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The last I heard from Thunderbird in 2018, the story was Mozilla making preparations to divest themselves from the project and spin it off to "the community" (a

The last I heard from Thunderbird in 2018, the story was Mozilla making preparations to divest themselves from the project and spin it off to "the community" (a.k.a. Apache graveyard). This post makes it sound like the Thunderbird team has been growing within Mozilla during 2018, and is targeting another 75% headcount increase in 2019. I mean, that's awesome, as someone who wants there to be a viable desktop email client option out there. But geeze... what a muddled mess of messaging and pivots from this organization.

RealDinosaur 8y ago
The big problem I see is entrenchment... it's an app where nothing can change. They can't go ahead and just do a Chrome 69 with it. What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app, and do it well. Electron has a bad rap, but it's mostly due to being misused. Electron can be used well (VS Code for example). Mozilla LightningBird for example. I could get on board with that. Heck, I'd probably help out. Edit: Jeeze! You guys sure hate Electron. Just because a tool is misused so often, doesn't mean it's a bad tool.
- icebraining 8y ago
  I don't get it, why can't anything change? In fact, the platform in which Thunderbird runs - XULRunner - is the equivalent of Electron for the Gecko engine, and a bunch of different applications have been done with it.
- bertman 8y ago
  > What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app Now this is something you don't read everyday on Hacker News...
  - RealDinosaur 8y ago
    With such downvotes, I start to think electron hate is a cult.
    - scarejunba 8y ago
      Haha, it absolutely is. Thunderbird’s engine is not really that different in its core ideas.
    - sneakernets 8y ago
      I think it's due to a majority of those who have been around the block a few times knowing a trainwreck of a fad when they see one. At the end of the day it's basically taking a web page and throwing it into a container without browser controls. Remember when Windows 95 IE4 enhancements got so much flak and jeers from hackers due to MSHTML? Electron feels even worse than that. The Web still sucks, and we don't need to shove The Web into native applications. Learn to make an actual program. Heck, QT exists, learn to use it. I'm not saying you can't use an HTML layout engine for help and info screens, but for the entire program it's pants-on-head stupid. The time spent trying to warp one's web designer skills to make an "app" could have been used to learn how to make an actual application that would've been portable, and take less than a gig of RAM. I use Teams at work, and it's taking 300+ MB of RAM on startup when it's basically a glorified chat client. Insanity.
      - favorited 8y ago
        > we don't need to shove The Web into native applications 90% of the time I'd agree with this sentiment, but modern email clients need to be able to render rich web content. A browser engine integration is just the reality, at some level.
        gsich 8y ago
        >but modern email clients need to be able to render rich web content No they don't.
        favorited 8y ago
        If they want users they do. I get more HTML emails than plain-text. I won't switch to a mail client that can't render the majority of my inbox.
- monksy 8y ago
  Electron apps are usually pretty terrible. They have issues with: 1. Memory usage and cpu usage (you're running a browser to run your application) 2. Platform look and feel (doesn't exist in javascript) 3. Platform and windowing behaviors. I agree with the other commented to you.. if it changed to electronic, I would drop it as well.
  - martinald 8y ago
    Considering Thunderbird uses XUL and JavaScript, it has all the same problems.
    - DonHopkins 8y ago
      Plus the wee existential problem that its platform is going away, instead of improving.
  - RealDinosaur 8y ago
    Hence the spin-off app. A ground-up, UX focused app which does not have to meet feature parity, would attract users who are already confused by email clients. This is a different target audience to the people who typically use Thunderbird at this time. For some people Apple Mail is enough.
    - monksy 8y ago
      Those people are targeted by Geary.
    - ben509 8y ago
      TBH, anyone I interact with who is tech savvy doesn't use email, so I really don't need those features.
      - intertextuality 8y ago
        On the other hand, I find slack and its ilk terrible compared to email. Plenty of people I know use that at work, but email is really nice, and I love the features Thunderbird has.
- superkuh 8y ago
  I use Thunderbird because it is an application. If it became a Javascript app I and many others would surely switch to some other application.
  - icebraining 8y ago
    It is a JavaScript app :) e.g. https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/file/tip/mail/base/content https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/file/tip/mail/base/conte...
    - jcranmer 8y ago
      Most of the actual guts of Thunderbird are in mailnews/, particularly mailnews/base and mailnews/db for the this-is-what-eats-the-CPU things. That code is almost entirely in C++, although there is an effort to try to rewrite stuff in JS (which has gone slowly because, hey, that's 100KLOC of C++ you have to move at once).
  - zmix 8y ago
    Thunderbird is an XML+CSS+Javascript app. Just like Electron (well, Electron is not XML).
    - superkuh 8y ago
      By that definition would you call Firefox before version ~40 a javascript app? It obviously isn't despite using XUL and the elements implicit in that. The same is true of Thunderbird.
      - acct1771 8y ago
        Curious what you'd have called it.
      - int_19h 8y ago
        The underlying rendering engine is in C++, of course. As is the JS implementation. Which is to say, exactly like Electron. The only relevant difference that I can see between XUL and Electron is that the former had its own non-HTML-based markup language for UI.
- ben509 8y ago
  A total rewrite almost sank Netscape[1] long ago. It's still generally a bad idea. There's an electron based mail client called Mailspring[2], and having used it for a few months, I definitely understand the antipathy towards electron. You might like it. [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... [2]: https://getmailspring.com/ https://getmailspring.com/
  - hallman76 8y ago
    It's incredible how much this still holds true today. Thanks @spolsky!
  - baroffoos 8y ago
    Huge rewrites of firefox are saving it today. Seems like the best way is to rewrite in chunks allowing you to use new bits in the existing application.
    - ptman 8y ago
