Voice of the Masses: Where does Thunderbird belong?
Poor Thunderbird. It’s a fantastic email client, but Mozilla would rather focus its efforts on Firefox – especially with increasing competition from Chrome/Chromium and other browsers. So the Mozilla team would like to hand Thunderbird over to someone else, but where should it go? Simon Phipps (whose words appear in the hallowed pages of Linux Voice!) has prepared a report looking at various options for the email software.
For instance, the Software Freedom Conservancy is interesting in taking it over, while The Document Foundation (the non-profit behind LibreOffice) is another alternative. In any case, whoever takes on Thunderbird needs the infrastructure and resources to support a big and popular open source project.
So let us know: where do you think Thunderbird belongs? Should it be handed over to an existing entity, or should a new one (eg The Thunderbird Foundation) be established? Let us know your thoughts in the comments below and we’ll read out the best in our next podcast.
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Mike Saunders
Mike stores his data by printing out hex dumps and laminating the sheets. He's the author of The Haynes Linux Manual and the creator of MikeOS, an operating system hand-built from assembly language.
A good fit would be TDF because Tbird is office software. Integration of the address book into LibreOffice as a full contacts database would be a nice option to have. As would the same editor functions that are available in Writer would be ever so wonderful to have when composing an email.
Why reinvent the wheel with a Thunderbird Foundation when there is already the Document Foundation there, up and running? The Document Foundation did wonderful things to OpenOffice and, I think, would also have a very positive effect upon Thunderbird too.
Thunderbird, like LibreOffice, is a fundamental piece of cross platform software which helps those making the transfer into the FOSS world much easier.
TDF would be my vote. As well as a good standalone email client maybe it could be morphed into the LibreOffice suite as a built-in client as well.
I don’t think starting yet another foundation is a good idea as the whole process of setting it up would starve Thunderbird of resources for quite a while. We need T’bird development to continue.
“maybe it could be morphed into the LibreOffice suite”
Yeah, and after that, the whole LibreBirdOffice could be morphed with VLC, then that whole thing with GCC, and then maybe it could “swallow” a few torrent clients as well. Just for the integration hype’s sake.
Perhaps the question is best posed as, which organisation can best withstand the problems and costs that Thunderbird brings with it?”.
Thunderbird brings next to no revenue stream so every other issue is hampered with perrenial questions regarding how to pay to solve them.
There is bitrot; lots and lots of it. The sodftware cries out for a major, even wholesale, recoding excercise. Even Mozilla themselves show little remaining interest, still less enthusiasm, for XUL and other technologies that are being phased out of Firefox, and for that matter Mozilla as a whole, yet form the core of Thunderbird.
Perhaps an even more pertinent issue than my last point is that of rendering engine. Mozilla have plans to deprecate Gecko and move to a paralleling product, Servo, but poor old Thunderbird is Gecko through and through. Moving Thunderbird to Servo, or any other choice of rendering engine is a major project in its own right requiring deep pockets and a large quantity of developer time.
Let’s look at manpower now, or rather the lack thereof. Thunderbird brings a relatively small number of volunter developers with it. I have great respect for these individuals but they can’t possibly put in the time and effort needed to remedy the daunting code issues in Thunderbird so any new home for the project would have to be able to bring a lot of new developers to the table. These new developers might well have to come from the existing projects that new home hosts thus weakening them as a result.
Taking on Thunderbird has the feel of a poison pill and I have difficulty wishing it on any organisation as a result.
I will take the contary view in that Thunderbird is a core bit of internet technology and should be under the Mozilla umbrella. Yes it needs to be seperate to Firefox. With many useing webmail there is a deep connection between the two projects.
As for the connection to Firefox with Firefox’s impending rebasing on Servo and moving away from XUL et al that connection gets less by the week.
Looking at it in a less charitable light might Mozilla be attempting to avoid the backlash that might come from having to drop the outdated project completely by way of palming it off onto someone else. Apache Open Office worked this way for Oracle did it not? Libre Office has had a major influx of cash, developers and, as a result, new code that has enabled it to flourish but without those you have Apache Open Office.
David, agreed but that is a diffrent question. and I agree with the majority that given the Mozilla dosent wnt to have it that TDF would be the best place. But their technology stack is compleatly diffrent to TBird and Firefox so would be a compleatly seperate project for them. So maby Under conservancy that can exist better as a project.
I do think that TDF would be the best place too, from a Thunderbird perspective, yet I also think that TDF would be best off if they didn’t take it on. Consider also the bug tracker for Thunderbird and you land up with a project that has no technological cohesiveness with anything already in place in TDF so, absolutely, it would have to be completely separate from anything they are currently doing but this highlights the lack of synergy between the two projects and, from a TDF perspective, tends to remove reasons that would make them want the new project.
I hate Thunderbird. It is overloaded with stuff, from all I hear horribly programmed, it has fundamental flaws (the search function, for example, doesn’t deserve it’s name) and has a UI that is impossible to describe without using the words 1990s and ugly. Nonetheless, I absolutely depend on it, and every competitor sucks much, much more. Exactly how I felt about OpenOffice.org. So I hope the Document Foundation will work similar miracles here!
I’ve moved to Claws Mail and while its UI is even worse than Thunderbird and setting it up for things like gmail, for instance, requires perseverance and strict adherance to an online tutorial (anything but intuitive!) and it has only a limited set of extensions i’ve found that it suits me very well indeed. Those few extensions include the ones I really need and once set up it is very easy to use and extremely light on resources. If you don’t wish to use a command line client but still want something that is truly lightweight it would be hard to beat.
For my purposes Thunderbird is too bulky and too stuffed full of every possible option and extension under the sun rather than getting back to a core product that just does the job with few frills and next to no annoyances.
