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Mitch Kapor's Outlook-Killer
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.
I wasn't too impressed by his description and explination, so I found the page that had the real details, enjoy: http://www.osafoundation.org/our_product_desc.htm
it is. Read the article.
/other/ reasons.
It isnt an Outlook-Killer for
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Eudora is full of spyware my friend. I switched from eudora to evolution for that reason.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
Under http://www.osafoundation.org/technology.htm, they mention the parts of Mozilla they're planning on using. Mainly just the Gecko engine and the development tools. From the looks of things, they'll be using Jabber quite a bit, maybe that model doesn't fit as well directly to Mozillas PIM features.
Jason
True enough, because you're completely wrong about Symphony. Lotus Symphony, a DOS application, was released in 1985. It was a spreadsheet/business graphics/database program that was supposed to be the logical successor to 1-2-3, but suffered from a number of problems, not the least of which was a nasty user interface. Think of it as "1-2-3 plus a few utilities".
Agenda first shipped in 1988, and was a Windows-based PIM application. It had almost nothing in common with Symphony, or any other Lotus product.
--Larry
Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence
If you read his weblog he wants it to work on all platforms.
"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...
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Evolution will do this and sync with palm. No doubt support will be expanded with time. Perhaps a gnokii module?
Really?
It may not run in Aqua, but Evolution does run on Mac OS X.
http://www.eudora.com/techsupport/kb/2220hq.html
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.
It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
Apparently this is why:
"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."
Actually, he's right. The last time I tried this was OL98, so don't flame broil me if it's not true with 2k. I uninstalled Outlook Express once and it did remove a DLL that OL98 needed. The problem is, I have no clue what that DLL did. For all I know, that DLL was just the 'Preview Pane' bit.
... BING it opens Outlook Express. (And all the annoyances that come with it..)
.EML file around (as an attachment) that will fire up OE no matter what email prog is your primary one. Result? They could be sending me an infected mail and I might be dumb enough (or non-attentive) to open it.
.EML extension to Notepad. I don't care if you're running Netscape mail or even Hotmail, you do NOT want OE getting run. Otherwise, yes, you could get bitten by an Outlook virus even if you're not running it.
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.
"I am listening, but I have my own argument against storing it on the SIM card: first, if you lose your cell phone, you lose the SIM card. Second, why be dependent on some card when you could synchronize it with your computer and reliably back it up?"
:)
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.
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.
Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
CAn'T CompreHend SARcaSm?
I hope I shall not spoil any party!!!
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...
Entourage, Outlook Express, and Outlook all exist on the Mac platform. What's really weird is that Outlook (the Exchange client) is not made by the Mac BU but is made by the Exchange client group. It's a horrid little client but it gets the job done.
Exactly. Rather than clone Outlook, or try to make a more usable version of it, Kapor et al. want to create a new, completely different PIM, one that fits people's needs in a way Outlook does not. They believe there's a market for a PIM like that, and I'm in agreement with them. However, I'm dubious of the prospect that the long-dead Agenda is the correct prototype for such a revolutionary new information manager. On the other hand, calling "revolutionary" a program that does things differently than Outlook shows just how far Microsoft has eaten all innovation from the market.
--Mythos
Only if you are Mitch Kapor. Perhaps you are unfamiliar with him. Founder of Lotus, Co Founder of the EFF, basically, somebody who typically Gets Things Done®.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
I am not surprised that people are overlooking
1
the fact that its written in Python (for xplatform and maintaince) and i also uses the Zope Object Database for storage. It is
great to see people using Python for what it was meant - write complex xplatform applications very quickly.
Wanna see how easy it is to store persist objects?
http://www.zope.org/Documentation/Articles/ZODB
Umm, nope, I would challenge that point. VBS and other scripting stuff is turned off by default. I've never heard of a buffer overflow exploit in OL, but if you have an example somewhere I'd love to read about it. (in other words, I'm not claiming it doesn't exist.)
Well, take for instance the vcard Buffer Overflow vulnerability that was unique to Outlook 2000.
The long GMT date field bug 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 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.
It's called V.Calendar. Use google.
WARNING: FUD ALERT!!
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.
The OS X doesn't run a "UNIX" kernel, whatever you mean by that. It's a Mach microkernel with a BSD layer on top.
Log out of your computer's outlook, go to somebody else's machine and log in to exchange. Do you see your calendar, tasks, and notes? Well, that's Exchange, not Outlook. Yes, Outlook keeps a local copy and you can even run a bastardized version without Exchange but the real power of Outlook is as the Exchange front end and I suspect that that's the real developer perspective. Did the Outlook program ever exist without a server?
It was vCalendar, not V.Calendar. And in its current incarnation its called iCalendar. If you're going to be snide, get the information correct. iCalendar is the bedrock spec, for a whole suite of scheduling specs built on top of it, check out Calsch Working Group for more info.
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.
There was and is a unix-based server that works like Exchange. It can use Outlook as a client, and can also use Java-based and Web-based clients, as well as other Unix mail clients.
HP developed it and used to sell it as Openmail, but they don't sell it any more.
Now it's been picked up by Samsung. Here's the FAQ.
Can you sue for "look and feel"? I thought that became a lost cause early on with legal battles between Microsoft vs Apple, and Lotus?
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.
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* 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...
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
I'm surprised not to see any references to Pegasus. I know it's windows only, but that is where Outlook runs... I don't have enough recent experience with Outlook to comment on how they compare, but I've been using it for a while and am quite happy with it. One feature is has that Outlook got rid of a few versions ago is the ability to pick and choose what to download from you POP server.
Imagine for a moment a world without hypothetical situations...
You are confusing NetBIOS with NetBEUI.
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.