[Gnu-arch-users] Re: Why is "popular" software hard to change? [was some damn OT thread]

[Tom Lord]

    > From: "Stephen J. Turnbull" <address@hidden>

    > Up until now, there's been no leverage because there's been no
    > "popular" free MUA, and no standard way to deal with the problem.  Now
    > [....] it's now possible to solve the reply-to-list-only
    > problem [....] with changes only to a couple of
    > MUAs.  

If evolution were more like Emacs, instead of a flamewar, since the
members of this list are generally technically competent, somebody
would have posted some code to stick your .evolution file if you want
a reply-to-list button.  If that code were good, it would likely
spread among technical users, perhaps receiving further polish.  In an
office where mailing lists are important, the IT department might
install the extension on behalf of non-technical users.  Eventually,
sure, it would likely make it into the official distribution.

But instead, if one wanted to hack evolution for this purpose, one
would have to figure out how to get patches accepted by the main
developers -- and then wait until it appeared in some future round of
commercial relesaes -- and then wonder whether the users actually like
the new feature.

-t