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Aethera Beta 1 Released
StupiDiot writes: "Aethra is a open source mail client which follows in the steps of LookOut, and is being developed by the Kompany. In case you haven't been
following, Aethera is theKompany's fork of the greatly hyped/anticipated Magellan project. Beta 1 of Aethera sports POP3, SMTP, HTML, DnD, a contacts interface, sticky notes, and more. IMAP, Calendar support, etc., are promised for the next beta. There is no mention of the license although source is available from the Web site -- most of the source files seem to be under the BSD license.
" So, I downloaded it and tried playing with is last night - it's a very cool, very slick program - the competition between this and the Gnome-equivalent Evolution will be interesting, as always. Regardless of which wins, the race to produce an Outlook-killer is on.
Regardless of which wins, the race to produce an Outlook-killer is on.
Good luck! Without something like Exchange or an "Outlook Killer" that is compatible with Exchange, there's no way this will get ANYWHERE.
I'd love for it to happen though...
Again the linux community splits its resources on two projects who should really work together. Its so annoying that programs should have their fate determined by which toolkit is used. Think about how stupid that waste of resources is. I used to think that there was strength in diversity. That's why I did not used to mind distro's installing 15 text editors by default. But now I am more interested in standards, which we are no where near adhearing to. Guess what the kde v gnome was is over, and they both lost.
I for one do the reply below quoted text thing. To me, it looks proper to display a few sentences, a paragraph from the original to follow what point you are replying to. Of course, the key here is to EDIT the quoted text down to what's necessary so someone can follow what you are saying. That is asking a lot of some folks, I know, who just hit their Reply button and say, "Yes, I agree." It used to be all over Usenet (when I looked there). Then one is left wondering, on which point in the post do they agree? :)
HTML EMail has its uses. But sure the default should be plain text, etc. One shouldn't send strangers (newsgroups, mail lists, etc) HTML, but that is more an etiquette issue that needs to be taught.
In an email reply, it takes all your new text from where it should be (directly under the part replied to) and automatically moves it above the original message.
Both formats have problems. While I love the direct response system of the unix style, it doesn't fit so well in this age of variable size windows for reading e-mail. It doesn't word-wrap. HTML is (justifiably) panned for all the crap people have put it in, but a separation between the data and the display would be a good thing.
Heck, I used it in this post, by italicizing the comment I'm replying to. I can't do that so easily in e-mail.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Because, as bad as you may think MS GUI design is, the GUIs for most open source apps I've seen are ten times worse.
At least MS actually go to the trouble of usability testing and feeding the results back into the design process. With most open source apps the design criteria tends to go to "the developer should be happy with it" and not much further.
if you read the RFCs you see that they are being contributed by . M$. Funny, eh ?
Not really. MS developers contribute to quite a few RFCs and other open standards these days.
This is like arguing... [examples chopped]
Not really - all of those examples don't require anyone else to put up with your choices. The nearest anyone else would have to come to them is the paper produced by LaTeX.
EMail is *entirely* about interoperablity, on the net-at-large, at least - your choice of mail client and format does affect what I see.
That said, if someone could make a "liblinks" so that I could read the HTML mail in links without having it as an external viewer in mutt, that'd be cool - as it stands, HTML mail is passed over in favour of mail I can read without effort, unless it's someone I know.
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
I haven't used exchange. It sounds like CVS for scheduling. Is that basically what it is?
Oh and can you remove the "three pane" layout rubbish. Messages should be displayed in a window that can be stacked as the user sees fit. And I don't use folders so why bother with all that wasted screen space. But I do use the keyboard so it should be aimed at not needing a mouse.
And multiple UIs, say console and X (or web and X) for when I dial in from home.
And a scripting language (so I can do pick -t rpm-list | save +rpm-list interactively)
Zmail is still my killer application. I'd sell one of my two sisters for an industrial strength mailer than runs on Linux (mutt comes close but thye took out the best bit from mush---the shell-like interface)
richard.
Will it have something like this? It would be really nice to have a single button to press and it would dial in, send and receive letters and then hang up. I'm not saying that it should be a part of the application, but it should call an other application. That's what components are for, right?
Szo
Red Leader Standing By!
A smart mail client would turn on HTML mail by discovery only. If it receives an HTML e-mail from someone, it (automagically) turns on HTML e-mail for that person only.
Personally, I despise any kind of marked up e-mail format. On the other hand, I don't mind some limited forms of client-side markup. For example, the quote highlighting that kmail now does is handy, although the charset support can just go.
As long as the original text version is what I actually got so that I can still dial in and read it with elm (AKA the devil I know).
c.
Log in or piss off.
"Because companies for better or worse have spent *billions* training people on Outlook and other MS applications. It's in the community's best interest to have replacements for common MS apps that will require minimal retraining to help grease the skids for Linux on the desktop. "
And thus ensuring Microsoft's lock in of corporate "standards" such as Outlook.
The key here is the server, not the client. I don't want a clone for Outlook to read my messages in, but I do want to be able to access my company's calendar and contacts database. Tools that extract Exchange information and make it usable to the rest of us are desperately needed.
There's a broader point here: one of the reasons Linux is weak on the desktiop is that there are few people with the ability to see beyond the Windows (capital W, note) paradigm for tools and UI.
KDE is the worst offender (although Gnome is guilty too). It's a stupendous technical achievement, but all the imagination has gone into the code. For a UI, someone just screenshotted Windows 95 and then set about making everything the same, down to one click app and document launching.
-- need more time?
This all sounds to me like an extreme case of "not invented here syndrome". If *NIX had introduced HTML in email before MS did, all the Linux bigots here would be calling it a feature, and lambasting the poor microserfs who still had to use text email.
[excessive flamage]
If you stupid OS zealots would stop using a mail client that's older than your mothers *cough* mutt *cough* and drag yourselves kicking and screaming into the 21st century (or at least past 1991), there would be no problem with using HTML in email. Believe it or not, there are reasons for using X other than getting 12 terminal windows on the same screen.
[/flamage]
0 1 - just my two bits
What I would like is a mail client that would 'dowongrade' HTML to plain text for viewing
How about one that `upgrades' plain text for viewing, stripping the asterisks from "*foo*" and making it bold, like what Mozilla does with ":)"?
-rozzin.
I want a free Linux MAPI client, so I can DUMP this horrid outlook.
Microsoft aggravates my tourettes syndrome.
