Thunderbird to Leave Mozilla Foundation

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a 'new separate organizational setting' as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox. Citing a blog post by Chief Lizard Wrangler Mitchell Baker, MozillaZine outlines the three possibilities for Thunderbird that are being considered: 'one is to create a entirely new non-profit, which would offer maximum independence for Thunderbird but is organisationally complex. A second option is to create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird, which would keep the Mozilla Foundation involved but may mean that Thunderbird continues to be neglected in favour of Firefox. A final option is to recast Thunderbird as community project, similar to SeaMonkey, and set up a small independent services and consulting company to continue development. However, there are concerns over how the Thunderbird product, project and company would interact'. Lead Thunderbird developer Scott MacGregor favours the third option."

I submitted this story yesterday...

Before it even hit MozillaZine... and what do I get? Nothing.

Re:I submitted this story yesterday...

You get nothing for coming first in life. Just ask Netscape...

Doesn't it seem like...?

Doesn't it seem like Mozilla goes through these cycles, where they add the kitchen sink, then they realize "Oh no, we're this bloated piece of crap" and so they divest themselves and try to go "back to basics", only to begin the cycle all over again?

Re:Doesn't it seem like...?

And who's fault is that? The user community. They crave a lean and mean application that's just the basics. Then they want more and more features with every release until they realize "this thing is a bloated piece of crap", demand a leaner, meaner application then the cycle starts again.

Poor thunderbird

You have to wonder why thunderbird doesn't compete as well in the email marketspace as firefox does in the browser market space. I suspect its because thunderbird doesn't really offer anything more than its competitors and because it has few must-have extensions. But it could also be the prevalence of web mail. So what would make a killer email client?

Re:Poor thunderbird

And when you try to find Thunderbird extensions, they're all mixed in with the firefox ones and you can't tell which is for which.

Re:Poor thunderbird

The few plug-ins I run on Thunderbird are actually listed as Firefox extensions. They're nothing major - dictionaries and the like - but they're not specifically Thunderbird extensions, either. So if they're mixed, that's probably why, but I had confusion looking for them, too.

Re:Poor thunderbird

Also, when you go to a web page and browse for Firefox extensions, you're doing it in Firefox. You click on the link to an extension, it automatically installs, and takes effect immediately. The Thunderbird, you still browse for extensions in your web browser, you have to download them, and then install them into Thunderbird through Thunderbird.

The whole process feels very different.

Re:Poor thunderbird

Actually the latest version of Thunderbird is really nice.
It has folders which I really do like but it also has tags for those that are into tagging. What is really brilliant is that it allows you to create "folders" that are based on the tags.
Plugins work fine but you just don't need a lot of them for Email. I use GPGP for signing and encryption. The plugin manager could work better. I would say it isn't great for normal end users.
I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league.
To me that is the problem. FOSS need a server that will interface with Thunderbird and offer all the same features as Outlook plus exchange and with the same ease of use.
As I Thunderbird user I can not say I am pleased.

Re:Poor thunderbird

In the enterprise world, it's not uncommon for companies to not use Outlook but still rely on an Exchange infrastructure. Thunderbird as a standalone mail client is fine, but if it wants to compete it's going to have to integrate much better with robust calendar and resource scheduling programs. Lightning or Sunbird betas aren't going to cut it.

Re:Poor thunderbird

I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league. To me that is the problem.

I think you're right-- that's the problem. How to solve that problem, I don't know, but that is most likely the reason why Thunderbird doesn't have a larger user base.

I think most people who use e-mail fall into a couple groups.

• The first is the business power user, for whom nothing matches Outlook+Exchange+Blackberry/WindowMobile. This is a huge market
• The second group would be very casual users, for whom being able to read their e-mail is sufficient. They'll just use whatever comes on their computer, or else webmail. They really don't care as long as they can send and receive e-mail. This is a huge market.
• For the sake of the discussion, I'll lump everyone else into a third group, and those are people with particular preferences or specialized needs. These people use the e-mail client they choose or else the e-mail client they need to. This group probably goes to Thunderbird pretty often, but there are still people using things like Pine, or some totally random client.

