Filed under: Software, Internet Tools, Open Source
Qualcomm's Eudora goes free and open source
Qualcomm announced today that in 2007 they will begin releasing their esteemed email client, Eudora, as an open source and free application. The new version will be based on the same platform as Mozilla's Thunderbird and the final commercial versions of Eudora for both Windows (7.1) and Mac (6.2.4), available now at a reduced price of $19.95, will cease being sold once the open source version is out. Technical support for newly registered owners of the discounted commercial version will extend for a 6-month period and include three "incidents", but the company says that existing one-year/six-call support commitments will be honored in their entirety. Additional details can be found in the Eudora Announcement FAQ.Back in the days when I had a job that required using Windows at work I used Eudora exclusively so that I could easily move my mailbox files back and forth between Mac and PC. It's been years since I've personally used it, but recent encounters with Eudora on the Mac were a shock to the system. Always a powerful email client (behold the power of the X-Eudora-Setting), with a vibrant user support community, I was shocked that the interface had barely changed a bit in 10 years! Some might find that endearing but I found it jarring to have that particular UI - Aquafied just enough so that you didn't think you'd mistakenly launched Classic - floating in a sea of otherwise brushed metal goodness.
How many of you are currently using Eudora (paid or ad-supported) or plan to give it another shot when it goes open source?
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Joshua Ochs said 11:22AM on 10-11-2006
They're not "going open-source", they're dumping their product entirely and using Thunderbird instead. Eudora's codebase has *nothing* in common with it, so "The new version will be based on the same platform as Mozilla's Thunderbird" means no more Eudora.
It was a great program about 10 years ago (version 4 or thereabouts), especially before the Mac developer (I believe there was only one) ran out of interface and feature ideas (MoodWatch?) and got a huge stick up his ass about Mac OS X (read most of the release notes on betas and so-forth - mostly whining and complaining about how his bugs and problems are all Apple's fault).
A shame they couldn't have hired a competent programmer to take over and do some innovative things with it - we need more competition in this space, not less.
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penelope frankfurter said 11:50AM on 10-11-2006
I use Eudora at a small college because that's what most everyone else here uses. I'm on a mac, but I find Eudora to be easier for me than the mac Mail program. I guess I'll stick with the open source if my emails transfer easily.
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Tucker said 12:01PM on 10-11-2006
Oh man, I remember when Eudora was like the ONLY e-mail client to use back in the day - heck, my mom still runs 5.something on her PC and basically refuses to try anything else.
So will this be the Eudora interface with the Thunderbird codebase, or do you think Joshua is right and it'll basically just be Thunderbird with a different logo?
Either way, I don't see myself switching from Thunderbird, personally.
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Ms. Bear said 12:20PM on 10-11-2006
Tucker,
From what I've heard it's going to be a merging of the two code bases taking features from both of the program and combining them.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope
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Bryan Walls said 12:21PM on 10-11-2006
I still use Eudora, though I also use Apple Mail and Entourage, and have been doing some testing with Thunderbird.
NASA just removed Eudora as a standard product for desktops, so nearly half of the Mac users at the Marshall Space Flight Center are currently using Eudora. We're looking at how to transition them. Interestingly, Thunderbird is one of the standard choices (the others are Entourage and Apple Mail). I'll be interested in how things go.
What I most love about Eudora is being able to find a message in the current mailbox by just typing their name (finds the most recent match), and the ability to Option-click to group by sender or subject. Search is still good. I'm invested by having years of content in Eudora archives. Eudora Cleaner could probably get them into Apple Mail, but I don't find Spotlight as easy to use for search when it comes to things like, "Find all messages that reference urchin in these four mailboxes.)
Eudora also has a plugin for the Entrust PKI product, which is currently a cleaner solution than is offered by any of the other clients.
There are a bunch of things about Eudora that I don't really like much. Mostly a result of too many things strapped on to what was originally a clean, simple program.
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Jay said 12:28PM on 10-11-2006
Actually, they ARE going open source, not just switching to Mozilla. Many of the Eudora developers, including Steve Dorner - who originally created Eudora are working with Thunderbird to come up with the best features from both in a new product. Nice guess though.
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Mark Johnson said 12:47PM on 10-11-2006
Good news is that the same team is working on the client with Thunderbird. Blame for the "neglect" should fall on Qualcomm corporate priorities, not the individual engineers working on the project. Perhaps now being allowed to do something with the product along with the open-source community will allow them to improve both Thunderbird and some of the Eudora features users have wanted for years.
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brian said 1:42PM on 10-11-2006
I work in a university setting and even with the little changes that have been made I've heard professors scream about it. They don't want change. They just want less spam to show up in their inbox. They want something they are familiar with and can just get down to business. What i'm going to pray for is that migrating from old commercial eudora to the new mozilla thunderbird code with a eudora face will be a snap.
