Evolution 0.3 Released

aleksey notes that HelixCode announced Evolution 0.3. With all the Napster-related news flooding us lately, it's nice to see some good news. Evolution is making great progress, and I'm probably not the only one itching for just enough stability to use it for a few days.

Comments

Evolution looks pretty good...

[Ron Harwood]

I can't tell if the mailer is just a pop/imap front end from the pages though... or is it something "special"...

Either way it looks pretty damn good.

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[FlyMuts]

Camel is a generic messaging library. It is being used as the back end for the mail component of Evolution.

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[itp]

Evolution is far more than just a pretty front end. Evolution is actually a shell which embeds several bonobo components, including including mail, contact management, a calendar, etc. It uses gtkhtml to compose your mail, giving you the choice (not: optional!) to send HTML formatted mail. It has highly advanced filtering, including the vFolder, a psuedo-folder based on a query of your mail (allowing you to create a "folder" with mail that matches certain parameters, gathered from other actual folders you may have).

For more information, please read the website at http://www.helixcode.com/apps/evolution.php3

--
Ian Peters

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[Mr. Slippery]

Evolution is actually a shell which embeds several bonobo components, including including mail, contact management, a calendar, etc.

Maybe I'm a dinosuar, but I do not at all understand why people want a mail program, calendar, et, all in one application. I want a good mail program - that's all. (I use exmh, which is pretty good.) If I wanted calendar or address book programs (I actually find dead trees better for my purposes, YMMV), I'd want programs that did just those things, not mail too.

Integrated programs are like Swiss Army knives - convenient, sure, but the saw on my SAK is not as good as the big-ass saw in the tool cabinet, the screwdrivers don't compare to the dozens of different sizes and shapes in the toolbox, the knife isn't as big or sharp as the chef's knife in the kitchen. Tools which do only one job can be much more powerful.

Good programs do one thing and do it well.

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[itp]

Good programs do one thing and do it well.

I understand where you're coming from, because I've had to use far too many large, bloated programs in the past that attempted to do and be everything for me, and it sucks.

Where Evolution is different is its use of the bonobo component architecture (something that more and more GNOME programs will begin to do). With Evolution, the different features are actually separate components, which communicate only through a well defined interface. If you only use the mail features, and not the calendar and addressbook, those components aren't loaded. However, when you're writing a mail message and need to look up an email address, an address book is a logical place to look, and a component architecture gives the level of integration required to let the two communicate, without forcing bloat onto users.

--
Ian Peters

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[stripes]

Where Evolution is different is its use of the bonobo component architecture (something that more and more GNOME programs will begin to do). With Evolution, the different features are actually separate components, which communicate only through a well defined interface. If you only use the mail features, and not the calendar and addressbook, those components aren't loaded.

With the VM system in Linux, NetBSD, FreeBSD, BSD/OS, OpenBSD, and pretty much all the comercial Unixices code pages that are not touched are not loaded (or at least give way to other pages that are touched). Making that pretty much a non-issue.

The real issue is, how hard is it to make a new component that has the address book's interfce, and make Evolution use it? And is the interface loose enough that that address book can be signifigantly diffrent from the default one?

I'm guessing the answers are "Yes", and "We hope so". But it would be nice to have something other then my guess...

without forcing bloat onto users.

There are many kinds of bloat. A big memory image is only one of them. Big source code is another (having well defined interfaces helps this a lot - not by making the code smaller, but by reducing the amount you need to understand to fix a little bug that's been bothering you, or add a feature you really want). Large numbers of little clicky widgets up on the screen that one might feel they need to klnow about, or lots of docs to read to find where they document the "delete messages with duplicate Message-IDs feature".

Bloat also has it's upside. Like having that delete dup messages feature. Or having fewer features one feels the need to add.

Re:Evolution looks pretty good...

[LetterRip]

"Maybe I'm a dinosuar, but I do not at all understand why people want a mail program, calendar, et, all in one application."

The main reason, is that it gives context to your appointments and todos. Thus, you email me a request to add feature foo to project bar. I schedule a todo and due date for it, with action needing to be taken one month from now (scheduling a reminder in calendar...). One month from now a reminder pops up to work on foo. With a single click, the original message pops up, giving me complete information on what I am supposed to do.

If you only have one or two tasks, deal only with a few people, and they are all fairly long term, then your method works fine. If you coordinate with a couple of hundered people a month (or more), tasks are scheduled days, weeks, months and even years in advance, and the time commitments for tasks varies from half an hour to weeks or months, then a more advanced and integrated methodology is prefered.

LetterRip

NEVER

[Ex Machina]

I WILL READ MY MAIL WITH MUTT FOREVER. Or until I can use Evolution remotely as easily as i can mutt (or elm or pine)

Re:NEVER

[battery841]

You bring up a good point,and I would like to use Evolution for remote purposes. However, there are a few things you can do.
First off, you can setup remote X sessions so you can have your X server running at work, and use Evolution at home, from work.
Second, there are interests for Evolution to have a web front-end that would integrate into Evolution. I could see them doing this really well because it would call wombat, the same stuff which Evolution itself calls. From what I know, there isn't development on this...yet. But I'm sure someone will spare the code.
I will switch to Evolution in the future, but I do feel very much the same way that you do about this.

Re:NEVER

[Evangelion]

First off, you can setup remote X sessions so you can have your X server running at work, and use Evolution at home, from work.

Seriously? Good luck getting an X session through your corporate firewall (you have to be able to access the IP of your workstation from your home machine - not only does this imply that your workstation actually has to have a public IP address (and not just a 192.168 internal IP), but you also have to convince your sysadmin to open up the firewall just so you can use thier bandwidth to run a remote X session from home.).

Just ssh there and use mutt/pine/elm...

Re:NEVER

[Stephen Samuel]

Obviously, you've never used SSH. It enables X forwarding over secure channels. Hopefully your firewall admin allows ssh outbound. Once you have that, you can ssh to your home machine (possibly through a bastion host/firewall) machine and then open an X windows session. At that point , you can run anything from an xterm to gimp (ghad that would be slow!).

Re:NEVER

[Evangelion]

I did not know that. But the key question now, is how can I get this working on windows, trying to run a remote Linux application =) Is there an X server app that supports this?

(Forced into using Word and Scrotus Notes...)

Re:NEVER

[sbeitzel]

How do you do that? This is offtopic, I know. But I've just installed ssh on my work servers and I've got it on my laptop. I'd love to be able to use X remotely, but I've no idea how to do it. Where should I go to find some instructions, particularly useful ones detailing what file(s) I need to edit (and what needs to be added/changed) and what program(s) (if any) I need to invoke?

Re:NEVER

[Airline_Sickness_Bag]

If you are running ssh, the X session will be tunneled through ssh - as long as you can ssh through a firewall, you can run an X session.

However, to run X remotely, you need alot of bandwidth. I've used lbxproxy with ssh from a remote site, and it was still *slow*. BTW, to use ssh + lbxproxy, do the following:

lbxproxy -display remotehostname:10.0 :2 &
setenv DISPLAY :2

and you are good to go.

Re:NEVER

[cloudmaster]

How do you do that?

tunneling vnc over ssh on *nix (use -c for compression) clients: http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/sshvnc.html and how to do it with a windows client http://www.uk.research.att.com/vnc/sshwin.html

Re:NEVER

[Pillager]

Well, if you can access your home box from work, you can always setup an SSH tunnel, and redirect the X port. Been there, done that. Works pretty well, except for the lag.

I'm sorry...

[Th3 D0t]

But I visited the website, and I can't quite figure out what evolution is, or what it has to do with napster. Something about GNOME? Perhaps CmdrTaco should give a little bit more background on his stories. Just another sentence fragment, like "..evolution, the automatic animated background generator for gnome, .."
---

Re:I'm sorry...

[darkonc]

Try reading the first link on the announcement page. It gives a pretty decent explanation.

Re:I'm sorry...

[nard]

I hope you are taking the piss.
Well if you have never heard of evolution where have you been?

I fully understand the subject of this story but i can see your point. A news article should be easy to read and understood by anybody.

Re:I'm sorry...

[Brento]

I don't know what Evolution is either, and all it would have taken was five or six words to keep me from wasting my time (or hitting a gold mine) by clicking on an external web link.

Every time Slashdot posts a software release without even the slightest hint of what the software is, what it does, or where it's from, I laugh. It's like a birth announcement in the paper that looks like this:

"6 pounds, 3 ounces. 11:42 AM. Healthy. Red hair. Missing right index fingernail."

There's something missing there - the name of the kid! That's about useless to me, because I have absolutely zero idea whose kid it is. The software equivalent is NOT the manufacturer, it's the purpose of the software. Don't overwhelm me with useless information.

Re:I'm sorry...

[nconway]

Every time Slashdot posts a software release without even the slightest hint of what the software is, what it does, or where it's from

There have been several (2 or 3) previous news stories about Evolution posted at Slashdot. I guess Taco assumed everyone was familiar with it - I certainly am. Besides, it takes about 10 seconds for those few people who aren't familiar with Evolution to go to the website and find out for themselves.

You are in the miniority, I would expect.

Re:I'm sorry...

[init1]

If you read the story again youd realize that the name is there. Its the weigth/length/hair color part which is missing.

Re:I'm sorry...

[HarryZink]

a) That information was clearly available in the links provided within the first few words.

b) Not only is this a case of RTFM (or CTFL), but I certainly am glad that Slashdot has not degenerated into a newsforum that caters to the lowest denominator crowd that needs to have information spoonfed, carefully, to them, and that requires help wiping their ass.

c) If you belong to that crowd, there are other news outlets for you. If you don't, you should be intelligent enough to follow a link, and read (and comprehend) text.

-Harry

Re:I'm sorry...

[Skeezix]

I personally don't think there should be an explanation of the terms used in every /. story. If you don't know what Evolution is, you can either choose to ignore the story, click on the appropriate links, or ask someone via a post. Learn to do a little research.
----

Re:I'm sorry...

[Th3 D0t]

a) CT changed the article to include the announcement link

b) I did follow the original link, RMFP

c) You're an asshole. This "point" is nothing but meaningless insults.

Finally, why would I have to be an idiot not to know what something was? I might be interested or not, but I can't know unless I know what it is in the first place, so how else do you suggest I find out about things? Unlike you I have better things to do than post/read slashdot and all it's FL all day.
---

Re:I'm sorry...

