Linux e-mail vendor @Mail Monday released an open source version of its Webmail client and is making it available for free.

The client, @Mail Open, is AJAX-based and works against any e-mail server that supports the IMAP and POP3 e-mail protocols, including those from Microsoft and IBM/Lotus.

The software, which runs on a Web server, is available now for download.

The company, which has a commercial messaging platform that includes a client, server and appliances, plans to create an open source community around @Mail Open, which it touts as a replacement for clients such as IMP, SquirrelMail, and RoundCube.

"Traditional desktop mail clients are in decline; the future of email is via a web interface," @Mail founder Ben Duncan wrote Monday on the company blog.

The @Mail Open client includes spell check, address book and video mail and is offered under an Apache 2.0 Open Source license. Users also can jump from the free client to the commercial version, which adds calendaring, and a groupware and antivirus module.

"Part of our motivation is to get our brand out in front of people, but also to give back to the open source community," said Corey Bissaillon, vice president of sales and business development for @Mail. "They have provided us these tremendous back-end applications, such as MYSQL and SpamAssassin, and we have been able to unify them with our Web-base administrative interface."

The @Mail Webmail client interface was developed in JavaScript and HTML using PHP and Perl. All source code will be available, according to the company.