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Monday, December 20, 1999
Who don't you want to piss off today? I'd say Clay Shirky, the open source maven whose excellent writings include this open letter to Microsoft. Sample: First, you need to understand that the operating system wars are over, and operating systems lost. Mac vs. Windows on PCs? Dead issue. Linux vs. NT? Nobody but geeks knows or cares what a web site is running on. There's no such thing as a "personal" computer any more — any computer I can get to Amazon on is my computer for as long as my hands are on the keyboard, and any operating system with a browser is fine by me. Intentionally introducing incompatibilities isn't a way to lock people in any more, its just a way to piss us off. Clay's site is filled with clues to spare. We highly recommend it. Tomorrow's issues today: David Strom's latest Web Informant suggests that too many of these Web-based "stores" flat-out lie to customers — even about some of the most easily-checked facts, such as whether or not an item has been shipped. A sample: The first email he received immediately: "Your order has been received and is being processed." Six hours later, he got another email: "Your order has been processed and has been forwarded to our warehouse." Twelve hours later, he got a third email: "Your order has been shipped by priority or first class mail". Ten days later, the package arrived with a postmark five days previous and five days after the last email was sent. While the frequent emails were a nice touch, the ten-day time span isn't. Prepare for a raft of post-holiday stories like this one.
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