Thunderbird to Leave Mozilla Foundation

An anonymous reader writes "MozillaZine is reporting that Mozilla Thunderbird is to move to a 'new separate organizational setting' as the Mozilla Foundation focuses more and more on Mozilla Firefox. Citing a blog post by Chief Lizard Wrangler Mitchell Baker, MozillaZine outlines the three possibilities for Thunderbird that are being considered: 'one is to create a entirely new non-profit, which would offer maximum independence for Thunderbird but is organisationally complex. A second option is to create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird, which would keep the Mozilla Foundation involved but may mean that Thunderbird continues to be neglected in favour of Firefox. A final option is to recast Thunderbird as community project, similar to SeaMonkey, and set up a small independent services and consulting company to continue development. However, there are concerns over how the Thunderbird product, project and company would interact'. Lead Thunderbird developer Scott MacGregor favours the third option."

Re:Poor thunderbird

[superbus1929]

The few plug-ins I run on Thunderbird are actually listed as Firefox extensions. They're nothing major - dictionaries and the like - but they're not specifically Thunderbird extensions, either. So if they're mixed, that's probably why, but I had confusion looking for them, too.

Re:Poor thunderbird

[LWATCDR]

Actually the latest version of Thunderbird is really nice.
It has folders which I really do like but it also has tags for those that are into tagging. What is really brilliant is that it allows you to create "folders" that are based on the tags.
Plugins work fine but you just don't need a lot of them for Email. I use GPGP for signing and encryption. The plugin manager could work better. I would say it isn't great for normal end users.
I find it fast and a much better program than Outlook. Now if you compare it to Outlook plus Exchange then it really isn't in the same league.
To me that is the problem. FOSS need a server that will interface with Thunderbird and offer all the same features as Outlook plus exchange and with the same ease of use.
As I Thunderbird user I can not say I am pleased.

Re:Animal Names?

[Aladrin]

Because Firefox was Phoenix and then Firebird before it had to be changed quickly due to legal reasons. The mail client was named thunderbird (firebird, see?) and never needed the name change.

They are catchy and easy to remember, and somewhat related to each other still, so there's been no reason to change them again.

It also appears to be a legend in North America. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbird_(mytholog y) [wikipedia.org]

Re:gmail

[Super Jamie]

POP3 has been dead for a long time. Use IMAP and Thunderbird Portable, or setup an IMAP AJAX webmail client like Roundcube.

Re:Switched to KMail

[TheLinuxSRC]

I have also seen T-bird corrupt files, but I have never seen it lose email. Usually, when I have problems with T-bird it is the summary files (*.msf) that are corrupt. Have you tried deleting the *.msf files and rebuilding them (to rebuild, just open T-bird and click on the folder in question)?

Re:Winifred is the problem, not Thunderbird.

[bunratty]

The Firefox CPU hogging and memory gobbling bug would take some serious troubleshooting to find, and no one wants to do the work, apparently.

You mean the one where If you open a lot of windows and tabs in Firefox on a laptop, and put the laptop in and out of standby, you will eventually notice that the laptop fan is running all the time, even when there is no activity. That's the CPU bug, and it can potentially shorten the life of your laptop [slashdot.org]? It looks like it's fixed [mozilla.org]. As for a "memory gobbling bug", you'll have to describe in much more detail what you mean. Firefox seems to use less memory than other browsers [mozillazine.org], and in addition, about 100 memory leak bugs have been fixed in the past year [mozilla.org].

If you see a quirk in Firefox, simply write up a bug report specifying in enough detail what the problem is, and it will be fixed. Whining about them on Slashdot is about the least effective thing you can do.

Re:Animal Names?

[edwdig]

When Thunderbird was first created, it was called Minotaur. I think they changed it at the same time as the Phoenix -> Firebird change just to get similar names, then didn't bother changing again.

Re:Poor thunderbird

[Rich0]

To put it more simply for those who don't work in corporate land:

I need to schedule a meeting with 20 people, and book a conference room. Find me the first 1-hour slot when all 20 and any room is free. Now notify everybody about the meeting and tell me if they're going to come - and put everything on everybody's calendars for them.

No open source package does this to my knowledge. If anything did it as well as Outlook/Exchange it would take off very quickly. Outlook has just-about eliminated the administrative assistant for most ordinary workers...

Re:Poor thunderbird

[bberens]

If you turn off the preview pane you won't have this problem. As an aside, turning off the preview pane is also good security practice regardless of your mail client.