The only real group that Thunderbird could go after would be the business users. However, in order to do that, you need to be able to connect to Exchange and do calendars, notes, task lists, and Exchange contact lists. Of course, you could also replace Exchange with something else, but that something else would have to have the same sorts of features, and Thunderbird would still have to connect to it.

Contrary to what many geeks think, Exchange/Outlook is very helpful for a lot of businesses. Connecting tasks, calendars, e-mail, and contacts all together, and making that available through client software, on the web, and on mobile devices has turned out to be the big-business killer app.

OpenGroupware + Thunderbird + Lightning + plugins

The pieces are JUST starting to come together re: replacing MS Exchange... although, granted, it's still VERY alpha/beta it's quite an exciting development.

    OpenGroupware (nightly builds) support CalDAV, and Thunderbird /w Lightning talks to it. There are other Thunderbird plugins which use GroupDAV for shared address lists and free/busy information through the OpenGroupware server.

    This works today(!), though it's non-trivial to set up, and you have to be careful about versions. The combination to use is Lightning 0.3.1, the latest Thunderbird, OpenGroupware nightly, and the latest GroupDAV free/busy and shared address lists plugins. Unfortunately the latest Sunbird/Lightning (0.5) doesn't work right now, but bugs have been filed and the developers understand the problem... and a fix will happen in time.

    OK, it's less functional and robust compared to the dominant player... but it's cheaper.

Re:Poor thunderbird

If you turn off the preview pane you won't have this problem. As an aside, turning off the preview pane is also good security practice regardless of your mail client.

Re:Poor thunderbird

To put it more simply for those who don't work in corporate land:

I need to schedule a meeting with 20 people, and book a conference room. Find me the first 1-hour slot when all 20 and any room is free. Now notify everybody about the meeting and tell me if they're going to come - and put everything on everybody's calendars for them.

No open source package does this to my knowledge. If anything did it as well as Outlook/Exchange it would take off very quickly. Outlook has just-about eliminated the administrative assistant for most ordinary workers...

Re:Poor thunderbird

I would much prefer that they develop a peer to peer syncing for address book and calendar. I'm tired of dealing with server-side stuff for a business with 3 employees, all on an internal network. Apple Mail should do this too. I keep hearing about CalDAV and the iCal standard, but have yet to see any products that fully support what should be a basic functionality.

Calendar functionality should be an option during install, and however it needs to be done, compatibility with Mobile devices for synchronization should be implemented. Personally, I use a cell phone, and don't or even like PIMs, but I can't stand having to deal with Outlook just so someone can use a Blackberry.

Finally, something needs to be done in terms of simple profile migration, and the import/export features need to be more robust. For example, if you want to switch someone to Thunderbird from Outlook Express, you have to activate a profile in Outlook Express. If Thunderbird can't find it in the default location, it doesn't let you choose a WAB file. That is pitiful. Same goes for importing Thunderbird stuff into Thunderbird. It shouldn't be that difficult to prompt for a file location and take it from there.

To be honest, Thunderbird is not up to par

I suspect its because thunderbird doesn't really offer anything more than its competitors and because it has few must-have extensions.

I use Thunderbird as my only email client at work, but in my opinion, Thunderbird doesn't offer more, it offers less. Not less such as in less bloated, but less such as in features-that-I-would-like-and-I-can-find-in-other -email-clients. The addressbook sucks. Search too. As you said, there isn't enough good extensions so far (e.g. the pitchdark theme that I like so much as not been updated to TB2.0). No support for user tags (no, the "tags" they included in 2.0 (which were there in previous versions) does not count as support for tags). Poor support of non-english characters. etc.

But why do I keep using it? Because I hope it will become as good as Firefox and switching email clients is never as straightforward as one would like. And I'm not saying FF does not have flaws, in my opinion benefits outweighs the flaws. I'm not sure if this is true with TB. I have no idea, and I'm probably not alone failing to predict the future, if a new status for Thunderbird will actually help the project or not... I guess we'll find out in a few months/years!

