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Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

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Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#101

Post by kps »

tinus_hn wrote: post #83
bdamm wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is beautiful. One of the "so obvious it's invisible" truths of the modern age, and I nearly forgot that Eudora and other pioneers of the age were making a somewhat risky choice to only support standard protocols and eschew the proprietary mailers. Most of them are now long dead yet POP3, IMAP, SNMP chug along. At the time, though, it wasn't so clear.

POP3 is horribly inefficient and SNMP is a security disaster waiting to happen. At least POP3 isn’t widely used anymore.

Why is POP3 horribly inefficient? Lack of an equivalent to the IMAP COMPRESS extension?

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#102

Post by mirimir »

behringer wrote: post #100
mirimir wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And when my email client doesn't fetch remote content, it will be a problem :) So maybe I'll be replying "Why did you send me an empty message?" And maybe some email list software will have the same problem.

But the email is readable, it has a link to a message online. It is not a change to the standard, since it's in the body, where you can write whatever you like. In fact, it's not even unprecedented, because Cisco has been offering this exact same type of system for years generally for PHI and other sensitive uses.

A URL, or embedded content as part of HTML?

If it were just a URL, even an HTML-enabled client would show just the link. I assumed that it must be embedded content, which would be rendered as a normal-looking message.

Maybe it's both. But even so, I'd just see the link. And generally, I ignore blank messages containing links.

Also, it's not uncommon for email list software to strip HTML, and I doubt that it would decode the HTML before doing so.

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#103

Post by romwell »

behringer wrote: post #90
ddingus wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are missing the spirit of the comment. This is not a matter of can it be done and be standard, but whether it should be. That's just as important here.

I'm not missing anything. There's nothing wrong with placing links in emails. The link is good, presumably in and out of gmail, and is clearly a gmail feature, not an email feature. There's no problem here.

> The link is good, presumably in and out of gmail

The link is clearly not good out of Google ecosystem. You need to have a Google account to view it. Otherwise, there's nothing stopping the e-mail client (or even recipient's email server) from fetching the link upon receipt.

To be clear: Gmail want to be a UI for sending messages via a proprietary protocol which look like emails to the sender and receiver if they are Gmail users.

If your outgoing emails were silently converted into Snapchat messages (more features! why not! everyone's one Snapchat anyway!), would you be similarly unconcerned?

>and is clearly a gmail feature, not an email feature. There's no problem here.

That's precisely the problem: turning Email into Gmail.

Remember how IE added features to HTML which were IE features, not HTML features? Remember how it wasn't at all a problem?

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#104

Post by ddingus »

mirimir wrote: post #95
ddingus wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the link is the message, and the user thinks it won't change, or go away, it's a problem.

And when my email client doesn't fetch remote content, it will be a problem :) So maybe I'll be replying "Why did you send me an empty message?" And maybe some email list software will have the same problem.

That's my planned reply.

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#105

Post by ddingus »

mirimir wrote: post #102
behringer wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the email is readable, it has a link to a message online. It is not a change to the standard, since it's in the body, where you can write whatever you like. In fact, it's not even unprecedented, because Cisco has been offering this exact same type of system for years generally for PHI and other sensitive uses.

A URL, or embedded content as part of HTML? If it were just a URL, even an HTML-enabled client would show just the link. I assumed that it must be embedded content, which would be rendered as a normal-looking message. Maybe it's both. But even so, I'd just see the link. And generally, I ignore blank messages containing links. Also, it's not uncommon for email list software to strip HTML, and I doubt that it would dec…

How do you even use a mailing list properly with this going on?

The big deal here is users do not get copies of content, instead notifications content is, or may be available.

And that's then. What about searching mail archives? You know just that sort of thing being just a little broken is not an accident.

Or it changes.

"You told me to fuck off"

"Prove it"

Message says hugs and kisses.

That's gonna happen. Count on it, with lame screenshot battles being "proof."

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#106

Post by NickNameNick »

sanxiyn wrote: post #93
andrewbinstock wrote: post #61

It's a curious purgatory the project is in, which I think would make it difficult to attract developers. On one hand, a user base wants the old product with minimal twists and they are known to balk at anything more than that. On the other, project survival likely depends on getting new users on board, in which case an old design and UI are probably going to be detriments.

I guess you could write a theming engine, implement the old design using it, and then implement the new design.

Doing that basically destroyed Winamp.

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#107

Post by romwell »

brightsize wrote: post #88
latigidigital wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget Pegasus! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Mail

Or Email Connection! http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-c... edit: fix link

Or, if you lived in Eastern Europe, The Bat1[1] - and it is still actively supported!

I switched to Opera Mail because it was convenient to have the browser and email client in one software (which is also freeware), but that went with the Chropera move.

[1]https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#108

Post by tambourine_man »

mrpippy wrote: post #63
yuhong wrote: post #60

It would be fun to port the Mac version to x86.

The Mac archive doesn't have any resource forks, which is likely going to prevent building a working copy. Trying to figure out who to email at the CHM about it.

Really? That's a huge oversight.

At the very least, none of the original new mail images, sound, etc (all PCT, SND resources). I miss hacking Eudora with ResEdit.

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#109

Post by throwaway76543 »

kps wrote: post #101
tinus_hn wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

POP3 is horribly inefficient and SNMP is a security disaster waiting to happen. At least POP3 isn’t widely used anymore.

Why is POP3 horribly inefficient? Lack of an equivalent to the IMAP COMPRESS extension?

It's fine if it's used to simply pull down mail to a local spool. The inefficiency complaints usually stem from attempting to maintain mail on a remote server across multiple clients. POP3 does not implement a sufficiently rich protocol to make this possible without downloading the entire spool onto each client.

For example, no searching.

Re: Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

#110

Post by swasheck »

bdamm wrote: post #20
jasonjayr wrote: post #2

"Eudora was specifically designed with the idea that standards are a key to successful adoption. Indeed, the rapid acceptance of the Internet is largely due to the standardization process. Published standards are what allow applications from multiple sources to cooperate with each other. Without standards organizations would only be able to use their own applications together, and not those from outside. Also, by all…

This is beautiful. One of the "so obvious it's invisible" truths of the modern age, and I nearly forgot that Eudora and other pioneers of the age were making a somewhat risky choice to only support standard protocols and eschew the proprietary mailers. Most of them are now long dead yet POP3, IMAP, SNMP chug along. At the time, though, it wasn't so clear.

Wait. SNMP or SMTP? I'm legitimately asking and not being pedantic because I'm genuinely curious.
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