      Incremental rewrites. The netscape rewrite was started from scratch, IIRC.
- xte 8y ago
  You have an a bit cached but true point, that's is: there was a so big push to web tech that actual local graphics libraries was left in an old era without real updates. That's the case even of Qt and their QML mess. That's the case of GTk mess etc. However have a browser as a framework and environment for anything is even worse than actual X server architectures. So yes, we need to rethink desktops, perhaps looking at past solutions like LispM GUIs and Plan9/Rio but certainly not move toward actual trend.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    Explain how QML is a mess? I've been using it almost as long as it exists - which is much longer than the life of the average hot JS framework - and didn't notice the mess. It has problems and limitations like everything, but overall it's very productive.
    - xte 8y ago
      Essentially because require tons of fragile boilerplate code to work and it's mostly designed with web principle in mind, not desktop one. You essentially can't found a QML GUI that not exhibit tons of error, from commercial one like TeamViewer to Kde/Plasma. It's surely more flexible than classic widgets but it's flexibility is not designed in a manageable way.
      - ahartmetz 8y ago
        > require tons of fragile boilerplate code to work Well yeah, you need to implement the properties and data models in C++ and export them - if you are doing it right that is. But the UI code is very quick and easy to write in return! > it's mostly designed with web principle in mind, not desktop one Not mainly desktop, true - it is designed mainly for touchscreens, mobile or embedded. It is easy to use exactly because it's not a web technology bent for user interfaces. > exhibit tons of error Not for the things I've been working on, which includes KDE / Plasma and many commercial applications.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- slondr 8y ago
  Thunderbird is a XUL implementation with a lot of JavaScript being used for its UI. It's as close as you can get to being the Electron of Firefox without being in a PPA. The most recent version (Thunderbird 60) introduced sweeping UI changes that went much deeper than even Chrome 69's.
  - ahartmetz 8y ago
    There is a big difference between using an object model designed for UIs and using the DOM or canvas, even with the same language (JS). An appropriate model can vastly simplify and accelerate layout and painting. I'm thinking of QML here - the performance situation is probably similar with XUL, ugly as it may be.
pbhjpbhj 8y ago
Presumably, following Firefox, they're going to add advertising and do some unsolicited tie-ins that you can't remove.
oconnore 8y ago
Lots of things are path dependent. Probably the threat of an unmaintained email client is why they got enough donations to hire full time developers.
icebraining 8y ago
Mozilla did divest themselves and spin it off; but the community was not a graveyard: https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-fu...
nocman 8y ago
It is still a separate project. Mozilla is just collecting donations for them: "While Thunderbird is now an independent project separate from Mozilla, Mozilla has agreed to collect donations on our behalf" ( quote above is from https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird?utm_source=tb_blog&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=tb_2019_post https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird?utm_source=tb_b... )
- StevePerkins 8y ago
  > "Our team grew considerably in 2018, to eight staff working full-time on Thunderbird. At the beginning of this year we are going to be adding as many as six new members to our team." Who are these staff members working full-time for, then?
  - icebraining 8y ago
    Contractors chosen by the Thunderbird Council (a group of volunteers from the community) and paid by third-party donations. Mozilla just serves as the fiscal intermediary.
- ForHackernews 8y ago
  I've set up a regular monthly donation specifically to support Thunderbird development because having a FLOSS email client I can trust is extremely important to me.
  - aorth 8y ago
    I also donated today after reading their 2019 post. I've relied on Thunderbird for years. Having an independent, open source, and cross-platform email client with no vendor lock-in is important to me.
- samspenc 8y ago
  Thanks, this was really confusing me for a while since their donation link points to Mozilla, but they have this text right on their application launch page: "Thunderbird is no longer funded by Mozilla."
AndyMcConachie 8y ago
I was once told by a Mozilla policy person in DC that Thunderbird was outdated and people should use webmail. They liked Gmail better and didn't see the point of using an IMAP client. It was a weird conversation. I understood it was just their personal opinion, but finding myself advocating for Thunderbird against someone who works for Mozilla was a little strange. My take away was that Mozilla doesn't really know what its priorities should be and there is significant disagreement within the org about what they should be spending resources on.
- xte 8y ago
  Thunderbird was outdated? Yes, together with nearly any other MUAs except few termina's based ones and Emacs based one. And that's clearly demonstrate how someone decide to push them to the oblivion. Someone that's probably interest in webmails... > didn't see the point of using an IMAP client Well, me neither. I use a local client that's operate on my very personal, well backed-up, maildir. My "imap client" (mbsync) is a mere imap sync tools not much different than intra-server sync tools like Dovecot DSync... On "the better" part... Well, for me is better to have my messages on my iron, to act on them locally so at lightspeed and without the need of a connection and an working remote imap just to search or refile or compose messages. Also I do not know why I may prefer to download my MUA anytime I access my mail (like webmails) when I can have one, lighter and powerful locally... It's a matter of taste :-) Someone like freedom, someone like jails. Mozilla most important "business" is a browser so essentially a modern way to the jail (not because of itself, of course). Perhaps they have to choose, perhaps since they move big money they have managers more interested in money and trends than in tech, or even incapable of really understand tech and simply following current trends trying to feel "up to date"...
- pessimizer 8y ago
  I've gotten the impression that Mozilla people haven't liked Thunderbird or Firefox for a very long time, and would rather be Mozilla Web Services or something.
  - stallmanite 8y ago
    Is not Firefox the raison d’etre of the Mozilla Foundation? It seems ridiculous for them to lose sight of that.

