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Computer History Museum Makes Eudora Email Client Source Code Available

238 points by jmiller099 8y ago

jasonjayr 8y ago
"Eudora was specifically designed with the idea that standards are a key to successful adoption. Indeed, the rapid acceptance of the Internet is largely due to the standardization process. Published standards are what allow applications from multiple sources to cooperate with each other. Without standards organizations would only be able to use their own applications together, and not those from outside. Also, by allowing diversity of implementations you achieve a much more robust software ecosystem." - From the "Windows Eudora Architecture.pdf" in the distribution
- bdamm 8y ago
  This is beautiful. One of the "so obvious it's invisible" truths of the modern age, and I nearly forgot that Eudora and other pioneers of the age were making a somewhat risky choice to only support standard protocols and eschew the proprietary mailers. Most of them are now long dead yet POP3, IMAP, SNMP chug along. At the time, though, it wasn't so clear.
  - kps 8y ago
    Eudora also had (has?) UUCP spool support, for those not yet connected to the Internet. I used it that way originally.
  - tinus_hn 8y ago
    POP3 is horribly inefficient and SNMP is a security disaster waiting to happen. At least POP3 isn’t widely used anymore.
    - wila 8y ago
      Most likely the post you're replying to meant smtp instear of snmp. Makes more sense for a remark about a mail client. I see this typo more often.
    - kps 8y ago
      Why is POP3 horribly inefficient? Lack of an equivalent to the IMAP COMPRESS extension?
      - throwaway76543 8y ago
        It's fine if it's used to simply pull down mail to a local spool. The inefficiency complaints usually stem from attempting to maintain mail on a remote server across multiple clients. POP3 does not implement a sufficiently rich protocol to make this possible without downloading the entire spool onto each client. For example, no searching.
        glandium 8y ago
        No, it's highly inefficient in the face of latency, because there essentially is no batch fetching primitive. Fetching messages over a high latency connection (e.g. to a server on the other side of Earth) takes forever if you have a lot of messages.
        throwaway76543 8y ago
        That's addressed by pipelining (rfc2449, published back in 1998). No batch primitive is necessary if the request/response sequence isn't serialized. The lack of a remote manipulation interface has always been a problem, however.
      - tinus_hn 8y ago
        POP3 is only efficient if you download all mail to the client and immediately remove it from the server. But nobody does that, everyone leaves their mail on the server. Then everytime you synchronize the server has to go through all the mail it has to see what you don’t have, which is very inefficient if you have 10000 mails in your inbox, like most people have these days. It’s optimized for a usecase that doesn’t exist anymore and it will work in the usecase that does exist while wasting a lot of resources. Truly the worst you can have. It’d be better if it didn’t work at all.
        8y ago
  - swasheck 8y ago
    Wait. SNMP or SMTP? I'm legitimately asking and not being pedantic because I'm genuinely curious.
    - eitally 8y ago
      SMTP.
- kome 8y ago
  Tell that to Gmail people... Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16830156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16830156
  - ajross 8y ago
    Not sure how message expiry is a standards compliance issue. SMTP, MIME and RFC822 et. al. don't say anything about where, how or if the message gets stored once transmitted.
    - cat199 8y ago
      > Not sure how message expiry is a standards compliance issue. using market-influence to build massive scale expectation for a feature which can't actually be supported by the underlying protocol in an effort to 'embrace and extend' is exactly a standards compliance issue, and precisely what led to microsoft's internet explorer being labeled as an antitrust violation.
  - behringer 8y ago
    One of the commenters on that article wrote: > Well, I think this works differently. The email just includes a link to a Google webpage with the email. It’s still just an email sitting in your inbox. It doesn’t remove itself automatically. So it's not a standards issue at all.
    - romwell 8y ago
      It's an abuse of the standard. The email standard was built so that you can check your email with a client, and view the contents offline at your convenience, archive, back up, etc. Google's email proposal kills this functionality. When was the last time I used this, you may ask? On Saturday. I was in one of the slot canyons in Utah with zero signal, and, while taking a break, I wrote several emails in my Opera email client, in response to some messages I've procrastinated writing a response to. The trickery is that the sender might think they're sending a message over email to the recipient, whereas they are sending the message to Google's servers over an internal protocol, and are sending a link to the message to the recipient over email.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
eltoozero 8y ago
In 1999-2001 when I was doing dialup tech support, running into a customer with Eudora was a dream compared to the nightmare of basically any other contemporary mail client around: Outlook and Outlook Express. EarthLink even made their own abomination of a mail client called Total Access, IIRC it could import and export Eudora dbs.
- hapnin 8y ago
  "Are you using Microsoft Lookout?" -Why they took me off phone support
- psychometry 8y ago
  Funny, because from around 2004 onward I'd say the opposite. Eudora was universally reviled at the help desk I worked at.
- latigidigital 8y ago
  Don't forget Pegasus! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Mail
  - brightsize 8y ago
    Or Email Connection! http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-connection.com/EMCFINALQ1.html http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-c... edit: fix link
    - romwell 8y ago
      Or, if you lived in Eastern Europe, The Bat1[1] - and it is still actively supported! I switched to Opera Mail because it was convenient to have the browser and email client in one software (which is also freeware), but that went with the Chropera move. [1]https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/
