface, and I really don't need a Calendar, Contact list, etc.

  • Evolution (Score:2, Interesting)

    by TV-SET ( 84200 )
    Being currently responsible for migrating a large enterprise to Linux, I was plesently surprised by Evolution. It kicks butt off all my boss's arguments :) I am currently running it in a test environment, and yes, I was too lazy to rebuild the rpm and I actually installed all those 150 megs of complementary libraries and software :) I know it could be easily skipped, but I sooo lazy and I have almost complete Ximian desktop now :)

    Anyway, keep the good work you guys@Ximian!

    I am wating for 1.0 release to get rid of Yet Another Microsoft Application (YAMA) :)

  • Maybe this is good. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by dinotrac ( 18304 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @03:31PM (#2437507) Journal
    Well, the bug squasing part is definitely good.
    No maybe about that .

    I guess Mitch Kapor can't hurt. He certainly is a bright and experienced software businessman.

    Still, I hope he's learned a thing or two in the last ten years.

    When Windows 3.0 came out, Lotus 1-2-3 was the biggest spreadsheet. Period. Win 3.0 would have gone nowhere if it couldn't run (and multitask) major DOS programs like 1-2-3.

    Mitch Kapor didn't pay any attention to Windows. He was more concerned with 1-2-3 for OS/2 and -- believe it or not -- something called 1-2-3/M, a 1-2-3 spreadsheet for IBM mainframes.

    I wonder if Microsoft would have its present monopoly if Lotus and WordPerfect had ventured into Windows Land in the pre-3.0 days, when Gates was still trying to get ports to run on his platform.

    People didn't start using Word for Windows and Excel because they were so wonderful.
    Back before Office software got pre-loaded, and back before Microsoft was the 800 pound software gorilla, people started using them because the other guys didn't have Windows software. Microsoft made competitive upgrades cheap, and hand-held new-to-Microsoft users.

    Of course, once they got 'em in their clutches...

    • Kind of neat that Mitch finds himself on the other side of the fence now. (Trying to break an established systems strangle hold). And that Bill is also on the other side of the fence. (Refusing to port Office to Linux). I guess we'll see whether it was teh men or the side.

      Personally, the lack of a nice suite of productivity applications has kept me a windose freak. I'm looking forward to giving Mozilla, Evolution, Gnome, and StarOffice a go. Until recently, IMHO, such a transition was not in my best interests. (No, Mozilla, Evolution, or StarOffice 6).

      • It's amazing how fast things are moving in free software land.

        I spent a year using Microsoft Office at work, and two years using StarOffice 5.x everywhere else.

        I now use the SO 6.0 beta.
        Doesn't have all the changes I'd like, but it is nice software and the file exchange (now covering revision marks and hidden fields) will let you live with your Office-using friends.

        Sure -- you probably want to keep a copy of Office around where you can get at it if somebody sends you a really perverted file. OTOH, it is only betaware at the moment.
        Hmmm. I guess Office is the same.
        Always.

    • Mitch was not involved in operational decisions when Lotus 1-2-3 initially took the OS/2 path instead of Windoze.

      Although Lotus management can't avoid the bulk of the blame, Microsoft did have a hand in encouraging ISVs like Lotus to embrace OS/2; in fact, once upon a time OS/2 was referred to in Microsoft/IBM technical briefings as DOS 5.

    • Mitch Kapor didn't pay any attention to Windows. He was more concerned with 1-2-3 for OS/2 and -- believe it or not -- something called 1-2-3/M, a 1-2-3 spreadsheet for IBM mainframes.

      Although the facts are accurate, you have to remember that, at the time, Microsoft was telling everyone to develop for OS/2 - Windows was supposed to be a mere "bridging" application

      Then, Microsoft changed their internal strategies, but told none of their targeted competitors (Lotus and others) that all their development was going to Windows instead. When Windows 3.0 came out, Lotus, Borland, Ashton-Tate, et al found that they had been fooled into developing for a platform that Microsoft was never going to make mainstream - and the differences were enough that they were always going to be a step behind.

      So, I'm sure that he learned that important lesson; the real question is why the rest of the Windows developer base didn't learn it!

      FWIW

      • Mitch Kapor didn't pay any attention to Windows. He was more concerned with 1-2-3 for OS/2

        Although the facts are accurate, you have to remember that, at the time, Microsoft was telling everyone to develop for OS/2 - Windows was supposed to be a mere "bridging" application

        All true -- but Guess What? 1-2-3 for OS/2 SUCKED! Excel was far better. (And there was a beta release of GUI Excel for OS/2).
        • I should also point out that Lotus didn't take the Macintosh market seriously at all, unlike Microsoft. In 1985 (the same year MS Excel shipped), they introduced a Mac-based Office Suite called "Jazz", only to drop it after a year.