RealDinosaur 8y ago

The big problem I see is entrenchment... it's an app where nothing can change. They can't go ahead and just do a Chrome 69 with it. What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app, and do it well. Electron has a bad rap, but it's mostly due to being misused. Electron can be used well (VS Code for example). Mozilla LightningBird for example. I could get on board with that. Heck, I'd probably help out. Edit: Jeeze! You guys sure hate Electron. Just because a tool is misused so often, doesn't mean it's a bad tool.

icebraining 8y ago
I don't get it, why can't anything change? In fact, the platform in which Thunderbird runs - XULRunner - is the equivalent of Electron for the Gecko engine, and a bunch of different applications have been done with it.
bertman 8y ago
> What I would love to see is a small team in Mozilla create a spin-off Electron app Now this is something you don't read everyday on Hacker News...
- RealDinosaur 8y ago
  With such downvotes, I start to think electron hate is a cult.
  - scarejunba 8y ago
    Haha, it absolutely is. Thunderbird’s engine is not really that different in its core ideas.
  - sneakernets 8y ago
    I think it's due to a majority of those who have been around the block a few times knowing a trainwreck of a fad when they see one. At the end of the day it's basically taking a web page and throwing it into a container without browser controls. Remember when Windows 95 IE4 enhancements got so much flak and jeers from hackers due to MSHTML? Electron feels even worse than that. The Web still sucks, and we don't need to shove The Web into native applications. Learn to make an actual program. Heck, QT exists, learn to use it. I'm not saying you can't use an HTML layout engine for help and info screens, but for the entire program it's pants-on-head stupid. The time spent trying to warp one's web designer skills to make an "app" could have been used to learn how to make an actual application that would've been portable, and take less than a gig of RAM. I use Teams at work, and it's taking 300+ MB of RAM on startup when it's basically a glorified chat client. Insanity.
    - favorited 8y ago
      > we don't need to shove The Web into native applications 90% of the time I'd agree with this sentiment, but modern email clients need to be able to render rich web content. A browser engine integration is just the reality, at some level.
      - gsich 8y ago
        >but modern email clients need to be able to render rich web content No they don't.
        favorited 8y ago
        If they want users they do. I get more HTML emails than plain-text. I won't switch to a mail client that can't render the majority of my inbox.
monksy 8y ago
Electron apps are usually pretty terrible. They have issues with: 1. Memory usage and cpu usage (you're running a browser to run your application) 2. Platform look and feel (doesn't exist in javascript) 3. Platform and windowing behaviors. I agree with the other commented to you.. if it changed to electronic, I would drop it as well.
- martinald 8y ago
  Considering Thunderbird uses XUL and JavaScript, it has all the same problems.
  - DonHopkins 8y ago
    Plus the wee existential problem that its platform is going away, instead of improving.
- RealDinosaur 8y ago
  Hence the spin-off app. A ground-up, UX focused app which does not have to meet feature parity, would attract users who are already confused by email clients. This is a different target audience to the people who typically use Thunderbird at this time. For some people Apple Mail is enough.
  - monksy 8y ago
    Those people are targeted by Geary.
  - ben509 8y ago
    TBH, anyone I interact with who is tech savvy doesn't use email, so I really don't need those features.
    - intertextuality 8y ago
      On the other hand, I find slack and its ilk terrible compared to email. Plenty of people I know use that at work, but email is really nice, and I love the features Thunderbird has.
superkuh 8y ago
I use Thunderbird because it is an application. If it became a Javascript app I and many others would surely switch to some other application.
- icebraining 8y ago
  It is a JavaScript app :) e.g. https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/file/tip/mail/base/content https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/file/tip/mail/base/conte...
