So welcome. I would like to present to you a completely brand new email application.
It's very different from Arc. It's email, chat, media conference, calendar, contacts, and
five sharing all-world into one application. And we're looking after giving a little
of the gift competition to Outlook. First about myself, I've been working for about 25 years
as a core contributor to Thunderbird. I started in 1999, and I've been on in the
product leadership until last year, when I resigned for ruler. I've been in like the
auto configuration 15 years ago, that was my idea, that you can automatically come
from your email client, Apple Mail, until today, cannot do that. And I've been writing
lots of the IMF, Pop3, and S&TP authentication logic, a lot of the plaintext, email handling,
and lots of other stuff. In the recent years, I've been doing an add-on, which connects Thunderbird
to Office 365, and Microsoft Exchange Service, because Thunderbird natively cannot do that yet.
And that gave me a little insight into the corporate world how they are using email,
and what I saw was shocking, and that was one of the reasons what triggered a building
perula, and I'm going to talk a little bit about this. I've also been for 20 years,
consultant, for companies, tech-lead, building software applications, for software companies,
and some of them reach multiple millions of users. So when I did out, I was really shocked
in which the date email is. You probably know just that about 30% of your friends are using
Gmail, and the corporate world is much, much worse. There is very difficult to get real statistics
about that we search for days, and we can, because depending on how you measure, it's very different.
But from what I've been seeing, I would guess that 80% to 90% of the companies are using Microsoft
Exchange, either on premise, traditionally they had an exchange server in their office,
but many of them today are switching over to Office 365. My guess would be that about 60% of all
companies worldwide, or at least in the western part, are using Office 365 by now.
If you look at who that is, that's really like pretty much every company, Samsung, Sony,
Cisco, even direct competitors choose to Microsoft, are enemies of Microsoft are using Office 365
to host their emails. And I was really shocked to see that. And these are companies who sell
email servers, and they use Office 365. So why is that? It's really unhealthy
states that we're in, because if the communication is controlled by a single company, that is
obviously a problem, I don't need to tell you why. It's a problem for privacy for people.
It's the direct conflict to the GDPR in Europe. It's a problem for the confidentiality for companies
to lead their business secrets. And it's not just companies, they're also universities.
We're standing here in the ULB, University of Nebraska. This is an open-source fashion,
I would assume, because we're here, right? I would assume to have the competence to set up an
email server, guess what they're using. So why is that? But I was wondering, why? Like there
is so many good email servers out there, they're for free. You can set them up. We have stalwart
right here, we have Mox here, we have Doffcott over there somewhere. And why? I mean, they have
the competence, like in university, has an IT department, why do they not set up their own server?
Well, it's the clients. The companies feel like they don't have a real alternative, because
what they see, it's a client. And the clients that open-source are just not up to the job for being used
in a big company with 30,000 users. We have the EU commission here. They're using what
get a while you're guessing. And there's a big intergovernmental fight about that in the EU.
And they feel like they have no alternative. Why? Because they need this, they need the email client.
And it needs to work for the manager. What is the manager doing all day long? He's doing meetings.
He's not writing emails, he's doing meetings. So the calendar needs to work well. The schedule needs
to work well. He needs to see when people are free. And oftentimes, it's not him doing that.
It's a secretary doing that for him. So that kind of process needs to work really well. And we don't
really have good open source alternatives for these kind of use cases, where which can be used by
30,000 people. So they have long email threads, then you do pair features. So it's the clients.
They need outloaded any teams. They need desktop client. They need chat. They need video conference.
So let's do something about that. That's the purpose of prula.
This is a completely fresh new written from scratch email client. Obviously, I'm using libraries
for when I can. I'm not re-venting the wheel. If there's already a good well-working library,
but otherwise it's a completely written from scratch. With my background from Thunderbird,
I heard a lot of feedback over 25 years. You can assume that. So I'm trying to take
apply that kind of knowledge so that it works for the old-time internet people,
at least to some degree. That's, but that's not my core market. You can use Arc if you want to.
