BillyBreen

Love his writing style. Accessible yet detailed with fun historical tangents to set context.

I was hoping someone would reference that. One of my favorite Stross books, and a decade since reading it I frequently think back to it and worry about this mass of data we’re creating and obsoleting each year.

Wow, I had no recollection of that. My mistake.

Netscape never charged users. Perhaps you’re thinking of Opera.

The reasons IE won over Netscape are many, but bundling with dominant OS and embracing/extending standards such that sites only worked in IE was a big part of it. Heck, there was a whole antitrust case about just that.

I backed that project, and I really like the scissors I received. Terribly sad to hear about the all-too-human real-life difficulties with the firm.

I think you summed it up quite nicely.

I developed the original Mac port, I guess about 15 years ago now. I’m pretty conflicted as to what’s happened with Synergy recently, but not because I feel like there’s anything morally wrong in what Nick did. I’m more bummed out because it feels like a market failure, for lack of a better way of explaining it: how could a useful open source project, valued by many and (tbh) not terribly complex, require a pivot to a commercial license to remain viable?

I’m as guilty as any for not contributing anything beyond my initial port. But I’m still bummed it’s come to this.