Thoughts On Thunderbird

Thunderbird 25 Jul 2007 12:28 pm

Finding a New Home For Thunderbird

Comments (140)

140 Responses to “Finding a New Home For Thunderbird”

1. on 25 Jul 2007 at 12:46 pm 1.Henrik Gemal said …

   I’m very sorry to see this. This will for sure kill any chance for Mozilla Thunderbird being a serious choice in corporations.

   To me it seems that Exchange has won the battle even before it started.

   But it was a fun ride.

2. on 25 Jul 2007 at 2:16 pm 2.Inside Firefox said …

   Thunderbird Taking Flight…

   Best of luck to Scott, David, and the entire Thunderbird community as they move forward with their project. With greater autonomy comes more responsibility but also an exponential growth in possibilities. The future is bright! Needless to say, given th…

3. on 25 Jul 2007 at 3:11 pm 3.Karsten Düsterloh said …

   Sad to see the axe go round again, but still – there’s a lot to gain, freed of the FiCo bounds.
   I’m sure we can build a strong community around the Mozilla mailnews core; we can make a difference!
   Good luck!

4. on 25 Jul 2007 at 3:19 pm 4.David O'Leary said …

   I’m sorry, but this sounds like a terrible idea. There’s no question in my mind that Thunderbird is an important part of the Open Web. The dominance of Outlook is just as problematic as the dominance of IE. And e-mail is as much a part of the Internet as the web is.

   Thunderbird and Firefox are very much complimentary products if for nothing else than they offer an alternative to MS web products (and I’m generally not an MS basher). They both re-enforce the legitimacy of the other. And Lightning/Calendar will further that.

   I see no advantages to this, only downsides. It’s a bad idea from a marketing standpoint, financial, increased administration, redundant infrastructure, …

   You be much better served by better advocating for and organizing yourselves within Mozilla.

5. on 25 Jul 2007 at 3:34 pm 5.Žiga Sancin said …

   Well, Aung San Suu Kyi used to say: “This is not yet the end, there’s a long way to go and the way might be very very hard so please stand by.”

   I agree with Ben – this is probably the best move for Thunderbird’s future and I also think that MoCo/MoFo has lost its direction some time ago.

6. on 25 Jul 2007 at 4:00 pm 6.Chris Cunningham said …

   Woah. I seriously wish all the best for this project. As a home user I’ve been with Thunderbird since day zero anyway, but at work I’d literally die without it (as would half of Sun ITOps by a rough head count). It’d be awesome if a cash cow of some sort could be found to fuel this endeavour.

   – Chris

7. on 25 Jul 2007 at 4:22 pm 7.Jay said …

   It’s sad that this day has finally come, but as others have said, this is probably the best move for TB and the mailnews community. I wish Scott, David, and everyone involved the best of luck! I plan to help out as much as I can to make sure TB3 kicks ass.

8. on 25 Jul 2007 at 5:13 pm 8.Asa Dotzler - Firefox and more said …

   thunderbird future…

   Mitchell and Scott have both posted blog entries discussing planning for Thunderbird’s future. If you’re a user, a contributor, or anyone else who has a stake in Thunderbird, I encourage you to read over what Mitchell and Scott have to say. Please j…

9. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:17 pm 9.Peter said …

   I would like to see the change. I think it would infuse thunderbird with more creativity and innovation. In partticular, I think it would get the webmail off the development stage and into mainstream. I love to download my email from my yahoo mail, and my hotmail. I think I can work faster on my own machine, even though I have a dsl connection. In addition, the news reader seems easier to use than the web forums. It seems most corporations use downloaded email, but most individuals use web mail. It seesm Outlook, and OE can do both, but TB has not progressd to a stable and easy to work app for webmail and pop mail as of yet. I think TB3 has to handle both equally well and easily.

10. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:23 pm 10.Peter said …

    Also, a name is very important, and I am sure one of the reasons for Firefox’s success. I would like to see a name change from Thunderbird to Firebird. Maybe that wouldn’t fly with Pontiac, but this is a non-profit, and not selling any product, so maybe it is not a conflict. Something for the legal minds to comment on.

11. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:27 pm 11.Greg K Nicholson said …

    I thought Mozilla’s mission was to maintain choice and innovation on the *internet*—not just the web.

    I agree with Ben Goodger’s suggestion of renaming the Mozilla Corporation to the “Firefox Corporation” ( http://www.bengoodger.com/2007/04/the_autonomous_future.html ) to better reflect what it actually does. Thunderbird could then be governed by its own Thunderbird Corporation or Organization.

    The best way the Foundation can serve users is by maintaining choice and innovation to the best of its ability in as many areas of the internet as it can.

12. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:52 pm 12.Randy Peterman said …

    @Peter – um, Firefox used to be called Firebird, except that Firebird is already an open source database project (a good one at that) and so the name was changed to Firefox.

    Thunderbird is awesome and I’m going to look into what I can contribute personally both financially and time wise.

13. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:55 pm 13.RyanVM said …

    Firebird was the Firefox’ name after Phoenix once upon a time. It was changed to Firefox due to conflicts with an existing software project which also goes by Firebird. In other words, it’s already been tried, so I highly doubt it’ll be tried again

14. on 25 Jul 2007 at 6:57 pm 14.Jacques said …

    Peter, Firefox was named Firebird before. Since Firebird is already a popular open-source project, Mozilla was forced to find a new name, hence Firefox.

    I have not seen this suggestion anywhere, but why not send Thunderbird under the Seamonkey umbrella? Seamonkey mail component would benefit a lot by having a closer relationship with Thunderbird. Thunderbird would benefit a lot, be sharing resources with the Seemonkey team.

    Good luck to all.

    - Jacques

15. on 25 Jul 2007 at 7:19 pm 15.Majken said …

    I’m very disappointed that Mozilla has decided that the internet is what goes through a browser. I do however think it’d be good for Thunderbird to have it’s own space. I’d just figured it would still be as part of Mozilla, especially if everything else is going to be true, that it will still use many of the Mozilla tools it already uses.

    I’m looking forward to seeing exciting things coming, though. Will the new Thunderbird organization be working with the calendar team to help bring Lightning to release?

16. on 25 Jul 2007 at 7:26 pm 16.Jack Hemmings said …

    The sad part is that this exposes the Mozilla Corporation for what it really is, an organization to promote Firefox and not any of the other Mozilla products. I think Thunderbird is integral to the mission of being an free internet software foundation. I think it would be damaging for Thunderbird to lose its association as the “Firefox of mail clients”, and for Mozilla to be “We’re just a browser.” Thunderbird is where it is today because it was right alongside Firefox the whole time, as it should have been, and I hope at least that does not change (marketing changes aren’t articulated in any of the discussions I’ve read).

    I trust Scott’s opinions since he’s far closer to this project than I’ll ever be. I hope the right decision is made not just for Thunderbird but for Mozilla as a whole.

17. on 25 Jul 2007 at 7:29 pm 17.The Future Of Thunderbird | Robert Accettura’s Fun With Wordage said …

    [...] It will be interesting to see the wider community reaction, and the decisions that follow. Scott MacGregor (who has a blog now) already posted his [...]

18. on 25 Jul 2007 at 7:30 pm 18.foxiewire.com said …

    Thoughts On Thunderbird » Finding a New Home For Thunderbird…

    I’m not sure if this is a good or bad move for Thunderbird….

19. on 25 Jul 2007 at 8:16 pm 19.Mozilla looking at Thunderbird spin off options : Mozilla Links said …

    [...] Scott McGregor, Thunderbird Lead Engineer, has posted his views on the future of Thunderbird. [...]

20. on 25 Jul 2007 at 8:28 pm 20.Jason said …

    I guess my thoughts best fall in line with David O’Leary from above. This decision seems to come from the fact that there is no revenue stream coming from email, so therefore there is no sense in messing with it. Curiosity, what would happen if Google stopped paying for Firefox, would Mozilla foundation conclude that it doesn’t make sense to develop it anymore?

    I thought the whole point of the foundation was to NOT operate like a business. This sounds more and more like a normal for-profit business cutting product lines that don’t make money.

    Email is VERY important, and monoculture in email is as much of a problem as it is in Web browsing software. I agree that there needs to be more of a focus on it, but I’m not sure why this can’t be accomplished in the current structure.

21. on 25 Jul 2007 at 9:45 pm 21.Asrail said …

    Going out from the Corporation is one thing… going out from the Foundation…

    The homeless TB people could join the SeaMonkey community, port the changes there and having the whole mailnews backend/frontend shared.

    The TB people would got a lot of contributors, though.

