Email Call to Action

July 25th, 2007

Do you think email is important part of Internet life? Are you interested in seeing something interesting and exciting happen in the mail space? Believe that Thunderbird provides a much-needed option for open source email alternatives and want to see it get more attention on its own? Long to see something more innovative than Thunderbird in the mail space happen?

So does Mozilla.

Are you someone who could contribute to such an effort? Do you have expertise and a desire to be involved in an innovative mail effort and/or a focused Thunderbird effort? If so, Mozilla would like to hear from you.

Thunderbird

Mozilla has been supporting Thunderbird as a product since the beginning of the Foundation. The result is a good, solid product that provides an open alternative for desktop mail. However, the Thunderbird effort is dwarfed by the enormous energy and community focused on the web, Firefox and the ecosystem around it. As a result, Mozilla doesn’t focus on Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don’t expect this to change in the foreseeable future. We are convinced that our current focus — delivering the web, mostly through browsing and related services — is the correct priority. At the same time, the Thunderbird team is extremely dedicated and competent, and we all want to see them do as much as possible with Thunderbird.

We have concluded that we should find a new, separate organizational setting for Thunderbird; one that allows the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny.

Mozilla is exploring the options for an organization specifically focused on serving Thunderbird users. A separate organization focused on Thunderbird will both be able to move independently and will need to do so to deepen community and user involvement. We’re not yet sure what this organization will look like. We’ve thought about a few different options. I’ve described them below. If you’ve got a different idea please let us know.

Option 1: Create a new non-profit organization analogous to the Mozilla Foundation — a Thunderbird foundation. If it turns out Thunderbird generates a revenue model from the product as Firefox does, then a Thunderbird foundation could follow the Mozilla Foundation model and create a subsidiary.

This model probably offers the maximum independence for Thunderbird. But it is also the most organizationally complex. There is lots of overhead to create a new foundation, find good board members, recreate the administrative load. When we started the Mozilla Foundation Mitch Kapor, our-then business development lead and I spent a bunch of time on this work. The current Thunderbird developers don’t have this level of business assistance. If there is revenue that requires a subsidiary then the overhead goes up even further. There is serious concern that this will detract from serving Thunderbird users, since the core Thunderbird team is small and developer-focused.

Option 2: Create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird. This has less overhead, although it still requires a new company that serves the mission of the Mozilla Foundation. In this case the Mozilla Foundation board and personnel would remain involved in Thunderbird. Thunderbird would continue to need to be balanced and prioritized with Mozilla’s focus on delivering the web through Firefox, its ecosystem and the Open Web as the platform. The Thunderbird effort may therefore still end up with less focus and less flexibility.

Option 3: Thunderbird is released as a community project much like SeaMonkey, and a small independent services and consulting company is formed by the Thunderbird developers to continue development and care for Thunderbird users. Many open source projects use this model, it could be simpler and more effective than a Mozilla Foundation subsidiary. However, creating this as a non-profit would be extremely difficult. Running a services company as an independent taxable company is the simplest operational answer. We would need to figure out how such a company relates to the Thunderbird product itself. What’s the best way for such a company to release a product? How does that relate to the community project that stays within Mozilla?

We don’t know the best answer yet. And we don’t expect to without a broad public discussion and involvement, which we hope this message will trigger. Today someone suggested to me that perhaps there is another foundation that might be a good home for Thunderbird. I hadn’t thought of this; it’s a creative idea.

If you’ve got thoughts or — even better — want to get involved, please let us know. Some suggestions for making sure Mozilla is aware of your comments are at the end of this post.

Broader Mail Initiative

We would also like to find contributors committed to creating and implementing a new vision of mail. We would like to have a roadmap that brings wild innovation, increasing richness and fundamental improvements to mail. And equally importantly, we would like to find people with relevant expertise who would join with Mozilla to make something happen.

If we can see a path to an innovative mail initiative in addition to supporting existing Thunderbird users, then we are interested in doing so. If we find the best way to improve mail is incremental development of Thunderbird as already planned, then we’ve learned something extremely valuable as well.

Mozilla has a range of resources — funds, code, etc. — that can be applied to this problem. We’re looking for people with expertise, vision and leadership capabilities. If you are such a person, or know of such people, please let us know.