[Th3 D0t]

Thanks.
---

Screenshots?

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Where are the pics?

As I understand it, Evolution will be a Outlook replacement--that is, you can use Evolution on Linux to connect to an Exchange server. You can see your email, your contacts, your schedule, etc.

I'm very very interested in this. From my sig (today and over the past couple of months) you can tell that my company has a server that runs on Linux (and Tru64 and AIX) that you can connect to from Exchange and Outlook on Windows. Unfortunately we can't do the Outlook specific stuff yet (contacts, task list, calendar/schedule, etc). Hopefully being able to use/view/test the Evolution code will help us there.

Actually, all that Outlook-stuff is really done in the MAPI driver. The server doesn't really have to know anything (except for the workgroup stuff like sharing schedules). My question for the Evolution team is: Are you going to release a separate "MAPI driver for Linux" piece?
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!

Re:Screenshots?

[Griim]

As I understand it, Evolution will be a Outlook replacement

Does this mean it will allow email the ability to delete stuff and make disastrous, system-wide changes, or will this still be based on the Honor System?

Re:Screenshots?

[Hammer]

I'm afraid that, since it's not running on WinSlop, it must be based on the Honor System.
There are areas where the Evil Empire are way ahead of Linux. I do not think that we will ever be able to catch up with the advanced "features" of Outlook ;-)

Re:Screenshots?

[johnnyproton]

http://www.helixcode.com/imagewrap.php3?image=apps /evolution-screenshots/evoluti on_inbox.jpg

Look at the handshake icon for the Contact list! What the hell is that?

Re:Screenshots?

[CMiYC]

My question for the Evolution team is: Are you going to release a separate "MAPI driver for Linux" piece?

If you actually looked at the Evolution website, you'd have the answers to your questions. NO, Eveolution will NOT allow you to connect to an Exhcange server (at first). It is NOT just a mere replacement for Outlook.

---

Re:Screenshots?

[AndyElf]

While a picture is, indeed, worth a thousand words, it is much better to go there and check out the real thing.

It is quite nice, but not ready to everyday use: not everything seems to work (I was not able to ffetch mail from my IMAP server, does not seem to want to receive even local mail, etc). it is noce to see where it is going tho. But it is a LONG way from there still, I'd say.

It does not seem like all the nice components from some existing apps had made it there yet: I was unable to set a due date on a to-do item, while I can do that in GNOME Calendar. On the other hand, Contacts are MUCH better that that crappy little GNOME Address Book.

It is also very nice to see that the thing actually does send mail, even though it could not receive it right (thanks to good old mutt I was able to see that it was sent and delivered).

Pitty I cannot 'detach' a message and see it in a separate window (yet, I guess). Printing is not working yet either (I got a nice black rectangle for text).

Don't treat it as a formal review -- this is not. I just tried to make a point that eye candy is good, but what it tells you?

Re:Screenshots?

[bonk]

You, sir, have a very sick mind.

My guess it is either somneon masturbating or someone opening a bottle of wine.

I think it supposed to be 2 hands shaking, but it isn't done very well.

File format?

[Evangelion]

There doesn't seem to be much mention about how this stores mail. One of the (very few) things that was nice about Balsa was that it used libmutt to store mail. So, I could access my email from either Balsa or Mutt, without worrying about one even subtly messing it up for the other, and it working seamlessly from both. Which is nice when I had to ssh to my box from work (and I send most email from xterm -e mutt in X anyway...).

Is there any hope of accessing Evolution's data files from a console-based program with any grace at all? Or, once I start using it, do I always have to have an X session available to use it?

Re:File format?

[battery841]

From my experience with CVS releases of Evolution, the file format seems compatible with other applications. I have copied my mbox (very important to me, 2000 some emails), into the Evolution directory so it was in a folder called Read. I loaded Evolution and loaded the Read folder, which displayed that file. It showed my 2000 some emails perfectly. I was able to read some old emails. It even thread them for me (threading isnt properly working totally right now). I haven't taken an Evolution email box and had mutt open it. But let me try that now. When I try to load it, it says "Mailbox is unchanged". I am not totally sure what that means. I will look into this, and possibly pester the developers to make it compatible :)

Re:File format?

[itp]

Evolution stores mail in any of a large number of ways, including as Unix mbox files.

--
Ian Peters

Re:File format?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, Evolution can use mbox format, but it can also use its own fast searchable database format (actually, I'm not sure whether it's really "its own" or borrowed from something else. But in any case, it's not Mutt, MH, mbox, or some other quasi-standard for mail storage).

But you should still be able to use a console-based program: Evolution is totally componantized, and should eventually have a console front-end to the backend componants (there are already people looking into creating one, although I only heard about this from a previous slashdot post so who knows).

Re:File format?

[AndyElf]

When I try to load it, it says "Mailbox is unchanged"

All it means, if I remember correctly, is that mut opened the mailbox and did not find any new mail there.

So, I guess you may say that you successfully proved the inter-operability of Evo and mutt.

Outlook vs. Evolution

[ClayJar]

This is wonderful news. Having worked a year at my current job, I can definitely say that anything that replaces Outlook/Exchange with something better is welcome here.

I just want to be sure of one thing: Evolution can show me the full mail headers easily, right? (The main reason, other than server problems, that I don't like Outlook; some versions I can't find the full headers, and other versions make me jump through hoops to get to them.)

Re:Outlook vs. Evolution

[AstroJetson]

On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.

Re:Outlook vs. Evolution

[AstroJetson]

On my version of Lookout (98), you have to go to Tools->Options and the headers show up in a little read-only text window inside the dialog. It does make it kind of a pain in the butt to forward spam to Spam Cop.

Re:Outlook vs. Evolution

[Anonymous Coward]

check out Bynari's TradeXCH and TradeServer. TradeXCH is a replacement for Outlook that works with MS Exchange servers, and Bynari TradeServer is a Exchange server replacement for Outlook. The LGPL client TradeClient is for TradeServer too! They are all for Linux. http://www.bynari.com

Re:Outlook vs. Evolution

[Mike Hicks]

In Evolution 0.2, I couldn't find a way to view the headers (and I didn't see anything in the 0.3 announcement). Of course, it's got that open-sourceness thing going for it, so if it's not a feature by, say, 0.5, I'll put it in myself..

I was really impressed with 0.2 (though I never got it to compile..). I just hope some packages pop up soon on helix-update..
--
Ski-U-Mah!

Whoops and whoops

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Oh, there are the pics. Follow the link to the main Evolution page, then follow the links to the various pieces (Mail, Calendar, etc).

Also, no MAPI. I thought Miguel's interview from a while back mentioned that Evolution would support MAPI, but obviously I'm mis-remembering.
--
Give us our karma back! Punish Karma Whores through meta-mod!

Re:Whoops and whoops

[jackmama]

In the FAQ, they mention that they're working on open protocols first, and hope to introduce support for proprietary systems like Exchange and Domino later.

Re:Whoops and whoops

[jackmama]

er, Notes.

Sorry 'bout that

Re:Whoops and whoops

[Watts]

How about Novell GroupWise as well? While not the most popular mail/task/schedule client, it has quite a few users as well.

Re:Whoops and whoops

[gaudior]

hope to introduce support for proprietary systems like Exchange and Domino later.

This might be a mistake. There are many who would finally make the switch from win9x/NT on their desktop to Linux if they could have full access to the Exchange Server. I can get my mail from exchange through POP3, but I have to go to the exchange web gateway to update my calendar manually, when I get meeting requests.
--

Re:Whoops and whoops

[jackmama]

My company uses Microsoft Exchange (or Lotus Notes). Will I be able to replace my Windows machine with a Linux machine running Evolution?

We will support as many (useful) open protocols as we can, but the first release will most likely not be able to interoperate with all of the features of various closed proprietary systems.

Beyond that, I have no idea. Personally, I use Exchange webmail to access my mail from OpenBSD and Be, so I'm content to wait until they have something worthwhile to download.

Re:Whoops and whoops

[abischof]

• Wanna run Linux but gotta support Exchange?

What if my company runs an Exchange server, and I'm looking for an Outlook alternative on my (company imposed) Win32 box?

That is, are there any other mail clients for win32 that can understand the Exchange mail protocol? Or, wishfully thinking, will Evolution be ported to Win32 some day?

Alex Bischoff
---

Re:Whoops and whoops

[Gleef]

The latest versions of Fetchmail understand MAPI, and I think it's been ported to cygwin, so it will compile under Win32+Cygwin. That will at least allow you to transfer your Exchange mail to a different mail server.

Alternately, if it's important enough to you, Fetchmail is GPL, Evolution is GPL, it's a SMOP to port the MAPI code from Fetchmail to Evolution. Go for it ;-)

----

Re:Whoops and whoops

[IntlHarvester]

Since Lotus has shipped server software for Linux, that means their C API kit is available. With a little work, it shouldn't be too difficult to talk to Domino/Notes with the native protocol.
--

Re:Whoops and whoops

[tjrw]

No it doesn't.
You're confusing IMAP and MAPI.
IMAP is an open protocol for mail access.
MAPI is Microsoft's proprietary mail and calendaring protocol.

Tim

It'll help Linux in the office

[Dan Hayes]

Much as Outlook comes in for a lot of flak here on /. thanks to its interesting way of dealing with security, it is a very nice piece of software which makes dealing with work a hell of a lot easier. With all of the "productivity" features that it includes it couldn't fail to be a hit with PHB's everywhere and since it's PHBs that get to buy the software (unfortunately) many of us have to use at work, any alternative is going to need to give an equivalent set of features.

From what information there is on the website it appears as though this is what Evolution provides. What does this mean? It means that it's another piece of software which contributes to the possibility of your boss choosing Linux instead of Windows for their desktop machines. We now have an office suite and a "productivity" mail client, and these are two of the most essential elements of the modern office desktop.

So despite all of Linux's other strengths, this program is likely to be one of the things that gets Linux into offices. Which, in the long run, can only be a good thing.

Re:It'll help Linux in the office

[Karmageddon]

gosh I hate Outlook! It's so amazing to me to see people like it. I'm not trying to flame you or troll, I just want to understand: How can you like both Linux and Outlook? Linux has command lines, and transparent ascii text for config files and for mailfiles. Outlook is completely proprietary, hides information, doesn't do simple things like show the email address of correspondents, doesn't obey simple preferences like "plain text" formatting... oh I could go on.

