Mitchell Baker, Mozilla’s CEO, announced on her blog today that Thunderbird hasn’t been receiving the attention that it deserves. As a result they are looking at a number of options to let Thunderbird continue to grow and flourish, but I don’t like how all of this sounds. Take a look at this snippet from the post:
The Thunderbird effort is dwarfed by the enormous energy and community focused on the web, Firefox and the ecosystem around it. As a result, Mozilla doesn’t focus on Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don’t expect this to change in the foreseeable future.
To "help" Thunderbird they are looking at three different options that will give the project the attention it deserves. Here’s what can happen with it:
- Create a new non-profit organization analogous to the Mozilla Foundation – a Thunderbird foundation. If it turns out Thunderbird generates a revenue model from the product as Firefox does, then a Thunderbird foundation could follow the Mozilla Foundation model and create a subsidiary.This model probably offers the maximum independence for Thunderbird. But it is also the most organizationally complex.
- Create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird. This has less overhead, although it still requires a new company that serves the mission of the Mozilla Foundation. In this case the Mozilla Foundation board and personnel would remain involved in Thunderbird. The Thunderbird effort may therefore still end up with less focus and less flexibility.
- Thunderbird is released as a community project much like SeaMonkey or Camino, and a small independent services and consulting company is formed by the Thunderbird developers to continue development and care for Thunderbird users. Many open source projects use this model.
So I’m not sure what this sounds like to you, but it almost sounds like they are wanting to get Thunderbird out of their hands so that they can focus solely on Firefox…because that’s where the money is at right now. As we reported earlier this year Mozilla had earned more than $52 million in 2005 while spending a frugal $8 million of that on expenses and salaries. I’m guessing that Mozilla only wants to focus on the projects that will make them money even though they have plenty put away for a rainy day.
The interesting part is that Mitchell goes on to say that they don’t want to forget about mail all together though:
We would also like to find contributors committed to creating and implementing a new vision of mail. We would like to have a roadmap that brings wild innovation, increasing richness and fundamental improvements to mail. And equally importantly, we would like to find people with relevant expertise who would join with Mozilla to make something happen.
To me this sounds like two people breaking up because something better has come along, where they just say that they "need their space." So I’m not overly hopeful anymore that we’ll see true innovation coming out of Thunderbird anymore. I honestly see that as being disappointing news, but I guess Mozilla has to do what’s best for the Foundation.
Let me know if I’m taking this the wrong way, or whether you see this as "the end" of Thunderbird as well.
Source: Mitchell Baker’s Blog [via Mozilla Links & Info World]
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Tags: Freeware, Software, Email, Mail, Mozilla, Thunderbird
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I’ve used Thunderbird in the past, but don’t anymore…largely because I can do just about everything Thunderbird can do with my GMail account.
So I’m sure the constant advancement of web-based mail contributed to this situation.
I think this would be a good move for Mozilla. Like everyone else, they have to allocate scarce resources. Firefox keeps picking up steam and still has plenty of room to grow.
I love Thunderbird, and I don’t want it to go. If this article is right, I’ll be deeply burdened because it’s everything I want it to be as far as RSS feeds and Gmail is concerned. I read all my mail through Thunderbird. If only they would officially support Yahoo! mail and Hotmail, or the other way around they’d be king. I think the reason it’s not as popular as it should be is because of the slight learning curve, but even that shouldn’t deter anyone.
This is good news to me. I just use GMail for email. This is great because now Firefox will receive more focus.
From what I’ve seen Thunderbird hasn’t stolen much in the way of ‘focus’ from Firefox. Maybe they feel they truly aren’t doing Thunderbird justice. I’ve always wanted to see it merged with Firefox as one entity.
All of my mail is web-based but I like the ability using a mail client gives for my different accounts. It’s nice not having to log-in to each different web-mail account and I like having search all in one place for all my email. It does look like a ‘Dear Thunderbird’ letter doesn’t it, Ryan.
I think too that Web based mail, like Gmail, which is what I use has supplanted “traditional mail clients for regular home users. Corporations still require traditional mail clients, and this is not where Thunderbird is targeted for.