Discussion

If you’re interested in these topics, let us know. The web is great at distributed discussions, let’s see what we think about mail. I’ll moderate comments and trackbacks here quickly. If you want to make absolutely sure that Mozilla can find your thoughts easily, feel free to leave a pointer to them here. There’s also a page for each discussion on the Mozillla wiki, although they require you to log-in to edit. So if you have a Mozilla wiki account or are willing to create one, you can find these pages at the locations below. Go to the “Discussion” tab at the top to add your thoughts or pointers back to your posts.

Thunderbird
Mail Initiative

Categories: Mozilla | Tags: e-mail, Thunderbird

188 comments for “Email Call to Action”

1
R.A. Martin said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:04 am:

Yes, email is an important part of Internet life and a desktop-based application like Thunderbird is still needed. A question (somewhat) related to this topic: Qualcomm stopped selling Eudora on May 1st saying an open source version of Eudora is being developed by Mozilla and will be free of charge. Would that effort be moved along with the Thunderbird effort?
2
Nation said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:36 am:

I uninstalled thunderbird after I did not open it for many months. Gmail and Google Business Solutions (allowing domain names to use gmail) has ended my general need for some program on my computer.

The only time I might need something on my computer is when I am traveling with a laptop and no net connection … oh yeah, google gears might eliminate that need for a program on my comp soonish.
3
Phillip Rhodes said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:52 am:

In a way I hate to see this, because there is so much potential rooted in having XULRunner as the base, and a thriving ecosystem of apps (Firefox, Seamonkey, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Chatzilla, etc) running on top of it… and creating wedges in the overall Mozilla community (in the most inclusive sense) seems like a mistake to me.

BUT… it might pay off in the long-run. Historically the Mozilla project (and later the Mozilla Foundation) have been pretty poor at working with the larger community, IMO. The projects have always had an arrogance about them, that I assume is rooted in the Netscape heritage. Giving TBird and Seamonkey (and presumably eventually the other non-Firefox projects) separate homes might allow them to become real community driven projects. Eg, not projects where a bug gets 8 zillion votes and stays marked as “WONTFIX” because it doesn’t fit the vision of one insider qabal member.

It would be nice to keep the synergy between projects though… How about if Seamonkey, Thunderbird, Chatzilla, Sunbird, etc. ALL wind up at a new home together, fork XULRunner, and just go do their own thing? Just consider the “Seamonkey browser” as essentially a fork of Firefox, with standalone distribution, and Seamonkey proper as a distribution consisting of the Browser, Thunderbird, Sunbird, etc. along with whatever glue code is needed to allow them to work together seamlessly.
4
Marc said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:55 am:

Maybe my tinfoil hat is just wrapped a bit too tight today, but what’s the odds that Google pressured the MoCo folks to simply cut ties on the stand-alone Thunderbird mail client, since they (Google) are trying to move the average home user to web-based Gmail, anyway?

Any bets?
5
Unaghost said on July 26th, 2007 at 11:05 am:

*WHAT* do we read here ?

“Are you interested in seeing something interesting and exciting happen…”

“If you’re interested in these topics, let us know.”

“Are you someone who could contribute to such an effort?”

So, just found a “Mitchell Baker” foundation so that Mitchell has something to play with and can make meaningless press statements and blog entries – while the rest of us is continues with the development work.

Mrs. Baker: Please, just resign from your job and let the rest of the community and the foundation do their work. Mozilla Foundation, as well as Firefox and Thunderbird is not your personal plaything you are directing and it is not a toy whose direction you are governing – but it is rather an innovative piece of open source software which has been, is and will be developed by the community.

So stop asking useless CEO and PR-oriented questions and use the resources of the foundation to get the work done which has to be done – or resign.

I am really fed up with the perspective that one of the finest open source developments is going down the drain because some strategic PR lobbyist wants to make headline news.
6
Phillip Rhodes’ Weblog said on July 26th, 2007 at 11:12 am:

Mozilla Foundation to drop / spin-off Thunderbird? Fine, fork the entire freaking Mozilla project and start anew.