It'll help Linux in the officeOutlook? Lookout linux: sounds like you want Linux to add all the features I was fleeing from.

Re:It'll help Linux in the office

[Dan Hayes]

gosh I hate Outlook! It's so amazing to me to see people like it. I'm not trying to flame you or troll, I just want to understand: How can you like both Linux and Outlook? Linux has command lines, and transparent ascii text for config files and for mailfiles. Outlook is completely proprietary, hides information, doesn't do simple things like show the email address of correspondents, doesn't obey simple preferences like "plain text" formatting... oh I could go on.

It's what you're used to I suppose. At work I've always been stuck with NT systems and Outlook is waaay better than Lotus Scroates. And the Notes bit is quite handy for little lists and reminders. I'm easily pleased by small things :) Anyway, it works for what I do at work. Now Exchange OTOH is a pile of crap we could all do without.

Lookout linux: sounds like you want Linux to add all the features I was fleeing from.

Yeah, but those are the things that PHBs look for when ordering computers. I'm not saying it's desirable, but it will increase corporate adoption. And you can still use a command line whenever you want :)

Re:It'll help Linux in the office

[Grishnakh]

I agree with you mostly, but unfortunately I work in a large corporation and am but a lowly engineer with no control over our IT department's decisions. I have Linux running on my computer at work (with Win98 in another partition), and have gotten everything I do here to work under Linux (even PowerPoint and Word work under WINE!), except Outlook. And this company makes extensive use of Outlook's integrated calendaring for scheduling meetings. It's actually a pretty handy feature; too bad Outlook 2000 and Win98 make such an unstable system. If I could just get a program that lets me do that integrated calendaring like Outlook, I would never have to boot into Windoze again. It's not that anyone really loves Outlook, it's that we require its features. It's the same reason Samba exists; there are much better ways of sharing files over a network, but we're forced to work with the MS hordes.

Re:It'll help Linux in the office

[Karmageddon]

OK, I gotcha. I'm not against either features or ease of use (or stability :) but I'd rather have simplicity and "transparency" so I can see how things work and reconfigure them or write scripts to reconfigure them, export data, etc. Too many people coming over from the windows world don't realize the benefits because they've never operated in that world. And they haven't operated in that world because Microsoft (where they employ many people who know better) actively stamps out simplicity and transparency so they can maintain their monopoly. That's the evil of Bill Gates, Charles Simonyi, Gordon Lettwin, et al in a nutshell.

Re:evolution == outlook

[Evangelion]

We like the Linux clones of MS products though.

Not sure why. They're generally an imitation of a half-assed interface, rather than just the original half-assed interface...

It probably has to do with the fact that up until now, Netscape Mail has been the premier X Email client.

I think you can understand why people are looking forward to this.

Nice but ...

[Mr_Silver]

Very nice looking. Infact its pretty much the same looking at Outlook.

Hang on. Is that all we are doomed to thesedays? Having Linux programs that look the same as Microsofts? What I mean is, can't we go for a different look at all?

Yes, MS have pilfered ideas from other people and applications - but do we have to go writing Linux applications that look *exactly* the same as Microsofts?

Don't we have any good designers of our own that can come up with something a bit more original? Or are we doomed to just following whatever Mr Gates' company does?

At the end of the day I don't mind it looking the same as Microsofts efforts, but sometimes it would be nice to see a bit of originality break through.

--Silver

--

Re:Nice but ...

[nconway]

Having Linux programs that look the same as Microsofts? What I mean is, can't we go for a different look at all?

You mean, like Enlightenment? Or the GIMP? Or CSCMail? Or Blackbox, Mozilla, or numerous other Free Software projects? Give me a break. There's plenty of innovation.

At the end of the day I don't mind it looking the same as Microsofts efforts, but sometimes it would be nice to see a bit of originality break through.

Is it much of a surprise that many GNU/Linux apps close MS ones when tons of people say "I'd switch to Linux, except I need (Word|Outlook|Excel|IE5|Dreamweaver|Quicken)". Besides, it's much easier and faster to clone existing technologies than to invent something yourself. Last but not least, if you think Linux needs more innovative applications, get off your ass and go code them yourself! That's what I'm doing!

Re:Nice but ...

[booch]

Well, the first task is to get it looking at least as good as the competition. Then add features to make it better than the competition. Then we can work on the UI. Unless there are some UI experts, the GNOME guys tend to concentrate on functionality and then usability. The fact is, Outlook's layout works well. Changes to something that works that well should be minimal unless we're sure that they will improve things.

Re:Nice but ...

[Shotgun]

Also, remember that MS has spent a lot of money to figure out what people want. If there is a right solution, maybe it's just possible that MS has gotten close to it. They should have gotten close with the amount they've stolen from everyone else!! Copying an interface isn't necessarily bad, if it is what people know and like.

Now, when projects start copying the M$ "Damn-the-stability-we-need-features" attitude is when I'll have problems.

Re:Nice but ...

[nconway]

Oh, my bad.

The only previous screenshots I've seen of it were using funky GTK+ themes. It's 'default' appearance does look pretty similar to Outlook - but also Netscape Messenger, and IIRC, Eudora Pro.

For all you Debian fans

[Carl]

Add deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/evolution/distri butions/Debian/ ./ to your /etc/apt/sources.list.

Do apt-get update

And apt-get install evolution

(Assuming you have already installed Helix Gnome. Just add deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/distributions/de bian unstable main to sources.list otherwise.)

Have Fun!

Re:For all you Debian fans

[angelo]

This program is geared toward the unstable release (2.3?) of Debian, called "Woody".. you would have to change your sources list to say "unstable" on the official servers and then 'apt-get dist-upgrade' since it will grab the new list and take care of library upgrades. This should fix your base library problem.

After that, run their installer from the shell pipe. It is quite nifty. You can also follow the directions here for a manual install.

Re:For all you Debian fans

[Peter Teichman]

Actually, I've made sure that these debs also work on Potato.

Peter

Re:For all you Debian fans

[fialar]

Doesn't seem to work.

morpheus:~# apt-get install evolution
Reading Package Lists... Done
Building Dependency Tree... Done
E: Couldn't find package evolution

I even did apt-get update, even looked in dselect.
Evolution is not in there.

Fialar

Re:For all you Debian fans

[AndyElf]

be sure to watch that ./ in the end of the /etc/apt/sources.list file, i.e. the line you are adding MUST be this:

deb http://spidermonkey.helixcode.com/evolution/distri butions/Debian/ ./

Talking to Exchange

[smartin]

Much as I hate Exchange, I hope that a high priorty for Evolution is to talk to it using it's native/proprietary protocol. Many companies run it in this mode with IMAP turned off, leaving people like me who run Linux completely out of luck for email. We really need an application for Linux to access an Exchange server running in this mode, fetchmail seems to have some sort of support for Exchange, but it is not well documented and I think it is targeted at some sort of buggering that M$ has done to IMAP.

Re:Talking to Exchange

[Wubby]

YEE GODS I hope not! I am having the HUGEST trouble right now getting Exchange to interoperate
with anything standard! I hate being forced to use the horrible monstrosity! I sincerly hope that
MAPI (MS version of IMAP) goes the way of the Macarena!

The Helix-Gnome team would either have to pay for the interface (likely not cheap) or reverse
engineer it (likely not easy). I dont know of any Open Source attempts at this time and commercial
interoperabilty is big bucks!

Let's hope Evolution can stand on it's own. I like the work so far.

Re:Talking to Exchange

[Gleef]

Exchange's native protocol is, if I recall correctly, basically a bad IMAP implementation with a proprietary authentication scheme called NTLM. NTLM is supported by Fetchmail, which is under the GPL just like Evolution. Expect to see someone (maybe even you ;-) port Exchange Server support to Evolution in the not-too-distant future.

----

Re: Talking to Exchange

[fireproof]

I hate being forced to use the horrible monstrosity! I sincerly hope that MAPI (MS version of IMAP) goes the way of the Macarena!

Might I point out that if it indeed does go the way of the Macarena, it will start appearing at wedding receptions everywhere?

Of course, it might fare better in the hands of drunken revelers than it does in the hands of MS programmers . . .

-------

Re:Talking to Exchange

[rcw-work]

I sincerly hope that MAPI (MS version of IMAP) goes the way of the Macarena!

MAPI is not an over-the-wire protocol. It is an API that Windows software uses to hook in with the MS Windows Messaging dlls.

The thing is, the only current implementation (AFAIK) of the Exchange Server wire protocol is in a gaggle of MAPI dlls, so for Windows apps you have to use the MAPI (Mail API) to get to any Exchange Server.

Anyway, the Exchange Server wire protocol is RPC-based (MS seems to be following this pattern for a large number of things now, SMS, most remote admin through the MMC, etc...).

RPC-based protocols aren't exactly easy to figure out, they're basically a set of function calls that you'll have to snoop on and reimplement one by one.

Blame Sun :)

Re:Talking to Exchange

[IntlHarvester]

I really don't think that MAPI is just IMAP + NTLM. There's just far too many Exchange-isms in MAPI that don't have any parallel in IMAP.

BTW, if someone has coded an open version of NTLM, it sure would be nice if they submitted it to Mozilla.
--

Re:Talking to Exchange

[smartin]

I don't think this is really an issue as the really smart ones don't use Exchange at all, the medium smart ones at lease enable IMAP so that it is accessible to different clients or from the Net, the stupid ones install it out of the box and leave it in it's native mode. The problem is that there are far too many stupid ones out there and it's them that most of us have to deal with. A lot of places will let you get away with using Linux if you do it quietly and don't rock the boat. Unfortuately going to your IT department and saying "Please enable IMAP on your mail server so that I can get at it from my Linux client" falls largely under Rocking the boat :)

Re:Talking to Exchange

[T-Ranger]

MAPI is the standard windows mail usage component. It has nothing to do with the protocol over the wire.

If some program dosent have the ability itself to send mail, but it wants to for some reason (a mailto: link, for example) the it calls the program that has registered itslef as a MAPI porgram, with the standard MAPI interfaces (assumably things like To: and From: and Body: and the like..).

So to send mail from a windows program that dosent know how to send mail you call the MAPI component, and not any specific mail progie. I cant think of any resonably popular mail program that dosent try to register itself as a MAPI component.

Re:Talking to Exchange

[Spoing]

While this does not answer all questions, you might want to check out the latest announcement on KMailcvt. It converts Outlook and MS Exchange folders to KMail folders.

