Mail clients in Linux

[Steve Lamb]

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On Fri, 19 Mar 1999 16:02:22 -0800, Steven M. Scotten wrote:

>    Steve>     However the GPL doesn't allow for exhorbant amounts and
>    Steve>     once the source
>    Steve> is out, that is it.

>I don't think the first is true. I'm almost positive that there's no
>restriction, except that your second point is absolutely true and
>would tend to keep the price down.

    Nope.  The GPL provides for a "reasonable duplication cost."

>Besides, just because you provide the source doesn't mean you have to
>provide binaries. Most people would pay for RPMs (for example) to
>avoid having to compile the program themselves. If you don't believe
>that, ask Red Hat.

    They are paying for advertising.  Ask Debian.  ;)

>Yeah, the Debian crowd is pretty hard-core anticommercial. Try asking
>the Red Hat or SuSE crowd.

    Why?  Debian is technically superior than Red Hat (SUSE is RH based), is
more secure and has more packages.

>Do you ever pay for Open Source Software? I have a few times.

    No.

>Gladly dropped $50 on Red Hat's dist even though I could download it for
>free and try and figure out how to put it together. I'd say it's cheap at
>twice the price. Lots of other people are *paying for* software even though
>they could theoretically download and compile the same stuff themselves.

    You paid for support and duplication.  I *could* have dropped $29.95 for
an Imagemagic CD with Debian on it, but I've not since I FTP all the updates
as I go along I just FTP installed.  It is utterly painless.

>because this package won't work with that compiler or whatever, I'm
>already wishing that I could have paid $50 or $100 for binaries and an
>installer package. I can't bill that time out.

    Or had installed Debian.  ;)

>I'm not trying to boast. Most users don't WANT to compile the source code.

    Hey, I was a Slack junkie for at least a year or two before going to
Debian so I did compile everything.  However, again, Red Hat has never been
on my system.  Red Hat sells service above all else, something that
Southsoft could not do.

>There's room in the world for all kinds of software, proprietary and
>open.

    I agree.  In the world.  But in the *linux* world, until it gets to the
desktop, I don't think it is worth their time.  Even providing compiled
binaries.  Name the most popular email clients for Linux right now and not
one isn't GPL'd.  There are two commercial offerings for email out there and
I have yet to meet a person (online) that runs either of them.  I looked at
them and wouldn't consider it.

    Also, PMMail, although I personally think it does mail correctly (for
the most part) is quite contrary to how the 'nix crowd expects mail to be
done.  That isn't a plus to them, that is a minus.  It can't read mbox,
maildir, can't take advantage of fetchmail, procmial, exim filters,
sendmail, exim, postfix, qmail, smail, etc.  I feel that the MUA should
handle the transport filter and storage of mail, they do not.

    In short the current crop of Linux users will see a propirtery software
offering that does everything "backwards".  *We* know it works well.  *We*
like it.  *We* are biased.  I discount our opinions on the matter because of
that and look at what I've faced for the past year in both the newsgroups
and various email lists.

    So, as I said, for PMMail to sell enough on Linux to make it worth
Bob/Ike's time to port it Linux needs to be on the commercial desktop.  I
say the commercial desktop because Linux, I don't think, will break into the
personal desktop in the next 3-5 years *and* if it does PMMail will still
face the same problems that it faces on the Windows platform.  OE, NS,
Pegasus all for free.  But on Linux it is XFMail, Balsa, KMail, Netscape.
Only on the commercial desktop where an office purchases a standard MUA for
a dozen to a hundred employees at once will PMMail see success.


- --
         Steve C. Lamb         | I'm your priest, I'm your shrink, I'm your
         ICQ: 5107343          | main connection to the switchboard of souls.
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