Re:Poor thunderbird

You have to wonder why thunderbird doesn't compete as well in the email marketspace as firefox does in the browser market space.

One word: gmail

Re:Poor thunderbird

You have to wonder why thunderbird doesn't compete as well in the email marketspace as firefox does in the browser market space.

Because there's no reason it would. First wave of Firefox adoption was developers and savvy users. They got development extensions and they cared about good CSS/JS support.

You don't develop for e-mail. You could assemble the occasional HTML email but that's hardly "development".

Second wave of adoption came from the fact not that Firefox is good, but that IE was bad. No tabs (the mythical tabs) and poor security led companies and users to switch.

There were some VBS related exploits for Outlook (part of Office) but nothing last few years about Outlook Express (part of Windows). Outlook Express is a very decent mail client, and people just use it for what it is.

Killer features can't push people to adopt Thunderbird since people care to receive and send their email only. Thunderbirds spam filtering isn't noticed by anyone using Outlook Express. (hm.. what about email tabs...? naah).

Third option

If the Mozilla Foundation isn't as interested in Thunderbird, why would a subsidiary of it (ala the 2nd option) or a brand-new entity (ala the 1st) bring a whole lot of enthusiasm? Let the users have it.

Re:Third option

Eudora's home page http://www.eudora.com/ [eudora.com] says that the paid mode Eudora is no longer available, and that an open source version of Eudora is being developed by Mozilla. An article at http://www.mozillazine.org/talkback.html?article=2 0078 [mozillazine.org] says that the new Eudora will be based on the Thunderbird engine. This is apparently the Penelope project http://wiki.mozilla.org/Penelope [mozilla.org] , which claims not to be trying to supplant Thunderbird, but may be about to do so. Would an insider please clarify all this?

just curious

just curious, since Google's deal with mozilla brought in a lot of cash, did Mozilla ever pipe any of that into Thunderbird? If they did then how is it helping to seperate Thunderbird like this?

I hope Thnderbird sticks around

I use Thnderbird at home. Every day @ work using Outlook reminds me why I prefer Thunderbird.

I do have some gripes when it comes to the way most extensions and plugins are handled for it though, much like other people are saying...

I'd rather see it stay in the Mozilla foundation but if it must leave then I would prefer the third option as well. The second one really sucks...

What is the Foundation not providing?

This is disappointing news, and begs the question why the Mozilla Foundation can't provide the needed resources to Thunderbird?

Given the Mozilla Foundation HAS a substantial amount of money, presumably spinning Thunderbird out into a separate entity will mean Thunderbird will have even less money than it has today because it can not be cross-subsidised by Firefox's search revenues. Spinning Thunderbird out, which will cost it more and earn it less, doesn't sound like a recipe for success if your problem is lack of resources.

Exactly what I was thinking.

Whatever little Mozilla Foundation is providing to Thunderbird has to be better than nothing, which is what they would be getting from them if they went their own way. Unless the foundation is hindering development in someway, I really don't see the point of spinning off.

Don't Crap On Tbird

I, for one, am not looking forward to the idea of having Tbird as a community project, unless it is headed by a small team of very focused individuals. A mass free-for-all will simply destroy it due to feature bloat and a multitude of ideas around what an email client should be.

What should an email client do? How about -- email. Just email. Not email and newsgroups, not email and collaboration, not email and Facebook -- just plain old simple email. Sure, I'll concede to HTML email for you folks who can't stand to not have a little color in your lives and insist on spamming my box with your yellow backgrounds and pink text, but it's still email.

Tbird is awesome and makes almost no waves because of a) marketing -- the browser wars are much more publicized, b) marketing -- Microsoft isn't really trying to take over the world with Outlook, because they know it sucks, and c) marketing -- There's not much word-of-mouth going on because email mostly works with just about any client and people put up with it, so there's not as much of a scramble for a "good" email client.

