I am trying Zoë one more time: I gave up on it for no compelling reason about a year ago, and found myself this past week or so backed into a corner with email overload. I decided to give it another look and I’m very impressed. I had some initial problems with the fact secure IMAP wasn’t supported, but another user on the Zoë mailing list was able to work out the problem and lo, a patch was released.
The version number now is 0.4.8, and where I left off was 0.2.2 or thereabouts. A lot of features have been added, but more importantly, the component parts that Zoë is based on have almost improved. Java is at 1.4.1 for most platforms (I’ve run it Zoë on OS X and FreeBSD with no problems), the various engines — javamail, lucene, jrendezvous, jdbm, jtidy, xpp, simple, jbyte — are also improved.
This is the kind of innovation we should see from established companies with resources and a broad view of the market. Instead we see it come from some bright spark with a Vision of a Better Way. I’m just glad to see it at all . . . .