22. on 25 Jul 2007 at 10:40 pm 22.Jens Bannmann said …

    I don’t get it. Mitchell and you write about Mozilla being about the “Open Web”, and although that’s an important part of its mission, it’s not the only one. Look at the Mozilla Manifesto – the words “web” or “browser” do not appear at all (aside from introducing MoFo), it’s all about the _whole_ internet! Some highlights:

    2. The Internet is a global public resource that must remain open and accessible.

    4. Individuals’ security on the Internet is fundamental and cannot be treated as optional.

    6. The effectiveness of the Internet as a public resource depends upon interoperability (protocols, data formats, content), innovation and decentralized participation worldwide.

    This is very much the point of Thunderbird! I second David O’Leary’s opinion on this – corporate email (and calendaring) is dominated by proprietary applications (Lotus Notes, MS Exchange). And on private desktops, there’s definitely a dangerous monopoly of an application with a horrible track record in security (Outlook/Outlook Express).

    I think that MoFo giving TB to another, independent small services company creates the (correct) impression that MoFo leaves the Email space. Thundebird will never be taken as seriously as before (when Firefox’s popularity and proven quality gave Thunderbird bonus points). And on that day, Open Email dies, and a part of the Open Internet with it.

23. on 26 Jul 2007 at 12:07 am 23.Michal Illich said …

    Well, there may be two things that can hurt Thundebird more than the organizational and personal issues which you are facing now:

    Threat 1: Losing Mozilla brand for e-mail application. I don’t believe in “Thunderbird” brand. It’s long, has letters (such as “th”) which are problematically pronounced in majority of the world, doesn’t evoke mailing (or communication) at all, etc. On the other hand, Mozilla brand is strong and good. Without it, e-mail program would have a hard way to the market

    Threat 2: Losing connection with Firefox. These two go very well together. You have shared parts of code (Gecko rendering engine, probably GUI and libraries also), similar UI guidelines (about setting preferences, menus, etc.). Also same distribution (on CDs in magazines, contract with Dell-like companies, communication with Linux distribution) is beneficial to both products and mainly to Thunderbird (as a smaller “brother”).

    These threats are in my opinion too big and discouraging to make any kind of separation of these two products.

24. on 26 Jul 2007 at 2:11 am 24.Håkan Waara said …

    I remember when AOL/TW laid off most of the people working on Mozilla’s projects was made. In that situation, I think most people thought that for the project to survive, there had to be more individual contributors.

    By then, I was kind of worried that the project would die without the previous full-time support. Instead, what happened? With Firefox the project took off in a big way and would eventually grow to where it is today.

    This might be similar. At first, there’s a lot of questions and people are worried, but if it gets right – maybe this is Thunderbird’s chance to really spin off and show its freedom / individuality from the rest of Mozilla.

    I think Thunderbird has been a lot like the shy brother to Firefox, and think it will be interesting to see when he tries to take on the world in his own way.

    Thunderbird has a lot to win from trying even more things and being more “dynamic” than it is today. It will be hard to play catch up with Exchange/Outlook, and Gmail (on the web) competition will become increasingly important so really innovative and new ways to use the mail will be much needed.

    Best of luck!

25. on 26 Jul 2007 at 2:21 am 25.Remusti said …

    Why is the same team used for both projects? Could thunderbird not operate as seperate team within Mozilla? Seems ridiculous to form a completely new company. I agree with the poster above that if this happens, the Mozilla Corporation should be renamed the Firefox Corporation.

26. on 26 Jul 2007 at 2:27 am 26.Brian King said …

    One door closes, another opens. Good luck with moving forward, I believe this could be a good thing.

27. on 26 Jul 2007 at 2:36 am 27.pd said …

    Why dont you stick it up the pricks are Mozilla by building Gmail reader functionality into Thunderbird?

    Put a search box at the top right of the window and convert the craphouse experience of memory chugging and AJAX latency that is gmail into a decent experience leveraging the power of desktop hardware instead of stressing out the DOM and.

    Offering gmail support and taking money off mozilla is the best way to stick it right up the Goofox tossers.

    The marketing would be simple: super-fast slick gemail while at home, convenient gemail on the road.

28. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:18 am 28.Frédéric Buclin (LpSolit) said …

    On #mozwebtools, I often complained about MoCo being too Firefox-centric. I didn’t think this would go that far. This is a very sad news for Thunderbird. You could as well let Thunderbird die and focus on the Mail part of SeaMonkey.

    Email *is* part of the web, as someone said in a previous comment above, and ignoring it looks wrong to me. What will be the next step? MoCo could as well decide to throw away some features of Firefox, deciding they should focus on such or such content of the web, again ignoring something new.

    I will probably never understand how your mind works, guys.

29. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:18 am 29.Raphael said …

    Thunderbird and http://www.kolab.org is already a very good and free alternative to Outlook and Exchange. An important issue is compatibility to MS and Google groupware products, because it provides a soft migration path.

30. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:26 am 30.Peer said …

    Sorry folks, but to me all this sounds pretty weird – like a bad nightmare starring management-droids talking alien biz lingo about outsourcing a problem instead of solving it.

    What is the real problem? To me it’s lack of resources to do all that is desireable.

    Now, the suggested solution is to get rid of part of the original goals. To me this appears to dump part of the dream to create a truly superior, open platform for people who simpy want to ‘use Internet’, aka Mail&Web.

    On the other side, maybe i have a misconception of what Mozilla is all about. Of course is it nice & well to create ecosystems for the better mousetrap, er- browser. But 99% of the user simply does not care what technology satifies their needs. Most non-tech People would be just as happy with a well supported & up-to date FF 1.5.

    So what we are facing here is classical drama: Developers vs. Pragma.

    Note: I am not suggesting that major technical decisions be revisited. Just advocating the simple user’s view who will not understand why the brave knights of Mozilla will simply dump their dreams for things that the simple user will never notice.

    Maybe it’s time to take a break. Step back & relax. I have seen too many good projects fail who wanted to be everything for everybody. Surely this will never be a successful strategy in building browsers.

    What counts in a world together with Microsoft products and Mac geeks is a real alterntive, that is superior in reliability, speed and long-term perspective. In my view, the recent past has cut substantially into all three of these major image aspects of mozilla. The suggestion to essentially dump Thunderbird may be just one more step in this direction.

31. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:52 am 31.Laurent said …

    Firefox Corporation, lame !

32. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:02 am 32.Daniel said …

    Like Jason, it feels “more and more like a normal for-profit business”!

    After all, whoever made the move to separate the email client from the browser should feel some sense of responsibility towards his baby right?

    Why not make Seamonkey a better browser and email client and keep everyone happy? That way, if people want to have their Mozilla email client it is always there for them.

    Firefox has always been a memory hog (no.1 complaint around since it’s very conception).

    Although extensions may have a play on that issue, Seamonkey seems to be much more stable and much less resource consuming.

33. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:06 am 33.Rico said …

    Why firefox isnt used as new home for thunderbird? I’d prefer the integration of thunderbird within firefox.

    A independent version of firefox-thunderbird-combination could be published beside the only-firefox-version. So the user can choose the favored version and i think there is a huge community who supports that idea.

    With kind regards, Rico.

34. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:07 am 34.David Tenser said …

    How exactly would this change anything? What is it that Mozilla is doing for Thunderbird today that it would stop doing if this change came into effect? Sorry, but I honestly don’t know how these things work today.

    If this only means that Mozilla would stop promoting Thunderbird and that the developers would not get paid for working on Thunderbird, I don’t see how this is a good move. If anything, Thunderbird needs more focus, not less, in my humble opinion.

    Maybe I’m just misunderstanding though. Since you and David feel this is the best way to go, it can’t be as bad as it sounds. For what it’s worth, I wish you guys good luck and hope that Thunderbird development will flourish. Thunderbird has been my mail client of choice ever since it was called Minotaur.

35. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:17 am 35.Martin H said …

    I must apologize that I didn’t like the idea to change the organisation for thunderbird at the first moment. But I think it would be good for all of Mozilla’s products to change the behavior within Mozilla.
    I think that Mozilla as a brand should be “the label” for good products. Therefor I suggest that there should be the “Mozilla Coporation/Foundation” as the institution for the brand Mozilla, and als subsidiary the “Firefox Coporation/Foundation” as well as “Thunderbird Coporation/Foundation”. That would be granted that Mozilla wouldn’t be splitted off. I think that this would lead to an development chaos because firefox is the base for most of the mozilla products. This is my idea… Hope you find the best way for the whole Mozilla “system”!

36. on 26 Jul 2007 at 5:01 am 36.Bob said …

    Sadly, this is the end of Thunderbird. I was looking forward to the day when Thunderbird included invites and calendar functions so that I could replace my corporate Outlook with Thunderbird.

    Now Thunderbird is dead.

37. on 26 Jul 2007 at 5:25 am 37.Ben Bucksch said …

    Whatever you do, I think the organization needs to be non-profit, to ensure that never business interests take over the actual product as it is released to users. The Open-Source-Process does not guarantee that, as we’ve seen with Netscape, and this time it’s not a derivate, but the real “Mozilla” product that would be commercialized.

