I find this fascinating because it speaks to the challenge of software that is 'done'.
Most people are familiar with software that is 'good enough to ship, could do more' where the software goes through release cycles and gets features added Etc. But sometimes, and this more common with embedded programmers, the programming is 'done.' All the features you could reasonably want are implemented, bugs as they come up are swatted, but basically the software itself is as it is and will be forever. Its done.
I expect to see more of this over the coming decade. While it is certainly true you can reimagine and reimagine, and of course you might want to port from form factor or OS to another, but the kinds of things that non-developer's do with computers is like a monte carlo plot getting more and more samples.
Personally I think its a Good Thing, as it might stem some of the gratuitous changes we see on things. It also has the chance of making the world a bit more stable.
Kind of interesting that this doesn't appear to have explicititely happened very often before with email software -- but intuition might imply that it should have.
Speaking of features, does Thunderbird have a built-in Gmail-like conversation view yet? There's an extension, but eight years after Gmail, do people really still not want this enough for it to be a core feature? Many other email clients have it, and it's much nicer than a message list.
Disclaimer: I haven't used Thunderbird for years, but I'm not too satisfied with the clients I'm currently using.
Thunderbird is far from 'done'. They had plans to replace somewhat problematic Mork format with SQLite based storage since 2008, and it was never implemented.
Software can't be "done". Webmail was done, then gmail came along. Phone calls were done, then google voice came along. Mobile phones were done, then iPhone came along.
I'm pretty happy with this actually, but still a bit worried.
Happy, because for once a company didn't see a perfectly good--but decade-old--piece of software and think, "Gee, this has been around for a decade and it hasn't changed, let's RE-INVENT EVERYTHING!!!" (See: Gnome 3, Windows 8). Thunderbird is stable, works, and does its job excellently; no need to turn a wheel into a square just because it's old.
On the other hand, there is still some room for improvement in Thunderbird: Gmail integration is kind of hacky and gross-looking (A "[Gmail]" folder? Really?), it could use better Linux desktop integration (notification icons, OSD bubbles, etc.--all of these kind of work, but in half-assed way, I've found). And of course, the ever-important security updates. Even stable software needs security updates on occasion, and someone has to provide that.
So with that said: kudos to Mozilla for not undertaking change just for the sake of change like so many other big software projects have of late; but I hope Thunderbird gets just a little more polish before it's placed atop its permanent pedestal, and I hope someone sticks around to keep it secure for its second decade of life.
Happy to heard this, people working into extendible software should work into core apis and let the community build the rest. I was with very little hope when I saw the thread title. Thunderbid is the last application on wich I want a change. I was/am a Firefox fan, but I'm currently using chrome all day..
I think the chat integration is the last remaining puzzle piece. If thunderbird had builtin chat and builtin gpg support I'd be content. I have never understood why smime was baked in but gpg was not. Enigmail should not need to exist and unlike any other ff/tb plugins it used to be a pain with amd64...
So couldn't they have avoided all this by saying it's going into "maintenance mode" or something? Software development history is full of packages that have fallen into bugfix-only status. Sheesh, what a lot of drama.
I know their strategy is "everything online", but if 20+ million people are using it (from the article) then that market doesn't look like such a waste of time, does it?
I suspect that unlike Firefox, which actually brings in money (mostly from search engine referrals, specifically from Google), Thunderbird doesn't bring in any significant money, if at all.
Mozilla is a non-profit (or is it a not-for-profit?), but I guess they're trying to make each project self-sustaining, and if thunderbird doesn't provide any bacon (pure speculation on my part here), then -- yes, that market might look like a waste of time.
I'm cross-posting here the comment I added to the mozilla blog:
[quote]
Firefox went to live because of the IE dominance in the corporate and private world. In the same idea, Thunderbird went to live to offer an alternative to the Exchange/Outlook pair domination (and is still widely used in the corporate world).
We have a few very good alternative to Exchange outside (Kerio and Zimbra for instance) but
Thunderbird lacks good Card/CalDav support which is a feature request that Mozilla has completely fail to deliver. And that’s were the real innovation was (think about it twice, please). Instead, we are seeing Thunderbird chat coming in. “Great”. Are you kidding?