I love the app. It works and works and works and doesn't break and doesn't screw up one of the most important things in my online life, electronic mail. I don't want to see it backburnered by the Foundation, either, but at the same time, I'm happier thinking that the Foundation has their finger on where it's going and so far, I trust that they're not going to make it suck. So I'd be preferable to leaving it their hands for that reason.

Winifred is the problem, not Thunderbird.

Someone with no technical knowledge cannot run a technically oriented company. The Mozilla Foundation needs someone competent. Winifred cannot be the leader of something she doesn't understand. That's Winifred Mitchell Baker [wikipedia.org], the CEO [mozilla.com] of Mozilla, an extremely socially uncomfortable lawyer who became CEO when no one thought there was an opportunity. Now that Mozilla Foundation is making millions from making Google the default browser, Winifred can afford to hire people to make herself look good.

There are many, many quirks in Firefox, not just Thunderbird, that should be fixed, but no technically oriented manager to organize that. For example, the CPU hogging bug has been there for at least 5 years. Winifred has insufficient control over those who work for her, because she doesn't understand what they do. The Firefox CPU hogging and memory gobbling bug would take some serious troubleshooting to find, and no one wants to do the work, apparently. See Firefox development sometimes resembles playing. [slashdot.org]

Don't let ignorant and managers destroy your programming efforts. Find some way to have them removed.

Huh?

There are many, many quirks in Firefox, not just Thunderbird, that should be fixed, but no technically oriented manager to organize that.

That isn't here job and shouldn't be. It is the job of the lead developers. Her responsibility is to manage the non-profit - getting donations making business deals and determining the best way to distribute the budget they have between advertising, upgrading equipment, and paying developers.

If you have a problems about how she is doing in that role, then say so, but otherwise you are complaining about the wrong person.

Re:Winifred is the problem, not Thunderbird.

The Firefox CPU hogging and memory gobbling bug would take some serious troubleshooting to find, and no one wants to do the work, apparently.

You mean the one where If you open a lot of windows and tabs in Firefox on a laptop, and put the laptop in and out of standby, you will eventually notice that the laptop fan is running all the time, even when there is no activity. That's the CPU bug, and it can potentially shorten the life of your laptop [slashdot.org]? It looks like it's fixed [mozilla.org]. As for a "memory gobbling bug", you'll have to describe in much more detail what you mean. Firefox seems to use less memory than other browsers [mozillazine.org], and in addition, about 100 memory leak bugs have been fixed in the past year [mozilla.org].

If you see a quirk in Firefox, simply write up a bug report specifying in enough detail what the problem is, and it will be fixed. Whining about them on Slashdot is about the least effective thing you can do.

What about Eudora?

Not too long ago, Qualcomm, the publisher of the Eudora E-mail client, announced that future Eudora versions would be based on Thunderbird. Back in the bad old days when I still had to use Windows, I used Eudora for E-mail -- it was streets ahead of MS Outhouse. Perhaps Mozilla can cook up a deal with Qualcomm.

Oh my....

Already Thunderbird is not that great a product, especially when compared to Firefox. I don't know whats gonna happen now - Hope it will not become just another open source project with just handful of folks using it:(

Why throw out TB?

Why not split off Firefox instead, since it's getting most of the attention? Maybe then the Mozilla project can go back to making good software.

Geez

Geez, I just got the new Tbird installed with all the extensions I need, syncing up to 6 different email accounts and also allowing me to see/edit my google calendar and seeing the RSS feed on my blog. Did I pick the wrong client? As of this moment, I don't think so, but time will tell.

Re:Geez

Actually, smooth syncing with my cell phone is pushing me back to Outlook. Firefox has really overcome almost all compatibility hurdles - Thunderbird (particularly the address book and calendaring bits) not so much. Also, Thunderbird still seems to get confused about offline copies.

Ultimately, I just wonder if it has enough developer person-hours to compete with Outlook. Firefox definitely does.

Of course the most obvious answer...

"Stop fawning over Firefox so much and develop the projects more equally" isn't even mentioned.