    The consulting company route can be a good foundation for extending business features, but it’s tough, and there are many conflicts of interests. More importantly, the needs of companies are not the same as those of individual users, and the general overall advancement of the product typically won’t be paid by companies, unless you have a big support contract. But serving both individual users and corporate users (not necessarily companies), as well as general development work with a vision, is important to pull the product forward, and I don’t see that happening with individual development contracts with companies.

    So, maybe support contracts with big companies would be the best route, under the umbrella of a non-profit organization. I don’t know about the rules in the US, but at least in Germany, a non-profit can make money, as long as it serves the public good and nobody draws considerable money, apart from salaries etc..

38. on 26 Jul 2007 at 5:52 am 38.Jack said …

    @10. Peter

    Firefox was originally named Phoenix and then Firebird. It was changed again due to legal reasons.

39. on 26 Jul 2007 at 6:05 am 39.Jonathan Carter said …

    I think it might be good for Thunderbird to break away from MoFo. It might gain some momentum again in another organisation.

40. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:01 am 40.» Will Mozilla set Thunderbird free? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com said …

    [...] Baker noted that Mozilla doesn’t have the answers yet. She’s looking for feedback. Scott MacGregor has more. [...]

41. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:28 am 41.David said …

    I would hate it if this change were to put TB in a lesser position in any way. Why can’t changes be made upwards in the organizations instead of downwards?

42. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:38 am 42.steve said …

    The trouble is that Outlook is superior to Thunderbird in almost every way. Thunderbird isn’t even a competitor, and the idea that it may gain traction in enterprise environments is laughable.

43. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:48 am 43.David said …

    I’d have to agree with Jason above. Those were my thoughts exactly when I read this sad news.

44. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:52 am 44.Thunderbird future - As a separate organization? » Arun’s Blog » Arun’s Blog said …

    [...] CEO of Mozilla, Mitchell Baker has written in her blog about the future of Thunderbird (Check the blog of Scott too). We all knew that Mozilla neglected Thunderbird for a long time and the updates were slow to [...]

45. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:06 am 45.John Q. Public said …

    In other news, Outlook won the email client battle. Microsoft and google own your email.

    I also agree with Goodger that the name “Mozilla Foundation” is no longer an accurate description.

46. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:18 am 46.guanxi said …

    Scott -

    I posted the following to Mitchell’s blog, but you may be a better person to ask:

    1) How does being in MoFo/MoCo limit TB? It may seem obvious from the inside, but could you give a specific example?

    2) If I understand correctly, the new mail innovations that Mitchell suggests (“Broader Mail Initiative”) are a new MoFo/MoCo project. Why are they not going into Thunderbird, and how will this project integrate better with MoFo/MoCo?

    Thanks,
    guanxi

47. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:57 am 47.LorenzoC said …

    As Thunderbird user I am worried that those nice words actually mean the project is simply going to be discarded by Mozilla and die.
    I don’t like much the “Thunderbird draws resources from Firefox” idea.
    In fact, I could say that I need Thunderbird more than Firefox, because there are other browsers, even Gecko based, while there aren’t many good mail clients around.
    Bad move, in my opinion.

48. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:18 am 48.TomP said …

    I think that this is a marketing blunder of the New Coke order. Many IT folks in business, industry, and government want to find less costly alternatives to Microsoft and others, but support and the appearance of product stability are major factors in not selecting open source products. If Firefox and Thunderbird are to thrive, they must be seen by the corporate IT managers as stable and well supported, or they will not bet their career on it. Mozillia needs to decide if it wants to provide those products, or simply be an intellectual playtoy.

49. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:26 am 49.John said …

    It’s obvious what’s happening here. Mozilla Foundation is making a business decision: Firefox makes them money (through selling search engine space in the browser to the likes of Google and Yahoo). Thunderbird doesn’t. As such, they don’t care if it withers and dies on the vine. This move push development costs for the email client out onto the open source community at large. While Mozilla Foundation continues to give away great free software to us users, we have to understand that the profit motive is still important to them. Seeing this sort of action coming from the Mozilla Foundation – a benevolent and user-focused organization – we shouldn’t be surprised by what comes from the likes of Google and Microsoft.

50. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:28 am 50.Vaughn Reid said …

    I am sad to see that the Mozilla Foundation does not feel that Thunderbird is an integral part of its mission to further access to the Web in an open manner. Email access, whether from a browser or a desktop based client is still a fundamental part of Internet access for most users. It will continue to remain a fundamental part of access to the Internet by most people for the foreseeable future.

    A free open, extensible mail client that shares a similar code base to Firefox, Lightning, and Sunbird are the only chance that Windows users have of replacing the Exchange/Outlook/Internet Explorer Juggernaut that currently absorbs corporate IT cultures and corporate Intranets.

    “Setting Thunderbird Free” is a grave mistake that will surely kill the future of this very adequate mail client, doom Sunbird and Lightning, and slow or stall adoption of Firefox in businesses that utilize Windows client Operating Systems.

51. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:30 am 51.RajeevK said …

    What influence did Google, which funds Firefox, have on MoCo/MoFo’s decision to cut off Thunderbird?

    Rather than focusing solely on Firefox, the change should be greater emphasis and resources on Thunderbird as well as Sunbird, and providing a credible alternative to Outlook and the browser-based offerings for e-mail and calender.

52. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:51 am 52.Vaughn Reid said …

    I have a theory about why Mozilla Foundation may be getting rid of Thuderbird. Here it is:

    Since Google is a primary funder of the Mozilla Foundation, and since Google is actively developing and offering their own enterprise grade email ecosystem via gmail and google apps, maybe they are wanting to kill off or hinder the development of Thunderbird to “encourage” those wanting to ditch the Outlook/Exchange Juggernaut to move to Google, instead of utilizing a Thunderbird and Lightning integrate application with an open source groupware backend.

    You know, in general, corporate funders of not-for-profits have ulterior motives, so this is a reasonable theory for why cutting Thunderbird from the Mozilla Foundation “makes sense” all of a sudden.

53. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:03 am 53.Mark Dowling said …

    /me is sad at this news – I didn’t think so much work would be so lightly cast aside, especially when the rationale for dumping Moz/Seamonkey was “use Thunderbird in concert with Firefox”.

    Now “Mozilla” is a one trick pony in a sector where both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs are gunning for them, just because TB couldn’t find a way to be a Google vehicle like FF.

    As a proud user of TB since 0.9 and Mozilla before that I fear by next year I’ll be using Apple Mail for Windows or something.

54. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:44 am 54.DAR said …

    Wouldn’t there be a 4th option as well? Hand it over to an existing open-source-oriented organization, such as Apache.

55. on 26 Jul 2007 at 12:20 pm 55.Jeremy English » Blog Archive » What’s the word? said …

    [...] like I’ll have to find another email program [...]

56. on 26 Jul 2007 at 2:24 pm 56.Stephen Ross said …

    Sounds like we’re going to be MS zombies. One choice, ons solution – like it or not. Sorry to see Mozilla give up to Gates. I’ve used TB since it started – now we watch it die.

57. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:15 pm 57.Jean La Fêttarde said …

    Always the same. Those who fear change become upset and try to hold-on, those who know that change is inevitable let go. The open-source community is an incredible entity and because it is OPEN will continue to flourish in whatever endeavors it undertakes. Thunderbird can only benefit by an infusion from this community and it’s founders. After all it is a Bird and a very wise person once said “a bird doesn’t fly BECAUSE IT HAS WINGS, it has wings BECAUSE IT FLY’S.

58. on 26 Jul 2007 at 3:52 pm 58.Eyal Rozenberg said …

    “Over time, the Mozilla Foundation’s mission has evolved to focus on advancing the open web through browsing and related activities. Today, Thunderbird, as a desktop mail client, does not supports this mission.”

    Translation:

    Over time, Google bought us, so the Mozilla Foundation’s mission has evolved to focus on ad-revenue-stream-related activities, and the number of mail&news developers has evolved towards 0. Today, Thunderbird, as a desktop mail client, does not support this mission, plus it’s competing with GMail and Larry and Sergeyi say that’s just wrong.

59. on 26 Jul 2007 at 4:16 pm 59.Ben Basson said …

    I’m not sure why everyone thinks that Thunderbird is going to die a hideous death, or why splitting from the Mozilla Corporation is a bad thing.

    Moz Corp has never made Thunderbird a priority in terms of development time, expense or marketing. If new sponsors, owners or at least a new organisational structure can be found, Thunderbird will probably see more investment than ever before.

