>>> Joel Rosenberg <joelr at ellegon.com> 02/07/02 01:29PM >>>
On Thursday 07 February 2002 12:59 pm, Troy.A Johnson wrote:
> >>>Quoting Joel Rosenberg (joelr at ellegon.com): 
>> And when would be a better time to persuade
>> people not to use the "swiss cheese of emailers"?
>When there's a viable alternative -- from their POV. Read Jerry Pournelle's 
>columns, for example. Jerry hates the flaws in Outlook, but he finds some of 
>its features unavailable elsewhere, and very handy.  
>If, say, Evolution could do the hard stuff -- handling of task assignments 
>and meeting requests -- it would be a viable alternative for a lot of folks.  
>Right now, it's just a nice email program that sort of looks like Outlook. 
>Ditto for sylpheed.  

I've read Pournelle, and while 
I do have some respect for him, I don't 
agree with everything he has to say.

The message I'm getting is "Don't use 
the stick until you have a really good 
carrot to go with it". I don't agree. Let 
someone else grow and prepare the 
carrots, but bring on the sticks if you've 
got 'em. Soften 'em up.
 
>> > and it is the standard.
>> It is definitely NOT "the standard".
>I guess we're arguing about definitions here.  I do think that it is the 
>standard in the business world, for example, and that millions of people use it.
>Is it good?  Well, in many respects, no; in some respects, sure.  Is it the 
>standard?  Yes.  Does it use the MIME standards by default?  Nah. 

Yes. We mean very different things when 
we say "the standard". Is it the standard? No.

>>Is vCal going to go anywhere soon?
>I doubt it.  If you look at where the heavy development in the open source 
>world is, it's not for point-and-click tools to make the life of business 
>users easier.  

As far as I know, vCal isn't about 
'point-and-click' anything. It is a calendaring 
exchange format/protocol standard. It 
could be perverted into a data storage 
format for such information also, and 
so provide a backend to any calendaring 
program. vCard is it's well known cousin.

>To take another, minor example, look at the difference between what's 
>available for PDAs in Windows apps -- let's not even discuss easily 
>available; I still can't get mail to synchronize -- vs. Linux.  

Don't know about that, myself. Maybe someone 
else does...