In 2018, RoundCube Next Remains Dead In The Water

Three years after Kolab Systems raised more than $100k USD to develop "RoundCube Next" as a next-generation mail and communication platform, there is little to show for it and no active development.

A Phoronix reader who was one of the backers helping to create the $103,451 war chest for the Swiss company to "create the future of email", there has been seemingly no progress now half-way through 2018 for making RoundCube Next a reality. By late 2016 there were already signs of problems with being well behind schedule and our last post about RoundCube Next was in April of last year when it was a silent 2017. Since then, there's been next to no progress on this next-generation RoundCube from Kolab Systems.

Of the RoundCube-Next code on GitHub, the JMAP client and RoundCube server last saw commits in October of last year while the RoundCube mail app and client-side backbone have not seen commits since October of 2016. Those commits in 2017 to the JMAP and server code was very minimal.

When it comes to the IndieGoGo updates page, the last update was in May 2016 when there still was a promise of "pursuing the project goals", etc. The RoundCubeNext Twitter account has also been silent since the end of 2016.

Long story short, it looks highly doubtable that RoundCube Next will ever materialize in a meaningful way or anything real to show for this $103k USD open-source software fundraising campaign.