Andrew:
The Exchange interoperability one is, certainly. Which makes sense, I guess. It's not available yet (due early 2002) and will be priced at $69 ($599 for 10 pack, $1499 for 25 pack). Personally, I'm in favour of this: build a great free client, and then charge a "Microsoft tax" for those people that insist on hooking up to non-free groupware servers.
Can it really cut the mustard, though? It's little use doing this if it's not going to make money. If it's not open and there are bugs in it, are people going to blame the MS server or the small company's connector? While I know where we'd point the finger, I don't think your typical PHB would agree.
[...] Use the money to fund development of a decent free groupware server, perhaps.
Now that would be worth seeing.
I think Evolution *is* a case of doing one thing and doing it well. [...]
Reportedly, it's actually a gaggle of little bits with sometimes questionable cohesion and bad control over its components. Is having PIM and email in one location desirable? I find it quite helpful keeping them apart, although having better connectivity to the PIM would be very useful.
[...] As a matter of fact, I'm back to using the mail client I started off with in 1992, which is still the best IMHO :-)
Surely that's just the old cliche that "normal is whatever I'm used to". I don't think PINE is really where it's at any more. It shows it age in some ways and is still non-free, isn't it?
On Tue, 4 Dec 2001, MJ Ray wrote:
Can it really cut the mustard, though? It's little use doing this if it's not going to make money. If it's not open and there are bugs in it, are people going to blame the MS server or the small company's connector? While I know where we'd point the finger, I don't think your typical PHB would agree.
Valid points. One would hope a company like Ximian would appreciate those risks and would be certain to release a rock-solid bulletproof piece of software. Let's be honest, they'd have a long way to go to make it *worse* than Outlook.
Reportedly, it's actually a gaggle of little bits with sometimes questionable cohesion and bad control over its components.
That certainly showed through when I was using it - at times the HTML engine would fall in a heap (why did they not use Moz?!) whilst the rest of it kept on running. Sadly, the HTML was so deeply integrated you'd have to restart anyway. Maybe the release version is better?
Is having PIM and email in one location desirable? I find it quite helpful keeping them apart, although having better connectivity to the PIM would be very useful.
Well, like I say, depends on the environment. For you, keeping things seperate works. But most PHBs I've seen live their lives through their diary, so integrating it with their mail client makes a lot of sense. Especially if you add more groupware facilities.
Surely that's just the old cliche that "normal is whatever I'm used to". I don't think PINE is really where it's at any more. It shows it age in some ways and is still non-free, isn't it?
No, it's not the old cliche, it's a case of "I tried mutt for a year and it just didn't float my boat" followed by "I tried Evolution for three months and it ate my inbox". The other clients I've used have had singularly ugly and unfriendly interfaces, so I'm back to pine.
The license is unfortunate:
Copyright 1989-2001 by the University of Washington.
You may compile and execute these programs for any purpose, including commercial, without paying anything to the University of Washington, provided that the legal notices are maintained intact and honored.
... but then again, it's STILL better than the Microsoft stuff. And it hasn't prevented plenty of people using in.
Andrew.
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Andrew Savory -
MJ Ray