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Mozilla Downshifting Development of Thunderbird E-Mail Client
An anonymous reader writes "Mozilla will be announcing next week that they will effectively be taking away resources from Thunderbird's development. Mozilla believes it's better for the developers behind the open-source e-mail client to work on other projects, i.e. Firefox OS. They claim they will not be outright stopping Thunderbird." You can also read the letter at pastebin.
Well, lets face it, the last major contribution to email was the "discussions view". Not much has changed in the way of email. The standards have been the same, the security is over an SSL standard, the display is either plain text or HTML, and anti-spam is handled by people like spamhaus.
What more is there for email?
Exactly. The browser was perfectly adequate back in the 3.0 days.
In fact, server auto-discovery has made it difficult to configure Tbird on my systems, since I do my own imapd but rely on my ISP's smtp.
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
Thunderbird isn't a commercial product. It doesn't have to add arbitrary bullet points every 18 months so they can sell an upgrade. There is eventually a point where it's good enough and adding anything to it would detract. If only more software would do this.
I have used Thunderbird for a long time, and am sad to see developers being removed from it. I don't want my mail in "the cloud," especially when the cloud fails. Web browsers suck for managing email, and the stand-alone client does a far superior job. I can have a back-up of my own messages, and view them off-line any time I want. Stop ceding your privacy, and power, to "the cloud." When it comes back to bite you, you will regret it. "Oh, you want to access your old email? We archived it, and there is a fee to have us reload it for you." Just wait, it will happen.
I started with Netscape Mail in 1995 and then painlessly moved to Thunderbird when it was released. I've been with it ever since then and am unlikely to change. Most every new release has some small but nice improvement, and no major detriments of the sort that Firefox has suffered. I refuse to use the vaunted cloud or any sort of webmail.
Under the ECPA of 1986, all mail left on the server after 180 days is fair game. Law enforcement does not need a warrant, just a subpoena, and you'd better cough up the mail. This is because back in 1986, all mail clients stored locally. Leaving your mail on the server all the time was considered rude, frankly. It's your shit, take it and get out of here.
26 years later, people are encouraged to leave their mail on the server for years. Google even goes so far as to tell people they don't ever have to delete. But the law has not changed. It's still the same old ECPA which assumes you don't give two cents for stuff you left on the server for more than 6 months.
Tbird and other mail clients allow you to grab the mail off the server and delete it off the server and store it locally. Once this is done, and the mail is in your possession only, it is no longer covered by the ECPA, but rather the 4'th and 5'th amendments to the US Constitution.
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BMO
The person who leaked this memo did so for a reason. He believes that things like confidential notices to Mozillians and planned press releases a few days later are part of where Mozilla is going wrong. The community should be informed and their feedback should be discussed openly before such decisions are made. The way that Mozilla operates today is more like any other large and secretive company than a community-driven effort. Which is, arguably, what they have become (at least judging from their revenue and the large number of employees).
Wherever you stand on this decision, the person who pasted the confidential message to Pastebin didn't do so out of spite, or because he was being "a dick", but because he's concerned about what Mozilla is becoming. Here's the commentary at the end of the leaked memo:
CJ
Ah, arrogance and stupidity, all in the same package. How efficient of you. -- Londo Mollari