From Mitchell Baker’s weblog :

Mozilla has been supporting Thunderbird as a product since the beginning of the Foundation. The result is a good, solid product that provides an open alternative for desktop mail. However, the Thunderbird effort is d
7
DigDug said on July 26th, 2007 at 11:24 am:

From my experience hacking at TB, its far far FAR more difficult than hacking Firefox. Writing extensions is the same and whatnot, but the TB backend and frontends both are just hard to hook into, and not really documented anywhere. That said, I kinda look forward to this change. It just seems like a good time to sit down and rethink how the interfaces work, both its front and backend sides, and write something thats better. Something that developers can tinker with to create some new mail paradigms, and something that’s simpler and more powerful for end users.

It feels like a much bigger problem than FF had when it started, but I don’t think it’ll ever get done in the current paradigm (which seems pretty focused on just adding new features with each release).

So I say go for it. I’m willing to pull up my sleeves and try to get through XPCOM puberty so I can help out.
8
andrew said on July 26th, 2007 at 12:02 pm:

Spinning thunderbird off will harm it, not hurt it. Try leveraging the brand and call it “Firefox Mail” and call the browser “Firefox Browser”.

You need to come at this from a marketing mindset.

andrew
9
JL Sigman said on July 26th, 2007 at 12:18 pm:

Please do not dump, get rid of, or otherwise stop working on Thunderbird. I do not like web-based email clients (Windows Live Hotmail is absolutely awful), and I really don’t want to have to put Outlook Express on my computer to access my BellSouth email account (we won’t even go into how outdated their webmail client is).
10
Pete said on July 26th, 2007 at 12:28 pm:

Option 1 is the best, as Thunderbird is an excellent piece of software which deserves this step. Like Firefox it is there to make one of the best e-mail-clients free!

Choose option 1 !!!

All the best & thanks for your excellent work!
Pete
11
James said on July 26th, 2007 at 1:24 pm:

Thunderbird is a great product, with a lot of potential. With further development of Thunderbird and Lightning, it could crush Outlook. We need a good open source e-mail client with full RSS functionalities. I say option 1 or 2. But whatever you do, don’t let Thunderbird die.
12
Michael said on July 26th, 2007 at 1:27 pm:

I see Portable Apps as the next big wave.
I love having Firefox and Thunderbird on my USB stick and being able to browse the web and check my email from any computer as if it were my home computer!

Once Sunbird/Lightning gets flying then Thunderbird will really be a serious beast to contend with on the open market. Also who says they cant stick a search box on Thunderbird? Google does email and desktop searches too.

I highly doubt that Google would be happy about this move and it can’t be because it’s a competing product (hell, Skype is included in Google Pack and it’s a direct competitor to Google Talk) With Google increasingly interested in the desktop, having a desktop gmail client (Thunderbird) fits nicely.
13
BAG07 said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:00 pm:

The reason I threw away Outlook is because of the relationship between Firefox and T’bird. I would never have made the switch without my excellent experience with Firefox. T’bird is not perfect … yet, but it is a good email application with plenty of extensions and configurability (sp) to make it more powerful and fit your own personal needs. I would hate to see it separate from Mozilla and I would hate even more to see it die … which it could if separated. This move sounds akin to OpenOffice deciding to remove the spreadsheet or presentation function because someone thought it didn’t fit, didn’t have enough users, etc.
14
ronlm said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:19 pm:

I have to agree with Ben above. As a user of both Firefox and Thunderbird ( as well as the Lightning Calendar Plugin), I’m saddend to see that the Foundation does not see Thunderbird as part of its future. Without the ‘Mozilla’ moniker, Thunderbird will probably slowly dissapear.

I would think that one of the Foundation’s objectives would be to have an alternative to IE/Exchange, that works across platforms. If Thunderbird was not part of the plan, then what? Firefox is great, but the browser is not the only web component. Web mail has its place, but can’t always replace the desktop client ( Despite all the jumping up and down about Web 2.0 and Ajax. This comes from developers, not end users.) What is really needed is something to counter Exchange.