It's not a dynamic protocol, and it's KMail-specific (whatever that means!). Yet, it could be used as part of a plan to move people from Exchange to a more open mail system.

If it can do that, then the same code could be adapted as part of a more general conversion system.

1. On another note, those who use KDE or KDE apps under another environment might want to look at ftp://ftp.us.kde.org/pub/kde/Incoming. Do you see what I see???? :)

Re:Talking to Exchange

[IntlHarvester]

My understanding is that Microsoft uses the term "MAPI" for two different things:

1) The method by which Windows programs (Word, for example) figures out how to send mail through your mail program. This has been supplimented somewhat by the mailto: way, which is done via URL protocol registration (IE integration). Most Windows mail programs support this.

2) The API used to implement client-server services for only Outlook/Windows Messaging/Exchange Client. This is how Outlook talks to Exchange, for example, as well as supporting Internet Mail (and I think Compuserve and MSN at one time.) The Outlook-to-Exchange wire protocol is often referred to as "MAPI", and that's what I was saying, but I think that's techncially incorrect. My understanding is that the Exchange MAPI service uses standard Windows RPC to talk to the server.
--

Critical piece of kit

[tjwhaynes]

Out of all the current applications in development, Evolution is probably the one which I'm most eagerly awaiting. In day-to-day usage, I'm stuck with Lotus Notes, which increasingly is a)chewing up my memory (40MB+ at startup) and b) keeping me tied to Windows NT, although I have plans to investigate running it under Wine - I have seen it done successfully so there is hope there.

But that doesn't remove my major gripe with Lotus Notes - that of its rather painful UI. While it manages to provide better functionality under the V5 client, an option to move my calendaring and email off that platform onto something like Evolution would be a godsend. Having played with Unix for the last 10 years or so, and having gravitated from a platform where small was beautiful (RiscOS) before that, the idea of large monolithic everything-in-one packages (like Lotus Notes - database interogator, mail, calendaring and web browser) really doesn't make any sense to me. In my opinion, these large packages are more an excuse to lock the user onto one platform whereas most experienced users simply want their applications to be able to work happily alongside each other and exchange data.

So seeing Evolution supporting RFC 2445,2446 and 2447 looks like being a good start for interoperability. If this can interface seemlessly with MS Exchange and Lotus Notes servers, it will free legions of users to choose the platform they want to use.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

Re:What's wrong with the Napster News?

[gaudior]

You're right, copyright infringment is not theft. But it's a distinction that makes no difference. Both result in financial loss to the owner of the property.
--

How about work on GNOME instead?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see what the point of Evolution is, if Gnome is going to be flaky as dandruff. No, this isn't flamebait, but right now Gnome-1.2 crashes at just about *everything*. I can't even change my window manager because Control-Center dies before I can do anything. The guys at KDE at least got it stable before working on an office suite. So did Microsoft. When will Gnome developers stop putting fluff in the project and finish the damn thing first?

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[bradstew]

I have absolutely no stability problems with Gnome 1.2. I use it all the time and it hasn't crashed once. Get the latest from Helixcode.

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[mauryisland]

Gnome has been stable on this machine since October Gnome, released last year!

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[FirstEdition]

I agree: I have been using helix-GNOME for about a month, and it is solid as a rock. And it is real eye candy.

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[superlame]

There is something wrong with your setup if GNOME is crashing that much. Did you compile it your self, or did you use the installer? What Dist are you running on?

My machine is in GNOME 24/7, and I stress memory, CPU power, and graphics capabilities on that machine, and I haven't had GNOME 1.2 crash once. Netscape is currently refusing to work for some reason though (I had been running 1.2 for awhile before netscape started being a pain).

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[Skeezix]

I have not experience the instability problems you are describing. Maybe you could give some more information, such as how you installed Gnome 1.2. Are you using the Helix RPMs?
----

Re:How about work on GNOME instead?

[evand]

right now Gnome-1.2 crashes at just about *everything*. I can't even change my window manager because Control-Center dies before I can do anything.

Have you sent in bug reports to HelixCode/GNOME describing these issues? I don't have problems like the ones you describe with GNOME 1.2, or even really problems with it in general, but then again my setup is probably not the same as your setup. In the same vein, your setup is probably not like any setup at HelixCode, so I'd bet they're interested in your bug reports.

VNC

[/]

Check out VNC. It does support ssh, and it doesn't have a lot of the overhead you'd expect it to.

Re:VNC

[Evangelion]

I'll try that out, thanks.

Still - both the X wire protocol and the VNC protocol are much higher bandwidth and latency dependant than a terminal session. Considering our office's s***ty network, I doubt VNC would be very usable.

Re:What's wrong with the Napster News?

[gaudior]

Just how the hell is this a financial loss to them?

Simple. You didn't buy the CD those songs came from.

--

Unreleased libraries?

[Roast Beef]

I like this: "Please be aware that Evolution 0.3 depends on a large number of unreleased and rapidly-changing libraries." "If you happen to have Helix GNOME installed, then most of these packages are already installed for you." Ooh, that sounds stable.

Why is is that. . .

[Laplace]

Why is it that no software project can be a project unless it incorporates at least five different tasks, one of which must be reading mail?

Re:Why is is that. . .

[Stephen VanDahm]

if (($#tasks >= 4) && ($reads_mail == 1)) {
$program = "project" ;
} else {
$program = "hobby" || $program = "toy";
}




========
Stephen C. VanDahm

almost microsoft... again

[Bad_CRC]

There is no way to deny many (most) of the interface choices were built on copying outlook.

Maybe microsoft really did innovate some stuff, and as much as we hate to admit it, it's not bad (good enough to copy)

hopefully this will end up as a great email program which is better than outlook because it's open source, and has actual security, not just some ripoff made to be "almost" a product everyone claims to hate.

________

Re:http://www.bynari.com

[jackmama]

They really need to do something about their website. I'm not likely to buy any product based on zero information, and just a claim that it will work. Digging a little deeper, it would appear that their Exchange client requires a component to be installed on the Exchange server, which makes it largely useless to most people, who are unwilling/unable to make changes to their server.

MAPI [was: Screenshots?]

[gdon]

Well, MAPI is a proprietary protocol. Adapting our Free email clients would require a bunch of reverse engineering (remember Samba ?) and would be of little use, since we already have nice and open protocols.

If you want to use Evolution (or pine, or whatever) with an Exchange server, you can spawn the POP3/IMAP/SMTP "connectors" on the server. You can use Outlook this way too.

As for the extra features you might miss, I think it'd be smarter to use other tools. ;)

--

Re:MAPI [was: Screenshots?]

[Foogle]

MAPI is *not* a protocol. It's an API (thus the name) for programmers to use messaging systems under Windows, and allow other applications to access their messaging systems. And some other fun stuff.

Exchange uses it's own protocol for it's groupware and email functionality, but that protocol is not called MAPI.

-----------

"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."

Bynari

[NetJunkie]

I just went to check it out. No screenshots or real features list. Only a link to buy for $59...hmmmm...

Re:Public Announcement and no frigin rpm's availab

[Roast Beef]

As they say on their page, it's dependant upon several changing and unreleased libraries, and it is changing and unstable itself. They probably figure that if you can't at least compile the code yourself, you probably shouldn't be messing with it.

gpg/pgp support

[nigiri]

One thing I've been really disappointed with in GUI mailers is the lack of PGP/GPG support. Even Arrow, which seems to support it the best, only has an encrypt option, and not a sign option. Until someone manages better privacy support, I'm going to have to stick with Pine.

Re:gpg/pgp support

[Peter Teichman]

A patch was submitted to the Evolution developers' list yesterday which adds GPG support. Expect nice integration with GPG in an upcoming release.

Peter

It might not be a mistake

[mosch]

This is likely being done for good reason, mostly that they want to get something useful out to the masses before they invest effort in implementing complicated, proprietary, and likely (un|mis)documented protocols. After all, while a large number of people have Exchange access, there's an even larger number of *nix hackers who don't need that.
----------------------------

Re:evolution == outlook

[SuperKendall]

First of all, everyone wants an outlook clone so they no long have to run Windows at work (I have to have access to the scheduling, and the need for Outlook is the only thing that keeps many tied to Windows).

Secondly, first you copy a program exactly, and then when it works fiddle around with look & feel!

Too much hassle!!

[Psiren]

Evolution also requires the latest versions of GtkHTML (0.5), Bonobo (0.16), OAF (0.4), GNOME VFS (0.2), GConf (0.5), GNOME Print (0.20), libunicode (0.4) and ORBit (0.5.3).

I mean, c'mon! Can't some of these libraries be a little more integrated. It really does get a bit much to wait for all these to compile, not to mention the dependencies that *they* have. This is my main criticism with Gnome. It's just too complicated to compile and install. KDE is much cleaner in this respect.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[frantzdb]

It's not a final release. All of those libraries will be a part of Gnome soon enough. Once Evolution is in a final release you'll just have to run helix updater and click on Evolution.

--Ben

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Skeezix]

One of Gnome's design goals is to reuse code. One of the ways they do this is by breaking code down into many libraries with individual functionality. Every library serves it's purpose(s). Which would you suggest they consolidate?

Also, if you insist on compiling, then you shouldn't complain; by now you should be getting good at it. As far as getting the dependencies right, might I suggest making SRPM's and compiling those?
----

Re:Too much hassle!!

[itp]

Evolution is currently available for Debian from Helix Code (see another message which gives the apt lines), and will be available for the RPM distributions we support within the next few (be lenient on what few means, please!) hours.

--
Ian Peters

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Otter]

I've always had misgivings about the idea that charging for support is morally superior than charging for proprietary software. Personally, I'd rather pay for software that works as it supposed to and is well documented than to get something for free (or even for Free) and then have to pay unexpected costs to get it to work. It seems to me that the Red Hat model creates a disincentive to make and package software properly in the first place.