The trouble is that TheKompany and Helix Code/Ximian have more competition going on than just wanting the KDE project or the GNOME project to gain more market share. As I understand it, Ximian are hoping to integrate their own pay-for services into Evolution. And TheKompany intend to sell the server component that does the collaborative calendaring (and keep it closed source). So they are both competing for money from the backend of their client software - a bit like the way that Microsoft and Netscape duked it out over browsers to promote the use of their servers.
What we really need is neither of these projects, but instead something that uses open standards-based peer to peer protocols to do calendaring.
It's not that hard to read HTML even on text-mode mail readers. Pine already parses HTML, for one. For mutt, it's just a matter of putting "auto_view text/html" in your .muttrc, an appropriate command in your mailcap ("w3m -T text/html -dump %s", or "lynx -force_html -dump %s") and setting the mailcap path in .muttrc.
This is my point. I've played with Evolution and I'd be willing to play with this but what I "REALLY" need is something that supports calendering from an exchange backend. I don't know the file format nor am I a programmer but until that happens I'll still have to have vmware at the office to run outlook.
"Fighting the underpants gnomes since 1998!" "Bruce Schneier knows the state of schroedinger's cat"
There is Novell Groupwise. Perhaps we will see a linux client. Novell already has support for NDS under linux and single sign on (which is great).
But I agree with the point, that in order for this kind of app to take off you have to match the features of Exchange and Groupwise, and add more stability.
Groupwise is great for stability, the client is what needs the most work. (ie; not wrapping lines).
Perhaps its time for a new groupware server, with hooks that these apps can plug into to have a shared calendar todo lists etc.
Just my 2c
Aethra is actually called "Aethera". I'm sure the Slashdot editors would find this out pretty quickly if they had bothered to actually read the pages they link to _before_ posting the stories.
Btw, I've tried Aethera, and... it's a killer.
--
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Like some say: alpha/beta is the state of mind. :)
--AP
If you want a nice email client (isn't free though, and no source), you should check out Mulberry from Cyrusoft (http://www.cyrusoft.com). It's got great support for IMAP, SMTP, and POP3, among other things. It's also cross-platform for all those out there stuck in Windoze, or using a Mac also.
"In case of emergency, break glass. Scream. Bleed to death."
We all know that Windows sucks. So why, oh why, do countless Open Source projects spring up that try to slavishly duplicate the look and feel of yet another crap Windows product while leaving out the only good parts of the functionality? And then they call it a "Windows:foo killer". Do they really think Microsoft are the sole arbiters of what constitutes good GUI design?
Considering they actually hire people who specialize in user interfaces and the psychologies behind them? Yeah. Just because you don't like the look and feel, doesn't mean that everyone else---
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
It has most of the functionality of the Netscape Calendar server -- it just needs the SASL wrapper written for it, and it provides a client.
---
"He may look like an idiot, and talk like an idiot, but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." - Duck Soup
I used Pine / elm and now use Kmail. They all handle mail great. But the problem is they are not the 'kitchen sink' of everything. Some one sends me an invitation for a meeting by mail & if I accept it it should automatically update my calendar. (outlook does this, I use it at office).
I understand the unix philosophy of 'doing one thing & doing it well'. But PIM is really one thing that has contacts/mails/calendar.
And also a synchronisation with PALM / those cell phones would be nice too.
LinuxLover
This is like arguing...
why don't every one use CLI instead of all the cool looking KDE/gnome/E/whatever?
why get DSL when a 56k modem can download webpages aswell.
why people have to use Koffice/MsOffice instead of Latex to write a letter. INfact it is the one used to write thesis & books
I *like & send* text mails most of the time as most of my friends are unix users and they hiss on HTML mail. But if I need to 'mark' my mail using bold/italic/colors or whatever, I would rather use HTML for that. It is *still* text unlike some other proprietary format. And trust me a color coded mail is more readable / presentable than one filled with underscores and stars.
What I would like is a mail client that would 'dowongrade' HTML to plain text for viewing. (and it might even be smarter to do bold / italics using 'curses' or just plain using underscores stars). Now that would be real nice.
LInuxLover
Valid point. But most of the ISPs are still offering POP mail service. Ever seen those adds that say 'basic DSL with 10 pop emails' ? My DSL provider (http://www.firstworld.net) is still on POP.
I also like IMAP where msgs live in server and deleted msgs are removed from server. This way I don't have to backup my mail dir often. One think that pisses me off about POP is when I select
- leave mail on server
- delete mail on server upon local delete
nothing happens (Netscape mail / kmail). The mails keep accumulating in Inbox and oneday all the mails started to bounce back with error message 'insufficient resources for recipient' !!!
Any one has a workaround for this?
LinuxLover
You must now run very fast to the Patent Office before the Evil Empire snags your total outstanding breakthrough in email handling.
Sure this an absolute wínner and I hope you are lucky to get your well deserved financial reward.
//Pingo
--- Linux or FreeBSD, it's like blondes or brunettes. I like both. ---
Until there's a replacement for Exchange on *nix, what I would really like to see, is an email/calendar/contact/etc client that can talk to the exchange server. Is there a program out (or in development) that can do this?
Right is wrong when left is right.
It's ironic, then, that you choose to post to Slashdot differently (instead of like I'm posting now). Context is everything, and replying to points in turn has no substitute.
Every email client I've used, I've always changed it so my new text appears on top. Even my Linux ones.
Why in the world would you do such a ignorant thing such as to despise a semantic markup language such as HTML. It would be utterly idiotic to put down a semantic markup language, which has the purpose of providing a better description of the message's meaning to the reader. I've written about this at length on my website, so I'm not going to try to re-iterate this old, tired argument. In the end, HTML email providea meaning and structure, and gives the power of presentation to the reader, not the author.
Could you possibly be more ignorant of what HTML is? You fail to realize that HTML is a semantic markup language, not some presentational language, which you obviously think it is, judging from your webpage, which uses a plethora of deprecated presentational HTML elements. I've written about the topic of HTML email at length; it comes down to the fact that HTML provides a greater means of communication since it is a semantic markup language, and since it is such, gives the ability of presentation to the reader, not the author, as which is done with flat text. Having the author decide presentation is one of the worst evils we are plagued with concerning email.
On the other hand, your entire argument is nullified since the client in no way shape or form needs to support the deprecated presentational aspects of HTML.
Also, look for a beta of the Urethra newsreader which complements Aethera, to be coming out soon.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
Funny definition of dead really. I would have thought that the number of users was a better measure. Obviously I've just missed the 'insight' in your comment.
