News From The Evolution Front

An anonymous reader writes "Sun's Java System Calendar Server connector (Hydrogen) for Evolution 1.4 on Solaris and Linux was GPL'ed today and is now available in GNOME CVS. This follows the recent GPLization of Novell's Ximian Connector (for Microsoft Exchange servers). In related news, the next major version of Evolution (version 2.0) is supposed to be released sometime during the next month, and beta testing have picked up pace. If you have some spare time, you can also give the Evolution 1.5.9 a spin. You can also use jhbuild to build Evolution from CVS (since the binaries are quite old by now). There is also a new project in GNOME CVS, called Evolution Brainread which adds a blog viewer to Evolution. It is not yet quite ready for production use, but looks quite good."

Re:depends on Mono?

[Jahf]

My understanding is that Evolution 2.0 would -not- depend on Mono, since the goal is to revamp the client and make it stable first, but that versions beyond 2.0 would possibly begin to include Mono into the core and hence if you're planning on building a distro with Evo2 it makes sense to start getting Mono running and stable ASAP so that that is not a barrier.

NOTE: I get this from an email from a Java Desktop System engineer who said he got word straight from Nat that Evo2 would not have Mono dependencies.

GNOME will probably also be in much the same way ... 2.8 and maybe 3.0 will likely not see a core dependency on Mono but afterwards I expect that Novell will begin moving towards a Mono base for development for GNOME and Evolution (remember that as of GNOME 2.8, Evo2 and Evo Data Server become core GNOME components).

As relates to Sun Java Desktop System (disclaimer: of which I work on in a tech marketing capacity) since obviously Sun is going to be much more interested in Java as a platform, not Mono (NOTE: I'm not saying Sun won't include a Mono platform in Java Desktop ... I can't say that since I don't know what the final answer will be on that). However, Java is becoming more viable for GNOME (and therefore Evo) development as well. My guess is were about to see Java vs. .NET in some form again. However, if Mono becomes a core of GNOME/Evo to where you can't function without it we will only have 2 choices ... include Mono or take tons of time to provide Java alternatives. I think both have advantages and disadvantages.

Re:depends on Mono?

[Jahf]

What I am saying is the goal of Evo2 is to make architectural changes to the client (as in splitting out the Evo Data Server portion, improving the UI, etc) and make sure it is stable in that iteration before going to a new development technology.

1.5.x is the unstable testing version for Evo2 ... the Evo developers want to get Evo2 stable in time for GNOME 2.8 core inclusion in a timely manner (originally the target was GNOME 2.6) and that means not doing a significant shift in the way Evolution is developed.

If Evo2 were to ship with GNOME 2.8 -and- start using Mono as a core technology, Evo2 would either take a lot longer to release -or- it would be initially unstable :)

Like I said in the parent, I haven't personally used 1.5.x so I can't vouch for the stability (though I definitely like the things I've read both on stability and features).

As for the current version (1.4.x) being unstable ... in my experience that depends on what you are using it for. Fast connections to an IMAP server without utilizing Evo1.4 plugins seems to work great. Start using any of the connectors and/or start working from remote (and I do have a very good broadband connection) and, well, even though Evo1.4 is the default mail client for the product I work on I am currently using Mozilla Mail for production use and Evo1.4 only for testing features.