It's just a case of glory seekers. From the Mozillazine forums/Bugzilla, it appears MScott is pretty much the only truly dedicated developer of Thunderbird. It's not as "sexy" as Firefox, so people want to contribute to the browser instead. Firefox has brand recognition to almost make it a household name like IE is now. Thunderbird, not nearly so much.

Animal Names?

Does anyone know why all of these products are based around animals,
particularly scary animals at that?

Mozilla sounds like something that would chase me out of a Japanese movie
theater, Thunderbird is not only a car and malt liquor beverage, but
also seemingly a monster's name.

Duck, Here comes Brontosaurus 1.2!

Saddening.

This saddens me. I'm convinced that this is essentially because Thunderbird is not the cash cow that Firefox is, and the Mozilla Foundation/Corporation have lost interest.

Firefox is cool, and exciting - and it generates millions of dollars in kickbacks from Google from the default search bar. Thunderbid enjoys no such advantage. What's more, there are several good alternatives to Thunderbird, and a smaller development community. I can't help thinking this mainly comes down to politics within Mozilla, despite things such as this quote, from one of Baker's comments to her own article:

I do not believe that hiring more people will solve the Thunderbird issues. Assume an additional 5 (or 10, or 100) people to work on Thunderbird. Is that enough to compete with other players for a consumer based product? No. Firefox is succeeding because of a massive community of people who build the product and drive adoption.

Thunderbird does not have this community. It never has. We can speculate on the reasons. But whatever the reason, Thunderbird does not have the community development that has driven other projects. I do not see Thunderbird changing. And I do not see Thunderbird developing further within the current structure without such a change. I do not see Mozilla hiring enough people to make up for this difference.

Mitchell

Sure, there is a smaller community. But I put it to you that that is because e-mail is a mature application. E-mail clients are all much alike, and most of their functionality is pretty much giving you the properties of e-mail as described in the RFC's. But it doesn't have to be that way!

Nowadays a majority of people use webmail rather than a standard mail client. Obviously webmail is perfect for when roaming about, but surely a local client can have enough useful functionality to entice people to use it on their usual own machine. With tight integration with popular webmail services, lots of improved searching and display functionality, new ideas for spam-prevention and better extensions, Thunderbird could be a proud member of the Mozilla stable of programs. Thunderbird: reclaim your e-mail.

Instead, it's going to be passed about, lose Mozilla's powerful support, and become just another e-mail program. Maybe Evolution will become the mail-client of the future instead.

Qualcomm?

Qualcomm awhile back has stated Eudora was going to be founded on Thunderbird, wonder what this news now means to them. I really think that the Mozilla Foundation should continue to develop Thunderbird, Firefox maybe the Ace, but surely Thunderbird is a Jack or Queen. We really need these apps to compete with Microsoft's. I'd rather see them scrap Camino than Thunderbird, just make the Mac people use FF without the consistant UI, I never saw what the big deal was, although I think it allows them to do spelling checks and other things the standard Mac UI does.

Another wake up call...

If anyone is surprised by this move, they weren't paying attention.

MoFo/MoCo are owned in a serious financial way by Google. Remember the Mozilla Suite was dumped in a similar, though worse, manner just a few years ago when Google poored money all over the cash strapped Mozilla that AOL left behind. Google wasn't interested in financing the suite. Google probably stipulates that their financing only go to Firefox development, where Google is front and center in the users face. Google isn't likely to help finance a mail client where they don't see any return on investment. Google wants you to use Gmail for the ads.

The funds Mozilla had before the Google deal were likely diverted from the suite to Thunderbird and other applications. Mozilla has likely exhausted those funds now. Thunderbird developers should join the SeaMonkey community. Together the community and the projects might survive this.

Future prediction of a friend: When the government cracks down on MoFo's shady tax history, MoFo will go under and Google will likely buy MoCo and spin it as if they saved Mozilla.

http://www.scroogle.org/mozilla.html [scroogle.org]

Inability To Manage a Product Line

Just like closed-source, for-profit orgs. OSS is really growing up! :-)

I really think this will be a good move...