    The worst case scenario is that Thunderbird will end up like SeaMonkey – being developed by unpaid volunteers with infrastructure provided by the Mozilla Foundation. Even in that worst case scenario, it is better off by far than most open source projects that exist.

60. on 26 Jul 2007 at 5:15 pm 60.eCurmudgeon said …

    Let’s look at the options here:

    1. In the business world, the de-facto mail platform is Microsoft Exchange. Period. End of story. Exchange does not play well with mail clients other than Exchange.

    2. For businesses that don’t want to run Exchange (for whatever reason), the only third-party mail system I’ve seen gain any traction of late is Zimbra, which is primarily based on an AJAX web interface (although POP3 and IMAP are supported).

    3. For personal mail, webmail based systems such as Google GMail are becoming the overwhelming choice.

    So, based on these data points (and I didn’t even bring up the issue of Crackberries, smartphones, and other portable devices), is the notion of “thick client” email still relevant anymore? Will it be in the not-too-distant future?

61. on 26 Jul 2007 at 6:21 pm 61.Peter said …

    I don’t mind the change. I think it would be good, and lead to innovation. Jack, thanks for informing me about the history of the name. I am sorry Firebird would not work. Maybe, Outlook Killer? Whatever, it needs to be a top notch product, and handle bot pop mail and web mail, and a news reader. People like cogent and concise arguments, and apps apply as well. Maybe “Cybermail”.

62. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:02 pm 62.Peter said …

    An additional comment: If it is able to handle webmail, maybe it can also handle web forums, but in a layout like a news reader. This would sort of be like unwinding some of the google forums that handle the mozilla newsreading sites as a web forum, and unpackage the web forums and put them into news readers. Sounds good, eh?

63. on 26 Jul 2007 at 7:13 pm 63.JustMe said …

    I too am disappointed that Mozilla has decided that it now only wants to develop a web browser. The solution I would most like to see is one that they don’t seem to be willing to offer: Doing a better job with things where they are now. Instead, Mozilla seems to be saying ‘We give up. We don’t care any more. Get this out of here.’ That’s sad. And the lead developers just want to try to take the carcass and see if they can milk it for a few bucks before it completely disappears. Kind of like those body parts harvesters. Goodbye Thunderbird, it was good to know you.

64. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:08 pm 64.Richard Mitnick said …

    Henrik Gemal commented that now TBird will never make it in the corporate world.

    Henrik,TBird as it is now constituted could never ever have made it in the corporate world. It is too slim and “email-only” to compete with Outlook, which is email, Collaboration and scheduling,Contact database, Journal

65. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:35 pm 65.Erick said …

    I second what David O’Leary said. Hope this doesn’t kill Thunderbird – I love it and install it on every computer I touch for myself and others.

66. on 26 Jul 2007 at 8:40 pm 66.Patrick said …

    I was wondering … where is Eudora in all this?

67. on 26 Jul 2007 at 9:59 pm 67.Reclaim Your Thunderbird | iface thoughts said …

    [...] lead developer Scott MacGregor thinks a community project might work better than belonging to another organizational setting. I hope, as a Thunderbird fan, [...]

68. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:39 pm 68.Marino said …

    If this means that Google money has strings attached then screw Google and its money. I would rather have a less powerful browser than something that is in the pocket of a corporation. A strong and free Thunderbird is more important to me than more Firefox bloat.

69. on 26 Jul 2007 at 10:42 pm 69.Tim RIchardson said …

    Organisations don’t develop programs; communities do. If a new organisation brings more focus, it can only be a good thing. It seems that presently there are a lot of tensions and stresses being hidden from we users, so much that the current situation is not sustainable. Of the options for change, the third choice seems best.

    It’s a big decision, but the Mozilla track record at big decisions is quite good (example shifting focus to Firefox and away from the integrated suite, which was very controversial at the time).

70. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:09 pm 70.Unni Nambiar said …

    I believe Option 1 is the right way to go. Reading through these posts, I see two additional options from Mark H. and DAR that should be seriously considered.

    Option 0: (preferred)
    Instead of making MoFo more Firefox centric, they should go the other way and make it less browser centric. MoFo should morph into an umbrella organization and create Firefox Foundation/Corporation as a child and grandchild subsidiaries. Similarly they should do the same with Thunderbird and create Thunderbird Foundation/Corporation subsidiaries. This would also protect against unnecessary forking of common modules. This is Option 1 without its challenges.

    Option 4: (less preferred)
    Find a new host Foundation that already has the organizational bandwidth to support this project. The Apache Foundation seems like the only other powerhouse foundation that can do this other than Mozilla. (There may be others I’m not aware of.) This is again an Option 1 variant without its challenges.

    I believe Option 3 is a bit shortsighted and convenient in the short run. Ultimately, the TB folks need to realize that MoFo gives it the right street cred, as far as corporate decision makers are concerned. Granted they are a great team of developers, but a new organization will be just another new unproven player that will need to build its reputation before the corporate world bites again. This will push back TB adoption as an MS alternative by years, which is sad considering they are so close now with the lightning integration (which I wish would speed up a lot more).

    Whatever decision they take, we wish them luck and will continue to try and support TB adoption in the corporate world as much as we can.

71. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:11 pm 71.Unni Nambiar said …

    Sorry I mis-wrote Martin H. as Mark H. Apologies for the wrong reference.

72. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:20 pm 72.Tim said …

    Perhaps now Thunderbird will be able to focus, and provide solutions, on important missing features like data synchronization with mobile phones

73. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:27 pm 73.Sethop’s Interesting Times » Blog Archive » Is email slowly becoming obselete? said …

    [...] thoughts from one of the two key developers of [...]

74. on 26 Jul 2007 at 11:36 pm 74.mumbles said …

    @eCurmudgeon actually, TBird plays pretty nicely with the WEB interface of Exchange, anyway – pretty much our whole company is running TBird on our machines but with an Exchange server backend

    only thing that’s painful is calendaring, but that’s not a TB issue – bring the Lightning!

    i’ve got no clue how to solve the resources puzzle for TB but can only support scott’s assessment and give a big standing O to everyone who’s got Thunderbird to where it is today already

    also, given how FFox is about to cross the 50% mark in territories like germany, ireland, poland, it’s completely understandable for mozilla to be focusing on what’s needed to follow through on the smackdown and take back the web FIRST because that victory keeps getting a LOT closer

    and it would suck to have to be developing the mail client in an org fired-up about THAT, so why wouldn’t they spin out?

75. on 27 Jul 2007 at 2:22 am 75.Matthias said …

    Option 3 makes most sense I guess.
    It’s a shame thing have to go this way but in the end it is probably for the better when Moz.Found. & Moz.Corp. can fully focus on Firefox and the Mozilla/Gecko platform.
    And indeed, perhaps this will start a better time for Thunderbird as well.

76. on 27 Jul 2007 at 2:41 am 76.Karl said …

    I am just a private user writing from Germany. Thunderbird is well known in this country and highly valued by so many users. To my mind there must be still a lot of potential in Thunderbird. I therefore cannot understand that Mozilla is considering to drop it. Stop this nonsense and instead invest in this fantastic email client. It should even be possible to make money to make a lot of money with it!

77. on 27 Jul 2007 at 2:42 am 77.Peter B. Andersen said …

    Just a thought: Would it be feasible – and beneficial – to make Thunderbird an Eclipse based project?

78. on 27 Jul 2007 at 2:57 am 78.Daniel said …

    Whatever you guys think would be the best for TB, but please keep it alive! I love it, it’s the only mail program I allow to be used in my companies!

79. on 27 Jul 2007 at 3:59 am 79.Joe said …

    Despite the rise of web-based mail clients, off-line mail clients like Thunderbird will continue to be needed for a long time into the future because most of the world simply does not have reliable and consistent high-speed internet access. I often work in less-wealthy regions and I need Thunderbird in order to keep track of my mail when the internet goes down or I am not near an internet café, and I suspect this is the case with many people. This is an issue of equity and providing email access to the most vulnerable users.

80. on 27 Jul 2007 at 4:29 am 80.James said …

    With all the money made by the Mozilla Foundation, it is a shame that they are not investing more heavily in the own products.

    It is a pity that they don’t want to invest in Thunderbird.

    If this move improves the quality of Thunderbird, it will of course be welcome.

81. on 27 Jul 2007 at 5:31 am 81.Guy Cook said …

    In every ending, a start is found, whatever starts I hope for continued Thunderbird email that I use on all my desktops now for both business and personal emails.

82. on 27 Jul 2007 at 6:11 am 82.Ted said …

    Tell me this is a joke, right? While I understand that the MozFo is neglecting Thunderbird, and that is a problem – I can’t understand how MozFo and the Thunderbird team don’t see the synergy that Thunderbird brings to Firefox.

    Thunderbird is a great product, but it obviously could be better. It would be a shame to see it diverge from the MozFo.

