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Thunderbird to Leave Mozilla Foundation
An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a 'new separate organizational setting' as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox. Citing a blog post by Chief Lizard Wrangler Mitchell Baker, MozillaZine outlines the three possibilities for Thunderbird that are being considered: 'one is to create a entirely new non-profit, which would offer maximum independence for Thunderbird but is organisationally complex. A second option is to create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird, which would keep the Mozilla Foundation involved but may mean that Thunderbird continues to be neglected in favour of Firefox. A final option is to recast Thunderbird as community project, similar to SeaMonkey, and set up a small independent services and consulting company to continue development. However, there are concerns over how the Thunderbird product, project and company would interact'. Lead Thunderbird developer Scott MacGregor favours the third option."
Before it even hit MozillaZine... and what do I get? Nothing.
You have to wonder why thunderbird doesn't compete as well in the email marketspace as firefox does in the browser market space. I suspect its because thunderbird doesn't really offer anything more than its competitors and because it has few must-have extensions. But it could also be the prevalence of web mail. So what would make a killer email client?
Philosophy.
If the Mozilla Foundation isn't as interested in Thunderbird, why would a subsidiary of it (ala the 2nd option) or a brand-new entity (ala the 1st) bring a whole lot of enthusiasm? Let the users have it.
Thank God for evolution.
But why do I keep using it? Because I hope it will become as good as Firefox and switching email clients is never as straightforward as one would like. And I'm not saying FF does not have flaws, in my opinion benefits outweighs the flaws. I'm not sure if this is true with TB. I have no idea, and I'm probably not alone failing to predict the future, if a new status for Thunderbird will actually help the project or not... I guess we'll find out in a few months/years!
Animoog.org
I use Thnderbird at home. Every day @ work using Outlook reminds me why I prefer Thunderbird.
I do have some gripes when it comes to the way most extensions and plugins are handled for it though, much like other people are saying...
I'd rather see it stay in the Mozilla foundation but if it must leave then I would prefer the third option as well. The second one really sucks...
This is disappointing news, and begs the question why the Mozilla Foundation can't provide the needed resources to Thunderbird?
Given the Mozilla Foundation HAS a substantial amount of money, presumably spinning Thunderbird out into a separate entity will mean Thunderbird will have even less money than it has today because it can not be cross-subsidised by Firefox's search revenues. Spinning Thunderbird out, which will cost it more and earn it less, doesn't sound like a recipe for success if your problem is lack of resources.
I, for one, am not looking forward to the idea of having Tbird as a community project, unless it is headed by a small team of very focused individuals. A mass free-for-all will simply destroy it due to feature bloat and a multitude of ideas around what an email client should be.
What should an email client do? How about -- email. Just email. Not email and newsgroups, not email and collaboration, not email and Facebook -- just plain old simple email. Sure, I'll concede to HTML email for you folks who can't stand to not have a little color in your lives and insist on spamming my box with your yellow backgrounds and pink text, but it's still email.
Tbird is awesome and makes almost no waves because of a) marketing -- the browser wars are much more publicized, b) marketing -- Microsoft isn't really trying to take over the world with Outlook, because they know it sucks, and c) marketing -- There's not much word-of-mouth going on because email mostly works with just about any client and people put up with it, so there's not as much of a scramble for a "good" email client.
I love the app. It works and works and works and doesn't break and doesn't screw up one of the most important things in my online life, electronic mail. I don't want to see it backburnered by the Foundation, either, but at the same time, I'm happier thinking that the Foundation has their finger on where it's going and so far, I trust that they're not going to make it suck. So I'd be preferable to leaving it their hands for that reason.
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Whatever little Mozilla Foundation is providing to Thunderbird has to be better than nothing, which is what they would be getting from them if they went their own way. Unless the foundation is hindering development in someway, I really don't see the point of spinning off.
Someone with no technical knowledge cannot run a technically oriented company. The Mozilla Foundation needs someone competent. Winifred cannot be the leader of something she doesn't understand. That's Winifred Mitchell Baker, the CEO of Mozilla, an extremely socially uncomfortable lawyer who became CEO when no one thought there was an opportunity. Now that Mozilla Foundation is making millions from making Google the default browser, Winifred can afford to hire people to make herself look good.