      - tecleandor 8y ago
SyneRyder 8y ago
It's under an open source license too: "The transfer agreement allows CHM to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license, which means that anyone can use it for either personal or commercial purposes."
- djsumdog 8y ago
  I'm guessing they had to go through the code pretty carefully to make sure they could. I'm seeing embedded PNG, zlib, qt3 and other libraries buried down in there. It's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code bases.
  - josteink 8y ago
    > it's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code bases. At the time I don’t really think that was uncommon. I mean, you barely had FOSS portable libraries to base the core functionality on, even before you started tackling platform specific issues. There were different CPU architectures. Machines back then were completely different, with each type having it’s separate types of HW devices and connectors. Etc etc. Literally nothing were common between PCs and Macs. I’m not surprised at all.
kps 8y ago
To paraphrase Hoare, Eudora was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on its successors. And now we can all help stamp out flying e's. Edit: CHM has a survey for past/current Eudora users: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1
justin66 8y ago
It is utterly strange that the museum claims "to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license" and then prompts the user to agree to all this stuff that contradicts the classic BSD license: The Computer History Museum (the "Museum") is willing to license the Software to you only upon the condition that you accept all of the terms contained in this Agreement. By clicking on the "I accept" button below or by downloading, installing or using the Software, you have indicated that you understand this Agreement and accept all of its terms. If you do not accept all the terms of this Agreement, then the Museum is unwilling to license the Software to you. 1. Grant of License. Conditioned upon your compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, the Museum grants you a non-exclusive and non-transferable license for a single user, solely for your individual, personal and non-commercial purposes, (a) to load and install the Software; (b) to compile, modify and create modifications or enhancements of the Software or any of its components ("Derivative Works"); and (c) to run the Software or Derivative Works on simulators or hardware. The Museum and its licensors reserve all rights in the Software not expressly granted to you in this Agreement. 2. Restrictions. Except as expressly specified in this Agreement, you may not: (a) transfer, sublicense, lease, lend, rent or otherwise distribute the Software or Derivative Works to any third party; or (b) make the functionality of the Software or Derivative Works available to multiple users through any means, including, but not limited to, by uploading the Software to a network or file-sharing service or through any hosting, application services provider, service bureau, software-as-a-service (SaaS) or any other type of services. You acknowledge and agree that portions of the Software, including, but not limited to, the source code and the specific design and structure of individual modules or programs, constitute or contain trade secrets of Museum and its licensors. 3. Ownership. The copy of the Software is licensed, not sold. The Museum and its licensors retain ownership of the copy of the Software itself, including all intellectual property rights therein. The Software is protected by United States copyright law and international treaties. You will not delete or in any manner alter the copyright, trademark, confidentiality and other proprietary rights notices or markings or limited or restricted rights legends appearing on the Software as delivered to you. 4. Term. The license granted under this Agreement remains in effect for a period of 75 years, unless earlier terminated in accordance with this Agreement. You may terminate the license at any time by destroying all copies of the Software in your possession or control. The license granted under this Agreement will automatically terminate, with or without notice from the Museum, if you breach any term of this Agreement. Upon termination, you must, at the Museum's option, either promptly destroy or return to the Museum all copies of the Software in your possession or control and certify in writing to the Museum that you have fully complied with the foregoing and that no copy of the Software remains in your possession or control. 2 5. Indemnification. You shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Museum and its licensors from and against any damages, liabilities, costs, expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees), claims, demands, suits or proceedings (an "Action") to the extent such Action alleges that your modification or enhancement of the Software, or any portion thereof, infringes any third party copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or any other proprietary right, provided that the Museum gives written notice of the Action to you. The Museum may opt to participate in the defense of an Action, provided that the Museum bears any legal fees and expenses and other costs of defense it incurs in so participating. 6. NO WARRANTIES. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM MUSEUM OR ELSEWHERE WILL CREATE ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT. 7. Limitation of Liability. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS' TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FROM ALL CAUSES OF ACTION AND UNDER ALL THEORIES OF LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO $100. IN NO EVENT WILL THE MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA, BUSINESS, PROFITS OR ABILITY TO EXECUTE) OR FOR THE COST OF PROCURING SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR THE EXECUTION OR PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE, WHETHER SUCH LIABILITY ARISES FROM ANY CLAIM BASED UPON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, AND WHETHER OR NOT MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS WILL SURVIVE AND APPLY EVEN IF ANY LIMITED REMEDY SPECIFIED IN THIS AGREEMENT IS FOUND TO HAVE FAILED OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you. 8. U.S. Government End Users. The Software is a "commercial item" as that term is defined in FAR 2.101, consisting of "commercial computer software," as such term is used in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202. If the Software is being acquired by or on behalf of the U.S. Government, then, as provided in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202-1 through 227.7202-4, as applicable, the U.S. Government's rights in the Software will be only those specified in this Agreement. 