    I believe the Thunderbird team should do whatever it can to stay within the MozFo. The foundation might be star struck with Firefox now, but that could change pretty quickly. There still is a lot of value in the email client, and I don’t see the browser replacing it anytime soon.

    Thunderbird could use some marketing help though. I’m surprised that Thunderbird isn’t pushed as the default email client in most Linux installations. I guess this is probably because it isn’t quite the Exchange client that Evolution is. That’s definitely an area where Thunderbird could improve.

83. on 27 Jul 2007 at 9:03 am 83.Hacking for Christ said …

    Thunderbird Thoughts…

    I’ve just noticed Mitchell’s and mscott’s posts on the future of Thunderbird. I’m glad this discussion is happening. Here are my thoughts. I note several comments in Mitchell’s post saying “Well, hire more developers”. It seems to me from what s…

84. on 27 Jul 2007 at 9:26 am 84.LorenzoC said …

    Besides the worries about me having to find another mail client, soon or later and migrate my mailboxes (if ever possible), I think that saying Mozilla == Firefox means to say Mozilla is a way smaller and less interesting thing than I thought before. Either I did not understand it from the beginning or it is an huge step backwards.

85. on 27 Jul 2007 at 9:48 am 85.Chris Barnes said …

    Jacques in post #14 has the absolute best plan – rather than spinning TB off on it’s own, put it under the SeaMonkey umbrella.

    And while they’re at it, move Sunbird over there too.

    That said, my own thoughts are from a somewhat different perspective. Unlike some of you who seem to have “google hate” (something I find amazing), where I see the biggest need for the market is in a client which runs on the user’s local machine, but keeps it’s data **AND PROFILE SETTINGS** on a free, public server.

    Note that I’m talking about more than just email here. A client for Email (accessing Gmail, something TB does very well using IMAP). A client for a Calendar app (nothing exists, but would be easy to intergrate into Google/Calendar. Another app for a full blown (outlook-like) Contacts list (probably ldap based) – nothing exists for this *anywhere*.

    Personally, I like having separate, stand-alone clients that happen to “know about” each other – but if someone wants an integrated app (ala SeaMonkey) that is fine too.

    Note that all of these client/server apps very well could have a revenue stream attached to them (as they are accessing google – or some other online provider). What is astounding to me is that noone else has thought of this..

86. on 27 Jul 2007 at 10:23 am 86.Alex Chejlyk said …

    In a nutshell.

    1. Release TB as a community project by forking the code, maintain TB at the Mozilla Foundation for at least a year to make sure the forked project is up and running.

    2. Add addressbook and calendar sharing/sync’ing features that don’t require a server backend. Add SyncML client features for smartphone users.

    3. Create a webmail TB that has a similar look and feel to the standalone app.

    4. Rename TB so all computer users can recognize it as an email client.

    The future of Thunderbird is very important. If the Mozilla foundation cannot afford to keep running Thunderbird, setting it free as a community project is probably the best choice. The transition from the Mozilla Foundation to a community project should happen over a year, maybe even forking the code during that year. This way we can see if the community is willing to contribute to TB. A name change would be welcome, as the Thunderbird name does not project email in any way. TB should also have a webmail equivalent, maybe as an addon in Firefox or maybe an installable module for apache. The webmail angle is important for many reasons, having web based email that looks and acts like the locally installed app is important to end-users. Webmail is also seen as the future, so it is best to be ready with a product. Webmail is also great if installing full applications on the local machine is not an option due to space or performance reasons.

    Thunderbird is used by many small businesses. I have several clients using it and it is more reliable than Outlook in my experiences. It does not have the integration of Outlook/Exchange, but there are workarounds. I usually pair Thunderbird with a Kolab server. Thunderbird (plus Lightning and Syncmab) seems to handle most of users needs. The main lacking features in Thunderbird, imho, are easy addressbook synchronization and easy calendar synchronization. The calendar sharing can be handled by Webdav and that works well, but if the sharing could be easily setup on local and/or network shares that would make it much more attractive to smb’s. Imagine pitching TB with easy ab/cal synchronization. Businesses would not need anything but a nas box or a basic file sharing server to share schedules and contacts. I strongly believe this would increase the uptake of Thunderbird in smb’s. Webmail is wonderful but it still lacks the performance and features of a local application. Eventually webmail will perform as well as local apps, but we aren’t there yet (Zimbra is close).

    I plan on supporting TB. Unfortunately I don’t code and don’t have much spare time. If I find a bug I file it and answer the call for donations with cash. TB can be profitable, a reasonable support fee for the product is something businesses would not have a problem with.

    Cheers,

    Alex C.

87. on 27 Jul 2007 at 10:58 am 87.Alan Mead said …

    This blog and Mitchell’s say, essentially, “This is a good idea” and “We’d like your input”

    Input on what? Decisions have seemingly been made already!

    Why is this a good idea?

    What mission would the new organizational home of TB have?

    I echo the concerns others have raised. It’s completely unclear why any of these options are better than the status quo… is that how bad it is, we’re being asked to give input on three bad options?

88. on 27 Jul 2007 at 12:04 pm 88.An E-mail Call to Action « OSS Blog said …

    [...] by Devastator on July 27th, 2007 There has been lots of discussion on this subject so far, about the Mozilla Foundation wanting to turn it’s focus onto Firefox by [...]

89. on 27 Jul 2007 at 12:50 pm 89.Rickst29 said …

    Mozilla *says* that web-based mail meets nearly everyone’s needs, and that everyone should just use Firefox to access Gmail. But this is LUDICROUS– For a business person, Gmail has significant issues with backup/retention, search capabilities, security, and even support. (It’s HIDDEN and PROPRIETARY; and even after all these months Google still says that it’s a “beta” Product.)

    If Thunderbird and Sunbird really will get more resources by becoming independent, THEN this will actually be a nice change– and Scott seems to be saying that this will be the actual outcome.

    But I fear that this not about Thunderbird at all, that it’s all about fitting the Mozilla Corporation into Gmail (and MS Hotmail). Their strategies seem to be “all your data are belong to us, and you can’t see what we’re doing with it because the software is 100% our proprietary eye-pee, we have the right to fsck you anytime we want.” So I suspect a DISGUSTING sell out of the Open Source paradigm. Mozilla’s strategy appears to be supporting the displacement of OPEN email by Google’s proprietary Cathedral.

    If my worst fear does come true, and there are other traditional *free software* POP/SMTP clients which will interact with Firefox in a convenient way, and allow me import Thunderbird address book and mail data easily, then I’d like to hear about them when the time comes.

90. on 27 Jul 2007 at 12:56 pm 90.Bob said …

    I beleive the most efficent thing would be reorganization under mozilla into 2 divisons (firefox & thunderbird) each with its goals and own internal organization. Then mozilla can function as the overall goal tender, finance provider, direction, etc.
    It would be a shame to split it up and loose a lot of connecttivity, cohesion. It would be more acceptable to large companies than 2 smaller organizations wandering around.

91. on 27 Jul 2007 at 2:39 pm 91.MacDeviant said …

    No one has talked about the Mac people. What e-mail package do they use now, Mail? I’ve used TB from the beginning and can’t see or bring myself to use Mail. Nor am I going to pay Microsoft a cent to use Entourage; an outdated client. I’ll switch over and let gmail check for messages from now on. I always thought Mozilla was about the end user, not the profit margin. Another company bitten by the greed factor. Too bad for the user.

92. on 27 Jul 2007 at 8:42 pm 92.CatThief said …

    If these three options are the only ones available, I agree that Option 3 is the best way to continue the Thunderbird project. Personally I would prefer to see things remain as they are, but above all I do not want to see this grand e-mail client reach end-of-life.

    Best of luck to everyone involved, and special praise goes to Scott for a job well done thus far. I wish the entire Thunderbird team the best during, and following, this transition.

93. on 27 Jul 2007 at 10:42 pm 93.Syamsul Anuar said …

    I’m the IT Man for my company and we are a big open source users in the enterprise space. For the email space we are promoting the use of Thunderbird to all our users so that we can be free from the monster called outlook. But now since MoFo or MoCo whatever doesnt like it… why not make Thunderbird a part of Open Office and fill it with all the calendering and management function a’la Outlook? Well, since we get Outlook with MS Office, why not get “OpenOffice Thunderbird” when we download OpenOffice?

    I already have no trust to MoCo / MoFo since the forking of Iceweasel from Debian…

94. on 27 Jul 2007 at 10:47 pm 94.Lynden said …

    I must say your post was very good. I think the the Future of Thunderbird will probably be in good hands who knows maybe a big company like Google will help Thunderbird. I have posted a blog entire after reading the official Thunderbird Blog please read my entry on my blog as to what I have to say about this.
    http://techtalkbahamas.blogspot.com/

95. on 28 Jul 2007 at 4:02 am 95.Max said …

    I’ve used Thunderbird since I moved to Firefox 3+? years ago, I forget how long. When I switched from PC to Mac I took my most used and favoured browser and client with me.

