I think this is rather disappointing and wish Mozilla would continue to support Thunderbird as a Mozilla community-driven project. Thunderbird has continued to grow[1] despite Mozilla removing paid staff from its development and eliminating resources it had. (Actually has more users than Firefox OS) I think there are alternatives to the current infrastructure and build situations that are taxing that would allow Thunderbird to continue on as a Mozilla community-led project but it seems like that is not open for discussion.
That said, if Thunderbird is to become a separate project I do hope you and Mark will consider giving Thunderbird a generous financial parting grant to help it transition and continue to thrive, also ensure good protections are in place to protect the Mozilla Thunderbird brand and trademark, and that a good governance structure is proposed for any independent Thunderbird that results. [1] https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2015/02/thunderbird-usage-continues-to-grow/ On Mon, Nov 30, 2015 at 1:11 PM, Mitchell Baker <mitch...@mozilla.com> 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 > governance@lists.mozilla.org > https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance > -- Benjamin Kerensa http://benjaminkerensa.com/ _______________________________________________ governance mailing list governance@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/governance