Sorry - to be more precise, the end user doesn't see <EM> as denoting "Emphasis", they perceive it as "a way to get Italics". And since 99% of the userbase is used to seeing three items in a toolbar marked "B I[underline]" to get the presentational elements, it wonn't matter whether they're Bold or Italic, or Strong and Emphasis.
The end user uses markup elements as presentational elements because they don't appreciate the difference. The level of clue you're asking for isn't realistic; as a tech writer, I've seen the most "OO"-clued developers and technically-clued testers produce Word and FrameMaker documents that are marked entirely with "hardcoded font changes", even when given a template/style-sheet chock full of everything they want.
They still "<Font=Courier Size=10>" when they mean "<functioncall>" because they don't grok that a desktop publishing system is not a typewriter. Now imagine trying to get Joe AOLer to do the right thing for a random email. He won't, for the same reason - because he can't comprehend the difference. "Yo, what's the difference as long as it looks bold when I click the bold button?"
Bah! A mouse is just a device you use to figure out which of those terminal windows you wanna type in ;-) :-) :-)
"Well, if it supports HTML mail, it's a web browser, so I guess it's gonna have to if it wants to beat Mozilla! You can wait three years for v1.0 of your mail client as long as it's got skinz, can't you?" *rimshot* ;-)
Agreed -- but email is not the new medium, the web was.
(To clarify: Would you chastise Leonardo DaVinci because the Mona Lisa isn't a 3D CGI rendering? Even if HTML:Plaintext as CGI:Paint, it does not follow that all email should parse HTML, just as it does not parse that all oil paintings should be "updated" to look like ray-tracings. Email, WWW, paint, and ray-tracing are media. Plain text, HTML, the Mona Lisa, and Quake models are instances of media.)
Umm... ask 100 users who prefer HTML mail to text why they use HTML mail.
Betcha 99 of 'em say "Well, it'z cuz u can bold things and italicize things".
The fact that HTML is a semantic markup language has nothing to do with the fact that it's used as a presentational language, thereby effectively nullifying your argument.
n.
1) Any of a group of British workers who between 1811 and 1816 rioted and destroyed laborsaving textile machinery in the belief that such machinery would diminish employment.
2) One who opposes technical or technological change.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
My favorite part of Outlook is Outlook Today. Synced with my Palm, it gives me a nice heads up of email, tasks, and the events for the next few days. I am very hooked on this. Are any of these new clients going to have a "Today" feature?
Aren't you all addicted to your Outlook Today?
Spoon not. Fork, or fork not. There is no spoon.
search freshmeat for ical
i think most of parts are already there (ldap, ical, etc.), but someone has to glue them together.
-- "As a human being I claim the right to be widely inconsistent", John Peel
The "UNIX philosophy" does not nessicarilly apply to end user applications IMO. You can have a seamless end user PIM app that is made up of a number of individual components that all interact, doing their own thing well but the user just sees a seamless, intergrated frontend.
"I'll take the red pill. No! Blue! AAAaaaahhhhhhhhh"
- Monty Python meets the Matrix
I really only had the Inbox in mind, on reflection I guess the compose dialog wasn't that bad. I still think the point stands.
If *NIX had introduced HTML in email before MS did,
Well, *NIX doesn't introduce things like this.
However, Netscape did introduce this before MS on *NIX, windows and mac.
Thanks for playing
---CONFLICT!!---
Considering they actually hire people who specialize in user interfaces and the psychologies behind them?
By "hire" I think you mean "steal the work by the people Apple hired"
---CONFLICT!!---
by M$?
All of their products are direct knock-offs from MS products! Kivio, Kstudio, etc
I know that Kdevelop looks like MS VS too, but they are not just trying to copy it, they improve it, and i like it even more that VS. Kompany on the other hand is just making identical copies of MS software.
Do you think that M$ can sue or stop them from making products that resembles their own so much?
------------ Internet? Is that thing still around? H.J. Simpson
I'm not a programmer, but surely such a thing is do-able? Even as a component in an existing mail client?
I think Linux is a smashing OS, but the OS you run is less important than the applications. When I look at the applications I use most of the time:
- Outlook 2000 connected to an exchange server
- Internet Explorer 5.5
- half-life
- Office 2000
- various custom database clients, used infrequently
- Netsupport (remote control package, like pcanywhere only better)
I would say currently I can make a set-up in Linux that kinda does most of that, but it means a lot of compromises. The first two though, occupy 75% of my time.~~~~~ BigLig2? You mean there's another one of me?
My rhetoric is not outdated. Our Exchange server goes down more frequently than . We have gone through three managers for our NT Team, and a half-dozen line level NT admins, and none of them have been able to run Exchange reliably. Maybe it takes a rocket scientist to run it well - that's what every NT admin that has come through here tells me. Maybe we don't pay our NT admins enough to attract the good talent. I don't know. All I know is that Exchange is unreliable here.
Edith Keeler Must Die
Edith Keeler Must Die
Many of my users love being able to take a mail message and drop it on a calendar or todo icon within the same application, and won't be too anxious to abandon these types of featueres.
would be a nice vsb mailworm which used exchange rich features also, like cancelling or sending meeting notices, not just mails ...
- OK, How is it an outlook killer if it isn't competing on the same platform?
Well, for one it would let me get rid of the WinNT machine (used only for email) sitting next to my Linux box at work.I/O Error G-17: Aborting Installation
Especially the urine tract?
Constitutional rights may be respected, repealed, or modified; but they must never be ignored.
I still think the problem is Outlook. I have first hand experience of a recent evaluation that a large multi-national company did for their next generation email system. Their number one requirment was that Outlook should be the client. They wouldn't event look at anything else!
Once that "requirement" was factored in, can you guess which email platform was chosen? Despite other products being available that provided identical backend functionality, it was the bells and whistles that decided it.
pidge
Pardon me, but there is no "F" in knowledge.
Bingo Foo
---
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
The modern pitfall of opensource: Tool #3421 to achieve the same task.
To my mind, the best mailtool for Linux is without a doubt Sylpheed (search on freshmeat.net for it). Multiple accounts and filtering all handled flawlessly - all wrapped up in a sensible gtk wrapper so your themes apply to it.
It would be nice to see something big like the Gnome project select Sylpheed as their 'official' mail client, but it looks like everyone is hell bent on something that not only looks like Outlook, but chews memory, screenspace and CPU just like it too (hi Evolution.)
james
--
ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US!