    I have to say I don’t find much difference between any email client I’ve used – OE, Outlook, Thunderbird etc. I think it must be difficult to develop an email client that is siginificantly different to others without building an absolutely huge app (Outlook?). That said I’ve been exploring moving from Thunderbird to Apple Mail in the past week. One of the reasons for this is that Mail has more functionality for linking to other Mac apps and that’s appealing (and will be enhanced in Leopard). I wouldn’t expect a third party app like Thunderbird to be as integrated.

    Finally, I have to say Thunderbird has been rock solid for me for the time I’ve used it and I’d like to thanks the developers for all the work they’ve put into making so reliable.

96. on 28 Jul 2007 at 6:48 am 96.Dustin said …

    I’ve been using Thunderbird for a long time now. It simple is the best email program available. I would really like to see Mozilla continue on with it’s development.

    I echo the concerns of the users above.

97. on 28 Jul 2007 at 7:14 am 97.Hylton said …

    It is a pity that Mozilla have made a pre-emptive decision to rid the Mozilla Corporation/Foundation of the Thunderbird email engine. It was one of the first to introduce me to opensource and Linux after I had used its predecessor Netscape/Mozilla Navigator + Mail for ages on Windows. Provided I could have the same interface when I switched from Windows to Linux, I was at the time all for switching over to Linux.

    On the many mailing lists I am a member of, folk have never complained about my threading. The filters are easy to setup and it integrates well with Postfix and amavisd.

    I always hoped that some record was being made of my usage of Mozilla Thunderbird software as it is the ONLY email client I, and I am sure many others use, and have become accustomed to for many of the last few years.

    Its ‘termination’ announcement is not nice to hear as it might mean I, and many others, have to change their email client. I hope, any option to keep Thunderbird going, would draw many users out in support of it against other GUI clients like Evolution(aka Look-a-like). What GUI email client can the Mozilla Corporation/Foundation provide that meets the looks and functionality of Thunderbird, I dare say none.

    WE can only hope that Mitchell keeps us on and not only allows us to grow but also allows Mozilla’ Firefox to grow as well.

98. on 28 Jul 2007 at 4:55 pm 98.Nikolay said …

    Excuse me, but Firefox never was not bound with Thunderbird as IE with its own small/big mail client. While IE has its menu item “Tools->Mail and News” Firefox has no mention, scent, link to mail facilities. No wonder that now they finaly got divorced at last.
    And in “political” aspect it would be good to not make a show about “Thunderbird’s death” because people all over the world (although they may not use the apps) keep in their minds and hearts the existance of that bunch, “sweet couple” – Firefox&Thunderbird!

99. on 28 Jul 2007 at 7:53 pm 99.Amir said …

    Thunderbird is a superior IMAP mail client to outlook 2003 (I haven’t used 2007) hands down; Search, configuration, reliability .

    After the latest release of lightning the only thing I am waiting to see in Thunderbird to be able delete all my outlook installations at the office I administer is some sort of Free/Busy service in place and bug fixes for the new event sending.

    Thunderbird not progressing would be a huge dissappointment.

100. on 29 Jul 2007 at 1:39 am 100.mike said …

     A new vision and roadmap for Thunderbrid.

     1. adding sunbird lightning calendar to Thunderbird installer by default
     2. adding sameplace.cc jabber instant messenger to Thunderbird
     3. Integrating serverless Instant Messenger retroshare.sf.net to Thunderbird and Sameplace-Button
     4. Creating a adress book in Thunderbird, which has: emailadress, jabber-id, retroshare-key fields for each contact (copy out line).
     5. creating the sameplace box in the left menue as a contact list for Thunderbrid email, users are offline or online and can be messaged or emailed. So there is no need for a buddylist, it is just the contacts adressbook which appears in the write Window.
     6. Make a Thunderbird wizard, which picks up email-pop, jabber-id, retroshare cert_user.pem file OR creats an account for retroshare serverless IM.

     These six steps to a new Thunderbird future combine both:
     - online and offline communication
     - Instant Messaging and Email
     - serverless (new jabber-retroshare) and serverbased protocols (old jabber)
     - a new general interface to internet communication on the desktop.

     If no new roadmap is done for Mozilla, let´s do it for openoffice.
     A team could performed with all the developers of
     Thunderbird, sunbird, sameplace and retroshare and maybe openoffice-developers.
     BTW, there was an announcement, that 50 chinese developers invest in OOo, so why no getting support here as well.

101. on 29 Jul 2007 at 9:20 am 101.افكار و احلام » Taking aim at the walled gardens? said …

     [...] on the internet were communication becomes an impossible or arduous task? The outcome of the Great Thunderbird War will [...]

102. on 29 Jul 2007 at 12:31 pm 102.PeterInMn said …

     Hi all.
     There are some really great comments and ideas here. Also, there is truly some love relationships with Thunderbird. And to my surprise, there are/is even some corporations that are using this, and prefer it. I really like what Alex had to say at post #86. The reference below.

     on 27 Jul 2007 at 10:23 am 86.Alex Chejlyk said …

     I was surprised to find out, supposedly, that there is corporate support for Firefox by Google. Is this verifiable? Does not a non-profit corporation, Mozilla, have to declare their sources of funding? In spite of that, it might be good to have a large corporates sponsor, as long as official decisions weree left up to the corporate CEO, and corporate board. However, maybe the individual emailer could benefit by tieing Google Ad sense into a footer at the bottom of email messages. If they will pay me for hits, that would be Okay with me. The decision to have the tie-in could be set up as a default selection, with a provision or check box to opt-out. This seems to me how it is done with Firefox. The default search enging is Google, but you can opt for several other search engines, or even select more as a Firefox Add-on. Also, Yahoo will often put footer adds at the bottom of their web mails; at least this what appears sometines on Yahoo email when it is delivered to me as POP mail. So, maybe a footer of Google ad sense will help to fund Thunderbird. And as far as combing it with a calender, maybe there is a way to download the Googel calender into Sunbird or put it inside of Thunderbird. I think, to borrower a “Bill” word, there will be all sorts of ways to innovate, and we are only limited by our imaginations.

103. on 29 Jul 2007 at 12:35 pm 103.PeterInMn said …

     Claification on my comment #102. When I said “as long as decisions were left up to the Corporate CEO and corporate board”, I was referring specifically to CEO Mitchell Baker, bless her soul, of the Mozilla corporation or Mozilla Foundation. In other words, Corporate donors, Google, must not be officially connected to the non-profit corporations decision makeing process (in this case the Mozilla foundation). Don’t FLAME me!

104. on 29 Jul 2007 at 12:53 pm 104.Mozilla To T-bird: Move Out « Opportunity Knocks said …

     [...] of the discussion about this is on Scott MacGregor’s blog and Mitchell Baker’s [...]

105. on 29 Jul 2007 at 4:16 pm 105.Twilling said …

     As much as I enjoy using FFox & TBird, there is always Opera.

106. on 29 Jul 2007 at 4:57 pm 106.Zean said …

     TB will follow the yellow brick road to some chuffing bid Corp like AOL who will screw with it for a while then when it starts to turn sour it will be spat out onto the ground in Black Rock desert to die. AKA Netscape Road

107. on 29 Jul 2007 at 10:23 pm 107.Thunderbird leaving Mozilla, time for the chick to leave the nest « One small man in one big universe said …

     [...] is allot more complicated then this and if you care to find out more, go here. I for one think that this is a bad idea for Thunderbird, not being linked with Mozilla will [...]

108. on 29 Jul 2007 at 10:27 pm 108.Is Mozilla Dropping Thunderbird? | GrantPalin.com said …

     [...] Thoughts on Thunderbird [...]

109. on 30 Jul 2007 at 2:18 am 109.Petr said …

     I would incline towards c#14 – move TB back to SeaMonkey, where it started (in times of the Mozilla Suite). It would be beneficial for both sides and users as well.

110. on 30 Jul 2007 at 7:30 am 110.Bob Scott said …

     I for one am disappointed in this decision. I also think it is bad for Open Source in general. I had been a longtime Outlook user and had switched to Thunderbird. I really like it. It isn’t Outlook, but it suits my needs and seems much lighter weight.

     Now, Thunderbird is being ditched without any details on what is going to sustain it. If a commercial company does this they would tied and feathered.

     Looks like I go back to Outlook. Bye.

111. on 30 Jul 2007 at 9:27 am 111.MB said …

     Feel free to ask the lowersaxony’s taxation office (OFD Hannover) about their migrations away from Lotus Domino to Thunderbird + Cyrus IMAPd for about 14.000 accounts – starting now. First office – about 250 users – is running for month now.