Furthermore, I don’t get Mozilla communication ATM. When I hear “What Thunderbird users have in common is the need for a very stable and secure email product – first and foremost.”, I just think the guy saying that is making fun of the users.
Finally, as I said yesterday on Baker’s blog (comments), Mozilla should remove the Donate link on its website, as long as the long term goals are as unclear as they are now.
[/quote]
I also think that the decision to stop Thunderbird is based on a falacy: WebMail does not make e-mail clients obsolete, or even less important.
Mulberry (https://www.mulberrymail.com/) is, IMHO, the best IMAP client ever written, but from an IMAP perspective (and not necessarily a GUI perspective).
I gave up on Thunderbird when it started to demand most of my system memory. I switched back to mutt.
Drat, the best of the bunch was Eudora. But when Qualcomm abandoned it and turned it over to Mozilla, it became a lost child, stranded between its former self and Thunderbird.
That Eudora and now Thunderbird should be end-of-lifed makes for very few good free options.
Are there any stats around on how many people are using Thunderbird ? There really arn't that many usable email clients around - yet, perhaps next to the phone, email is really a primary way of doing business. It seems Outlook got most of the business users..
Outlook has a captive audience. I suspect email in non-business contexts will fade from common use before a decent email client comes along. Or maybe it will be for "fmail" instead.
Given that SeaMonkey was initially (and still is, as far as I know) a community-driven effort to keep alive Mozilla-the-browser after the foundation had decided to stop supporting it, I suspect there is very little to be gained on that front.
Back-pedal on what? Both the original leaked email and the official blog post said that Mozilla would "adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance..."
It was TechCrunch who somehow translated that into "So, that's it for Thunderbird." :/
The most advanced open source IMAP based webmail was RoundCube last time I checked. Not really gmail, but works well enough at least for small to normal sized mailboxes.
The main problem with running a mail server is properly keeping it up, secure, spam free, and trusted by peers to actually send email. These are not exclusively _software engineering_ problems with the existing (SMTP/RFC822-based) infrastructure. Rather, there's a large management component here, that is unlikely to be solved by software alone (open or closed source).
This will only change with a radical infrastructure change, along the lines of djb's Internet Mail 2000 proposal. Until then, if you want your mail server to remain reliable without working hard yourself, you'll have to delegate it (to google or hundreds of other available services).
[+] [-] ChuckMcM|13 years ago|reply
Most people are familiar with software that is 'good enough to ship, could do more' where the software goes through release cycles and gets features added Etc. But sometimes, and this more common with embedded programmers, the programming is 'done.' All the features you could reasonably want are implemented, bugs as they come up are swatted, but basically the software itself is as it is and will be forever. Its done.
I expect to see more of this over the coming decade. While it is certainly true you can reimagine and reimagine, and of course you might want to port from form factor or OS to another, but the kinds of things that non-developer's do with computers is like a monte carlo plot getting more and more samples.
Personally I think its a Good Thing, as it might stem some of the gratuitous changes we see on things. It also has the chance of making the world a bit more stable.
[+] [-] bane|13 years ago|reply
Kind of interesting that this doesn't appear to have explicititely happened very often before with email software -- but intuition might imply that it should have.
[+] [-] comex|13 years ago|reply
Disclaimer: I haven't used Thunderbird for years, but I'm not too satisfied with the clients I'm currently using.
[+] [-] cdi|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] nodata|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acabal|13 years ago|reply
Happy, because for once a company didn't see a perfectly good--but decade-old--piece of software and think, "Gee, this has been around for a decade and it hasn't changed, let's RE-INVENT EVERYTHING!!!" (See: Gnome 3, Windows 8). Thunderbird is stable, works, and does its job excellently; no need to turn a wheel into a square just because it's old.
On the other hand, there is still some room for improvement in Thunderbird: Gmail integration is kind of hacky and gross-looking (A "[Gmail]" folder? Really?), it could use better Linux desktop integration (notification icons, OSD bubbles, etc.--all of these kind of work, but in half-assed way, I've found). And of course, the ever-important security updates. Even stable software needs security updates on occasion, and someone has to provide that.
