That means that OpenOffice or any other competitor would be allowed to crack their encryption in order to allow their users to read.doc files. Right?
Wrong. The DMCA specifically says (or, at least, it might as well say) that whoever has the biggest legal budget wins. Big companies are allowed to abuse and hassle smaller companies, and they're definitely allowed to harass consumers and open source developers.
That's how the DMCA reads, or at least, that's how it's applied in the real world.
$10 is nothing for us computer programers - it takes you an extra three minutes to earn the diferance and the results are worth it.
...he says, just before being laid off and replaced with an Indian programmer whose weekly salary is about the equivalent of the cost of a cup of coffee.
There is no shortage of "small generator" capacity. The problem is with the local power grids.
We have three megawatts of power generation capacity, but we don't need all of it (our power needs are less than 1.5 megawatts; two generators are present for N+1 reliability). So we wanted to sell power back to the grid, and the power company wanted to buy it. But it couldn't happen, because the local grid in this area is not capable of accepting a backfeed. This is the problem in most places. There are probably tens of thousands of places with local backup generators that would be capable of supplying power to the grid, but until the local grid is upgraded to handle backfeeds, it simply can't happen.
What does happen, though, is that on days of very high demand, the utility will provide cash incentives to companies with their own generators, to voluntarily get off the grid and run on their own power. We did this for a couple of years. But ever since "deregulation" put utility prices through the roof, it's actually been cheaper to just run the generators 24/7. Diesel fuel is less expensive than the utility, which IMHO is proof that deregulation doesn't work... at least not when the White House is inhabited by someone who cares more about the welfare of energy companies than about the citizens.
You run 24/7 generators? Isn't that kinda expensive? I'd think you'd still want UPSs in case of generator failure, right?
You can thank the folks who brought us "deregulation" for that. Ever since deregulation, the price of grid power has increased so much that it's actually cheaper to run the generators than it is to buy power off the grid.
But yes, we still have UPS's. And we can switch to grid power when the generators aren't running.
This is kind of weird. I work at a mid size hosting center and ISP and since we normally run on generator power, we didn't know that there was a widespread power outage. Things started popping up on our monitoring system -- and they all seemed completely unrelated. Of course, it turned out that all the things going red were customers with T1 lines and such, that were in buildings losing power.:)
"We see no reason to continue developing no-cost software for a market segment we already dominate. Perhaps you would like to sign up for MSN, or download the latest version of Media Player?"
Seriously, there's no big opportunity to increase market share, or even upsell something else, using a free e-mail client. They've realized that in order to take their monopoly to the next level, they have to rekindle their pre-Internet vision of a "closed loop" system that really is end-to-end Microsoft. For MSN, the Internet is an obstacle that they were forced to contend with. Presumably they now feel that they're in a position to move beyond the open 'net and back into the proprietary online service they've always dreamed of owning.
That's half a billion dollars. [...] Like someone else said, that's more than the Justice Department was able to do in 5 years.
If you're going to weigh it in terms of money, weigh it in terms of money. How much money did Microsoft have to contribute to George W's campaign fund in order to obtain that "Get out of jail free" card? Make no mistake about it: the legal system is driven by money; justice is obsolete.
Definitely time for non-Microsoft bigcorps like Oracle to put their money where their mouths are. Seems ironic that companies like Oracle, with thousands of desktops, would continue putting money directly into Microsoft's coffers by buying Windows and Office -- money that will be used to finance Microsoft's attempted destruction of both Linux and competitors like Oracle.
If every company that Microsoft directly competed with (Oracle, AOL, Sony, Nintendo, IBM, Palm, RealNetworks, Novell, just to name a few) were to boycott Microsoft products for their internal use (still keeping, of course, whatever they need to do development of products which run on or with Windows)... that alone could add up to hundreds of thousands of seats. That's a lot of revenue Microsoft wouldn't be able to collect.
Once the Oracle IT folks finish switching developer desktops over to Linux, they should then begin switching over their administrative staff as well. If Sun can run a multi thousand seat corporate network on *ix, so can any large company. If all Microsoft competitors followed suit, it would create enough momentum to jump-start mainstream adoption of the Linux desktop that much sooner.
