• Status of HERMES project to replace Eudora

    From Ignataz@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 31 17:27:15 2022
    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka
    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value of a
    new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Dennis Lee Bieber@21:1/5 to All on Tue May 31 20:59:29 2022
    On Tue, 31 May 2022 17:27:15 -0700 (PDT), Ignataz
    <charles.b.kramer@gmail.com> declaimed the following:

    Any opinions about this?


    I note a distinct lack of mentioning Pandora as a desktop mail client. http://www.drivehq.com/web/brana/pandora.htm

    Even though I've installed the SSL update for Eudora, the amount of HTML based posts using character sets not supported by Eudora led me to try Pandora back around v1.5 or so, and I've been using it since then.

    There are a few glitches still present, but for the most part it "looks like" a modernized Eudora.


    --
    Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com@21:1/5 to Ignataz on Tue May 31 19:38:45 2022
    On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 8:27:16 PM UTC-4, Ignataz wrote:
    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value of a
    new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles

    I don't want to be a downer. I love Eudora and would love to have some bug fixes. But I contributed to previous campaigns and while I was not happy that the project didn't produce something tangible, I was even more disappointed there simply were so
    few status updates. If I'm not mistaken, there were multiple fundraisers on different platforms and I didn't see reporting of the results from any of them.

    Maybe we need to hear a bit about what happened with the previous effort before contributing further?

    --

    Rick C.

    - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
    - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Jim H@21:1/5 to charles.b.kramer@gmail.com on Fri Jun 3 19:38:59 2022
    On Tue, 31 May 2022 17:27:15 -0700 (PDT), in <a8c58afd-541c-4139-826f-3d9c5ea6fd42n@googlegroups.com>, Ignataz <charles.b.kramer@gmail.com> wrote:

    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka
    https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value of a
    new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles

    I'm grateful for the update to QCSSL (OpenSSL), but as for the rest
    I'm not sure much has been achieved other than getting most of the old
    Qualcomm code to compile. The result isn't as good, or as complete, as
    the original Eudora with the Hermes OpenSSL fix applied. But in
    fairness... "complete" requires libraries that Qualcomm wasn't legally
    able to distribute when they released the Eudora source. And with a
    few bug fixes to the original Eudora made by patching the original
    Eudora.exe - namely proper MID creation, a fix to truncated attachment
    names, and several more I never encountered that are too convoluted
    for me to describe - the original Eudora life span seems to have been
    extended.

    Granted performance of the original with GMail and Yahoo and any
    others from among the few pushing what I'd call overly complicated authentication is problematic, but once the confusing workaround they
    offer is set Eudora still works. Personally my solution to GMail or
    Yahoo would be to dump them. I did dump Yahoo, never used GMail more
    than it took to decide it wasn't worth what it cost. (That's sarcasm
    for those who need some help.) GMail filters on email body content and
    is responsible for a huge number of false positives in the spam folder
    while doing NOTHING to stop spam sent by their own customers.

    In summary... maybe Hermes will one day be the equivalent of a bug
    fixed Eudora, with future enhancements - tho I'm hard pressed to name
    anything I need - but at present I haven't seen anything that warms
    the heart of this original Eudora user to the tune of $70. And I'm not
    sure what it means that $70 pays for a seat while any extra above that
    goes toward improvement.

    Tell me in clear terms what functionality has been lost from the
    original Eudora, what original Eudora bugs have been fixed, what
    problems - old and new - are present, and a timeline for fixing them,
    etc., and it would be a lot easier to make a decision, but hearing
    that Hermes compiles and is about to enter alpha testing isn't
    exciting to this user of a paid up old Qualcomm Eudora.

    An Apple version? I'm all for it only if contributors have a choice of
    checking their support for Windows or Apple and that choice is
    strictly observed by the developers.

    And where I may be confused/incorrect above... if there had been some
    clear progress reports along the way maybe I wouldn't be.