As far a gmail, etc are concerned – yea right. I’ve seen how Google handles privacy. Thats all I need is all my email, docs, etc living on Google’s servers. I don’t think so. I won’t even get into hotmail and MS. I’ll leave that for another rant.
15
Futurepower(R) said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:24 pm:

Winifred is the problem, not Thunderbird.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=256215&cid=20003353
16
Baptiste said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:31 pm:

sorry, but this looks like another case of the MoFo following the money and the hipe. As fashionable as the “rich internet applications” might be, there is still life ont the Internet outside of port 80. Sure, most of the MoFo users today may be using FireFox on Windows to read their Gmail account. But catering only to that narrow ecosystem is the mark of a dangerous short-termism.
17
Just another seafaring ape said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:38 pm:

Let’s sum up this blog post in a few short sentences:

“Hi everyone, Google 0wnz us, so we’ve been killing off Thunderbird. But now we want to make it official! Please choose whether we should A) not fund tb development, B) not fund it at all or C) disown it completely”
18
Braden McDaniel said on July 26th, 2007 at 2:44 pm:

Will the Mozilla Foundation be changing its name to the Firefox Foundation?

Serious question.

Why does, “You can determine your own destiny,” sound a whole lot like, “You can’t rely on us anymore.” Does the motivation for this spin-off come from within the Thunderbird community? Or is accommodating Thunderbird perceived as too much of an inconvenience to Firefox developers?

I guess that I have a hard time believing that Thunderbird’s problems getting developers are attributable to existing in Firefox’s shadow. The question I have is: Is the Mozilla Foundation interested in creating reusable software, or just a Web browser? I.e., what does this mean for the much-delayed XULRunner?

A XULRunner Foundation sounds like a fine idea.
19
Danny said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:01 pm:

Oh no, don’t dump TB. It’s the only Mozilla product I use. It’s a great email client, and I just have too many important messages on it. Migrating to another client would be a major headache. Please reconsider.

Oh, maybe you can get some of the FF evangelists like Asa to do some real work by assigning them to the TB team. 🙂
20
Chris Rebert said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:02 pm:

Please, please ignore any calls for Thunderbird to take on Outlook. I use Thunderbird frequently. I like it pretty well. Know why? Because it’s *just* a mail application. It’s precisely because it doesn’t have all of the other enterprisey junk that I love it. I use GNOME and T-bird is about my only option for a mail app. Balsa seems kind of iffy and Evolution is trying to be just like Outlook, so I use T-bird. I’ve never had a problem with it.

I also agree with those who desire T-bird to stay integrated w/ the foundation so it can benefit from Firefox’s popularity and boulstering of the Mozilla brand name.
21
vsync said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:11 pm:

This seems like a terrible plan. Are the codebases going to fork ever farther?

The general public and Steve Jobs think everything is “the Web”. Software developers should know better.
22
Eddy Nigg said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:26 pm:

That’s a sad announcement for Thunderbird! Is this because it hurts adoption of Gmail? I guess not!

However Thunderbird gives me what I need today and I use TB 24/7 without a rest. However in order to attract more interest the focus must be on competing with Outlook, mobile sync/access. calendaring and the like. Lightning together with Thunderbird really started to look good and I really scratch my head now why this sudden change…

Without more information, this seems to me like a mistake!

Eddy Nigg, StartCom
23
Isaac Garcia said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:31 pm:

I wonder if Mozilla or Google are concerned about the potential conflict between Thunderbird and Gmail?

hmmmmm……………
24
TomS said on July 26th, 2007 at 3:58 pm:

Please dont drop/outsource the work on Thunderbird. The Mozilla eMail-Client is the best multiplatform client and cant substituted by a webmailer. TB benefits from the synergy of solving common bugs/feature-requests of Firefox (like S/MIME-functions, certicate-handling etc.)

The mail client was always a important part of the mozilla suite and still is.
If not sure, ask your users about the importance of the eMail client. You may be surprised.
25
Adam Robinson said on July 26th, 2007 at 4:04 pm:

What relationship is there between the Firefox user base and the Thunderbird user base?

I don’t want to use gmail or hotmail (privacy concerns). I want to operate disconnected. And I want to work with tools that support both Linux as Windows.

If Thunderbird goes, the obvious options to replace it are SeaMonkey or Opera, and it might impact my Firefox usage.

Adam
26
JC said on July 26th, 2007 at 4:34 pm:

I personally will be unhappy if Thunderbird goes away. I much prefer over Outlook, Eudora, and other mail programs. Easy to setup, easy to use, open.

