Thunderbird in Crisis?

Elektroschock writes "The two core developers of Thunderbird have left Mozilla. Scott McGregor made a brief statement: 'I wanted to let the Thunderbird community know that Friday October 12th will be my last day as an employee of the Mozilla Corporation.' Meanwhile, David Bienvenu blogged: 'Just wanted to let everyone know that my last day at The Mozilla Corporation will be Oct. 12. I intend to stay involved with Thunderbird... I've enjoyed working at Mozilla a lot, and I wish Mozilla Co and the new Mail Co all the best.' A few month ago Mozilla management considered abandoning their second product and setting up a special corporation just for the mail client. Scott was more or less supportive. David joined in. While Sunbird just released a new version no appropriate resources were dedicated to the missing component. And while Thunderbird became the most used Linux mail client it has been abandoned by Mozilla for 'popularity reasons'. Both messages from David and Scott do not sound as if the founders will play any role in the Thunderbird Mail Corporation. What happened to Mozilla? Is it a case of pauperization through donations?"

Comments

is webmail to blame

[EjectButton]

I use thunderbird quite a bit but I wonder if heavy email clients have much future. Of all the applications where a web client can replace a heavy desktop side client email seems like one of the easiest and google has proven that you can make a webmail client that isn't painful to use.

Re:is webmail to blame

[vux984]

I hate gmail, and webmail interfaces in general.

1) Decent integration with -other- applications is non-existent. (even simple stuff like sending an attachment from the windows desktop, or the iphoto / mail.app link on OSX) webmail doesn't compare.

2) When I decide to just quit all windows of my web-browser to clean up my desktop I hate that the mail gets closed too. I like that its a separate application, one that doesn't crash when I visit a website that kills the browser.

3) No offline functionality.

4) Large Attachments have to be 'downloaded' when I need them. I often leave stuff as email attachments, and then just open the attachment when I need to look at it. On my 'heavy' mail client its a fraction of a second to open it.

5) PRIVACY. You can't rely on that with webmail.

6) User experience. Gmail is 'comparable' to a real application, in the same way that a mock-up looks like a real product. From 4 feet away it might even look the same, but start using it and its immediately obvious you are using a web based application. Maybe one day that won't be true; but 'html + javascript + xmlrequest' won't be the platform its built on.

Webmail is a great technology but it doesn't replace a good mail client, it complements it.

Re:Still good...

[ozmanjusri]

I will continue to use it even if it never changes again. I like it.

I use the Thunder/SunBird combo too, but it would be good to see it continue being developed. Given the possible split from Mozilla, I'd like to see OpenOffice.org take an interest.

Re:Mozilla Inc

[ozmanjusri]

Mozilla is looking more and more like a normal corporation, and less like a Open Source supporter.

Most Open Source supporters ARE normal corporations.

The elephant in the room.

[Soko]

The reason Thunderbird won't gain the same traction as Firefox has is Exchange. The Thunderbird developers have made a great email client, but they've hit the wrong target. They, along with GMail et. al. have killed off Eudora and Pegasus, not Outlook. (aside - here's hoping IncrediMail is next)

Email has evolved into a collaboration tool, not just a way of sending words in ASCII. Plain and simple, until your contacts can email you a meeting request and TBird puts it in your calendar automagically - and that meeting goes in your BlackBerry/Treo/Gizmo-of-the-week - it won't gain near the same buzz. Outlook + Exchange adds far too much business value to simply abandon in the name of Open and Free.

If you just need email, Thunderbird is OK-fine - if you need collaboration, you need Outlook. It's a damn shame, too.

Re:Thunderbird is awesome on Windows

[Mostly a lurker]

I agree that Microsoft wishes to kill Outlook Express and replace it with something that generates them revenue. I do not agree that Outlook is better than Outlook Express as a pure email client.

Outlook Express certainly has weaknesses, but it is relatively standards compliant. If one of my customers sends me an email using Outlook Express, I will be able to read it with whatever email client I am using at the time. If someone uses Outlook to send me mail, I may be faced with a Winmail.DAT attachment that nothing except Outlook (and a few webmail sites) can interpret. Similarly, any mail that I have stored in Outlook Express is easily exported to other mail clients. With Outlook, third party products are necessary to avoid serious lock-in. In some areas (again, considering just email in isolation) OE has better functionality. In particular, the IMAP support in OE is better than that in Outlook 2003.

Every site I have ever been to that uses Outlook experiences periodic Outlook lock-ups. These will often clear themselves after a few minutes, but have a real impact on productivity. Sometimes, their cause is quite mysterious.

I allow that Outlook in conjunction with Exchange has some compelling functionality, especially in the areas of shared folders and calendar/task management. These make Outlook an appropriate choice at times, but I am always relieved when the decision goes against Outlook.

Re:Still good...

[Crayon Kid]

To be frank, I never liked the mbox approach (one big file per folder). I much prefer the maildir approach (each message in its own file). It's cleaner and even if the mail application breaks the structure is still intuitive (there's the folders, there's the messages).