9. Export Law. You agree to comply fully with all U.S. export laws and regulations to ensure that neither the Software nor any technical data related thereto nor any direct product thereof are exported or re-exported directly or indirectly in violation of, or used for any purposes prohibited by, such laws and regulations. 3 10. General. This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to or application of conflict of laws rules or principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods will not apply. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement or any rights granted hereunder, by operation of law or otherwise, without the Museum's prior written consent, and any attempt by you to do so, without such consent, will be void. Except as expressly set forth in this Agreement, the exercise by either party of any of its remedies under this Agreement will be without prejudice to its other remedies under this Agreement or otherwise. All notices or approvals required or permitted under this Agreement will be in writing and delivered by confirmed facsimile transmission, by overnight delivery service, or by certified mail, and in each instance will be deemed given upon receipt. All notices or approvals will be sent to the addresses specified by either party to the other in accordance with this section. The failure by either party to enforce any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision. Any waiver, modification or amendment of any provision of this Agreement will be effective only if in writing and signed by authorized representatives of both parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent possible, and the other provisions will remain in full force and effect. This Agreement is the complete and exclusive understanding and agreement between the parties regarding its subject matter, and supersedes all proposals, understandings or communications between the parties, oral or written, regarding its subject matter, unless you and Museum have executed a separate agreement. 11. Contact Information. If you have any questions regarding this Agreement, you may contact the Museum by mail at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043, by telephone at 650.810.1010 or by facsimile at 650.810.1055. IF YOU AGREE TO THE FOREGOING TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND DESIRE TO COMPLETE INSTALLATION OF THE SOFTWARE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON BELOW. OTHERWISE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I DO NOT ACCEPT" BUTTON AND THE INSTALLATION PROCESS WILL STOP.
toyg 8y ago
I applaud Qualcomm for donating all trademarks and copyrights too, which means literally anyone can recompile it and still call it "Eudora". Unfortunately Eudora is basically three completely different codebases (Windows, Mac, and a rebranded Thunderbird for Linux). I guess only the Windows one is likely to ever be revived.
- kps 8y ago
  “The license does NOT allow you to use any of the trademarks or domain names related to Eudora, including Eudora™, www.eudora.com, and www.eudora.org.” — http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Project Neudora on github in 5, 4, 3, 2...
    - kps 8y ago
      Note that the CHM survey has a place to express interest in further developing Eudora. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1
    - squarefoot 8y ago
      I'd love GNUdora, but probably not doable due to license clashes.
  - toyg 8y ago
    It's a bit weird, just above they say "they decided not to simply grant a license, but to transfer ownership of the code, the Eudora trademarks, the copyrights, and the Eudora domain names to the Computer History Museum". So it's the CHM who is barring people from using the name. The relevant clause must be this: "Neither the name of Computer History Museum nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission." Is this really "BSD license", if the name is off-limits? This looks like an extra clause to me. Honest question. EDIT: also, that clause mentions the names of contributors, not of the actual software. So they would have to argue that Eudora is barred by "contributor Eudora Inc." -- does that company even exist anymore?
coldacid 8y ago
Here's the actual Computer History Museum article and links to source: http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...
adamw2k 8y ago
Wonder why they chose not to host on GitHub...
- cpburns2009 8y ago
  This is meant to provide an archive for the code. A major attraction of using GitHub is to allow easy pull requests and issues. If you're not going to be using those features, it's mostly useless when you already have your own infrastructure for hosting data. Lastly, if you're using a version control system other than Git, GitHub is not going to work well.
  - akx 8y ago
    You can set repos to be archived, i.e. read-only, on Github these days. Besides, I find it a whole lot easier to just casually browse through code on Github rather than download 129 megs of eudora_w_source.zip, extract it somewhere and rifle through it...
  - bdcravens 8y ago
    The nice thing about Github is being to view the code easily, especially if you have a plugin like Octotree.
- maxlybbert 8y ago
  This isn’t the first project the Computer History Museum has hosted. At this point, I’m sure the thinking is simply that they self-hosted the previous source code drops. I can imagine additional reasons (e.g., no desire to tie the museum to a third party, even if that party looks like it will be around for a while; who knows what policies Github might adopt in the future or which groups of people they may manage to upset?). But to be honest, I doubt a lot of thought went into this decision, this time.
- jacquesm 8y ago
  Because they'll be around long after GitHub.
jmbwell 8y ago
"Boolean butch; // don't call pete drag handlers in PantyTrack" Always assume that one day, the world will see your code.
- hinkley 8y ago
  My third boss wanted to open source some code. I got the pleasure of witnessing our hackiest developer’s eyes go wide when he mentioned this idea. Maybe you should stop writing code that you’re embarrassed to let other people see. Your coworkers will thank you.