     So far for “I think Tbird has to become relevant to business users, even if just small business people”

     I think, there is no press information out by now, but maybe will.
     http://www.ofd.niedersachsen.de

112. on 30 Jul 2007 at 1:37 pm 112.Mertiki said …

     No… I think that it’s a very very very wrong idea to separate Firefox and Thunderbird.

     The real problem here is that Mozilla takes all the ressources for Firefox. Why should Thunderbird be separated from Firefox project to get ressources?? It’s only a internal priority problem.

     I think that Firefox must have seriously more people working on it because there’s a lot of expected functionnalities from Firefox and the security of Firefox is a priority because it’s a browser. But Thunderbird deserve to have the needed ressources as it is seriously linked to the Internet revolution.

     Email is a pretty used technology on the world and I have a lot of customers that use Thunderbird because it’s a real good program! Email is the way to communicate on Internet and if the Mozilla foundation would forget that.. I think that they would break the revolutionnary vision of the foundation.. Internet is pretty much more than just webpages, it’s communication too.. Email could be really improved in the future and from now on, Thunderbird doesn’t need to have really big ressource team around has there’s no new protocol or email types, just HTML or text, and this is the Firefox part anyway! So why it would be so difficult to assign ressources for both Firefox and Thunderbird. Ok maybe thunderbird doesn’t need big ressources, but it needs ressources, it’s not yes or no, 0% or 100%, a percentage of the ressources can be assigned to Thunderbird, no?

     Thunderbird and Firefox cannot be separated, it would be a serious error resulting is loss of ressources, works, time and money. Why don’t just assign more ressources to Thunderbird and Firefox?? Mozilla have the money!

     It’s my point of view, but I care about Firefox and Thunderbird as they are probably one of the two most better achievement I’ve ever seen in the Open Source world.

113. on 30 Jul 2007 at 4:34 pm 113.Ryan's Journal: The Death of Thunderbird said …

     [...] Who else does open source desktop mail clients for the Mac? If Thunderbird’s lead developer’s preferences end up winning out, there will be a for-profit corporate entity’s desires to contend with – and while Scott’s probably [...]

114. on 30 Jul 2007 at 5:13 pm 114.Bienvenu’s Blog » Blog Archive » Recent Thunderbird Discussions said …

     [...] the future of Thunderbird as a result of Mitchell’s blog post and Scott’s subsequent post. I hope that presenting some additional information might help focus the [...]

115. on 30 Jul 2007 at 9:35 pm 115.Aaron Lawrence said …

     To be clear: organise yourself how you like for best efficiency, but I expect Mozilla foundation to put a SIGNIFICANT share of what resources it has into mail+news. That means money and developers.

     Anything else will be a major betrayal of both original goals and of the Netscape heritage. Not to mention millions of users. You already gave many users a big slap by dropping support of the suite, which generally makes more sense than two separate products if you want both.

     I’m prepared to donate (and have done so several times before) to support “Mozilla” = Web+mail+other bits=a suite of internet products. But as just another browser company, Opera almost has me convinced and IE7 looks OK too.

     I especially don’t want to hear marketing waffle about “making the web our mission” or whatever. That’s the kind of crap that is available in ABUNDANCE from dozens of other companies (like Microsoft). Mozilla is supposed to be doing something different.

116. on 30 Jul 2007 at 11:21 pm 116.Andreas said …

     Thunderbird is a great product I’ve be using it since version 1.0. I love it, because it is platform independent, it has a news client and it is possible to snychronise the emails by just copying one directory.
     The current move, to split thunderbird of the mozilla foundation, seems like a bad idea to me. As far as I understand, thunderbird is using the same platform as firefox.
     Will thunderbird as an independent entity still have the chance to influence the development of the platform? Does it still receive support from the mozilla foundation? Is mozilla now only about devloping a web browser for google? Is google afraid that a potent email client is a threat to gmail?

117. on 31 Jul 2007 at 12:21 am 117..liferc » Blog Archive » MoCo said …

     [...] move forward is to break free from the Mozilla Foundation and setup an organization like what Scott already mentioned. Thunderbird will survive even without the resources of Mozilla. Thunderbird is a first-class app [...]

118. on 31 Jul 2007 at 5:23 am 118.Philippe Cauvet said …

     … “a bird doesn’t fly BECAUSE IT HAS WINGS, it has wings BECAUSE IT FLIES.” (post 57)

     I say “Push the bird out of the nest, that is Nature’s way.”

     The idea has been thrown out in the open because the people at the top have already given some serious thought to the spinning off of TBird. The financial details are in their hands. The user community is not in the confidence and that is as it should be. But obviously, an economic decision will be made based on an objective financial evaluation.

     TBird is already a good product, albeit with some shortcomings. The outpouring of support that transpires from the posts shows that it can and will become better with the assistance of the Open Source Community.

119. on 31 Jul 2007 at 7:03 am 119.Starry173 said …

     - Develop a free Webmail with some ads to help support it.
     - Continue to support Thunderbird on PCs in conjunction with the Webmail.
     - Support fee-based domain name hosting to bring businesses into the fold.

     Thunderbird is the only real alternative to M$.

120. on 31 Jul 2007 at 7:57 am 120.Stuart said …

     Maybe someone could convince IBM to donate the rights/code for Lotus Organizer to the new Thunderbird project. It’s still a very good organizer (address book, calendar, etc.), and they have pretty much abandoned the product.

     Regarding the idea that I read yesterday, of becoming part of Open Office… I don’t know if this would work, but I wouldn’t hurt to see if a link could be made on there website to direct folks to Thunderbird content and download.

121. on 31 Jul 2007 at 8:00 am 121.Stuart said …

     sorry… I meant to say “their website”.

     Thats what happens when I use a spell checker rather than use my brain!

122. on 31 Jul 2007 at 1:27 pm 122.Simon Bouchard’s Blog » Blog Archive » Reclaim Your Thunderbird said …

     [...] lead developer Scott MacGregor thinks a community project might work better than belonging to another organizational setting. I hope, as a Thunderbird fan, [...]

123. on 31 Jul 2007 at 2:42 pm 123.Mike said …

     Firefox provides Windows users with a viable alternative to Internet Explorer. They also need an alternative to Outlook & Outlook Express, and Thunderbird fills that need quite nicely. Rather than saying that Thunderbird doesn’t fit the Mozilla Foundation’s mission and we need to jettison it, maybe the Foundation needs to broaden its mission scope to cover additional products….

124. on 31 Jul 2007 at 10:28 pm 124.Amy Rose said …

     Uh, what’s this “Stick it to Google” nonsense? GMail can be accessed via POP3 and SMTP, just like any other e-mail account.

125. on 01 Aug 2007 at 2:31 am 125.Rakshat said …

     I am a home user of Thunderbird (pulling my Google mail into the client) and am very happy with the product. Please let me know where I may donate money as a thank you to the developers/contributors/community that made thunderbird possible and to encourage further work on this remarkable product.

     This is going to be a bit disjointed but I would welcome your ideas on the following – A lot of us did contribute and raise over $250,000 for the Firefox NYT advertisement. If we were able to raise a similar amount would it be possible for development to continue on TB for about 6 months (along with the cvs/bugzilla/irc/hosting support that Mozilla will continue to provide. The six months should be enough to once again revitalise community volunteer developers, testers/bug reporters and spreaders around TB.

     There are few people out there who like TB. Infact when version one of Firefox was being launched and Spreadfirefox had just been operationalized there were a lot of people who felt that TB should get equal marketing push (and for sometime around TB version 1 release it did get some push) Anyway form the launch of version 1 and especially after the NYT advertisement Mozilla actively encouraged users (old and new) to spread firefox. Across the world people evangalised for Firefox as it was a great (if not the best – opera and safari fans do contest this from time to time. I like Firefox more) browser and it was open. I still remember the Firefox 1 party, which I held at my house in Delhi on 20th November 2004 (I think a few days after FF 1 was released)I still think that Firefox is a great product and continue to spread it at every possible opportunity. Sometime after the NYT advertisement MoCo was formed in order to meet tax regulations (MoFo was never able to give the final breakup of the NYT ad collection spending though I personally asked Asa on two occasions via sfx) As time passed after this the focus moved to FF and TB took a back seat. The understanding or rationale I gave myself (I may have been wrong as this was never explicitly mentioned by MoFo/MoCo) was that as FF was easier to showcase, the competing dominant product was clearly inferior and it would be easier to switch users to firefox. At a later stage the high adoption percentages and hype around firefox would be used by MoFo and MoCo to push TB (around version 3 or around the now time). Instead one gets a mozillaZine headline “Mozilla Thunderbird to Find New Home as Mozilla Foundation Focuses on Mozilla Firefox”. One is bound to feel a bit disappointed and frustrated by this.