Will be won, not by sticks and stones, nor by nuclear weapons, but by the incompetence of Microsoft programmers who will accidentally release bugs and back-doors which will force its users to activate their software.
There is an Exchange Killer out there. It's called HP OpenMail. The problem is it's not free.
It does run on *nix and has most of the functionality of Exchange Server.
You can also use HP's client or Outlook or any other number of clients to interface with it.
Give it Palm sync and I'm sold.
-- And when Justice is gone, there is always... Force. --Laurie Anderson, "Oh Superman"
In StatOffice 5.2 you have a perfect Email/Calender/Schedule clinet and server backend that is cross platform and works resobly well to be a "OutLook/MS Office" killer. I was so happy when SUN said -"We will release StarOffice as OpenSource". Now we finally had the Groupware and Office suite of programs under an OSS license. BUT! When SUN released OpenOffice they had removed the whole Groupware part of the program. Hence making it a less atractive as a Outlook/MS Office replacement. I hope SUN can rethink and release the missing Email/Caldender/Schedule parts of OpenOffice under a OSS license. For further info regardning this matter see http://www.openoffice.org and for even more info browse http://www.openoffice.org/www-discuss/current/
Starting with IMAP was a damn good idea. I am still waiting for the "outlook killers" (evolution, magellan, etc...) to have decent IMAP support!
Exactly our point.
Multiple folders and Multiple Accounts are supported with Althea. Configuration is a little clunky now but the next release is going to an XMLish format which will be much better. Folder management is the next topic (you can have folders, its just not ready for moving and creating yet, although Filters are working). SSL support might happen soon.
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
This is not flame bait just a small point hidden behind a lot of sarcasm.
to be honest, i think it'd be cool if there was an open source exchange-like solution, as a higher priority than implementing a closed one.
there's no reason that someone can't come up with exchange compatibility, but i'd really like to see web integration between nautilus, evolution, gnome (online file storage, mail, etc...) first.
i wish i was but oh well
The question is, can Microsoft find a way to sue the developers for "reverse-engineering" a product? You know, and I know, and Microsoft probably knows, that no reverse engineering is involved, but if Microsoft want to sue someone into the ground, especially someone like an open source developer... There's not much said developer can do to defend themselves without major assets...
End of lesson. You may press the button.
It does require QT. However, QT is available for Windows. Betcha didn't know that. :-)
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Microsoft Exchange was in development for 7 years at MS before shipping. And it still really hasn't stablized, despite the fact the core has really been significantly upgraded.
Lotus Domino has been on the market for about 14 years, and before that it was a university project.
Anyway, good luck to any open sourcers trying to reproduce this sort of groupware server, because it's a huge job.
A more fruitful approach might be to just tie together a LDAP/IMAP/NNTP server system with a unified install and admin interface (kinda like Netscape tried to do).
I am sick about seeing Outlook and Outlook Express clones on Linux that will never get as close to the level of i18n support that Outlook Express has simply because the underlying system (e.g. X Windows or GTK ) do not provide a decent framework to build i18n-enabled applications.
Currently, I am stick with Emacs and I can not even use mutt to read mail due to the same i18n and configurability issues within the OS, be it Linux or BSD.
That's because the guy made a typo. It should have been Aethera instead of Aethra.
If Star Schedule were under the GPL, it might be easier to make other clients (ie a connector for outlook) or make an exchange compatability mode.
Also, I don't think people should bash Evolution until it hits 1.0, I assume that Helix will be adding a client for Exchange.
The other point is to remember that we don't need an Exchange replacement. We only need to do calendaring and task sharing (and maybe even integrate that with project management). IMAP is for email and LDAP is for contacts => you can use any client for your mail and contacts.
BTW, Outlook also sucks (to administer)
Outdated? Maybe these have been your experiences, I must add that you have been most fortunate. We have had a major Exchange outage every year (1998,1999,2000). I am talking about not being able to use these machines for a *day* or two. Two of these outages required a complete reinstall of the OS! (1998 reinstall recommended by Microsoft after trying a pre-beta version of Exchange that corrected a known problem) Now our 2 NT admins are *very* skilled. 1 has his MCSE and has 4 years of NT experience and is very bright. The other has been adminning NT since 3.1. We also have a large staff of IT people at our headquarters that are very seasoned. These outages have been affectionately refered to as the "Great Exchange outage of (insert year here)". While I don't use Exchange personally, I don't look forward to a 2001 failure.
Space may be the final frontier, but it's made in a Hollywood basement. --Red Hot Chili Peppers, Californication
Better yet would be having an Exchange server replacement on Linux. Something that can do all that garbage on the back-end that can hook up to these front-ends.
------------
Well, at one time when I looked into Evolution they had said they were developing a server for it too. But now all they say is that it supports LDAP. Blah! Who cares? I want to see a bells and whistles server that will make my idiot manager drool and wet his pants with excitement. God knows that the only way to impress those people is to just completely flabbergast them with flash. So, where's the flash. A client like this without a fully complete server architecture behind it is going to be useless in a busines situation.
------------
I would love to see an open-source Exchange killer. Hopefully someone will wake up long enough to drool out the phrase, Business like Outlook 'cause Exchange serve functions and actually do something about it.
And for those out there preparing a "DO IT YOURSELF DUMBASS" response, some of us already have plenty to do without having to code every piece of software we use from the ground up. Thank you very much.
------------
And if we have something with those bells and whistles available on Linux, that's great, but it does nothing without the Exchange server type functions. But, others have pointed out that it is in the works. I wonder why no one ever mentions that in these "press release" style posts.
The server side may not be flashy and sexy, but it is very important if we are going to show a "feature by feature" compatible or even comparable Outlook Killer.
------------
OK, wasn't aware of that one.
I do know that the Evolution client is also being developed in conjunction with a server, but I am really curious as to why they rarely, if ever, mention the servers. Sure, they aren't the flashy/showy/wonderous things that everyone sees on the desktop, but to the people running the systems the server side is every bit as important (and in my mind would be a far more exciting) development. But, hopefully when they are "released" they will be nice and solid. When I get some time I throw one of them on my test network and check them out.
------------
Because the Mozilla team never did really address the main problem with Netscape (splitting up the browser, news and mail), you still can't set it up to use an external mail or news program.
I'll add the functionality when I get time...
The request to have netscape split up has been made over and over since before Netscape opened the code.
