Mozilla to Free Up Eudora

There was a time when Qualcomm’s Eudora e-mail program was one of most-used applications in the world. That time has long since past.

The company announced today that it would cease producing commercial versions of Eudora, which it has been using and developing since 1991 when the project started as a freeware effort.

It’s going to be entirely free again, once it becomes an open source application with a little help from Mozilla.

Starting in the first half of 2007, Eudora will be rooted in the Mozilla Thunderbird e-mail application. The Thunderbird project got started back in February 2003 at Mozilla as a standalone e-mail spin off from the Mozilla Browser suite.

Frank Hecker, executive director for the Mozilla Foundation, told internetnews.com that there is no financial value to the deal.

“Qualcomm will simply be participating as part of the overall Mozilla project in exactly the same way that other companies participate: by contributing developer time to help build products that incorporate Mozilla code,” Hecker said.

“Since Mozilla is an open source project any company is free to participate in this and other ways.”

Full story: internetnews.com