Maybe this is relevant, maybe it's not, but I've got to get something off my chest.
I'm getting very tired of listening to open source cheerleaders (particularly Slashdotters) talk about how much they hate Sun in one breath, and then including OpenOffice among the free software that's going to supersede Sun in the next.
Without Sun, the OpenOffice project would undoubtedly continue, but it wouldn't continue nearly as fast. Sun is confused, but I think they'll eventually come around and realize that mainstream computing will eventually come down to just Windows and Linux. (Perhaps they'll lose their schizophrenia about Linux when they fire Scott McNealy, who knows.) But we need to remember that free software doesn't just materialize out of nowhere; it has to be created and maintained by actual people. Some of the best software out there is created by hobbyists, but with something as complex as a complete office suite, it does help to have a big staff of full-time developers working on it.
I challenge you all to stop mentioning Sun in the same breath as Microsoft, and instead try to figure out better ways to achieve Sun/Linux synergy.
Before you mock Xforms, keep in mind that it is at least on track to be a W3C open standard. Perhaps you've also heard of something called "WinForms" which is part of the.NET framework currently being pushed by that big evil monopoly that's trying to turn the Web into a closed system. Despite having told everyone in the previous decade what a bad idea it is to embed applets in web pages, they're now pushing exactly that idea -- but now they call it "smart clients."
So, you decide. WinForms, on IE with.NET only? Or XForms, a W3C standard that will eventually get implemented everywhere? I know which ring I'm throwing my hat into.
One interesting support model I'm seeing someone do right now is to have every single desktop running Linux and a Linux version of VMware, regardless of the "actual" client operating system. Boot the box, VMware starts, then without any manual intervention the client OS (usually 'doze 2000) starts up and goes full screen.
Sounds silly? When there's a problem, or a need to upgrade, or whatever... the entire image can be pulled back remotely, then fixed/upgraded/replaced, and shoved back down to the actual physical location. Sweet!
The long-term answer to tech support problems is to migrate towards true thin-client or lean-client computing, making the actual desktop device irrelevant. But this is a nice stopgap.
Attention: all users of Microsoft Windows products
I believe Microsoft has illegally placed code I've written into their operating system products. I have no intention to prove it... just take my word for it, it's in there.
Therefore, if you are a user of Microsoft Windows, you must pay me a $150 licensing fee to avoid getting sued. I think you'll find this a much better deal than SCO's Linux license -- it's a tenth of the price!
Please pay immediately to avoid litigation. I accept cashier's checks, money orders, PayPal, and briefcases full of cash.
It seems to me that it has reached a point were there isn't that much use in upgrading anymore.
Good point. People upgraded from Windows 95/98 to Windows 2000 and marvelled at how stable it was in comparison. Wouldn't it be ironic if Microsoft finally fixing the largest stability bugs became the #1 driver behind people not upgrading anymore? "Why should I buy Windows 2003 when Windows 2000 doesn't crash anymore?"
(Note: as a techie, I don't think Windows 2000/2003 is exceptionally stable. It still pales in comparison to most Unices. But compared to Windows 9X it was a big step forward.)
if they make a modified XBox, say XXBox (what about XXXBox:->) and put Palladium on it, that could cut off Linux entirely, since this XXBox would be $150 for h/w and s/w would be $50 per year!
All this talk is great, but what it leaves out is, what would happen to all of the existing computer manufacturers? If Microsoft suddenly entered into direct competition with HPaq, IBM, Gateway, and even (Bill's current lapdog) Dell... this would basically be an open invitation for all those mfrs to perform a mass exodus into the waiting arms of Linux.
Wrong. The Clinton/Reno DOJ brought up the case, and won it. The appeals process, unfortunately, happened during the reign of the Bush/Ashcroft DOJ. Cheyney and Ballmer had lunch, and two weeks later the "Seattlement" was announced. If it weren't for the change of guard at the White House, the outcome of that case would have been quite different. I'm no fan of Clinton or Reno, but I believe they would have finished the job they started.
Step 1: contribute a 7-figure sum to his campaign fund.
That's pretty much it. And he's completely blatant about it. It worked for Microsoft (read: "get out of jail free") and it'll work for you. We have the best President money can buy.
Does anyone here actually use Netscape as their default browser?
