4 ms·

"To be more specific, Mozilla will no longer focus on developing innovations for Thunderbird but will keep it safe and stable." I am quite content with Thunder

"To be more specific, Mozilla will no longer focus on developing innovations for Thunderbird but will keep it safe and stable." I am quite content with Thunderbird as it is and welcome this news.

uyhayuy 14y ago
Happy to heard this, people working into extendible software should work into core apis and let the community build the rest. I was with very little hope when I saw the thread title. Thunderbid is the last application on wich I want a change. I was/am a Firefox fan, but I'm currently using chrome all day..
rhizome 14y ago
So couldn't they have avoided all this by saying it's going into "maintenance mode" or something? Software development history is full of packages that have fallen into bugfix-only status. Sheesh, what a lot of drama.
- hub_ 14y ago
  Thunderbird being open source, it can continue to thrive. Anybody can contribute. That's more than just maintenance mode.
  - dfc 14y ago
    How many of the active thunderbiord developers are not mozilla funded? I do not know, but it was my understanding that there were not many.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      This doesn't mean those developers won't contribute to Thunderbird in their own free time as a hobby project. It also doesn't mean that an outsider interested in the project can't see an opportunity to pick up the torch. Thunderbird is a very widely used piece of software without many adequate competitors and I think there will be plenty of people interested in tinkering with its code for a long time to come.
- mbrubeck 14y ago
  That's pretty much what the original announcement did say, if you go beyond the headlines and read the announcement itself: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/so-thats-it-for-thunderbird/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/so-thats-it-for-thunderbird...
  - rhizome 14y ago
    There are decades of understandable ways to describe what is going on here, and they didn't use any of them.
    - mbrubeck 14y ago
      Note that the email was intended as an internal (and confidential) heads-up to Mozilla contributors, not as a press release. And I'm not sure how "ongoing security and stability maintenance" is harder to understand than "maintenance mode."
      - rhizome 14y ago
        Sure, and I agree, but it was buried in a whole bunch of really bad Business Writing(tm): However, Thunderbird is one of the very few truly free and open source multi-platform email applications available today and we want to defend these values. We’re not “stopping” Thunderbird, but proposing we adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance, as well as community-driven innovation and development for the product. This will mean an eventual shift in how we staff Thunderbird at Mozilla Corporation – we are still working out details, but some people will likely end up on other Mozilla projects.
        cookiecaper 14y ago
        That sounds reasonable to me as an internal email. Basically, they're saying that Mozilla is going to stop active feature development and assume a role as a corporate BFDL (hence "community-driven innovation", i.e., "we may merge new stuff sometimes, but will mostly likely not be writing it"), and expect new people on your product's team soon.
dfc 14y ago
I think the chat integration is the last remaining puzzle piece. If thunderbird had builtin chat and builtin gpg support I'd be content. I have never understood why smime was baked in but gpg was not. Enigmail should not need to exist and unlike any other ff/tb plugins it used to be a pain with amd64...
- rurounijones 14y ago
  Now that you mention it, yes builtin gpg support would be the last thing that I would like to see in it before they put it into maintenance mode.
- melicerte 14y ago
  What about better Caldav support and Implementation of the Carddav ? Chat Integration, who cares when you don't even have a decent addressbook integration?
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  Enigmail works great here. I don't really see a need to bring it mainline, perhaps other than encouraging adoption. I use 64-bit and have used Enigmail for 3+ years without issue now -- I think it's probably safe at this point, especially if you can install from your package manager (as I can with an AUR helper on Arch).
  - dfc 14y ago
    "Enigmail works great here" that's good to know I never said it did not. We can agree to disagree about it being in mainline and receiving the same attention and support as the rest of thunderbird. I don't think your "+3 years" have really exposed you to all the growing pains enigmail has had.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      I agree, Enigmail has been around longer than I've actively used it (for the record, I had installed it occasionally before, but hardly used it). The point I was making is that it seems to be stable and mature software now, and that maturity has existed for a reasonably long time. Surely there's not much point in holding a grudge against software with a buggy past; that'd severely limit the pool of available software...
re_todd 14y ago
Agreed. Reliability is extremely important with email programs, so I prefer this class of software be very conservative.

