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I'm confused: what Evolution "shareware"? I've been using Gnome for years and this is the first I've heard of it. A quick Google reveals nothing either. Can you point me to a website showing the bits of Evolution that have to be paid for?

I suppose that he/she's speaking of Evolution Exchange. Apparently nobody told our not-so-friendly neighborhood FUD-spreader that it is GPL and free (as in free beer) since 2004. And it was a plugin, which added a functionality to an already feature-complete software, so I really can't understand from where he/she got out the "frontend to a commercial product" crap.

Totally agree that there is no commercial aspect to Evolution.

I'm a KDE user, and even I use Evolution. Definitely the best email client available for Linux.

So if a better Gnome information manager comes along, Gnome Org will replace it? If there was such a program, do you see that as ever happening--even if the other program was better?

There isn't another pim for gnome in the stars and you talk about "What if". So first come up with a contender that is at least alpha quality and has the almost the same features, before you accuse GNOME people that they wouldn't use the better product for the job.

I have a suggestion for you. Why don't you use Open Exchange on your server ... then you won't have to worry about MS exchange connectors for your Linux email clients.

http://www.open-xchange.com/
http://www.open-xchange.com/header/products/openxchange_express_edi...

If memory serves, Evolution used to be a commercial product that was made by Ximian. Ximian was bought by Novell, so I would imagine they would have control over Evolution, but I could be wrong.

Even when Ximian made Evolution, it was still open source. I know, I used to use Ximian GNOME way back in the day when GNOME was version 1.4?

how exactly is anyone forced to work on evolution?

PS, its not shareware (do you even know what that term means?)

"Was what I said totally unfounded?"

You were wrong; Evolution is not part of GNOME.

"I use Thunderbird. It's small light, and runs on most platforms."

I use Thunderbird too but "small" and "light" are not words I would use to describe it.

"Why need Evolution be written so tightly into Gnome?"
So don't use it? It's not like you're forced to use Evolution.

No, you are wrong. As GNOME 2.8, Evolution is an official component of GNOME:

"One of the most user-visible changes in GNOME 2.8 is the inclusion of Evolution 2.0 mail user agent in the base desktop. While many distributors already include Evolution as part of GNOME, this is the first time that Evolution will ship alongside the GNOME Desktop and Developer Platform officially."

http://gnomejournal.org/article/8/evolution-20

Edited 2007-07-05 04:46 UTC

"One of the most user-visible changes in GNOME 2.8 is the inclusion of Evolution 2.0"

Oh, shame on me. That does indeed suck to some extent.

Something that is deliberately inaccurate can be viewed by some here as little more than 'flame bait' to stir up a bee's nest. You well and truely know that Evolution is not shareware; it has been an opensource project since its early days when Ximian was a stand alone company, along when Nautilus was based around the Mozilla core (and the parent company tried to sell value added services ontop of it - to fund their opensource development).



Which proves absolutely nothing. Its Novell branding the application to fit into the rest of their customised desktop environment - that is no different to the branding that Sun Microsystems does, for example, to GNOME and Evolution, branding it with the monkier of 'Java Desktop Environment'.

To claim that Novell somehow owns or controls Evolution is a pathetic attempt to some how distort reality when it comes to commercial patronage of opensource projects. Evolution is owned by the community and controlled by the community; Novell will make 'customised' changes available to the 'community' and it is up to the 'community' to decide whether to merge those changes back into the mainline.



Which again, competely ignores reality - the largest contributor to GTK+ in regards to win32 maintain and compatibility is Novell. Novell is currently working on bringing Evolution to Windows so that it can work to replace their current Windows client - IIRC they are also working at bringing GTK+ to MacOS X (Along with a third party).

So don't try to dumb the debate down into a 'Novell vs. OpenSource' because it quite frankly simply turns this forum into a third rate digg/slashdot forum rather than something of a reasonable level of debate.

I am a Gnome user and maintainer, and I use Evolution daily, so I'm not arguing on the anti-Evo side. But the fact is that Evolution is owned by Novell. The Evolution maintainers require copyright assignment to Novell from all contributors. See "Patch Submission Process" near the bottom of http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/patch.shtml

But at the same time, if you don't like the status quo, you can remove the branding, and fork a new branch called "Creationism" if you want - and pander to all those who don't like the current Evolution.

Stating 'control' in the context in which I was talking about, was as though Novell could take it, close source it, stop people forking, at *any* time they want.

The original poster claimed that all users are at the 'mercy' of Novell, which is a load of bullcrap - its nothing more than a veiled attempt to attack Novells agreement with Microsoft - given *NO ONE* here actually has a copy of the contract, I find the assumptions made here by people over the contract as rather humourous to say the least

You're right, you shouldn't have been voted down. Your post certainly was nothing of these things, but it still was wrong.



