Re: GNUMail sources

[Steven R. Baker]

On Thu, May 19, 2016, at 12:38 AM, Riccardo Mottola wrote:
> Hi,
> 
> Germán Arias wrote:
> > Hi Steven
> >
> > Currently a fork of GNUMail are hosted here:
> >
> > http://gna.org/projects/gnustep-nonfsf
> >
> > and the website is this:
> >
> > http://home.gna.org/gnustep-nonfsf/gnumail.html
> >
> > The development of this fork is slow. But its intention is maintain
> > alive this app.
> 
> we imported in this repository only pantomime and gnumail, not other 
> projects.
> We are undergoing a very slow and cautionary fix and update of the code. 
> I believe the current code is bettery in eevery way than the original 
> code and does not introduce new issues.
> Still, depending on your usage GNUMail can be usable or not.
> It should work pretty well with a standard POP and a SMTP without 
> authentication though.
> NetBSD support was added since the work as well as many improvements.

Perfect, thanks!

> If you have isseus, let's discuss them, but there are some which I do 
> not know how to fix.
> Which other apps are you  missing?

Great question, and thank you for asking! There is a rather long and
complicated answer here.

About a year ago I gave up my Macs to return to ThinkPads running
Debian. At the time of leaving the Mac, I was using the built-in stuff,
plus Things, DEVONthink, and VoodooPad. So I'm looking for replacements
of all of that. I've been struggling a lot with where to land, and
contribute my efforts. I've spend some time on GNOME, KDE, and have even
dabbled in Enlightenment land, to see what can provide everything I'm
looking for *and* be an enjoyable place to contribute. So far I have
found pros and cons, but I think I'm going to be happiest in GNUstep
land.

(A brief not on my experience: I cut my teeth on Unix-y GUI programming
on NeXTstep, and loved it, before doing GTK+ stuff until buying a Mac in
2006. As a Mac user I worked on some Mac and iOS apps before giving up
Macs about a year ago.)

I really miss the quantity and quality of what I'll broadly refer to as
"Productivity Apps" on the Mac, and my life is considerably less chaotic
and crazy when I'm a Mac user with a great suite of productivity
applications. But I hate myself for supporting the closed, proprietary,
unsustainable technology category. And, I find it hard to get "real
work" done on a Mac.

My first order of business is to get good replacements for AddressBook,
Calendar, and Mail from OS X. I am currently working on some UI
improvements to SimpleAgenda, and after that I'll focus on
CardDav/CalDav support. The only thing I'm missing from GNUmail is IMAP
IDLE support, which I'll have to figure out how to add to Pantomime, I
guess. And some form of Sieve filter management.

I've also started (slowly) working on an app I'm calling "Tickler" which
will be a GTD app (using TaskWarrior as a backend). Once that's usable,
I'll probably be hooked for life. I have a few small projects I want to
explore: an MTP browser for talking to my Android phone, NewsBlur
support for Grr, a few dock apps for laptop-related things. And figuring
out why Terminal.app flips its pancakes over Swedish characters in
filenames.

So, it's a balancing act for me: have a well organized and happy
personal life, with a miserable and unproductive working life, or have a
happy and productive working life, with a miserable, chaotic, and
stressful personal life. *If* I can take my Debian system with GNUstep
installed and add a nice GTD app, as well as calendar/contact syncing
with my Fastmail.fm account, then GNUstep will have gained a developer
and friend for life. If, however, I get too stressed out and decide to
forego my freedom-respecting morals in favour of shiny fruit-flavoured
hardware and software, I'm sure I'll find some way to justify that to
myself too.

As I'm sure you'll understand, this takes time and patience, and while I
have both in spades right now, it may not last. The quick responses on
the GNUstep mailing lists is certainly encouraging. Of course, I intend
to share my knowledge and work as I go.

Cheers!

-Steven
 
> Riccardo