    JimH
    --
    Jim H

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
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  • From Ignataz@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jun 4 09:43:02 2022
    JimH <<I'm grateful for the update to QCSSL (OpenSSL), but as for the rest
    I'm not sure much has been achieved other than getting most of the old
    Qualcomm code to compile. The result isn't as good, or as complete, as
    the original Eudora with the Hermes OpenSSL fix applied>>

    So... all these years after Eudora source was released there's nothing -- nothing other than QCSSL

    JimH <<But in fairness... "complete" requires libraries that Qualcomm wasn't legally
    able to distribute when they released the Eudora source>>

    Either the libraries need to be licensed (assuming they are available and up-to-date) or replaced (assuming that's possible). Or some third possibility (IAN a programmer).

    But if their unavailability means Eudora can't be updated, HERMES is fake.

    One thing that makes me nervous about Pandora as a long term substitute is it seems to be one man show. But he created Pandora from scratch, and maintains it.

    How many serious programmers should it take to update and maintained Eudora?

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Dennis Lee Bieber@21:1/5 to All on Sat Jun 4 13:45:03 2022
    On Sat, 4 Jun 2022 09:43:02 -0700 (PDT), Ignataz
    <charles.b.kramer@gmail.com> declaimed the following:


    Either the libraries need to be licensed (assuming they are available and up-to-date) or replaced (assuming that's possible). Or some third possibility (IAN a programmer).

    If you read the linked announcement, the Hermes team /did/ come up with funding and justification to obtain a license to the current version of one
    of the development libraries -- along with finding a willing victim to
    spend time learning that GUI framework (apparently Eudora is not directly
    using native Win32 nor MFC calls for the GUI, but rather a third-party
    package that encapsulates the Windows calls within higher-level widget
    concepts and handlers).
    https://www.perforce.com/products/stingray unfortunately I can not confirm
    cost for that license -- the team implied CD$ 10,000 -- as Perforce does
    not provide price estimates on the web page, it is all "contact us".

    And that is the crux of the situation: without the expensive license, the team would have had to recreate the ENTIRE user interface from scratch, using Win32/MFC. I could easily see that being over 50% of the Eudora
    source code that would be thrown out (the SMTP/POP/IMAP stuff is just
    sockets programming and not really affected by GUI -- other than the SSL updates, and they already have the core in the HermSSL code; just strip the Eudora plug-in and make it native.


    --
    Wulfraed Dennis Lee Bieber AF6VN
    wlfraed@ix.netcom.com http://wlfraed.microdiversity.freeddns.org/

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com@21:1/5 to Ignataz on Sat Jun 4 11:23:44 2022
    On Saturday, June 4, 2022 at 12:43:03 PM UTC-4, Ignataz wrote:
    JimH <<I'm grateful for the update to QCSSL (OpenSSL), but as for the rest I'm not sure much has been achieved other than getting most of the old Qualcomm code to compile. The result isn't as good, or as complete, as
    the original Eudora with the Hermes OpenSSL fix applied>>

    So... all these years after Eudora source was released there's nothing -- nothing other than QCSSL

    JimH <<But in fairness... "complete" requires libraries that Qualcomm wasn't legally
    able to distribute when they released the Eudora source>>

    Either the libraries need to be licensed (assuming they are available and up-to-date) or replaced (assuming that's possible). Or some third possibility (IAN a programmer).

    But if their unavailability means Eudora can't be updated, HERMES is fake.

    One thing that makes me nervous about Pandora as a long term substitute is it seems to be one man show. But he created Pandora from scratch, and maintains it.

    How many serious programmers should it take to update and maintained Eudora?

    I think that will always be the number available + 1.

    --

    Rick C.

    + Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
    + Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Nick Werner-Matavka@21:1/5 to gnuarm.del...@gmail.com on Sun Jun 19 00:24:29 2022
    On Tuesday, 31 May 2022 at 22:38:46 UTC-4, gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 8:27:16 PM UTC-4, Ignataz wrote:
    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value of a
    new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles
    I don't want to be a downer. I love Eudora and would love to have some bug fixes. But I contributed to previous campaigns and while I was not happy that the project didn't produce something tangible, I was even more disappointed there simply were so
    few status updates. If I'm not mistaken, there were multiple fundraisers on different platforms and I didn't see reporting of the results from any of them.

    Maybe we need to hear a bit about what happened with the previous effort before contributing further?

    The pandemic has been quite a ride, and it has slowed us down hugely, but Team HERMES is still going. We have a real continuation of Eudora for Windows running on a modern PC; if you have been following our story, we have had to change the name (to
    HERMES Mail), but we are running the historic Eudora 7.1 code base, improved to work with Unicode and modern OpenSSL. This is not a re-creation, but a real revival of QUALCOMM Eudora.

    We did a few little fundraisers before Covid hit, and that bought us time to get running, but until now our finances have been essentially a blank slate. The software is now, for all intents and purposes, complete. This time, we have a FIRM commitment to
    release to our testers on 1 AUGUST of THIS YEAR!

    As proof positive that we have a product to release, please see our screenshots: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLvQTdHW3x01RJG52oPaw-ujni09XyhC/view?usp=sharing and https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmTxCRbEPdhAPOHJzMrZ5ovtimvDkEFB/view?usp=sharing

    If you wish to become a tester and be among the first to get access to this product, please chip in here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/

    In view of our proven success in this area (albeit delayed), we're aiming for five thousand Canadian dollars this time. That'll allow us to continue developing the Windows version (which will also run on Linux), and begin development on HERMES Mail for
    Mac.


    --

    Rick C.

    - Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
    - Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From gnuarm.deletethisbit@gmail.com@21:1/5 to n.theodore.m...@gmail.com on Sun Jun 19 22:40:35 2022
    On Sunday, June 19, 2022 at 3:24:32 AM UTC-4, n.theodore.m...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Tuesday, 31 May 2022 at 22:38:46 UTC-4, gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 8:27:16 PM UTC-4, Ignataz wrote:
    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value of
    a new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles
    I don't want to be a downer. I love Eudora and would love to have some bug fixes. But I contributed to previous campaigns and while I was not happy that the project didn't produce something tangible, I was even more disappointed there simply were so
    few status updates. If I'm not mistaken, there were multiple fundraisers on different platforms and I didn't see reporting of the results from any of them.

    Maybe we need to hear a bit about what happened with the previous effort before contributing further?
    The pandemic has been quite a ride, and it has slowed us down hugely, but Team HERMES is still going. We have a real continuation of Eudora for Windows running on a modern PC; if you have been following our story, we have had to change the name (to
    HERMES Mail), but we are running the historic Eudora 7.1 code base, improved to work with Unicode and modern OpenSSL. This is not a re-creation, but a real revival of QUALCOMM Eudora.

    We did a few little fundraisers before Covid hit, and that bought us time to get running, but until now our finances have been essentially a blank slate. The software is now, for all intents and purposes, complete. This time, we have a FIRM commitment
    to release to our testers on 1 AUGUST of THIS YEAR!

    As proof positive that we have a product to release, please see our screenshots: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLvQTdHW3x01RJG52oPaw-ujni09XyhC/view?usp=sharing and https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmTxCRbEPdhAPOHJzMrZ5ovtimvDkEFB/view?usp=sharing

    If you wish to become a tester and be among the first to get access to this product, please chip in here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/

    In view of our proven success in this area (albeit delayed), we're aiming for five thousand Canadian dollars this time. That'll allow us to continue developing the Windows version (which will also run on Linux), and begin development on HERMES Mail for
    Mac.

    I'm not in a position to try doing anything with my email in August. I have significant contracts I'm working on and any disruption could be very serious. I'll catch up with you in November.

    --

    Rick C.

