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Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

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Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

richest charities? not even close? look at ikea.

How is Ikea a charity?

Minute MBA has a really good explanation of their set-up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xvxRePIv85Y

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#52

7 million lines of code, Windows, Mac and Linux support… looks a lot of work for a single person.

There is likely a team working on this. The job posting said for someone to come on board. And yes, hiring a single developer to work all alone by himself would be akin to killing the project itself as just understanding the codebase, design, technology and architecture would be too much for one person to handle. We’re looking for an amazing developer to come on board to help make Thunderbird the best Email client on…

Thunderbird was moved to "community development" with Mozilla providing only stability and security updates. https://web.archive.org/web/20161003075603/https://blog.mozi... In the interview it says that employees might only work on the project part-time.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There need to be a very compelling reason to rewrite 7 million lines of code in a different language. The fact that there were enough of those to rewrite Firefox doesn't mean that it makes sense for other projects.

Does that 7 million lines include the browser? I know an email client is a big project but even so that seems a lot.

[deleted]

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#54
post #41

I have to say I think Mozilla is a complete shambles of an organisation. It must be one of the richest charities in the world with the billions of dollars of commission it earns from search from Google et al. I can't actually believe this is something they're excited to post a blog about. Charity with 9 figures revenue is hiring a developer (finally) to work on a product which has 25 million users. I think Mozilla's…

To piggyback off this how does their corporate structure work? Mozilla Foundation, 501(c)(3) owns a for-profit wholly? What is the purpose or advantage of this organization?

501(c)(3) literally means the Mozilla Foundation is tax exempt. That is what the section of the law establishes.

That places limits on what sorts of commercial agreements the foundation can make, among other things.

Mozilla isn’t trying to tax dodge like certain other companies; the Mozilla Corporation is taxable, hires engineers, and enters into search agreements.

The corporation being owned by the foundation means it is obligated to follow the foundation’s public benefit goals.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#55
post #47

This title is inaccurate. Mozilla is _not_ hiring a developer to work on Thunderbird full-time. See below: From the post: " The Thunderbird Project is hiring for a software engineer! ... Please note that while the Thunderbird project is a group of individuals separate from the Mozilla Foundation that works to further the Thunderbird email client, the Mozilla Foundation is the Project’s fiscal home. The Thunderbird Co…

Do I understand correctly by interpreting that to mean:

"Mozilla is allocating funding to The Thunderbird Project to hire a developer to work on Mozilla Thunderbird"

i.e. the distinction is only relevant in terms of the direction of day-to-day work on the project. Or are Mozilla not funding this at all?

The following quotes seem to indicate that the distinction isn't really relevant in the context of the hiring process at least:

> send us your resume with a cover letter to apply@mozillafoundation.org.

> The successful applicant will be hired as freelancer (independent contractor) through the Mozilla Foundation’s third-party service Upwork

> By applying to this job, you are agreeing to have your applications reviewed [...] by staff members of the Mozilla Foundation.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#56
post #46
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see. Those things, except for the popularity, also apply to Mailpile. I guess that's the big difference.

The Mozilla foundation is also a registered 501(c)(3). Is Mailpile? I don't see anything about that on your page?

No, Mailpile isn't a charity.

But the Mozilla foundation isn't the one fronting money for this job, is it? Doesn't that money come from the Mozilla Corporation? Hm, the job ad says that MoFo is the fiscal home, but the candidate will be hired via UpWork.

I'm really a bit confused about how money flows around Mozilla.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#57
post #7

Huh, I was going to post this story, but I thought it was not allowed because it's a job posting and I had to wait until the Who is Hiring thread. So, if posting jobs for working on free applications is ok outside of Who Is Hiring, let me try to advertise this job for another free email client, Mailpile, which got killed when I tried to post it earlier: https://www.mailpile.is/jobs/ I currently use Evolution for emai…

Edit: I guess it's not ok. I'm confused.

Your post is essentially offtopic. You should submit it as a separate topic.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#58

7 million lines of code, Windows, Mac and Linux support… looks a lot of work for a single person.

Quite a bit of that code was shared between Thunderbird, Firefox and Seamonkey. But now Firefox don't want to play along any more, and dragging the other two along for the ride...

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#59
post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To piggyback off this how does their corporate structure work? Mozilla Foundation, 501(c)(3) owns a for-profit wholly? What is the purpose or advantage of this organization?

501(c)(3) literally means the Mozilla Foundation is tax exempt. That is what the section of the law establishes. That places limits on what sorts of commercial agreements the foundation can make, among other things. Mozilla isn’t trying to tax dodge like certain other companies; the Mozilla Corporation is taxable, hires engineers, and enters into search agreements. The corporation being owned by the foundation means…

I'm familiar with tax exemption - my question is more surrounding any benefits of the way they're organized. They, for example could just be a benefit corporation. I doubt this would be better as donations would no longer be tax exempt, among other things.

I guess I'm just curious to the pros and cons of the way they're organized as of now.

Re: Mozilla Is Hiring a Developer to Work on Thunderbird Full-Time

#60

I have to say I think Mozilla is a complete shambles of an organisation. It must be one of the richest charities in the world with the billions of dollars of commission it earns from search from Google et al. I can't actually believe this is something they're excited to post a blog about. Charity with 9 figures revenue is hiring a developer (finally) to work on a product which has 25 million users. I think Mozilla's…

Your comment is incredibly mean. Mozilla isn't competing with other "charities", they are competing with Google, Apple and Microsoft, the world's largest corporations.

The Mozilla Foundation might be a not-for-profit corporation, but they have the same constraints as normal businesses ... they have to secure reliable sources of funding, they have to preserve their resources, they have to be smart about investments, they have to pay salaries because people need to put food on the table and they have to plan further than the next quarter.

And given the incredible progress of Firefox, I for one am glad that they've cut unproductive projects.

The current Thunderbird is terrible. It has been a good browser, it might still have life in it, its developers might manage to evolve it and make it awesome, however I haven't been able to use it for more than a week and believe me, I tried doing so, repeatedly.

I was sad to hear that Mozilla is dropping it, but then again, when I heard this news, I was already long gone as a user. Nowadays I'm split between FastMail's and Gmail's web interfaces and MailMate (freron.com), all of which are so much better for my needs, the difference ain't even funny.

Seriously, a web interface and a desktop client made by one guy from Denmark are better than Thunderbird. Thunderbird basically needs a complete overhaul, but then ask its 25 million users how they feel about that, after all, if they wouldn't want the current Thunderbird, they would've switched to something else.

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