You might consider giving it a try…but don’t be put off by the configuration process if you do as once configured it earns its keep.
I think that it is time to let firebird go, it has had its time. Back in the day it was an awesome email client that did its job well, but the UI didn’t evolve along with the rest of the desktop and now it just hurts the eyes.
Honestly, the only way I’d see the project living on is if someone would fork it and extract all the underlying capabilities into a library that gets an entirely new, more modern and minimalist frontend.
That’d mean that the most viable future for our beloved old mail client would not be under the wing of a foundation, but in a github repo of some enthousiasts that blow new life into it.
I use Kontact on KDE desktops wherever possible, but have T’bird on an old laptop that would struggle with KDE. By comparison with Kontact T’bird feels very old fashioned and things like syncing contacts and calendar require too much juggling with plugins. And there’s no consistency, Address Book is on the menu bar, calendar is a plugin that runs in a different tab. If resources for a huge makeover are lacking, maybe it’s time to let it go.
Wigan
I’m thinking The Document foundation is a good fit with it’s office suite.
I’ll just be glad to see it out of Mozilla’s hands. They appear to be working hard to screw up Firefox and I’d hate to see the same happen to Thunderbird.
“They appear to be working hard to screw up Firefox ”
Yeah, unfortunately they are doing a great job of “Chromifying” Firefox.
As mentioned above, Thunderbird’s future is bleak as the rendering engine is being deprecated. I’d rather see the SFC or th DF develop a viable alternative graphical desktop email client, than waste time supporting a doomed source tree.
The rot set in when Mozilla stopped promoting Gecko/XUL as a platform, in order to focus on Firefox. Having to support other types of applications kept the platform relevant. But now it’s become a millstone dragging them down; a burden to maintain but still necessary for Firefox. Thunderbird is just the highest profile of the XUL applications to suffer from this move to a single-purpose “platform”, but it’s not the only one.
Alas, Mozilla is the only place with the expertise to move Thunderbird to whatever XUL/Gecko evolves into. But they have no real interest in doing that.
Better, I think, to keep it on life support whilst someone develops a “Thunderbird killer” based on another platform. TDF would be a good base, as they could use the LibreOffice framework, and aim for (optional) integration with LO.
The FOSS world needs a good email client, but Thunderbird’s days are numbered, simply because of the foundations it’s built on.
FossaMail is a Thunderbird fork running with the forked Firefox browser engine of PaleMoon. Would that be a good community driven project?
It offers nothing that would be a benefit over Thunderbird itself. The rendering engine is still Gecko and the main coding still uses XUL and the bugs are still pointed to the Thunderbird bug tracker.
Compared to Thunderbird the alternatives Sylpheed or Claws Mail only miss CalDAV and CardDAV support.
I would tend to support The Document Foundation. I find the argument that Thunderbird is ultimately office software persuasive. Whether or not The Document Foundation wants the headache is another issue.
As an aside, I don’t use Thunderbird, as I find it clunky and its interface unappealing, but that’s just me. I prefer Mutt or, if I must use a GUI mail client, Claws.
An email system inside The Document Foundation would be best for Thunderbird with its calendar and GPG. This would start to make LibreOffice a complete work-side suite.
I use mutt.
I recently removed Windows 10 from my laptop, replacing it with Mint 17 Cinnamon – including Libre Office and Thunderbird. Together, those two programs form the core of a useful new machine.
It’s not my first experience of Mint, or of Libre Office or Thunderbird, but this is the first time I’ve had the confidence to go totally Linux on a machine. Why? Because of programme like Libre Office and Thunderbird.
I hope TDF does take it on. To me, the synergy with Libre Office makes complete sense. The coordination and continuation of both titles in cross-platform format has to be a good thing. Email is vital to a great many people and they worry about leaving a program they know to move to one they don’t. A strong Thunderbird in Windows and Linux only makes it easier for people who are looking to make the transition from Windows as painlessly as possible.
I’d like to thank Mozilla forgetting Thunderbird thus far.
*”for getting Thunderbird thus far”
[Sorry for the typo – blooming tablet keyboard! 🙂 ]
I think blue systems should fund it.
Walton on the Naze. Or Stevenage.
I can’t decide which.
Let’s face it – we all love the cloud and the flexibility that comes with. You can read your email anywhere you like on virtual any device! But then again, so can the governments! Are you really going to setup your own mail server? (OK, I know of at least one presidential hopeful who did this, but that’s not the point).
Desktop clients such as Thunderbird are the way forward! YOU keep control of your mail. I’m sure you all have private content you don’t want to share with the world. So, I for one welcome any group that wants to preserve Thunderbird!
As Lyndon Johnson, 36th President of the United States, once said “A president’s hardest task is not to do what is right, but to know what is right.” Let’s keep Thunderbird going!
I have used Thunderbird for a long time, since I was using Windows, as it was always far better than anything from MS, at least for the home user.
So when going to Linux I have used Thunderbird still, with the same emails, etc.
Overall I like it and it works well for me, but if it were stopped and I had to use something else, then would another program give same options and compatibility with my old emails?
I would love to see it revamped and modernised so long as nothing I use was lost from the interface. UI design in modern software is sometimes very lacking.
Hand-off to The Document Foundation and that way it could be incorporated into Libre Office and call it FreeBird, kinda of play on the old rock song.
How about as a project in the Apache (i.e. server) foundation?
If I could get kmail to work, I would use that, but I can’t currently, so I use Thunderbird
David Nash, I think you are missing the point: The big reason it would be great if the document foundation would take over Thunderbird, is database integration and PIM for corporate and small business use within the entire LibreOffice suit. Personally I would much rather see TDF work with Evolution Email Client (also a full fledged PIM) because it does not suck as hard as thunderchicken!