Mozilla Thunderbird

[CB]

poptones wrote:
> But you can say that about anything. "If I don't want ot use KDE I don't
> have to; I can still log into mandrake with gnome and be done with it."
> 
> The point is this: there comes a point where it's just not so easy to
> do that. Making gnome work well on mandrake, for example - making it
> work as well in gnome as ubuntu does ootb - is NOT so easy. There's a
> lot of stuff that mandrake is lacking in gnome (and don't even get me
> started on suse!)  and installing much of it is a nightmare of
> conflicts and dependancies.
> 
> Same goes for removal. If gnome is moving toward making evolution the
> "desktop data server" then there comes a time when attacking gnome
> desktops is made substantially easier, and removing that vulnerability
> becomes impractical for any but the most knowledgable admins - which
> puts us pretty much where Microsoft is today. 
> 
> Example: I just selected "complete removal" of evolution server. Here's
> what else I lose:
> 
> gaim
> gnome applets
> gnome panel (!)
> gnome panel data...
> 
> How useful is gnome if you don't have the control panel anymore? Might
> as well go back to blackbox, or even IceWM. And as the integration
> "evolves" then where does it end? Removing the silly address book
> predicates abandoning the entire gnome desktop?
> 

Yes, that's an eerily Microsoftish tale. You really have to jump through 
hoops to run Win XP or Server without IE, for example. One of the first 
things you'll run into is that the Control Panel won't work because of 
it's dependence on mshtml. Of course you can get round this by running 
the cp applets from the command line or using other commandline 
utilities for admin stuff. But it's an example of one app becoming so 
'integrated' into a desktop that for all intents and purposes it is 
mandatory.

If the gnome guys really are planning to extract the data handling for 
PIM-type stuff into the desktop, they really ought to do in an 
app-neutral way imo.

I don't like to carp from the sidelines as I don't have the skills to 
contribute myself. But linux is often heavily promoted by its advocates 
as an alternative to the bad practises of Microsoft, and it would seem a 
shame to see it's appeal being diluted by adoption of those very 
practises. If that's what's happening, which I can't claim to know as I 
haven't looked into the gnome plans in any detail.