There are many, many quirks in Firefox, not just Thunderbird, that should be fixed, but no technically oriented manager to organize that. For example, the CPU hogging bug has been there for at least 5 years. Winifred has insufficient control over those who work for her, because she doesn't understand what they do. The Firefox CPU hogging and memory gobbling bug would take some serious troubleshooting to find, and no one wants to do the work, apparently. See Firefox development sometimes resembles playing.
Don't let ignorant and managers destroy your programming efforts. Find some way to have them removed.
Not too long ago, Qualcomm, the publisher of the Eudora E-mail client, announced that future Eudora versions would be based on Thunderbird. Back in the bad old days when I still had to use Windows, I used Eudora for E-mail -- it was streets ahead of MS Outhouse. Perhaps Mozilla can cook up a deal with Qualcomm.
If you have a problems about how she is doing in that role, then say so, but otherwise you are complaining about the wrong person.
Already Thunderbird is not that great a product, especially when compared to Firefox. I don't know whats gonna happen now - Hope it will not become just another open source project with just handful of folks using it:(
Why not split off Firefox instead, since it's getting most of the attention? Maybe then the Mozilla project can go back to making good software.
"Stop fawning over Firefox so much and develop the projects more equally" isn't even mentioned.
It's just a case of glory seekers. From the Mozillazine forums/Bugzilla, it appears MScott is pretty much the only truly dedicated developer of Thunderbird. It's not as "sexy" as Firefox, so people want to contribute to the browser instead. Firefox has brand recognition to almost make it a household name like IE is now. Thunderbird, not nearly so much.
If anyone is surprised by this move, they weren't paying attention.
MoFo/MoCo are owned in a serious financial way by Google. Remember the Mozilla Suite was dumped in a similar, though worse, manner just a few years ago when Google poored money all over the cash strapped Mozilla that AOL left behind. Google wasn't interested in financing the suite. Google probably stipulates that their financing only go to Firefox development, where Google is front and center in the users face. Google isn't likely to help finance a mail client where they don't see any return on investment. Google wants you to use Gmail for the ads.
The funds Mozilla had before the Google deal were likely diverted from the suite to Thunderbird and other applications. Mozilla has likely exhausted those funds now. Thunderbird developers should join the SeaMonkey community. Together the community and the projects might survive this.
Future prediction of a friend: When the government cracks down on MoFo's shady tax history, MoFo will go under and Google will likely buy MoCo and spin it as if they saved Mozilla.
http://www.scroogle.org/mozilla.html
Just like closed-source, for-profit orgs. OSS is really growing up! :-)
While Thunderbird is a great product (use pine myself), Mozilla are failing to rise to the challenge. Resigning themselves to one success story and passing the buck isn't a long term strategy. I've installed Thunderbird on many customers desktops because when it fits the bill, it is IMHO the best client.
Perhaps Mozilla need a business orientated product manager to take Thunderbird out into the world. In ditching XULRunner and now looking to rid themselves of TB, they're left fighting a losing battle. Imagine how fast competitors would encroach on Microsoft if they ditched everything apart from Windows and Office?
Something is very wrong here.
Because Firefox was Phoenix and then Firebird before it had to be changed quickly due to legal reasons. The mail client was named thunderbird (firebird, see?) and never needed the name change.
g y)
They are catchy and easy to remember, and somewhat related to each other still, so there's been no reason to change them again.
It also appears to be a legend in North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(mytholo
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
Thunderbird has to compete with not only client-side apps like Outlook and Eudora, but also webmail packages, which are becoming very sophisticated thanks to AJAX. Years ago, webmail sucked - limited space, no search ability, etc. But now it is really good, and I'm finding I envy my colleagues who don't need Remote Desktop to check their email. I even wonder if POP3's future is looking grim.
Actually, smooth syncing with my cell phone is pushing me back to Outlook. Firefox has really overcome almost all compatibility hurdles - Thunderbird (particularly the address book and calendaring bits) not so much. Also, Thunderbird still seems to get confused about offline copies.
