[kwlug-disc] Does anyone want to take over Thunderbird?

[Andrew Kohlsmith (mailing lists account)]

> On Dec 1, 2015, at 1:57 PM, B.S. <bs27975 at yahoo.ca> wrote:
>> Google has IMAP and SMTP interfaces. I haven’t done any real testing but I’m 
>> pretty sure they’re adhering to the RFCs.
> They don’t.  [examples snipped]

TIL. Thank you. :-)

> However, when the underlying e-mail store / platform doesn't adhere to standards, non-google implementations will always be beat.
> 
> Not saying I disagree with your usage / presentment comments, merely, be fair. It's not that others can't get gmail right, it's that gmail doesn't play nice. That is indisputable.

Oh I understand what you’re saying. We could theoretically say “for conforming IMAP servers” though and we’d still have a reasonably tricky mess.  I have a friend who works at Blackberry who has lost hair and sanity over trying to get the BB email to work with as many IMAP implementations as possible. it’s a nasty, thankless task.

I suppose it’s no wonder it’s underrepresented in OSS.

> I think more likely millions and gmail users just use what's in front of them, however it appears or works today, and lives with it.

Absolutely. It drives me nuts that more people aren’t concerned about these kinds of things (or the TPP, or copyright reform, or software patents, etc.)… Mind you I bet there are plenty who feel the same way about me and the causes they feel are important. 

> Mmm, not entirely. The basic point about this thread is ... it (tb) WAS/is working (sufficiently well) / ain't broken ... leave it be, return to its original purpose, don't abandon it. E-mail is a solved problem, stop (mozilla) from morphing it into something else. E-mail is what it is, leave it be (mozilla).

Isn’t that what forking is all about? The problem is that, like I said and like you corrected me about: things do need to be maintained because things change, and that is the thankless, dirty task.

-A.