But to build a client that works for everybody, including for corporations, for governments,
like a big user group that does not really, is not nerdy, but just wants the thing to work
and not think about it. Still, email is a port for them. Some of them are spending two to five
hours per day with an email client. So this needs to really work smoothly for them.
They cannot use a patchy solution that works kind of. It needs to go well.
I would like to also for this to work for private people, for your family, for your
amount, for your friends that would like this to work as well. If you want an email client
to give to your family, I want this that you can give them for Rula and not worry about it.
In, I would like to innovate. I would like this to be fresh, to be making something new,
Hansio called this modern email and I want to make email modern again.
There's no need why we need to run after WhatsApp. We can actually overtake them with innovation
because WhatsApp is controlled by a single company. If email is free, we can actually innovate
much more and do much better. I give you a very simple example, try to make a meeting with 15
people and agree on a time and do that by email. Anybody ever try to do that? It's not pretty.
Try the same thing with WhatsApp. They just have you make a poll in as much much easier,
and we can actually go better than that. We can build specific features to accommodate that specific
use case, so it's actually easier than a WhatsApp. We just need to do that and we need to get
out of this idea that email is just simple plain text written from one human to another because today
it's not. So the idea here is to have a fully integrated email client that
includes everything that you need to communicate with another human being, no matter on which channel
it is, no matter which form of communication that is. It should include email, chat, video conference,
and if you want to transfer files, it can do file sharing in so long.
So it has multiple applications built into one, and I would like to give you a demo for that.
So that's not my notebook. This is a life demo now, so I'm going to see how well that works.
Can you hear me well at the back? Is this all good? If you don't, because I'm sitting down now,
you're pleased to be able to look at it. So this is a set up, adding an email address.
This is just a test email address.
So did you notice how long this took? Half a second, found the configuration?
It's done. Set up.
So now you can add additional accounts here. So you can add all your email accounts and
hopefully they're able to all work with one exception prototype because it doesn't support IMF.
And you can add calendar accounts, video conferences, chat accounts, and so on.
So I'm going to click on the first one, and you see the email inbox is already there.
I can scroll through it. You should be able to scroll through 40,000 or 100,000 emails with the same
speed as I'm doing here now. I just don't have that many emails here in this test account,
but it should be going straight down.
This, um, the classical view here, the accounts you select here.
I, this is now the view for which looks a little bit like Microsoft Outlook with the three
pain things. The vertical column, we call this the vertical view, but, oops, sorry.
Maybe I'm full screened. But you can also do the classical table view
that you might be used from a more traditional email clients, and it looks like this.
And it's the same here. You can scroll through easily through this.
And we are also building a chat view, which doesn't work yet, where you can view emails
in the same way that you see what's at messages, and the emails are going to compress,
and it's going to be shown like a kind of like a chat conversation.
So that's the email part. So the mail part, we're concentrating first on building the mail
part. The mail part is roughly in beta right now, and I need you help for testing. I'll talk
about that later, but we're also building the other features. So I'm for now I'm going because
we haven't implemented all of that yet. We have some video conference built in, which is actually
working. We have some matrix implementation that is kind of pre-alpha, so it's not ready to show
you yet. We're going to working on XMPP protocol, and I want for video conference I would like
to support JITC and the number of others. So the idea here is to have a multi-protrical strategy
to be able to connect to pretty much everything that is either an open standard or in widespread
use if possible. By the way, I have mentioned that as runs on Windows, Linux, and Mac,
and we're going to build clients for Android and iOS as well as soon as we have time,
which is hopefully mid this year. So this is now some demo data that I'm loading,
and I would like to show you the concepts here. So here I'm getting email from the
imaginary one-drill moan, so I clicked on this email to read this email from him,
and then I can click on chat, and I see the chat messages with that same person.
So I'm reading the email and I want to respond to him directly because I want to follow up.