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    Most of the actual guts of Thunderbird are in mailnews/, particularly mailnews/base and mailnews/db for the this-is-what-eats-the-CPU things. That code is almost entirely in C++, although there is an effort to try to rewrite stuff in JS (which has gone slowly because, hey, that's 100KLOC of C++ you have to move at once).
- zmix 8y ago
  Thunderbird is an XML+CSS+Javascript app. Just like Electron (well, Electron is not XML).
  - superkuh 8y ago
    By that definition would you call Firefox before version ~40 a javascript app? It obviously isn't despite using XUL and the elements implicit in that. The same is true of Thunderbird.
    - acct1771 8y ago
      Curious what you'd have called it.
    - int_19h 8y ago
      The underlying rendering engine is in C++, of course. As is the JS implementation. Which is to say, exactly like Electron. The only relevant difference that I can see between XUL and Electron is that the former had its own non-HTML-based markup language for UI.
ben509 8y ago
A total rewrite almost sank Netscape[1] long ago. It's still generally a bad idea. There's an electron based mail client called Mailspring[2], and having used it for a few months, I definitely understand the antipathy towards electron. You might like it. [1]: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-never-do-part-i/ https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/04/06/things-you-should-... [2]: https://getmailspring.com/ https://getmailspring.com/
- hallman76 8y ago
  It's incredible how much this still holds true today. Thanks @spolsky!
- baroffoos 8y ago
  Huge rewrites of firefox are saving it today. Seems like the best way is to rewrite in chunks allowing you to use new bits in the existing application.
  - ptman 8y ago
    Incremental rewrites. The netscape rewrite was started from scratch, IIRC.
xte 8y ago
You have an a bit cached but true point, that's is: there was a so big push to web tech that actual local graphics libraries was left in an old era without real updates. That's the case even of Qt and their QML mess. That's the case of GTk mess etc. However have a browser as a framework and environment for anything is even worse than actual X server architectures. So yes, we need to rethink desktops, perhaps looking at past solutions like LispM GUIs and Plan9/Rio but certainly not move toward actual trend.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  Explain how QML is a mess? I've been using it almost as long as it exists - which is much longer than the life of the average hot JS framework - and didn't notice the mess. It has problems and limitations like everything, but overall it's very productive.
  - xte 8y ago
    Essentially because require tons of fragile boilerplate code to work and it's mostly designed with web principle in mind, not desktop one. You essentially can't found a QML GUI that not exhibit tons of error, from commercial one like TeamViewer to Kde/Plasma. It's surely more flexible than classic widgets but it's flexibility is not designed in a manageable way.
    - ahartmetz 8y ago
      > require tons of fragile boilerplate code to work Well yeah, you need to implement the properties and data models in C++ and export them - if you are doing it right that is. But the UI code is very quick and easy to write in return! > it's mostly designed with web principle in mind, not desktop one Not mainly desktop, true - it is designed mainly for touchscreens, mobile or embedded. It is easy to use exactly because it's not a web technology bent for user interfaces. > exhibit tons of error Not for the things I've been working on, which includes KDE / Plasma and many commercial applications.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
slondr 8y ago
Thunderbird is a XUL implementation with a lot of JavaScript being used for its UI. It's as close as you can get to being the Electron of Firefox without being in a PPA. The most recent version (Thunderbird 60) introduced sweeping UI changes that went much deeper than even Chrome 69's.
- ahartmetz 8y ago
  There is a big difference between using an object model designed for UIs and using the DOM or canvas, even with the same language (JS). An appropriate model can vastly simplify and accelerate layout and painting. I'm thinking of QML here - the performance situation is probably similar with XUL, ugly as it may be.