Yes, your comment was totally unfounded. The SLED version of Evolution is called Novell Evolution, the e. g. Debian version is not. That's because this software is FOSS. The Evolution Data Server (which, BTW, is a local daemon to make Evolution services available to the system) is also FOSS and available in every distribution that ships Evolution, you can download its source here, if you want:

http://www.gnome.org/projects/evolution/download.shtml
(note that this is a Gnome site)



Well, I run Thunderbird, too, because I only need an E-Mail client. Evolution is a so called personal information manager and if you read the page you linked closely you would realize that Evolution is targeted at other people than you and me (actually it is targeted at me, but I use a different solution for calendaring). And Evolution is not tightly written into Gnome, you can remove the frontend Evolution without hassle and you can remove the Evolution Data Server, too, with some more pain, because it is a damn useful tool and many apps use it. I've done so anyway and it works without a problem.

EDIT: fixed tags

Edited 2007-07-05 09:49

People didn't "jump on what you wrote", people showed you that you were wrong in what you wrote, and included several references to support their assertions.

Your continuing as nothing had happened, even suggesting that there's something wrong about the "climate", seems also to support the opinion that you're just trolling to mount a case of "bad, evil corporation (Novell)" against "the people" (you and ...???).

Rehdon

While GNOME is supported by corporations, it's still a community project, just like the Linux kernel. If you're not happy with what is included with GNOME, you can discard it and/or fork the project. Perhaps the organisation isn't really open, but the software is.

That said...

Any replacement would be better than Evolution. Really. It's slow, it's bloated, it's buggy, it's ugly, it's broken. Believe me, I'm really trying to love it. It doesn't seem to love me, though. IMO, it's the only part of GNOME that doesn't seem to fit with the rest.

The problem with evo is that it does WAY more then is nessicary for normal home use. Where it shines is in a business context, as it is basically an outlook clone. I despise the program, but i dont think that management could function without it.

What we need is an Evo lite, or, dare i say it, Evo Express. ;-)

swarmi: "What we need is an Evo lite, or, dare i say it, Evo Express"

There may already such alternatives. Just try Claws mail (formerly Sylpheed Claws). It seems like an excellent powerful yet lightweight GTK+-based email client to me, lots of very useful plugins too, spam filters etc.
http://www.claws-mail.org/

I've been using Evolution - although in home use it may indeed be a bit too much - and I've often thought of maybe starting to use Claws instead too. But then again, so far Evolution hasn't be too bad for me either. And unlike some other commentators here, personally I think that Evolution is by far the most professional and best looking free email client for Linux desktops I've yet seen, although especially Thunderbird is very nice too, of course. (an explanation to Kmail fans: for some odd(?) reason I've usually had hard time trying to like the KDE looks/aesthethics although programs like Kmail do have lost of nice features; just a taste thing, I guess...)

Edited 2007-07-05 20:13

Actually, I believe the amount of features coming with Evolution is adequate. Many optional features extending the main program can be disabled with the plug-in system. I would use most of the features provided by Evo -- if they were working correctly!

Perhaps I am just unlucky, but I am experimenting many crashes (at least twice a day; in fact, it just did while reading a mail), slowness (calendar is barely usable here) or features that are just not working at all (Exchange support). It doesn't completely feel like a GNOME application either. These issues don't seem linked to a distribution (tried with Fedora, Gentoo, Ubuntu, Debian).

While a simple mail application could suit home users, a well-designed full-fledged groupware suite could do the job without confusing them. Unfortunately, I don't see "major overhaul" for Evolution in the GNOME roadmap. Kinda sad since it's one of the most important application for most web users.

Any replacement would be better than Evolution. Really. It's slow, it's bloated, it's buggy, it's ugly, it's broken.

Agreed !!! I first used it around the Gnome 1.4 days and it was a mess, now and again i bring it up to see if its improved and to be honest it has, but not so much as id use it day to day ... Its still all that you mention .. I did use it for a couple of days when i was trying to work on a Linux laptop in an all windows shop, exchange et al and it was ok, but not really good, i ended up saying fsck it and doing as the romans did, made my life a lot easier, Outlook just worked .. cough, when it was alive ... Mac Mail is the best mail client bar none, imho, Thunderbird next .... I have yet to see a good "group ware" client thats as seamless as the offering from MS ... So .. 10 out of 10 on effort Evo, you still have a long way to go though if you are to become all that you seek to be !!!

No, you're mistaken. The Exchange Connector used to be proprietary, but it's been GPL for several years now. What "commercial product" are you referring to?

Edited 2007-07-06 08:19