Better email client [LWN.net]

Better email client

Posted Jul 31, 2012 20:09 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1)
In reply to: Better email client by rfunk
Parent article: The Nexus 7: Google ships a tablet

Interesting...a fork of K9, which is a fork of the original Android non-gmail email client. No, I've not tried it, but that situation won't last much longer...thanks.

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Better email client

Posted Jul 31, 2012 20:11 UTC (Tue) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (7 responses)

...though I hadn't realized when I wrote that last comment that they had taken it proprietary and slapped a price tag on it. Sigh.

Better email client

Posted Jul 31, 2012 20:22 UTC (Tue) by rfunk (subscriber, #4054) [Link]

Yeah, apparently someone decided that optimizing for tablets was worth going proprietary. :-(
I think you can still use K-9 though; you just wouldn't get the multi-pane stuff there.

Better email client

Posted Aug 2, 2012 9:22 UTC (Thu) by dmcguicken (guest, #57851) [Link] (5 responses)

Interesting response. I know we're all FOSS fans here, but in Kaiten's case they've added (useful) functionality which doesn't appear to be available in its competitors and sell it for a few dollars. Is that unreasonable?

I assumed that the commotion over iDevices being the only sustainable mobile platform because Android users refuse to pay for anything was just FUD.

Better email client

Posted Aug 2, 2012 11:38 UTC (Thu) by bboissin (subscriber, #29506) [Link] (1 responses)

> I assumed that the commotion over iDevices being the only sustainable mobile platform because Android users refuse to pay for anything was just FUD.

In this case it is about being free software, not price...

Better email client

Posted Aug 3, 2012 20:34 UTC (Fri) by dmcguicken (guest, #57851) [Link]

And yet 'slapped a price tag on it' is exactly why I responded.

Better email client

Posted Aug 2, 2012 13:35 UTC (Thu) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link] (2 responses)

It's reasonable, in that it's allowed by the license on the software they started with. But free software is better than proprietary software; when they turned it into proprietary software its value to many of us dropped accordingly.

Better email client

Posted Aug 3, 2012 21:00 UTC (Fri) by dmcguicken (guest, #57851) [Link] (1 responses)

Its value dropped? I assume not in terms of its actual utility?

Does the fact that the proprietary version is from the creator of the K9 project play into this value judgement? Would 'slapping on' a price tag to K9 be acceptable if the licence remained the same, assuming that was even possible? How do we unpack liberty and remuneration in a world of app stores?

Better email client

Posted Aug 3, 2012 21:21 UTC (Fri) by corbet (editor, #1) [Link]

The utility of a program you cannot inspect or change is distinctly lower, yes. I've never had time to dig into my phone's email client, but my desktop email client does contain some of my patches; without the ability to do that, I wouldn't be using that client. There is value in software freedom.

I have paid to get free software in the past, admittedly far less often since the net got good enough that we didn't bother with tapes and CDs anymore.