Steven Johnson’s books — “Interface Culture” and “Emergence” — represent some of the most thoughtful and idea-laden writing on technoculture you’ll find anywhere. Johnson, who was co-editor of the late lamented Feed as well, is now blogging away at www.stevenberlinjohnson.com.
Leaky Abstractions
Joel Spolsky is that rarity, a software developer who writes with great clarity about the nuts and bolts of his work. A good example is his new essay on “Leaky Abstractions” — which begins with a plain-English explanation of TCP/IP and ends with a discussion of why the developer’s job is so much harder today, despite the proliferation of “labor-saving” tools. A great read.
More PIMs
Diego Doval, whose Plan B blognovel has been rolling out here in Salon blogland, has unveiled the alpha version of a new personal-information manager he calls Spaces. I have not had time to check it out myself but it looks cool. [Link courtesy Metafilter.]
Microsoft coverage
My column talks about how the judge’s decision, while seemingly “in the public interest” point by point, fails to reflect the public interest as a whole.
Farhad pulled together a diverse and contradictory set of reactions to the decision.
Andrew Leonard picked the wrong day to be on vacation (or the right one, depending how you look at it!).
Working on Microsoft
Working all afternoon on Microsoft decision coverage. Will post links when the stories go live in a couple of hours.
Microsoft countdown
After months of delay, U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly will release her decision in the Microsoft antitrust case at 1:30 PM (PST) today, after financial markets close. Friday afternoon before an election means that the news is likely to be buried. Look to Salon later today for coverage. News.com reports before the announcement here. The decision itself will be available here.
This decision will weigh in on (a) whether the settlement between the Department of Justice and Microsoft is in the public interest and (b) whether the nine remaining states who have pressed for tougher remedies against Microsoft will be granted any of their demands.
(Old) news Flash
Ivan Cavero Belaunde writes in to (gently) correct my account of the relationship between Flash and Director. Far as I can tell he’s absolutely right and I was wrong. Flash emerged from a product called “FutureSplash” that Macromedia acquired and renamed; Shockwave was the Web-ified Director. I think I once knew all this but forgot it! In any case, Webmonkey has some more details, and here‘s an account of Flash’s history. Marc Canter’s thoughts remain pertinent as ever; my history was what was in error.
Microsoft’s moth-man
Don’t trash that Flash
Marc Canter explains why you shouldn’t turn off Flash in your browser just because you’re annoyed by Flash ads. Canter is the father of Director, the program that Macromedia transmogrified into Flash as it tried to jump into the Web era; I don’t know whether that makes him Flash’s granddad, or its renegade uncle, or what, but it makes him worth listening to on the subject.
PIM cups runneth over
Outlook may have killed the commercial marketplace for “Personal Information Management” (PIM) software. So the new Outlook challenger is going to be the product of an open-source project, backed by a foundation. Dan Gillmor writes about it all here.
Mitch Kapor is funding the Open Source Applications Foundation (OSAF), and its first project will be “a new take on the Personal Information Manager. It will handle email, appointments, contacts and tasks, as well as be used to exchange information with other people, and do it all in the spirit of Lotus Agenda.” Kapor — the Lotus Software founder who later was one of the key people behind the Electronic Frontier Foundation — is blogging the project here.
I missed Agenda during its heyday, fell in love with Ecco Pro and have been mourning its death (or at least its cryogenic suspension) for years now, so I greet this news with delight. Kapor’s team includes the legendary Andy Hertzfeld, a key creator of the Macintosh and later one of the masterminds of Nautilus, Eazel’s Linux desktop. I can’t wait to see what they come up with.
Don Park (via Scripting News) raises a question worth pondering: “What I am afraid of is the erosion in the sense of value for software. If OSAF succeeds, consumers will have access to a wide array of high quality software for free. Most likely, every PC will start to ship with them preloaded. Every time a new OSAF product ships, a market segment will die.”
To me the key thing here is that this market segment is dead already. Outlook killed it. No one will fund commercial PIM software, and brilliant, wonderful pieces of software have withered on the vine. So how else can we get good software into users’ hands?