Count me in -- I've been faithfully using both the Netscape branded browser and the Netscape portal for the last couple of years. Mainly as a way to thank them for funding the development of the single most important application on my desktop -- to say "This strategy is sound and you have my support."
Now that they've fired everyone, I'm not so sure about it anymore, and I may simply drop back to stock Mozilla (and choose a different home page).
This whole ordeal has made me do some thinking, though. I've talked to some people who simply won't even look at Netscape. The lackluster Netscape 4 and the disastrous Netscape 6 stick too much in their minds, even though Netscape 7 is a world-class browser that simply wipes the floor with IE, hands down. I wonder if Netscape is a dirty word at this point in time? Perhaps Mozilla is the name to push now. Certainly with users... but it'll be an uphill climb to get webmasters and plugin authors to change from "This supports IE and Netscape" to "This supports IE and Mozilla." Naturally, we'd all prefer "This supports web standards" but for the stupidfolk among them (i.e. most of them) it's still much better than "Windows/IE only."
Thank you AOL for the initial $2 million in funding (but to Dick Parsons, I hope you rot in hell next to Bill Gates). Now it's time for others in the industry to both fund and push the Mozilla effort. IBM in particular ought to be assigning a boatload of developers to Mozilla, especially in the light of recent developments (such as Munich) in which they are partially responsible for the well-being of an increasing number of desktop Linux users. Without a world-class browser, the Linux desktop simply cannot exist. It's time for everyone to step up to the plate and make Mozilla not only replace Netscape as the brand everyone recognizes, but take the role of a well-liked brand. The name "Netscape" seems to be as poisonous as "WordPerfect" now.
One of the things holding back open source groupware is the absence of stuff that does true client/server group calendaring and scheduling. This shouldn't be the case -- the Netscape/iPlanet/SunONE calendar server has been talking WCAP for ages, and the calendar client in Netscape 4.7 spoke WCAP fluently. The protocol is well-documented. So why hasn't Ximian stepped up to the plate and implemented it?
Microsoft's substantial contributions to George W. Bush's 2000 campaign fund were very helpful in getting him into the White House. Bush returned the favor by allowing Microsoft to escape unscathed from the big antitrust suit.
Now, Mr. Bush has begun the process of raising funds for his 2004 campaign, and it's time for Microsoft to pay up again.
Has the system's BBS roots been more of a hinderence or more of help to you?
Yes it has.:)
If you think about it, a BBS really is a groupware system. It's geared towards a different pattern of usage than commercial groupware systems are, but in the end you're solving a lot of the same problems -- managing a lot of dynamic content and making sure it gets presented to the right people at the right time. An active BBS has new content being fed into it around the clock, so it really needs to have a rock solid message store, otherwise the whole thing can collapse at some point. Thankfully, we've already gotten past the hurdle of debugging our message store -- the conversion to Berkeley DB a couple of years ago was a big design win (major kudos are due to Nathan Bryant, a really top-shelf hacker who worked through all of the threading/concurrency, journal management, and cursor issues, resulting in stability that Exchange admins can only dream of). And of course the e-mail protocols and Web interface were things we had developed for the BBS anyway.
The places where it's a challenge tend to be presentation issues, especially in the Web interface. Do you want to present a particular set of information in a layout that looks like a message board, or in a layout that looks like a business groupware system? It forces you to think outside the box and come up with some new ideas. These ideas aren't always palatable to one audience or the other (sometimes both). In that case we sometimes end up going back to the drawing board a couple of times. On the other hand, since we're an open source project we can afford to be in experimental mode some of the time.
Sometimes there are pleasant surprises. One BBS operator saw the new calendar service and didn't really understand what it was for. She used it to create a community events calendar. It ended up working out really well, even though it's an application we hadn't really envisioned.
All in all, I'd say that Citadel's BBS roots are taking the groupware project in some unique directions. I'm glad to hear you're a fan of the project. If you or anyone else reading this would like to chat about it in further detail, just click on the BBS link in my sig below.
Here's a project worth checking out: Citadel/UX. Admittedly it's only about 80 percent of the way there, but the thing that makes Citadel stand out from its open source brethren is that it's not just another Cyrus/Postfix/OpenLDAP/etc. rollup with some loose stiches put in to make them act like a single system.