I think, here, publicly complaining is likely to do as much or more than a feature request.
I did have a look at the site, but I thought I had read it required QT. I can't check though, since the server seems unwilling to respond.
Psychos do not explode when the sunlight hits them, I don't care how fucked up they are.
Drag and Drop.
Trust the source!
>Regardless of which wins, the race to produce an Outlook-killer is on.
Looks a lot like Lotus Notes R5 on some of those screenshots. As for using this over Outlook, let me at it! I currently use Eudora due to it's lack of frequent virus exploitations that Outlook is so slammed with these days. Unfortunately, Eudora isn't quite as nice as Outlook. And for the non-business community, Urethra *laughs* looks like a great alternative to M$ Outlook and it's lack of security.
greets philipp
---
German Linux Portal Project
http://www.glpp.org
Elm, Pine, mutt, kmail, or one of several other mailers all work fine for my mail. I don't need anouther mail client. I do however need a way to do calendaring, and it needs to be compatable with everyone else's calendar. I don't care what your mail tool is, I'm used to pine and we can communicate.
This week we are in the process of switchig from Synchronize (with unix or windows clients) to exchange (and citrix for those with unix on their desk top - most of us) because the main office is exchange and those who regularly go to headquarts have a secratary just to keep the two systems in sync. It will work, but from playing with citrix I've already realized it is slow.
Problem is anyone can write a mail client. ASCII is an old standard. All the protocols are well described in rfcs. There are plenty of resources on network programing for just about any OS. Exchange is not well documented however. Good luck creating your own client - it is unlikely to work.
As soon as you talk HTML, you must think portability across platforms and applications, because HTML is supposed to be a platform-independant solution. (on the other hand, plain text *is* a solution, hands down). But 90% of the problem with HTML messages that are sent are the same 90% of the problem with the rest of the web -- these people have no idea how to write HTML code properly. From using malformed HTML markup to using IE-only tricks, these messages are barely readable on most browsers -- strip away the HTML to leave text, and you usually have something unreadable due to poor formating or hiding the content in the HTML (even though, theorhetically, removing HTML tags from a proper HTML document should leave a easily readible plain text file). This is a big concern to anyone using wireless internet devices, such as cel phones -- if that HTML message parsed down to text only is unreadible at 80x24, imaging trying to read it at 25x4, or worse.
You then have to conside the other problem, and that is compatibility with HTML browsers. Most of these email clients link to an existing browser engine, and embed it into a window. Lookout, obvious, and IIRC, Evolution will grab the Gecko engine from mozilla to do any HTML display. So you first run into the standard problems with HTML rendering in the various engines. But particularly on the windows side, these instances of the browser are NOT sandboxes -- all the standard hacks and the like will work in terms of, say, malicious buffer overruns from URLs. In addition, the 1x1 web bugs and other tricks can easily be inserted into the HTML email, and since you usually can't set different privacy and security for that browser instance, you're as vunerable as you would be with normal browsing. Plus I can send code in HTML that would normally be picked up by a cookie-blocker or such if the user had viewed the page via a normal HTTP connection, but would not be blocked in this case, and do the usual tricks of reporting back to a server.
Add to all of this that there is no clear cut standard for sending HTML email to begin with. Sometimes I'll get it in the plaintext client as HTML right after the headers, sometimes as two parts of a mime-encoded message, sometimes as an attachment -- it's a mess!
I believe that two things need to be done to make HTML email a practical thing that sits on top of the current email system that we have. Obviously, we need a standard for how to send and recieve email. Modifying the RFC for email servers to be able to recognize when an email client is sending in HTML, so that it can tag the message appropriately, and then when mail is being retrieved, a numeric can be sent prior to retrival to indicate that HTML or plaintext is desired (ala BINARY and ASCII of ftp servers). The server then would strip any HTML out of messages that contain it before sending the message out, if the plain text feature was enabled.
The other thing, more serious, is to develop a subset of HTML that can be used for email, similar to how /. does a trim of html -encoded messages. Restrict the set to only layout messages, such as B, H1, as well as links etc, and avoid anything that moves outside of just display, such as IMG, SCRIPT, EMBED, etc, such that what really can be sent is a what RTF can provide, in HTML terms. Mail clients can parse this before sending, but the job again would be up to the mail servers.
Putting such a new email server in place, as long as the way HTML was sent uses one of the current methods in use today, would not disrupt how older servers would continue to function, since only the input and output servers have any extra processing of messages to do. But there's a long way to go before this could be commonplace everywhere... it would require much help from MS and other vendors, and they're probably not going to cave in from this.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
WOW
/var/mail/tackhead no doubt.
I mean, I read all these books about people who scream and holler and stamp their feet with respect to change, but I never believed I would actually see the like.
Psst. While you weren't looking, your terminal changed to use ISO-latin. That's eight bits. It might even use unicode of all things, not only 8 bits but with funky escapes to encode 16 bit chars. Neither of which will show up on your IBM Codepage console on the 386sx running Linux 0.9 for which you read mail using cat
And despite your protestations, most mail readers got MIME support. Perhaps you've heard of it: it's what that "web" thing uses too.
And despite your ranting and raving, even a great many technically clueful people really don't give a damn about what you consider acceptable documents to transfer over e-mail.
Cope.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Funny how you complain about HTML mail, specifically of people using it to put things in boldface, then later on down, put "by default" in boldface...
Would you rather it were RTF? I like being able to mark up my email, thanks very much.
--
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
> The current batch of clients that support HTML email (include Lookout) do NOT have any such feature
Outlook most certainly can, including Outlook Express. Simply open the contact in the address book and check "Send E-Mail using plain text only". Besides, I don't share your feelings about HTML email. Each new medium developed should be able to repesent information to the richest extent possible. Using plain text only is an artificial limitation that makes only some people happy. Those people should strive to develop email clients that let them strip the plain text out of rich email, but they shouldn't be allowed to dictate what everyone else uses.
All said, there is no denying that a rich medium invites poor taste. Crass use of fonts, colors and sizes can indeed make email very unreadable, but that reflects more on the poor taste and inexperience of the author than on the flaws of the medium. A good email client would offer a sensible set of filters that can let you normalize rich email to whatever you want: full formatting, colors only, fonts only, or plain text only.
The important bit is the server platform. It is very hard to make cretinous Minesweeper Consulatants and Solitaire Experts that dwell around the coridors of large corps and claim to be from the "Incompetent in Technology" department to use anything but MS Exchange. So anything that can deal with their abominative productions is more than welcome.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Noooooooo!