          At that point, they stopped GUI work until it was restarted for OS/2 some years later. Meanwhile, Microsoft was banging out features for MS Office over on the Mac side. When Lotus finally figured out that a suite was a good idea, they had to fumble around and find a word processor.

          Ironically, the thing that saved the company was an OS/2 GUI program called Notes.
          • ...they had to fumble around and find a word processor.


            It's not like Lotus was scraping the bottom of the barrel when they picked up Samna. They were building from the ground up on Windows, so they were able to get ahead of Word in many key areas. Ami Pro 2, crude as it was, felt like a Windows word processor. It wasn't until WinWord 4 that Word didn't act like a port from DOS. Meanwhile, WordPerfect was still deeply entrenched in the DOS world, and WordStar and XyWrite were hoping their eventual Windows ports would save their respective companies. They didn't.

            So Lotus certainly made the best of the situation. In the short term, they got the excellent Ami Pro word processor. In the long term, they got the framework for proper Windows versions of 123 and Freelance, and eventually, once they acquired Approach, SmartSuite. Which was, byte for byte, a better suite than MS Office. At least in the days before Microsoft stifled all the competition. <sigh />
        • You mean MS Excel - the Mac program that got ported to Windows?

          Yep kids, Excel started out as a Mac application. Developing MS Word & MS Excel gave Bill lots of access deep inside Apple. This came in handy when MS reinvented Apple's UI and put - what else - the Mac applications on it.

  • Love it! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Starky ( 236203 ) on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @03:33PM (#2437522)
    While there are strong sentiments about the desktop choices, it is important to the Linux community that there is a choice. I think in the long run, it will be a positive thing.


    I think KDE is fantastic, but I simply prefer GNOME. I've been watching GNOME make incredible strides in the time that it's been around, and I think as a GNOME user I have alot to look forward to.


    I have also been using the Ximian desktop at home, and I think they've put out a great product. (I actually forked over $29.95 to Ximian because I valued their product so much I thought it worthwhile to purchase it.) Red Carpet has worked flawlessly for me so far. While I still like to build certain things (Apache, Perl, etc.) myself, it saves me a good deal of time not having to worry about keeping my packages up to date. Evolution still has some bugs, but it's getting more solid literally every day. I was happy to fork over some money to Ximian and I'll continue to do so as they improve their product.


    I know that there are going to be Debian users telling me I can get Red Carpet for free via apt-get, and they are right. I know there are folks who consider KDE the superior desktop, and they've got alot of good points.


    However, I prefer Red Hat, Ximian, and GNOME, and Ximian has put out the right product for my preferences, and I am happy to pay for it confident that they will use the money not only to enhance their product, but to create things that will give back to the community as well.


    So I say keep up the good work, Ximian, from a very satisfied user.

  • Unfortunately, I can't, because Mandrake 8.1 isn't supported yet. Any idea when it might be? Seems like I recall Mandrake 8.0 support taking a while after the final release of the OS.

  • I'm almost ready to jump over Evolution to handle my email.

    Currently, I use exmh [beedub.com], which I've found to be a great GUI interface to my email. It uses tcl and tk for the GUI and MH for folders, but has all kinds of extensions to support PGP, address books, in-line HTML display, etc.

    Is anyone, familiar with both exmh and Evolution, able to point out their relative merits and detractions?

    • I'm not familiar with exmh, but one thing I can suggest is that you consider trying both at once. I'm not sure what sort of mail setup you have, but you can probably send copies of your email somewhere else and use both for a while to see if you like Evolution. This is what I do with on my box. I use pine and Evolution. I retrieve my mail using fetchmail. Then my mail is processed by a procmail script which in addition to filtering out some spam, copies every mail I get to another spool for evolution to pick up. It's a great way to play around with both. Also I'm not ready to give up either client. I love using pine to check my mail when I'm not at home, and I mostly use Evolution when I'm at my desktop at home. At any rate, I highly recommend at least playing with Evolution. I personally love the vFolders as a way of searching for mail.

      • ...but you can probably send copies of your email somewhere else and use both for a while to see if you like Evolution.

        An excellent idea - thanks!

        Once I get my Linux box up, then I'll use my procmail recipe to divert copies of my email over there just to see how Evolution works for me.

        In the future, my current simple SMTP to mbox file environment will change to a corporate Exchange server. I'm thinking of slurping the contents of the Exchange server using fetchmail, then procmail, to a file, then MUA (Evolution). I'm hoping that will provide me with a good solution, that there aren't any strange side effects with getting LDAP info (addresses) from the Exchange server, but reading local boxes.

        I've used fetchmail at home to extract mail from my ISP, but I haven't had to use it at work much because the 24x7 services of the LAN have made SMTP to mbox file route painless.

