SubEthaEdit

August 26, 2003 11:11 AM

Hydra, the much-loved Rendevous-enabled collaborative text editor, recently ran into legal trouble over their use of a common proper noun (sound familiar?), so for a time they were simply named #####. But no more; say hello to SubEthaEdit! Hmmm. Very ... hitchhiker.
posted by brownpau (17 comments total)

Followup: It's a Mac OS X app, of course, and yes, I'm aware that "common proper noun" is an oxymoron. Links via Macslash
posted by brownpau at 11:14 AM on August 26, 2003

What's with putting Edit at the end? Hydra wasn't called HydraEdit (thankfully) so this app should be Subetha. Which is still a bad name, but it's a little cleaner.

It's too bad. The app is great, icon is great, but the name is like something for Linux. (shudder)
posted by jragon at 11:19 AM on August 26, 2003

Adams posited something he called the "SubEthaNet"; presumably, "SubEthaEdit" is the tool you use to edit on said "information sharing thing"...

Just curious - who threatened them with galactic extinction if they didn't change the product name?
posted by JollyWanker at 11:32 AM on August 26, 2003

Who uses the Hydra name?

Hydra, Hydra, Hydra, Hydra...
posted by me3dia at 11:39 AM on August 26, 2003

Damn that looks slick. Wish it wasn't just for OS X...
posted by thebabelfish at 12:03 PM on August 26, 2003

Their news page gives more on the Douglas Adams connection.
posted by jamespake at 12:04 PM on August 26, 2003

Rendezvous (zeroconf) is open sourced, but so far there are only one or two demo apps available for the PC, which is sad.

I never thought rendezvous was all that special until I attended a conference with hundreds of other mac owners, and realized the power in local numbers. Taking notes, sharing info, and even communicating what to eat for lunch was incredibly easy and impossible without rendezvous.
posted by mathowie at 12:23 PM on August 26, 2003

. . . who threatened them with galactic extinction

Mess with Hydra at your peril!
posted by yerfatma at 12:30 PM on August 26, 2003

Damn that looks slick. Wish it wasn't just for OS X...

"Driving is so much fun. If only it didn't require a car..."
posted by jjg at 12:48 PM on August 26, 2003

"Driving is so much fun. If only it didn't require a car..."

It doesn't. You can also drive a truck or a lawnmower or a motorcycle. But this particular application only works on Mac. What's the snark for?
posted by jpoulos at 12:55 PM on August 26, 2003

Okay, let's try it this way then:

"This software looks great. If only there were a means by which an average consumer such as myself could acquire the hardware to run it..."
posted by jjg at 2:41 PM on August 26, 2003

Yeah, anybody got any suggestions for similar collaborative software on Win32? That looks rad, and we do a buttload of XP-esque peer programming around here.
/derail
posted by John Shaft at 3:01 PM on August 26, 2003

If only there were a means by which an average consumer

That might actually be worse. Now it sounds like Mac owners cannot be "average" users. If the original comment were about a video game on one system (let's say X-Box) that the commenter thought was attractive but he or she unfortunately possessed a Playstation 2, would you have said the same thing? There doesn't seem to be a reason this software could not be exist on other, less amazing operating systems.
posted by yerfatma at 5:09 PM on August 26, 2003

That's exactly my point. If the post were about video games, the original comment wouldn't even have been made, because everyone knows the deal: you wanna play Halo, you gotta buy an Xbox. Wishing it were otherwise is pointless.
posted by jjg at 5:25 PM on August 26, 2003

And yet someone is now putting Halo out on the PC. Perhaps the same could be trick could be accomplished here.
posted by yerfatma at 7:01 PM on August 26, 2003

Plus, a game console costs a couple hundred bucks, and anyone who is a gamer of any caliber can generally afford to buy one of each. Macs, on the other hand, can get kind of pricey. Asking someone to drop a couple thousand bucks on an over-designed machine just to run a text editor seems a bit much to me.

/me looks around at all the stupid Macs in his room, and the $600 machine that he actually uses to do stuff.

On the other hand, that does look pretty cool. Maybe I'll plug one of those in.
posted by majcher at 7:41 PM on August 26, 2003

yerfatma: by someone you mean Microsoft, the company who own the design house who produced Halo. They're also putting it out on OS X (good thing too since it's effectively a sequal to a load of amazing Mac games). Perhaps Halo is a bad example in this case since MS has more of a stake in both platforms than a bunch of German university students.
posted by nedrichards at 4:37 AM on September 14, 2003