[quote user="Medievalist"]Software monocultures are extremely bad for their users...[/quote]

That's a dogmatic statement.  And in truth, it's doubtful whether this metaphor is of any particular help to us. As Marcus Ranum points out here--

http://www.ranum.com/security/computer_security/editorials/monoculture-hype/index.html 

--computers aren't biological entities and behave differently.  Besides, there is no monoculture (insofar as the term has any meaning outside biology, anyway) but a bewildering array of different configurations:

 [quote]My system isn't just Windows. My security is effected (and affected) by a bewildering combination of default settings, software patch levels, default firewall rules (I just plugged it in, honest!), browser settings, and antivirus signature sets. We're not in anything like danger of becoming a "monoculture" unless every system was running the same software load-out, security policy, antivirus product, and patch level. In spite of the dearest wishes of countless system administrators, that simply isn't going to happen! So, as much as I hate to say it, Sun's marketing people may have been right, "The network is the computer" - and the network sure as hell isn't going to become a "monoculture" unless Microsoft builds all the firewalls, all the routers, all the switches, all the web accellerators, all the SQL databases and establishes everyone's security, routing, DNS, and update policies.[/quote]

Really, this is a dubious metaphor that is only much good for MS-bashing. I don't say that as a fan of the company--I vastly prefer using Apple's products--but I dislike bad analogies. I think computer security is best approached as it is in itself rather than through metaphor.

Hi !

Well, it is clear that for the members of this community, Pegasus Mail is the best email client. However, one of the aim of this project is to make it so for the largest possible number of users, and at the end all of them (why not). Now, the new version seems to have lots of new feature among which a brand new calendar that will allow Pegasus Mail to compete with Outlook, which is still the leader on the professional market. If there was an ability to export all the Outlook data, this might ease the moving process towards Pegasus. Since this new release is a major one, why not send the program to all the sites and magazines for testing, along with the idea to suggest them to perform a huge test of email clients ? I am sure Pegasus Mail will score really well and this would give it a nice publicity.

Bye !

Ginhead. 

I've moved this thread into the Pegasus Mail forum - it was originally posted in the off-topic forum, but it isn't really off-topic. [;)]

-- D --

Hello!

[quote user="Ginhead"]

Well, it is clear that for the members of this community, Pegasus Mail is the best email client. However, one of the aim of this project is to make it so for the largest possible number of users, and at the end all of them (why not). Now, the new version seems to have lots of new feature among which a brand new calendar that will allow Pegasus Mail to compete with Outlook, which is still the leader on the professional market. If there was an ability to export all the Outlook data, this might ease the moving process towards Pegasus. Since this new release is a major one, why not send the program to all the sites and magazines for testing, along with the idea to suggest them to perform a huge test of email clients ? I am sure Pegasus Mail will score really well and this would give it a nice publicity.
[/quote]

Being a beta tester for Pegasus Mail myself, I would also like to see a larger audiencefor Pegasus Mail as it does have some outstanding capabilities: enormous filtering tools, an easy-to-use Merge option, public folders, a lot of options you can set to meet your need, its modest need for disk- and RAM-space etc, users and identities (that can cover much more than only different mail server addresses).
However, there is one thing I am afraid of as far as program testing is concerned: to me, it seems that a lot of magazines or sites do a "at first glance"-testing - do the icons look nice, is the program interface colourful and not boring etc. A look'n'feel of the superficial times, to a certain extent. To find about about the "beneath the surface"-advantages of Pegasus Mail,. one would have to do a really huge test (as you suggested it), that might take several weeks and would be run in "full load". I am not sure whether all magazines would really do such an intensive test.

Apart from that, Pegasus Mail might be said to have to disadvantages that could be discovered on a surficial test: the subject lines in the message lists are truncated, and its responsiveness might be accelerated when new mail is incoming or being filtered (I do not think that these two points are the most important ones when it comes to judging an e-mail client, but they are visible even if you do only some rough testing).

Would self-promoting be of more use? A good PR-campaign could kind of hold back any disadvantages, we / you / David Harris would simpyl have more control over what is said about Pegasus Mail (and Mercury). If you have any ideas what a decent PR-campagin might look like, I.am curious and interested in it.

