[Spambayes] [spambayes-dev] We could use some Windows help I think...

[Mark Hammond]

> It would appear that all of our Windows programming expertise
> is more-or-
> less permanently booked these days.  Most of the user questions to the
> spambayes list seem to be related to Outlook or Outlook
> Express.  Those
> questions tend to get answered most of the time, but getting
> a new release
> tested, built and out the door (one is sorely needed I think) is tough
> because of the Windows barriers.
>
> I propose we solicit some new Windows programming help from
> the broader
> Python community
> (http://wiki.python.org/moin/VolunteerOpportunities and/or
> comp.lang.python).  Any thoughts about that?

In general I think that is a great idea.

However, my quick scan of the support issues don't indicate that a new
version would actually reduce the number of problems.  I thought that most
of the new stuff relates to new features, rather than at addressing the
common problems people see.  I'm happy to help knock up a new release if I'm
wrong though.  Certainly, any new talent could help to address such issues
for a future release.

I have been playing a little more with the new OCR code and Outlook.  Sadly,
I'm not seeing much of a reduction in image spam.  My experience is
currently that ocrad is doing a poor job of extracting the text in these
spams (even with many options tweaked), but that gocr (as used by
SpamAssassin) does a much better job.  I haven't managed to run the tests
with this new code yet though.  The absence of any real interest from others
on spambayes-dev doesn't help my motiviation levels, so that is yet another
good reason to try and get more windows developers on board :)

Cheers,

Mark