I just need to click on the chat and I see the chat messages and I can directly send him
the chat. So the advantage here is that I don't have to go, did not work, I guess, huh?
Okay. Well, it's just email feature. The advantage here is I select an email, I can seamlessly
go over to chat, continue to chat with him without having to switch to another application and
find the same person again in my contact list. I just click on chat and it's already there.
And I can do the same thing with the video call, if I want to call him directly,
either by video or by phone, I just click on need, and here is a button called his guy,
and I can directly call him. Very pretty face.
I'm going to make some test call, so no, he's not sleeping so.
So this is here the participants. So now I can add some other person in the participants list,
but just clicking here and adding whatever, whatever we have here is also test data.
So normally, if I type somebody here, there would be a pop-ups that can select from my contacts list,
which person I want to bring in. And the application can look in my contacts, which forms of
communication I know for that person. So for example, if that other person I want to bring in is
in my company, it will make a direct message to this and bring on his application in the
same way that you just saw the incoming call coming. And if the other person is, for example,
if I'm calling my mother and I'd only have a contact from my mother, it will take the URL
to the online meeting and send the URL for what's up to her. Or if I'm caught into a customer
and I have an email address for him, it will take the URL for the meeting and send the meeting
URL to him by email. And here I don't have to care about that. I just have to enter which person I
want to talk to or bring into the meeting and the application can know what is the performed form
of communication with that person and send him the meeting link to that person and then they just
need to click on that link and open up in the browser and he's going to have the meeting in the
browser here and they can call and talk with me here in the in the prola you are. And if on the other
and they also have prola because in the same company they will see that the call here in prola.
We also get the calendar okay so here oh by the way if I'm in the meeting,
I don't know something broke. That's something metal sorry. That's a demo like sorry.
So this is a calendar. There's a two-paying view. I can see that today and the whole month.
And we have contacts here. It can see the different contacts can add different communication methods
in different forms. We also have file sharing okay there's nothing here here now but in the
file sharing tab I should would be seeing which emails which files as exchange with that person.
And if I send an email to somebody with an email file attachment it would appear here. I just
need to click on the person and you can find the file that I sent to them but either by email or by
chat or by a file sharing with web dog or a nice cloud or something. So we want to integrate next
cloud and own cloud and whatever so that it can share files this way. There's also an app
feature here where I can integrate a third-party web apps like Nero or whatever using
ox stocks or a cook pad you can include that and work with somebody else this way.
That's a little bit the demo regarding features so for mail we are implementing currently
I'm app. We've implemented J map just to me yeah for the cloud this cloud for it's like last week
I've looked at J back for the cloud for it. We're implementing three different Microsoft exchange protocols
implementing EWS active sync and OWA which is three different ways to talk to exchange servers so
no matter what your administrator has enabled it is able most likely you can get to the email.
