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Future Eudora Based on Thunderbird 264

Posted by CmdrTaco from the open-source-is-good dept.
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."
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Future Eudora Based on Thunderbird More

Future Eudora Based on Thunderbird

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  • An odd thing in Qualcomm's portfolio (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Dynamoo ( 527749 ) * on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @11:47AM (#16393975) Homepage
    Eudora was always an odd thing in Qualcomm's portfolio - their primary business is wireless technologies. Eudora didn't really fit in, but to Qualcomm's credit it has been under continual development and revision to this date.

    There's a decent Wikipedia entry [wikipedia.org] on it for anyone wanting to know the background, but basically it's been around for an astonishing 18 years. It's evolved gently as a mail client, so any Eudora user can use a new version quickly. Compare this with Outlook which radically redesigns the whole interface every release or so.

    To be honest, Eudora probably isn't the simplest mail client in the world. But it's a very powerful, very secure client that's ideal for power users.

    When I first heard about this move I went "uh-oh". But on reflection, this could be a good thing. Eudora has some really cool features that would work well in Thunderbird, and both products appeal to the same type of people. I only hope that they don't break Eudora in the process of changing it!

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by future assassin ( 639396 )
      >o be honest, Eudora probably isn't the simplest mail client in the world. But it's a very powerful, very secure client that's ideal for power users Same with PagasusMail (Pmail) Its one hell of a email client but way too many features for the average email user unless they are willing to dig into it.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by Frosty Piss ( 770223 )
      Compare this with Outlook which radically redesigns the whole interface every release or so.

      Honestly, I hate Outlook as much as anyone here, but this just isn't true. The Oulook Outlook Express UI has been more or less the same for years.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by jrp2 ( 458093 )
        "The Oulook Outlook Express UI has been more or less the same for years."

        And it won't likely ever.

        MS stopped development on Outlook Express long ago (5 years or so, I forget).

        I think the only changes made in several years were default changes to make it more secure. It no longer runs scripts by default, etc. Might have also been a few changes to make it fully XP compatible.

        Too bad, despite my general aversion to MS products, OE inspired a whole new generation of mail clients. For it's time, it was revolu

    • Makes perfect sense though (Score:5, Interesting)

      by BeeBeard ( 999187 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:00PM (#16394185)
      Eudora was always the next best alternative for people who didn't want to worry about obscene things like getting viruses just by looking at emails through the Outlook preview pane. For people who were stuck running Windows but savvy enough to know that there were other email clients out there besides Outlook, it was really ideal.

      Fast-forwarding to the present: As Thunderbird slowly gains acceptance as an alternative email client in its own right (due in no small part to the continuing success of Firefox) the combination of Eudora and Thunderbird technologies could only help Eudora. If they want to ride Mozilla's coattails to greater acceptance in the email program marketplace, they are certainly welcome to do so. Every time a company adopts open source, an angel gets his wings.

      • The reason I used Netscape Communicator from the moment it existed, replacing Eudora which I was using before, is that Eudora (at the time) simply could not do a decent job of displaying MIME mail. The whole idea is basically a web page in email, trust the web browser to get it right. Today I use thunderbird, for much the same reason. Well, that and the plugin architecture. I love anything extensible :)

        But really, I think the real reason they're going to stop selling Eudora is that this is a relatively

        • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

          by MsGeek ( 162936 )
          The reason why I *hate* Thunderbird is the same reason why I never used Netscape/Mozilla to get my mail. I DON'T want my email proggie to display MIME mail correctly. I don't want it to show HTML, I don't want it to load pictures, I don't want any of that crap. The reason why Eudora rocked so hard was the fact that it didn't display all that crap. When email viruses started showing up it gave me a security advantage in that Eudora could be directed to IGNORE all that. Thunderbird won't just display the plai

          • Re:Makes perfect sense though (Score:5, Informative)

            by Leto-II ( 1509 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @02:20PM (#16396757)
            View -> Message Body As -> Plain Text

            Enjoy.
          • Regarding Thunderbird's handling of HTML & images...
            If it's actual displaying of html you dislike, there's the menu option "View/Message As/Plain Text".

            More importantly though, if it's security you're worried about,
            by default Thunderbird won't display anything but embedded images...
            you have to explicitly tell it each time you view an email if you want it to load
            any referenced images... so there's no security leak there.

            as well, it has a similar (on by default) feature of disabling any scripting in the h

      • Once Eudora added the option of letting IE widgets render email previews, it became vulnerable to the same security risks.

