When two of the X.org folks get involved in writing an email system out of frustration, it’s safe to say that email clients need a kick in the pants. Carl Worth, with some help from Keith Packard, have announced Notmuch, a search-based “email system” for handling large volumes of mail.
Packard says “it’s a sad commentary on the Linux desktop that the most important feature for many people using Linux has no credible GUI application.” One might quibble with Packard for singling out Linux. GUI mail clients across all platforms have really failed to evolve as well as, say, the Web browser. While the current crop of GUI clients work fine for processing smaller amounts of email, people who process hundreds of messages daily start seeing pain points in the GUI clients pretty quickly.