I also agree with others here, I don’t think you are being truthful with the “empowering Thunderbird” talk, it’s most likely a revenue issue, and then a conflict with Gmail thing.

And there really isn’t a substitute, for me, unless Gmail starts doing IMAP, for my different computers and business needs.
27
Sigs said on July 26th, 2007 at 4:35 pm:

I’ve tried Firefox on and off for 3 years. I’ve used Thunderbird exclusively for 3 years (with some brief on the side email experimentation with other email systems). Get Thunderbird away from Firefox. Thunderbird works. Firefox needs a LARGE team to work on it because invariably issues that significantly affect my computer’s performance crop up which is why I keep dropping it. I’m fearful if Mozilla keeps working on Thunderbird they will turn it into the monstrosity Firefox has become.
28
Mister B said on July 26th, 2007 at 7:11 pm:

Great, even more confusion in Mozilla Land.

We used to have “mozilla”. There were various alphas, betas and releases. Everything was covered. Life was simple.

Then “mozilla” got split into “firefox” and “thunderbird”. Plus “gecko”, the guts under it all. Some people preferred the intergration of “mozilla” along with it’s more advanced configuration options, so they soldiered on with “seamonkey”. Initially we had release, alphas and betas. Now we have two supported releases(1.5 and 2.0) plus various alphas, trees, trunks and branches. Plus various point releases. Add in a new engine(XUL Runner?) under the hood, I think. Life is complicated.

“seamonkey” seems to be languishing due to fewer developers.

Now “thunderbird” looks like it is going to get kicked out of the nest. Someone will determine if it can fly or not on the way down.

Any sort of integrated platform, such as calendering and instant messaging, has to be pieced together. Not being part of a standard package makes it much less likely to be used as well. Outlook continues to dominate. IMAP is an oddity. Perhaps the MoFo could have pushed extensions to POP3 and SMTP to ISPs.
29
nix said on July 26th, 2007 at 7:21 pm:

Keep supporting Thunderbird; it befits from being under the FF umbrella. Web, email and calendar is huge part of the desktop experience.

just my .02 cents worth.
30
Mohamed Samy said on July 26th, 2007 at 7:24 pm:

Strange coincidence! I was thinking, a few weeks ago, about the features I wanted in my ideal email client.
I posted a rough outline in the Future of Mail wiki page ( at http://wiki.mozilla.org/MailNews_Talk:Future_of_Mail), the bit titled “next generation Thunderbird”.

I left this comment as a pointer.I’ll try to add more detail in the coming days. Unable to do that right now 🙁

The general idea is to 1) make it more extensive (like Outlook) and 2) make it much smarter at searching and organizing information.

Also, To Alex Hudson: the Bongo project seems very, very interesting. it already includes some of the ideas I had (like natural language data entry). I’d be very happy to see it integrated with Thundebird!
31
Sam Damon said on July 26th, 2007 at 8:44 pm:

The only thing that worries me about this move is the following scenario:

First Thunderbird is cast off by MozFo, then Camino.

Camino’s development effort predates Firefox’s. IMO, the Camino team has accomplished a great deal with significant resource limitations (one of their tinderbox machines, *a 7-year old Power Mac G3* was only decommissioned in early July!), and yet there exists in my mind the perception MozFo would cheerfully be rid of the project.

That’s why I look at MozFo’s casting off of Thunderbird with a bit of trepidation.
32
Elias said on July 26th, 2007 at 8:55 pm:

I love Thunderbird but the ONLY two things that keep me with outlook is painless activesync with my mobile, and the tasks manager. If Thunderbird picks up ground here, then I will switch in a heartbeat
33
Karl Rohde said on July 26th, 2007 at 9:01 pm:

I find it hard to understand some of the harsh negative comments. Thunderbird is a great tool, but still needs a lot of work. Moving it to it’s own team, unrestrained by other issues is clearly the best option for it. Instead of being negative, how about you put your money where your mouth is an offer support financially to what ever entity takes over development of Thunderbird.

– Those that can, do; those that can’t, moan.
34
Dan said on July 26th, 2007 at 9:10 pm:

I’m a happy Thunderbird user–it’s much better than any of the commercial clients I’ve tried (though still far from perfect).

