Raindrop: Mozilla Labs Presents Open Messaging Prototype
The Thunderbird team at Mozilla has initiated a new project, Raindrop, for open messaging and are presenting a first prototype.
The Raindrop messaging client gets its feeds from various sources: emails, blogs and social networks such as Facebook and Twitter. That's the plan at least. Users should be provided multiple filtering methods to separate the wheat from the chaff. According to the Raindrop announcement, the client "intelligently pulls out the important parts" of conversations, meaning that messages coming from a known Flicker buddy take priority over the usual webmail from service providers.
The Thunderbird conceptualizes Raindrop as a mini-webserver that fetches conversations from the aforementioned sources. From this collection Raindrop determines its choices and provides the connection to the services via a web browser. Aside from Firefox, Safari and Chrome are the browser choices.
Raindrop is an open source project under the Mozilla Public License. The project team encourages collaboration in design, development and testing. The source code for the prototype is currently available for download. The Raindrop roadmap clarifies the next development phases.
Subscribe to our Linux Newsletters
Find Linux and Open Source Jobs
Subscribe to our ADMIN Newsletters
Support Our Work
Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you’ve found an article to be beneficial.
News
-
Gnome’s Dash to Panel Extension Gets a Massive Update
If you're a fan of the Gnome Dash to Panel extension, you'll be thrilled to hear that a new version has been released with a dock mode.
-
Blender App Makes it to the Big Screen
The animated film "Flow" won the Oscar for Best Animated Feature at the 97th Academy Awards held on March 2, 2025 and Blender was a part of it.
-
Linux Mint Retools the Cinnamon App Launcher
The developers of Linux Mint are working on an improved Cinnamon App Launcher with a better, more accessible UI.
-
New Linux Tool for Security Issues
Seal Security is launching a new solution to automate fixing Linux vulnerabilities.
-
Ubuntu 25.04 Coming Soon
Ubuntu 25.04 (Plucky Puffin) has been given an April release date with many notable updates.
-
Gnome Developers Consider Dropping RPM Support
In a move that might shock a lot of users, the Gnome development team has proposed the idea of going straight up Flatpak.
-
openSUSE Tumbleweed Ditches AppArmor for SELinux
If you're an openSUSE Tumbleweed user, you can expect a major change to the distribution.
-
Plasma 6.3 Now Available
Plasma desktop v6.3 has a couple of pretty nifty tricks up its sleeve.
-
LibreOffice 25.2 Has Arrived
If you've been hoping for a release that offers more UI customizations, you're in for a treat.
-
TuxCare Has a Big AlmaLinux 9 Announcement in Store
TuxCare announced it has successfully completed a Security Technical Implementation Guide for AlmaLinux OS 9.