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Pegasus Mail for Windows David J. Kocmoud, J. Matthew Pierce, and Michael O. Stegman 1996 | 500 pages ISBN: 132619008 |
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| $27.96 | Softbound print book | Out of print (?) | |
Foreword
| From: | David Harris |
| To: | "You, the reader" |
| Date: | Mon, 14 Aug 1995 14:07:02 NZT |
| Subject: | Foreword for book |
Call me nostalgic, call me an idealist - heaven knows, I've been called almost everything else at one time or another... Still, inevitably after people use Pegasus Mail for a while, they always seem to end up asking the same question -- "why does he give it away?". I have a number of coy and evasive answers to this question, none of them entirely satisfactory; so when David Kocmoud asked me to write the foreword for this book, I decided it was time to face the issue down and explain why Pegasus Mail is - and will always be - available free to anyone who needs it.
First of all, let me make a distinction here which is critically important to me personally: Pegasus Mail is fully copyrighted, proprietary software which happens coincidentally to be available free of charge to anyone who wishes to use it. It is NOT shareware. It is NOT freeware. I object strongly to the need people apparently have to put everything into little boxes with everything else: "shareware" and "freeware" are glib tags that carry around a considerable amount of pejorative baggage I do not want associated with my work. "Shareware" still has a "cheap and nasty" undertone even after all these years and even though it is more often than not patently unfair with modern shareware software. "Freeware" in some ways is even worse - it seems to suggest that the author doesn't even care enough about his work to support it properly. In my naive way, I believe that Pegasus Mail does not fit these definitions: from what people tell me, it is software of reasonable quality, and I certainly try to support it aggressively. So, before you try to squeeze Pegasus Mail into some prepackaged wrapper, please ask yourself for my sake if it really fits there.
A little history might go some way towards explaining the motivations which underly Pegasus Mail. In 1989, I installed the first Novell Network at the University of Otago, my employer at the time. The network was based on a very new product called NetWare 386 - so new, in fact, that at the time I ordered it, it hadn't even been released. The installation was relatively painless, but I discovered to my shock and amazement that there was no electronic mail system supplied with the Network. Familiar as I was with systems like VAX/VMS and unix, it had never even crossed my mind that there wouldn't be a mail system in the box, so suddenly I had a problem. Gathering my wits, I rang the distributor of a large commercial PC-based e-mail system (which shall remain nameless). I remember clearly the condescending tone of the salesman as he said:
"Well, I really want to help you out, so I'll tell you what: I'll sell you enough licenses for XXXXX to use on your network for, oh, say $25,000... But this is a really special offer and it's only good if we get your purchase order before the end of the week."
Those who know me know that I have a Mercurial temper which can flare up quickly, and boy, did it flare up at that: $25,000!! We hadn't spent that much on our file server, and I could just hear the gales of laughter which would accompany the immediate rejection of any request I made for that much money for e-mail... This was a UNIVERSITY, after all, and Universities all around the world are congenitally underfunded.
I can't remember exactly what I called the man in Auckland, but I certainly didn't give him his order. It was Thursday; the new lab was opening on Monday; what was I to do? Well, I did the only logical thing - I wrote an e-mail program over the weekend. Now, if you've done any programming, then you're already writing me off as either a liar or a freak, but in fairness, I didn't say I wrote a GOOD e-mail system over the weekend... I already had the basic tools I needed and had attended a Novell Advanced programming course, so I simply wrote a kind of simple menu system around a simple editor and put in the code necessary to send and browse short text messages. It wasn't very functional and it certainly wasn't fancy, but it did work.
At the end of the first week's operation in the new lab, I reviewed the network and found that I couldn't account for about 80MB of disk space. After searching for a while, I discovered that the students had found my simple mail system and had practically beaten it to death. My job in the Computing Centre was a busy one, so rather than working on the mail system in my non-existent work spare time, I carried on working on it at home, polishing the rough edges and adding the basic functions I thought it needed. Every time I took a new revision to the lab network, usage would increase, and eventually I had to start restricting its use.
By March 1990, I had brought the program to a point where it seemed reasonably reliable and it occurred to me that if it were useful in our environment, then maybe some other sites might find uses for it too. At this time I was just discovering the glorious Internet, so it seemed perfectly natural to arrange with a friend at the University of Hawaii to make the program freely available on his small FTP server. I posted a message to the Novell mailing list at Syracuse University and didn't think much more about it - the program was pretty simple, and I thought maybe four or five sites would find a use for it somewhere... This was the first on a list of miscalculations and underestimates on my part which as grown to almost legendary proportions. By the time the program had been available for a week, I had received more than 70 e-mail messages about it, more Internet e-mail than I had ever received in total prior to that time.