(this would have been funnier with the multiple o's, but filter stopped me. Damn.
Pope
Freedom is Slavery! Ignorance is Strength! Monopolies offer Choice!
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Well, according to a note that I *would* quote (but for the fact that the kde news server just got slashdotted), the president of theKompany says that there is no reason that Aethra can't easily be ported to windows.
--
Evan
"$30 for the One True Ring. $10 each additional ring!" -- JRR "Bob" Tolkien
Email is a method for communicating. C-o-m-m-u-n-i-c-a-t-i-o-n is the keyword, the issue isnt HTML vs ASCII - it's which method that allows me to communicate more efficently.
<rant>
And beliving that email should stay 7-bited is so narrowminded that it's scary - makes me wonder if you've ever seen the outside the US? (Assuming you're an american, because most others nations have a realistic worldview) . Repeat, Lather, Rinse: The US isn't the entire world. English isnt the only language. 99% OF ALL LANGUAGES CAN'T BE EXPRESSED IN 7-bit ASCII.
So why the fuck are you ranting about the superiority of 7bit ascii? There isnt a single advantage to using 7-bit ascii over MIME or (preferbly) Unicode.
</rant>
-henrik
It may be an OL killer, but *why* all the recent OL killers look almost *exactly* their target looks?! OSS produces better quality, more solid apps, but seems to be enherintly incapable of producing innovative UI.
This may well be explainable: it is not cheap to conduct various usability studies, yet it is still sad nonetheless.
--AP
I know I'm being redundant, this isn't his first reply...
To make the open source movement something the PHBs can understand you have to give them MS-like solutions. An Outlook Killer is a step in this direction. "Sir, why buy 2000 Outlooks (or whatevers) if there's this one for free that we can tailor to due as you, the almight Lord Boss, please?".
Face it, they need a comparison - you can't expect a non-techie to understand that Linux is superior to Windows ?? due to it's stability, you need to make them understand through ca$h ($$$$$$) or something else.
I say, GREAT job guys - keep it up!
--
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
All browsers' default homepage should read: Don't Panic...
Check out the roadmap. Groupware is coming, with shared calendar targeted for March.
Also, if you read through the thread on news.kde.org you'll see that TheKompany will not be open sourcing the groupware server. This is is the way they intend to make money.
(note to /. editors: check the spelling next time...).
ROFL!
Ahum. Sorry, couldn't help myself...
Thimo
--
Avoid the Gates of Hell. Use Linux!
Nono, it's on the same platform. You just have to install a small required library called "linux" to get it to work correctly. You just have to be patient with the install.
So that at least one of the 13 previous people who were also "top-replying" would be encouraged to get some clue and trim out the irrelevant crud ;-)
Why the heck did you, a proponent of "top-posting" - when you posted your reply to Slashdot, which does not (last time I looked) automatically quote text to which you're replying - put your reply at the bottom of your reply to the original poster?
Answer: The same reason peoples' replies belong below the quoted text in email, namely "Here's what Foo said. Here's what Bar said in response. And here's why I agree with Foo and not Bar.", or more bluntly, because people in western cultures read left-to-right and top-to-bottom.
I'm one of those who believes HTML in email is an abomination.
The answer to why I use HTML markup on Slashdot is because Slashdot is accessed through the web. HTML is what web pages are made of; it's therefore appropriate to use HTML.
Email is not the Web. Email is a method for sending text (7-bit text, none of this 8-bit M$ASCII crap even!) between users on two systems.
Since even web browser authors can't render the same pice of HTML identically, and there are only two mainstream browsers, how on earth do you propose to make every email client (from mutt to Elm to Pine to Eudora to Outbreak to Nutscrape to...) render HTML correctly?
Email is not the web. If you want to mark up your email, *emphasize* things or _underline_ them or SCREAM, but do it in 7-bit ASCII, and do it in text.
- Paul Tomblin in alt.sysadmin.recovery, regarding HTML in USENET.I happen to agree with the sentiment when it comes to HTML in email too.
Umm... because 7-bit ASCII is what's in the RFC that specifies what SMTP is?
Because MIME-encoded binaries are 7-bit ASCII, just encoded in base64?
In English, I'd still rather see a "'" or """ instead of the =[hexdigit] that MIME uses -- but I'd rather see =[hexdigit] than the 8-bit "thing" that M$ includes.
Just like I'd much rather see a 7-bit ASCII representation of a base64-encoded JPG than have a mailer just "cat natalieportman.jpg | /bin/mail poorbastard@127.0.0.1"
Non-US character sets will likely wind up in some sort of representation that comes down to 7-bit ASCII too. SMTP is an 8-bit-unclean protocol - and if you use SMTP, you have to figure out how to decode quoted-printable or base64 data.
If you're going UTF-8 (or UTF-16), and the transport is not 8-bit-clean (i.e. if you use SMTP), then you need to do it in 7 bits and do MIME support. RFC2376, IIRC.
Email is about communication across platforms. To the extent possible, it should be independent of the mail client of the sender and the reader.
That's what the RFCs are for.
(Disclaimer: If you're doing groupware - strictly for stuff in the LAN and you control all the clients and all the recipients - you can design an 8-bit-clean transport protocol, and you can blithely send all the 8-bit data you want. Just don't assume that anyone outside your LAN will be able to read it. That is where Lotus Bloats and MSexchange both went wrong, and that's the thing I'd like to see an open-source Outlook-killer not do.)
(Of course, I do agree that that the issue of 8-bit-unclean transport is a wholly separate issue from my stance on HTML mail, since you can do HTML mail in 7-bit, but I'll still bounce it in procmail. It's just that I'll bounce it for a different reason ;-)
Why in the heck would I want my text below the part I'm replying to? So the person can read through 14 consecutive replies before they get to the good stuff?
Because as good Netiquette you should be trimming the text of the message you're quoting to the bare essentials - obviously.
Steve
---
Being that IMAP is a superior protocol , it suprises me that it isn't a high priority. I would try it out, but since there's no IMAP, I'll have to stick with Evolution... Which, has had IMAP from the start, even if it was pretty bad in the first betas...
But I DO have to admit, Aethra DOES look pretty...
-Brandon
...because you can't kill outlook as long as the exchange protocol is closed.
our server is run by microserfs...meaning forwarding is disabled, IMAP and POP are closed.
