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Mozilla Quietly Resurrects Eudora
Stony Stevenson writes to mention that the Mozilla Foundation has quietly released the first beta version of the revised Eudora email application. This is the first development Eudora has seen since Qualcomm stopped development and turned it over to the open source community in 2006. "Eudora first appeared in 1988 and quickly became one of the first popular email applications, enjoying its heyday in the early 1990s as it developed over the early days of the internet. Use of Eudora began to wane in the mid-1990s as the third-party application was muscled out of the market by web-based services such as Hotmail and bundled applications such as Outlook."
Linux.com has a bit more explanation about why many may not consider this simply a new release of Eudora. According to the release page the new Eudora application is not intended to compete with Thunderbird, but instead to complement it.
"Whereas "Eudora" is a branded version of Thunderbird with some extra
features added by the Eudora developers, "Penelope" is an extension (also
called an "add-on") that is used in Eudora and can also be used with
Thunderbird. The Eudora installer includes the corresponding version of
Penelope along with it so there is no need to install Penelope if you are
installing Eudora. Most features in Penelope can be accessed when used with
Thunderbird, but there are a few that require Eudora in order to work
correctly and it's not something that gets tested."
Can anyone un-WTF that paragraph for my tired little brain? Eudora is basically like Thunderbird, and Penelope is an extension that works with either to make it behave like...Eudora? Wait, what?
Ok, in the article on linux.com, they say Penelope is NOT Eudora (although they are similar). However, on the download page, the header of the page is "Penelope releases", and the first item under that (presumably a Penelope release) is labelled "Eudora 8.0.0b1".
So, which is it? Are Penelope and Eudora the same thing or not?
Also, I hope this Penelope thing goes through the usual Mozilla trend of changing its name 4 or 5 times, because that name is just not doing it for me. Maybe they should just call it "Endora" since that's what every single person who called tech support about it in the old days called it anyway.
No, I really loathe gmail as well. (And I work for Google.)
But I'm afraid that I may disagree with you on the broader topic. The reason I hate gmail is that it's webmail, and thus inherently something that is awful and should not be done. And indeed even more broadly, "web applications" are a terrible idea; the web makes a really crappy platform.
I would much rather have an elegant, well-designed, rapidly evolving application platform of my choice on which to run a variety of clients speaking well-defined protocols than try to retroactively turn a simple and reliable content-delivery medium into an entire operating system.
To check email anywhere in the world platform independent.
Ever traveled much?
I think it's more likely that HTTP is overhauled to make Web Apps more practical and rich.
This will probably be as a result of someone not happy with the current protocols inability to naturally support this type of communication without workarounds.
I like the idea of Web Apps and what companies like Google are trying to do, through practicality and experimentation. I'd agree HTTP isn't ideal and that Javascript is involved too much in the work around. It's reasonable to believe that HTTP won't be the protocol of the future.
It would appear what we see now, the movements towards richer interfaces and Javascript intensive Websites and Web Apps as the natural precursor to this protocol. We are interconnected and people are comfortable with it. We've become good at delivering data to a static content renderer and can manipulate it some with a client side programming language giving the impression of richness. People are trying to stretch this ability as far as they can and so far it has been practical. Needs will eventually outgrow what's possible however and a new protocol will have to be used.
Expect Web Apps and such to stick around. But keep in mind it's early and experimental right now. The future will likely bring a protocol designed around this paradigm.
"If you are a dreamer, a wisher, a liar, A hope-er, a pray-er, a magic bean buyer
I'd need a good reason to upgrade from Eudora 6 that I'm using now. I've been using it since 1997 or so and have always been very happy. I don't use the IE rendering engine so it's clean, simple and just plain works. My filters have evolved over the last decade and work well. The small tidy files the mail is stored in a much more manageable than the humongous PST files Outlook uses so even my work machine has 8 years of email easily searchable.
I used a plugin for Google Desktop briefly to index the old messages, but searching was no easier that the built-in search so I just stopped using it.
Eudora is the one I app I have that over the years when I heard there was an upgrade my first thought was "why?" rather than "Great, I've been needing an upgrade".
I also use Gmail, having selected mail from my server go to both my Eudora POP account and my Gmail account. That gives me remote access and another backup If I have some funky formatted email that I don't just toss out, I view it in GMail via Opera where I'm well insulated from malicious attachments.
Eudora: It's old, it's boring, it works.
Unless I'm missing something, doesn't ssh and mutt/pine/elm/whatever also allow you to get to your mail from anywhere?
I do travel a fair bit, but I'm not willing to give my credentials and email to every random internet cafe machine I pass. And I have to admit, I'm kind of confused by people who are.
I'm really only willing to give my credentials to a machine that I trust, which mostly means a machine of my own. So webmail doesn't really allow me to get to my mail from significantly more places than I can just have a civilized client running anyway.
Is that a subtle bash against Vista? Or is it just my expectation of the open source commnity to knock a MS product whenever possible? Yeah, I know it probably means they just more thoroughly test XP compatibility, but I wouldn't be paranoid if I didn't question it.
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Even a cell phone is infinitely larger than nothing (that is, just use whatever internet-attached computer is available). Nothing also doesn't have a monthly bill or require you to perform 30 cryptic key presses just to type "lol kthx bye".
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Wait, what? Sorry.
I can explanate how to administrate your network. You must configurate and segmentate it, so it can computate.
Why not just release an official Thunderbird Extension Pack? Voila, Eudora?
If it's just Thunderbird with some extensions, what's the point in a new product?
It's making my mind wander to the old MSN Explorer of Microsoft, that was a customized Internet Explorer for their MSN network.
But at least MS kept the name reasonably similar to not confuse too much.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It *was* the email client of choice a decade ago. It's reign long ago ended.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
I'm not paranoid, I'm just being efficient. Using an e-mail client is much easier, faster, and hassle-free, versus webmail. Yes, I have used webmail for years before I tried an e-mail client. I'm not going back.
Every time you want to do something in webmail you have to get a new page, wait, choose, wait, and so forth. With an e-mail client I don't have to wait at all, it's instantaneous. Or how about adding attachments in webmail? That's even more clumsy.
A bonus feature is that I can have my e-mail client open in the background, periodically checking e-mail, and it will alert me when I have received one or more of them.
gmail is an impressive attempt to implement email using a web browser. nevertheless, it is nowhere near as good as a real email program. that same thing is true for all webapps. none of them are as good as they would be implemented in a more robust gui toolkit.
Apart from that, you shouldn't assume that because my tool is wrong in your world view, it is just plain wrong.
I'm not, I'm just saying it comes off as dangerous, irresponsible, and self-centered. If that's the kind of image you want for your business, go right ahead.
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