I still remember the first mail message I received about Pegasus Mail - it has always seemed hugely oracular and appropriate to me that its opening line was "Hey, I really like your e-mail system, but wouldn't it be great if...". More than five years on, I still get mail which opens exactly the same way - but now I get forty or fifty such messages a day.
Since its first release, the development of Pegasus Mail has become a matter of public record. By the end of 1990, it had support for Internet mail; by mid-1991, it had support for Novell's MHS messaging system. At the end of 1991, the Macintosh version came out and by the end of 1992 Pegasus Mail was consuming so much of my time that I had to choose between it and my job at the University. In hindsight, that was probably one of the most difficult and dangerous decisions I've ever made because it left me financially insecure - sales of the documentation for Pegasus Mail were making just enough to support both it and me, but they were an uncertain thing at best.
The version of Pegasus Mail for Microsoft Windows finally went into testing in the latter stages of 1993. It was a terribly difficult program to develop at the time because I was inexperienced in Windows programming (I didn't even particularly like the Windows environment) and the learning curve was so steep. Since that time, however, the Windows version has been where the bulk of the interest and growth of Pegasus Mail has been: whatever else you might say about it and its parent company, there's no doubt that Microsoft Windows is an extremely fertile and capable system, and the addition of open interface standards like Windows Sockets has enriched it immensely.
I can see you tapping your foot impatiently and saying "well, that's all very fine, but what does it have to do with why the program is free?". I suppose part of the answer is that there is too much of me in Pegasus Mail: it's such a personal thing that I could never sell it - it would be too much like selling myself. Then there's the belief I've always had that communication is a basic right - just as basic and important as free speech, since free speech is no better than silence if other people can't hear what you say. It's a matter of long-term annoyance for me that supposedly reputable companies can charge so much for a utility as simple and important as electronic mail, yet they do: in some part, I've always viewed Pegasus Mail as an attempt to redress this imbalance. Another part of the reason is simple ego-fulfilment: it's intensely gratifying to know that your work helps and in some way improves the lives of other people. Finally, there's an element of wanting to prove a point; I believe there is more to life than simple materialism and I wanted to give the lie to the old saying "you can't get something for nothing" - I think you SHOULD be able to get some things for nothing, if only because being able to do so asserts that there is some value in being human, rather than merely being a base collection of acquisitive machines.
For myself, I get all the justification I could want for my work every time I get a message from a small school in a third world country, or a charitable organization, or a state service program saying that I had given them something they couldn't otherwise have afforded. There's no better feeling than that.
So, enjoy the program - you'll gladden my soul if you do. Of course. you've already taken an excellent step on the road to getting the maximum enjoyment and value from it by picking up this book, written by some of the longest-term and most knowledgeable users of the Pegasus Mail System, and my good friends.
Cheers!
-- David Harris --
Dunedin, New Zealand
August 14th 1995
DESCRIPTION
Pegasus Mail, the top-rated noncommercial e-mail program, is used by an estimated 4 million users across three platforms. Pegasus Mail for Windows will help you spend less time organizing and sorting mail and assembling mailing lists, and more time composing thoughtful messages.
Included are chapters to help a network administrator or workgroup manager configure Pegasus Mail for use within a network or workgroup. The companion diskette contains:
- Pegasus Mail for Windows software
- Many helpful extensions, including applets to convert your existing Eudora and Pine address books
Written primarily for a user of the Windows version of Pegasus Mail, the book's abundant practical tips and examples apply also to the DOS and Macintosh versions. Included is a Foreword by David Harris, developer of Pegasus Mail.
Note:
Please note that this book was published in 1996 when v2.31 of Pegasus Mail for Windows was first released and, while much of the content still applies, a lot has happened in the years since. While major parts of the book remain unaffected, many new features have been added to Pegasus Mail for Windows in a plethora of version updates (currently v3.12a, as of October 1999) and many limitations and bugs of that version have since been removed. Due to the Authors' lack of time we have been unable to provide you with an updated edition.
WHAT THE EXPERTS SAY ABOUT THIS BOOK...
"Pegasus Mail is one of the most flexible e-mail programs for Windows
users to connect to the Internet, and this book will help you get
connected from both office and home--it's a gold mine of useful tips
for beginners and experienced users."
--Andrew Morrow, Director of Software Development, Dataradio, Inc.
"This book is wonderfully well done. Beginners and experienced users will find
it very useful. I have learned things I didn't know while reading it."
--Jocelyn Nadeau, Centre d'informatique et CIDIF, University of Moncton
ABOUT THE AUTHORS...
David Kocmoud and Matthew Pierce are Network Administrators at Texas A&M University and members of the beta test teams for both Pegasus Mail for DOS and Pegasus Mail for Windows. Michael Stegman is the author of 5 books on programming Windows applications.