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Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

blog.thunderbird.net

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Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#231

Post by aidenn0 »

miedpo wrote: post #122
aidenn0 wrote: post #94

I hope that someday I will understand why people like Thunderbird. It is unequivocally the worst e-mail client I have ever used, excepting some early, extremely buggy versions of alpine. I tried it again recently as it is only one of only 3 e-mail clients I found that could do exchange oauth2[1]. It's possible that its interface isn't as objectively terrible as it seems, but it is gratuitously different; if you are g…

Hmmm... let me try and answer this, as someone who likes Thunderbird quite a bit (and is cool with people not liking it, but just wants to provide their own perspective). For traditional business email, you are pretty much stuck with two options - Outlook or Thunderbird. You can try and use webmail of various types - and there are some decent webmail clients out there - but it's just not quite the same as using a goo…

> Hmmm... let me try and answer this, as someone who likes Thunderbird quite a bit (and is cool with people not liking it, but just wants to provide their own perspective).

Thanks for that. If it wasn't clear from my original comment, I'm totally cool with people liking Thunderbird.

FWIW, It seems that the intersection of and is near zero, so perhaps it's a matter of taste there.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#232

Post by wolverine876 »

dylan604 wrote: post #164
ryanleesipes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird Product Manager here. We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the components. It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were aligned - so it made sense to work together. That's it. Thunderbird is community run (unlike Firefox, our community representatives approve…

>We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the components. So sayeth every acquiring company about the acquired. I can think of very few that it held true. Maybe this can be added to the list, but only time will tell. I wouldn't suggest people holding their breath though

What basis is there for your accusations?

These aren't companies. It's a communty project and a FOSS project merging resources.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#233

Post by wolverine876 »

0des wrote: post #81
ryanleesipes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird Product Manager here. We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the components. It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were aligned - so it made sense to work together. That's it. Thunderbird is community run (unlike Firefox, our community representatives approve…

> It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were aligned Nothing in this world is purely altruistic. If it didn't make business sense, this wouldn't be happening. Please surprise me and stay true to your word on this. > The way you present it sounds devious. But we're just truly trying to wo…

> We are all from the internet here, you know exactly why we are this way.

You're reasoning is that the Internet made you do it, therefore it's true?

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#234

Post by deamanto »

0des wrote: post #81
ryanleesipes wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thunderbird Product Manager here. We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the components. It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were aligned - so it made sense to work together. That's it. Thunderbird is community run (unlike Firefox, our community representatives approve…

> It will not be a different app. It's still run by the K-9 project maintainer. The difference? We didn't want to see K-9 die because of a lack of funding, and our visions were aligned Nothing in this world is purely altruistic. If it didn't make business sense, this wouldn't be happening. Please surprise me and stay true to your word on this. > The way you present it sounds devious. But we're just truly trying to wo…

Isn't the business reason that they would rather acquire an existing mail app that is similar to what they had in mind rather than building a brand new one themselves?

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#235

Post by efreak »

ephbit wrote: post #209
ephbit wrote: post #208

K-9 has served me pretty well over the last 8ish years. It has remained beautifully lightweight (quite an exception for apps nowadays) and the biggest (yet perfectly tolerable) annoyance has been long lines not wrapping automatically. I'm 9/10 sceptic about this cooperation and I'll be positively surprised if the future versions do not introduce lots of unnecessary bloat.

Ah, here it's already announced, the bloat: > Account setup using Thunderbird account auto-configuration. Perfectly unnecessary. > Syncing between desktop and mobile Thunderbird. Duh, what exactly does IMAP do? *shakes head*

IMAP doesn't help if you prefer to read mail offline, after downloading it to your PC and deleting it from the server. There are still ISPs around with mailservers that measure quota in MB; for example, sdf.org offers 25mb free and up to 200mb paid.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#236

Post by Zak »

woojoo666 wrote: post #210
Zak wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an issue. I'm really puzzled my Mozilla's sudden aversion to an open repository of extensions on Android.

I think a lot of Firefox extensions are still broken on mobile. For example, I can't find a single tab manager / session manager that works on mobile

Users can only easily install extensions from the "recommended" collection. Installing anything else requires running a development build and jumping through hoops. The Firefox team has been very clear that simply developing a reasonable working extension that some people might want does not create an expectation it will ever be recommended.

So why would anybody bother writing an extension for Firefox mobile?

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#237

Post by Valmar »

wallmountedtv wrote: post #142
prmoustache wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You realize it is the same developer and can leave thunderbird whenever he is not happy with the direction it takes?

Yeah but they cannot take Thunderbird mobile back. Its now Mozilla property, which is the actual scary part.

They can take it back.

Heard of Betterbird? Yeah, a Thunderbird port.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#238

Post by dylan604 »

wolverine876 wrote: post #232
dylan604 wrote: post #164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>We have no intention to replace the backend or most of the components. So sayeth every acquiring company about the acquired. I can think of very few that it held true. Maybe this can be added to the list, but only time will tell. I wouldn't suggest people holding their breath though

What basis is there for your accusations? These aren't companies. It's a communty project and a FOSS project merging resources.

>What basis is there for your accusations?

History

>These aren't companies. It's a communty project and a FOSS project merging resources.

Exactly how other situations historically have started. Lot's of FOSS projects "brought into the fold" to "shepard" along only to not get the resources promised.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#239

Post by selcuka »

wolverine876 wrote: post #228
danShumway wrote: post #165

I get skeptical about acquisitions, but from what I can tell this actually seems like decent news. Thunderbird isn't acquiring K-9 to kill it or merge with an additional product, they're buying it so they can increase its development speed and then put their name on it. That seems to me like about the best acquisition goal that they could have -- basically saying, "what exists is good, instead of building our own thi…

> Thunderbird isn't acquiring K-9 to kill it or merge with an additional product, they're buying it so they can THunderbird is buying or acquiring K-9? Isn't K-9 FOSS? The OP says only, K-9 Mail officially joins the Thunderbird family (unless I overlooked something).

It's an acqui-hire. From the announcement:

> And cketti [lead dev] has already joined the full-time Thunderbird staff, bringing along his valuable expertise and experience with mobile platforms. [...] To accomplish that, we’ll devote finances and development time to continually improving K-9 Mail.

Re: Our plans for Thunderbird on Android

#240

Post by selcuka »

tomcatfish wrote: post #220
rjzzleep wrote: post #200

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation are not the same thing.

To clarify, the comment in question was > Note that Mozilla has nothing to do with Thunderbird anymore. which fails to claim anything about the Mozilla Foundation or Corporation in particular.

I agree that "nothing to do" is a strong statement but it's neither "Mozilla Foundation" nor "Mozilla Corporation". It's "MZLA Technologies Corporation".
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