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Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

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Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#211

Post by FuriouslyAdrift »

cycomanic wrote: post #121
bachmeier wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Thunderbird for decades, I've donated in the past, and am likely to donate again. With that out of the way, the lack of transparency as to what happens to my money kills the incentive to donate. "How will my gift be used?" "Thunderbird is the leading open source email and productivity app that is free for business and personal use. Your gift helps ensure it stays that way, and supports ongoing develop…

I find that a weird sentiment. Why do people demand to know and control how every one of their donations goes, while nobody questions how corporations use their money. Ironically, the demand for this increased transparency significantly increases compliance cost, which means more and more money is driven away from the actual cause toward the administrative costs. Exactly what people don't want to support.

Because of the misuse of funds given to the Mozilla Foundation and Wikimedia Foundation.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#212

Post by antisol »

registeredcorn wrote: post #194
antisol wrote: post #81

DO NOT donate to Thunderbird. Let it "die". As with all of Mozilla's software, that would be the best outcome - if it does, someone who isn't totally incompetent might fork it and actually improve it. Literally every change that's been made to thunderbird in the last 10+ years has made it worse. Mozilla are doggedly using the same philosophy as they are with firefox: "in what new and exciting ways can we make it more…

In all seriousness, it might be good to write up more of the issues that you have for at least a few reasons: 1. TB probably(?) doesn't consider use cases like the one that you described. If there is any hope of them fixing it, it would be best to be underscored in detail. Perhaps then someone can try to propagate some fake test data to try and test against. 2. There's always the chance someone might be willing to fo…

Maybe.

I did try (politely, btw!) reporting a couple of issues on their bugtracker a long time ago, but the usual thing happened: nothing at all. IIRC there was no response of any kind. Which makes me reticent to put more time into writing more bug reports for them to ignore.

I just found out about betterbird today. It looks interesting. I might give it a try. And if I see the same issues there, maybe I'll report it on their bugtracker.

I and a bunch of others have been screaming loudly at mozilla for like 15 years now. They're not interested in hearing what we have to say. Which is why the firefox marketshare is as dismal as it is these days.

As for embarrassing Mozilla publicly, apparently their troll factory watches HN - I got downvoted a lot for describing facts.

I think the best option for me really is to just find a new mail client and be done with Mozilla forever.

I said it before, but I'll just say it again: It's a real pity, Thunderbird used to be a truly excellent piece of software once upon a time. I remember switching to it from outlook and being all "Whoa! This is great!". It was a similar experience to going from IE6 -> Firefox. How the mighty have fallen.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#213

Post by antisol »

hackingonempty wrote: post #210
antisol wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget telemetry! The makers of the "privacy-focused browser" were super strong-willed about that, too.

It is important that they know exactly how many users are permanently switching to Chrome.

omg best thing I've read all day. Thanks for the good long out-loud laugh <3

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#214

Post by mywittyname »

roysting wrote: post #176
LamaOfRuin wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most recent report/breakdown I see: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/10/state-of-the-bird-2024-...

It is not my domain, but I was quite surprised at the 10% processing fee expense. That’s ~$1M at their ~$10 income. Isn’t that quite a bit high? Or am I looking at something incorrectly. Maybe someone has some suggestions for them on how to lower that amount.

That probably means they receive a lot of small donations. Payment processors often have a fee structure that's 2.9% + . So any donation below ~$4.50 would end up having a >=10% processing fee.

There could be currency exchange rates that are factored in at the donation end as well.

I agree that 10% is high, but it's still explainable.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#215

Post by hosteur »

psittacus wrote: post #19
swiftcoder wrote: post #9

> MZLA Technologies Corporation is a wholly owned for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation and the home of Thunderbird. I guess I don't understand why the open-source email client with zero revenue potential is managed by a for-profit subsidiary, nor why that for-profit subsidiary is begging for donations. Shouldn't this whole thing be managed by the non-profit Mozilla Foundation?

Not that it answers your question, but the move happened in 2020 to "hire more easily, act more swiftly, and pursue ideas that were previously not possible". https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/

So here more than 6 years later, did they act more swiftly or pursue new ideas? The development pace seems unbearably slow.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#216

Post by triage8004 »

cycomanic wrote: post #121
bachmeier wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been using Thunderbird for decades, I've donated in the past, and am likely to donate again. With that out of the way, the lack of transparency as to what happens to my money kills the incentive to donate. "How will my gift be used?" "Thunderbird is the leading open source email and productivity app that is free for business and personal use. Your gift helps ensure it stays that way, and supports ongoing develop…

I find that a weird sentiment. Why do people demand to know and control how every one of their donations goes, while nobody questions how corporations use their money. Ironically, the demand for this increased transparency significantly increases compliance cost, which means more and more money is driven away from the actual cause toward the administrative costs. Exactly what people don't want to support.

99% of donations get misappropriated

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#217

Post by chrisjj »

paride5745 wrote: post #140

To be honest, I wish Thunderbird would become part of LibreOffice, to become a real contender to MS Outlook/MS Office. Mozilla is managing Thunderbird as a second class citizen since way too long.

I'd donate to have Mozilla raise Thunderbird to second class.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#218

Post by hackingonempty »

glenstein wrote: post #162
reddalo wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla is so sad. They have a lot of money and they could fund the development of both Firefox and Thunderbird. Yet, they decide to waste almost $7 million per year to pay a CEO and God knows what else.

Here we go again. I don't love the CEO pay but it's like 1% of their annual revenue and typical for positions like that, and Mozilla constantly suffers from these kinds of double sided, quantum accusations. Depending on which random HN thread you're in, the accusation is that (a) they're running out of money and urgently need to innovate to grow their revenue streams but also (b) they've got so much money and their s…

> urgently need to innovate to grow their revenue streams

No, people are saying that Firefox needs to diversify their revenue streams because almost all of their revenue comes from their main competitor who (likely) only keeps Firefox alive to keep regulators from forcing them to divest their browser. The situation has gotten more dire since the regulators got fired last year.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#220

Post by groby_b »

1dom wrote: post #145
cycomanic wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I find that a weird sentiment. Why do people demand to know and control how every one of their donations goes, while nobody questions how corporations use their money. Ironically, the demand for this increased transparency significantly increases compliance cost, which means more and more money is driven away from the actual cause toward the administrative costs. Exactly what people don't want to support.

The defining difference about paying money to a corporation in exchange for a product is you're paying for something already there, an agreed exchange of value. The whole point about a donation is it's given not in exchange for doing any particular task, but gratuitously. It's not a weird sentiment to want to know what benefits a gift is providing. That's all people are asking for when they want transparency around d…

> It's not a weird sentiment to want to know what benefits a gift is providing.

"I bought you tickets for your favorite artist for your birthday. I expect a detailed trip report" :)

Yes, you're right, personal gifts aren't donations, but then maybe we should stop calling donations gifts, too. Gifts are given without any expectations attached. Donations do and should have expectations.

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