[Kolab-devel] State of Kontact Mail

[Bernhard Reiter]

Hi Thomas, Hi Andreas,

> Am Mittwoch, 23. November 2011 schrieb Thomas Koch: 
> > http://www.techradar.com/news/software/applications/best-linux-email-
client-5- reviewed-and-rated-1041236

first thanks for sharing the article! It gives us a chance to react to it.
Like Andreas I also thing the article is at least a bit strange in more than 
one way. Still you say:

> > I'm sorry, but I can't say much positive about KMail either and am looking
> > for a replacement since some time.

The KDEPIM group embarked on an major redesign
based on 10 years of experience with KMail, Kontact and Groupware.
The reason was that we were hitting the limits of what could have been done 
with the old architecture. 

This redesign has not been completed, so during most of the KDE 4 Platform 
releases, there was no new KMail. Just this summer of 2011 the new KDEPIM
design reached the important milestone to be the default choice for many KDE 
people. Those new versions have not yet reached many distributions, which is 
the next major milestone. Right now Kontact and all its frontends, like Mail, 
Calendar, Contacts and Notes are in Beta. They work, but they are unoptimised. 
The developers use it for their production systems for many, many months.
Yes, it is slow, yes it still has some defects and its packaging is missing 
experience as well. But the potential of the new architecture and codebase
goes way beyond the old stuff.

Right now someshould should keep in mind:
Most distributions still package some versions that are inbetween, they are 
based on KDE Plattform 4, but they in the middle of this refactoring. And most 
distributions do not quality control in detail what they are shipping. You 
know that KDE embarked on the platform 4 move, which also included refactoring 
and redesigning a lot of the platform, the desktop and many applications. The 
idea was that somebody can still run the old KDE 3 Platform based applications 
until the new ones surpass them in quality.

On Thursday 24 November 2011 17:48:55 Andreas Gungl wrote:
> Like many others I'm disappointed from KMail in KDE 4. All that Akonadi
> stuff might be technically interesting, but as long as things don't work as
> stable and fast as KMail in KDE 3, I wouldn't give it more credit than
> Thunderbird.

If you want to check out Kontact Mail (the new design) you should do it for 
seeing the potential or for helping to improve it.
If you want a stable Kolab Client or just a nice Email and PIM application, 
use a stable Kontact E35 based on the KDE 3 Plattform.
It nicely integrated with the new Plasma Desktops based on KDE Plattform 4.
Kontact Enterprise35 has been continously maintained and improved,
it is mature with lots of enterprise production experience.
 
> Nevertheless the review is somehow strange. Take the Security section:
> 	"None of the tools let you create keys from the interface itself,
> 	except for KMail, which can create keys when defining your 
identity."
> And then: KMail - 0/5
> That's all but serious!

As was pointed out on kde-pim, it is unclear which version they have tried,
whether it the Kontact Mail coming with 4.7.3 or 4.7.0. This makes a huge 
difference. Master is even a lot better. It is also unclear how they have 
counted the score, some things seem to have been minor defects either in the 
product or the packaging. They did not know about the cross platform nature of 
Kontact. There are already beta packages for MS Windows, there is a Touch 
interface, some devs use the Mac version for production since more than a 
year.

Anyway, the article clearly shows the new Kontact needs to be improved
and optimised. And it will be done, because since July a lot more devs see the 
potential and give us a hand. The hard groundwork has been done now
and now we need to shape a fine application from the rough gem!

Best Regards,
Bernhard


-- 
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