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Mozilla Seeks New Home For Email Client Thunderbird

Reader chefmonkey writes: In a report commissioned by Mozilla to explore the next home for Thunderbird, two potential new hosts have been offered: the Software Freedom Conservancy (host to git, boost, QEMU, and a host of other projects) and The Document Foundation (home of LibreOffice). At the same time, the report discusses completely uncoupling Thunderbird from the rest of the Mozilla codebase and bringing in a dedicated technical architect to chart the software's roadmap.

Given that the two named organizations are already on board with taking Thunderbird under their wing, is this a new lease on life for the email program Mozilla put out to pasture four years ago?
In December last year, Mozilla Foundation chairperson Mitchell Baker had argued that the organization should disentangle itself from the Thunderbird email client in order to focus on Firefox. It appears the Firefox-maker is all set to part ways with Thunderbird.

9 of 294 comments (clear)

  1. Firefox on Android Is Where Its At by Hardhead_7 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I know there's a lot of Firefox-hate at the moment (with some good reason), but I use Firefox as my web-browser of choice on Android. Why? Adblock. No other mobile browser has add-ons like Firefox. And the ability to block ads really speeds up the browser compared to Chrome in any real-world situation.

  2. Re:Surprise! by gachunt · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is a surprise. There are numerous browsers, but few (non-web) email clients. It's pretty much just Outlook.

    Seems they have chosen to compete in the saturated browser market, rather than the email client market that has little-to-no competition, and is ripe for a new product that would help every business efficiently manage their day-to-day tasks.

  3. Re:I've got an idea... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    How about go fuck yourself. Thunderbird is an excellent email client. Just because you happen to you gmail through a webpage or some horrid MS client doesn't mean it's not useful to someone else, moron.

  4. Re:Does anyone [still] use Thunderbird? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Just because you don't do something doesn't mean that no one does. It turns out that many other people are not a copy of you.

    I use Thunderbird because I prefer POP to IMAP when available. I don't need others snooping my email. But ignoring that Thunderbird is simply the best way to manage multiple email accounts.

  5. Re:Surprise! by thsths · · Score: 1, Insightful

    For any business user, Thunderbird needs integration with a calendar. At the very least, it would need to be able to send and receive calendar invites. There were a number of attempts to add a calendar to Thunderbird, but as far as I can see they all failed, some miserably so.

  6. Thunderbird and IMAP by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I haven't used Thunderbird for a few years, but... it always seemed to me to be the best IMAP client out there - doubly so if you had more than one IMAP email account, which has been the case for me.

    But while Mozilla hasn't mucked up Thunderbird to the same degree they have Firefox, a couple years back I decided to cut ties with any and all Mozilla products because of all Mozilla's little political and philosophical dramas.

    --
    #DeleteChrome
  7. Re:Email client software? Is this still a thing? by dagarath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    People are using email clients all the time, that email client on your phone is using imap to communicate to your mail storage on gmail. I see very few people using their phone's browser to login to the mobile version of any webmail. I see phone specific native clients in wide use. Gmail's webclient is very good, but for certain use cases a dedicated client works better. And since gmail provides standard imap access, thunderbird works with it just fine.

    Email client software is far from dead, and it would be nice to keep thunderbird alive.

  8. Re:Email client software? Is this still a thing? by Teun · · Score: 4, Insightful

    You're mad.
    A local copy of your mail is the only reliable and fast way to access and especially organise mail, even more so for multiple accounts.
    Webmail is nice for occasional use on a borrowed computer, for the rest it is a joke.

    --
    "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
  9. Re:Surprise! by BradMajors · · Score: 3, Insightful

    It is unsafe to view HTML emails from unknown sources.