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In this Ars Technica article, Mozilla Corporation Chair Mitchell Baker discloses the desire to drop the Thunderbird email client altogether.
"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." Baker writes. "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."
Thunderbird has already been demoted to second-tier status, receiving only security updates since the summer of 2012. Baker's plan would turn Thunderbird over to a community product, similar to what happened with the Mozilla Suite a decade ago.
Is Mozilla's decision to laser-focus on improving Firefox going to stop their dwindling market share? Who else, besides the submitter, is still using Thunderbird? And where will you go once Thunderbird is no longer supported?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by iamjacksusername on Wednesday December 02 2015, @12:17PM
Of course they do because an email client is not nearly as interesting as re-writing the JS engine for the 3rd time or the URL bar or moving menus around.
Mozilla has annual revenues around $300M. How about instead of re-writing the UI for the 3rd time, instead writing their own update system instead of using the built-in package managers, and instead of writing a whole PDF reader , they focus on solving bugs and adding features that people have been asking about for 10 years. What bugs you ask?
1) A working MSI. The original bug was opened in 2004. Seriously, since that bug has been opened, they have re-written the JS engine multiple, gutted the UI and re-wrote the plugin interface. Oh, and rolled their own cross-platform update mechanism. But packaging an MSI is just too complicated. I would settle for them paying the guys at FrontMotion and giving their MSI the official blessing. At least that has native GP support built-in.
2) A normal way to distribute plugins to locked-down users. Yes, I know how to do it but there was previously a way to automate the installation in a normal, supported way. It was removed with a promise of it being replaced with something better which, of course, never materialized.
3) Support for basic Windows security features like process integrity levels and DEP in JS engine.
4) Native GP support on Windows. Seriously, just do it. We have been dealing with plugins for years. The guys at FrontMotion worked it out. Most FF users are Windows. Just do it.
How about this idea? Instead of writing support for whatever whizbang tech of the moment is they put a 6-month moratorium on new features and focus exclusively on closing bugs older than, hmm let's say, 10 years. Because there over 200 bugs that are still open that are over 10 years old
But they won't. Because it's not nearly as flashy as writing a phone OS. Or removing buttons from the browser bar. Or re-arranging options.
Ok, rant over. Just so tired of Mozilla having selective memory about the support they got from admins early-on; getting Firefox approved for corporate desktop images, internal testing, dev support for intranet applications, and getting visibility in the enterprise. But, Firefox is not for business users according to Asa Dotzler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:00PM
What is "GP"?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:17PM
On MS Windows, it's Group Policy [wikipedia.org]. On SoylentNews, it's short for grandparent.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @06:19PM
Oh BTW there's an extension for that:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/gpo-for-firefox/ [mozilla.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday December 02 2015, @10:27PM
Most FF users are Windows. Just do it.
DON'T LET YOUR DREAMS BE DREAMS
JUST
DO IT