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Developer faces wrath of open source world

It's Linux, it's not free and it works with Microsoft Exchange...

By John Oates

Published: 4 December 2001 17:05 GMT

Ximian is set to ship Evolution - a Linux-based email client.

But in a move likely to enrage the open source community the company has decided to charge for the software used to connect the client to Microsoft Exchange.

Users can download the email client Evolution for free but must pay a fee for software to link this to server.

Despite being started by "open source poster boy" Miguel de Icaza, the company is likely to come under fire for the decision.

But Ximian believes that these licence fees will underwrite the cost of developing Evolution.

The decision was justified in part because the software would only be needed by someone with Microsoft Exchange - also proprietary software.

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