- icc97 8y ago
  From the release post from CHM themselves [0]: > The source code we are distributing is what we received from Qualcomm, with only the following changes: > * addition of the CHM copyright notice and the BSD license > * sanitization of “bad words”, mostly in comments, as requested by Qualcomm [0]: http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...
edmanet 8y ago
Damn. The "bad" words have been sanitized. Seeing the programmers' frustrations as they appear in the comments enhances the experience when viewing old code like this.
- kps 8y ago
  As long as <x-eudora-setting:319=32> works…
  - atesti 8y ago
    What does it do?
    - kps 8y ago
      Late versions of Eudora added something they called ‘mood watch’, which could highlight potentially inflammatory words or phrases (including profanity) in email and warn you before sending. The developers added a hidden setting which would, when you opened a message, speak aloud precisely those words.
      - alexpotato 8y ago
        And of course there is a relevant XCKD for this: https://xkcd.com/481/ https://xkcd.com/481/
        kps 8y ago
        In response, YouTube actually implemented this (though only as an option, and it's since been removed): https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/
- djsumdog 8y ago
  It's funny how in most corporate/commercial code past 2005 or 2010, you'll rarely ever see profanity in comments. I've never put profanity, or even any jokes, in comments. I really try to keep my professional code professional. Even on my own OSS projects I tend not to do that anymore.
mark-r 8y ago
How well has this code base aged? Will it be able to display today's HTML-heavy emails?
- coldacid 8y ago
  I'd hope that it wouldn't. "Today's HTML-heavy emails" are horrible.
  - mark-r 8y ago
    I wouldn't argue with you, but I'd rather they be horrible than unreadable.
drelihan 8y ago
I still use Eudora... heavily .... maybe this is a sign
- cpach 8y ago
  Wow! With IMAP or what?
  - beefman 8y ago
    Me too. With POP of course. Eudora supports IMAP but that's the path to the dark side.
    - kps 8y ago
      Me too, and it's the main reason my Mac runs Snow Leopard. Some day that'll fail, and I'll probably end up running Sheepshaver in a browser tab or something.
      - cpach 8y ago
        I’m impressed!
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Please tell me you use it with Wine on a BeBox! :)
- newnewpdro 8y ago
  > maybe this is a sign Of what, old age?
  - w8rbt 8y ago
    Wisdom.
    - drelihan 8y ago
      Awesomeness?
octorian 8y ago
While I was in college, during the summer of 2001, I did an internship at Qualcomm. I was surprised to discover that they used Eudora as their internal Email client, despite not having seen it still in use elsewhere for many years. Of course I found its UI frustrating enough (for reasons I barely remember now) that I wound up installing something else to use on my workstation.
- OldSchoolJohnny 8y ago
  Why "of course"? It was a great email client at the time.
jgrahamc 8y ago
Oh, cool. I can finally fix the bug/feature that whenever someone replied to an email from me they got warned about profanity because of my last name :-)
- chx 8y ago
  May I have an off topic question? I know I read in an article that Cloudbleed woke you up like 1:23AM but I can't find that article any more and I used that to tell my junior developers to write code they can understand when they are woken at 1:23AM as you were. So the question is -- is this true or did I dream up something?
  - jgrahamc 8y ago
    That is true. I woke to my phone ringing quickly followed by this exchange of messages: https://imgur.com/a/7aLLw22 https://imgur.com/a/7aLLw22
    - endlessvoid94 8y ago
      I would love to read about this somewhere. I also share the grand-posters opinion that sharing these kinds of stories with less experienced developers is fantastic culture.
      - jgrahamc 8y ago
        I've done two talks on Cloudbleed (at Virus Bulletin 2017 and at RSA 2018). I would be happy to do a talk about it again somewhere.
        voltagex_ 8y ago
        Looks like they just put your RSA talk online: https://youtu.be/hojAgTsTeCA https://youtu.be/hojAgTsTeCA
        deleted 8y ago
avar 8y ago
I uploaded the code to GitHub: https://github.com/avar/rhqben https://github.com/avar/rhqben
- cellularmitosis 8y ago
  It looks like github thinks all of the source files are a single line. https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V624/Editor/Source/Editor%20Source/draw.c https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V...
  - kps 8y ago
    Macs use(d) CR as line terminator, not LF (*nix) or CR LF (Windows).
mrlyc 8y ago
Some years ago, Gmail changed so using Eudora with it became difficult. I've worked out the following procedure: after checking email fails the second time, Server SSL Certificate Rejected pops up click on Yes click on Tools then Options then Checking mail click on Last SSL Info click on Certificate Information Manager under Server Certificates, keep expanding until you reach the bottom one click on it then click on Add to trusted click on File then Check Mail
yuhong 8y ago
It would be fun to port the Mac version to x86.
- mrpippy 8y ago
  The Mac archive doesn't have any resource forks, which is likely going to prevent building a working copy. Trying to figure out who to email at the CHM about it.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    Really? That's a huge oversight. At the very least, none of the original new mail images, sound, etc (all PCT, SND resources). I miss hacking Eudora with ResEdit.
  - tambourine_man 8y ago
    There may be hope: https://twitter.com/siegel/status/999077760244084736 https://twitter.com/siegel/status/999077760244084736
andrewbinstock 8y ago
It's a curious purgatory the project is in, which I think would make it difficult to attract developers. On one hand, a user base wants the old product with minimal twists and they are known to balk at anything more than that. On the other, project survival likely depends on getting new users on board, in which case an old design and UI are probably going to be detriments.
- sanxiyn 8y ago
  I guess you could write a theming engine, implement the old design using it, and then implement the new design.
  - NickNameNick 8y ago
    Doing that basically destroyed Winamp.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

