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... and now we stretch (goals)!
We've made our initial goal, thanks to all of those who have backed the campaign. We can't wait to get the Backstage Pass forums opened for well over a hundred people who took that perk, and the Advisory Comittee rolling, with 6 members and counting! Your continued participation will help make Roundcube Next amazing!
But we still have time to get even further!
By hitting the base goal of $80,000 we can refactor the core of Roundcube and get basic email and contacts functionality in place. If we can push the funding toal higher, then we can schedule more of the Roundcube Next goals as seen in the graphic below.
Which means there is still time for you to get involved and help us rock Roundcube Next!
Our first stretch goal is a fundamental one: We have some big, big ideas about how slick email and contacts handling should be. All the powerful features of Roundcube for email and contacts as we know them will be there, but we want to take it to the next level with:
- discussion view threading in addition to the existing standard views
- smart folders that organize similar content based on your preferences
- pervasive consistency with context menus, drag and drop, etc.
- making the contacts app more dynamic and easier to use with email workflow than it is today
- a settings system that is much easier for both developers and users, and which is far more intuitive and modern with things like buit-in-search to instantly zero-in on the configuration you are looking for.
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These were all on our development wish-lists, but we knew that we had to stay within our means and that $80,000 will only get us so far. But we can start taking these extra steps on top of the Roundcube Next core with your help.
If we can reach $120,000 by the end of this campaign, then we can move our email, contacts and settings wishlists into the first roadmap milestone!
Without that extra support, it will simply take longer to get there. We'd like to get there faster and have a higher quality product to show for it. So even though we've hit our initial goal ... it's not too late for you to make a difference. Back the campaign today and help move us along even further!
The new shape of open source email and communication
Online communication connects us all: friends, family, teachers, co-workers and collaborators. The Internet has transformed societies, and personal communication has been at the heart of that. Email, contacts, calendaring, instant messaging, collaborative editing and cloud storage are part of how we live, work and participate in society each and every day.
Roundcube is the world's most popular open source webmail application. It is used by millions of people to access their email (and much more) on their own terms every single day.
But we can't sit still. The web has evolved a lot in the last decade, and we want Roundcube to take full advantage of the best web technologies available as well as meet the expectations of today's users. We are calling this project "Roundcube Next".
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Beautiful on the desktop
The first thing we're doing is giving Roundcube a modern and gorgeous fluid user interface for the desktop. As a single-page web app with zero page reloads and consistently elegant user feedback, Roundcube Next will be the responsive, reactive and simply gorgeous email application you want to use more than Gmail or Outlook.
You can read more about Roundcube Next's design vision on Roundcube lead developer Thomas Brüderli's blog here.
At home on mobile
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If you love Roundcube on your desktop and laptop, you'll love Roundcube Next on your mobile devices! The refreshed design allows Roundcube to have both a first-class desktop experience while also providing a unique and beautiful experience on mobile devices. Now you can have Roundcube everywhere you go, all from a single server installation!
Bringing Roundcube to mobile means more than just putting a nice responsive skin on it (which we are doing, of course). It also means thinking about how we use our email on the go. One concept we're very excited about is showing emails and other content in tag- and content-based folders to help you quickly find, read and organize your communication on the go.
Bringing a world of apps to your browser
Roundcube 1 demonstrated the power of plugins, taking it beyond just email and contacts. Calendars, files, notes, to-do lists and much more became possible. With Roundcube Next, we are taking plugins to the next level with better integration and a more powerful API.
These new apps will be where all the add-on functionality on top of the Roundcube core will be. Going beyond Roundcube 1's calendaring, file cloud access, rich-text notes and to-do lists, we will be bringing integrated instant messaging, video chat, collaborative document editing and more. They are all on our roadmap of apps for Roundcube Next as seen in the image above.
You will be able to run a simple email-only Roundcube, or add all the apps you want to make Roundcube Next your home for online communication and collaboration.
You can even write your own apps to make Roundcube exactly what you need, and share those apps with others if you wish. We want Roundcube to be to online web-based communication apps what Wordpress or Drupal have become to websites.
The good things are staying
That doesn't mean everything in Roundcube is changing. We are still focused on making Roundcube easy to deploy and even easier to manage. Being able to use the add-ons you want will still be there. And of course, Roundcube will always be 100% free and open source software. Some things are simply too good, too "right" to ever change!
Helping make Roundcube Next a reality
We need your help in making all this happen. This crowd-funding campaign will allow our developers and UX designers to work full time on making Roundcube Next a success.
Our first step towards making the Roundcube Next vision a reality is creating and releasing the new central core upon which everything else will be built. That includes the engine for the responsive UI, the apps API, the desktop and mobile user experiences, and the essential email and contacts functionality.
From there, we go on to add calendaring, instant messaging, video conferencing, file cloud access, document editing, to do lists, rich-text note taking, global tagging, and even offline access.
This crowd-funding campaign aims to first fund the development of the core and essential mail and contacts functionality. When we reach our initial goal with your help then we will start adding the additional stops on our roadmap as new goals.
Besides pledging your support by becoming a financial backer, you can also help us by spreading the word online and elsewhere. Help us make sure the whole world hears about this effort and understands why it is so important!
If you are part of an organization that uses Roundcube, please send a link to the campaign to decision makers and management in your organization. Encourage them to get involved, give back and help secure the future for Roundcube that we all want and need.
And of course, Roundcube is free-as-in-freedom software, so you can also help out by getting involved as a software developer, beta tester, translator, documentation writer, graphic designer, etc. We'd love to have you on the team!
Perks of Participation
You may also note that we have a few very special perks: The Backstage Pass, The Advisor and The Deployer. These perks are all designed to let you have a greater level of participation in Roundcube's future.
The Backstage Pass gives you early development access to the process of creating, designing and developing the components of Roundcube Next via an online forum run and populated by the Roundcube Next team. Get weekly updates, provide feedback, and help chart the path forward with us.
The Advisor perk gives organizations who are serious users of Roundcube the chance to join Roundcube's new Advisory Committee where they can provide executive and high-level technical feedback on development and direction. By hearing about the needs of Roudcube in larger installations, we can make Roundcube better for everyone. Advisors (and by extension Deployers) will also get special highlighted mention in the "thank you" credits (opt-in, of course) with logo and link in a beautifully designed and prominently placed location on the website and in the app credits themselves.
The Deployer is the Advisor perk plus some hours of consultation from the Roundcube devel team members to help with customizing and rolling out Roundcube Next when it is ready.
These special perks also get you special mention in the application and website credits, similar to "platinum sponsor" credits at conferences.