We're actually taking the time to build something good from scratch. We've got a true journalling database oriented message store (thanks to Berkeley DB) including single-instance store (a message sent to 100 users doesn't get saved 100 times). Built-in IMAP, POP, SMTP protocols. A nice calendar service, and a Web interface. It's even got its own instant messenger.
The thing that's important, though, is that it's designed to be easy to install. One of the very few things that Exchange 5.5 had going in its favor was that it was relatively easy to install. Citadel aims for that as well -- plug in the RPM's or tarball, run the setup program, and you've got a basic server up and running. Inexperienced admins might be scared by editing/etc/mail/complicated.cf and/etc/init.d/S90scary.sh, but they don't mind running a "setup" program and then customizing with a web browser.
Where we really need the extra development work right now is to start writing some connectors for popular client software. Currently we are aiming for 100 percent compatibility with the Kroupware project (so you can use the Kontact client without having to install the clunky Kolab server) and eventually Evolution (which has a 'connector' architecture). Eventually we'd prefer to do everything in Mozilla (using Mozilla Mail and Mozilla Calendar), since it's cross-platform.
Again, it's not a drop-in Exchange replacement today, but it's a project worth watching, or better yet, helping out on.
If they require a portion of Microsoft's own code to reflash the BIOS, all they have to do is distribute the updater in a format that's missing the Microsoft code -- they just load that portion of the code from the existing BIOS, link it together at install time, and then reflash. As far as copyright is concerned, the program is an addition to the existing software.
Relax! The great-looking Vera fonts have been released under a Free license. That means there is no need to include them with a browser like Mozilla/Firebird -- very soon, those fonts will ship where they belong: as part of every Free operating system, right on the CD.
That being the case, shipping fonts as part of an application (yes Bill, a web browser is an application) seems inane.
Slashdot Mirror
That means that OpenOffice or any other competitor would be allowed to crack their encryption in order to allow their users to read .doc files. Right?
Wrong. The DMCA specifically says (or, at least, it might as well say) that whoever has the biggest legal budget wins. Big companies are allowed to abuse and hassle smaller companies, and they're definitely allowed to harass consumers and open source developers.
That's how the DMCA reads, or at least, that's how it's applied in the real world.
$10 is nothing for us computer programers - it takes you an extra three minutes to earn the diferance and the results are worth it.
...he says, just before being laid off and replaced with an Indian programmer whose weekly salary is about the equivalent of the cost of a cup of coffee.
There is no shortage of "small generator" capacity. The problem is with the local power grids.
We have three megawatts of power generation capacity, but we don't need all of it (our power needs are less than 1.5 megawatts; two generators are present for N+1 reliability). So we wanted to sell power back to the grid, and the power company wanted to buy it. But it couldn't happen, because the local grid in this area is not capable of accepting a backfeed. This is the problem in most places. There are probably tens of thousands of places with local backup generators that would be capable of supplying power to the grid, but until the local grid is upgraded to handle backfeeds, it simply can't happen.
What does happen, though, is that on days of very high demand, the utility will provide cash incentives to companies with their own generators, to voluntarily get off the grid and run on their own power. We did this for a couple of years. But ever since "deregulation" put utility prices through the roof, it's actually been cheaper to just run the generators 24/7. Diesel fuel is less expensive than the utility, which IMHO is proof that deregulation doesn't work... at least not when the White House is inhabited by someone who cares more about the welfare of energy companies than about the citizens.
You run 24/7 generators? Isn't that kinda expensive? I'd think you'd still want UPSs in case of generator failure, right?
You can thank the folks who brought us "deregulation" for that. Ever since deregulation, the price of grid power has increased so much that it's actually cheaper to run the generators than it is to buy power off the grid.
But yes, we still have UPS's. And we can switch to grid power when the generators aren't running.
This is kind of weird. I work at a mid size hosting center and ISP and since we normally run on generator power, we didn't know that there was a widespread power outage. Things started popping up on our monitoring system -- and they all seemed completely unrelated. Of course, it turned out that all the things going red were customers with T1 lines and such, that were in buildings losing power. :)
"We see no reason to continue developing no-cost software for a market segment we already dominate. Perhaps you would like to sign up for MSN, or download the latest version of Media Player?"