238 points by jmiller099 8y ago

"Eudora was specifically designed with the idea that standards are a key to successful adoption. Indeed, the rapid acceptance of the Internet is largely due to the standardization process. Published standards are what allow applications from multiple sources to cooperate with each other. Without standards organizations would only be able to use their own applications together, and not those from outside. Also, by allowing diversity of implementations you achieve a much more robust software ecosystem." - From the "Windows Eudora Architecture.pdf" in the distribution

bdamm 8y ago
This is beautiful. One of the "so obvious it's invisible" truths of the modern age, and I nearly forgot that Eudora and other pioneers of the age were making a somewhat risky choice to only support standard protocols and eschew the proprietary mailers. Most of them are now long dead yet POP3, IMAP, SNMP chug along. At the time, though, it wasn't so clear.
- kps 8y ago
  Eudora also had (has?) UUCP spool support, for those not yet connected to the Internet. I used it that way originally.
- tinus_hn 8y ago
  POP3 is horribly inefficient and SNMP is a security disaster waiting to happen. At least POP3 isn’t widely used anymore.
  - wila 8y ago
    Most likely the post you're replying to meant smtp instear of snmp. Makes more sense for a remark about a mail client. I see this typo more often.
  - kps 8y ago
    Why is POP3 horribly inefficient? Lack of an equivalent to the IMAP COMPRESS extension?
    - throwaway76543 8y ago
      It's fine if it's used to simply pull down mail to a local spool. The inefficiency complaints usually stem from attempting to maintain mail on a remote server across multiple clients. POP3 does not implement a sufficiently rich protocol to make this possible without downloading the entire spool onto each client. For example, no searching.
      - glandium 8y ago
        No, it's highly inefficient in the face of latency, because there essentially is no batch fetching primitive. Fetching messages over a high latency connection (e.g. to a server on the other side of Earth) takes forever if you have a lot of messages.
        throwaway76543 8y ago
        That's addressed by pipelining (rfc2449, published back in 1998). No batch primitive is necessary if the request/response sequence isn't serialized. The lack of a remote manipulation interface has always been a problem, however.
    - tinus_hn 8y ago
      POP3 is only efficient if you download all mail to the client and immediately remove it from the server. But nobody does that, everyone leaves their mail on the server. Then everytime you synchronize the server has to go through all the mail it has to see what you don’t have, which is very inefficient if you have 10000 mails in your inbox, like most people have these days. It’s optimized for a usecase that doesn’t exist anymore and it will work in the usecase that does exist while wasting a lot of resources. Truly the worst you can have. It’d be better if it didn’t work at all.
      - 8y ago
- swasheck 8y ago
  Wait. SNMP or SMTP? I'm legitimately asking and not being pedantic because I'm genuinely curious.
  - eitally 8y ago
    SMTP.
kome 8y ago
Tell that to Gmail people... Edit: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16830156 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16830156
- ajross 8y ago
  Not sure how message expiry is a standards compliance issue. SMTP, MIME and RFC822 et. al. don't say anything about where, how or if the message gets stored once transmitted.
  - cat199 8y ago
    > Not sure how message expiry is a standards compliance issue. using market-influence to build massive scale expectation for a feature which can't actually be supported by the underlying protocol in an effort to 'embrace and extend' is exactly a standards compliance issue, and precisely what led to microsoft's internet explorer being labeled as an antitrust violation.
- behringer 8y ago
  One of the commenters on that article wrote: > Well, I think this works differently. The email just includes a link to a Google webpage with the email. It’s still just an email sitting in your inbox. It doesn’t remove itself automatically. So it's not a standards issue at all.
  - romwell 8y ago
    It's an abuse of the standard. The email standard was built so that you can check your email with a client, and view the contents offline at your convenience, archive, back up, etc. Google's email proposal kills this functionality. When was the last time I used this, you may ask? On Saturday. I was in one of the slot canyons in Utah with zero signal, and, while taking a break, I wrote several emails in my Opera email client, in response to some messages I've procrastinated writing a response to. The trickery is that the sender might think they're sending a message over email to the recipient, whereas they are sending the message to Google's servers over an internal protocol, and are sending a link to the message to the recipient over email.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

eltoozero 8y ago

In 1999-2001 when I was doing dialup tech support, running into a customer with Eudora was a dream compared to the nightmare of basically any other contemporary mail client around: Outlook and Outlook Express. EarthLink even made their own abomination of a mail client called Total Access, IIRC it could import and export Eudora dbs.

hapnin 8y ago
"Are you using Microsoft Lookout?" -Why they took me off phone support
psychometry 8y ago
Funny, because from around 2004 onward I'd say the opposite. Eudora was universally reviled at the help desk I worked at.
latigidigital 8y ago
Don't forget Pegasus! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Mail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pegasus_Mail
- brightsize 8y ago
  Or Email Connection! http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-connection.com/EMCFINALQ1.html http://web.archive.org/web/19980212160741/http://www.email-c... edit: fix link
  - romwell 8y ago
    Or, if you lived in Eastern Europe, The Bat1[1] - and it is still actively supported! I switched to Opera Mail because it was convenient to have the browser and email client in one software (which is also freeware), but that went with the Chropera move. [1]https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/ https://www.ritlabs.com/en/products/thebat/
    - tecleandor 8y ago

SyneRyder 8y ago

It's under an open source license too: "The transfer agreement allows CHM to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license, which means that anyone can use it for either personal or commercial purposes."

djsumdog 8y ago
I'm guessing they had to go through the code pretty carefully to make sure they could. I'm seeing embedded PNG, zlib, qt3 and other libraries buried down in there. It's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code bases.
- josteink 8y ago
  > it's also interesting they have completely separate windows and mac code bases. At the time I don’t really think that was uncommon. I mean, you barely had FOSS portable libraries to base the core functionality on, even before you started tackling platform specific issues. There were different CPU architectures. Machines back then were completely different, with each type having it’s separate types of HW devices and connectors. Etc etc. Literally nothing were common between PCs and Macs. I’m not surprised at all.