OWA is an protocol that I think no other email client implements and so if you have the
old web access interface you can go to your web mail for your company you can probably get to that
with our look and I don't think it has any other email client which can do that and
anything else yeah it runs on Linux Mac and Windows right now in with planning for Android and
IOS all right so let's roughly the idea do you have any questions yeah everybody go
all right let's start in the front
so if we if you're using exchange protocols like active sync EWS or OWA we're already bringing
in your address book from your account so that we already thinking that you can change it right to it
and the changes will be applied on the server we don't support the global address book yet so
that you can just look for anybody in the company but we're planning to do that we're also planning
to do CalDov and CardDov so to have open protocols to do that and as soon as somebody
implements that we have Jay Jay's calendar or Jay's contact we would like to implement that as
well for Jay Map it's either XMPP or both so you can add whatever accounts you have XMPP
matrix and we try to implement also proprietary protocols if we can we will see what how that works
so basically the idea is whatever accounts you have you should be able to bring it in here if possible
yes search let's see about that so there's a search feature here this is now I don't
have to try that with a demo data let's see how that works do we have any web to east of yes
so I just type here and this email is up here here and I can search save the search as a folder
so I have the dynamic like whenever a click is a virtual folder when I click on that folder it
we run set search and next things we're going to like next few weeks we're going to build rules
so that when you've made a search you can save that search a rule and then say okay filter all these
emails that I see here into that folder or mark them as deleted or something thank you
I like your battery
yes yes yes yes for phone yes we do so it's going to be part of the meet so if you have a
zip account you should be able to set that up as and then you can call with a normal
phone system yes based on the contacts there exactly good idea
very good question yes we plan to support add-ons I haven't done the like word yet to
implement that because you want to bring them in a little sandbox and make the API available on
all that but yes we're planning that I haven't really decided how exactly we're going to do that
but so the idea would be yes if there's new email coming in you have the ability to process that
so if you have whatever you have an invoice coming in you can process that or you can do some
things about that or if you can set when you send out an email specific points that add on can
into act yes right yeah well they they are really doing the same mistake that
therefore there's been doing that they're cutting off the old extension system and building in
you one which they've been killing a lot of the extensions but yeah the ideas to do that
yes it's like on the back of the feature list because we're looking at how many people are
actually using encryption is and in reality is like 1% to 5% of the user base so it's not the
first feature we're implementing but yes we want to do with extensions we want to implement both
SMIM as well as PTP yes correct wait did you see that
not yet so first we want to finish email then we want to do the other features then
we want to do Android then iOS and the next thing is web so web is web version is basically the
same thing with the back at cart off by the way just to add to this we're really paying attention
for being code architecture we're clearly separating the front end from the back end so the
protocol implementation are completely independent from the UI the UI is very thin so it would be
possible to write a different UI for the same back end features on adding a new protocol is really
easy because we're clearly separating front end from back end so this is kind of lessons learned
from other email claim
no this is completely independent from Mozilla the main funding has been providing myself
from our money and we've gotten a grant quite recently from an alnet the
NGI you might have seen them here on first them so they're funding our project
for this year at least and hopefully a little bit longer yeah
and to answer I think your question goes to the business model are the guys
so the the the the money long term is is because I need to pay rent somehow right so long term the
money is going to come from the proprietary protocols and not open sauce so the course open
sauce the open standard should be open sauce this two things that I'm not open sauce is the
proprietary protocols like the exchange protocols or if you make a proprietary google connector
that would be paid add on and the video part is not the video conference part is not open sauce but the
rest is my mother's in the may and I won't chat with her I'd be come to chat with her
with the address book with the address book so it recognizes when you read the email it recognizes
from your address book finds the identity in your address book and it sees okay I have this other
at this other contact chat contact and it finds the same contact
if you don't have your mother in your address book you have other problems
sorry I couldn't hear can you say again
in your company so your company deployment we haven't really figured out a real way how to do
then absolutely no questions asked part yet so what you would do it would pick up up the same
dialogue that you see and your email address you lock in but then you're fine I would like to build
the feature that when you deploy that in a whole company it automatically knows your email address
but I need to talk to some administrators how exactly they want to work it depends on the specific
environment but yeah we want to do that not yet
yeah I'm very sure I'm very happy I want to find a feature is it like something developed by
the power itself or to grow the attachments the files feature we're going to do implore
what that I would like to integrate with next cloud and out and cloud so that you can share files
with a specific person and it creates a link and it can send the linkless way and it's going to
show your email attachments that's already working right now so when you get your email you can
you click on the person you can see the email attachments that you change with that person
and the same thing with the chat
thank you I hope that's something very very important things
we need you help right now we feature complete we need data testing so please please please
install this tried with all your accounts and give me the feedback whether it's working well
what is not working for you if if you want to make this your primary email client and what doesn't
work for you please send me we need that feedback this is how we need to progress right now
and please help spread the word about this this is what the two-blocking things that we have right now
please spread the word and please give us feedback