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.

Comments

Yes, but

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Why do people do this?

[ptomblin]

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.

Re:Why do people do this?

[Ian Schmidt]

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.

Outlook killer? How about Exchange killer?

[kindbud]

Outlook is not the point. Exchange is the point. Samba can replace NT for file and printer sharing. What is there to replace Exchange for email, calendaring, shared address books, and all the rest? Is anybody working on a open source version of MS RPC and Exchange services, compatibile with Outlook?

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?

For those asking for an Exchange killer

[autechre]

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

I am afraid to agree

[f5426]

> 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

Outlook Killer, C'est Que C'est

[Bojay Iverson]

Regardless of which wins, the race to produce an Outlook-killer is on.

OK, How is it an outlook killer if it isn't competing on the same platform?

HTML Email is NOT a feature

[Masem]

I wish people would not use "HTML email" as a feature -- this is completely breaking the way that email is supposed to work based on the RFC for email servers. While I run Linux with X all the time, I use mutt because it's usually more configurable and I get my work done much faster than if I had to use a graphical client (even a good one under Linux). I suspect I'm not the only one in that boat. So no matter how much HTML email is pushed at me, I can't (effectively) read it.

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.

There are already standards for this

[yoz]

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.

Re:Interface biting

[Ethelred Unraed]

I'm the guy who did a lot of the graphics on Aethera (note to /. editors: check the spelling next time...). Anyway, I also worked with the other guys at theKompany.com (note the spelling there, too) on the UI, and I can assure you we did NOT try to copy Outlook. We did, of course, try to make a good e-mail and groupware client. I have only even seen Outlook once, I think (I normally only use Linux, Mac OS and on rare occasions Windows) -- if anything, my inspiration was more a dash of Eudora (the Mac version) and a bit of Claris E-Mailer.

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

Re:Outlook killer? How about Exchange killer?

[FatOldGoth]

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.

--

Interface biting

[romi]

Hey, I'd like to see a strong mail client on Linux as much as the next guy - I hate outlook's instability (especially Outlook 2000!). *BUT* without meaning to rain on the parade, I'd like to point out that, while Outlook may have its faults, it appears that nobody has qualms with its interface:

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.

I'm writing an Outlook killer myself

[kyz]

Features include:

• 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?

Outlook killer? How about Exchange Server killer?

[Faulty Dreamer]

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.