     Obviously MoFo and the core development team of Thunderbird will make the final decision but personally I would feel happier if TB has its own non profit organisation rather than a company.

126. on 01 Aug 2007 at 12:03 pm 126.Asa Dotzler said …

     Rakshat, you said, “If we were able to raise a similar amount would it be possible for development to continue on TB for about 6 months (along with the cvs/bugzilla/irc/hosting support that Mozilla will continue to provide. The six months should be enough to once again revitalise community volunteer developers, testers/bug reporters and spreaders around TB.”

     Money is not an issue. Thunderbird _will_ continue to be developed — and not just for six months, but for years, most likely with at least a few paid full-time developers and with all of the hosting resources it requires (cvs/bugzilla/etc.)

     That being said, increasing volunteer developers, testers/bug reporters and advocates is something that would help Thunderbird and all of the Mozilla projects.

     - A

127. on 02 Aug 2007 at 3:15 am 127.Rakshat said …

     Thanks Asa for clearing up that Thunderbird will continue to be developed, most likely with a few paid full time developers. One feels much better.

     After reading a lot of the discussions going on I get the feeling that the new organisational set up will mostly be working on QA, release, marketing and part development of Thunderbird and for all the other activities Mozilla will continue to provide as much support as possible. Is my understanding correct. If it is and money is not an issue then why can’t there be a option 3a where Thunderbird becomes just like Seamonkey without the new service company that would be responsible for the productization of Thunderbird (as option 3 currently states)?

128. on 02 Aug 2007 at 12:46 pm 128.Wes said …

     I agree with the two people here who see the obvious solution…OpenOffice.

     OpenOffice is an interesting project; they’re trying to compete with MSOffice but they haven’t even addressed the *one* key program that keeps people using Office regardless: Outlook. Outlook, for all it’s worthlessness, is an excellent groupware client when coupled with Exchange.

     OpenOffice doesn’t stand a snowball’s chance of making it big-time corporate without an Answer to Outlook.

     At the same time, Thunderbird stands even *less* of a chance without a valid answer to Exchange. Thunderbird is basically the premier email client on Linux and a strong contender on Windows. Evolution, the co-premier or runner-up, is neat until you try to use it with Exchange.

     The solution here is clear to both parties. You have developers accustomed to building email apps from Thunderbird, and developers accustomed to productivity apps from OpenOffice.

     And just for kicks, you have groupware folks from Kolab or Scalix, or even PostPath. It seems like Thunderbird should be renamed OpenOffice Collabora and start working on legitimate Exchange integration.

     Exchange sucks, but expecting companies to switch away from it is wishful thinking at best, and dangerous to software quality at worst. At least in the next 5 years. Lightening is really close to getting there in the Calendar/Task realm…which is of Epic Importance in corp. Nobody gives a crap about 80% of Outlook’s features, but if you can’t use company shared calendars…

129. on 03 Aug 2007 at 8:48 am 129.Syamsul Anuar said …

     I think this is the chance for TB to be reposition as an Enterprise class mail reader to challenge Outlook market position. And the way to do it as I said before is by partnering open source enterprise project such as OpenOffice or Open-Xchange or Scalix or Zimbra. Yeah, we can still have the lightweight “TB Lite” but also the heavyweight “TB Enterprise” something.

     It is still beyond me why there is no Enterprise-class open source email client for Windows. Besides, by marketing to the right guy (i.e. the decision maker) in terms of providing high quality email product that is Open Source, TB stands to benefit more in terms of monetary support in the enterprise space. Also, rather than providing short-cut for gmail account integration, why not also include open-xchange, scalix, dovecot, egroupware shortcut? (mostly for the calendering purposes)

     Yes, the web-based email client is the future whatever, but for serious enterprise stuff such as email, the open source stuff still have a lot to be desired.

     Also by joining the OpenOffice initiative, TB can promote the “open document mail” that enable user to migrate easily from 1 email client to the other. This will stir up and challenge Exchange market even more. Open Source absentee is this matter is also puzzling…

     I say bring on “OpenOffice Thunderbird” whatever…

130. on 03 Aug 2007 at 10:37 am 130.Penultimate Reality » Blog Archive » Thunderbird to Find a New Home (and Other Thoughts) said …

     [...] come out slowly over the past couple of weeks that Mozilla Thunderbid is looking for a new home, as the Mozilla Foundation wants to concentrate more on promoting Firefox. I’m not entirely [...]

131. on 05 Aug 2007 at 1:16 am 131.TB&FF user said …

     I’m so sorry to read this, but users need to know more:

     As Frédéric Buclin says:

     >>What will be the next step? MoCo could as well >>decide to throw away some features of Firefox, >>deciding they should focus on such or such >>content of the web, again ignoring something new’

     Well this just has started, SOAP support a very important api was removed from the trunk. This allows FF and TB to consume WEB Services (I think many users know this is important part of the WEB)

     Reason: No body owns the module.

     What will be next??? I think something is going wrong with the Mozilla Foundation. Users and Corporations that uses those appls seriously, need to know what’s going on to start making the right choice.

132. on 07 Aug 2007 at 6:54 am 132.guillemo said …

     good or bad idea
     that thunderbird is gotten up to seamonkey? technically it does not seem very difficult or if?

     sorry by my english.-

133. on 07 Aug 2007 at 11:12 am 133.Daniel said …

     I have to say, that I could not agree with you in 100% regarding Finding a New Home For Thunderbird, but it’s just my opinion, which could be wrong

134. on 08 Aug 2007 at 6:31 pm 134.sirrahn said …

     From the articles I cannot see the reason for it. I’m not saying there isn’t one, but its not outlined in the blog or Mitchell’s blog. Without knowing more about how the foundation operates on a day to day basis it simply isn’t clear.

     Eg, if as you say “The code wouldn’t move, the ways in which we all interact (bugzilla, CVS, IRC) would not change.” etc then I don’t see what difference it makes. Thunderbird, sunbird, and the mysterious compozer(nvu?) are obviously under resourced compared to firefox. But, I don’t see how this move will draw in more developers or attention.

     I assume the mozilla foundation give you the framework to developing open source software, and then to make money from it though the subsidiary. If this is true then I don’t know why you wouldn’t simply broaden the purpose of the mozilla foundation slightly (it would have to be very slight, it at all necessary) and provide little homes for all these projects within this broader structure. Surely the real challenge is to find a way of inviting more developers into the process?

135. on 09 Aug 2007 at 2:17 pm 135.Matt Lampiasi said …

     Thunderbird provides a huge opportunity for users to move out of the monopolized outlook world. For every user I know who uses outlook for email/calendaring/contacts, I know another who wish es they had other choices. Be they more affordable or just out of principal. As just one user, I can say Thunderbird is more important to me than Firefox. I think the Mozilla foundation is sitting on a wealth of products that offer integration and collaboration possibilities, not just Firefox. Seabird/Lightning/Tbird have so much promise. 3′rd party developers are working on some great addons that make tbird viable as an integration tool with open source calendaring and crm apps that many small organizations and nonprofits take to FULL advantage – I setup such systems with clients all the time.

     I believe tbird would be best served by staying with the Mozilla foundation and that reconsideration of it’s future and current importance take place.

     Thanks for considering my comments!

136. on 09 Aug 2007 at 7:31 pm 136.Linux ready for the desktop? » Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology said …

     [...] supposedly has been working on an integrated email/calendar/contacts system, but they are spinning off Thunderbird, and Sunbird (the calendaring app) is coming along slowly. So an integrated app from Mozilla is [...]

137. on 21 Aug 2007 at 10:00 pm 137.Ragz said …

     If firefox is successful & is said to have a good revenue model then why not feed thunderbird from this revenue? Instead of mozilla trying to break off thunderbird into new organization, why not try to develop a revenue model for thunderbird in the existing framework? Success breeds success, thunderbird should ride on firefox’s success. Even at the cost of reducing firefox’s revenue by diverting attention, funds to thunderbird can lead to two amazing products which people will love instead of just one amazing product from mozilla.

138. on 06 Oct 2007 at 7:24 am 138.Daniel said …

     I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Finding a New Home For Thunderbird, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

139. on 09 Oct 2007 at 4:42 pm 139.Alex J. Tanner said …

     Please don’t split Thunderbird and Firefox. Just because Firefox is more popular does not mean that they aren’t complementry products that should stay together. I see death for Thunderbird if it is forced from it’s current position. I believe the reason Firefox is more popular than Thunderbird is that it is a lot easier to convince someone to change their web browser than their email client.

140. on 08 Apr 2008 at 12:16 am 140.samuelsidler.com » Thunderbird Taking Flight said …

     [...] posted his thoughts on the moving of Thunderbird from the Mozilla Corporation to a new home. I had some more thoughts, [...]

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