News From The Evolution Front 52
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."
depends on Mono? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How's it compare to Mozilla projects? (Score:1, Interesting)
Or has anyone created a reasonable Mac/Win email client that replicates Evolution's "vFolders" system? This is a killer feature that I need desperately. I'm locked into Windows by my work situation, but I'm aching for something that will help me capture more utility from the tons of email I have.
Re:depends on Mono? (Score:5, Interesting)
It would be hard to say whether GNOME coming to depend on Mono or on Java would be worse. Each outcome, on reflection, looks worse than the other. Sun and Microsoft both have submarine patents on the runtime techniques, and both are deeply hostile to Free Software: MS would like to kill it, while Sun hopes to "0wn" it. The only saving grace in Java's case is Gcj, which might be proof against patent risks. There's no equivalent for C#.
Both are cargo-cult languages, with features shoveled in without understanding how they interact. (As a result, e.g., using exceptions in Java doesn't actually lead to simpler code.) We still have no other language as useful for serious application and library development as C++. It's a pity that the GNOME crew are so ridden with superstition by their exposure to early (and badly broken) MSVC++ as to be unable to perceive the merits of ISO standard C++. It's is free, legally safe, and (like Algol-60) "an improvement not just on its predecessors, but on its intended successors". Someday there will be a language that deserves to replace C++ for serious work, but it won't be Java or C#.
Evo2 for Win32? (Score:3, Interesting)
I agree with Miguel's idea that the whole Gnome should become cross-platform and be partially integrated with Mozilla. I've seen many GTK+ apps that run really well and look quite good on Windows (eg. Gaim, AbiWord).