    -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
    -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Nick Werner-Matavka@21:1/5 to gnuarm.del...@gmail.com on Mon Jul 4 20:19:32 2022
    Well, we've got even more screenshots if anyone's curious. It's pretty much a drop-in replacement (really, it's a continuation, so Eudora 7.3), so everything carries over.

    https://igg.me/at/hermes80

    On Monday, 20 June 2022 at 01:40:37 UTC-4, gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Sunday, June 19, 2022 at 3:24:32 AM UTC-4, n.theodore.m...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Tuesday, 31 May 2022 at 22:38:46 UTC-4, gnuarm.del...@gmail.com wrote:
    On Tuesday, May 31, 2022 at 8:27:16 PM UTC-4, Ignataz wrote:
    Any opinions about this?

    Nick Werner-Matavka https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch/x/22716233#/
    We have a "price" of $70 Am. per seat; anything more than that goes to support the further development of the project

    I've contributed very modestly in the past and I am, of course grateful there is a prospect for it to be updated.

    But I am surprised by the lack of commercial and developer interest. Many (many!) more modest and obscure projects get the support they need.

    Eudora needs multiple dedicated developers, support for bug fixes and installation -- you know, like a real product. Port it, make an enterprise version, keep up with Windows editions (11 is here!) and Google authentication (is nigh!). The value
    of a new version without the promise of continued support is dubious.

    - Charles
    I don't want to be a downer. I love Eudora and would love to have some bug fixes. But I contributed to previous campaigns and while I was not happy that the project didn't produce something tangible, I was even more disappointed there simply were
    so few status updates. If I'm not mistaken, there were multiple fundraisers on different platforms and I didn't see reporting of the results from any of them.

    Maybe we need to hear a bit about what happened with the previous effort before contributing further?
    The pandemic has been quite a ride, and it has slowed us down hugely, but Team HERMES is still going. We have a real continuation of Eudora for Windows running on a modern PC; if you have been following our story, we have had to change the name (to
    HERMES Mail), but we are running the historic Eudora 7.1 code base, improved to work with Unicode and modern OpenSSL. This is not a re-creation, but a real revival of QUALCOMM Eudora.

    We did a few little fundraisers before Covid hit, and that bought us time to get running, but until now our finances have been essentially a blank slate. The software is now, for all intents and purposes, complete. This time, we have a FIRM
    commitment to release to our testers on 1 AUGUST of THIS YEAR!

    As proof positive that we have a product to release, please see our screenshots: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1aLvQTdHW3x01RJG52oPaw-ujni09XyhC/view?usp=sharing and https://drive.google.com/file/d/1vmTxCRbEPdhAPOHJzMrZ5ovtimvDkEFB/view?usp=sharing

    If you wish to become a tester and be among the first to get access to this product, please chip in here: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hermes-mail-8-0-the-final-stretch#/

    In view of our proven success in this area (albeit delayed), we're aiming for five thousand Canadian dollars this time. That'll allow us to continue developing the Windows version (which will also run on Linux), and begin development on HERMES Mail
    for Mac.
    I'm not in a position to try doing anything with my email in August. I have significant contracts I'm working on and any disruption could be very serious. I'll catch up with you in November.

    --

    Rick C.

    -- Get 1,000 miles of free Supercharging
    -- Tesla referral code - https://ts.la/richard11209

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)
  • From Ignataz@21:1/5 to n.theodore.m...@gmail.com on Tue Jul 5 09:29:01 2022
    On Monday, July 4, 2022 at 11:19:33 PM UTC-4, n.theodore.m...@gmail.com wrote:
    Well, we've got even more screenshots if anyone's curious. It's pretty much a drop-in replacement (really, it's a continuation, so Eudora 7.3), so everything carries over.

    Screenshots?

    What would be more re-assuring is confirmation the project was able to license the libraries it needs -- the ones that are not open source.

    --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05
    * Origin: fsxNet Usenet Gateway (21:1/5)