        I used Eudora for several years. The main reason I stopped was they didn't have a Linux version, much less a compatible code base that would let me move from OS to OS without tossing all my email history.

        To be honest the only thing Eudora did that I really miss with Thunderbird is the email filtering. Eudora had useful filtering capabilities that work. Thunderbird's filtering is

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by fhic ( 214533 )

      Eudora was always an odd thing in Qualcomm's portfolio

      You've got that right. It's always been kind of an orphan that they don't quite know what to do with. Quite a few years ago I interviewed for a technical manglement position in their Eudora group, but I kept getting the feeling that they didn't know what to do with it. On the one hand, it doesn't make enough money to kept under the Qualcomm umbrella as current product. On the other hand, the name recognition is high and it's their oldest ongoing prod

    • I only hope that they don't break Eudora in the process of changing it!

      Like when they abandoned plaintext '>'s as quoted-text indicators, and replaced them with semi-HTML-based grey left-margin bars? Even for non-HTML, plaintext mail? And acted wonky if you tried to insert or remove any linebreaks in quoted text?

      Eudora's been broken for something like five years now.

  • Sounds good to me. I always like Eudora, and only dumped it when it became adware. I like Thunderbird, too, but Eudora had a lot more bells and whistles that I actually liked and used. Hope it comes out well.
    • I liked Eudora's *Mac* version back in the OS9 days. The trouble with Thunderbird and all current clients I can think of is that they put the entire client in one window: folders, preview pane, email list, etc.

      The old Eudora used to just have the menu bar up top and allow you to open and place any window independently. It took a while to get used to it but it was sure nice once you had it configured.

      Seems like it's all more or less the same these days with the "known paradigm" of UI becoming more importan

      • The trouble with Thunderbird and all current clients I can think of is that they put the entire client in one window: folders, preview pane, email list, etc.

        If you drag the bar between the message list and the view pane down to the bottom, you can double-click to open messages in separate windows. (Or even if you don't, but the point is, the view pane will be gone from there.) Once you drag it down past a certain point (just past where the header starts scrolling off) it pops down, so I assume it's not

        • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

          by AVryhof ( 142320 )
          Wouldn't it be easier just to hit F8? or go to View -> Lyout -> Message Pane?

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by arivanov ( 12034 )
            This is not the same. One of the biggest T-bird annoyances is its insistence on 3(2) pane view.

            If you want to isolate the folder tree into a separate window, you cannot do that. Similarly you cannot isolate the message list for a folder into a single window.

            While these are not crucial for the casual user, they are two power user features that I would definitely like to see. They come quite handy when dealing with a mailing list flamewar^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hdiscussion in a threaded view or with 40-50 folders prefil

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Gilmoure ( 18428 )
        That's what I liked about Eudora/Mac as well. Being able to start it up, have my regular mail boxes all open up in different windows, and having just a small floating tool palette was great. Even though I've used Apple Mail and Outlook for the past few years, really don't like single pane apps. Hope they keep the old Eudora look in the OS version.
  • People still use Eudora? Seriously, I used it years ago, but forgot it still even existed...

    • Re:People still use Eudora? (Score:5, Informative)

      by niola ( 74324 ) <jon@niola.net> on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:04PM (#16394269) Homepage
      Eudora has a niche of us loyal users. Many, myself included, tried pretty much every other client out there and find ourselves coming back to Eudora for the reliability and the feature set.

      It was one of only a few clients early on that supported multiple email accounts, and because of how it stores email in flat text files (as opposed to Outlook and some others) it was really easy to migrate your mailboxes and settings from computer to computer - even between platforms ie moving from Windows to Mac.

      The filter tools are starting to show their age, but are still solid. There was a point where I would definitely say Eudora's filtering tools were the best in any commercial email client.

      Hopefully both Eudora and Thunderbird benefit from this.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hoggoth ( 414195 )
        I also use Eudora (I paid for it).
        There is nothing else that worked as well for me.

        Outlook stores everything in one huge binary blob, just waiting to get corrupted. Terrible. With Eudora I know that no matter what happens I can get my emails out.