"To be more specific, Mozilla will no longer focus on developing innovations for Thunderbird but will keep it safe and stable." I am quite content with Thunderbird as it is and welcome this news.

uyhayuy 14y ago

Happy to heard this, people working into extendible software should work into core apis and let the community build the rest. I was with very little hope when I saw the thread title. Thunderbid is the last application on wich I want a change. I was/am a Firefox fan, but I'm currently using chrome all day..

rhizome 14y ago

So couldn't they have avoided all this by saying it's going into "maintenance mode" or something? Software development history is full of packages that have fallen into bugfix-only status. Sheesh, what a lot of drama.

hub_ 14y ago
Thunderbird being open source, it can continue to thrive. Anybody can contribute. That's more than just maintenance mode.
- dfc 14y ago
  How many of the active thunderbiord developers are not mozilla funded? I do not know, but it was my understanding that there were not many.
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    This doesn't mean those developers won't contribute to Thunderbird in their own free time as a hobby project. It also doesn't mean that an outsider interested in the project can't see an opportunity to pick up the torch. Thunderbird is a very widely used piece of software without many adequate competitors and I think there will be plenty of people interested in tinkering with its code for a long time to come.
mbrubeck 14y ago
That's pretty much what the original announcement did say, if you go beyond the headlines and read the announcement itself: http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/so-thats-it-for-thunderbird/ http://techcrunch.com/2012/07/06/so-thats-it-for-thunderbird...
- rhizome 14y ago
  There are decades of understandable ways to describe what is going on here, and they didn't use any of them.
  - mbrubeck 14y ago
    Note that the email was intended as an internal (and confidential) heads-up to Mozilla contributors, not as a press release. And I'm not sure how "ongoing security and stability maintenance" is harder to understand than "maintenance mode."
    - rhizome 14y ago
      Sure, and I agree, but it was buried in a whole bunch of really bad Business Writing(tm): However, Thunderbird is one of the very few truly free and open source multi-platform email applications available today and we want to defend these values. We’re not “stopping” Thunderbird, but proposing we adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance, as well as community-driven innovation and development for the product. This will mean an eventual shift in how we staff Thunderbird at Mozilla Corporation – we are still working out details, but some people will likely end up on other Mozilla projects.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        That sounds reasonable to me as an internal email. Basically, they're saying that Mozilla is going to stop active feature development and assume a role as a corporate BFDL (hence "community-driven innovation", i.e., "we may merge new stuff sometimes, but will mostly likely not be writing it"), and expect new people on your product's team soon.

dfc 14y ago

I think the chat integration is the last remaining puzzle piece. If thunderbird had builtin chat and builtin gpg support I'd be content. I have never understood why smime was baked in but gpg was not. Enigmail should not need to exist and unlike any other ff/tb plugins it used to be a pain with amd64...

rurounijones 14y ago
Now that you mention it, yes builtin gpg support would be the last thing that I would like to see in it before they put it into maintenance mode.
melicerte 14y ago
What about better Caldav support and Implementation of the Carddav ? Chat Integration, who cares when you don't even have a decent addressbook integration?
cookiecaper 14y ago
Enigmail works great here. I don't really see a need to bring it mainline, perhaps other than encouraging adoption. I use 64-bit and have used Enigmail for 3+ years without issue now -- I think it's probably safe at this point, especially if you can install from your package manager (as I can with an AUR helper on Arch).
- dfc 14y ago
  "Enigmail works great here" that's good to know I never said it did not. We can agree to disagree about it being in mainline and receiving the same attention and support as the rest of thunderbird. I don't think your "+3 years" have really exposed you to all the growing pains enigmail has had.
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    I agree, Enigmail has been around longer than I've actively used it (for the record, I had installed it occasionally before, but hardly used it). The point I was making is that it seems to be stable and mature software now, and that maturity has existed for a reasonably long time. Surely there's not much point in holding a grudge against software with a buggy past; that'd severely limit the pool of available software...

re_todd 14y ago

Agreed. Reliability is extremely important with email programs, so I prefer this class of software be very conservative.