I apologize if I'm wrong about this but -- isn't that possibly part of what's going on here? Gnome needs to be excessively difficult to install now that Helix, the project's leader's company, has built a business model around providing an easier installation. Certainly, there's no incentive for Miguel to make basic Gnome installation easier.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Psiren]

This doesn't help me, as I don't use packages (see my post below). This isn't a complaint directed Helixcode or Evolution in particular. I think that Gnome just suffers from bloat in general. There are just so many libraries needed to compile even the most basic applications, and Gnome itself. Plus the fact that libraries get used while they are still in heavy development and then later get scrapped (gnorba(?) and oaf spring to mind here). It appears to me, as an end user that just wants to use a few Gnome apps, that Gnome is not very well organised in it's use of code and libraries.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[itp]

I won't tell you you're wrong, of course, but there are different ways to view this. In our minds, code reuse is a good thing. So we do take advantage of the different libraries written, and increasingly, the different components available through bonobo.

Unfortunately, we do have to use development libraries from time to time. Evolution is in many ways a test of the basic bonobo architecture, which will be used increasingly in the future. By heavily testing it, we can find flaws in the design, and fix them, before large numbers of applications run into the same problem, and thus produce a better product in the end.

Some of the other libraries, although written with evolution in mind, are useful for other projects (I'm thinking of GtkHtml when I say this). Thus, it makes perfect sense to develop it in parallel, but make it available in a separate package, which allows other application authors to use it during their development, without having to track evolution.

--
Ian Peters

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Psiren]

I agree with you. Code reuse is always a good thing. I understand *why* it is this way. All I'm saying is that it doesn't make for a particulalry pleasant experience when compiling and installing Gnome. I guess a lot of people use packages, and aren't affected by this. If everyone had to compile, I'm sure you'd get more complaints. As it is, I seem to be the only one. Oh well, nothing new there... ;)

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Psiren]

You may suggest anything you like. That doesn't mean I'll follow your advice though... ;-)

The actual compiling isn't difficult. configure and make do most of it. It's figuring out which tarballs I need to use, and in what order. If they cam as one huge tarball, that I could do one configure with, and get it to install in a location that I want, then that'd be fine.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[nosinut]

And how would you make it simpler to install? Integrate all of these separate libraries into one monolithic evolution package?

This is a software engineering nono. Separate libraries means REUSABLE CODE. It means other developers (like myself) can use bonobo (or GConf, or ...) without having a dependency on Evolution.

You seem to have conflicting desires. You want to compile it yourself, yet you want a seamlessly easy installation. Not that compiling it is that hard, but if you can't manage to figure out how to check things out of CVS and type './autogen.sh;make' -- USE THE PACKAGED VERSION!

And I'm not even going to respond to the KDE flamebait.

Sheesh.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[waldoj]

I tried to install the previous version of Evolution on my Yellow Dog box, and gave up after two hours. Bonobo wouldn't compile, OAF just whined at me, and some others were generally uncooperative. It's just too much.

Re:Too much hassle!!

[LetterRip]

"Gnome needs to be excessively difficult to install"

Gnome is excessively easy to install. Just to helixcode, get helix updater, and it automagically does it for you. Even installing by hand (via ./configure, make && make install), isn't all that difficult. Just read the README, and follow it...)

as I've been writing this, a bugfix release of evolution has been put out - .3.1 (bandaged jellyfish), so I'm gonna go install the newest version,

LetterRip

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Otter]

Gnome is excessively easy to install. Just to helixcode, get helix updater..

Well, that's my point. You're not distinguishing between the Gnome project and Helix's software for simplifying Gnome installation. The rat's nest of libraries in Gnome creates the business opportunity for Helix. So, again, what's the incentive for the project leaders to make Gnome intrinsically easier to install when their for-profit project depends on it being difficult?

Re:Too much hassle!!

[seth_hartbecke]

I agree! KDE is much simpler to install if you are doing a manual install.

However, if you are using a distribution like debian (with /etc/apt/sources.list pointing to all the correct places) the package manager system finds/downloads/installs everything for you.

For example, I am getting this application by doing "apt-get install evolution" (and it automatically figured out that 9 packages needed to be upgraded and 11 new ones needed to be installed. I don't run much GNOME stuff).

And, a week from now I can run apt-get update; apt-get dist-upgrade and EVERYTHING that needs updating will be downloaded and upgraded.

Now if only my connection was faster then 56K...

Re:Too much hassle!!

[Goonie]

If everyone had to compile, I'm sure you'd get more complaints. As it is, I seem to be the only one.

Isn't it fair enough? If you want *very* easy installation, you use packages. If you want to compile stuff yourself, you live with the difficulty of that process. That sounds like a reasonable choice to me.

Or, why don't you try *BSD? Don't they have a "make world" that can automatically update *everything* from source in one go?

Re:evolution == outlook

[mauryisland]

So what if lookd like Outlook? Microsoft no doubt spends lots of $$$ learning about UI issues, and if the open source community can get some traction off of that expenditure, then good for them!

Speaking of evolution...

[ch-chuck]

be sure to check out this picture - small but funny, you'll enjoy it.

hah

[topdogg]

Great game, yeah can't wait for the damn installer. geesh...

Re:What part of THEFT don't you understand?

[bfree]

I think you have just demonstrated the problem and point of the whole issue with your one shout. Napster and Gnutella (forgive my ignorance on Scour) are not thieves! They may be aiding and abetting thieves but that is a very different issue, and if they are so are ISPs and backbone providers (to name a few) so why don't we just shut down the net and stop this thievery once and for all? While we're at it lets also ban:

1. Evolution, you can attach copyrighted material and route it over the internet to another mail user or a newsgroup.
2. Search Engines, they can help you find information on everything from cracking to explosions.
3. Baggy clothes, easier to shoplift in
4. Bags, easier to carry the takings from the bank job
5. Matches, easier to set your boss on fire
6. Newspapers, easier to discover where the President will be to assasinate him

Pure and simply, the problem is not about whether it is legal or not (and it is NOT) to download and/or distribute the copyrighted music of an artist with no permission. The problem is whether or not we will let a corporate industry dictate how we can use our computers, the US DOJ is rejecting the concept of Micosoft having this kind of control (and at least they are computer people), why are they considering handing it to a conglomerate monopoly instead? I guess it must be about the money again, either the massive revenues the RIAA members generate or the massive revenues the RIAA's lawyers generate.

From the Evolution FAQ regarding Outlook.

[infra-red]

From the Evolution Faq which is available here.

My company uses Microsoft Exchange (or Lotus Notes). Will I be able to replace my Windows machine with a Linux machine running Evolution?

We will support as many (useful) open protocols as we can, but the first release will most likely not be able to interoperate with all of the features of various closed proprietary systems.

Some Proof? (OT)

[Anonymous Coward]

"This is a genuine e-mail from the main receptionist from Sun Microsystems, and went out to all corporate employees."

To: All Corporate Employees
Subject: Copier!
Date: Thursday, July 24, 2000 12:48pm

PLEASE PLEASE please please please - I am begging - keep any and all paper clips away from the copier! We have had two service calls in the last few days to remove paper clips, staples and a binder clip from the innards of the copier. PLEASE be really really really careful around the copier. Especially the document handler, which seems to suck clits like a vacuum cleaner. Thanks for your help.

Re:Some Proof? (OT)

[afc]

Especially the document handler, which seems to suck clits like a vacuum cleaner.

I imagine there must have been a sudden rush of female employees to the copier machine after that was sent...

Whoever has mod points here, plz mod this up. If it's true it is a gem...
--

Re:http://www.bynari.com

[Gleef]

Yes, since if the person looking for a client has the authority to change the Exchange server configuration, they could turn on existing POP3 or IMAP support in Exchange, and avoid having to buy any additional proprietary software.

----

Notes support.

[Mike Hicks]

Perhaps it would be a good idea for IBM/Lotus to look into helping these guys out. There are a lot of people (including me) who get mail through Lotus Notes. (actually, I've set up a forwarding address, so the Notes server sends mail to Sendmail on my box. No retrieval necessary..)

Anyway, even at IBM, there are a lot of people on AIX or Linux who need to run some sort of VNC-ish program to access mail through an NT box running somewhere deep inside the building.

Just a thought.
--
Ski-U-Mah!

Re:Notes support.

[Mike Hicks]

Whoops.. I see from reading some of the other comments that the Evolution guys plan to support a reasonable number of other protocols. Things will move more smoothly, of course, if the protocols are open. Someone mentioned that this may be easy for Notes. I believe that the protocols used by the Pegasus mail suite are also open. (The server costs, and the clients are gratis).
--
Ski-U-Mah!

I'd rather have components than LookOut

[Colin Smith]

I'd rather have the components be separate and have an actual integrated desktop. An integrated desktop is something that MS seem unable to grasp. Apple do a better job of it.

A LookOut clone is by definition going to always be trailing the real LookOut and can never really match up.

Give me small individual (scriptable) components.

Re:I'd rather have components than LookOut

[nconway]

Evolution is made up of Bonobo components, that's the whole point. It will be easy to replace one part of the app (for example, the composer[1] or calendar) with an app of your own.

Your post seems to be a bit hypocritical - you claim to want 'an actual integrated desktop', but then you say 'give me small individual (scriptable) components'. That's basically 2 different goals (although Evolution + Bonobo does succeed in making this possible).

[1] - the composer is not currently a Bonobo component. It used to be, and may be in the future, but for now it's not.

Re:I'd rather have components than LookOut

[Colin Smith]

Hmm. Hypocrisy is to say one thing and believe another but that aside, what I mean is integration at the desktop level rather than at the mail client level.

A mail client which just reads mail, a news client which just reads news, a calendar which just takes care of appointments, an address book which just handles addresses.

I don't really want them all munged into a single application. I find LookOut immensely frustrating to use.

Re:I'd rather have components than LookOut

[Colin Smith]

But we don't.

The mail clients don't know that there is a calendar, the calendar doesn't know that there's an address book. The address books don't know how to talk to the Calendar etc etc.

What I'm after is separate components which know how to talk to each other.

My biggest complaint when people do integrate these sorts of tools is that they insist on squashing them all together into one übertool (LookOut).

Can't get easier.

[Nassah The Zerg!]

You don't have to compile anything. Sit tight, wait for rpms, debs and use helix-update to update your packages.

Can't get any simpler really.

Re:Can't get easier.

[Psiren]

I don't use rpms or debs. I use gcc and make... ;)

Re:Can't get easier.

[Evangelion]

You do it the hard way and complain about it being hard?

Re:Can't get easier.

[Psiren]

Exactly. I'm glad someone agrees with me here. Packages suck, unless you rarely upgrade your system. I do it all the time, and packages make life harder, not easier.

Re:Can't get easier.

