Confessions of a Capitalist Luddite
At the risk of your ensuing your wrath, I will admit it, I am a Windows user. Flame on. The reality is that I am not a geek, and have certain requirements that keep me on Windows. For example, at home I am burdened with a two-way satellite connection by Direcway--which does not support Linux. Please don't suggest I write a driver, I am more likely to climb the trees along my driveway and string the 440 yards of cable I need to connect to my local cable provider. Why not MAC? I am seriously considering it. Don't even think about me installing a server at home, in that regard, I am a card-carrying Luddite.
Confessions aside, I am truly trying to limit my dependence on Redmond. I use Firefox, Skype, Typo3, Open-Xchange, and OpenOffice. I probably touch many other Linux/Open Source products that I don't even realize, from my home to my office. Like most marketeers that are the scorn of developers, I don't really care what operating system runs my phone, I just want it to work, and I don't want Redmond to benefit from it.
I have a vested interest in seeing Linux take market share from Microsoft. I am a capitalist, and generally believe that most Linux and Open Source executives are as well. If you want to debate this, then ask yourself why the VCs invest in companies like SugarCRM, XenSource, and Collax? But, I digress.
Capitalists, where is the Open Source equivalent of Outlook? Please, don't give me a list of products that run on Linux desktops, I am asking about a Windows offering. What better way to ease people from their mindless dependence on Windows than to break their dependence on their calendar, contact, and off-line mail system? Google can break the back-end for the consumer, but most of us still want to have a client application. I have to be able to work with my mail, contacts, and calendar when I am un-tethered from the Internet (on a plane, by my pool, at my dad's house, in a bad hotel). In addition, I have to be able to synchronize with corporate email, CRM, and my Treo. This could be the first step. Call it "Outlast." Grab market share and then tempt the uninitiated with more open source applications.
There probably are some projects out there that are addressing this. I am just too busy (or perhaps lazy) to find them and test them out. But, a new year is coming and I am planning my resolutions early; I am ready to break my dependence... step by step, inch by inch (and don't call me a stooge).
> Capitalists, where is the Open Source
> equivalent of Outlook? Please, don't
> give me a list of products that run on
> Linux desktops, I am asking about a
> Windows offering.
Yeah, I'd like to see a Windows port of Evolution. For that matter, I'd like to see the entire Gnome Desktop ported over as a native Windows "replacement shell". KDE is already doing it, and I may have to run that instead of my preferred Gnome if a Gnome port is not forthcoming.
Evolution is supposed to be a replacement for LookOut! I have been running on my Windows test device for a few months now. I have not used Windows for more than testing and games for over 6 years now, so I don't know how much of MS Virus Spreader is duplicated, but it might be worth trying.
Evolution for Win32. Looks alot like Outlook. Here's the Link -> http://shellter.sourceforge.net/evolution/
There is a single package installer - you just need to look around. I got it running on XP last week at work. Seems to work pretty well.
Mozilla Thunderbird should atleast cover email aspects of Outlook.
Why in the world would someone who works of Free Software want to port it to windows?
It defeats the purpose in _so_ many ways...
You'd better get started coding and stringing that cable...
I wrote (and use) yMail for Windows. It's not open source but it is freeware. The contacts part of the program is not crash hot, but the calendar and email parts work well, particular the spam filtering.
Thanks for all your comments, I did find evolution for windows. I installed it and have been having some problems with basic things like importing contacts. I will spend more time with it over the upcoming weeks and keep you posted.
Also, re: Why would someone that works of Free Software want to port it to windows? Ever considered why Firefox runs on windows?
"Why in the world would someone who works of Free Software want to port [Evolution] to windows?"
You know, I thought the same at first. But then, the first step towards Linux is to spread the "addiction seeds" - applications - in the minds of Windows users. Applications like Firefox, Evolution, even GIMP are good examples.
When people get to know them and get comfortable using said applications, it would be easier to switch to another OS - possibly Linux. Remember, it's the data and applications that matter!
One doesn't learn a foreign language for example, just by going to another country. It may work in some cases, that's true. But it's much better to learn at least the basics first and then use the posessed knowledge to learn even more. In ideal world all would already be using free OS'es for a long time. However, that is not the case (yet). But one baby step at a time and it may actually happen :-)