Hi, > Why should I spend my free time for people who subscribe themselves to > Microsoft [<-- Some may note even know they are subscribing to Microsoft, its just the only email service they know] just to save a few bucks and then refuse to take any > inconvience to remedy their fault? [<--- Some will say that it isn't a fault].
Regarding what Ben Bucksch wrote (which is below, by the way), if you are a mozilla programmer, you should be absolutely ashamed. You seem to assume that all your programming efforts are for yourself. They partly are, however, Mozilla has been created not for those individual programmers but for everyone to use and share. There are many out there who have absolutely NO idea what microsoft are like, who they are, what 'Pop' and 'Smtp' is, what the hell is wrong with hotmail etc. etc. . I think it's stupid just to say, "I'm not gonna' bother making mozilla compatible with hotmail because all you millions who are subscribed to that hotmail rubbish should switch." OK, but while we're at it, why don't we pretend there's no english-version of mozilla and just say, "no, we're not gonna' release an english version of mozilla because you should all switch to chinese." Things just don't work like that. The only way you can get more people to start using Mozilla Mail is if it supports their favourite email service, if it doesn't, they won't bother switching, they'll just go to nice sweet Outlook Express which *never* crashes (ahem) and use that instead. I completely agree with what Matthew Thomas says. In fact, I am actually getting the feeling that a lot of you Mozilla programmers are actually getting scared of this idea. It's very ambitious but it can be done, and many many anti-microsoft people will be very happy when its done because it will show MS that WHATEVER they do, they cannot stop the Open-Source world from using their own software to access their free services. This will also possibly be breaking MS's monopoly, only slightly, but still, it's a "rebellion" and "revolution" and it must be done. I'd love to lead it myself, only I don't know hardly anything on programming, I'm interested but I just wouldn't know how to, and learning how to would just waste precious time when those who do know could be doing it. Argue against all that I've said here, I understand that some believe that this will just strengthen Hotmail and 'Passport .net' but I'm afraid you cannot just tell people to switch email service just to use Mozilla - Mozilla should not have catches, it should be open and complya with all standards... and non standards. Ben Bucksch wrote: > Matthew Thomas wrote: > >> Just like Samba did, and WINE is doing. Difficult, perhaps, but not >> impossible. >> > There are more worthwhile tasks. > > Note that WINE is *far* from being useful, at least for me. For normal > users, there is no chance at all to run many apps (like almost all > games) other than "shutting off" Linux and running Windows. There is no > competive game for Linux (apart from a handful by Loki) which we could buy. > > Samba belongs to another generation, when competition wasn't that ugly. > Hotmail bases on Passport. (That might already hold true for the > OE<->Hotmail protocol.) That was years later, around the time AIM's > protocol was developed. > > Anyways, such projects need skilled developers, which usually have an > urgent need *themselves* to make it work. They just don't exist in the > case of Hotmail - they go the saner route and run away from Hotmail > quickly. > If somebody really, really wants to keep Hotmail, they just have to pay > us a certain 5-digit sum and we'll implement the OE<->Hotmail protocol > in Mozilla for them. Of course, no garantee that it still works in 2 > months. > > My opinion is that: > > When people subscribed to Hotmail, they knew it was going to be > temporary, because their email address ends in @hotmail.com. They'd be > at @hotmail.com's mercy. Despite all that "Email address for life" > blabla (which company lasts forever?). (If they didn't think that far, > chances are that we don't even reach them.) > > Just subscribe to another service and tell your friends the new address. > Everybody accepts that they have to change their phone number when they > move. > >> They can't >> change the protocol itself, because if they did, people with existing >> Microsoft e-mail clients (Outlook Express, Entourage, etc) would no >> longer be able to check Hotmail accounts. >> > Do you remember the AOL AIM vs. MS Messenger game a year or so ago? OK, > MS might not have been that smart/evil when developing the OE<->Hotmail > protocol. > >> Can you imagine the uproar if they did [force people to upgrade]? >> > Since when does MS care about its customers? MS customers baught > different things already. > > "Just download and install that little fix, and all will work well > again. It's just 5 minutes and you'll get Hotmail Plus with an extra 5 > MB of storage and many other exclusive features, like a FREE movie from > Madonna's Ray of Light. Get it NOW!". > (Now, my post will hang in some spam filters ;-P) > >> Especially if Microsoft had no excuse for asking such >> users to upgrade to the next version of Outlook Express, other than >> `well, we had to change the protocol so that Netscape users couldn't >> use it'? >> > MS is quite creative at crafting shoddy excuses, er reasons. > > Even if our hack lasts 2 years and it costed 60 hours (*if* that is > enough), that's already a too high investment IMO, considering what is > still to be done in Mozilla anyways. > >> Yes, but people want to use a dedicated mailer to check it instead >> because (even in Mozilla) it would be more usable to do that than to use >> the browser interface. >> > Fine. Get a real POP account and pay 3$/month for it. > > Why should I spend my free time for people who subscribe themselves to > Microsoft just to save a few bucks and then refuse to take any > inconvience to remedy their fault? > >
