4 ms·

I’m always amazed at the staff numbers for these kinds of projects. I’m glad things are going well for them, but that really seems like a high employee count fo

I’m always amazed at the staff numbers for these kinds of projects. I’m glad things are going well for them, but that really seems like a high employee count for such a simple project.

ipaddr 3y ago
From 15 to 24 this year for the entire company making best desktop email? That's a reasonable number that could be higher. Facebook had 80,000-90,000 employees before the purge
- threeseed 3y ago
  Meta has a number of apps e.g. Instagram and services e.g. Workplace, hundred million times more users, revenue in the tens of billions and a highly labour intensive content moderation system. The comparison is silly. Far better would be with mobile app developers who typically have much smaller teams than 24. And so I would agree that their headcount seems excessive for what is being delivered.
  - ipaddr 3y ago
    Thunderbird has at least 20 million users. You think meta has trillions of customers? Those outsourced content mod teams are not included in that headcount either
    - rtpg 3y ago
      Thunderbird $4 million in revenue. Of which probably a percentage of that is not recurring? That's the number that actually matters.
      - TrueSlacker0 3y ago
        Does donations really count as true revenue? It feels wrong to use the word revenue when it's not really making money.
        renonce 3y ago
        What about another word for the amount of money that you collected this year and get to use next year? Budget?
        ipaddr 3y ago
        In account terms a for profit company receiving a donated asset will record the donation as a debit to "Fixed Asset" and a credit to "Contribution Revenue. For non profit: When recording journal entries, it is important to determine if the donated asset just passes from the organization to another person, such as donating clothes to the Goodwill, which pass to whoever receives the clothes from the goodwill. If this amount is not substantial, then the asset is not recorded; if the donation is substantial then the company records the assets. Substantial means it will have a meaningful impact on the financial statement. If the asset passes as such and is substantial, then debit "Expense" and credit "Unrestricted Contributions." If someone donates a substantial amount but the asset is not passed to another person, then record the donation by debiting "Assets" and crediting "Contributions." If the company sells the donated asset above its fair market value, then the amount over the fair market value is revenue. For example, a nonprofit auctions off a trip to Hawaii that has a fair value of $10,000. The trip auctions for $15,000. The $5,000 difference is revenue.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
rhaway84773 3y ago
Thunderbird has a ridiculous amount of plumbing work to be done just to keep operational even without new features. Keeping up with the Mozilla codebase, on which Thunderbird is completely dependent, but at the same time, Mozilla no longer cares about Thunderbird’s needs, is probably double digit devs effort in itself.
- fabrice_d 3y ago
  "Mozilla no longer cares about Thunderbird" is not fully true. Gecko developers routinely take into account the impact on TB when doing changes / refactorings.
simonw 3y ago
Maintaining a cross-platform desktop email application (and an Android mobile one) is far from a simple project.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

I’m always amazed at the staff numbers for these kinds of projects. I’m glad things are going well for them, but that really seems like a high employee count for such a simple project.

ipaddr 3y ago

From 15 to 24 this year for the entire company making best desktop email? That's a reasonable number that could be higher. Facebook had 80,000-90,000 employees before the purge

threeseed 3y ago
Meta has a number of apps e.g. Instagram and services e.g. Workplace, hundred million times more users, revenue in the tens of billions and a highly labour intensive content moderation system. The comparison is silly. Far better would be with mobile app developers who typically have much smaller teams than 24. And so I would agree that their headcount seems excessive for what is being delivered.
- ipaddr 3y ago
  Thunderbird has at least 20 million users. You think meta has trillions of customers? Those outsourced content mod teams are not included in that headcount either
  - rtpg 3y ago
    Thunderbird $4 million in revenue. Of which probably a percentage of that is not recurring? That's the number that actually matters.
    - TrueSlacker0 3y ago
      Does donations really count as true revenue? It feels wrong to use the word revenue when it's not really making money.
      - renonce 3y ago
        What about another word for the amount of money that you collected this year and get to use next year? Budget?
        ipaddr 3y ago
        In account terms a for profit company receiving a donated asset will record the donation as a debit to "Fixed Asset" and a credit to "Contribution Revenue. For non profit: When recording journal entries, it is important to determine if the donated asset just passes from the organization to another person, such as donating clothes to the Goodwill, which pass to whoever receives the clothes from the goodwill. If this amount is not substantial, then the asset is not recorded; if the donation is substantial then the company records the assets. Substantial means it will have a meaningful impact on the financial statement. If the asset passes as such and is substantial, then debit "Expense" and credit "Unrestricted Contributions." If someone donates a substantial amount but the asset is not passed to another person, then record the donation by debiting "Assets" and crediting "Contributions." If the company sells the donated asset above its fair market value, then the amount over the fair market value is revenue. For example, a nonprofit auctions off a trip to Hawaii that has a fair value of $10,000. The trip auctions for $15,000. The $5,000 difference is revenue.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

rhaway84773 3y ago

Thunderbird has a ridiculous amount of plumbing work to be done just to keep operational even without new features. Keeping up with the Mozilla codebase, on which Thunderbird is completely dependent, but at the same time, Mozilla no longer cares about Thunderbird’s needs, is probably double digit devs effort in itself.

fabrice_d 3y ago
"Mozilla no longer cares about Thunderbird" is not fully true. Gecko developers routinely take into account the impact on TB when doing changes / refactorings.

simonw 3y ago

Maintaining a cross-platform desktop email application (and an Android mobile one) is far from a simple project.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]