Most of the attention (and revenue) for the foundation come from Firefox. But, it seems like we’re reaching a point where FF improvements are a bit like counting how many angels can fit on the head of a pin. It’s getting pretty close to rendering every bit of HTML and CSS that complies with every major standard perfectly.

Once it does that, it seems like there are two choices: Make up new standards, or work on other projects that take advantage of the platform.

Making up new standards seems bad. The majority of Internet users are using browsers other than FF. Let’s stay standards-compliant, with a set of standards that are widely supported.

So, it would seem to me, that rather than disbanding FF, Moz should instead focus a lot more effort/resources/money on Thunderbird. There’s a world of low-hanging fruit of improvements to the mail client that can/should be made.

Among them are better filtering (Thunderbird’s bayesian filters are merely ok), Search (TB’s is slow), hackability (it’s much harder than FF), and calendar integration.

IIRC, in the early days, TB commercial support provided a lot of the $$ for FF development. Now, it would be great if the millions pouring in to FF went to support 5-10 full-time developers for Thunderbird.

While I am in no particular position to speak for the foundation, I find this very disappointing.
35
DonGato said on July 26th, 2007 at 9:14 pm:

I have no complains with current development. You always have add-ons (aka extensions) to extend features or change functionality as you wish.

I agree some features are missing and would be nice to have. In any case they are not that important IMO or would require new server functionality. Every day I convince a new user to switch from bloated clients like Outlook. And they never look back.

In my opinion we don’t need a separate project or fork. Is it fine as it is now. Adding much more features would make it what I’m leaving, a bloated client. The only thing we need is a new powerful server protocol that challenges Exchange/Notes corporate features.
36
Channy Yun said on July 26th, 2007 at 9:41 pm:

I know Mozilla Corp. don’t have any affords to care other projects except Firefox. It’s right to concentrate Firefox itself for Open Web environment for most of people.

But, Thunderbird is not already only email client, but is the information broker for email, newsgroup, RSS and other web services including Open APIs. Also it has possibilities to evolve new web data client of rich formats.

Option 1 and 3 is very burden to Thuderbird developers and community. I think there are many TB users in the world and they want to continue Mozilla’s care. So I suggest revised Option 2 that Mozilla Corp. changes to Firefox Corp. and make new Corp. named in Thunderbird Corp.

But, the problem is funding or business model for TB corp. as like Mozilla Corp. right now. There are many web-based email companies in the world, TB corp. can make business relationship with them as like easy Gmail account setting.
37
Wangtam said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:20 pm:

Thunderbird 意欲脱离 Mozilla

– Thunderbird 意欲脱离 Mozilla – K-Lite Mega Codec Pack 3.3.0 – Review: Nokia E90 – 网络美胸大赛论坛大秀女性胸部照片引争议 – 13 Rules for making web pages fast (Yahoo) – Coming Soon: The Pownce Public API – ChoreWars helps you and your “team”…
38
Unni Nambiar said on July 26th, 2007 at 10:49 pm:

I believe Option 1 is the right way to go. I’m re-posting most of what I posted on Scott’s blog. There are two more options here. (which may have already been suggested by someone else)

Option 0: (preferred)
Instead of making MoFo more Firefox centric, they should go the other way and make it less browser centric. MoFo should morph into an umbrella organization and create Firefox Foundation/Corporation as a child and grandchild subsidiaries. Similarly they should do the same with Thunderbird and create Thunderbird Foundation/Corporation subsidiaries. This would also protect against unnecessary forking of common modules. This is Option 1 without its challenges.

Option 4: (less preferred)
Find a new host Foundation that already has the organizational bandwidth to support this project. The Apache Foundation seems like the only other powerhouse foundation that can do this other than Mozilla. (There may be others I�m not aware of.) This is again an Option 1 variant without its challenges.

I believe Option 3 is a bit shortsighted and convenient in the short run. Ultimately, the TB folks need to realize that MoFo gives it the right street cred, as far as corporate decision makers are concerned. Granted they are a great team of developers, but a new organization will be just another new unproven player that will need to build its reputation before the corporate world bites again. This will push back TB adoption as an MS alternative by years, which is sad considering they are so close now with the lightning integration (which I wish would speed up a lot more).

