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Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

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Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#51

Post by roosgit »

treprinum wrote: post #38
codetrotter wrote: post #9

> Susan Kare designed new vector graphics-based iconography, having designed the original Macintosh icons > […] > On March 13, 2001, Eazel simultaneously launched the first release of Nautilus (version 1.0), and laid off most of its 75 employees in an attempt to secure funding in its final few months. > […] > The Nautilus file manager was received positively, and has been incorporated into GNOME since GNOME version 1…

Who designed the icons in MacOS up to Mavericks and iOS 6? Those were IMO the peak icon design on Apple devices. Would be great to hire that person for some Linux UI.

I think Louie Mantia was an icon designer at Apple back then https://lmnt.me/. Maybe Sebastiaan de With as well https://sdw.space/.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#52

Post by Suppafly »

Bluestein wrote: post #48
Suppafly wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's generally talking about the page that comes up when you first open the browser, generally this is google or bing nowadays, or some portal your company or ISP redirects you to.

That homepage. Stand corrected. Thanks.-

yeah it might theoretically mean the first page they navigate to, but generally I think they mean the first page they start at. we had years of browsers and sites and malware all trying to hijack your homepage because it's valuable and often non-technical people don't know how to change it back and will just roll with it being what it is. I remember helping people who were confused if their homepage changed from aol or yahoo because they literally had no real concept of how to browse the internet and check their mail and such if the links weren't on the homepage.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#53

Post by bsimpson »

Interesting to read this in the context of COSMIC, a new Linux shell that just released a blog post celebrating their alpha release:

https://blog.system76.com/post/cosmic-alpha-released-heres-w...

The post hat-tips their "design system" - a term that didn't exist in 99, but sounds like a lot of the same type of work that Eazel would have been going through to invent a core app for a nascent OS.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#54

Post by breadwinner »

What "ex-Apple" Andy Hertzfeld is most famous for, is for being a co-founder of General Magic [1]. General Magic's social interface was seen as a threat by Microsoft, and they responded to the threat with Microsoft Bob [2]. Sun found the agent technology of General Magic interesting, and they responded with Oak, which later became Java [3]. After General Magic collapsed Hertzfeld founded Eazel. I remember attending an Eazel demo, and notably Hertzfeld did not have a good answer when someone in the audience asked "how will you make money?"

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Magic

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Bob

[3] https://www.tech-insider.org/java/research/1995/07.html

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#55

Post by eddieroger »

codetrotter wrote: post #28
peutetre wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if a new Eazel emerged tomorrow (another Linux-focused startup led by ex-Apple "rock stars"), how would they best contribute to the Linux desktop? Probably by joining elementary OS: https://elementary.io/

Or instead of Linux they could join something FreeBSD-based, like ravynOS https://ravynos.com/ > We love macOS, but we’re not a fan of the ever-closing hardware and ecosystem. So, we are creating ravynOS — an OS aimed to provide the finesse of macOS with the freedom of FreeBSD. Imagine former Apple employees joining them! That’d be so awesome!

The most recent release of ravyn seems to be from 2022. I'm not sure they'd take this on if they started tomorrow.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#56

Post by JeremyNT »

codetrotter wrote: post #9

> Susan Kare designed new vector graphics-based iconography, having designed the original Macintosh icons > […] > On March 13, 2001, Eazel simultaneously launched the first release of Nautilus (version 1.0), and laid off most of its 75 employees in an attempt to secure funding in its final few months. > […] > The Nautilus file manager was received positively, and has been incorporated into GNOME since GNOME version 1…

Quite a blast from the past!

I actually remember the arrival of Nautilus and how nice it was compared to the other similar utilities of the day.

It looks quite different these days, as GNOME has now flattened the heck out of everything (for better or worse) and killed off the buttons. However, much of that original design did live on within Nautilus for many years.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#57

Post by pxc »

Huh. I didn't realize there was an actual historical connection been at least some GNOME apps and Apple.

I guess this explains that god-awful default of opening every folder in a new window and the longtime lack of nice features present in competing, contemporaneous file managers (embedded terminal, tabs, split panes, etc.).

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#58

Post by kombine »

horsawlarway wrote: post #15
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

So extra context that may help at least understand the perspective: There was a considerable amount of overlap between the browser and the file manager originally. The notion of the modern day internet wasn't really here, and instead a lot of companies saw "browsing the web" as mostly equivalent to "browsing your files - but remotely". Even Microsoft did this - "Windows Explorer" (The file manager) and "Internet Expl…

KDE's first browser and file manager was also the same app - Konqueror.

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#59

Post by nsonha »

horsawlarway wrote: post #15
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

So extra context that may help at least understand the perspective: There was a considerable amount of overlap between the browser and the file manager originally. The notion of the modern day internet wasn't really here, and instead a lot of companies saw "browsing the web" as mostly equivalent to "browsing your files - but remotely". Even Microsoft did this - "Windows Explorer" (The file manager) and "Internet Expl…

I believe you could type a web address into Explorer and it loads the site... or the other way around, my memory is hazy

Re: Eazel, ex-Apple led Linux startup

#60

Post by DCH3416 »

horsawlarway wrote: post #15
tmountain wrote: post #3

I remember the hype when Nautilus first came out. I was a teenager, but even then, I had my doubts as to how a file manager make sense as the centerpiece for building a business. IIRC there were conversations about how to monetize it using premium add-ons which seemed pretty ridiculous at the time.

So extra context that may help at least understand the perspective: There was a considerable amount of overlap between the browser and the file manager originally. The notion of the modern day internet wasn't really here, and instead a lot of companies saw "browsing the web" as mostly equivalent to "browsing your files - but remotely". Even Microsoft did this - "Windows Explorer" (The file manager) and "Internet Expl…

It was more than that. If you look at beta builds of Windows 95* they essentially integrate outlook into explorer. Effectively you would have a hierarchy for each layer of internet communication available from the file management.

*http://toastytech.com/guis/chicago4.html

I guess they figured it would be more profitable to sell that as a standalone product in the office suite.

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