Re: Balse feature in Brave GNU World?

[Carlos Morgado <chbm gnome org>]

On Fri, 02 Apr 2004 13:50:50, Georg C. F. Greve wrote:

In true colaborative spirit, a few more answers :)

> 
> QUESTIONS:
> 
>  * What is it?
>

Balsa is a Mail User Agente, vulgo email client. It focus on being an email  
client.

>  * Who would use it?
>

People wanting a pretty X mail client but not wanting the "personal  
organizer" 7ton gorilla.

>  * Why would they use it instead of similar projects?
>

Because Balsa focus on being standards compliant and interoperability with  
your MUAs, both local and remote. Balsa incorporates the important MTA  
features. The Balsa maintainers are overly conservative about que quality of  
the code.
Also, Balsa has a cool name.

>  * (Programming) language used in this project?
>

C

>  * Special features/strengths?
>

Interoperability. Balsa can use MBOX, MH and MailDir local mail stores, fetch  
POP3 and speak IMAP4. It sends messages so RFC compliant it's almost booring.

>  * Special problems?
>

Development can be slow at times. We have lifes.

>  * Who is working on it?
>

AUTHORS speak for itself.

>  * History of the project?
>

I'll just add to Steffen's answer:
Balsa used mutt code as its backend up to the 2.0 series. "libmutt" was  
mostly bastardized by Alan Cox from mutt 0.something. libmutt was maintained  
by a number of people (including myself) throught Balsa development but  
during the maturation of the 2.0 series a score of people (including myself)  
decided it was time to retire libmutt and move on to a backend more in tune  
with a GUI multithreaded program. And so Jeffrey Stedfast's (of Evolution and  
Spruce fame) GMime came into play.

>  * Why did the project start?
>

Stuart Parmenter was boored. Also, he wanted to learn about Gtk+ (which was  
the new hot s**t at the time). What better way to do it than writting a mail  
client ?
Also, GNOME had none at the time.

>  * Current status of the project?
>

2.0 is as solid as it gets and it's mostly closed.
2.1 is fun all around with almost daily CVS commits.

>  * Plans for the close and distant future?
>

On the close run, get the new mail backend stable. This might take longer  
than it looks as like I said, we're not very optimistic.
After that, polishing the UI, improving filters, having more GNOME  
integration, who knows.

>  * Do you need help? If so: of what kind?
>

Always. What do you have to offer ? : )

>  * Interesting/fun stories that might juice up the story?
>

There that one time when I ... oh .. sorry .. forget about it.

>  * Website/FTP addresses?
>

http://balsa.gnome.org

>  * License?!
>

GPL

>  * Standard documents to read in this context?
>

The web site with news about new features and the current feature list.

>  * Anything you would like to see mentioned?
>

Balsa maintainers are mostly unix types. Advanced Preferences are included.  
be warned! :)

>  * Answer to a question I forgot?
> 
>

Q: Why is it named balsa ? Isn't balsa a tree ?
A: Yes. Think about it.


cheers

-- 
Carlos Morgado - chbm(a)ma.ssive.net - http://chbm.net/ 
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