Pegasus and Mercury Circling the Drain

Daemon Duck writes "One of the web's oldest and most respected email clients is flickering out of existence. Pegasus mail and its companion SMTP server, Mercury32, have been discontinued due to lack of funding for the ongoing development. On the website, the author David Harris states that if some funding becomes available he would consider opening the source code or continuing the development."

Comments

Says something about motivations.

[Kadin2048]

The post is really just an attempt to get some money. The fact that he would continue to develop it if he were paid probably goes without saying. However, he's also saying he would "consider" opening the code if he were paid enough, suggesting that if no donors come forward, he would simple delete the code and completely kill the product. This suggests to me that he's not really interested in open sourcing anything, but that he'll write that he will (if paid) in order to increase his chances of getting press on open source-centric sites like Slashdot.

What's more, it sort of confirms that the developer doesn't particularly care about the survival of the product, it's purely a cash cow that's threatening to run dry. That in itself doesn't really encourage me to fund it; I'd rather give my funding to someone who wants the product to succeed, and needs the money in order to deal with practical concerns (keeping in food, electricity, equipment) that would otherwise interrupt their ultimate goal, which is producing something. There's a strong fundamental difference between the ultimate goal being production of a product, and the ultimate goal being an income stream.

Re:long time user.

[frovingslosh]

I have used the program for a long time; still use it. While the author is to be respected for giving it freely for so long, I have to say that I'm apalled by the way it has been pulled. No announcement, no chance to get the final version. The website is now just a "I would work on it if paid" page. The removal of the ability to get the current version leaves a bad taste in my mouth. Yes; I understand that at shut-down the author doesn't want to suddenly incur large bandwidth fees and he could get hit with a lot of requests for the final version after making such an announcement, but one would think that he could at least post links to mirrors or even a torrent for the final version of the program. Without such an effort I'm left with a bit of a negative feeling for a programming effort I've long respected.