Future versions of Eudora Email Client to be Mozilla based, Open Source and Free

[mandy]

QUALCOMM Launches Project in Collaboration with Mozilla Foundation to Develop Open Source Version of Eudora Email Program
Open Source Version of Eudora will be Free of Charge; Final Commercial Versions of Classic Eudora for Windows and Mac Available Now

future versions of Eudora® will be based upon the same technology platform as the open source Mozilla Thunderbird™ email program. Future versions of Eudora will be free and open source, while retaining Eudora's uniquely rich feature set and productivity enhancements. QUALCOMM and Mozilla will each participate in, and continue to foster development communities based around the open source Mozilla project, with a view to enhancing the capabilities and ease of use of both Eudora and Thunderbird. QUALCOMM also today announced that it has released the final commercial versions of the current Eudora products for Windows and Mac operating systems. The open source version of Eudora is targeted to release during the first half of calendar year 2007. Once the open source version of Eudora is released, QUALCOMM will cease to sell Eudora commercially. In the interim, QUALCOMM will continue commercial sales, at a reduced price of $19.95 and with a six-month period of technical support. Existing technical support commitments will be honored in their entirety...

full press release: http://www.qualcomm.com/press/releases/2...print.html

[mandy]

Update: the first open source version of Eudora is available for download:

Mozilla has unveiled Penelope, a project with the intentions of uniting the Eudora user experience with Thunderbird. This match made in open source heaven has produced Eudora 8.0.0 beta 1, and from the readme file Penelope sounds more or less to be an add-on for Thunderbird that mimics much of the look and functionality of Eudora for those who still prefer the aged client. Keyboard shortcuts, toolbar icons, menu structures and behavior from Eudora are all present, including even some of the little details like changes to column names and alt/option key functionality when performing certain operations...

full article: http://arstechnica.com/journals/linux.ar...hunderbird

Eudora 8.0 release notes and downloads:  http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope_Releases