The Old Joel on Software Forum: Part 4 (of 5) - Free News Software Integrated with Outlook 2003

Free News Software Integrated with Outlook 2003

Does anyone know of a good, free newsreader that integrates with Outlook 2003? I'm tired of having to flip flop between Outlook and Outlook express for my mail and news.

Richard
Friday, January 30, 2004

newsgator? not free, but why should it be.

mb
Friday, January 30, 2004

Forte Free Agent does both

bynarr
Saturday, January 31, 2004

I've been toying with the idea of writing one, myself. The major thing stopping me is the whole "who would care?" question, and the idea that it would take a lot of work that I might better spend doing something else. Newsreaders and email programs are traditionally free, these days, so it doesn't look like there's a worthwhile market for this.

Free software is not always a good thing. I had a great email program I was writing, once. Then everything became free, and I just threw up my hands and mothballed it. I can't afford to do things this extensive that aren't even going to pay the bills.

Caliban Tiresias Darklock
Saturday, January 31, 2004

You can, however, fight against open source.

Help open the eyes of open source programmers, and make them understand that they are destroying their own jobs.

Yes, Linux, RMS, ESR, and a handful of other "open source rock stars" will have dream jobs, while the average programmer wages will go down a lot because of all the open source and free software available.

OSS advocates are very, very vocal.

Some people, however, understand that while OSS may be great if you look only at the technical side of things, it destroys programming as a profitable profession.

Doctors and lawyers and mechanical engineers and plumbers don't work actively to destroy their own jobs! Instead, they protect them!

So - people who are aware of the OSS impact on our jobs, please speak up, and fill the message boards!

We should be as vocal as the OSS advocates are.

Row
Sunday, February 1, 2004

I have something of a dilemma with regard to open source.

I think everyone, everywhere, should open up all of their source code to the world and let everybody see it. I think that should be considered normal.

What I don't agree with is the idea that the world should also be allowed to make all the copies they want and modify it and paste it into their own stuff and sell it.

OSS has taken these two things and smashed them together. I don't think that's rational. The first argument is a technical argument, and the second is a political argument. And whenever someone stomps all over the political argument, the OSS people pull out the technical argument and pretend it somehow justifies the political one.

I think "open source" should mean exactly what it says: you are guaranteed to have ready access to all of the supported source at all times. Beyond that, it's a political question, and I think the technical community should stay out of it.

Caliban Tiresias Darklock
Sunday, February 1, 2004

I tried NewsGator with my Outlook 2003 and it was good, apart from two problems.

1) It stopped my Norton AntiSpam from working.
2) You can't post to newsgroups through it.

These problems make it a bit of a non-starter for me.

Steve Jones (UK)
Tuesday, February 3, 2004