[quote user="Thomas Nimmesgern"]... it seems that a lot of magazines or sites do a "at first glance"-testing - do the icons look nice, is the program interface colourful and not boring etc.[/quote]

I think a lot of them don't so much "review" as mark software (and hardware) up or down on the basis of "features". That's easy, but doesn't always tell you what you need to know. I've bought hardware on the basis of magazine reviews before and found that what has the most features for the money might also have poor build quality, low reliability, unimpresive DoA statistics, and dodgy customer service. It's a hard lesson, and I'm very wary of magazine reviews these days. AFAIK, in software WordPerfect started the features race; but it's a more-or-less universal one now. MS Word is perhaps the ultimate example. It has everything -- so much so that when MS asked people what features they'd like added, they got back requests for stuff that was already in there that people hadn't even found. However, you can get more stable wp programs than Word. But this is a digression ... I think for raising the profile of Pegasus one good strategy would be to ensure that every significant announcement is posted to social-networking sites like digg.com. Those get a tremendous amount of traffic these days.

Hi !

Well, concerning the magazines, I am not that pessimistic. Indeed, everyone that has to deal with large amounts of emails is aware that Pegasus Mail is the best client, so there is some chance that someone in the magazines' team is using it. On top of that, with the importance of emails nowadays, it could proved a good thing for the magazine itself to propose a huge, serious and deep test. This would strengthen the confidence of the readers base that the magazine is reliable and serious, that it has not easy, quick and on-the-surface testing procedures. But magazines are not the only media we can use, there some nice web sites out there that could accept this test suggestion. Of course, there will be less control on what is said about Pegasus Mail, but since it is a solid product, how can anyone possibly say something really bad about it ? Another solution could be to propose a test here, in one section of the forum. In order to ensure that this is not a subjective test but an objective one, every argument in favor of Pegasus Mail should backed up with some facts. For instance, one can say that Pegasus Mail is superior to Thunderbird in terms of RAM consumption by showing the task manager with RAM consumption figures. Of course, as in any serious test, all the figures and measures should be at the disposal of the potential critics of the test. However, it is my belief that no matter how serious this test is conducted, it will always have s subjective stamp on it, so why not contact the folks of Thunderbird and try to organize a joint in-deep test ? Of course, the result should not be the stupid one that will point out "the best" email client, but something more constructive like "Here are the strong points of Pegasus Mail and Thunderbird, and here are their weaknesses". Now, the fact it has been jointly conducted will establish it on solid grounds, and the weaknesses could prove useful for the development of Pegasus Mail. The way I see it, this can be beneficial for both teams and both products.

Bye !

Ginhead. 

[quote user="Ginhead"]

Well, concerning the magazines, I am not that pessimistic.[/quote]

Oh, sure there are some good reviews out there, but I've read a lot that are pretty perfunctory and miss the important things.


[quote]Indeed, everyone that has to deal with large amounts of emails is aware that Pegasus Mail is the best client, so there is some chance that someone in the magazines' team is using it. On top of that, with the importance of emails nowadays, it could proved a good thing for the magazine itself to propose a huge, serious and deep test. This would strengthen the confidence of the readers base that the magazine is reliable and serious, that it has not easy, quick and on-the-surface testing procedures. But magazines are not the only media we can use, there some nice web sites out there that could accept this test suggestion. Of course, there will be less control on what is said about Pegasus Mail, but since it is a solid product, how can anyone possibly say something really bad about it ?[/quote]


Fortune just ran a review on the

Apple TV that was inaccurate and totally missed the point -- something of a hatchet-job. This short

article on the review is worth a look:

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q2.07/7451D571-67E9-4941-87AA-06D4971A2D25.html

And that magazine has a reputation. I don't suppose someone would write a totally biased and inaccurate review of Pegasus Mail, because you'd arouse disgust if you did that to an independent developer, but as a general point I'd say people can and do go for products for no very good reason.

Of course, if you wanted some things -- e.g., encrypted mailstores, S/MIME, support for vCard and iCal standards -- you would do better to look elsewhere, though obviously Pegasus is excellent at what it does and enjoyable to use day-to-day and over time. Speaking personally, I can do without NNTP and RSS support in a mail user agent -- I'd rather not have it -- but I guess a reviewer could give one MUA 9/10 because it had those and another 7/10 because it didn't. I've seen a lot of reviews like that.