NO non-microsoft mail client will ever work with our exchange server.
IMHO, exchange and outlook are a better example of Microsoft's antitrust behavior than the browser wars.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
....but Maggellan will be open sourcing theirs..
--
-Oh Granny your eyes are BIG and RED!
-it's from rebooting WinNT servers all night, said the wolf
Why in the heck would I want my text below the part I'm replying to? So the person can read through 14 consecutive replies before they get to the good stuff?
Every email client I've used, I've always changed it so my new text appears on top. Even my Linux ones.
-
-Be a man. Insult me without using an AC.
- I don't care if they globalize against free speech. All my best free thoughts are done in my head.
When is everyone going to realize that Outlook is not just a mail client? The groupware features of Outlook (on an Exchange backend) are what make Outlook an interesting offer. DHTML/POP3/SMTP/Address books are all great and fine, but that's just a basic need for a simple mail client (they've been built into Outlook Express, Eudora, etc. for a while). Providing these features doesn't approach groupware, it approaches the minimum requirements that people *expect* from a mail program.
What *really* needs to happen is for someone to take the initiative on providing an extensible messaging environment that enables you to offer directory services, calendaring, addressing, forms, event handling, messaging, and VOIP across a corporate environment. SMTP and POP3 just aren't going to meet this need. Those types of features are what separate a mail program from a groupware environment.
Instead, what I really think people are looking for is not so much an Outlook killer (after all, it is in fact only a client) but an Exchange killer. And that needs to be cross platform or else you'll only have minor adoption rates - supporting Linux just won't do (even for the server). I find it hard to get impressed with another "me-too" mail program wanting to be groupware.
I'll grant you the inbox, but hth do you propose a developer to make a compose dialog box without using that interface??
Pine uses a suspiciously similar interface too (It has To:, CC:, Subject: and the message body!) It must be copying Outlook as well!!
---
Video meliora proboque deteriora sequor - Ovidius
look at this link:http://dot.kde.org/979768484/
a lot of talk about licensing issues and a apparent feud between the kompany and magellan developers
Must sys that it still looks nice tho
"Mommy, mommy! The garbage man is here!" "Well, tell him we don't want any!" -- Groucho Marx
on such a project9 79781930/979783107/979801945/
again dot.kde.org http://dot.kde.org/979768484/979777064/979778240/
"Mommy, mommy! The garbage man is here!" "Well, tell him we don't want any!" -- Groucho Marx
Aethra is cool but check out my sig for a small lightweight email client that was built for IMAP. The mistake of a lot of email clients is that they first support POP and then add on IMAP later. It screws up the program since you have to deal with messages differently. Better to start at IMAP (which I consider the "wave of the future" for email anyways) and then "disable" the features for POP. This is not meant to be flaimbait, just a fact of many email clients. Our development on Althea has focused on getting the IMAP right and adding all the Outlookesque features until its fully functional. POP is so far down the road, even LDAP is before it.
Check out Althea for a stable IMAP email client for X. Now with SSL!
yet again the desktop Vs desktop stupidity get's in the way of common sense.
there was the camel mail backend that they could have used, and implemented a kde interface - so why ignore it and the chance of *easier* interoperability between this and evolution??
i know this is still an important project, but people can't ignore existing technologies because of the fact that it was a competitors design.
sad...
i wish i was but oh well
Aethra sounds like Urethra ;)
--
Kiro
DnD? As in "Dungeons and Dragons"? Gee, I hope that the Wizards know.
"Ancillary does not mean you get to rule the world." --U.S. Circuit Judge Harry Edwards, speaking to the FCC's lawyer
elm is solid and lightweight. mutt is solid and featureful. Quit whinin'.
Does my bum look big in this?
Both formats have problems. While I love the direct response system of the unix style, it doesn't fit so well in this age of variable size windows for reading e-mail. It doesn't word-wrap.
Actually, it does. More advanced email clients work out what the indent characters are for each particular segment of text. Bingo! They now know each paragraph for individual word-wrapping, _and_ they know what to indent that paragraph with. Doesn't work very well on single-line replies, though.
Does my bum look big in this?
I bet the developers are pretty pissed with that.
%^#$%! Stupid fingers! *ahem*
>Regardless of which wins, the race to produce an Outlook-killer is on.
Making Outlook killers is easy! Oh, wait, you mean competing applications, not a virus...
Is it fully skinable yet? More importantly, does it have the ability to play MP3's?
No? What! I thought all OpenSource projects these days had to be able to do these two before you can even consider a first release! What were these guys thinking!
We all know that Windows sucks. So why, oh why, do countless Open Source projects spring up that try to slavishly duplicate the look and feel of yet another crap Windows product while leaving out the only good parts of the functionality? And then they call it a "Windows:foo killer". Do they really think Microsoft are the sole arbiters of what constitutes good GUI design?
I don't like the look and feel of Outhouse. And as an email client it sucks big hairy ones. I do like the calendaring, or at least I would if I needed to schedule things with more than one person. So why is this "Outhouse killer" duplicating the look and feel of Outhouse, but not offering any way to do calendaring through a SexChange server?
No thanks. I'll stick to mutt, and occasionally when somebody sends me a Microsoft attachment that I can't read by piping it to strings, I'll fire up Mozilla's email client on my NT machine. It's not great, but at least it knows enough to open up my IMAP inbox by default, unlike Outhouse.
The next Cmdr Taco duplicate will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
My company uses Exchange and we all hate it. But everybody loves Outlook. Hell, I like Outlook, but use it in Internet mode, not Exchange native mode, because I can't use IMAP when Outlook is set to use Exchange, though I can set up additional POP3 accounts.
But the server side, Exchange, is a giant piece of bloatware that couldn't stay up for a week if Bill Gate's life depended on it.
You want to hurt Microsoft bad? Come up with a free-as-in-speech, open source, server-side replacement for Exchange, supporting all the features the client, Outlook, wants to use. I haven't got the programming skills to attack this, but I do believe that the route to the desktop is through the server, at least for open source systems.
I think there's a lot to be said for the embrace and extend strategy, and open source should embrace and extend the server side of Microsoft protocols, to get to the client side. As far as I know, reverse engineering to achieve compatibility is still legal in some parts of the world... Is anybody working on this already, and I just never heard about it?
Edith Keeler Must Die
http://www.horde.org/projects.php
:)
I've been using IMP, the webmail portion of HORDE, for quite some time now (no, not me personally; I use mutt. My _users_ have been using it). It's a very nice webmail client, especially with a few patches (for things like importing Outlook address books), and looks similar to Yahoo! mail (apparently; I've not used Yahoo! mail).