Considering having installed Thunderbird on all of our office systems and seeing just how in-compatible the program was with our clients who all used some form of exchange I think this will be a good move. They have a lot of work to do before this program is able to communicate and provide end user functionality for everyone.

I fully support Mozilla and hope they are able to make it an industry standard program, but I am waiting until they get everything figured out before I switch all of my users over to it. Feel free to bash me and say it's able to do everything you need it to do, but it doesn't work well with emails sent from Outlook or Outlook Express and I know this from hearing people bitch every day and night and seeing it myself.

Anyway, I hope this move help them and doesn't hurt the program if they decide to scrap it altogether.

Idiocy or deliberate sabotage?

While Thunderbird is a great product (use pine myself), Mozilla are failing to rise to the challenge. Resigning themselves to one success story and passing the buck isn't a long term strategy. I've installed Thunderbird on many customers desktops because when it fits the bill, it is IMHO the best client.

Perhaps Mozilla need a business orientated product manager to take Thunderbird out into the world. In ditching XULRunner and now looking to rid themselves of TB, they're left fighting a losing battle. Imagine how fast competitors would encroach on Microsoft if they ditched everything apart from Windows and Office?

Something is very wrong here.

gmail

Thunderbird has to compete with not only client-side apps like Outlook and Eudora, but also webmail packages, which are becoming very sophisticated thanks to AJAX. Years ago, webmail sucked - limited space, no search ability, etc. But now it is really good, and I'm finding I envy my colleagues who don't need Remote Desktop to check their email. I even wonder if POP3's future is looking grim.

Deal with Google (GMail?)

Thunderbird needs a deal with Google (Firefox default home) so the millions in kickbacks will roll in.
I guarantee the Firefox group will love 'em again and help them spend the money!

NOOO!!

That is all...

The Thunderbird Foundation?

I hope they make Thunderbird have features like Outlook has, but without the security flaws.

The Calendar extension needs more work, and so does the Address book. I need to be able to get the Address book to export to Outlook CSVs so that I can import them into my Yahoo address book, or my Timex Datalink Watch or iPaq because the Thunderbird CSV files don't work with those applications.

Having data syncing with the calendar and address book with mobile devices, PDAs, watches, etc would be a good thing as well.

Has Mozilla forgotten their mission ?

From the Mozilla.org website:

The Mozilla Foundation was established in July 2003 as a California not-for-profit corporation dedicated to the public benefit.
...
There are many different ways of advancing the principles of the Mozilla Manifesto. We welcome a broad range of activities, and anticipate the same creativity that Mozilla participants have shown in other areas of the project.

It seems that in focussing on Firefox, Mozilla is forgeting the whole point of their existence. It is a dangerous path...

- They are becoming beholden to Google and a single project (Firefox). We don't need another Opera (nothing wrong with Opera per se), or another browser created by yet another software company. OSS is supposed to be a *different* business model, with a *broader* vision, benefitting the public, not just Google proxies or lackies.

-It would seem that they endanger their status as a 501c3 public charity/foundation, and thus their tax-exempt status. IIRC, a 501c3 cannot accept more than 10% of their funding from any one source. At the moment Mozilla is rapidly looking like they are doing coding for hire (Firefox for Google).

- Pushing Thunderbird forward *within* Mozilla would at least maintain some sense that 1) they are promulgating a broader mission, 2) they are doing more than what Google asks them to.

- If Google's funding is truly earmarked for Firefox (as suggested in this thread), Mozilla should end that right now, and stipulate to Google that at least some reasonable fraction of their "donation" (e.g. 30%) MUST be in the form of an "unrestricted grant", that could and will be use for other projects in the foundation, like Thunderbird.

Mozilla is nuts for focusing on Firefox at the expense of Thunderbird. They are losing sight of their entire unique contribution to the community, and their larger mission.

Email is an essential function of the Internet and modern computing. If Thunderbird isn't doing so well, Mozilla should be fixing the problem and addressing those issues head-on, rather than jettisoning and punting on it.