PLEASE don't do this. I and many of my colleagues depend on Thunderbird; there's no decent comparable alternative on Linux. Firefox is my browser of choice, but I could get by without it; I can't get by without Thunderbird.
Cheers, A happy user for YEARS. On Monday, November 30, 2015 at 1:08:18 PM UTC-8, Mitchell Baker wrote: > This is a long-ish message. It covers general topics about Thunderbird > and the future, and also the topics of the Foundation involvement (point > 9) and the question of merging repositories (point 11). Naturally, I > believe it's worth the time to read through the end. > > 1. Firefox and Thunderbird have lived with competing demands for some > time now. Today Thunderbird developers spend much of their time > responding to changes made in core Mozilla systems and technologies. At > the same time, build, Firefox, and platform engineers continue to pay a > tax to support Thunderbird. > > 2. These competing demands are not good for either project. Engineers > working on Thunderbird must focus on keeping up and adapting Firefox's > web-driven changes. Engineers working on Firefox and related projects > end up considering the competing demands of Thunderbird, and/or > wondering if and how much they should assist Thunderbird. Neither > project can focus wholeheartedly on what is best for it. > > 3. These competing demands will not get better soon. Instead, they are > very likely to get worse. Firefox and related projects are now speeding > up the rate of change, modernizing our development process and our > infrastructure. Indeed, this is required for Mozilla to have significant > impact in the current computing environment. > > 4. There is a belief among some that living with these competing demands > is good for the Mozilla project as a whole, because it gives us an > additional focus, assists Thunderbird as a dedicated open source > community, and also supports an open source standards based email > client. This sentiment is appealing, and I share it to some extent. > There is also a sense that caring for fellow open source developers is > good, which I also share. However, point 2 above -- "Neither project can > focus wholeheartedly on what is best for it" -- is the most important > point. Having Thunderbird has an additional product and focus is *not* > good overall if it causes all of our products -- Firefox, other > web-driven products and Thunderbird -- to fall short of what we can > accomplish. > > 5. Many inside of Mozilla, including an overwhelming majority of our > leadership, feel the need to be laser-focused on activities like Firefox > that can have an industry-wide impact. With all due respect to > Thunderbird and the Thunderbird community, we have been clear for years > that we do not view Thunderbird as having this sort of potential. > > 6. Given this, it's clear to me that sooner or later paying a tax to > support Thunderbird will not make sense as a policy for Mozilla. I > know many believe this time came a while back, and I've been slow to say > this clearly. And of course, some feel that this time should never > come. However, as I say, it's clear to me today that continuing to live > with these competing demands given our focus on industry impact is > increasingly unstable. We've seen this already, in an unstructured way, > as various groups inside Mozilla stop supporting Thunderbird. The > accelerating speed of Firefox and infrastructure changes -- which I > welcome wholeheartedly -- will emphasize this. > > 7. Some Mozillians are eager to see Mozilla support community-managed > projects within our main development efforts. I am also sympathetic to > this view, with a key precondition. Community-managed projects that > make the main effort less nimble and likely to succeed don't fit very > well into this category for me. They can still be great open source > projects -- this is a separate question from whether the fit in our main > development systems. I feel so strongly about this because I am so > concerned that "the Web" we love is at risk. If we want the traits of > the Web to live and prosper in the world of mobile, social and data then > we have to be laser-focused on this. > > 8. Therefore I believe Thunderbird should would thrive best by > separating itself from reliance on Mozilla development systems and in > some cases, Mozilla technology. The current setting isn't stable, and we > should start actively looking into how we can transition in an orderly > way to a future where Thunderbird and Firefox are un-coupled. I don't > know what this will look like, or how it will work yet. I do know that > it needs to happen, for both Firefox and Thunderbird's sake. This is a > big job, and may require expertise that the Thunderbird team doesn't yet > have. Mozilla can provide various forms of assistance to the > Thunderbird team via a set of the Mozilla Foundation's capabilities. > > 9. Mark Surman of the Mozilla Foundation and I are both interested in > helping find a way for Thunderbird to separate from Mozilla > infrastructure. We also want to make sure that Thunderbird has the right > kind of legal and financial home, one that will help the community > thrive. Mark has been talking with the Thunderbird leadership about > this, and has offered some of his time and focus and resources to > assist. He will detail that offer in a separate message. We both > recognize that the Thunderbird community is dedicated to sustaining a > vibrant open source project, which is why we're currently looking at how > best to assist with both technical separation and identifying the right > long-term home for Thunderbird. These discussions are very early, so > it's easy to you can definitely think of a lot of questions for which > there are's no answers yet. > > 10. The fact that the Foundation is facilitating these discussions does > not necessarily mean that the Foundation is or is not the best legal and > financial home for Thunderbird. The intent is not to make technical > decisions about support of Thunderbird by Mozilla employees, or merging > repositories, etc. Point 6 above is the shared organizing principle for > both of us. > > 11. I understand from recent discussions that merging mozilla-central > and comm-central would provide some reduction of effort required to ship > Thunderbird, at least in the short term. This would make sense if our > path was long term integration of the projects. As i noted above, I > believe our path has to be the long term separation of these projects, > so that each can move as fast as possible into new things. Given that, > I'm not sure that merging them makes sense. I have to learn a bit more > about the cost / benefit analysis of merging repositories given the need > to separate these project. I'm asking the platform and release folks to > comment on this. > > 12. This message is about the future and there's a lot to work out. > It's explicitly not to announce changes in daily activities at this > point. People using Thunderbird will not see any change in the product > they use. We have started this conversation early because Mozilla > works best when our community is engaged. This is how we gather the > people who are interested, and enable those folks to engage productively > within the process. It also of course allows those who prefer a > different course of action to be vocal. We've seen this before with > Thunderbird. Building a positive response and a positive conversation > will be a very useful first step in making a good future for Thunderbird. > > > Mitchell _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
