Re: [Evolution] Future of Evolution

[Not Zed <notzed ximian com>]

On Fri, 2004-05-21 at 16:52 +0200, Job 317 wrote:
> Hello group,
>
> Where can I find information about future releases and feature additions
> for Evolution?
I think someone has already answered that, i'm not sure if its up to date right at this moment though.
> Specifically, I am interested in knowing when the next major release of
> Evolution is due.
Again, I'm not sure if the web page is up to date.  Right now, the next major release, 2.0, is targetted for mid-august (I think).  We're literally working our arses sore to make this happen at the moment.
> Also, whether this version will support PGP Inline. If not, when.
No it wont.  We have some preliminary contributed patches, but they are not yet complete - the contributor is still interested in completing them though.  So hopefully it will make the next release.

Yes it has been a strategic decision not to support it, one of the justifications for this is that limitations in the specification's definition means that you are never actually guaranteed that the recipient can verify the sender; because of transport vagarities.  Which is why we stick to pgp/mime, since it is the primary specified pgp standard _for email_, and it provides slightly better guarantees in this area.  I guess you can argue either way but at the end of the day evolution just doesn't do it _yet_, and you'll just be wasting your breath, and not really helping us fix the other bugs we already have to fix.
> Third, I would like a Bounce option for SPAM. Is this available? If not,
> will it be?
I think its been explained elsewhere, but bluntly, since spam messages generally (and almost always these days) forge all of their identifying sender information, spam bouncing is almost always completely worthless and merely adds to the network congestion that spam is blamed for in the first place.  There are definitly no plans to ever support this feature in the core evolution application.
> I know the Evolution guys are busy but I really like the client and want
> it to do all things.
Thanks mate.  We're working hard to make sure the next release is really solid and polished.  Unfortunately not everyone's requests will be fullfilled (we have been in feature freeze, essentially for months, although many new features have crept in despite this), but we're hoping to take 'the best of the rest', and build as high a quality, usable product as we can.

For the devlopers this last release cycle has been a very long, very hard slog, so excuse the odd _expression_ of frustration - we just can't answer everyone's requests with 'sure bud, its in tomorrow'.  We will probably be more  relieved to get it out the door than users will be to get it on thier systems (averaged over all users vs all developers, i think our relief will outweigh everyone else's per person, a million to one at least :).

Thanks for your interest,
 Michael

Michael Zucchi <notzed ximian com> Ximian Evolution and Free Software Developer

Novell, Inc.