        Thunderbird is an attractive alternative, but it stores attachments with the emails. For me this would give me mailboxes in the Gigs. Eudora automatically separates the attachments into a separate directory and puts a link to the file in the actual email.
  • A stable mail client that's been around 'forever', guaranteeing its future. I hope that many lusers
    are prevented from going with that non-portable klient-O-krap from Redmond by this development.
  • I remember back in the day, when i was considering making the jump from Winders to Linoox, Eudora was one of the only things that kept me in the MS world.

    Well, that and I liked playing Quake2.

    Lordy, could I railgun...And Yes, I cheesed it up with the BFG...

  • hopefully this will stabilize thunderbird (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SuperBanana ( 662181 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @11:58AM (#16394147)

    Qualcomm and Mozilla will each participate in, and continue to foster development communities based around the open source Mozilla project,

    Hopefully this will do wonders for Thunderbird's reliability; I had to stop recommending thunderbird to clients because of the near constant complaints. Disappearing email, crashes, disappearing contact lists. At least 6 months ago, Thunderbird had all sorts of problems with mailboxes and indexes getting corrupted, which would lead to fun bugs like my clients checking their mail, getting 5 new messages according to the new message count next to the mailbox...and not finding the 5 messages actually IN their inbox. Some bugs related to the index not getting cleaned up properly when messages were deleted, and "rebuilding" the mailbox didn't fix the index; you had to completely remove the index files by hand. WTF?

    It stunned me how much 'housekeeping' the Thunderbird developers expect users to do to keep it working properly, and how thoroughly they knew of many problems...yet had done nothing to fix them.

    I'd also like to see some effort to make GnuPG configuration part of the default install and get users set up with a keyset...and encourage them at every step of the way to use signing and encryption with their email.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Bert64 ( 520050 )
      I've had situations where i couldn't see new email, but they usually revolved around the sorting... I have mail sorted by date, but thunderbird sorts it by the date in the mail header (and thus controlled by the sender)... If the sender's clock is wrong, then mail will appear in the wrong place in thunderbird's list.

      Other than that, it's been rock solid stable for several years for me...

      And I too would like to see GPG there by default, encouraging users to use it.
    • Strange, I've been using thunderbird since it was at version .3, on several different computers, using both Linux and Windows, and I've never seen those problems. Ok, sometimes I can't find my new mail, but clicking View: Unread always shows it (same thing that sibling post mentioned). Hey, did you ever suggest your clients try View: Unread before trying to rebuild their mailboxes?
    • Call me crazy, but I see this as a bad thing. Why? Eudora has been a great product for as long as email has been around. It's the most reliable, solid client out there. Thunderbird is still flaky. I think that it's a mistake to throw out almost two decades of tried and true code just to jump on the next big thing, especially when that next big thing isn't all that great. It looks like this will be yet another case of users holding on dearly to their old versions of software because the old ones are si
      • Agreed.

        What's really too bad is that they're not open-sourcing Eudora as it exists today, so that Thunderbird could benefit from the last 15-odd years of experience that they have. That's the direction that it sounds like things need to go in.

        Instead, they're going to throw all that away in favor of TBird's codebase, which is apparently unstable and generally a mess, and then open-source that. Well great; it'll just be Thunderbird with a Eudora-like interface on it, and Eudora's interface wasn't great shake

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hitmark ( 640295 )
      strangely, i have never seen problems like that with my use of thunderbird.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by mspohr ( 589790 )
      I call shenanigans...

      It's very odd that you have had these problems with Thunderbird. I've been using Thunderbird for many years (even the early versions) and I have NEVER had any of these problems. It's never crashed, never lost any email, no problems with contact lists, always counted messages correctly, never had to manually index...

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by goates ( 412876 )
        So because it never happened to you, it never happens? Thunderbird just lost all my email a couple of days ago. Go in one day and I can see everything and all seems fine. Open it the next day and it starts up the new account wizard. After closing that (and being somewhat confused as to why it even opened in the first place) I find that all of the accounts I set up are gone and all of the emails that were there the day before missing too.

        This has also happened to a friend of mine when he was trying Thunderbi

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by zulux ( 112259 )
          Your email is still on the hard-drive. Your profile got messed up, the the flat files that have all the email is there. You need to find someone who can reattach it to the profile - but it's there.

          Make a copy of the whole profile before you go trying to fix it though.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by lawpoop ( 604919 )
          "So because it never happened to you, it never happens?"

          No.