Hello!

Ginhead wrote that "one of the aim of this project is to make [Pegasus Mail the best e-mail client] for the largest possible number of users". Well, I see the point: a service for users and answering their questions very soon might get Pegasus Mail a larger and really pleased user audience.

Another question to be answered could be how to improve the financial situation "behind the curtain" in order to have enough ressources (i.e. money, hardware, program writing tools, internet connections, download areas etc.) for Pegasus Mail in the future as well.
The Donate option via PayPal (or credit card) and the Pegasus Mail shop are two ways of trying to get enough money (see my signature for more information); I think that the users should be led to them, so they know that their money is welcome and needed (in some way, to ensure the ressources), and how to donate.
What I am thinking of is (for example) a menu entry in Pegasus Mail, an explanation in its help, a link in the setup dialogs etc.

However, if you have more ideas how to make happy customers donate, please tell them.

Hi !

Well, I extensively argued for the creation of a foundation in the mailing list, but this idea did not seem very popular. Also, I suggested to open here a "financial section" where precisely questions about funding could be discussed, and which also would increase the degree of involvement of the community since all the aspects of the project, from coding to funding, could be discussed. But this suggestion remained unanswered, so maybe this means that such a section is not wanted.

What can be done to advertise the possibility of donations is to create an auto-generated email after the installation of Pegasus Mail which will present in a very clear way why the user should consider giving her money. Also this email should have links towards the proper web pages, and it should be the first one that the user will read. There was an extensive discussion about how to remind the user that donating would help on a regular basis, and lots of nice ideas were suggested, so I invite you to look into the archives for further details.

Bye !

Ginhead. 

Opening up a financials section here is not something I'd like to do. To be honest we don't have much to say about the income or spenditure of mr. Harris life and matters. I'm sure that when David feels like there is a need for more funding, or funding an expansion or alteration of the development process, he will let us know so. Neverheless, I know he is pleased in that so many is interested in his well-being, and the future life of both products.

I propose that suggestions regarding funding, marketing ideas, the do or don't allow ads on this site, donations, licensing, project developments etc all go into the off-topic forum from now on.

Hi !

The point of a financial section is absolutely not to put to the test how the money that David has received is used, nor to judge or ask the way he is spending it. This kind of perspective is centered on David, whereas what I suggested relies on a community perspective. Taken as a project, this financial section could be the place where, for instance, financial plans could proposed and discussed like tarification for the Mercury releases or setting up a financial structure for the future. For example, assuming one day the idea of a foundation is about to become more than just an idea, then this section could be the place to discuss in which country to create it. I am sure the user base of Pegasus Mail has lawyers, professors, etc., and all those people can help in their way, and I am sure they will be glad to do so. After all this is part of belonging to a community. Next, this section could also be the place for David to discuss several features that have to be postponed because of funding, so it could be a place to raise money in a sense. He could also use this space to give some sort of reports like " Thanks to the funding received so far, I have been able to implement the following feature which is important, etc.". Funding is as much as an important part of this project as coding, so if the coding side has a section, the funding side should also have one. It could be also the place where people could suggest new ideas for funding or for donation reminders inside Pegasus Mail, or for publicity. There is so much beyond what David is doing with the money, which does not concern us and to a certain extent does not interest us (at least me, because as I said, it is his money after it has been donated, and one can o whatever one wants with her money). I hope the arguments I gave will make you change your mind, or convince you and perhaps David also. You can always set up a poll to see what is the view of the community on this subject. Also, putting all these discussion in the off-topic is not very correct since those questions are really not off-topic because funding has a direct impact on the life expectancy of Pegasus Mail and Mercury as we all remember thanks to this shocking announcement that was made not so long ago.

Bye !

Ginhead.
 

I don't want "Everybody" to use Pegasus Mail.  Software monocultures are extremely bad for their users, particularly for the less experienced users.

I just want enough people to use Pmail to make David Harris rich and happy... but not so rich or happy that he stops writing code [;)] .