"You may not open up the code and tinker with it unless you want to expose oyurself to a lawsuit. It is Opera's intellectual property and the EULA specifically states you may not do as you're suggesting. As for a "mail" client coming from Opera, I seriously doubt that possibility. Just continue to use 12.17 and the mail portion or the standalone mail client. It should be fine for the foreseeable future."
You misunderstand me, I am not suggesting hacking the code base, but I would love to see Opera do the right thing and release the code as open source. After all, 12.17 is now deadware or abandonware and they have moved on to Chromium. Having sysop'd over the years, in email primarily, occasionally you will see a company do the right thing, but very seldom in my experience.
I shall continue to the use the email splitoff, as it is first-rate stuff. Pity.
Thanks for listening.
N