          Because it's something that's never happened to me, it's not 'housecleaning that the developers expect users to do', it's something f*cked up on perhaps *one* users' computer.

  • Things not in TFA: (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Kartoffel ( 30238 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @11:58AM (#16394153)
    1. A list of which parts of the "rich feature set and productivity enhancements" will be retained in the Thunderbird/Eudora.

    2. Which license(s) the new Eudora will be using. Presumably, it'll be MPL, but TFA didn't say.

    3. Whether Qualcomm considers this move as shifting Eudora into shutdown mode, economically, or whether they genuinely see a potential for future profits from the new FOSS Eudora.

    • Re:Things not in TFA: (Score:4, Interesting)

      by _|()|\| ( 159991 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:36PM (#16394755)
      Eudora FAQ [eudora.com]: "QUALCOMM has decided not to remain in the email market." Also, "QUALCOMM plans to stop trafficking advertisements [to the existing Sponsored mode] at some point during open source development."

      If you read the Penelope page [mozilla.org] at the Mozilla Wiki, you'll see that the six core members of the project are Qualcomm employees. "QUALCOMM continues to have a keen interest in the users of Eudora, and is being kind enough to donate the time of the above staff members to the Penelope project." Rather than becoming faceless contributors to Thunderbird, they chose to continue the Eudora legacy.

  • Even though I don't use Eudora, I use Thunderbird on OS X day in and day out. It beats Mail.app in many many ways, not the least of which its almost the one mail client on the platform where you can order your messages by read status, thus floating all of them at the top. If Eudora can help smooth out some of the features and squash some more bugs in Thunderbird that's clearly a win for everyone.

  • Hmmm... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:01PM (#16394203) Journal
    Once the open source version of Eudora is released, Qualcomm will cease to sell Eudora commercially.

    I was reading the blurb and wondering what kind of viable long-term plan that scheme has -- apparently they don't have one.

    It's certainly laudable of them to wind it down so gracefully. Like a lot of others, apparently, I haven't used it in ages but there was a long time when it was the only decent GUI for Internet email. I ditched it when I switched to OS X and Entourage at home, and they make me use Lotus Freaking Notes at work, but whatever it looks like nowadays, it has to at least be better than the latter.

  • As a long-time Eudora user... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Dzimas ( 547818 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:02PM (#16394227)
    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.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Jerf ( 17166 )
      I've shopped all around for mail clients and I've settled on Thunderbird, not because I love it, but because A: It's not bad and B: I've gotten used to its interface because I've used Netscape for mail for a long time.. But it's certainly not a powerhouse.

      I would worry less about Eudora becoming a dead-end fork of Thunderbird and more about Thunderbird becoming a dead-end fork of Eudora.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by tetrode ( 32267 )
      When you switch to Outlook, try NEO Pro, an addition to Outlook.

      This will change the way you think about mail.

      You can search by date, person, attachment, in multiple pst files, all in a couple of seconds.

      I bought it personally, use it at work. No yearly maintenance; while we are having a discussion regarding a subject, I type a bit on my keyboard, and I already have the thread. Others are searching for more than 5 minutes, sometimes an hour.

      I look organised. I know how to search and which programs to use. :
    • If it takes longer than a second, the baby's going out with the bathwater.
      Eudora's built in search is powered by technology from X1, makers of the commercial X1 Desktop Search (X1 is the basis of Yahoo's Desktop Search). X1 is closed source, and even though the press release doesn't say anything about it, I bet that the search part of Eudora 7.0 won't be open sourced. Open source or not: X1 is FAST, and it beats every other desktop search (for Windows) that I know of.
    • It doesn't have to be a dead end fork. There's no reason the two projects can't cross-pollinate useful features between each other. When Qualcomm pulls the plug entirely (which they probably will eventually) the code is still out there and could probably be re-absorbed into the mainline Thunderbird project.

  • I'll miss it (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ymos ( 804610 )
    I love the way that I can move my mail to a new computer just by copying the Eudora folder to the new install. I doubt that'll work in the new version.
    • I love the way that I can move my mail to a new computer just by copying the Eudora folder to the new install. I doubt that'll work in the new version.
      You can do that with Thunderbird, too.

