I’m not going to go into all the horse manure about the recently orphaned Thunderbird and the nonexistent new “company” (MailCo) that’s supposedly taking up the reins of new development and the fact that there’s no developers at all for the job, etc etc. There’s been an awful lot of hot air being tossed around already and so far absolutely no results to be had. There isn’t even any sort of website, blog or even a place marker for anything called “MailCo” anywhere to be found…yet. Time to stop talking and show us something substantial here.
(time passes) Okay, maybe not.
And now, to make matters worse, Mozilla seems to be kicking all the loyal Thunderbird users right in the face by taking over the future open source development of the old and venerable Eudora email client and basing the new version on none other than future developments of Thunderbird?? What’s this crapola huh? They even launched a public beta of Eudora 8/Penelope. A whole new version of Eudora based on an email client that they no longer develop!?!
Oh-ho, methinks there are misdoings afoot so let us hypothesis here a bit about what I call my
Thunderbird, Eudora, Mozilla Conspiracy Theory
To wit…
Mozilla agrees to take on the future development of the Eudora email client under an open source license. They decide to initially base it on their latest stable version of Thunderbird (2.0.0.6), start work on an extension called “Penelope” that plasters the Eudora UI all over poor Thunderbird and adds in a few Eudorian type features as well. They then kick this bastard child of an email client out the door calling it “Eudora 8 Beta 1″. It even works well as long as the Penelope extension is enabled and once they get past the fairly poor Eudora eye candy, current Thunderbird users should feel right at home. After all, for all intents and purposes it’s still good old Thunderbird with a few extra features tacked on.
At the same time Mozilla, knowing full well that it would look mighty foolish if they put significant effort, money and resources into two different versions of the same email client, kicks the Thunderbird name out the door, throws 3 million bucks at the now out of work developers calling it “seed money” and continues to develop the Thunderbird code base under the new name of Eudora/Penelope project. And they even have the help of the original Eudora developers for about a year or so to help them along. In other words straighten out the mess that has been the Thunderbird code base into something more efficient and streamlined. In the meantime, the original two developers of Thunderbird quit Mozilla and head off into an undisclosed project of their own. My own uneducated conspiratorial guess is that this undisclosed project is the development of all the “extra features” that Thunderbird users have been clamoring for over the last couple of years but instead, developing these new features for the open source version of Eudora.
Okay, the last bit was a pretty far fetched but with alternatives like Outlook, Outlook Express or the new Windows Live Mail Desktop (Outlook Express with a set of new clothes), to look forward to I think I’ll place my bets with the new Eudora rather than poor old Thunderbird. In fact, I happen to be running both right now on my main PC and since I use the same Thunderbird profile for both programs, I don’t have to even have to worry about importing my Thunderbird email into Eudora 8 B1.
Kinda’ funny how it works out that way isn’t it?
The Eudora 8/ Penelope version of Thunderbird even adds something that’s been missing form Thunderbird that I really missed. A working “previous” and “next” message button added to the toolbar in an open message window like old Outlook Express always had.
So that’s my theory for whatever it’s worth. I think it’s rather clever to say so myself. I wonder if any of you care to have a go at it?
I think my head just exploded.
Oooo…eeeg…uh…(yuck)…er…uh…sorry about that…uh…Janet…uh…(oh man!)…does it…uh…like, hurt much? I could like, get a bucket or something. Would a band-aid help at all?
I think I gotta be more careful with these theories of mine…
Oh… I’ve burned so many brain cells today working on my template and then, and then, I visit your site. OMG! An ace bandage may hold it together!
Your reply cracked me up!
I think my brain bits are mixed with Janet’s.
I gave up on Outlook Express years ago when it corrupted my mail files, couldn’t fix them, and Thunderbird could. This year I went to gmail for most of my work, downloading to Thunderbird periodically as a backup. (Strange thought. Your hard drive as a backup for your online files.) I never paid attention to the progress with Thunderbird, just upgrading as upgrades became available.
Eudora I haven’t looked at since the Dark Ages. I didn’t like it then. Has the interface gotten better? Should it be called ThunderDora? Is there a portable version somewhere? I use the Thunderbird from PortableApps.
Rick,
Oh and Kirk too! lol
I don’t have mad cow disease thank heavens. Even though my site might make you think so. Cows are going to where ever they go this time of year and leaving my header as well. Rancher has been rounding them up the last couple days. Still a few stragglers.
Actually it looks like the cows are headed toward you, Janet, and they have an odd look in their eyes.
Hey Janet and Rick,
I’ll add some of my own brain bits in with yours (what I have left anyway), give a good stir and see what starts to grow. Who knows? We may actually create a new life form. “Shards of Thinkin’ Westcliffe Cow Consciousness” or something to that effect. (all apologies guys)
-Janet:
Maybe those cows are finally wising up? Ya’ never know.
-Rick:
All Eudora 8 B1 really is, is Thunderbird with Eudora icons and a couple extra features added in. In other words, TB with an extension that adds a theme and a couple of functions found in the old Eudora. I think you’d feel right at home. But since I’m like you and haven’t looked at Eudora since the PC stone age, all I noticed was the addition of those working “Previous (message) and “Next” (message) arrow buttons in the open message window. Too soon to tell if they’ll have a portable version or not but I’ll let you know if I find out.