12 ms·

I admit that software needs some sort of upkeep to not fall to bitrot, but I simply don't understand how we got to the near-falldown of Thunderbird a few years

by wink 7y ago

I admit that software needs some sort of upkeep to not fall to bitrot, but I simply don't understand how we got to the near-falldown of Thunderbird a few years ago. You don't have to add new features, keeping it alive and simply fixing critical bugs is fine. Basically everyone I know would prefer a stable mail client not getting any new features over a few new features and addons breaking. I'm really happy Thunderbird hasn't gone the way of the dodo.

hannob 7y ago
From what I understand the challenge with TB is that it's tied into Firefox' engine and that is also in parts used for the GUI (XUL). Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird. And FF wants to get rid of XUL eventually.
- SkyMarshal 7y ago
  I thought XUL was gone with the recent change to the way addons work in Firefox?
  - lowflyer 7y ago
    XUL was used all over the place, so it takes a while to fully remove it. Thunderbird updates the underlying platform only once per year, catching up with Firefox changes in the yearly major release, while Firefox does so every few weeks.
    - jcranmer 7y ago
      That's not quite accurate. Thunderbird develops its software with the tip-of-trunk Firefox code at all times. It only makes releases much less frequently than Firefox.
  - thenewnewguy 7y ago
    XUL is no longer exposed to plugins (in non-ESR FF), but is still used internally in some places - where it is slowly being replaced.
  - adrianmalacoda 7y ago
    It was XBL (XML Binding Language)[0] that was removed, not XUL - which is being phased out and replaced with HTML where appropriate. 0: https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/ https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/
- dabockster 7y ago
  > Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird. Okay, that's scary. It's like a one half of a conjoined twin trying to remove the other half from their lives. Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. Yeah, scary. Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.
  - wsmwk 7y ago
    > Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. If you are referring to Mozilla Messaging and the period to 2012, no the only transitioning was in terms of product functionality. The community organized in 2014, unaffiliated with Mozilla, and it's not until about 2018 when staff were hired that community leadership were able to seriously reduce technical debt. But seriously reducing dependency on Firefox code is some distance away. > Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? You are looking a millions of dollars paid developer time. > Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough. Mozilla are not running the show here, the community is. Perhaps it's difficult to keep up with the history, but https://blog.thunderbird.net/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/ has past relevant postings, plus developer and other mailing lists. To cite a couple, big changes in encryption https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-and-openpgp/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-an... https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December/007286.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December... and development priorities http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net/2019-November/002024.html http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunder... which includes a new address book. There is a significant professional development staff which is nicely paid, and the number of developers will soon double. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/
- apostacy 7y ago
  I really hope that my extensions are not broken. It would kill Thunderbird. Nobody is going to come along and replace the library of amazing extensions that have been built up over the years. Unlike a web browser, email has not changed much in the last 15 years, so I don't see why development needs to advance at a high speed. I doubt that any UX fashion statements are going to be enough to make up for the huge loss of functionality.
azinman2 7y ago
The UX is that of the 90s. FF continues to see progress beyond the web browsers of the 90s, why shouldn’t Thunderbird?
- acabal 7y ago
  Maybe, but the UX works. I'd be very happy if they didn't start tinkering just for the sake of not being "stale". (See: Gnome Shell.) As a daily user for 10+ years I can say there is certainly room to incrementally improve TB in many areas, like calendar and contacts, but don't mess with UX success.
  - whatisthiseven 7y ago
    I used thunderbird for years, gave up, and then tried it again a couple years ago. I think the UI/UX is really bad and was the reason I had forgotten why I left, and it was the reason I gave up the second time. I unfortunately can't remember my complaints to make them more specific for a lively discussion, but I guess I am an anecdotal counter-point for thinking the UX was actually not a success.
    - ForHackernews 7y ago
      I'd say a bad UI that is stable and familiar to the majority of users is actually a better UX than some new thing. See the MS Office "ribbon" interface for a good example. Car manufacturers don't try to reinvent the steering wheel & pedals UI every couple years.
      - whatisthiseven 7y ago
        That is basically the motto of the Bloomberg Terminal, so I would agree with that to some extent.
    - Krasnol 7y ago
      People say here that the UI is bad but nobody says what exactly is supposed to be bad about it. Or is it just enough that it doesn't look like the blown up UIs that are in fashion today?
stronglikedan 7y ago
Anecdotally, I dropped it years ago specifically for the lack of new features. Namely, the lack of any sane calendar integration, since Lightning could integrate with Thunderbird, but couldn't integrate with any other calendars, and I wanted a shared calendar.
- JensRex 7y ago
  I'm not sure what you mean. I use Lightning with CalDAV, and it works fine.
  - acidburnNSA 7y ago
    Yup we here. Shared family calendar across Thunderbird and all family phones with CalDAV hosted on a radicale server set up like this: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices/ https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a...
deadbunny 7y ago
I'd be happy for non extension calendars and better exchange/o365 compatabilty But otherwise I'm very happy with TB as my main client.
- executesorder66 7y ago
  I've found that davmail works flawlessly for connecting thunderbird to an exchange server. However I have not found a way to connect it to O365. If anyone has figured it out, I'd love to know how.

by wink 7y ago

hannob 7y ago

From what I understand the challenge with TB is that it's tied into Firefox' engine and that is also in parts used for the GUI (XUL). Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird. And FF wants to get rid of XUL eventually.

