MX Linux Forum

FossaMail (https://www.fossamail.org/) is an e-mail client based on Mozilla Thunderbird but relying on Pale Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Moon_(web_browser). According to MozillaZine, it "has been rebuilt with a newer compiler and better optimizations than Thunderbird ... [and] uses it own profile location (so that it doesn't interfere with existing Thunderbird installations)" (http://kb.mozillazine.org/Email_clients ... hunderbird).

Maybe some of you have tried Pale Moon before. It's a very cool Mozilla Firefox fork that runs a lot faster than the original on my machine. It is announced to to support XUL and XPCOM even in the future. Engine is Goanna (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goanna_(software)), not Gecko (more information on that decision is available here: https://forum.palemoon.org/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=8607). http://kb.mozillazine.org/Email_clients ... hunderbird indicates that the Goanna code is outdated but I don't know how old this information is and whether it's still valid.

Whereas Pale Moon is in MX-16's repo, FossaMail isn't.

I'm getting the impression that Thunderbird gets slower and buggier with every new version, so IMHO it would be a good idea to get and keep FossaMail available and up to date as an alternative for MX-16 users if possible.

Problem is that the project is currently lacking a new maintainer and the project has been announced to be shut down if no one contacts them until May.

So maybe if one of you thinks it would make sense to help the project survive, you could package it so that the MX-16 community can try it it, and then maybe someone who likes it a lot will like to further maintain it. I would do that myself but unfortunately my knowledge is too limited.

Source code is on GitHub: https://github.com/MoonchildProductions/FossaMail. Seems someone is working on a PPA but there's none so far (https://github.com/MoonchildProductions ... /issues/22). Official build instructions are here: http://developer.palemoon.org/Developer ... Moon/Linux. This is what people discussed when building it for Ubuntu: https://github.com/MoonchildProductions ... /issues/31.

Looks like the original developer can be contacted via business-inquiries@palemoon.org or irc://irc.freenode.net:6667/#palemoon.


Greetings and a happy holiday to you all, Joe

We have a small group of devs who are already pretty busy, so it is unlikely to find such extensive involvement from that group. Maybe someone in the community will be interested, but this statement on the Home page would not be encouraging:

The user base is obviously too small to contain anyone willing to step forward to do the required release engineering and support, so we're bidding the fossa farewell.

BTW: since this package is not part of MX and not ready to be packaged, I moved this thread to a more appropriate location.

FossaMail is my daily mail client. But my time is too short and my knowledge nonexistent to do anything to help the project. I'm thinking of using claws instead.

@Jerry3904:

Jerry3904 wrote:BTW: since this package is not part of MX and not ready to be packaged, I moved this thread to a more appropriate location.

Thanks, Jerry, I hadn't been sure about where to put it. Have a nice holiday, Joe

MX-16 fan wrote : Maybe some of you have tried Pale Moon before.

Have been using it for more than a year Joe, think there are others of the MX clan using Pale Moon too.
Gordon.

For what it's worth, I have some experimental Fossa Mail packages here, built from the source code: https://software.opensuse.org//download ... =fossamail

It wasn't too hard to adapt the Pale Moon build instructions to Fossa Mail, plus the mozconfig in the github thread helped.

The Debian 8 ones are compatible with MX 16, and you can also just download and install the deb packages via the links at the bottom instead of adding the repository and its key.

Stevo wrote:For what it's worth, I have some experimental Fossa Mail packages here, built from the source code: https://software.opensuse.org//download ... =fossamail

It wasn't too hard to adapt the Pale Moon build instructions to Fossa Mail, plus the mozconfig in the github thread helped.

The Debian 8 ones are compatible with MX 16, and you can also just download and install the deb packages via the links at the bottom instead of adding the repository and its key.

Thats super cool, Stevo. Thank you so much! I'll be happy to test it as soon as I get to it. Have a nice weekend, greetings, Joe

One of the Pale Moon honchos said the version I built looked good, so I'm going to add it to the Pale Moon repo I maintain on the OBS, then delete the first repository I built it in. I don't want to take up more resources on the free OBS than necessary--that's just good manners.

@Stevo:

Stevo wrote:One of the Pale Moon honchos said the version I built looked good, so I'm going to add it to the Pale Moon repo I maintain on the OBS ...

That's very cool, thanks a lot. I guess a lot of people will greatly appreciate that. Greetings, Joe.

@Stevo:

MX-16_fan wrote:@Stevo:

Stevo wrote:One of the Pale Moon honchos said the version I built looked good, so I'm going to add it to the Pale Moon repo I maintain on the OBS ...

Unfortunately the project has been discontinued (https://www.fossamail.org/) by now, which is really sad.

As my posting here and you packaging it for the MX Test Repo didn't help to keep the project alive, should I close this thread?


Greetings, Joe

They were looking for someone to actually maintain the code, which is far beyond me. I don't think you need to close the thread, but you could mark it with "RESOLVED", I guess. Just not resolved in the manner we would prefer.

You can't close the thread, that is not within the privileges of regular users.

@Stevo:

Stevo wrote:They were looking for someone to actually maintain the code, which is far beyond me.

Yeah, same with me, obviously. My original idea was to help the developer in keeping the project survive by having it in the increasingly popular MX-16 sphere, so that someone might discover it who likes it, and wishes to maintain the code (viewtopic.php?p=411627#p411627), plus - second idea - motivate the developer to not shut down his project by seeing that some people care. I suppose I wasn't fast enough, I discovered his announcement rather late.

Stevo wrote:I don't think you need to close the thread, but you could mark it with "RESOLVED", I guess. Just not resolved in the manner we would prefer.

Right you are. Will do so. Thanks a lot for caring.


Greetings, and have a good week, Joe

@Eadwine Rose:

Eadwine Rose wrote:You can't close the thread, that is not within the privileges of regular users.

Sorry, I was imprecise here. By "closing" I meant "marking it as 'solved'" (or marking it as something else).


Greetings, Joe