MoFo needs to see the untapped IT budgets waiting to be freed once a truly viable Outlook alternative is created. Webmail, Phonemail and Desktop mail are all complementary to each other for business users. We will never use just one of these. Hence TB does not intrude into Gmail space as many have suggested. (Unless Google is planning a desktop offline extension to gmail as an outlook-killer, in which case TB is as good as dead.)

Choose wisely.
39
Steven Alyari said on July 26th, 2007 at 11:41 pm:

I think the Mozilla Foundation ought to consider funding Thunderbird development. The users are definitely rooting for Thunderbird, a multi-platform free/libre e-mail client, which could one day deliver the features they so desire.

Thunderbird is similar to Mozilla, the browser, in it’s early days. Many of us were rooting for it and using it in it’s infancy, and when 1.0 came out we spread the word like wildfire and gave rise to Firefox.

In my view Thunderbird is still not at that 1.0 stage, it needs something on the level of a Gecko type technology but for mail. This type of strategic change would attract developer support of a e-mail client which probably has the and passionate user following.

If Mozilla drops Thunderbird, it will likely die due to further lack of developer interest or funding. Diverting some of the resources away from Firefox and to Thunderbird would be worth it. All mail clients suck, we really need one that doesn’t.
40
Derek He said on July 27th, 2007 at 12:30 am:

Mozilla wants to drop Thunderbird?
Mozilla is like to be Firefox Foundation
41
Ashish said on July 27th, 2007 at 12:31 am:

i have been using thunderbird sincly early days, and am addicted to it. However, i am also concerned with slowness with innovative features appearing in it. Being a developer, i am working in making it taste email analytics, which could spawn other useful features. Some of those i wish to implement are listed at http://jatspeak.com/blog/?p=8

Its true that it is facing growing competitions with some nice products like zimbra, gmail and others. The efforts in reviving it are far less compared to Fox. It needs resuiting and “the” foundation has been mostly condoning it. You have a product that has immense potential to drive itself into board rooms, which is mostly outlook territory. With google’s increasing efforts in putting everything on the web, it is going to kill the thunder out of the bird.

There is some difference in basic use cases of firefox and thunderbird as far as enterprise customers are concerned. EMail holds significant data, which is prime to any organisation. Which is why they end up making billy rich. Added work has to be done to take thunderbird to that level.

As far as different options are concerned, i would see it to be building an independent foundation in order to succeed. It requires some serious attention.

One thing. I wish bird really thunders some day.
42
Jeroen Roland said on July 27th, 2007 at 1:12 am:

I find Thunderbird a good program. But why make your it better with goolgle Gmail. design it more form Gmail than form pop mail! I have problems with my router can not open poort. But my web browser function good on poort 80: Why make Thunderbird better to e webbrowser email cliet that i can read my gmail with Mozilla thunderbird.
43
Alan Lord said on July 27th, 2007 at 1:21 am:

I am a long-time user of Thunderbird, initially on Windows and now on Ubuntu Linux. I use it with the Lightning plug-in. I run several businesses and my TB client connects to about 10 separate email accounts on various servers (including g and hotmail). I also subscribe and use the newsreader features constantly. I NEVER use webmail unless I am travelling…

From an outsider’s perspective, I have always felt like the Mozilla org was quite a closed and unwelcoming community, so my suggestion would be to just free TB and Lightning to the community at large and let them get on with it.

In OSS, if a product fills a need, and delivers good performance, it’s community will grow and prosper. If it doesn’t it will die or fork. Don’t drag it down with the sinking ship, let it go…

Alan
44
Karl said on July 27th, 2007 at 1:40 am:

I am just a private user writing from Germany. Thunderbird is well known in this country and highly valued by so many users. To my mind there must be still a lot of potential in Thunderbird. I therefore cannot understand that Mozilla is considering to drop it. Stop this nonsense and instead invest in this fantastic email client. It should even be possible to make money to make a lot of money with it!
45
arhgi said on July 27th, 2007 at 2:04 am:

I do agree with other I have read above.
– Emailing is the second (and for a lot of people the first) ingredient of internet so I do think this is part of Mozilla goals to support Thunderbird
– I don’t think putting Thunderbird out or just apart of Mozilla will help it as it will have less visibility with the lost of Mozilla brightness.
Perhaps all that Tbird need is more communication from Mozilla with help requirements to make it have a community as Ff has?
Even if it’s true that there isn’t a “mailer war” as there is a “browser war” and make press speaks of Firefox. But why don’t make it happen?
46
Jean said on July 27th, 2007 at 2:38 am:

So the Foundation’s only aim is to fight Windows? What about “taking back the web”? Aren’t e-mails very closely related to the web? So now we give up everything we believe in? I guess some day we will have to pay to use Firefox.