SkyMarshal 7y ago
I thought XUL was gone with the recent change to the way addons work in Firefox?
- lowflyer 7y ago
  XUL was used all over the place, so it takes a while to fully remove it. Thunderbird updates the underlying platform only once per year, catching up with Firefox changes in the yearly major release, while Firefox does so every few weeks.
  - jcranmer 7y ago
    That's not quite accurate. Thunderbird develops its software with the tip-of-trunk Firefox code at all times. It only makes releases much less frequently than Firefox.
- thenewnewguy 7y ago
  XUL is no longer exposed to plugins (in non-ESR FF), but is still used internally in some places - where it is slowly being replaced.
- adrianmalacoda 7y ago
  It was XBL (XML Binding Language)[0] that was removed, not XUL - which is being phased out and replaced with HTML where appropriate. 0: https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/ https://briangrinstead.com/blog/xbl-in-firefox/
dabockster 7y ago
> Every time there's larger refactoring work in FF that affects Thunderbird. Okay, that's scary. It's like a one half of a conjoined twin trying to remove the other half from their lives. Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. Yeah, scary. Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.
- wsmwk 7y ago
  > Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code. If you are referring to Mozilla Messaging and the period to 2012, no the only transitioning was in terms of product functionality. The community organized in 2014, unaffiliated with Mozilla, and it's not until about 2018 when staff were hired that community leadership were able to seriously reduce technical debt. But seriously reducing dependency on Firefox code is some distance away. > Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much? You are looking a millions of dollars paid developer time. > Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough. Mozilla are not running the show here, the community is. Perhaps it's difficult to keep up with the history, but https://blog.thunderbird.net/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/ has past relevant postings, plus developer and other mailing lists. To cite a couple, big changes in encryption https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-and-openpgp/ https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-an... https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December/007286.html https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December... and development priorities http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunderbird.net/2019-November/002024.html http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunder... which includes a new address book. There is a significant professional development staff which is nicely paid, and the number of developers will soon double. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/ https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/
apostacy 7y ago
I really hope that my extensions are not broken. It would kill Thunderbird. Nobody is going to come along and replace the library of amazing extensions that have been built up over the years. Unlike a web browser, email has not changed much in the last 15 years, so I don't see why development needs to advance at a high speed. I doubt that any UX fashion statements are going to be enough to make up for the huge loss of functionality.

azinman2 7y ago

The UX is that of the 90s. FF continues to see progress beyond the web browsers of the 90s, why shouldn’t Thunderbird?

acabal 7y ago
Maybe, but the UX works. I'd be very happy if they didn't start tinkering just for the sake of not being "stale". (See: Gnome Shell.) As a daily user for 10+ years I can say there is certainly room to incrementally improve TB in many areas, like calendar and contacts, but don't mess with UX success.
- whatisthiseven 7y ago
  I used thunderbird for years, gave up, and then tried it again a couple years ago. I think the UI/UX is really bad and was the reason I had forgotten why I left, and it was the reason I gave up the second time. I unfortunately can't remember my complaints to make them more specific for a lively discussion, but I guess I am an anecdotal counter-point for thinking the UX was actually not a success.
  - ForHackernews 7y ago
    I'd say a bad UI that is stable and familiar to the majority of users is actually a better UX than some new thing. See the MS Office "ribbon" interface for a good example. Car manufacturers don't try to reinvent the steering wheel & pedals UI every couple years.
    - whatisthiseven 7y ago
      That is basically the motto of the Bloomberg Terminal, so I would agree with that to some extent.
  - Krasnol 7y ago
    People say here that the UI is bad but nobody says what exactly is supposed to be bad about it. Or is it just enough that it doesn't look like the blown up UIs that are in fashion today?

stronglikedan 7y ago

Anecdotally, I dropped it years ago specifically for the lack of new features. Namely, the lack of any sane calendar integration, since Lightning could integrate with Thunderbird, but couldn't integrate with any other calendars, and I wanted a shared calendar.

JensRex 7y ago
I'm not sure what you mean. I use Lightning with CalDAV, and it works fine.
- acidburnNSA 7y ago
  Yup we here. Shared family calendar across Thunderbird and all family phones with CalDAV hosted on a radicale server set up like this: https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-and-calendars-and-share-them-across-devices/ https://partofthething.com/thoughts/host-your-own-contacts-a...

deadbunny 7y ago

I'd be happy for non extension calendars and better exchange/o365 compatabilty But otherwise I'm very happy with TB as my main client.

executesorder66 7y ago
I've found that davmail works flawlessly for connecting thunderbird to an exchange server. However I have not found a way to connect it to O365. If anyone has figured it out, I'd love to know how.