[afc]

Pray tell us, in what way does package management get in the way of upgrading if that's one of its main goals?

Unless, if what you mean by upgrading is remove all old stuff, and install all new stuff, I don't where you're coming from.

I too upgrade my system and individual packages quite frequently. I happen to like helix-update a lot, and I fail to see how easier it could be if didn't use packages.
--

Evolution / Exchange

[CountZer0]

This is a common mis-conception.

Evolution is a groupware package, just like Outlook, Lotus Notes, et al. It has mail, calandering, contact management, etc... Therefore, some people call it an Outlook replacement... It is. IF you don't use any proprietary Exchange features.

It is NOT Outlook/Exchange compatable any more than ANY POP-3/IMAP and SMTP client is Exchange compatible. It does NOT impliment the "native" Exchange protocols. It WILL NOT import free/busy information, contact lists, network folders or any other "Exchange only" features from an Exchange server. It does NOT interact with Exchange in any way other than as a simple SMTP/POP-3/IMAP client.

It uses it's own OPEN protocols to deal with the groupware functionality.

It also happens to LOOK a lot like Outlook.

Again, Evolution is NOT "Exchange" compatable any more than ANY POP-3/IMAP/SMTP mailer.

So... If you want a good standards based groupware suite, Evolution will be a good bet. If you want an Exchange client, your gonna hafta stick with Outlook till someone reverse engineers the proprietary protocols.

Re:Evolution / Exchange

[Anonymous Coward]

"I am a goat fucker."

-Richard M. Stallman, 1996

Re:Evolution / Exchange

[Mike Hicks]

Hmm..

Unfortunately, there are organizations that disable POP/IMAP/SMTP functionality (well, I know that IBM, for instance, doesn't run POP or IMAP on their Notes servers). What should people in such organizations do? I suppose someone could make an intermediary program to translate between protocols, such as POP<->Notes or IMAP<->Exchange, but that requires Yet Another Dæmon running on your system..
--
Ski-U-Mah!

Re:Evolution / Exchange

[miguel]

Currently Evolution does not have any Exchange support, but we are planning on supporting Exchange in the future.

We realize this is important and there are a number of ways to fully support Exchange that can be done. We will implement the one that makes most sense. We are aware that the lack of support for Exchange protocols will hinder the adoption of Evolution.

Miguel.

GNOME stability

[Loundry]

I run GNOME v1.2 at work and at home. At work it is flawless. At home, the tasklist_applet crashes constantly. It really sucks; it just spits out a gdk error and dies. I ended up writing a perl script that was a while(1){system("tasklist_appet");} and nohup'ing that. That brings a few quirks of its own, but at least it keeps the applet running.

Personally, I agree with the original post. Perhaps some more stability improvements in GNOME are in order. I doubt that I'm the only one with quirky problems.

Not that I don't like GNOME -- I am using it 100% of the time. :)

Good Luck on that one...

[PhilBrut]

There are two things to remember for Exchange:

• The native Exchange protocol is complex, and will be difficult to reverse engineer & implement
• That complex protocol is totally undocumented outside of Microsoft (to my knowledge at least), any maybe not even within Microsoft :(

Re:Evil software

[Daoine Sidh]

I dunno, it looked kinda cool. Are there any plans to port it to Win2k Pro?

Re:Whoops anhttp://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/fetd whoops

[nchip]

The latest versions of Fetchmail understand MAPI

what? The news file doesn't mention it. With IMAP or POP3 fetchmail will, however, co-operate with a excange server. OTOH, if you use calendar and stuff, you will still need lookout. Maybe the exchage web interface would work in your case, however.

Geesh.

[Jon Shaft]

If I didn't see the posts on Slashdot earlier or chat about the GNOME project on IRC, I'd be in hell trying to figure out what the hell Evolution .03 is. I double checked the story posted, and then I followed the link to the GNOME evolution link. Nothing really states it's use until you click on Evolution on that page.

Evolution

That's one of the little problems that's keeping many of these projects behind. I mean it doesn't take much effort to find at all, but it does look semi-unprofessional.

I look at all the icky Windows Software warehouses and press releases and there will be atleast a very brief description about the product being offered/used.

Another thing is some of the software names... but that's another topic. Anyways, kudos to the Evolution development team, hopefully we'll have a stable version being released soon

Re:Geesh.

[nconway]

I'd be in hell trying to figure out what the hell Evolution .03 is. I double checked the story posted, and then I followed the link to the GNOME evolution link.

It's trivial. Follow the 'announced' link - http://www.helixcode.com/newsitems/evolution-0.3.p hp3 . From the announcement:

Evolution is the GNOME mailer, calendar, and addressbook application. This is mostly a bugfix release.

How much more clear and concise do you need to be?

I look at all the icky Windows Software warehouses and press releases and there will be atleast a very brief description about the product being offered/used.

You mean *exactly* like what I quoted above? If you would actually read the announcement, you'd probably be in a more priviledged position to comment on it.

Re:Geesh.

[Jon Shaft]

You mean *exactly* like what I quoted above? If you would actually read the announcement, you'd probably be in a more priviledged position to comment on it.

Don't be so quick on the trigger. I just looked at the story posted here and it looks to be backwards.

should have been the Evolution link

and

should have been the announced link

Re:What's wrong with the Napster News?

[luckykaa]

No its not. Failure to gain is not a loss.

Re:What part of THEFT don't you understand?

[Amokscience]

I hate staying offtopic like this but where do you factor in the *intent* of a product? I mean it's all good to say that the use of a gun is determined by the person but the gun's original intent is to kill.

afaik none of the above listed items were created with an illegal purpose in mind whereas in the case of Napster it is (in many peoples opinion) much cloudier.

Re:What's wrong with the Napster News?

[luckykaa]

I often hum Beatles tunes. Should I pay Paul McCartney (or is it Michael Jackson?) for this, or should I be paying the RIAA?

I'll be surprised if it works with Notes

[Greyfox]

Lotus has apparently never been particularly interested in making their crappy software interoperate with anything. And IBM has been less particularly interested in helping the internal people in having it interoperate with anything. They pretty much made it clear that hell would freeze over before they turned the imap support on. If you were an internal UNIX user, your only choice was Notes 4 for AIX, which has an even worse interface than the Windows and OS/2 versions.

Re:I'll be surprised if it works with Notes

[tjwhaynes]

Lotus has apparently never been particularly interested in making their crappy software interoperate with anything.

I'd normally agree with that whole-heartedly. But intriugingly the main proponent of the RFC's mentioned is from the Lotus Development corporation. So I'd guess that Lotus Notes will almost certainly speak this RFC. Which makes the hopes for a client to communicate with the Lotus Notes servers that much more likely.

If you were an internal UNIX user, your only choice was Notes 4 for AIX, which has an even worse interface than the Windows and OS/2 versions.

Don't get me started on Notes AIX ...

Also I'd like to see a native linux program speak to Lotus Notes servers in order to send a metaphorical rocket in response to the lack of a native Lotus Notes client for Linux.

Cheers,

Toby Haynes

My #1 Absolutely-gotta-have-it mail feature

[DG]

I will switch to Evolution - no matter how flaky and unstable it might be - if it supports seamless and invisible PGP encryption.

Here's what I want:

1) Store all my mail PGP encrypted in the mail file. If I get unencrypted mail, then encrypt it BEFORE it hits the hard disk.

2) When I start the program, prompt me for my pass phrase, and cache it for this session or for a user-definable timeout period.

3) PGP sign all outgoing mail

4) Add public keys to my keyring as seamlessly and invisibly as possible.

5) If I send mail to someon for whom I have a public key, encrypt it BY DEFAULT.

The biggest problem with using mail encryption is that the interface is such a pain in the ass. If Evolution hides all the dirty details, then I can start encrypting my mail on a regular basis - and if the encryption support is really good and enabled BY DEFAULT, then we get the "fax machine effect".

Are you listening, Evolution developers?

Re:My #1 Absolutely-gotta-have-it mail feature

[Chris L. Mason]

Well, I don't know about number 1, but mutt has many flexible options for pgp or gpg and should be able to handle all the other requirements you list.

It only asks for your pass-phrase once, and you can set it up to always sign, or sign/encrypt by default, and it handles keyring stuff. Check out www.mutt.org for more info.

Re:My #1 Absolutely-gotta-have-it mail feature

[LetterRip]

One of the hackers already has GnuPG mostly working 'automagically' with Evolution, it might even be integrated by the next release. (See the mailing list archive of evolution-hackers@helixcode.com)

LetterRip

Re:My #1 Absolutely-gotta-have-it mail feature

[johndv]

I think that GPG support is more important than PGP support. If we want to have a completely free system, maybe it is time to get rid of PGP.

Storing encrypted mail on disk is not as important as seamless integration with public key servers and locally stored keys.

It is time to start encoding messages by default.

Re:SSH over a firewall

[AndyElf]

Obviously, you've never used SSH

Yeah, but the problem is that you need to convince your admin to allow you use ssh through a firewall, which is also a tough one (with all this port re-direction capabilities...), won't work for all firewalls... Did not work for me for sure: I need to first login to the firewall, then login to a remote machine.

This would work for transparent firewall tho

It might be smarter to use other tools

[gaudior]

True. If I were in a position to dictate corporate IS policy, I would certainly try to find a better, more modular solution. As it stands, and as much as we might dislike it, Outlook/Exchange is a very good corporate communications system. It is one of the only reasons I haven't switched my desktop to linux/freebsd.

--

Re:It might be smarter to use other tools

[IntlHarvester]

Really, the only thing Outlook/Exchange brings to the "corporate communications" market is a pretty user interface, and a nicely functional calendar module.

Beneth the skin, the mail functionality is only so-so, the search engine sucks eggs, it's virtually impossible to effectively customize Outlook or develop your own applications, the security is braindead, and the server is unstable and doesn't scale worth crap.

Unfortunately, because of the lack of calendaring software options (NetWare-specific Groupwise, "legacy" iPlanet/Netscape, and expensive/complex/ugly Lotus, and nothing from the open protocol world), lots of shops end up *having* to buy Exchange.

But the only way you can cost-justify any of these things is to effectively use the groupware functionality, which is so braindead in Ex/Out as to almost be worthless. Microsoft has lots of big plans for this market, but to date, they've really delivered squat.