I personally think it is a very stupid idea to let every project down just to keep Firefox. Sure Firefox is a great product, but I do not have seen real ground-braking improvements in the past which for me as a user are really helpful.

Thundebird needs much more improvements. It is a good software, but its possibilities are not exploited yet. As Derek He says: “I wish bird really thunders some day”.
47
Don Albrecht said on July 27th, 2007 at 4:20 am:

I’ve used Thunderbird personally for years. I’ve always had small problems getting others to adopt it. The following 3 issues regularly have presented themselves. 1. The lack of calendar sharing, 2. The address book being inadequate, 3. The inability to synchronize sent messages between the web access point and the local mail client. It wasn’t until VERY recently that solutions to any of these issues presented themselves through the use of the recent sunbird release, the ability to synchronize to google calendars. The address book continues to be lacking in the eyes of many users I support.

There is definitely a place for thunderbird. But I would argue that the future lies in continued iterative improvement. The integration with social networking systems for improved address book management. A dramatically improved RSS reader and partnerships with online solution providers like google & zimbra to ensure ease of inter-operation.
48
ericbe said on July 27th, 2007 at 4:29 am:

For me, the best organization to deal with Thunderbird is the OpenOffice.org community. I remember reading the OO.org was interested is distributing Thunderbird with Openoffice.
Where Gmail does not replace TH for me is when I want to distribute documents. Moreover, OO now have a good database, need email for e-mailing and Instant Messenger for the work in collaboration.

Openoffice and Thunderbird share the same vision of the desktop which contrast with those of Google.

Are the Mozilla foundation and Google closer than one I first thought ?
49
Wing Flanagan said on July 27th, 2007 at 4:32 am:

I would like to echo the call for another foundation to be launched to further the development of Thunderbird. This alternative is second in preference only to Mozilla continuing to harbor the project (which, I understand will simply not happen).

Thunderbird is an important part of my digital life. I use multiple operating systems and am able to use my e-mail transparently across all of them. Yes, you will note I have a GMail account, and that the same could be said for accessing it from a web browser. Call me old fashioned; there is still a place for traditional e-mail clients in this increasingly webbified world.

For Thunderbird to thrive, it needs to grow into the full-fledged Outlook replacement it wants to be. The foundation has been set, and it’s solid: Thunderbird is a hell of a good e-mail program. If it’s going to leave the nest, it needs to do so backed by an entity with the resources to help it grow.
50
cantalou said on July 27th, 2007 at 6:41 am:

I’m so disappointed.
Mozilla was my personal choice because it was an open source software. I switched to Firefox and Thunderbird as my personal browser and e-mail client for same reason.

I convinced my company to move from IE to Firefox. I started to install in my company Thunderbird and Lightning. I was confident that Thunderbird + Lightning would speed up development and finally become one day a real alternative to Outlook thanks to Mozilla Corp support and huge resources.

Stand alone Thunderbird means another e-mail client on the market with very low chance to become Outlook open source alternative.

Mozilla Corp. cashcow is Firefox. I would expect Mozilla Corp. to take advantage of his big money to support other application that doesn’t make big money but bring real big added value to open source users and web community. Thunderbird + Lightning will bring huge added value to open source community. Think about all Outlook + Exchange users without open source alternative.

In my opinion, Mozilla Manifesto bring a wider vision of Internet and not only on browser. E-Mail *IS* part of Internet. I’m disappointed by Mozilla Corp leader’s vision focused only on browser.

If Thunderbird is not anymore supported by Mozilla Corp. my interest in Firefox would decrease. I use FireFox to support all open source software and not only to have an open source browser.

I really hope that Thunderbird will keep full support (technical, human and financial) from Mozilla Corp.