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Miraz Jordan said 2:03PM on 10-11-2006
I've been using Eudora forever and still think it's the best email program. For 5 years I wrote a weekly Eudora Tip (archived at http://mactips.info/tips/?cat=2), explaining some of the features, tips and tricks of this massively powerful software.
While the interface is a little outdated it's still the only email software that behaves in ways I want my email to behave. I've looked at some of the others, and Thunderbird is the only one I would have considered if Eudora had spontaneously combusted and become unable to function on my machine.
The news that Eudora and Thunderbird are to be combined is pleasing. I just hope the final product retains the single window interface and doesn't force me into the three-paned structure so much other software uses.
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Brian Ashe said 2:10PM on 10-11-2006
Three years ago I got a night job. I'm never home any more so I just use webmail. Up until that time, my home email client was Eudora 1.5.4 (for Windows; released in 1996, I think), which my wife still uses. It launches in the blink of an eye (literally--about 1 or 2 tenths of a second) and does everything she needs.
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Rubin said 2:26PM on 10-11-2006
Back in my PC days, I was using Eudora before I switched to Outlook because I already found Eudora's interface old and not very user-friendly.
I gave it a try on the Mac, but as you said, it hasn't changed a bit. So for now I'll stick with Mail.app.
But you know, we'll see what Qualcomm does with Thunderbird...
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Steven said 6:32PM on 10-11-2006
I'm not happy with this at all. I'm a Eudora user for ages. I'm using Apple Mail at work and I've tried several other mail clients, like Thunderbird. Eudora is a great mail app if you have several mail accounts and tons of mail. The downside is that Eudora doesn't render html-formated mail like other mail apps of the 21st century. But I was setting my hopes on the announcement this summer that the developers were working on incorperating Apple's WebKit.
I guess the development of that has stopped. Quallcom is ditching Eudora, so that'll be the end of it.
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Hans said 6:34PM on 10-11-2006
Shame, I'm merging to Mail as I write this... let's see if Eudora Mailbox Cleaner does a good import into Mail. If so... I'm gone. Dang, and I did pay this year... oh well. good Karma, I guess. :-)
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rwp said 6:55PM on 10-11-2006
I still use Eudora in spite of its old-looking, but clean interface. It has one feature I really like: you can edit an email message after it has been sent or received to add comments, delete paragraphs or to add a personal "gloss" onto the original message. Not a feature you would want in an archival email program used for business or government, but for my own personal records, I appreciate this aspect.
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Thomas said 8:38PM on 10-11-2006
Does this mean that Eudora will get a new look then? The 1995 look is so outdated.
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Michael Pearce said 9:20PM on 10-11-2006
I have been using Eudora since version 1.something and have turned dozens of people onto it, mostly rescuing them from Outlook Express. I have been waiting and wondering when there would be an upgrade that would give me, most importantly, a key command to enlarge type like AppleMail and any web browser does.
I hope they will not change the interface nor render my fifteen-year archive of mailboxes useless. One lost feature that disappeared between the last Classic and first OSX version was the ability to read mailboxes off of CDs. Now, because it can't write to them, it won't even read them. It's also important that I can open any mailbox file in TextEdit should it somehow become unreadable in Eudora.
Someone suggested that the Thunderbird core will change the look of the program to resemble Thunderbird. I hope Qualcomm will be more forthcoming about what these changes will really mean.
As someone who fixes Macs and recovers software failures, Eudora is the only program that I have never failed to recover mail from, except when disk errors have completely trashed the files.
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Sam Katz said 10:10PM on 10-11-2006
they claim they will keep features as close to the same as possible. I trust Qualacomm. also, check out eudora2go, their mobile e-mail client, which includes an imap account.
--Sam
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Kelter said 12:16AM on 10-12-2006
I've used Eudora from the start, have nearly 750,000 (yikes) emails that I need to keep around, love the super fast searches and statistics on usage, spam etc. The interface is the worst-looking, by far, but still simple and functional. Checking multiple accounts is a breeze.. The thing I worry about most is what the "combined" ThunderDora interface will wind up doing to the overall speed of my current Eudora.
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Luke James said 11:33AM on 10-23-2006
I used Eudora for most of the mid to late nineties, but with Claris Emailer and other slick new GUIs that came out then gave me great envy with their three-pane goodness. So much smart and intuitive than opening a new window for everything. Eudora finally went to this 3-pane system around 1997, too... for the PC only. I tried waiting for the Mac to catch up because I wanted to stick with Eudora, but I couldn't wait. I'm glad I didn't because 9 years later, same terrible GUI. Four years ago, I got my current job and Qualcomm is a former client, so many of the people were using Eudora despite the built-in Mail and other free options. Everyone hates it, but most are too lazy to learn something else. Everytime I hear that ridiculous audio notification from the days of midi, or see the little window pop up on someone's screen with a black & white line drawing of a pig announcing "You have new mail!" I shake my head in disbelief. It's truly pathetic.
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