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Thunderbird to Leave Mozilla Foundation

Posted by Zonk on from the fewer-fowl-feather-firefox's-flanks dept.

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."

11 of 239 comments (clear)

  1. I submitted this story yesterday... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Before it even hit MozillaZine... and what do I get? Nothing.

    1. Re:I submitted this story yesterday... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      You get nothing for coming first in life. Just ask Netscape...

  2. Poor thunderbird by Umbral+Blot · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
    1. Re:Poor thunderbird by LWATCDR · · Score: 5, Informative

      Actually the latest version of Thunderbird is really nice.
      It has folders which I really do like but it also has tags for those that are into tagging. What is really brilliant is that it allows you to create "folders" that are based on the tags.
      Plugins work fine but you just don't need a lot of them for Email. I use GPGP for signing and encryption. The plugin manager could work better. I would say it isn't great for normal end users.
      I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league.
      To me that is the problem. FOSS need a server that will interface with Thunderbird and offer all the same features as Outlook plus exchange and with the same ease of use.
      As I Thunderbird user I can not say I am pleased.

      --
      See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
    2. Re:Poor thunderbird by keithjr · · Score: 5, Insightful

      In the enterprise world, it's not uncommon for companies to not use Outlook but still rely on an Exchange infrastructure. Thunderbird as a standalone mail client is fine, but if it wants to compete it's going to have to integrate much better with robust calendar and resource scheduling programs. Lightning or Sunbird betas aren't going to cut it.

    3. Re:Poor thunderbird by nine-times · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league. To me that is the problem.

      I think you're right-- that's the problem. How to solve that problem, I don't know, but that is most likely the reason why Thunderbird doesn't have a larger user base.

      I think most people who use e-mail fall into a couple groups.

      • The first is the business power user, for whom nothing matches Outlook+Exchange+Blackberry/WindowMobile. This is a huge market
      • The second group would be very casual users, for whom being able to read their e-mail is sufficient. They'll just use whatever comes on their computer, or else webmail. They really don't care as long as they can send and receive e-mail. This is a huge market.
      • For the sake of the discussion, I'll lump everyone else into a third group, and those are people with particular preferences or specialized needs. These people use the e-mail client they choose or else the e-mail client they need to. This group probably goes to Thunderbird pretty often, but there are still people using things like Pine, or some totally random client.

      The only real group that Thunderbird could go after would be the business users. However, in order to do that, you need to be able to connect to Exchange and do calendars, notes, task lists, and Exchange contact lists. Of course, you could also replace Exchange with something else, but that something else would have to have the same sorts of features, and Thunderbird would still have to connect to it.

      Contrary to what many geeks think, Exchange/Outlook is very helpful for a lot of businesses. Connecting tasks, calendars, e-mail, and contacts all together, and making that available through client software, on the web, and on mobile devices has turned out to be the big-business killer app.

  3. What is the Foundation not providing? by kimba · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  4. Re:Third option by ekstrom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Eudora's home page http://www.eudora.com/ says that the paid mode Eudora is no longer available, and that an open source version of Eudora is being developed by Mozilla. An article at http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2 0078 says that the new Eudora will be based on the Thunderbird engine. This is apparently the Penelope project http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope , which claims not to be trying to supplant Thunderbird, but may be about to do so. Would an insider please clarify all this?

  5. Exactly what I was thinking. by pavon · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

  6. OpenGroupware + Thunderbird + Lightning + plugins by Pav · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

        OpenGroupware (nightly builds) support CalDAV, and Thunderbird /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.

        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.

  7. Has Mozilla forgotten their mission ? by neurocutie · · Score: 5, Interesting
    From the Mozilla.org website:

    The Mozilla Foundation was established in July 2003 as a California not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the public benefit.
    ...
    There are many different ways of advancing the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. We welcome a broad range of activities, and anticipate the same creativity that Mozilla participants have shown in other areas of the project.
    It seems that in focussing on Firefox, Mozilla is forgeting the whole point of their existence. It is a dangerous path...

    - 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.