Re: [ba-ohs-talk] Learning Groove
Eugene Eric Kim wrote: (01)
> Johannes Ernst wrote:
>> I keep hearing this discussion "Groove does not meet our requirements".
>> What I tend to hear is:
>> - lock into MS-only platform
>> - technically very difficult / expensive to extend (tools)
>> - closed protocols (cannot use non-Groove "servers" and peers")
>> - users do not want their shared files to disappear "into" Groove, need
>> to remain in file system
>> - too expensive for larger deployments
>> - (at least previously) too anarchic (read: "we work in IT and want to
>> be in control")
>>
>>Does this summarize it? If Groove was different in all / some /
>>(which?) of these aspects, would you use it? (02)
I reverse this list below as a set of requirements. Most all
need to be changed, and in looking at the OHS requirements
document that Eugene has published you'll see that Groove runs
counter to many of them. It's hardly atypical, sadly. We're
I believe watching the big, powerful dinosaurs of proprietary
technologies stomping out their death thralls, MS Word, Windows,
PDF, and other threats to information longevity and sharing.
Does anyone believe they'll be able to read a PDF document in
twenty years? Really? If not, then don't store your valuable
content in it. (03)
> I share all of the complaints you listed, but I am not religious about
> them. If the app is compelling enough, I will use it. QuestMap, a
> Windows 3.1 app, is one example. Of course, I have the luxury of being
> able to write programs to parse QuestMap data, which not everyone has.
> Tinderbox looks like something that might be compelling enough to buy,
> but I don't have a Mac. I haven't found Groove compelling enough to use,
> but maybe it's because I don't currently have good use for it. (04)
I guess I am religious about it then. I think anyone who's spent
$60 million on somethat that has those *types* of limitations is
part of a different religious movement than the one I consider
myself part of (quelling a quote from Groucho Marx...), ie., the
open source and open standard religion, the religion of sharing of
ideas and technologies rather than the deliberate (and rather
ignorant) lack of support for the Rest of Us using a "minority OS"
such as linux, Mac or Solaris (among the others). (05)
"On the other hand, developing in COM for Win/32 assured us
of "running out of the box" on the vast majority of PCs
(Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows 2000 or NT)." (06)
Comparing the approach taken on Groove with say, Tinderbox, which
was not developed with such available resources (coming from some
fine researchers making a go at a commercial venture) and will be
cross platform soon, I'll stick with the Tinderbox approach, they
can have their "vast majority" and I'm happy to not be part of it.
I agree with Michael Crusoe: it all sounds pretty narrow-minded
and conceited. Maybe they're a victim of their marketing department,
but that doesn't seem to be the case. (07)
Let me reverse the list describing Groove: (08)
- platform-independent
- technically simple / easy to extend (tools)
- open protocols
- users' files remain accessible and in file system, or easily
exported in round-trip fashion.
- scaleable for larger deployments
- flexible and highly configurable (09)
> Incidentally, I only run Windows 2000 for three things: QuestMap, PPTP
> (for accessing a client's VPN), and watching DVDs. The latest version of
> OpenOffice works well enough for me to use exclusively. xine has a ways
> to go, and I just haven't had time to configure a PPTP client for Linux
> yet. And if Mifflin ever became open source, I could hack it to use
> MySQL, and run that on Linux instead of QuestMap. (010)
We're just in the process of hiring someone to work full time on
improving Mifflin, so we can all look forward to seeing that happen.
I don't know if it'll be open source (I don't think that's been
discussed and the decision may be out of our hands), but it certainly
could provide a Java API that you could use. I'll mention this to
Simon as a possible avenue, and also ask about open sourcing it. (011)
Murray (012)
......................................................................
Murray Altheim <mailto:m.altheim @ open.ac.uk>
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK (013)
In the evening
The rice leaves in the garden
Rustle in the autumn wind
That blows through my reed hut. -- Minamoto no Tsunenobu (014)