MESSAGE
| DATE | 2002-11-07 |
| FROM | Michael Richardson
|
| SUBJECT | RE: [hangout] next gen OS
|
With the pen and paper I have a choice of the type of pen (ballpoint,
fountain, quill or other type, color of ink, paper (bond, linen, stock or
other type) color, size and weight. With legacy file systems you have the
choice of how the files look and are arranged. If all the information had
the same look, feel and arrangement I would get very bored. Variety is the
spice of life. With a universal system I would be unable to try new things
(no unapproved innovations) or a different way of doing something. A
universal platform is saying there is only one way to do things.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Connolly [mailto:RConnolly-at-natsource.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 1:05 PM
To: 'Michael Richardson'; Ray Connolly
Cc: 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
what are the options now beside the legacy file system model or a pen and
paper?
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Richardson [mailto:MRICHARDSON-at-abc.state.ny.us]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:57 PM
To: 'Ray Connolly'; Michael Richardson
Cc: 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
The idea that there should be only one way to store and view all
information.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Connolly [mailto:RConnolly-at-natsource.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:59 PM
To: 'Michael Richardson'
Cc: 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
what idea Mike? a new way to create, store, maintain, and recall data??????
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Richardson [mailto:MRICHARDSON-at-abc.state.ny.us]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:53 PM
To: 'Ray Connolly'; 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
this idea removes a persons freedom to chose.
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Connolly [mailto:RConnolly-at-natsource.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 12:00 PM
To: 'Michael Richardson'; 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
i don't get ur point
this is not a *new* idea
-----Original Message-----
From: Michael Richardson [mailto:MRICHARDSON-at-abc.state.ny.us]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 11:48 AM
To: 'Ray Connolly'; 'nylxs'
Subject: RE: [hangout] next gen OS
What ever you are on can I have some?
-----Original Message-----
From: Ray Connolly [mailto:RConnolly-at-natsource.com]
Sent: Thursday, November 07, 2002 11:39 AM
To: 'nylxs'
Subject: [hangout] next gen OS
Are there any comprable free software projects like this? As great as this
sound his view of good and bad is scary...
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/11/07/technology/circuits/07soft.html
Forget the Files and the Folders: Let Your Screen Reflect Life
By DAVID GELERNTER
THE end of the Microsoft trial is great news whatever you think of the
defendant - because the trial was all about the past, and we in the
technology world have no more time to waste on that topic.
The trial focused on Microsoft's Windows operating system - on the power
Microsoft gets from Windows' huge worldwide penetration; on the burdens that
other software companies bear because of their limited access to the Windows
software; on accusations that Microsoft was suppressing innovation. The
courts have officially labeled the gigantic software company a monopoly, and
Microsoft will be subject to careful scrutiny for abusive activity.
Meaanwhile, operating systems are lapsing into senile irrelevance. An
operating system connects the user (and the user's software) to the ensemble
of machines we call a computer. But nowadays users no longer want to be
connected to computers. They want to be connected to information, a claim
that sounds vague but is clear and specific.
Every piece of digital information you own or share will appear (in the near
future) in one universal structure. (Just ask Bill Gates: as he said
cogently last July, "Why are my document files stored one way, my contacts
another way and my e-mail and instant-messaging buddy list still another,
and why aren't they related to my calendar or to one another, and easy to
search en masse?") A universal structure demands universal access: you'll be
able to tune in this structure from any Net-connected computer anywhere.
I have time for only one screen in my life. That screen had better give me
access to everything, everywhere.
What is this universal information structure? A narrative stream, which
says, "Let me tell you a story. " The system shows you a 3-D stream of
electronic documents flowing through time. The future (where you store your
calendar, reminders, plans) flows into the present (where you keep material
you're working on right now) and on into the past (where every e-mail
message and draft, digital photo, application, virtual Rolodex card, video
and audio clip and Web bookmark is stored, in addition to all those calendar
notes and reminders that used to be part of the future and have since flowed
into the past to be archived forever).
And so the organization of your digital information reflects the shape of
your life, not the shape of a 1940's Steelcase file cabinet. Storage space
and computing power are dirt cheap; our task isn't to "use them
efficiently," it's to "squander them creatively." Instead of searching
through your stream for some document, you focus it (as if you were focusing
an information beam - which is like a flashlight beam cutting through the
digital fog, except that the beam is made of information instead of light).
You wind up with a selection of documents, a "substream" that tells some
particular story. Your narrative stream as a whole consists of all the
interwoven stories that make up your life - your own personal ones as well
as the stories of all the groups and communities you belong to.
This kind of information management is simpler, more powerful and more
natural than the Steelcase-inspired software we've got today - the files,
the folders, the desktops and all those other high-tech office accessories
straight out of 1946.
How do I know it will work? Because our company has built it, and it does.
(A preliminary desktop version of narrative information management can be
downloaded free at our Web site, www.scopeware.com.) Microsoft has similar
goals for its Longhorn system, but Longhorn won't be available for two
years. We needed one-screen narrative information management yesterday. Our
software is up and running today.
Windows is no tool for the future and doesn't claim to be. Technology's
future can't possibly be based on treating computers as if they were
hyped-up desks and file cabinets - passive pieces of ugly furniture.
Computers are active machines, and information-management software had
better treat them that way. But Windows can play a central role in giving
the future a leg up. It can supply a stable, ubiquitous platform for the
future to stand on.
We built our system on Microsoft Windows because Windows is a reliable,
solid, reasonably priced, nearly universal platform - and for the software
future, "universal" is nonnegotiable. We need to run the system on as many
computers as possible and manage the maximum range of electronic documents.
Of course, another operating system, Linux, is also clamoring for attention.
Linux and Windows are both children of the 70's: Linux grew out of Unix,
invented by AT&T; Windows is based on the revolutionary work of Xerox
research. In technology years, these loyal and devoted operating systems are
each approximately 4,820 years old. (Technology years are like dog years,
only shorter.)
Each is nonetheless still solid enough to be a good, steady platform for the
next step in software. But Windows is the marketplace victor and has now won
a decisive legal imprimatur. There is no technical reason for us to move to
Linux; why should we switch? Why should our customers?
Some argue for Linux on economic and cultural grounds: Microsoft, people
say, has driven up prices and suppressed innovation. But this is a ticklish
argument at best: after all, over the decade of Microsoft's hegemony,
computing power has grown cheaper and cheaper. Innovation has thrived. Our
software is innovative; it has not been suppressed. On the contrary, more
and more people get interested.
Operating systems are the moldy basements of computing. We used to live down
there, but are now moving upstairs to healthier quarters. We rely on the
courts and antitrust laws to keep Microsoft from abusing its enormous power.
We need Microsoft itself to be the universal stepladder that lets us climb
out of our hole and smell the roses.
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
____________________________
New Yorker Free Software Users Scene
Fair Use -
because it's either fair use or useless....
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