[Powermail-users] anyone alive?

[David Phillips]

On Fri, 14 Jan 2005 10:21:51 -0600, David Rodgers
<david.rodgers at kdsi.net> wrote:
> I'm still using it to do free email forwarding but that's about it. I am
> sad it hasn't gone further it was an amazing concept and is still quite
> a revolutionary idea today.
> 
> Maybe ahead of it's time?

I really like the concept, too.  If I had to do a large mail system I
would definitely look at starting with PowerMail.  It's a shame that
it hasn't taken off after it was open sourced.  It could definitely
use some more publicity.

Using a database for email systems isn't new.  Exchange does that, for
example.  directNIC has a custom one used internally: 
http://lists.mysql.com/mysql/136214

The closest thing I know of in the open source world is DBMail
(http://dbmail.org/).  It is showing promise, but it still quite
different than PowerMail in many ways.

I think a big issue is that the way email is used has changed
drastically over the last ten years.  Users demand a lot more out of
email now than simply downloading it via POP3.  Email systems need
spam and virus filtering.  Most users expect a web interface with
server side storage.  Gmail is the closest webmail system that (in my
opinion) can truely replace a local client for the power user.  Though
for the business user, Outlook still wins.

What I would really love to see is a webmail system like Gmail that
uses a PowerMail style distributed, redundant backend.

-- 
David Phillips <david at acz.org>
http://david.acz.org/