Seriously, there's no big opportunity to increase market share, or even upsell something else, using a free e-mail client. They've realized that in order to take their monopoly to the next level, they have to rekindle their pre-Internet vision of a "closed loop" system that really is end-to-end Microsoft. For MSN, the Internet is an obstacle that they were forced to contend with. Presumably they now feel that they're in a position to move beyond the open 'net and back into the proprietary online service they've always dreamed of owning.
That's half a billion dollars. [...] Like someone else said, that's more than the Justice Department was able to do in 5 years.
If you're going to weigh it in terms of money, weigh it in terms of money. How much money did Microsoft have to contribute to George W's campaign fund in order to obtain that "Get out of jail free" card? Make no mistake about it: the legal system is driven by money; justice is obsolete.
Definitely time for non-Microsoft bigcorps like Oracle to put their money where their mouths are. Seems ironic that companies like Oracle, with thousands of desktops, would continue putting money directly into Microsoft's coffers by buying Windows and Office -- money that will be used to finance Microsoft's attempted destruction of both Linux and competitors like Oracle.
... that alone could add up to hundreds of thousands of seats. That's a lot of revenue Microsoft wouldn't be able to collect.
If every company that Microsoft directly competed with (Oracle, AOL, Sony, Nintendo, IBM, Palm, RealNetworks, Novell, just to name a few) were to boycott Microsoft products for their internal use (still keeping, of course, whatever they need to do development of products which run on or with Windows)
Once the Oracle IT folks finish switching developer desktops over to Linux, they should then begin switching over their administrative staff as well. If Sun can run a multi thousand seat corporate network on *ix, so can any large company. If all Microsoft competitors followed suit, it would create enough momentum to jump-start mainstream adoption of the Linux desktop that much sooner.
I ran "Red Carpet Update" this morning. Now I know why it downloaded a copy of the Book of Mormon to my computer. Thanks, Slashdot!
Maybe this is relevant, maybe it's not, but I've got to get something off my chest.
I'm getting very tired of listening to open source cheerleaders (particularly Slashdotters) talk about how much they hate Sun in one breath, and then including OpenOffice among the free software that's going to supersede Sun in the next.
Without Sun, the OpenOffice project would undoubtedly continue, but it wouldn't continue nearly as fast. Sun is confused, but I think they'll eventually come around and realize that mainstream computing will eventually come down to just Windows and Linux. (Perhaps they'll lose their schizophrenia about Linux when they fire Scott McNealy, who knows.) But we need to remember that free software doesn't just materialize out of nowhere; it has to be created and maintained by actual people. Some of the best software out there is created by hobbyists, but with something as complex as a complete office suite, it does help to have a big staff of full-time developers working on it.
I challenge you all to stop mentioning Sun in the same breath as Microsoft, and instead try to figure out better ways to achieve Sun/Linux synergy.
Before you mock Xforms, keep in mind that it is at least on track to be a W3C open standard. Perhaps you've also heard of something called "WinForms" which is part of the .NET framework currently being pushed by that big evil monopoly that's trying to turn the Web into a closed system. Despite having told everyone in the previous decade what a bad idea it is to embed applets in web pages, they're now pushing exactly that idea -- but now they call it "smart clients."
.NET only? Or XForms, a W3C standard that will eventually get implemented everywhere? I know which ring I'm throwing my hat into.
So, you decide. WinForms, on IE with
Here's my simple, humble suggestion:
The Open Group should waive the fees for Free operating system with regard to Unix branding.
That way, operating systems such as Linux, GNU/Linux, and assortedBSD can truly, officially, be called Unix in name as well as in spirit.
One interesting support model I'm seeing someone do right now is to have every single desktop running Linux and a Linux version of VMware, regardless of the "actual" client operating system. Boot the box, VMware starts, then without any manual intervention the client OS (usually 'doze 2000) starts up and goes full screen.
... the entire image can be pulled back remotely, then fixed/upgraded/replaced, and shoved back down to the actual physical location. Sweet!
Sounds silly? When there's a problem, or a need to upgrade, or whatever
The long-term answer to tech support problems is to migrate towards true thin-client or lean-client computing, making the actual desktop device irrelevant. But this is a nice stopgap.