kps 8y ago

To paraphrase Hoare, Eudora was not only an improvement on its predecessors, but also on its successors. And now we can all help stamp out flying e's. Edit: CHM has a survey for past/current Eudora users: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1

justin66 8y ago

It is utterly strange that the museum claims "to publish the code under the very liberal BSD open source license" and then prompts the user to agree to all this stuff that contradicts the classic BSD license: The Computer History Museum (the "Museum") is willing to license the Software to you only upon the condition that you accept all of the terms contained in this Agreement. By clicking on the "I accept" button below or by downloading, installing or using the Software, you have indicated that you understand this Agreement and accept all of its terms. If you do not accept all the terms of this Agreement, then the Museum is unwilling to license the Software to you. 1. Grant of License. Conditioned upon your compliance with the terms and conditions of this Agreement, the Museum grants you a non-exclusive and non-transferable license for a single user, solely for your individual, personal and non-commercial purposes, (a) to load and install the Software; (b) to compile, modify and create modifications or enhancements of the Software or any of its components ("Derivative Works"); and (c) to run the Software or Derivative Works on simulators or hardware. The Museum and its licensors reserve all rights in the Software not expressly granted to you in this Agreement. 2. Restrictions. Except as expressly specified in this Agreement, you may not: (a) transfer, sublicense, lease, lend, rent or otherwise distribute the Software or Derivative Works to any third party; or (b) make the functionality of the Software or Derivative Works available to multiple users through any means, including, but not limited to, by uploading the Software to a network or file-sharing service or through any hosting, application services provider, service bureau, software-as-a-service (SaaS) or any other type of services. You acknowledge and agree that portions of the Software, including, but not limited to, the source code and the specific design and structure of individual modules or programs, constitute or contain trade secrets of Museum and its licensors. 3. Ownership. The copy of the Software is licensed, not sold. The Museum and its licensors retain ownership of the copy of the Software itself, including all intellectual property rights therein. The Software is protected by United States copyright law and international treaties. You will not delete or in any manner alter the copyright, trademark, confidentiality and other proprietary rights notices or markings or limited or restricted rights legends appearing on the Software as delivered to you. 4. Term. The license granted under this Agreement remains in effect for a period of 75 years, unless earlier terminated in accordance with this Agreement. You may terminate the license at any time by destroying all copies of the Software in your possession or control. The license granted under this Agreement will automatically terminate, with or without notice from the Museum, if you breach any term of this Agreement. Upon termination, you must, at the Museum's option, either promptly destroy or return to the Museum all copies of the Software in your possession or control and certify in writing to the Museum that you have fully complied with the foregoing and that no copy of the Software remains in your possession or control. 2 5. Indemnification. You shall defend, indemnify and hold harmless the Museum and its licensors from and against any damages, liabilities, costs, expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees), claims, demands, suits or proceedings (an "Action") to the extent such Action alleges that your modification or enhancement of the Software, or any portion thereof, infringes any third party copyright, patent, trademark, trade secret or any other proprietary right, provided that the Museum gives written notice of the Action to you. The Museum may opt to participate in the defense of an Action, provided that the Museum bears any legal fees and expenses and other costs of defense it incurs in so participating. 6. NO WARRANTIES. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS ARISING OUT OF COURSE OF DEALING OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED FROM MUSEUM OR ELSEWHERE WILL CREATE ANY WARRANTY OR CONDITION NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THIS AGREEMENT. 7. Limitation of Liability. THE MUSEUM AND ITS LICENSORS' TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FROM ALL CAUSES OF ACTION AND UNDER ALL THEORIES OF LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO $100. IN NO EVENT WILL THE MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING LOSS OF DATA, BUSINESS, PROFITS OR ABILITY TO EXECUTE) OR FOR THE COST OF PROCURING SUBSTITUTE PRODUCTS ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR THE EXECUTION OR PERFORMANCE OF THE SOFTWARE, WHETHER SUCH LIABILITY ARISES FROM ANY CLAIM BASED UPON CONTRACT, WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE, AND WHETHER OR NOT MUSEUM OR ITS LICENSORS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. THE FOREGOING LIMITATIONS WILL SURVIVE AND APPLY EVEN IF ANY LIMITED REMEDY SPECIFIED IN THIS AGREEMENT IS FOUND TO HAVE FAILED OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of liability for incidental or consequential damages, so the above limitation or exclusion may not apply to you. 8. U.S. Government End Users. The Software is a "commercial item" as that term is defined in FAR 2.101, consisting of "commercial computer software," as such term is used in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202. If the Software is being acquired by or on behalf of the U.S. Government, then, as provided in FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202-1 through 227.7202-4, as applicable, the U.S. Government's rights in the Software will be only those specified in this Agreement. 9. Export Law. You agree to comply fully with all U.S. export laws and regulations to ensure that neither the Software nor any technical data related thereto nor any direct product thereof are exported or re-exported directly or indirectly in violation of, or used for any purposes prohibited by, such laws and regulations. 3 10. General. This Agreement will be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to or application of conflict of laws rules or principles. The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods will not apply. You may not assign or transfer this Agreement or any rights granted hereunder, by operation of law or otherwise, without the Museum's prior written consent, and any attempt by you to do so, without such consent, will be void. Except as expressly set forth in this Agreement, the exercise by either party of any of its remedies under this Agreement will be without prejudice to its other remedies under this Agreement or otherwise. All notices or approvals required or permitted under this Agreement will be in writing and delivered by confirmed facsimile transmission, by overnight delivery service, or by certified mail, and in each instance will be deemed given upon receipt. All notices or approvals will be sent to the addresses specified by either party to the other in accordance with this section. The failure by either party to enforce any provision of this Agreement will not constitute a waiver of future enforcement of that or any other provision. Any waiver, modification or amendment of any provision of this Agreement will be effective only if in writing and signed by authorized representatives of both parties. If any provision of this Agreement is held to be unenforceable or invalid, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent possible, and the other provisions will remain in full force and effect. This Agreement is the complete and exclusive understanding and agreement between the parties regarding its subject matter, and supersedes all proposals, understandings or communications between the parties, oral or written, regarding its subject matter, unless you and Museum have executed a separate agreement. 11. Contact Information. If you have any questions regarding this Agreement, you may contact the Museum by mail at 1401 N. Shoreline Blvd., Mountain View, CA 94043, by telephone at 650.810.1010 or by facsimile at 650.810.1055. IF YOU AGREE TO THE FOREGOING TERMS AND CONDITIONS AND DESIRE TO COMPLETE INSTALLATION OF THE SOFTWARE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I ACCEPT" BUTTON BELOW. OTHERWISE, PLEASE CLICK THE "I DO NOT ACCEPT" BUTTON AND THE INSTALLATION PROCESS WILL STOP.

