Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

updates.thunderbird.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

301–310 of 403 posts

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#301

Post by dizhn »

prmoustache wrote: post #284
dizhn wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Firebird was actually the database whose name they hijacked when they had access to AOL's legal army. Also K9Mail is now Thunderbird for Android.

They didn't really hijacked anything. Firebird made sense coming from phoenix. It wasn't a good choice considering the database existed before but it wasn't really an hijack in the sense that both are significantly different product that trademarks wouldn't have clashed. It was just annoying when doing web searches (similarly to gemini the google AI product vs the protocol).

It wasn't that simple. I couldn't find Firebird's original position post but this is close enough.

https://www.mozillazine.org/articles/article3097.html

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#302

Post by nitwit005 »

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.

And yet you'd probably be upset if it turns out they wasted all the money.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#303

Post by kmoser »

MoonWalk wrote: post #299

Is there still no way to export and import your filters in Thunderbird? This is why I shunned it 20 years ago. The absurd idea that you're going to manually run around to all your computers all the time and manually set up (and maintain) mail filters should have been rejected in version 1.0.

Filters are stored in a file which you can easily copy between computers: https://kb.mozillazine.org/Message_Filters#Export.2FImport

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#304

Post by ciupicri »

BoredPositron wrote: post #300
ciupicri wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As if writing a browser and an email client is a piece of cake and there are tons of alternatives ready to take over. Blink and WebKit don't count.

That's the whole point of the argument as long as there is Mozilla nothing new will come because there is Mozilla. That's why Google is still funding them.

What's stopping people from working on another project? We have Ladybird [1], but it's still a work in progress. There are also LibreWolf, Icecat and other forks of Mozilla Firefox.

[1]: https://ladybird.org/

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#305

Post by traceroute66 »

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.

> 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.

I disagree.

If you are asking people for donations, then it is only fair that you provide transparency.

Donations are made out of pure goodwill. It is not like buying a widget from $megacorp.

I do not buy the "increased administrative costs" argument either. At a bare minimum all it would take is 5 minutes a month and a simple spreadsheet.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#306

Post by antisol »

teddyh wrote: post #296
antisol wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

If you want any negatively inclined people to be unable to resort to think that you are lying, a good thing for you to do would be to link to the bugtracker issues that you created long ago.

Those people can think whatever they want to think, doesn't change what the facts are. I can't be bothered to look for them - I'm not sure which email address I used for which bugzilla (or was it something other than bugzilla?), or whether that bugzilla still exists (probably not? I haven't seen a bugzilla in a while). I'm not even 100% sure which decade it was (but probably 2010s, it was early in the thunderbird enshittification process). All I know is that I filed a couple - more than one, perhaps 3 or 4 - bugs for thunderbird, had zero response on any of them, and decided that it's not worth my time to try to engage with them any further.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#307

Post by gosub100 »

BizarroLand wrote: post #295
RobotToaster wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People are generally happier to donate money to a charity if they know it will go to a good cause, and not the CEO's seven million dollar salary. It also isn't that unusual for donations to be ring fenced for certain things.

Exactly. I decided to never donate to Wikipedia again after learning that wikipedia took some of that donated money and redonated it to other companies. It felt like a betrayal to me. Not that I think the other companies were bad, but if they have so much money they're giving it away to other people then they obviously don't need my money anymore. If they wanted people to give other companies money then why didn't th…

and their globe-trotting for their "foundation". yeah let's donate $20 to buy 2 gal of kerosene for your private jet to $COUNTRY. no way

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#308

Post by Vinnl »

lamasery wrote: post #239
Vinnl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 defin…

Right, I kinda get the definitions, but usually I have no problem with them, i.e. the correct one also "sounds right" to me. I wonder why it didn't in this case?

Edit: hmm, re-reading it now, affect does look right. Weird.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#309

Post by Vinnl »

antisol wrote: post #95
Vinnl wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I agree that it should be "affect". Affect doesn't look wrong to me: and technology choices made in Firefox can and do affect Thunderbird, just like they effect e.g. Zen Browser or Tor Browser. I'm no expert on the rules of english, but I think maybe it would be slightly more gramatically correct to say that "choices made in Firefox can and do have an effect on Thunderbird". I would probably have phrased it like that…

I think that indeed might explain why it looked wrong to me - though weirdly "affect" looks perfectly fine to me now!

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#310

Post by Eufrat »

I really don’t understand the structure that Mozilla has setup here where Thunderbird lives under their for-profit branch, but is so dependent on donations. I remember reading they were considering charging for Thunderbird services when the move was announced 6 years ago, but as far as I can tell, nothing has happened and they’re still desperate for funding.

Now not only does it still need donations, the tax exemption for donors has evaporated. Great.

Post reply on HN