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Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

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Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#71

Post by Twirrim »

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…

Likewise. Long time Thunderbird user since the original 1.0 days, for both work and personal use.

There's been a few ups and downs along the way but I've found it generally "just works" and gets out the way, which is exactly what I want in an email client.

I've tried almost every single email client I could find on Linux, and several on Windows (including Pegasus mail, if anyone remembers that), but always come back to Thunderbird.

I've been a regular donator to the project ever since they spun it out to MZLA Technologies Corporation.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#72

Post by CamouflagedKiwi »

amiga386 wrote: post #48
latexr wrote: post #17

If you press the browser’s back button on the donation page, they send you to a page pestering you for your email address so they can send you a reminder to donate later. Talk about a dark pattern. Mozilla has really gone off the rails. An organisation who claims to work on behalf of the user and who makes a web browser, actively hijacking the user experience to peddle for a few dollars? Why the heck is Thunderbird “…

> Where do the billions of dollars from Google go? They go to the Mozilla Corporation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mozilla_Corporation#Finances The Mozilla Corporation then picks and chooses what it finances within the Mozilla Foundation. Their financial statements don't break down how they spend on software development within the Foundation, it only lists out employee salaries, specific directors' salaries and gra…

My assumption would be that it's very little, given that Thunderbird was separated out of the Mozilla Corporation to MOZLA (or whatever it's called).

On the bright side, that actually makes me a bit keener about donating to it; donating to the Mozilla Corporation seems entirely pointless given donations make up ~2.5% of their income, and less than 10% of what they spend just on manager salaries, whereas giving it to Thunderbird might actually have a positive impact.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#73

Post by antisol »

j-bos wrote: post #60
TekMol wrote: post #57

I wish there was a system that lets users put up a donation that is released once a specific bug is fixed or a specific feature is implemented. Wouldn't that be cool? The company would have a list of tasks with a dollar amount next to it. I for one have been dabbling with a bug in ThunderBird for days now that drives me mad: I recently created a folder in Thunderbird and called it "archive". No way would I have expec…

You can do that. It's called a restricted donation. If you make a donation with a cover letter or a check memoizing a specific purpose and the nonprofit accepts it, then by law they're legally obligated to follow through and use that money for that purpose. With bugs it's probably easier because you can just write the bug ID on the check.

There are also a couple of bug bounty websites out there for exactly this kind of thing: you and others throw some money into the pot for fixing a given bug or implementing some feature, and coders can claim that bounty once they've written the code.

I've seen a few of these sites over the years but I can't remember the name of any RN. Search engines are your friend.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#74

Post by Foobar8568 »

CamouflagedKiwi wrote: post #62
Skywalker13 wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just check something because my memory as faults... Firebird was the name of Firefox and the mail client was called something like Mozilla mail or something else.

It was originally Minotaur (when the browser was Phoenix), then they were Firebird and Thunderbird, until the browser renamed to avoid a name clash.

I really don't remember (+quick check) Firebird for the email client, do you have source for this?

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#75

Post by smarnach »

upofadown wrote: post #66
code-blooded wrote: post #11

Campaigns like this need more info. This page doesn't answer any basic questions. How much money do you currently get? How much money do you need and how will you use it? Does it even go directly to Thunderbird development or will be used up by Mozilla for other projects? Edit: I found some info here: https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate/ Still, my point stands that communication around it should be super clear a…

They are an entity separate from Mozilla: * https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/

They are not entirely separate from Mozilla. The MZLA Technologies Corporation is a for-profit subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. They have access to some of Mozilla's common infrastructure, but are otherwise entirely funded by donations. Donations to MZLA only fund Thunderbird and no other products.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#77

Post by ACS_Solver »

mrks_hy wrote: post #38

I really like Thunderbird, it's the only truly cross-platform mail app, with K9 also now on Android. Works perfect, I even migrated my Windows install to Linux just by copying the data folder, absolutely seamless. Not sure why people are hating on it so much here. Point to an alternative with the same features?

I've been using Thunderbird for my email for a very long time. Probably since some early 1.0 release.

In these years, I've also had it on Windows and Linux, I've migrated it easily across many OS installs and hardware changes, I've used it with different kinds of email accounts and servers. It's worked with PGP encrypted mail, with SpamAssassin on the server and more.

It's great. It doesn't change much, which is probably a good thing, Firefox lost me as a user at some point. Thunderbird mostly stays the same, adding features occasionally. As I write this, I realize I'm so used to Thunderbird I'm not even sure what other clients are available. Definitely one of the best programs I've used.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#78

Post by muhehe »

Thunderbird will provider their PRO services using stalw.art as email backend. I was considering using it too to replace really old mail system in our company. It looked like modern stack using jmap, but it seems thunderbird actually does not support jmap? Or is it only in their PRO extension? Does it mean I cannot use this unless it is with their services? I'm confused.

Of course there is still IMAP, but I hoped for better.

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#79

Post by ekianjo »

tristanj wrote: post #5

Mozilla brings in almost $700 million per year, they have more than enough money to sponsor MZLA/Thunderbird development.

They need a lot of money to pay their useless execs, so 700 million must be barely enough to keep things running

Re: Help Keep Thunderbird Alive

#80

Post by charcircuit »

mrks_hy wrote: post #38

I really like Thunderbird, it's the only truly cross-platform mail app, with K9 also now on Android. Works perfect, I even migrated my Windows install to Linux just by copying the data folder, absolutely seamless. Not sure why people are hating on it so much here. Point to an alternative with the same features?

Gmail can be used from any modern platform through the web and has dedicated Android and iOS apps too.
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