toyg 8y ago

I applaud Qualcomm for donating all trademarks and copyrights too, which means literally anyone can recompile it and still call it "Eudora". Unfortunately Eudora is basically three completely different codebases (Windows, Mac, and a rebranded Thunderbird for Linux). I guess only the Windows one is likely to ever be revived.

kps 8y ago
“The license does NOT allow you to use any of the trademarks or domain names related to Eudora, including Eudora™, www.eudora.com, and www.eudora.org.” — http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...
- hinkley 8y ago
  Project Neudora on github in 5, 4, 3, 2...
  - kps 8y ago
    Note that the CHM survey has a place to express interest in further developing Eudora. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1 https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/eudora-poll1
  - squarefoot 8y ago
    I'd love GNUdora, but probably not doable due to license clashes.
- toyg 8y ago
  It's a bit weird, just above they say "they decided not to simply grant a license, but to transfer ownership of the code, the Eudora trademarks, the copyrights, and the Eudora domain names to the Computer History Museum". So it's the CHM who is barring people from using the name. The relevant clause must be this: "Neither the name of Computer History Museum nor the names of its contributors may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software without specific prior written permission." Is this really "BSD license", if the name is off-limits? This looks like an extra clause to me. Honest question. EDIT: also, that clause mentions the names of contributors, not of the actual software. So they would have to argue that Eudora is barred by "contributor Eudora Inc." -- does that company even exist anymore?

coldacid 8y ago

Here's the actual Computer History Museum article and links to source: http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...

adamw2k 8y ago

Wonder why they chose not to host on GitHub...

cpburns2009 8y ago
This is meant to provide an archive for the code. A major attraction of using GitHub is to allow easy pull requests and issues. If you're not going to be using those features, it's mostly useless when you already have your own infrastructure for hosting data. Lastly, if you're using a version control system other than Git, GitHub is not going to work well.
- akx 8y ago
  You can set repos to be archived, i.e. read-only, on Github these days. Besides, I find it a whole lot easier to just casually browse through code on Github rather than download 129 megs of eudora_w_source.zip, extract it somewhere and rifle through it...
- bdcravens 8y ago
  The nice thing about Github is being to view the code easily, especially if you have a plugin like Octotree.
maxlybbert 8y ago
This isn’t the first project the Computer History Museum has hosted. At this point, I’m sure the thinking is simply that they self-hosted the previous source code drops. I can imagine additional reasons (e.g., no desire to tie the museum to a third party, even if that party looks like it will be around for a while; who knows what policies Github might adopt in the future or which groups of people they may manage to upset?). But to be honest, I doubt a lot of thought went into this decision, this time.
jacquesm 8y ago
Because they'll be around long after GitHub.

jmbwell 8y ago

"Boolean butch; // don't call pete drag handlers in PantyTrack" Always assume that one day, the world will see your code.

hinkley 8y ago
My third boss wanted to open source some code. I got the pleasure of witnessing our hackiest developer’s eyes go wide when he mentioned this idea. Maybe you should stop writing code that you’re embarrassed to let other people see. Your coworkers will thank you.
icc97 8y ago
From the release post from CHM themselves [0]: > The source code we are distributing is what we received from Qualcomm, with only the following changes: > * addition of the CHM copyright notice and the BSD license > * sanitization of “bad words”, mostly in comments, as requested by Qualcomm [0]: http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-email-client-source-code/ http://www.computerhistory.org/_static/atchm/the-eudora-emai...

edmanet 8y ago

Damn. The "bad" words have been sanitized. Seeing the programmers' frustrations as they appear in the comments enhances the experience when viewing old code like this.

