Roundcube is a webmail interface that has gone through a lot lately. It's interface is very clean and they just added a new interface skin which is actually really really nice. There are many 3rd party plugins that can enhance (or break) Roundcube. Just to be clear, MyRoundcube is not Roundcube, it's a separate project.

MyRoundcube is a 3rd party project that re-groups, modifies and writes plugins for Roundcube. To get the actual plugins you need to install the master plugin called "Plugin Manager". The goal is to help Roundcube admins maintain their plugin set, ensuring the plugins are compatible with the version of Roundcube installed.

All is fine, except when I encountered a few little issues, one being that you need to be logged in to Roundcube in order to download the plugin bundle (zip file with all the actual plugins), and submit your email to them.. it's a bit strange to require it to work this way.. .

The other issue I had was purely technical, I found the procedure incredibly complicated, you have to install the plugin manager, then configure it, then download the bundle, then install the unzipped bundle somewhere, edit more files, re-edit them, etc etc. The whole process felt a bit like that time I upgraded PrestaShop for someone; As if it was intentionally stupidified with the hope that people would contract their support.

I disabled the plugin manager now that I had the plugins bundle and installed and configured each plugin I needed, individually and manually. It was easy and straightforward, as it usually is when installing a webmail plugin.

This is where this starts.

So now, I search how to get the plugin bundle without having to setup an instance of Roundcube whose only goal is to get the plugins bundle. I find this "Updates through Subversion repository?" thread on MyRoundcube's forum. The initial question was somewhat similar, so I jump in and ask again about this "plugins.zip" file. And I get a quick and clear reply: The only way to get our plugins is Plugin Manager. an explanation of "why": Due to the lack of donations I've decided to distribute plugins in that way. And then the direction for where this is going: As people don't honor our work voluntarily, Plugin Manager will act as a billing system soon. I'm a bit stunned by the last part... Well all of it actually. If it means more work to prepare a separate "plugins.zip" then I totally get that part. But because donations haven't worked out as planned, Roland Liebl (aka rosali) informs me that the intention is to start charging people for using their plugin manager. (More on the "honor" below).

I insist a bit, because I found the SVN source somehow, though it's outdated apparently, and ask if that will remain there (and I could use it but risk pulling unstable code) and also ask if they intend to change the licenses on the plugins.. "MyRoundcube Support" replies: Yes, the repository will be closed. New license will be GPL with the following exceptions:

You are allowed to use MyRoundcube Plugins code on unlimited servers you own, leased or rented. You are not allowed to re-distribute MyRoundcube code.

Obviously they would need to re-think about the GPL.. I mean... .. . On one hand you can't have a GPL license and not permit users to re-distribute the code. On the other, some or many of the plugins are either forks of other people's work or heavily depend on other people's code, so changing the permissions can be delicate.

But even without that mess, most people will find other ways, either by sticking to the latest Free version they can find or doing without the MyRoundcube, after all there are many other plugins for Roundcube available, including those from Kolab which are the basis for the most popular plugins used by MyRoundcube.

And also, the rant about the donations, seriously: WTF. The domain name myroundcube.com was registered on June 24 2012, donations don't suddenly pour in as soon as you setup a Paypal link.

And back to this: people don't honor our work voluntarily is quite insane. All over the forum are comments from people praising their work, many also give back helpful tips and/or precise bug reports. I have to say, the result (without the "plugin manager" plugin) is great, a few key plugins installed and they work fine. .. though I did have to hack some of their code to make the reminders work, I pasted it back to their forum with a trick for those using fcgi, in my book that's honouring their work, voluntarily too...

I wasn't even finished writing this when someone posted an error message they got on the MyRoundcube forum: I have just installed plugin manager but when i wouldlike to download the plugins I get this error.txt instead.
I could not find any info about credits.
[...]

Custom ID: ********************** The download price of MyRC$ 36 exeeds your credits of MyRC$ 0.

Well, some will bite, I'm sure. Perhaps we might see forks or something (or forks of the original code MyRoundcube forked from in some cases). Of course selling the code in this way is legal and agrees with the GPL, however so does redistributing the plugin bundle.

What concerns me is the future of Roundcube itself. Hopefully the other plugins won't follow this model.

Some links:

• Roundcube plugin directory
• MyRoundcube.com official site
• MyRoundcube Forum

This year FOSDEM is supported by CodePlex (among other sponsors). CodePlex is Microsoft's vision/version of an "Open Source" project hub.

I don't know what strikes me more, that FOSDEM would accept dirty money or the realisation that Microsoft has completely (or so it seems) changed their minds about open source.

It was only in 2008, before Bill Gates retired from Microsoft that he said such things like:

"there is this thing called the GPL, which we disagree with."

[Open source creates a license] "so that nobody can ever improve the software,"

It still seems difficult for MS to integrate the term "open source" completely, it's all over the CodePlex website, but on the FOSDEM page there is a link to www.microsoft.com/opensource which redirects to www.microsoft.com/en-us/openness/default.aspx. It's as if it's too much too soon to have the term "opensource" in a microsoft url. : ]

In the end I guess one could say that Microsoft is a better place without Bill Gates. Maybe Apple will soon follow .. HAHAHAHHAHA!!

The other evening I attended a conference by RMS on Free Software and digital exclusion. The talk was interesting and motivating as usual, even though I already agree with 99.99% of what he had to say. There was one point however where in response to a question he said:

I could not help myself from noticing that even at a Free Software conference by RMS himself so many people were armed with computer-phones running one of the most (if not the most) restrictive operating systems known to human kind. And many of these people seemed to be big fans of Richard Stallman.

Today while writing this up I found an audio recording of the talk in mp3 format as well as a video... . in Flash format on Indymedia !! Really ? Yes really. The same on another site, although there is a an "alternative" OGV format.. Shouldn't it at least be the other way around ?

So tell me, how can I not be defeatist ? And what do RMS fans think when they take a picture of themselves with RMS using their Iphone ? Are they totally missing the point ? Which brings me to my first question.

The strongest point (most probably went unnoticed) in my humble IMHO was: If we encourage people to use Free Software by pointing at some kind of practical advantage and not talking about it as justice versus injustice we wont teach people to keep their Freedom. This is precisely the root of the Freedom issue, digital or analog.

• Richard Stallman's personal home page
• Free Software Foundation
• The GNU Project

After many discussions with many people over many years concerning the Open Source "problem", things are becoming clearer. Some have said that it will just die off as there is no way of making any money out of it and hence no way of surviving in today's economic system.

About a week ago Symbian has switched to Open Source, they have about 50% of the mobile market according to this article but I'm sure they have started to lose some points to i-phone and maybe a bit Android.. In any case, if they moved to Open Source it's probably has something to do with being more viable.. how things change.

: ]

Symbian website