4 ms·

When I was looking for a new Mail client a few months ago, I wanted to pick Thunderbird, but did not because I believe I read that Mozilla was sunsetting it whi

When I was looking for a new Mail client a few months ago, I wanted to pick Thunderbird, but did not because I believe I read that Mozilla was sunsetting it which is why I did not go for it. Is that not true? It was extremely disappointing news since Thunderbird was an awesome mail client and with the recent interest in mail clients, I thought it was a great opportunity for Mozilla to provide an O/S alternative to the Mailbox, Sparrows and Outlooks of the world.

e15ctr0n 12y ago
Thunderbird is not being actively developed; it is in maintenance mode. You should try it out. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download You can customize its UI and functionality through thousands of community-contributed add-ons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/
- wodenokoto 12y ago
  it is community developed.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
wjoe 12y ago
Mozilla stopped actively developing Thunderbird a few years ago. It's still being maintained by a small group of developers, but it hasn't received any significant new features in some time, and mostly just gets maintenance and bug fixes. That said, they have did commit to adding more developers to the project a few months ago, and do have some plans for new features in the next few months - https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reorganizes-at-2014-toronto-summit/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reo...
- mlinksva 12y ago
  That blog post is very informative and encouraging!
veidr 12y ago
Yeah, I remember being disappointed about the Mozilla chairman's announcement[1] that Thunderbird "not a priority" and they were essentially giving up on it. (I don't personally use Thunderbird, but we have a lot of Windows users at work who do). So this bubbly and optimistic-sounding blog post confused me a little. But then I looked next at the previous entry in this blog[2] and it states that at the end of 2014 they reorganized and elected new leadership to take over from the Mozilla people who weren't working on it any more. So apparently there are at least some people actively working on it again, and they are hoping for financial sponsorship to cover a full-time developer. If it works out, then actually it seems like Mozilla's handling of the problem ('we have a standards-based IMAP email client with millions of users, but nobody -- including the team in charge of it -- wants to work on it any more') was pretty good. They did keep the project on life support with security updates, for a little over two years, until they found some people that did want to work on it. [1]: https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stability-and-community-innovation/ https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stabi... [2]: https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reorganizes-at-2014-toronto-summit/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reo...

e15ctr0n 12y ago

Thunderbird is not being actively developed; it is in maintenance mode. You should try it out. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/download You can customize its UI and functionality through thousands of community-contributed add-ons. https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/

wodenokoto 12y ago
it is community developed.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

wjoe 12y ago

Mozilla stopped actively developing Thunderbird a few years ago. It's still being maintained by a small group of developers, but it hasn't received any significant new features in some time, and mostly just gets maintenance and bug fixes. That said, they have did commit to adding more developers to the project a few months ago, and do have some plans for new features in the next few months - https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reorganizes-at-2014-toronto-summit/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reo...

mlinksva 12y ago
That blog post is very informative and encouraging!

veidr 12y ago

Yeah, I remember being disappointed about the Mozilla chairman's announcement[1] that Thunderbird "not a priority" and they were essentially giving up on it. (I don't personally use Thunderbird, but we have a lot of Windows users at work who do). So this bubbly and optimistic-sounding blog post confused me a little. But then I looked next at the previous entry in this blog[2] and it states that at the end of 2014 they reorganized and elected new leadership to take over from the Mozilla people who weren't working on it any more. So apparently there are at least some people actively working on it again, and they are hoping for financial sponsorship to cover a full-time developer. If it works out, then actually it seems like Mozilla's handling of the problem ('we have a standards-based IMAP email client with millions of users, but nobody -- including the team in charge of it -- wants to work on it any more') was pretty good. They did keep the project on life support with security updates, for a little over two years, until they found some people that did want to work on it. [1]: https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stability-and-community-innovation/ https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stabi... [2]: https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reorganizes-at-2014-toronto-summit/ https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2014/11/thunderbird-reo...