Anyway, lots of people use Exchange, but it's just one of those things that nobody is totally happy about, except for Microsoft who gets an easy sale in many shops.
--

Re:Evolution

[jcsmith]

There's a real simple solution to that first problem. Grab the source and put some time in making it better. It is after all open source software so that's kind of the idea. It does no good to complain that the GNOME team moves too slow unless you are willing to do something about it.

Re:Evolution

[Matthew Smith]

Yes but their current source base is so big now that it's quite intimidating to just join in. And GNOME developers don't produce mucho documentation at all. Which brings us to an interesting issue with open source. Projects that are successful grow enormously and usually lack documentation so new people tend to reimplement everything from scratch instead of contributing to existing projects. Why do you think we have hundreds of IRC clients? You can claim it's diversity but to me it spells "insufficient documentation/examples".

I just did....

[NetJunkie]

It didn't get all the mail that was in my Inbox. When I click New Message nothing happens. And then it segfaulted.

CVS instructions...

[crlf]

(i hope posting so low in the thread, but..)

Has anyone found any build instruction for cvs.gnome.org? Yes, I do know how to use CVS, it's just that a 'cvs co gnome' checks-out 34 folders, and I don't know where to start, nor what to do. I'd love to pitch-in any additions I would make, but I'm kinda stuck in a rut trying to get this build made..

Re:What part of THEFT don't you understand?

[bfree]

I agree we may be off-topic, but considering this story relates to a product which could also be viewed as a tool for illegal acts (and it is this aspect of the Napster issue I am trying to focus attention on) I'll continue.
The intent of a product is clearly relevant to it's legality, but unfortunatly the intentions are never as clear as you would like to make them. A gun is designed and intended to shoot high velocity projectiles, not to kill. If you look at a uzi, it is extremely difficult to even start an argument that the intention is anything other than to injure/kill, however many guns have a far less clear purpose such as for hunting, and for these reasons the gun control argument is a complex issue.
The question is does the potential for illegal use decide the legality of an item? The issue should not be about intent however, but about harm. Legislating (and enforcing) laws to prevent me making a nuclear warhead is obviously logical as I could potentially kill millions of people, my only loss is that I cannot do my nuclear research :-) Legislating to prevent me distributing files is obviously illogical however as the potential harm is that I may distribute copyrighted data, hardly a serious crime (illegal, immoral, wrong, abhorent....but not exactly life threatening), it is about the equivalent to throwing a flour bomb of your roof onto an unsuspecting passer by, the potential harm is minimal but if your caught you should be punished, the law shouldn't forbid the sale of flour in bags! Is a cd-r drive not designed and intended (as much as Gnutella is) to steal. How many of the CD-r owners that you know would have burnt more legal cds than illegal? How many have used them to make bit for bit (and hence better than mp3) copies of RIAA music but they are not trying to sue the cd-r manufacturers (drives or disks) because they can argue that these capabilities are supplied as a by-product to a logical extension of modern personal computing. They are also not fighting the cd-r battle as this is not a threat to their business model, the internet is and they are scared, not of copying music but that the whole business they have created and milked to the detriment of musical creativity and expression (IMHO) is coming to an end and a new business model with extremely low costs of entry is arriving to replace them.
Basically, (IMHO) no open file distribution system can be illegal even if it is being used for illegal acts, if the system is not open (i.e. the mp3 restriction on Napster) the case can be made. The governments never considered shutting down IRC and then IM etc. for the wholesale usage as a distribution channel for child pornography where human lives are tortured for the sick perversions of the few. Now that a major business model is under threat from the new world order however, we are facing the prospect of losing services that are objectionable to a company. Where is the sense?

Do It Yourself: CFD

[Christopher B. Brown]

If you want your entire mailbox encrypted, then I strongly suggest you install CFS. See Cryptographic File System under Linux HOW-TO

Illustrating:

• Install CFS.
• You'd then decide on a directory in which to store the encrypted data. Let's say /home/cbbrowne/Mail/
• Turn it into a CFS directory, via cmkdir /home/cbbrowne/Mail .

  You'll be asked to make up a password.

• Then, mount it, via cattach /home/cbbrowne/Mail Mail

  Use the password you made up.

  This mounts the directory on /crypt/Mail If you look in /crypt/Mail, you'll see plain text. If you look in /home/cbbrowne/Mail, you'll see gibberish.

• Modify your mailer to use /crypt/Mail as the place to store data rather than /home/cbbrowne/somewhere

This methodology is not entirely flawless; /crypt/Mail is generally accessable to anyone on your host. Some time in the future, Linux may offer Plan 9 style namespaces that would allow mounts to be local to a process, so that the cattach would be local to the process and its children.

But the overall result is that by having the encryption take place in the separate layer, the mail client doesn't need to have a "security layer," you don't need to debug it, and you don't need to worry about it getting breached.

[OT] Re:Too much hassle!!

[PimpBot]

Don't worry, you're not the only one. ;-)

I love using RH...but their Gnome installation just sucks...and I don't want Helixcode's installer to just d'load the RPMs and install. I guess I just got sick of managing RPMs and hand installs...so I install RH but stop with the basic X install, then I install Gnome 1.2 and KDE2 by hand.

Perhaps I'm crazy. But I like it better this way. :-)
--------------------------

Re:Evolution

[Skeezix]

Yes but their current source base is so big now that it's quite intimidating to just join in. And GNOME developers don't produce mucho documentation at all.

What sort of documentation are you looking for. Perhaps I can help you find it. The Gnome Project has plenty of documentation. Also, if you're interested in developing for Gnome, check out The Gnome Developer's Site. In addition, resources such as mailing lists, newsgroups, national websites, and related projects can be found on Gnome's Resource Index. I hope this helps.
----

Re:Public Announcement and no frigin rpm's availab

[Skeezix]

Actually there are RPM's available. You can use the Helix Updater to get them. They'll be available under "Evolution Preview" in the Helix Updater Mirror list. Or if you want them now, you can scroll down to the bottom of the mirror list and use the Evolution Testing Mirror. I am not responsible for the consequences of your actions, should you choose the latter option. :) If you don't want to use the updater, you can ftp directly to the mirrors. :)
----

Re:Evolution

[jcsmith]

That is a good point. At some point a large project needs a group of people dedicated to source code documentation. Sure the programmers themselves could do the documentation, but that is often an afterthought. Perhaps teams need to make more of a push to get people who are willing to help document the code. In the end these people may be nearly as valuable as the programmers by allowing more code reuse throughout open source

Independence is GOOD, albeit perhaps not yet...

[Christopher B. Brown]

Right now, the libraries you list are somewhat in flux. ORBit probably less so, but the others are pretty much "works in progress."

If they were "more integrated," then what you would actually have to do is not to "get the latest versions of these libs," but instead "get the latest version of MondoGNOMElib (version 2000.07.28) " which would involve compiling the same, entire set of code.

By not integrating the libraries, this allows them to "evolve" independently towards stability.

Thus, if GConf gets stable pretty quickly, then it can do so, the version numbers can stop changing, and you get at least one component that is visibly stable.

In contrast, by "integrating" them all together, the whole thing becomes a jumble of instability, and you can't tell which pieces are stable and which aren't, because all you know is that the program demanded that you install MondoGNOMElib version 2001.04.01

KDE is not terribly much cleaner; with the "not quite stable ABI" of G++, you're left with potentially needing to recompile the whole tool chain any time either:

• G++ gets bumped a version level;
• libg++ changes versions;
• libstdc++ changes versions;
• STL changes version;
• Qt changes versions;
• libkde changes versions.

There is potential that GCC 3.0 will resolve some of this by providing some additional promises as to the ABI interoperability, but that's not there yet.

Re:Independence is GOOD, albeit perhaps not yet...

[Quigley]

Nice try, but you sound very misinformed. Both the KDE and Qt developers *strictly* keep binary compatability between minor revision numbers to avoid this problem. No re-compilation is necessary until you bump up a whole major version number, and that's going to mean more than just re-compilation, e.g. porting. KDE *is* much better than GNOME in this respect, they have so far and will continue to provide a stable library base for third party developers to build on.

G++ is another story, however, and a new version that breaks binary compatability would have implications far beyond KDE. I doubt it would be in the best interests of the G++ developers to do this without good reason, and it's CERTAINLY not going to happen often. Furthermore, a new libstdc++ revision is no different than a new glibc revision - of course you're going to need to re-compile.

I've tried to install the GNOME mess too, and it is a PITA. Luckily the Helix GNOME installer does a wonderful job of taking care of this problem, and the program worked beautifully for me. I feel for the poor GNOME developers that have to keep up with all the different source packages, though :)

File formats are obselete. Use IMAP

[David Jao]

The days when you had to worry about what file format is used to store your mail are over. IMAP is designed to allow you to access your mail folders anywhere, anytime, from any program. In short, IMAP is nothing less than the definitive answer to client lock-in.

For more information on IMAP, you can read this Linux Gazette article I wrote two years ago on the subject. It's a bit dated but still mostly relevant.

Evolution, of course, supports IMAP. I switched to mutt after the 1.2 release added decent IMAP support. I urge you, if you are at all concerned about getting at your mail, to switch to IMAP today and put all those worries behind you forever.

Re:File formats are obselete. Use IMAP

[Van Halen]

The days when you had to worry about what file format is used to store your mail are over. IMAP is designed to allow you to access your mail folders anywhere, anytime, from any program.

This all sounds nice, but what about when I'm not connected to my central server and I need information that's stored in my mail messages? This is precisely why my work laptop is configured to store mail locally rather than IMAP, which is the company-wide default. I do a fair amount of traveling to customer sites, and when I'm in a meeting and I need to pull up an email, I can't get it from IMAP, so it has to be in a local file.

I don't suppose IMAP supports synchronization of local and remote copies of the mailbox so that I can have all of its benefits when I'm connected, yet still have access to messages when I'm in the middle of nowhere? Perhaps this can be done by the client, but I'm not sure if any of them have such a feature. Anyone know?

Re:File formats are obselete. Use IMAP

[mikpos]

Uhh it's not as great as you make it out to be. All it does is shift responsibility from using a standard mail format into using a standard mail protocol. You gain network capabilities, which is nice, but that is all.

Re:File formats are obselete. Use IMAP

[fejjie]

We will have a disconnected-IMAP provider which will sync your local store with the remote store so you can browse your "IMAP" mail while offline.

