I understand that Thunderbird's future is currently under discussion and pretty much open.
If it is decided to move Thunderbird out of Mozilla, I'd like to suggest to reach out to The Document Foundation and ask if they are interested. It seems to me that Thunderbird might be a good addition to their LibreOffice productivity suite. Am 30.11.2015 um 22:11 schrieb Mitchell Baker: > 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 _______________________________________________ governance mailing list [email protected] https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