Attention: all users of Microsoft Windows products
... just take my word for it, it's in there.
I believe Microsoft has illegally placed code I've written into their operating system products. I have no intention to prove it
Therefore, if you are a user of Microsoft Windows, you must pay me a $150 licensing fee to avoid getting sued. I think you'll find this a much better deal than SCO's Linux license -- it's a tenth of the price!
Please pay immediately to avoid litigation. I accept cashier's checks, money orders, PayPal, and briefcases full of cash.
It seems to me that it has reached a point were there isn't that much use in upgrading anymore.
Good point. People upgraded from Windows 95/98 to Windows 2000 and marvelled at how stable it was in comparison. Wouldn't it be ironic if Microsoft finally fixing the largest stability bugs became the #1 driver behind people not upgrading anymore? "Why should I buy Windows 2003 when Windows 2000 doesn't crash anymore?"
(Note: as a techie, I don't think Windows 2000/2003 is exceptionally stable. It still pales in comparison to most Unices. But compared to Windows 9X it was a big step forward.)
if they make a modified XBox, say XXBox (what about XXXBox :->) and put Palladium on it, that could cut off Linux entirely, since this XXBox would be $150 for h/w and s/w would be $50 per year!
... this would basically be an open invitation for all those mfrs to perform a mass exodus into the waiting arms of Linux.
All this talk is great, but what it leaves out is, what would happen to all of the existing computer manufacturers? If Microsoft suddenly entered into direct competition with HPaq, IBM, Gateway, and even (Bill's current lapdog) Dell
Bill may be evil but he's not stupid.
Wrong. The Clinton/Reno DOJ brought up the case, and won it. The appeals process, unfortunately, happened during the reign of the Bush/Ashcroft DOJ. Cheyney and Ballmer had lunch, and two weeks later the "Seattlement" was announced. If it weren't for the change of guard at the White House, the outcome of that case would have been quite different. I'm no fan of Clinton or Reno, but I believe they would have finished the job they started.
Step 1: contribute a 7-figure sum to his campaign fund.
That's pretty much it. And he's completely blatant about it. It worked for Microsoft (read: "get out of jail free") and it'll work for you. We have the best President money can buy.
Does anyone here actually use Netscape as their default browser?
... but it'll be an uphill climb to get webmasters and plugin authors to change from "This supports IE and Netscape" to "This supports IE and Mozilla." Naturally, we'd all prefer "This supports web standards" but for the stupidfolk among them (i.e. most of them) it's still much better than "Windows/IE only."
Count me in -- I've been faithfully using both the Netscape branded browser and the Netscape portal for the last couple of years. Mainly as a way to thank them for funding the development of the single most important application on my desktop -- to say "This strategy is sound and you have my support."
Now that they've fired everyone, I'm not so sure about it anymore, and I may simply drop back to stock Mozilla (and choose a different home page).
This whole ordeal has made me do some thinking, though. I've talked to some people who simply won't even look at Netscape. The lackluster Netscape 4 and the disastrous Netscape 6 stick too much in their minds, even though Netscape 7 is a world-class browser that simply wipes the floor with IE, hands down. I wonder if Netscape is a dirty word at this point in time? Perhaps Mozilla is the name to push now. Certainly with users
Thank you AOL for the initial $2 million in funding (but to Dick Parsons, I hope you rot in hell next to Bill Gates). Now it's time for others in the industry to both fund and push the Mozilla effort. IBM in particular ought to be assigning a boatload of developers to Mozilla, especially in the light of recent developments (such as Munich) in which they are partially responsible for the well-being of an increasing number of desktop Linux users. Without a world-class browser, the Linux desktop simply cannot exist. It's time for everyone to step up to the plate and make Mozilla not only replace Netscape as the brand everyone recognizes, but take the role of a well-liked brand. The name "Netscape" seems to be as poisonous as "WordPerfect" now.
One of the things holding back open source groupware is the absence of stuff that does true client/server group calendaring and scheduling. This shouldn't be the case -- the Netscape/iPlanet/SunONE calendar server has been talking WCAP for ages, and the calendar client in Netscape 4.7 spoke WCAP fluently. The protocol is well-documented. So why hasn't Ximian stepped up to the plate and implemented it?
