Move over Google Groups. A company called Mark Logic are using the Mozilla newsgroups/mailing lists (and those of other projects such as Apache and PHP) in order to show off their (like Google Groups, proprietary) product which indexes and allows for structured searching of email and other information. And I must say, it's very nice. Searches produce sane results, and I particularly like the Ajax-y message reading UI which slides sideways in an iPoddy way as you drill down to individual messages. My only complaint is that the "thread pane" above the message pane isn't actually threaded.
There are cute touches too. If you want an email address, you have to type in the text of a double captcha, and the form has two buttons: "Submit" and "Beats Me". :-)
Just to round things off: I got the biopsy report from my surgeon a week or so ago. It's the sort of document where you like seeing words like "unremarkable", "uniform" and "without abnormality". The headline news is that the tumour was 5.8cm across, but there was only one of it; nothing else they took out showed any evidence of metastasis (under 0.7cm breadslicing). He said that my liver will already have mostly grown back to the original size. I'm recovering well and feel better every day.
Apparently I have, or rather had, a very nice ("velvety and uniform") gall bladder. The gall bladder is attached to the right lobe, so it had to come out too. However, I'm told that they aren't essential, like electric windows or air conditioning, and so I should be fine without.
So we now return, at least for the moment, to your regularly scheduled programming. The future remains certain.
The Free and Open-source Software Developers' European Meeting is on the horizon. The Mozilla project will, as usual, have a large presence and a developer room with a talk track. Entrance is free, and cheap accommodation is available in Brussels if you are quick. As conferences go, this is as grassroots and low-expense as it gets, while still being of extra high quality. If you live in or near Europe, make your plans now.
I just wrote this as a comment on "Freedom to Tinker":
Gerv's 2008 Predictions:
G1) Someone will sue an open source company, organisation or individual of significant community visibility for patent infringement over a specified patent implemented in their open source software, in a USA jurisdiction. A large fuss will ensue.
G2) A commercial product (software or otherwise) will ship using OpenStreetMap as its primary data source.
G3) The first lawsuit will be brought against a product developer for violating one of the new parts of GPLv3 or LGPLv3. The plaintiff will win, either in court or by settlement.
G4) In at least one major Western democracy, it will be impossible for Joe Public to get an entirely unfiltered Internet feed just because he wants one.
G5) The unstoppable kingdom of Christ will continue to advance, like a seed growing in secret. (Hey, everyone includes an easy one, right? :-)
Someone remind me to look at these in early 2009...