This isn't done yet but hopefully by 0.4 or 0.5 we'll begin to have some preliminary support for this. I'm still working on writing the IMAP provider and Dan Winship is working on the disconnected-IMAP which will wrap around my IMAP code

Jeff

already a web front end to evolution: YAHOO

[Ars-Fartsica]

mail, calendar, etc. already working with servers near you that can never be slashdotted.

Leave on Server

[F.O.Dobbs]

One of the features that would probably encourage more people to try it is if POP3 left the mail on the server (or the option was at least available.). I didn't see anywhere to post bugs/requests, or I would have posted at Helix. Looks pretty sharp though, I'm thinking I'll switch over in a few more releases.

Re:SSH over a firewall

[Lennie]

Just make sure your the admin ! :) Works for me ;)

Evolution is a mail/calendar/addressbook Gnome app

[billstewart]

"Evolution is the GNOME mailer, calendar, and addressbook application."

I find it really frustrating to have slashdot articles saying "FoobarWare Version 0.0.2 Is Now Available!" without saying what the FoobarWare project is. By the time something's been out on the street for a while, most people know what the name is (e.g. you don't need to explain what GNOME is), but for early development releases, the developers probably haven't done a big PR campaign and word-of-mouth hasn't spread much beyond the initial crowd of developers and their friends, so nobody knows if FooBarWare is a calendar program or a dessert topping synthesizer.
So either you skip over the article, or read the first few comments (invariably about the need to fix the bug in the frobnifier routine), or you go slashdot the development site to find the one sentence summary that'd tell you whether you care about the two-paragraph description that gives you a good idea whether you want to read the detailed docs or download the code and start hacking on it.

Re:Mohawk - Another Important Announcement

[joelin0]

lookin damn good .. when's it gonna be fully functional ? :)

I can't believe the buzz....It's a ripoff

[CyberOptic]

Normally 99% of /. complain about how lousy MS are etc.

But know people get all worked up over Evolution, like it's just the coolest new thing. And when it comes down to it, it is NOTHING more than a ripoff of MS Outlook... People come on.... It's DIRECT copy of Outlook and you just talk like it's soooo cool. Whats up with this?

And on top of that, it's even DAMN unstable... They are(in there own words) building it by using VERY unstable components, which again rely on very unstable components...If you ask me, and alot others...this is NOT the you normally develop an app.

Somebody...Please rank this up... It's very objective info... It really is a copy of an MS product which people constantly bash on. And on top of that it's poorly developed...

Re:I can't believe the buzz....It's a ripoff

[fejjie]

I will admit that the interface is a ripoff of Outlook, but hey - we're working on the backend as that's where the important code is ;-)

Besides, Outlook's interface works. "If it ain't broke then don't try to fix it."

In any event, the real difference is in the backend. The components are very well designed and very modular.

I think that if you actually looked at the design you'd change your mind about it being "poorly developed"

Evolution

[delmoi]

Evolution is making great progress,

Yup, just think, a few tens of thousands of years ago, we were just a bunch of hary monkies running around in the jungle. Now look at us!

We don't know how bad things are in north korea, but here are some pictures of hungry children. -- CNN

What is it that should get encrypted?

[Christopher B. Brown]

Should encryption support be pervasive inside applications?

I would consider that approach less than safe; it is vulnerable to someone deciding that they need to write Yet Another Config File, or otherwise writing out a message in plain text form, thus destroying the would-be security. That's a mere fd = fopen("./tmpmsg", rw); away.

Furthermore, this does absolutely nothing about securing your AbiWord documents unless the developers thereof go through a separate process of building APIs that integrate in PGP or GPG. Ditto for Gnumeric, and GNote, and Dia, and GnuCash, and, and, ...

It is quite possible that making your system secure will require doing some things to all of these applications, at some point.

But it seems to me that it is a wiser move to use encryption at the filesystem level, so that once you log out, access goes away, and where protection is pervasive.

Re:What's wrong with the Napster News?

[rking]

You're right, copyright infringment is not theft.

Well since you do realise that, it was a bit stupid to ask what it was about theft that people were failing to understand. Theft simply isn't the issue.

But it's a distinction that makes no difference.

If the fact that different words have different meanings makes no difference to you then you're going to have a tough time communicating.

Both result in financial loss to the owner of the property.

Either can, neither must. Anyone who thinks that "theft" is about financial loss is really failing to understand the concept.

If you steal my watch and leave 10 times its resale value, you still stole it. If you steal a photograph that matters to me but has no resale value, you steal stole it. Theft is not about financial loss.

Arson may also cause financial loss, or again it might not. Arson is not theft. Arson is not copyright infringement.

evolution unknown to you? How 'bout D&D

[Pflipp]

everybody is suddenly complaining about the lack of information surrounding the Evolution 0.3 announcement. I mean, c'mon, you have Linux installed, with GNOME, prolly Helix Code too, right? (No flames about the necessity of the command line and CLI-driven mailers are allowed here.)

But I haven't yet found complains (maybe just because I don't look to well, but still) about these headlines:

--
Napster Ruling Stayed

StoryMan was the first of a flood of readers to note: "Napster ruling has been stayed. Doesn't have to close by midnight! Woohoo!"
--

Who the hell is Napster? What's CNN?

--
Ask Slashdot: What Does The Future Hold For 3D Myst-ery Games?
--
What is Myst?

And now, for the best:

--
Unfinished D&D movie footage Leaked To Net
--

D&D? Donald and Daisy?

What's a Palm VII? A toonami? Welcome to the world of buzz-words. To name it after Orson Wells' (am I right?) "NewSpeak":

NewGeek

It's... It's...

Re:evolution unknown to you? How 'bout D&D

[FunkyChild]

George Orwell wrote '1984' which contained the term Newspeak.

Re:evolution unknown to you? How 'bout D&D

[Pflipp]

Hmm. Right. It was one of them two anyway ;)

It's... It's...

Re:WF

[chegosaurus]

why isn't there a moderation option of "painfully unfunny adolescent"?

Gabber in it.

[halfline]

Jeremy Wise is going to try to add a gabber bonobo component for evolution, but it's goina be a while.

UGH... sorry but this is wrong.

[Arker]

It uses gtkhtml to compose your mail, giving you the choice (not: optional!) to send HTML formatted mail

Other than this is sounds really good, but PLEASE rethink that crap. HTML is not a suitable or legal format for email. It's bad enough to have all these windows lusers flooding the net with this crap, the absolute LAST thing we need is *nix users doing it too! Come on, we should be setting an example, NOT mindlessly adopting every screwed up so-called "feature" that MS decides to tack onto their bugware!

Even in the windows world the better email programs (Eudora and Pegasus Mail for instance) do not encourage this nonsense! If you really must have email that is formatted beyond the capabilities of text/plain, the proper way to do this is by sending text/enriched (see RFC 1896 ) NEVER by sending HTML.

Please, please, reconsider this "feature." This is BAD. For whatever it's worth, I personally, and many people I know, do not think this is a joke. This is a very serious matter. I've been a supporter and a user of the GNOME project and the software it's produced for over a year now, but I will definately have to rethink things if you continue with this, and I know for a fact that I am far from the only one that feels this way. Text/enriched is bad enough, but at least with it the output is still readable in standard mail readers like PINE (if barely.) HTML is over the line.

Re:UGH... sorry but this is wrong.

[fejjie]

Sending HTML mail is turned off by default, I too hate receiving HTML mail - it doesn't belong, but at the same time we have to support it for the people who *do* want it.

Jeff

Re:UGH... sorry but this is wrong.

[Arker]

I'm sure it was, that's besides the point.

It's an option that shouldn't exist. Like an option to set your cars headlights to flicker at just the right frequency to cause every epileptic you pass to have a seizure.

Re:UGH... sorry but this is wrong.

[Arker]

Sending HTML mail is turned off by default

I understood that.

we have to support it for the people who *do* want it.

Why?

I've managed to wean several people from text/html to text/enriched by getting them to switch to a mailer (Pegasus Mail) that is well behaved. I've yet to have one miss a "feature" in the transition. In my experience, people that want to use HTML in their email don't want HTML per se, they don't even know what it is, they just want to set colours or make font changes or other simple things like that. That's perfectly doable with enriched text.

I've only once ever seen an HTML email that couldn't have been duplicated in text/enriched, and it was from a spammer that thought he'd be cute and hide his return address in some obfuscated java-script. Not the kind of customer I would be trying to cater to.

If you were making a car, would you feel compelled to add a "feature" to make the headlights flash at just the right frequency to trigger epileptic seizures? Even if the other guy was doing it?

I suspect that it's more a matter of you have this really neat GD(T?)KHTML widget handy, and just can't resist the temptation to use it. If so, please, resist that temptation. It will help no one, and hurt many.

Bringing the masses to Linux could be a good thing - but not if it means bringing Linux down to level of the competition. Which is a broader point I suppose, but one I really wish both the GNOME and KDE developers would show more appreciation of. Like the woman who wanted to be equal with men, linux applications that try to be equal to their windows counterparts are wishing for a demotion, not a promotion.

formats vs. protocols

[David Jao]

If both the format and the protocol in question were on equal footing, then you're right, we gain nothing in terms of standardization.

But the vast majority of mail file formats have no existence beyond their incarnation in a specific implementation, while IMAP4rev1 is an IETF standards track protocol that already enjoys a great many existing interoperable implementations. I tend to trust IETF standards a lot more than some random format implemented by a particular program (remember, the IETF brought us IP, TCP, SMTP, FTP, and many other internet standards that work very well today).

Groupwise is not NetWare-specific

[edgarde]

I've not tried this myself, but Groupwise runs on NT and Unix networks. It may want Novell NDS, but it doesn't require NetWare.
__________

Re:SSH over a firewall

[cduffy]

Actually, SSH's X forwarding works just fine over two-level redirection.

You see, what it does is has the sshd on the machine you're ssh'ing _to_ start a X forwarder, so the DISPLAY there is something like otherhost:10.0, but it's not an X server but sshd answering. That sshd then compresses the data, encrypts and sends it over to yourhost:0 (or whatever your original DISPLAY was). The nice thing about this procedure is that it's repeatable, so you can have your X connection forwarded through SSH as many times as is needed to get to where you're eventually needing to go.

(erm, otherhost is the host you're sshing into, so it's the otherhost from the POV of you, not the remote host; for that reason, the DISPLAY could just as easily be localhost:10.0, and firewalls don't cause trouble w/ it as long as they permit ssh).