GrantPalin.com

I have written some posts recently on switching to Thunderbird as my mail client, since I like it’s features and the philosophy of the parent corporation. And it has been a good time thus far.

However, I recently read something that disturbs me: Mozilla corporation maybe looking to detach their Thunderbird project.

I first read about it on Mitchell Baker’s blog, which contained a statement from Mozilla Corporation seeking feedback on the future of Thunderbird. Not so much on whether it will keep going or not, but how.

Mozilla’s primary focus the last few years has been the Firefox web browser, and Thunderbird is a secondary product. But it seems that Firefox is Mozilla’s cash cow, due to an advertising agreement with Google, whereas Thunderbird doesn’t really make them any money. So TB has been somewhat behind in development compared to Firefox. To help increase focus on TB without detracting from Firefox, there has been discussion on the possibility of separating it from Mozilla.

I use Firefox as my primary browser, and love its features. But reading about this news item, and the following discussion, worries me about whether Thunderbird will be shifting direction, or stopping altogether…Granted, that is not too likely, but still, the mere possibility worries me, especially after committing to using it several months ago.

Some additional reading on the subject, with good ensuing discussion:

• Thoughts on Thunderbird
• Mozilla Links

I do hope the Thunderbird project stays with Mozilla. It has been there since the beginning, and I feel it goes quite well hand-in-hand with Firefox.

Update:

Thanks to a little prodding from Asa Dotzler, I’ve done a little more reading (so much reading to do!) on this topic, and it turns out there is more to it than money. Indeed, there are at least a few other factors.

• As far as working on the projects goes, Thunderbird takes a back seat to Firefox, and only has two active developers working on it. Hence, it does not get as much attention on that end.
• On the other end, Firefox is very prevalent as an alternative to Internet Explorer. Whereas it seems to be somewhat less known that Thunderbird is an alternative to Outlook or Outlook Express. There’s not as much mind share for TB as there is for FF.
• Mozilla tends to be more focused on opening the web browsing experience, rather than the email experience.