  • Looking back, looking ahead (Score:5, Interesting)

    by viewtouch ( 1479 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:05PM (#16394281) Homepage Journal
    Every time software is 'set free' like this I see not only yet another confirmation that Stallman right about the absolute need for software to be free but also that his life's work since he first dedicated his life to free software has ensured that free software would inevitably triumph over software that isn't free. Those of us who have been around for several decades remember all too well when you needed a lot of money and official permission to even be allowed to create software. It was not fun and it was not a way forward. In an era when many things are becoming less free it is a significant comfort to know that software is becoming more free and is consequently better in so many ways.

    • Every time software is 'set free' like this I see not only yet another confirmation that Stallman right

      Eudora wasn't "set free". Eudora was effectively dumped.

      The dumping is not unexpected (at least for Mac users) given the endless promising of a new version that actually used OS X. It just sucks that they put it off for so long. They'd had been promising a complete rewriting of the OS X version since Tiger was released (Apr 2005). Now they're starting over again. They're not releasing Eudora's source

    • Criminy, stop drinking the Kool-Aid. Some accountant at Quadcomm went to the CEO and said, "why are we spending $X a year on an email client that only nets $(X/2) in revenue?" And the CEO said, "uh... I dunno." So they dropped it.

      That's all there is to it. This way they can spend a few months (with their current developers) modifying Thunderbird to somewhat resemble Eudora a little bit, then wash their hands of the whole thing.
  • In my humble opinion, I'd recommend Thunderbird over Eudora any day. Eudora's GUI for IMAP folders (with the second inbox at the bottom??) is confusing at best. The way LDAP works in Eudora is lame (you have to open a particular part of your address book, type in the name, press Search, then use the address from there). It's always felt clunky, having to move windows out of the way, as EVERYTHING has its own window (filters, address book, etc).

    One thing that IS superior in Eudora? Multiple signatures.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by niola ( 74324 )
      There was a time when Eudora was the email client in Mosaic Communicator suite ;)

      Man time sure flies.
  • So much for a business model. I suppose they'll still have the big companies that will pay them for support, but how big is Eudora in the corporate field? And how much will they pay for a thunderbird clone?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by niola ( 74324 )
      I honestly think that Qualcomm is trying to get away from Eudora altogether. As someone else on this discussion pointed out, an email client does not really seem to fit in with their main business developing wireless equipment for telcos or developing protocols etc.

      Seems this is just a graceful way of moving on and trying to avoid any ill will from current users.
  • I actually purchased Eudora 4 back some years ago - at the time I loved it. But it didn't seem to move along with the times. IMAP support never really arrived - it felt like they didn't really grok it, and treated it more like "POP3 using the IMAP command set" (e.g. silly issues like not being able to have your trash or sent mail as an IMAP mailbox).

    My hope is that Eudora will take what's good from Thunderbird - like its IMAP support - and combine them with Eudora's strengths, such as filtering.
  • Good news - might finally get rid of their unique mailbox format and the dodgy attachment folder feature.
  • Did anyone else scan that headline and think "what the hell?" because they read it as "Fedora Based on Thunderbird?"

  • Ugh (Score:2)

    by daeg ( 828071 )
    Am I the only one that isn't welcoming this change? There is a benefit in having mail clients of different code bases. Choice is a good thing -- don't be so quick to give that up. I'd rather be able to choose from two quality, well-developed clients than choose from two, nearly identical clients.

  • Penelope (Score:3, Informative)

    by niola ( 74324 ) <jon@niola.net> on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @12:20PM (#16394519) Homepage
    Penelope is the project name at Mozilla for those that are interested:
    http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope [mozilla.org]
  • Who can see this one coming down the pipeline?
  • Someone (I think on Slashdot) commented that Oracle will someday switch to ProstgreSQL, because their codebase has become too bloated and unmanageble.

    Will there be a switch not by the user, but by the software makers themselves towards OSS? It would be interesting to see what real software developers of larger projects (Windows, Photoshop, Dreamweaver, Filemaker) would comment here. Did some of you look into throwing out your codebase and starting with an OSS project, preferably BSD-licsence?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Shados ( 741919 )

      Someone (I think on Slashdot) commented that Oracle will someday switch to ProstgreSQL, because their codebase has become too bloated and unmanageble.

      Yeah, because PostgreSQL's codebase is lean and clean. Oh...wait...

