We try to strike a balance somewhere between making promises we can't keep, and keeping our users entirely in the dark about our plans.
Easy installation, good documentation, stability and predictable behaviour are important to us.
The 2.x and 3.0.x series contain only bugfixes. At this time, we recommend installing 3.1.3.
The 3.0.x series is now effectively unmaintained. In case there is a security problem or other important problem, we will release a patch, that's all.
The 3.1.x series contains a number of new features, including LDAP authentication, mailboxes that can be hidden from other users, and an aoxexport tool.
We generally release a new server version every few months, and recommend that everyone upgrade once per year.
Occasionally a release may be delayed by serious problems, or we may change our planning. More than 80% of the versions were released exactly as planned, two releases were advanced due to serious problems, and the remainder were delayed by one week.
There is no stable/unstable fork. Instead, new features are often disabled by default until we think they're stable enough. (If you're wondering about any specific feature, ask info@aox.org.)
The source code is held in a git repository; there is read-only access to anyone, and contributions are welcome.
Archiveopteryx will provide normal IMAP/POP service, with the features our users expect from regular mail servers.
We'll gradually implement many IMAP extensions, including the Lemonade extensions. We will support basic POP, but not many extensions. Sieve support is under active development.
We're keeping an eye on calendar and smarthost/mailhub functionality. We don't know whether it's something our users want.
In addition to the current scheme whereby deleted messages are retained for a configurable period, we plan to implement a system to specify which messages cannot be deleted, which messages must be deleted, and which may be.
Retaining mail is sometimes required by law. Automatically deleting mail can be desirable, too, for example to restrain resource usage without strict quotas.
Archiveopteryx processes incoming mail using the Sieve language. Some current features include support for vacation messages and other autoresponses, time-sensitive handling (e.g. special handling of messages that arrive outside working hours) and more.
In case you have any questions, please write to info@aox.org.
Last modified: 2010-11-19
Location: aox.org/roadmap