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Originally the TB3 teams said they would include or merge Lightning in to TB3 then backed out. It's a shame. This is the only real missing feature. We really didn't need tabs and some of the other gimmicks.

The CEO of this new Mozilla Messaging company writes the most insightful blog post containing the most hopeful look at the future of messaging and how Thunderbird could make a difference there... and slashdot links to mostly useless informationweek and zdnet stories?? Bleh...

David Ascher really gives me hope for where things are going - but he can't do it alone. And he can't get the people who'd help to do so if he's being ignored!

Not true. I got the impression it was more of pragmatic decision: FF is the application that is making the big impact on the web. With its ~15% and growing market share, it is causing web designers to write standards-compliant sites. This in turn makes life easier for Opera, Safari/KHTML, and any other standards-compliant browser without the market share to get designers to care if their sites are compatible with it. The success of Firefox allows Mozilla to effectively push for new web standards and so enable the next generation of web applications (like the new <video> tag). Remember that MS only restarted work on IE because it started losing market share, largely to FF. It only makes sense for an organization to focus its resources on where they make the most difference.

FF has generated lots of excitement from users and developers, resulting in lots of extensions and web apps being written for it; the same hasn't happened with Thunderbird (TB). It could be that TB, as it exists now, isn't the right solution for managing email. The new TB org is talking about creating a unified framework for all communication, managing IM with email with social networking sites together. That might be a better approach.

Also, the work on TB was largely orthogonal to work on FF, upon which the Mozilla Corp. had come to focus on, so it made sense spin it off into a separate organization; this gives TB more independence and control over itself. I don't know why this wasn't mentioned more, but Mozilla gave the new TB organization $3 million in seed money--more than the Mozilla Foundation itself started out with--and says it may give more later if the organization can't find alternative revenue sources.

See this FAQ for more info on the split. For more information on what is actually going on in the new mail organization, read this blog post. Basically, they are now trying to hire developers and figure out the best plan to move ahead.

A while ago, people also got angry at Mozilla for no longer supporting the App Suite. Well, Suite supporters continued work on it through their own community project called SeaMonkey (with the Mozilla Corp. still hosting the project). They've since completed significant code rewrites that many thought would be impossible, and are getting ready for an ambitious v2.0 release. The Suite is being better taken care of than before, and that's without any funding.

Google had no say in the matter. See this blog post for a debunking of a CNET article similar to the one mentioned by the poster. If Google were to stop supporting FF, I imagine Mozilla could just as easily make a similar deal with another search engine. Even if Mozilla lost all revenue sources, its reserves of $70 million (at the end of 2006) means it could operate as is for a while; that gives it independence. With the millions likely to keep coming in for some time to come, I wonder if they might set up some kind of endowment.

Not true. I got the impression it was more of pragmatic decision: FF is the application that is making the big impact on the web. With its ~15% and growing market share, it is causing web designers to write standards-compliant sites. This in turn makes life easier for Opera, Safari/KHTML, and any other standards-compliant browser without the market share to get designers to care if their sites are compatible with it. The success of Firefox allows Mozilla to effectively push for new web standards and so enable the next generation of web applications (like the new <video> tag). Remember that MS only restarted work on IE because it started losing market share, largely to FF. It only makes sense for an organization to focus its resources on where they make the most difference.

FF has generated lots of excitement from users and developers, resulting in lots of extensions and web apps being written for it; the same hasn't happened with Thunderbird (TB). It could be that TB, as it exists now, isn't the right solution for managing email. The new TB org is talking about creating a unified framework for all communication, managing IM with email with social networking sites together. That might be a better approach.

Also, the work on TB was largely orthogonal to work on FF, upon which the Mozilla Corp. had come to focus on, so it made sense spin it off into a separate organization; this gives TB more independence and control over itself. I don't know why this wasn't mentioned more, but Mozilla gave the new TB organization $3 million in seed money--more than the Mozilla Foundation itself started out with--and says it may give more later if the organization can't find alternative revenue sources.

See this FAQ for more info on the split. For more information on what is actually going on in the new mail organization, read this blog post. Basically, they are now trying to hire developers and figure out the best plan to move ahead.

A while ago, people also got angry at Mozilla for no longer supporting the App Suite. Well, Suite supporters continued work on it through their own community project called SeaMonkey (with the Mozilla Corp. still hosting the project). They've since completed significant code rewrites that many thought would be impossible, and are getting ready for an ambitious v2.0 release. The Suite is being better taken care of than before, and that's without any funding.

Google had no say in the matter. See this blog post for a debunking of a CNET article similar to the one mentioned by the poster. If Google were to stop supporting FF, I imagine Mozilla could just as easily make a similar deal with another search engine. Even if Mozilla lost all revenue sources, its reserves of $70 million (at the end of 2006) means it could operate as is for a while; that gives it independence. With the millions likely to keep coming in for some time to come, I wonder if they might set up some kind of endowment.

Both Scott McGregor and David Bienvenu have posted that they are leaving Mozilla Corp. My understanding from chats with them weeks ago (I hope I'm not divulging anything that I shouldn't) is that they have decided to start a new venture. They've worked on Thunderbird and its predecessors within Mozilla and Nestcape for a long time, and I can certainly understand their desire to do something different[...]

We're recruiting experienced developers now to focus specifically on Thunderbird and more broadly on improving mail and communications in general. Everyone involved full-time in the development of Thunderbird has been offered a role and we're moving forward as quickly as possible to hire additional developers[...]

The opinions of the core Thunderbird community are more important than many, so if you care about Thunderbird, please let me know what you think. Now is a great time to influence the future of Thunderbird.

I plan to continue on, as a volunteer, with my role as a module owner for the Thunderbird project.

I intend to stay involved with Thunderbird and to continue on as a module owner.