  • Last time I used Evolution was a few months ago when I was trying to set up a decent email environment for my mother on our linux box. I was (and still am really) looking for a mail client that is basically a graphical mutt. I don't need it downloading mail, and I don't need it sending mail to my ISP. I use fetchmail to get my family's email whenever someone goes online (dialup). I do not want to have to be online to read email. Now supporting pop3/imap/whatever is fine but when editing the preferences of Evolution they seem extremely slanted toward the "this mail proggie does *everything*; screw your fetchmail, procmail, and local mail server".

    Also, I'd like a way to configure where Evolution keeps its mailboxes. I hate that stupid "evolution" dir in my home. What's wrong with Mail/? Is this possible in versions I haven't seen?

    With my mail setup, I compose offline and send to my local mailserver. I don't need seventeen mailboxes like "Outbox", "Drafts", "Useless Box", "Trash". I can't recall for Evolution, but with Balsa, you cannot delete your Outbox or Drafts. And they must begin with a capital letter, in aesthetic conflic with my other mailboxes. I also want my "Drafts" box to be named "postponed". And I don't want a "Trash", I want to simply delete stuff... and on and on.

    So, how configurable is Evolution (or any decent gui mail client)? Every one I've tried goes to great lengths to act like a monolith. Not that that's necessarily bad, but I want to configure that extra crap I don't use out of my life

    One last thing, does Evolution support PGP (surely...?).

    • try editing the source maybe? i dunno, i use a sensible mail client (pine or kmail).
    • In the most recent versions, you are able to read folders (maildir and mbox) outside of ~/evolution

      Also, for Drafts, Sent, etc - you are able to specify whichever folder you want to act as a Draft or Sent folder. And they don't need to begin with a capital letter...

      and yes, Evolution supports PGP...much better than any other clients that I've seen - linux or win32 (including mutt).
    • I think your desire to fully customize the app is good, but miss directed (possibly). Is Evolution specifically designed for the programmer? It seems to be designed for the Outlook user. That means it closely mirrors the look / feel of Outlook. That it doesn't provide a manager to customize the appearance is probably somethign to fit into later versions (after functionality complete has been reached).

      It is (hopefully) going to be the app to drop in place of Outlook on many corporate PCs whos IS team is fed up with M$ pricing. So I don't expect it to differ much from Outlook on the outside (inside is a different world).

      robi

    • Re:Monolithic (Score:3, Informative)

      by JoeBuck ( 7947 )

      If you want to run Evolution in a fetchmail environment, it's no problem: when you set up your account, set "server type" to "Standard Unix mbox spools". You can then use Evolution in the same way that you use elm or mutt. For "Sending Email" choose "Sendmail". You can then read and send mail offline and it will queue.

      One nuisance, though: I use procmail to sort my mail into separate mailboxes. It seems the only way to get Evolution to work smoothly with this setup is to pretend that each of these mailboxes is a separate account. I'd rather have better support for this mode of operation (which lets me continue to use either Evolution or elm).

  • an option to set the port of the pop server, as is possible in any self-respecting e-mail client.



    Marko No. 5
  • So they've now acquired a high-profile guy to add to their board (which is generally a good thing), which means that Mitch probably invested some money in them (and which also means they're blazing through their $15M at a nice clip).

    So my question is, now that they've got some more brains, more cash, and more product, how are they planning to actually make some money again?

    nlh
  • (seems like a natural given the names ;^)

    Seriously, though, I run a macOS&ppclinux based HIV research lab and fight a running battle with MS-centric hospital IS who keep trying to ram Windows down everyone's throats. I run my own mail server but am required as a matter of institutional policy to maintain (and read) e-mail and announcements on their Exchange/Outlook sytem. I am moving the macs to OS X and would love an Outlook replacement that interoperates with the hospital's Exhange servers but doesn't get infected with outlook viruses (bad form for a virologist).

  • Kapor not perfect (Score:4, Interesting)

    by maggard ( 5579 ) <michael@michaelmaggard.com> on Tuesday October 16, 2001 @05:22PM (#2438222) Homepage Journal
    Not to throw any cold water but Mitch Kapor's record is not perfect. He was pretty much pushed out of Lotus. He then went on to found On Technology which was going to revolutionize the world.

    The On Platform was developed with much money and some very big names. It was basically reusable software components - they lasted a few years in a couple of products, the company continued to blow through money and was sold off and now has nothing in common with the original. The breakthrough tech has long since dissapeared.

    Since then he's had mixed success mostly trading in on his old-man-of-the-industry status. It's great that he's joining Ximian but this guy has had his share of misses along with a spectacular hit a generation ago.

    Disclusure: I was hired the day On was bought from Kapor but never worked for him and his former staff seemed genuinely fond of him

  • You might want to check out www.nat.org [nat.org] which contains nice updates on Nat's life.

Slashdot Top Deals

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it." - Bert Lantz

Close