From what I have been reading on the bboard, and a search on Sourgefource (no tcl based mail functionality)we have 2 options.
1. Integrate an existing mail package from a compting system like php which seems to possibe, as Maltes colleague Venkatesh showed me on Friday during our discussion on documentation at my office.
2. Forget the existing webmail modules loaded on the toolkit because they won't work without a lot of hassle, and start from scratch. Afterall, the current mail system seems to date back the start of ACS. I assume technology has matured since those days.
From an OpenACS promotional point of view I thimk option 1 is not smart. I can't immagine with all the bright folks in the community that have been thinking about this problem for the better part of 3 years ACS core can't handle this. I.e our problem maybe diffrent...
1. Priority.
2. Lack of time.
3. No interest.
4. No challenge.
I would think, given the fact e-mail is far more important to most people than web sites, we should take some action. I am currently working on creating various networking environments where this would be vital. Those folks now use Yahoo. Aslong as I can't offer webmail, I will have a touch job converting these people over to OpenACS. With a bit of luck I will have a modest budget to add to the cause within the next few weeks.
Why not create a communication module, consiting of e-mail, webmail, bulkmail, SMS & chat. Maybe a dumb newbie question, but from an end users point of view it would make the toolkit much more easy to understand.
Just some thoughts on a rainy Saturday evening
Cheers