Translation:
Microsoft's substantial contributions to George W. Bush's 2000 campaign fund were very helpful in getting him into the White House. Bush returned the favor by allowing Microsoft to escape unscathed from the big antitrust suit.
Now, Mr. Bush has begun the process of raising funds for his 2004 campaign, and it's time for Microsoft to pay up again.
Has the system's BBS roots been more of a hinderence or more of help to you?
:)
Yes it has.
If you think about it, a BBS really is a groupware system. It's geared towards a different pattern of usage than commercial groupware systems are, but in the end you're solving a lot of the same problems -- managing a lot of dynamic content and making sure it gets presented to the right people at the right time. An active BBS has new content being fed into it around the clock, so it really needs to have a rock solid message store, otherwise the whole thing can collapse at some point. Thankfully, we've already gotten past the hurdle of debugging our message store -- the conversion to Berkeley DB a couple of years ago was a big design win (major kudos are due to Nathan Bryant, a really top-shelf hacker who worked through all of the threading/concurrency, journal management, and cursor issues, resulting in stability that Exchange admins can only dream of). And of course the e-mail protocols and Web interface were things we had developed for the BBS anyway.
The places where it's a challenge tend to be presentation issues, especially in the Web interface. Do you want to present a particular set of information in a layout that looks like a message board, or in a layout that looks like a business groupware system? It forces you to think outside the box and come up with some new ideas. These ideas aren't always palatable to one audience or the other (sometimes both). In that case we sometimes end up going back to the drawing board a couple of times. On the other hand, since we're an open source project we can afford to be in experimental mode some of the time.
Sometimes there are pleasant surprises. One BBS operator saw the new calendar service and didn't really understand what it was for. She used it to create a community events calendar. It ended up working out really well, even though it's an application we hadn't really envisioned.
All in all, I'd say that Citadel's BBS roots are taking the groupware project in some unique directions. I'm glad to hear you're a fan of the project. If you or anyone else reading this would like to chat about it in further detail, just click on the BBS link in my sig below.
Here's a project worth checking out: Citadel/UX. Admittedly it's only about 80 percent of the way there, but the thing that makes Citadel stand out from its open source brethren is that it's not just another Cyrus/Postfix/OpenLDAP/etc. rollup with some loose stiches put in to make them act like a single system.
/etc/mail/complicated.cf and /etc/init.d/S90scary.sh, but they don't mind running a "setup" program and then customizing with a web browser.
We're actually taking the time to build something good from scratch. We've got a true journalling database oriented message store (thanks to Berkeley DB) including single-instance store (a message sent to 100 users doesn't get saved 100 times). Built-in IMAP, POP, SMTP protocols. A nice calendar service, and a Web interface. It's even got its own instant messenger.
The thing that's important, though, is that it's designed to be easy to install. One of the very few things that Exchange 5.5 had going in its favor was that it was relatively easy to install. Citadel aims for that as well -- plug in the RPM's or tarball, run the setup program, and you've got a basic server up and running. Inexperienced admins might be scared by editing
Where we really need the extra development work right now is to start writing some connectors for popular client software. Currently we are aiming for 100 percent compatibility with the Kroupware project (so you can use the Kontact client without having to install the clunky Kolab server) and eventually Evolution (which has a 'connector' architecture). Eventually we'd prefer to do everything in Mozilla (using Mozilla Mail and Mozilla Calendar), since it's cross-platform.
Again, it's not a drop-in Exchange replacement today, but it's a project worth watching, or better yet, helping out on.
If they require a portion of Microsoft's own code to reflash the BIOS, all they have to do is distribute the updater in a format that's missing the Microsoft code -- they just load that portion of the code from the existing BIOS, link it together at install time, and then reflash. As far as copyright is concerned, the program is an addition to the existing software.
Relax! The great-looking Vera fonts have been released under a Free license. That means there is no need to include them with a browser like Mozilla/Firebird -- very soon, those fonts will ship where they belong: as part of every Free operating system, right on the CD.
That being the case, shipping fonts as part of an application (yes Bill, a web browser is an application) seems inane.