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Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

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Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#231

Post by monooso »

encom wrote: post #137
monooso wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the avoidance of doubt, you won't donate to Thunderbird because you disagree with the following policy? > We do not discriminate on the basis of race [...], religion [...], gender, gender identity, gender expression, color, national origin, pregnancy, ancestry, domestic partner status, disability, sexual orientation, age, genetic predisposition, medical condition, marital status, citizenship status, military or v…

[flagged]

By that reasoning, nobody would engage in discriminatory hiring practices (or indeed discriminatory behaviour in general), because it's against the law. That is clearly not the case.

As such, I really don't see why you have a problem with Mozilla making their position on this matter crystal clear. Do you really consider reading a few extra words that much of a hardship?

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#234

Post by glenstein »

hackingonempty wrote: post #218
glenstein wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're basically restating the very argument I'm citing, but phrasing it like you're expressing a disagreement. Diversifying revenue and growing revenue are distinct but overlapping, and both charges are made against Mozilla. This represents one side of the quantum accusation, the other being that even their search revenue is excessive and unnecessary, they don't need to spend that much anyway. According to this perspective, the 1.2 billion they have on hand should be enough to finance, development in perpetuity.

Which side of the quantum accusation will be invoked in any given comment thread? Flip a coin and find out.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#235

Post by pizza234 »

narag wrote: post #47

After reading a bunch of negative comments here, let me add a little on the bright side. I've been using Thunderbird for many years, currently both at home and at work to manage gmail accounts, pop at home, imap in the office. It works great for me, with a few annoyances but nothing serious. As for the donations, Thunderbird seems to be somehow apart from Mozilla now, so I don't think much about specific org structur…

I've been using TB for a decade and I too can't find anything better (even if my use case is very simple).

However, I find TB's development very misguided - it's evident to me that they give very little priority to stability:

- addons support (APIs) is a dumpster fire, and IMO a large addon ecosystem is what makes a client unique

- not so long ago, they added an instant messaging client, which has been a waste of dev resources

- at some point they overhauled the UI, but the result was a bloated slow mess (on some platforms), even with broken defaults

- there are bugs open for at least a decade (I consistently hit one)

It gives me the impression that the management prioritizes work that looks good on a screenshot, rather than stability.

I think it'd be positive if the Thunderbird org shut down. There are more pragmatic teams who could take over the project (see Betterbird).

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#236

Post by narag »

ubermonkey wrote: post #156
narag wrote: post #47

After reading a bunch of negative comments here, let me add a little on the bright side. I've been using Thunderbird for many years, currently both at home and at work to manage gmail accounts, pop at home, imap in the office. It works great for me, with a few annoyances but nothing serious. As for the donations, Thunderbird seems to be somehow apart from Mozilla now, so I don't think much about specific org structur…

I'm agog you're still using POP, honestly. ;)

lol, kind of expected someone would notice... it's my personal mail and I don't get much. In my experience, it's better for low volume. I just connect, download, delete it from the server and have it in an easily readable format. I keep my archives from the 90's with no issues.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#238

Post by bachmeier »

hombre_fatal wrote: post #200
multiplegeorges wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, if Thunderbird instead asked for users to sign up for an annual software subscription, it'd be fine?

Aside, they should. This thread is a good example of how groveling for donations distorts what should be a simple transaction. Instead, people act like they're buying in to a 50% share with their $5 and then act like they cofounded the project forever after the donation.

> Instead, people act like they're buying in to a 50% share with their $5 and then act like they cofounded the project forever after the donation.

You've twisted the timing. My comment is about

"Give me money." "Okay, tell me why I should give you money."

not

"I gave you money. Tell me what you did with it." It's a big difference. It's easy for me to just not give them money if I don't know what I'm donating to.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#239

Post by lamasery »

Vinnl wrote: post #83
Levitating wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Thunderbird seems to be somehow apart from Mozilla now I don't think that's the case. "Thunderbird is part of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation." Thunderbirds sourcecode is literally part of the same mercury codebase as Firefox. Thunderbird does have a very small team, and I think everyone that uses it should considering donating.

Yeah it's all a bit complex (just like the US tax code, I suppose). MZLA (which makes Thunderbird) is a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Corporation (which makes Firefox) is also a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. In practice, this means that the people running Firefox day-to-day aren't the people running Thunderbird day-to-day, although of course they do talk, and technology choices made in Fir…

"Effect" and "affect" are hilariously messed-up. They have subtly overlapping definitions sometimes but other times mean totally different things. They look almost the same in writing. They can sound almost the same. In spoken English, for some senses of each word we denote what we mean by changing the sound ("affect" may be pronounced almost like "effect", or, for one of its noun definitions and a related verb definition, very differently) or stress (for "effect", in some cases we hit the second syllable a little harder than other times).

The way you used "effect" here, its verb sense of "to bring about or cause" is the one that suggests itself, which isn't what you meant.

The simple way to keep the words' overlapping meanings straight, is that it's "effect" when it's a noun, "affect" when it's a verb. "Effect" can also be a verb, and "affect" can be a noun, but those definitions don't overlap.

Your post did indeed call for "affect", as you suspected.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#240

Post by wsmwk »

mrks_hy wrote: post #101
jorvi wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've been hit by that bug, although it only deletes mail AFAIK. There's a separate bug that completely corrupts the mail database on compaction, making Thunderbird lock up including for every future launch. Its a beautiful open source effort but products that have bugs like that languish for 10-20 years just aren't reliable. I need my mail client to be reliable.

I've been using it to close to 20 years with multiple accounts and it was rock-solid. I wouldn't extrapolate from anecdata, in either direction. But we should not spread FUD. If you can link to the bug I'd be interested, otherwise it doesn't add much value to claim this.

Yes, FUD and long held myths can be found anywhere. But speaking as a staff member and someone who has seen first hand user reports, here is some straight shooting:

* there are rare cases of a profile either misplaced (exists but not correctly pointed to) or gone - it is something which I understand Firefox people are working on (Thunderbird uses the Firefox profile system) * there are extremely rare reports where prefs.js is corrupted * there are no compact failures in current versions - there are no open bug reports for recent versions, so it has been totally obliterated by a rewrite and subsequent fixes. Most user reports of compact failure are attributed to other causes of folder corruption * folder corruption can occur as easily from external sources as from product bugs.

Anyone who has a problem can file a support request at https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/questions/new/thunderbird to get assistance.

Also, beware drawing broad conclusions about other users' experience from one's own personal experience. I have almost never experienced corruption - once in the last 10 years. But I am also using a Thunderbird profile that has gone through 5 different laptops, two different OS, using daily builds, which is AMPLE opportunity to have had multiple catastrophic failures. But because I know other users experiences I consider myself lucky.

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