Though IMP is the most mature component, they also have Kronolith, which does calendaring. You have to get the code from CVS at the moment, but it is apparently in use in the Real World. Yes, it's a bit simple at the moment, but it's under development, so it _is_ happening.
Note that HORDE is entirely done with PHP, so it _does_ work on MS platforms (the server part, obviously; the client part is a web browser
The best part about providing users with webmail is that there is NO configuration. This is especially good when you are in Baltimore, and a good chunk of your users are in Chicago. You tell them on the phone, "Here is your username/password and the URL, go log in."
Sotto la panca, la capra crepa
WMBC freeform/independent online radio.
> No? What! I thought all OpenSource projects these days had to be able to do these two before you can even consider a first release! What were these guys thinking!
The Law of Software Envelopment: ``Every program attempts to expand until it can read mail. Those programs which cannot so expand are replaced by ones which can.''
(Jamie Zawinski)
They clearly got it backward...
Cheers,
--fred
1 reply beneath your current threshold.
Psychos do not explode when the sunlight hits them, I don't care how fucked up they are.
Now, I completely understand that in intraoffice communications, because of the braindead-ness of PHBes, HTML or formatted email proliforates badly, just because they can bold the words "and I want it done NOW!". So it's completely understandable that an email client that is to be used on the rogue linux back in a WinNT environment is going to need to not only understand Lookout's protocols but also the ability to view HTML email directly. In addition, it would help to make conversions from WinNT to Linux systems if such were to occur more easier for the PHBs since they still have their pretty email system.
But please oh please limit it to just that. It should not be too hard to set up, by default, limiting HTML email to certain address sets, specifically ones with the same domain as yours, as well as making sure that HTML email is disabled on a normal install. The address sets that can accept HTML should be able to be customized, of course, in case you have contacts that you normally use HTML email with. I don't care if your office mates all email each other in HTML, but if you have to mail me or anyone else on the outside world that you don't know yet, make sure it's in plain text. The current batch of clients that support HTML email (include Lookout) do NOT have any such feature, and this would be highly recommended for any further email clients.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Please note, before jumping into development of such a server, that the IETF is working on standards for calendaring and scheduling, and several RFCs have already been published. For more info see the ietf-calendar home page.
Unfortunately, I personally know of no open server-side implementation of these standards, though there probably are some. If you know of any, please post here.
Whatever -- e-mail GUI programs tend to look alike, and that's not really a bad thing. At least people recognize what's going on immediately and don't have to familiarize themselves with it too much -- especially when you're trying to replace/compete with Outlook (*including* the database and back office functions), it doesn't hurt to be a little familiar.
Lastly, nobody's stopping you from contributing to Aethera's further development. If you wanna help out, please do so. :-)
cya
Ethelred
Everyone wants to be Ethelred. Even I want to be Ethelred.
But the server side, Exchange, is a giant piece of bloatware that couldn't stay up for a week if Bill Gate's life depended on it.
As someone who has worked professionally with Exchange for some time, I'd have to contradict part of this at least. Sure Exchange is bloated (I've just been dowloading SP4, which is obscenely large ~ 134 MB). I'd have to disagree with the stability accusation, though. I've been doing second line support for about 40 Exchange servers on a corporate network (all running on ridiculously overspecced Compaq servers) and it's proved to be rock solid. The only faults I've had in the last year related to the Lotus Notes connector - a bit of software that makes Charlie Manson look stable - and the occassional hardware glitch.
Using up-to-date service packs, neither NT nor Exchange are anywhere near as flaky as they used to be. As a passionate Linux user, I'm irritated every time I see anti-Linux FUD. However, as a regular NT admin, I'm also irritated by anti-MS FUD There are plenty of real points upon which NT & Exchange can be attacked (price, security, being closed-source) but echoing outdated rhetoric serves no one.
Sorry for the rant. I think I'll go and have another cup of tea now.
--
I would be a paid subscriber if Taco and Hemos weren't such cunts
Evolution Inbox screenshot
Evolution Compose message screenshot
Considering the bashing Microsoft takes around these parts, isn't it surprising that the interface here has been pretty blatantly jacked from Outlook? Now it might be the case that this really *is* the best interface style to use for an E-mail client, and that's fine. But give credit where credit is due for the design, or bash and don't bite.
- Sends emails to your friends in a totally proprietary format, also encoded with CSS to protect it from the evil hackers who broke TNEF.
- In an email reply, it takes all your new text from where it should be (directly under the part replied to) and automatically moves it above the original message. This is to deliberately make you look like a newbie and thus make you more attractive to your preferred soulmate gender.
- Posts to newsgroups in Microsoft's extended RTF format. That'll teach them to complain about HTML.
- Automatically opens any executable attachments and runs them. You obviously wanted to do that, so this saves your valuable time.
- Includes a built in copy of Solitaire and Minesweeper for you to play while it sends and retrieves your mail.
- Sends me, err, 'performance data' of any *.jpg or *.mpg attachments you recieve.
What do you think? Am I on to a winner?Does my bum look big in this?
Look, we all want to see an Outlook killer on Linux. But let's face it. The reason people bitch about not having Outlook on Linux in the corporate world is mostly because of the calendaring/scheduling and collaboration type things they can do with Exchange server in the background. So, while I like the idea of having the Outlook Killer clients, when is someone going to really, really focus on the back end?
I want to see an Exchange killer in the back hooked up to one of these Outlook killer clients. Plus, I'd like to see it a little more sane/easier to administer. I'm not asking for more clickable items, I'm asking for sane permission structures (so I can keep Dave from resetting Betty's calendar without her permission), realistically tied together scheduling and a nicely followable format for the whole configuration.
I realize there are some albeit very, very small efforts under way to complete some projects along these lines. But there seems to be so much focus on the front end that no one really says squat about the server side requirements/code.
Until I hear that one of these packages is fully ready to tackle the Exchange/Outlook combo punch, I'll just keep plugging away with what I've got. Seperate server based calendaring, seperate e-mail, seperate collaboration, all a pain in the ass to accomplish, but usable. And constantly listening to my users bitch and moan because at that other company, "We used Outlook."
We get by with what we've got (and the boss liked the price tag, probably the only reason we are using Linux), but it sure would be nice to give the users something focused on their needs.
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