Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

scriptingNews outline for 4/19/2000

Author:Dave Winer
Posted:4/19/2000; 5:08:08 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 4/19/2000
Msg #:16399
Prev/Next:16398 / 16400

Survey: If you run a weblog, which tool do you use most often or are most satisfied with?

A new weblog covering SOAP.

vunet: "Gartner predicts that 70 percent of e-services will use SOAP by 2003." Don't miss the value of connections between desktop apps and servers through XML-RPC and SOAP.

9/12/99: An end to the Uber-Operating System: "More concisely, the purpose of XML-RPC is to end once and for all, the idea that there can or should be one operating system for all. No more über-operating systems, and no press releases claiming über-ness! Thank you very much."

Joel Spolsky: "Everybody in Silicon Valley seems to be talking about Charlie, the gourmet cook at Google who used to work for Jerry Garcia."

New My.UserLand Channel: Linux Magazine.

News.Com: Apple beats expectations, splits stock.

Wired: ICANN Inches Toward New Domains. Oh good, something else to fight about.

Question: If Apache is MS-DOS, what is Lotus 1-2-3?

Perl.Com: What's New in 5.6.0. "Everyone's favourite Swiss Army Chainsaw is coming up to thirteen years old now, and would be about to show the world a brand new face for the new millennium if that didn't start next year instead of this one."

Macromedia: Dreamweaver Exchange is "the place to get easy-to-install extensions, learn how to get the most out of them, and even create your own."

Cameron Barrett is looking for one or two more Mozilla developers to help with the Mozilla weblog.

David Carter-Tod has $5K he has to spend by Friday. He needs your help. ";->"

iStockphoto.com has royalty-free stock images.

Oliver Briedenbach started a WWDC weblog.

What's that ASP page running?

Another thought. I'm thinking of starting Dave Winer University. We would teach community oriented software engineering. There would be one class to start. UI Design Tools 701. We would start with a working C source base and I would teach the class how to create an innovative software product. Free tuition. Prereq: Advanced C programming.

Eric Soroos: Seattle MPFUG Meeting April 25.

Browser Security Hole in MSIE5/Mac? "It appears this bug came back in Internet Explorer 5.0 for the Macintosh."

Chaz Larson narrows it down to MRJ 2.2.

Companies I like to work with

Even though we have a long-term working relationship with Microsoft in distributed computing (some might call it a partnership), I have never felt that that relationship was jeopardized by pointing out problems in their products, or otherwise criticizing them. With other companies, I go ahead and say what I think, but many of them won't work with UserLand as a result. Sometimes it seems as if criticism brings Microsoft closer. This is one of their strengths. They aren't scared of criticism.

My philosophy, probably shared with Microsoft, it doesn't matter so much what people say about you -- it matters what you actually do. If I point out an opportunity or problem, and you act on it, it makes you stronger. Therefore, intelligent criticism is a good deal, a win-win. I like it because it gives me leverage on my intelligence. I can't do everything, and I know it. But I get pleasure from using good products, and I like the feeling I get when I helped make a product work better. I'd like to create a list of companies that agree with this, those are the companies I want to work with.

BTW, based on recent experience, I'd say that Cobalt Networks falls into this category. I'll give them more coverage when they come through on their promises, but let me say this, if they do, we'll have more interesting stuff about Cobalt and other Linux vendors here, starting early summer.

Now, more discussion of Conxion

10:55AM: I got a response from Steve Martin at Conxion.

Dan Gillmor: "If Conxion is getting rid of a customer because of the customer's statements, that's not smart business for Conxion in the long run, even though it's legal."

More comments. First, we not only make the software that runs Dan's site, we also host it. So an ISP outage like the one with Conxion could have knocked Dan off the air too. Second, Conxion has never given us a reason for the termination. We've heard about their statements from reporters, which varies widely depending on who they're talking to and when, but their April 12 letter doesn't provide a reason, and there has been no response to the email I sent or the postings here. Third, if it is, as they said to Dan, an issue of economics, why the abruptness? Why not a grace period for a long-term customer who has to make a forced transition?

Dan also says: "I'm working on a column discussing the power of ISPs relative to their customers." I suggest that Conxion empower someone to work out an amicable exit here, so we can say that Conxion, in the end, did the right thing.

And finally, Dan says that I'm a friend. I agree! Friends don't run away from disconnects, they have the courage to go into them, and learn, and if it's done well, the friendship is stronger for it. Thank you Dan, I am very glad to be working with you, web person to web person. I care that you work for the SJ Merc, only sofar as some people, like Conxion, take you more seriously than they take me. I hope that in the future Scripting News will be as respected a name as the Merc, but at least with some people, we are not there yet.

I like to close with group hug stuff

Joshua Brauer: "Possibly the first "group hug" on the Internet was the Oklahoma City Bombing Sympathy Card. BTW it's a site that was made possible by Frontier, especially when the original ISP shut it down, Frontier made it easy to move it to my own server which I ran by that time. People really said some beautiful things in those pages."

Thanks to Sheila, this news from Reuters reminds us that in Vienna, they have excellent Wiener Schnitzel.



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