pbhjpbhj 8y ago

Presumably, following Firefox, they're going to add advertising and do some unsolicited tie-ins that you can't remove.

oconnore 8y ago

Lots of things are path dependent. Probably the threat of an unmaintained email client is why they got enough donations to hire full time developers.

icebraining 8y ago

Mozilla did divest themselves and spin it off; but the community was not a graveyard: https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-fu...

nocman 8y ago

It is still a separate project. Mozilla is just collecting donations for them: "While Thunderbird is now an independent project separate from Mozilla, Mozilla has agreed to collect donations on our behalf" ( quote above is from https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird?utm_source=tb_blog&utm_medium=blog&utm_campaign=tb_2019_post https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird?utm_source=tb_b... )

StevePerkins 8y ago
> "Our team grew considerably in 2018, to eight staff working full-time on Thunderbird. At the beginning of this year we are going to be adding as many as six new members to our team." Who are these staff members working full-time for, then?
- icebraining 8y ago
  Contractors chosen by the Thunderbird Council (a group of volunteers from the community) and paid by third-party donations. Mozilla just serves as the fiscal intermediary.
ForHackernews 8y ago
I've set up a regular monthly donation specifically to support Thunderbird development because having a FLOSS email client I can trust is extremely important to me.
- aorth 8y ago
  I also donated today after reading their 2019 post. I've relied on Thunderbird for years. Having an independent, open source, and cross-platform email client with no vendor lock-in is important to me.
samspenc 8y ago
Thanks, this was really confusing me for a while since their donation link points to Mozilla, but they have this text right on their application launch page: "Thunderbird is no longer funded by Mozilla."

AndyMcConachie 8y ago

I was once told by a Mozilla policy person in DC that Thunderbird was outdated and people should use webmail. They liked Gmail better and didn't see the point of using an IMAP client. It was a weird conversation. I understood it was just their personal opinion, but finding myself advocating for Thunderbird against someone who works for Mozilla was a little strange. My take away was that Mozilla doesn't really know what its priorities should be and there is significant disagreement within the org about what they should be spending resources on.

xte 8y ago
Thunderbird was outdated? Yes, together with nearly any other MUAs except few termina's based ones and Emacs based one. And that's clearly demonstrate how someone decide to push them to the oblivion. Someone that's probably interest in webmails... > didn't see the point of using an IMAP client Well, me neither. I use a local client that's operate on my very personal, well backed-up, maildir. My "imap client" (mbsync) is a mere imap sync tools not much different than intra-server sync tools like Dovecot DSync... On "the better" part... Well, for me is better to have my messages on my iron, to act on them locally so at lightspeed and without the need of a connection and an working remote imap just to search or refile or compose messages. Also I do not know why I may prefer to download my MUA anytime I access my mail (like webmails) when I can have one, lighter and powerful locally... It's a matter of taste :-) Someone like freedom, someone like jails. Mozilla most important "business" is a browser so essentially a modern way to the jail (not because of itself, of course). Perhaps they have to choose, perhaps since they move big money they have managers more interested in money and trends than in tech, or even incapable of really understand tech and simply following current trends trying to feel "up to date"...
pessimizer 8y ago
I've gotten the impression that Mozilla people haven't liked Thunderbird or Firefox for a very long time, and would rather be Mozilla Web Services or something.
- stallmanite 8y ago
  Is not Firefox the raison d’etre of the Mozilla Foundation? It seems ridiculous for them to lose sight of that.