kps 8y ago
As long as <x-eudora-setting:319=32> works…
- atesti 8y ago
  What does it do?
  - kps 8y ago
    Late versions of Eudora added something they called ‘mood watch’, which could highlight potentially inflammatory words or phrases (including profanity) in email and warn you before sending. The developers added a hidden setting which would, when you opened a message, speak aloud precisely those words.
    - alexpotato 8y ago
      And of course there is a relevant XCKD for this: https://xkcd.com/481/ https://xkcd.com/481/
      - kps 8y ago
        In response, YouTube actually implemented this (though only as an option, and it's since been removed): https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/ https://blog.xkcd.com/2008/10/08/youtube-audio-preview/
djsumdog 8y ago
It's funny how in most corporate/commercial code past 2005 or 2010, you'll rarely ever see profanity in comments. I've never put profanity, or even any jokes, in comments. I really try to keep my professional code professional. Even on my own OSS projects I tend not to do that anymore.

mark-r 8y ago

How well has this code base aged? Will it be able to display today's HTML-heavy emails?

coldacid 8y ago
I'd hope that it wouldn't. "Today's HTML-heavy emails" are horrible.
- mark-r 8y ago
  I wouldn't argue with you, but I'd rather they be horrible than unreadable.

drelihan 8y ago

I still use Eudora... heavily .... maybe this is a sign

cpach 8y ago
Wow! With IMAP or what?
- beefman 8y ago
  Me too. With POP of course. Eudora supports IMAP but that's the path to the dark side.
  - kps 8y ago
    Me too, and it's the main reason my Mac runs Snow Leopard. Some day that'll fail, and I'll probably end up running Sheepshaver in a browser tab or something.
    - cpach 8y ago
      I’m impressed!
djsumdog 8y ago
Please tell me you use it with Wine on a BeBox! :)
newnewpdro 8y ago
> maybe this is a sign Of what, old age?
- w8rbt 8y ago
  Wisdom.
  - drelihan 8y ago
    Awesomeness?

octorian 8y ago

While I was in college, during the summer of 2001, I did an internship at Qualcomm. I was surprised to discover that they used Eudora as their internal Email client, despite not having seen it still in use elsewhere for many years. Of course I found its UI frustrating enough (for reasons I barely remember now) that I wound up installing something else to use on my workstation.

OldSchoolJohnny 8y ago
Why "of course"? It was a great email client at the time.

jgrahamc 8y ago

Oh, cool. I can finally fix the bug/feature that whenever someone replied to an email from me they got warned about profanity because of my last name :-)

chx 8y ago
May I have an off topic question? I know I read in an article that Cloudbleed woke you up like 1:23AM but I can't find that article any more and I used that to tell my junior developers to write code they can understand when they are woken at 1:23AM as you were. So the question is -- is this true or did I dream up something?
- jgrahamc 8y ago
  That is true. I woke to my phone ringing quickly followed by this exchange of messages: https://imgur.com/a/7aLLw22 https://imgur.com/a/7aLLw22
  - endlessvoid94 8y ago
    I would love to read about this somewhere. I also share the grand-posters opinion that sharing these kinds of stories with less experienced developers is fantastic culture.
    - jgrahamc 8y ago
      I've done two talks on Cloudbleed (at Virus Bulletin 2017 and at RSA 2018). I would be happy to do a talk about it again somewhere.
      - voltagex_ 8y ago
        Looks like they just put your RSA talk online: https://youtu.be/hojAgTsTeCA https://youtu.be/hojAgTsTeCA
        deleted 8y ago

avar 8y ago

I uploaded the code to GitHub: https://github.com/avar/rhqben https://github.com/avar/rhqben

cellularmitosis 8y ago
It looks like github thinks all of the source files are a single line. https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V624/Editor/Source/Editor%20Source/draw.c https://github.com/avar/rhqben/blob/master/Eudora_M_source/V...
- kps 8y ago
  Macs use(d) CR as line terminator, not LF (*nix) or CR LF (Windows).

mrlyc 8y ago

Some years ago, Gmail changed so using Eudora with it became difficult. I've worked out the following procedure: after checking email fails the second time, Server SSL Certificate Rejected pops up click on Yes click on Tools then Options then Checking mail click on Last SSL Info click on Certificate Information Manager under Server Certificates, keep expanding until you reach the bottom one click on it then click on Add to trusted click on File then Check Mail

yuhong 8y ago

It would be fun to port the Mac version to x86.

mrpippy 8y ago
The Mac archive doesn't have any resource forks, which is likely going to prevent building a working copy. Trying to figure out who to email at the CHM about it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  Really? That's a huge oversight. At the very least, none of the original new mail images, sound, etc (all PCT, SND resources). I miss hacking Eudora with ResEdit.
- tambourine_man 8y ago
  There may be hope: https://twitter.com/siegel/status/999077760244084736 https://twitter.com/siegel/status/999077760244084736

andrewbinstock 8y ago

It's a curious purgatory the project is in, which I think would make it difficult to attract developers. On one hand, a user base wants the old product with minimal twists and they are known to balk at anything more than that. On the other, project survival likely depends on getting new users on board, in which case an old design and UI are probably going to be detriments.

sanxiyn 8y ago
I guess you could write a theming engine, implement the old design using it, and then implement the new design.
- NickNameNick 8y ago
  Doing that basically destroyed Winamp.

deleted 8y ago

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