Eudora is going open source

If you checked your e-mail at any time in the early to mid '90s, chances are good that you used Eudora. The venerable e-mail client has fallen somewhat out of fashion next to younger offerings like Microsoft Outlook, Mozilla Thunderbird, Mail.app, and Evolution, not to mention all the webmail services out there. That may change soon, however, as Qualcomm has announced that Eudora is going open source. Qualcomm is working with the Mozilla Foundation to build a new version of Eudora based on Thunderbird which "will be free and open source, while retaining Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements." The new Eudora is scheduled for release in the first half of next year, and until then the most recent version will be on sale for $19.95. More information for current Eudora customers can be found in this FAQ. We can presume that the new Eudora will be available for Windows and Mac, but it's unclear whether Linux will be supported as well. I'm a big fan of Thunderbird, but don't deny that it's a tad clunky at times--I'm hoping this new Eudora venture will push higher standards in the open source e-mail market.

Tags: email, eudora, mozilla, open source, OpenSource, thunderbird