Mozilla Thunderbird

[Keith Irwin]

Poptones--

I sure can't argue with what you want out of your email client.  Not one
bit! ;)

Wild guess, but here's where I think the Gnome folks would like to go:

1. Provide a library for storing email, contact info, tasks, and
calendar items.

2. Write clients which use this information, each client according to
its own particular needs, as a particular "view" into this sort of data,
and as simple and usable as possible.  (More table because less moving
parts, perhaps.)

3. Provide the possibility of interesting innovation no one has yet
thought up.

Given the above, I can imagine a future where evolution begins to
dissolve its all-in-one PIM interface into separate applications with
little or no pain.  Seems to me that by removing all the "data source
management" from the email and/or calendar and/or contact apps would
make for more stable apps.

The desktop itself becomes more like a PIM, less like a file manager
and program launcher.

In the end, I think what they're after is to make things easier for
users, not to partake in some fashionable "integration is good"
metaphor.

I use both IM and the contact list.  If I added a contact in evolution
(usually by right-clicking on an existing email) and I put in their AIM
or Jabber ID, I wouldn't mind one bit if that ID was added to my buddy
list in Gaim automatically.  Why do I have to add the same information
over and over again with every application?

Whether or not the results are really worth it, I think the aim and
focus of all these efforts is towards an easy-to-use and much more
consistent desktop.

With regards to security, I don't know.  I suppose someone could send
you a script that executed "rm -rf ~" and you'd be done for, regardless
of whether your information was stored in several different formats in
several different places.

It'll be interesting to see where all these ends up!  The great thing
about Ubuntu and most other distributions is that you're a yum or
apt-get away to a totally customized solution.

Keith

On Sat, 2005-01-01 at 21:23 -0500, poptones wrote:
> Keith, those are some valid points I hadn't considered before and I'm
> glad you brought them up. Because I now realize just where this whole
> "evolution" thing is headed, and would like the option to do without.
> 
> I'm sitting here right now waiting for balsa to update my messages from
> the pop3 box because I've grown so tired of evolution. It has oodles of
> "features" I do not want and yet lacks one very basic feature I (and
> many users) need: the ablity to set the FROM header on a per-email
> basis! How they could think it a good idea to require you to create and
> entire new "profile" just to change the silly FROM header is beyond me.
> 
> I do not need an instant message system integrated into my desktop. I
> don't even WANT an IM system integrated into my desktop. What I want
> (need) is a lean email client that will allow me to change the FROM
> header so I can unsubscribe from a mailing list without having to spend
> three minutes creating a new "profile" for each one. I have used dozens
> of email addresses (usernames) over the years that all go to my domain
> - how is it a "feature" to require me to make a "profile" for every
> single one?
> 
> Enough ranting about simplke oversight. Maybe I just haven't figured
> out how to "enable" this magical feature that comes OOTB with most
> other, less "evolved" solutions...
> 
> It sounds liek there's a philisophical choice that needs to be made,
> and soon. Ubuntu's a really nice distribution, it would be a shame to
> see it lose so much simplicity and stability because of somone's
> .monophonic agenda. Will "hoary" truly live up to its name when
> released? I really don't want my desktop crashing (or wiping out my
> userland data) because someone sent me an email that attacks the silly
> clock panel. And I really don't want to have to add resource hungry
> "antivirus" software to combat it - that's the (second) reason I moved
> to linux in the first place.
> 
> 
> -- 
> poptones
>