wsmwk

Tray implementations are actually on the horizon - recently taking shape with the help of community developers. For example Bug 2023000 - Implement Linux system tray: hide-to-tray

You may be confusing IMAP+js with pop+js. Pop is running as js, but the IMAP rewrite was abandoned early. IMAP will likely be rewritten in Rust in a future year.

@pavon, spot on.

MZLA is owned by the FOUNDATION.

However, MZLA is self funded.

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.

To be more clear: * MZLA are a subsidiary of Mozilla FOUNDATION * MZLA are separate from Mozilla CORPORATION aka Firefox

Mozilla also runs hiring and HR for MZLA. They control who gets hired and fired.

This is completely and utterly false.

MZLA hiring posts are placed on the Mozilla hiring site, and nothing more.

Perhaps factual - I can't say.

But it's a different company. EOM.

I doubt donations to MZLA Technologies Corporation will reach the Thunderbird project in any meaningful way.

You are basing this statement on what data?

https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/donate is managed by MZLA, it has one open source product, Thunderbird. We pay a required Thunderbird trademark fee to the Mozilla Foundation and little more than that, which is captured in https://stats.thunderbird.net/#financials.

p.s. I've also been using the browser since the earliest days of Netscape Navigator, and I am on the Thunderbird team.

I'd also be pissed if I got left behind. But it's not happening.

@UI_at_80x24,

On the contrary, you ARE ALSO the target audience. It is stated so explicitly multiple times - for example "existing users will not be left behind", "you get to choose", etc.

Chat came to Thunderbird for free - it was developed by a different team and they offered to integrate it, and did so.

This is great for users who are looking for unified communications. Further, chat sessions are index searchable if the user has enabled it.

Donations to Mozilla which go to Firefox may be a small part of Firefox's income.

Donations directed to Thunderbird go to Thunderbird, and are 99% of Thunderbird's income.

The income streams are not mixed.

@pinbox you should ask about this at https://thunderbird.topicbox.com/groups/e2ee

yes

copy / paste works fine

Mozilla started transitioning Thunderbird out of their umbrella while TB is still highly dependent on Firefox code.

If you are referring to Mozilla Messaging and the period to 2012, no the only transitioning was in terms of product functionality. The community organized in 2014, unaffiliated with Mozilla, and it's not until about 2018 when staff were hired that community leadership were able to seriously reduce technical debt. But seriously reducing dependency on Firefox code is some distance away.

Maybe we need a successor to Thunderbird? Something that's not tied to Firefox so much?

You are looking a millions of dollars paid developer time.

Because it seems like we can't trust Mozilla and however many unpaid/underpaid volunteers to maintain it well enough.

Mozilla are not running the show here, the community is.

Perhaps it's difficult to keep up with the history, but https://blog.thunderbird.net/ has past relevant postings, plus developer and other mailing lists. To cite a couple, big changes in encryption https://blog.thunderbird.net/2019/10/thunderbird-enigmail-an... https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/tb-planning/2019-December... and development priorities http://lists.thunderbird.net/pipermail/maildev_lists.thunder... which includes a new address book.

There is a significant professional development staff which is nicely paid, and the number of developers will soon double. https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/careers/

none of the accounts / settings / etc. have been transferred over

It probably picked the wrong profile. Start with -P switch and pick your default profile. All better?

It's not a rewrite. And users will be updated, just not yet.

Precisely. We wouldn't want to dump a .0 version on 25 million people - better to get feedback first from a couple hundred thousand.

Thunderbird startup should not at all be affected by it's proximity to reboot. However, Thunderbird startup can be IO intensive so anything impacting IO will affect TB start time.

For Exchange support you'd need the OWL addon. Sounds like you should stay on Apple Mail.

Other big news in this release is the shift ... to match Firefox release numbers, so it's jumping now from 31.7.0 up to 38.0.1.

Apparently you've been out of touch for the last several years. Thunderbird has used Firefox-like ESR branch numbering for shipping releases since version 17.