Future Eudora Based on Thunderbird

theefer writes "Qualcomm announced that future versions of Eudora will be based upon the same technology platform as the open source Mozilla Thunderbird email program. Future versions of Eudora will be free and open source, while retaining Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements. Qualcomm and Mozilla will each participate in, and continue to foster development communities based around the open source Mozilla project, with a view to enhancing the capabilities and ease of use of both Eudora and Thunderbird. [...] The open source version of Eudora is targeted to release during the first half of calendar year 2007. Once the open source version of Eudora is released, Qualcomm will cease to sell Eudora commercially."

Comments

As a long-time Eudora user...

[Dzimas]

I'm saddened by this news. I've used Eudora since the early 1990s, except for one very painful stretch in the early 2000s where it was "strongly suggested" that I use Outlook at work. My favorite feature is the lightning-fast search functionality (which makes me look brilliantly well organized when someone asks about an email conversation from several years ago). I can't say I was fond of the programs ad sponsored option, though. Having your email program pitch the DVD version of Bambi is really annoying.

In the end, the program got really expensive -- maintaining an annual subscription is a slight embarrassment when the accounting department calls me to query the need to "buy another copy of the same program").

My big concern with the new version of the program is that it will prove to be a dead-end fork of Thunderbird code. I'll know for sure the moment I try to search my old mail folders in the upcoming open-source version. If it takes longer than a second, the baby's going out with the bathwater.