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Is it relevant to mention that Ozzie was/is one of joelonsoftware's canonical examples of "Architecture Astronauts" (that is, someone whose idea of minimum viab

• lukestevens 16y ago
  Yes, particularly this post: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2008/05/01.html But Windows Live Mesh is not just a way to synchronize files. That's just the sample app. It's a whole goddamned architecture, with an API and developer tools and in insane diagram showing all the nifty layers of acronyms, and it seems like the chief astronauts at Microsoft literally expect this to be their gigantic platform in the sky which will take over when Windows becomes irrelevant on the desktop. And synchronizing files is supposed to be, like, the equivalent of Microsoft Write on Windows 1.0. It's Groove, rewritten from scratch, one more time. Ray Ozzie just can't stop rewriting this damn app, again and again and again, and taking 5-7 years each time. And the fact that customers never asked for this feature and none of the earlier versions really took off as huge platforms doesn't stop him.