      PostgreSQL is one of the best open source products, all categories, in my opinion, and definately is powerful enough to live in the corporate world (even more so if one considers things like EnterpriseDB, etc). However, the codebase IS a mess. They did wonderful lately to clean it up, but s

  • I still haven't found a crossplatform email client that's as featureful as the discontinued Mulberry client.
  • They would focus on pulling together email and calendar in a single open source app. The Eudora team could really accelerate this process. Until there is a unified application, corporate envvironments will not move away from Outlook...

    • And furthermore... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Tarlus ( 1000874 )
      If they could do that, and then develop seamless communication with an Exchange server (for both email and the calendar), then I'd throw Outlook out completely. Since everybody in my department is so used to Exchange now, they don't want to break away from it, though most of them agree that Outlook is a pretty scary thing to be dependent on.
  • I tried to convert to Thunderbird. The user interface only worked if you used it the way the designers thought you would -- slowly and with a mouse. (It felt like going from WP5.1 to MSWord 1.0.)

    Plus, the Thunderbird memory footprint is far larger. (WP5.1 to MSWord 1.0 again!)

    And let's not mention that importing my mail data was a collossal pain in the patoukis. (Chorus, everybody!)

    I will mourn this day. Though the apprentice Thunderbird has promise, it has killed the master before the teaching was co

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by rmcd ( 53236 ) *
      Were you importing mail data from Eudora? I've switched from Eudora to Thunderbird on three machines and the importing of mail and address books was flawless each time. It my not handle other clients as well, I don't know.
  • Why would I want a eudora-branded version of thunderbird when I can simply run thunderbird proper?
  • Where Is The Money?
  • I for one, as a sysadmin, have always encouraged the use of alternative email clients due to the insecurities and infections I've dealt with from Outlook and Outlook Express. However, I've always been kind of torn between T-Bird and Eudora since each has its pros and cons. Merging them (so to speak) into one client sounds very enticing to me. I can't wait to see how this turns out, because if it's good then I'll make it a standard for my whole department.

    It's encouraging to see big names like Qualcomm em

  • About a year ago I upgraded from Eudora 3.51 to (Score:3, Interesting)

    by the_rajah ( 749499 ) * on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @02:34PM (#16397071) Homepage
    Eudora 5.1 reluctantly. The only reason I switched was that I migrated my mail to gmail via POP and the older version wasn't compatible.

    I've been using Eudora since around 1997 and it's been just fine for me. One great thing about it is that it's completely portable. Back in the 20th century, I ran it from a zip disk that I carried from home to the office and back. I had all my mail with me and it worked great. With the advent of USB flash drives a few years ago, I ditched the zip.

    I've never been infected with a virus, although lots of them have appeared in my mailbox. Automatically opening attachments as a default is a huge no-no, but all you /. folks already knew that.

    That said, I've used Thunderbird here at the office for work email and think it's a great client, so I'm pleased to see this development.

  • New version name (Score:4, Funny)

    by Junior J. Junior III ( 192702 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @03:11PM (#16397813) Homepage
    I hope they decide to call it "thEUnDeORAbird".

    Debian will have to come up with something else, of course.

  • Why companies switch out engines (Score:3, Insightful)

    by aafiske ( 243836 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @03:33PM (#16398195)
    This is a shame. I've always used Eudora on Windows, and for a long time on Mac. It's generally a useful, reliable program that allows me to customize it to act how I want it to.

    I don't predict good things for Eudora from now on. This is not a knock against Thunderbird. It's because often, companies resort to open-source implementations when the remaining engineers can't properly update/maintain the existing codebase. I've seen it happen; either deadlines force your hand, or there's just too much low-level work to get the engine to support the new features you want. It becomes easier just to replace it wholesale and work from a better base.

    It's generally an indicator that the expertise has migrated away from the company. Now, a company that _starts_ by using OSS as a base, that can sometimes work. But a big company that has always used it's own engine, 9 times out of 10, moving to open source is a bad sign. (the other 1 time out of ten, it's Apple.)

  • Original USENET post announcing Eudora (Score:3, Interesting)

    by guanxi ( 216397 ) on Wednesday October 11, 2006 @06:00PM (#16400581)
    http://groups.google.com/group/comp.archives/msg/e 3bcb4c240c5827e?dmode=source&hl=en [google.com]

    I used Eudora and supported it for awhile, in the mid-90's. It's main advantages were for power users. Back then, I thought that in every user was a power user waiting for an opportunity, so I installed it for them. Well, we all must outgrow our childhood dreams some day ...

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