I honestly think that Thunderbird will end up fading into the dust. Traditional mail programs just can not give you the ability to use them from any computer anywhere like web based mail can.
Well this could be a good thing, I just hope Mozilla would go with option #2. I have always felt that Thunderbird hasn’t gotten half the attention that Firefox gets. As I used Thunderbird for my school email account and it works very well and I like it very much as it is a light weight program. Going with option #3 well I really don’t know if that will be good for Thunderbird as in my opinion it hasn’t been very good for Seamonkey and Camino (as they are too slow with features and stuff). I would hate to loose Thunderbird, I mean what else is out there that is a light weight email program (that is cross platform)? Guess we are going to have to wait and see what happens.
I don’t understand this one. Thunderbird is great! An amazingly powerful app. That works on Windows and Linux. Sounds to me like the person in charge may not be helping out Mozilla at all. Or at the least, good software.
Too much worrying about Mozilla dumping Tbird – I use only Tbird where an email client is needed. Methinks someone took an interview too far- as I can imagine Thunderbird has only good places to go from here. Heck ,it ain’t lotus people
Relax- Mozilla a will continue to do us proud. If Thunderbird got spun off, that probably wouldn’t be a bad thing.
I agree with other posters though in the fact that standalons email programs are almost a thing of the past (with gmail and such)
Rob
Maybe They should do a seamonkey and integrate mozilla and Thunderbird. I dont see anything wrong with it except the slightly increased download size.
I think everyone is right who said that email on the web is the way of the future, but I think desktop clients still have their place. I think the problem is that the syncing between the desktop clients and web services aren’t good enough right now. I mean think about it, wouldn’t you be more willing to use a desktop application if it had full synchronization capabilities with its web counterpart? By that I mean if you read a message in the desktop app it is marked as read on the web service as well. I know that is something I would love to see, and I think it is possible with Thunderbird.
@Ed West – I don’t think that they would merge Thunderbird with Firefox because it pretty much becomes SeaMonkey then. I agree with you though that I don’t think Thunderbird stole much of the focus away from, but it was apparent that Thunderbird didn’t receive much attention since it takes so long for the updates to get processed.
@Tinhed – I don’t think that Mozilla should integrate Firefox and Thunderbird quite yet. There are enough memory problems in Firefox alone, and throwing Thunderbird into it probably would help.
I’d have to say that this seems like it may very well be a good thing. If Mozilla chooses #1, creating a sister foundation similar to Mozilla in many ways, it would allow Mozilla to focus its energies on web-related technologies. Firefox would receive even more attention and from a more concentrated backer, while Thunderbird would be developed in an environment focused upon it, allowing more resources and creativity to be spent on it. Mozilla’s approach to the web is not necessarily appropriate for email clients, so an email-centered organization would be good for Thunderbird.
As for the other two options, #2 seems like it might put a little more energy behind the project, but that things would go down pretty much the same path. As for #3, that would all but kill the project. SeaMonkey and Camino are well behind in terms of technology, their development is so slow. Their updates, rare as they are, usually only consist of security patches and bug fixes, with new features few and far between. I don’t think Thunderbird really needs Mozilla, but yet it does require a similar type of organization.
In any case, Thunderbird will die out along with the other home-user-centric desktop email clients unless they have some type of revolution. The way they currently are, desktop email clients have very little practical use for most of the computer-using world. Unless they rethink the theory behind this type of product, transforming it into something radically different and innovative, then desktop email will go the way of fax machines and audio cassette players.
To those who think Thunderbird and Firefox should be combined, I have this to say: that would be very impractical. Most of Firefox’s user base does not have nor wants Thunderbird. I do think that they should replace SeaMonkey with an updated suite similar to a combined Firefox-Thunderbird, but this should definitely not be Mozilla’s flagship product; if Thunderbird’s development is given to a third party, then this would have to be a community project.
They should definitely replace SeaMonkey with something more up-to-date. I can’t believe that it still has the old Netscape look.
What was the last ‘true innovation’ from Firefox?