So with that said: kudos to Mozilla for not undertaking change just for the sake of change like so many other big software projects have of late; but I hope Thunderbird gets just a little more polish before it's placed atop its permanent pedestal, and I hope someone sticks around to keep it secure for its second decade of life.
[+] [-] dfc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] quicksilver03|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] BasDirks|13 years ago|reply
I am quite content with Thunderbird as it is and welcome this news.
[+] [-] uyhayuy|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dfc|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rhizome|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] re_todd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ori_b|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jaylevitt|13 years ago|reply
"Thunderbird is not dead. We have announced a change in the way we develop new features for Thunderbird."
... in the sense of "not doing that anymore".
[+] [-] cleverjake|13 years ago|reply
Kindof glossing over the issue, no?
[+] [-] omh|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sciurus|13 years ago|reply
http://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2012/07/06/thunderbird-stabil...
[+] [-] acqq|13 years ago|reply
https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Proposal:_New_Release_a...
[+] [-] Pelayo|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] beagle3|13 years ago|reply
Mozilla is a non-profit (or is it a not-for-profit?), but I guess they're trying to make each project self-sustaining, and if thunderbird doesn't provide any bacon (pure speculation on my part here), then -- yes, that market might look like a waste of time.
[+] [-] melicerte|13 years ago|reply
[quote] Firefox went to live because of the IE dominance in the corporate and private world. In the same idea, Thunderbird went to live to offer an alternative to the Exchange/Outlook pair domination (and is still widely used in the corporate world).
We have a few very good alternative to Exchange outside (Kerio and Zimbra for instance) but Thunderbird lacks good Card/CalDav support which is a feature request that Mozilla has completely fail to deliver. And that’s were the real innovation was (think about it twice, please). Instead, we are seeing Thunderbird chat coming in. “Great”. Are you kidding?
Furthermore, I don’t get Mozilla communication ATM. When I hear “What Thunderbird users have in common is the need for a very stable and secure email product – first and foremost.”, I just think the guy saying that is making fun of the users.
Finally, as I said yesterday on Baker’s blog (comments), Mozilla should remove the Donate link on its website, as long as the long term goals are as unclear as they are now.
[/quote]
I also think that the decision to stop Thunderbird is based on a falacy: WebMail does not make e-mail clients obsolete, or even less important.
[+] [-] johngalt|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hub_|13 years ago|reply
Folks, remember, the source code will be here, community contributor will still exist and contribute, etc.
[+] [-] rlpb|13 years ago|reply
I gave up on Thunderbird when it started to demand most of my system memory. I switched back to mutt.
[+] [-] andrewbinstock|13 years ago|reply
That Eudora and now Thunderbird should be end-of-lifed makes for very few good free options.
[+] [-] jeltz|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wmf|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] conradfr|13 years ago|reply
sooooo please can someone at Mozilla fixes this YEARS old bug https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=531002 before TB's funeral ?
Also, thread conversations sucks and don't properly show new mails.
[+] [-] noselasd|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] 5teev|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] azakai|13 years ago|reply
The article mentions over 20 million.
[+] [-] webwanderings|13 years ago|reply
http://blog.mozilla.org/futurereleases/2012/07/06/bringing-s...
[+] [-] cpeterso|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Wilya|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] SmileyKeith|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] esbwhat|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mbrubeck|13 years ago|reply
It was TechCrunch who somehow translated that into "So, that's it for Thunderbird." :/
[+] [-] gavinlynch|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] combataircraft|13 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jeltz|13 years ago|reply
http://www.roundcube.net/
[+] [-] beagle3|13 years ago|reply
Seriously, there are a lot of open source mail servers/client, some of which might be good enough for you, e.g. http://cworth.org/sup/a-mail-client-for-geeks/
The main problem with running a mail server is properly keeping it up, secure, spam free, and trusted by peers to actually send email. These are not exclusively _software engineering_ problems with the existing (SMTP/RFC822-based) infrastructure. Rather, there's a large management component here, that is unlikely to be solved by software alone (open or closed source).
This will only change with a radical infrastructure change, along the lines of djb's Internet Mail 2000 proposal. Until then, if you want your mail server to remain reliable without working hard yourself, you'll have to delegate it (to google or hundreds of other available services).
[+] [-] ibotty|13 years ago|reply