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OT - Open Source Software Can Suck

I use Thunderbird for newsgroup access and as a calendar. It isn't great for either and support seems to really suck.

There were some problems with the calendar program that nearly made it unusable. When I dug in and learned how the support mechanism works I found this was a known bug that had been around for over a year. Multiple people had reported it with a few different facets, but basically the same bug. Eventually someone found a work around that involved doing something with some java that had to be installed in a very odd way. Fortunately my girlfriend is a web developer and was able to help me out with it and get the durn thing to work again. So I was happy for a while.

More recently I am finding that the newsgroup support for offline use is amazingly buggy. Some posts never get downloaded unless I go through them one at a time while online. No matter how many times I tell the program to download the group, those messages will not be available when I am offline.

I guess that shouldn't surprise me. The first four items in the Help menu require internet access to work.

Grrrr...

--

Rick
Reply to
rickman
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I stopped trying to use Thunderbird for news a long, long time ago.

Pan is klunky, but works well enough.

Evolution seems to be a nice mail client / calendar program.

--
Tim Wescott 
Control system and signal processing consulting 
www.wescottdesign.com
Reply to
Tim Wescott

(...)

Features and functions are added faster than bugs get fixed. The inevitable result is a bloated and bug infested monster, with a substantial number of useless features.

To solve this problem, many open source packages change the user interface about once per year. This doesn't fix any bugs, but does an effective job of hiding bugs and forcing users to rewrite their bug reports. It also diverts attention from fixing the bugs, to complaining about yet another user-hostile desktop or user interface.

Once upon a time, I worked with an operating system company. I offered what I then considered to be a good suggestions. Instead of concentrating on the really big bugs, which require a team effort and regression testing, just fix the really trivial bugs, that can be done with minimal staff and limited testing. The idea was to eliminate the perception that the product was sloppy and shabby. Someone in management liked it, and preceded to implement my idea. It worked, but had an interesting side effect. Users had resigned themselves to considering these minor bugs as permanent, since there was little urgency or priority in fixing such minor bugs. Most often, they didn't bother to report minor bugs. However, when they saw that the company was actually putting some effort into fixing them, they dug into their backlog of oddities, inconsistencies, and minor bugs and reported those minor bugs, which approximately tripled the list of confirmed minor bugs. Oops.

--
Jeff Liebermann     jeffl@cruzio.com 
150 Felker St #D    http://www.LearnByDestroying.com 
Santa Cruz CA 95060 http://802.11junk.com 
Skype: JeffLiebermann     AE6KS    831-336-2558
Reply to
Jeff Liebermann

As you probably know, Mozilla doesn't want to support Thunderbird. It seems everyone (gasp) wants webmail these days.

I think Evolution is the winner, but perhaps because it is the last man standing. It is stock on most linux distributions.

I see they have a mingw version for windows. I have my doubts on that one.

Reply to
miso

Try Forte Agent, theres a 30 day trial. and its only $30.

Cheers

Reply to
Martin Riddle

able

is

when

I won't argue that Forte Agent is bad software, i use it myself. But if i can find the password mnemonic to my news provider account i am switching to pan.

?-)

Reply to
josephkk

Can pan filter on "body"? I keep harassing Forte to provide that, but they keep letting me down... so I keep NOT updating ;-) ...Jim Thompson

--
| James E.Thompson                                 |    mens     | 
| Analog Innovations                               |     et      | 
| Analog/Mixed-Signal ASIC's and Discrete Systems  |    manus    | 
| San Tan Valley, AZ 85142   Skype: Contacts Only  |             | 
| Voice:(480)460-2350  Fax: Available upon request |  Brass Rat  | 
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com |    1962     | 
              
I love to cook with wine.     Sometimes I even put it in the food.
Reply to
Jim Thompson

perhaps try this url:

formatting link 

--
?? 100% natural
Reply to
Jasen Betts

it

I

able

was

is

when

if i

switching

I would have to read up. But if a sub thread goes south it can mark the sub thread read and step to the next unread.

?-)

Reply to
josephkk

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