Ultimately, I just wonder if it has enough developer person-hours to compete with Outlook. Firefox definitely does.
The pieces are JUST starting to come together re: replacing MS Exchange... although, granted, it's still VERY alpha/beta it's quite an exciting development.
/w Lightning talks to it. There are other Thunderbird plugins which use GroupDAV for shared address lists and free/busy information through the OpenGroupware server.
OpenGroupware (nightly builds) support CalDAV, and Thunderbird
This works today(!), though it's non-trivial to set up, and you have to be careful about versions. The combination to use is Lightning 0.3.1, the latest Thunderbird, OpenGroupware nightly, and the latest GroupDAV free/busy and shared address lists plugins. Unfortunately the latest Sunbird/Lightning (0.5) doesn't work right now, but bugs have been filed and the developers understand the problem... and a fix will happen in time.
OK, it's less functional and robust compared to the dominant player... but it's cheaper.
I hope they make Thunderbird have features like Outlook has, but without the security flaws.
The Calendar extension needs more work, and so does the Address book. I need to be able to get the Address book to export to Outlook CSVs so that I can import them into my Yahoo address book, or my Timex Datalink Watch or iPaq because the Thunderbird CSV files don't work with those applications.
Having data syncing with the calendar and address book with mobile devices, PDAs, watches, etc would be a good thing as well.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
- They are becoming beholden to Google and a single project (Firefox). We don't need another Opera (nothing wrong with Opera per se), or another browser created by yet another software company. OSS is supposed to be a *different* business model, with a *broader* vision, benefitting the public, not just Google proxies or lackies.
-It would seem that they endanger their status as a 501c3 public charity/foundation, and thus their tax-exempt status. IIRC, a 501c3 cannot accept more than 10% of their funding from any one source. At the moment Mozilla is rapidly looking like they are doing coding for hire (Firefox for Google).
- Pushing Thunderbird forward *within* Mozilla would at least maintain some sense that 1) they are promulgating a broader mission, 2) they are doing more than what Google asks them to.
- If Google's funding is truly earmarked for Firefox (as suggested in this thread), Mozilla should end that right now, and stipulate to Google that at least some reasonable fraction of their "donation" (e.g. 30%) MUST be in the form of an "unrestricted grant", that could and will be use for other projects in the foundation, like Thunderbird.
Mozilla is nuts for focusing on Firefox at the expense of Thunderbird. They are losing sight of their entire unique contribution to the community, and their larger mission.
Email is an essential function of the Internet and modern computing. If Thunderbird isn't doing so well, Mozilla should be fixing the problem and addressing those issues head-on, rather than jettisoning and punting on it.
She's in charge of the organization. Anything that it produces reflects on her. Her job does include all the donations and budgeting and whatever you described, but it certainly also includes making sure the product is decent. If she can't do it herself, it's up to her to find somebody who is capable of managing the development team to produce a decent product. The parent's saying she's not capable of that.
I have also seen T-bird corrupt files, but I have never seen it lose email. Usually, when I have problems with T-bird it is the summary files (*.msf) that are corrupt. Have you tried deleting the *.msf files and rebuilding them (to rebuild, just open T-bird and click on the folder in question)?
When Thunderbird was first created, it was called Minotaur. I think they changed it at the same time as the Phoenix -> Firebird change just to get similar names, then didn't bother changing again.
Doesn't it seem like Mozilla goes through these cycles, where they add the kitchen sink, then they realize "Oh no, we're this bloated piece of crap" and so they divest themselves and try to go "back to basics", only to begin the cycle all over again?
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OK, it's less functional and robust compared to the dominant player
Unfortunately, that will kill it dead in the corporate space. Cheaper isn't cheaper if you lose money because the server keeps going down (or whatever).
Don't get me wrong, I absolutely loathe Outlook and regularly curse the fact that I'm required to use it at work, and would dearly love there to be a viable replacement. As such, I'm quietly rooting for any such project.
But make no mistake, "cheaper but less functional and robust" (than Outlook!) isn't going to cut it. Given time I'm sure it'll get there, but if that's an accurate picture, then it's not there yet, unfortunately.
It's official. Most of you are morons.