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<b>To: </b>"tb-planning"<a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:tb-planning@mozilla.org"><tb-planning@mozilla.org></a> <br>
<div id="IDstID">
<div id="newHeader"> <b>From: </b>"Kent James"<br>
<b>Sent: </b>Tuesday, 10/07/12 18:53:11 18:53 GMT Daylight Time
+0100 <br>
<b>Subject:</b>Re: Regarding your plans to reduce efforts for
Thunderbird</div>
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<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_4FFC6C07_7040508_caspia_com"
cite="mid:4FFC6C07.7040508@caspia.com" type="cite">On 7/10/2012
10:38 AM, Maurice wrote:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_0" type="cite"> I was hoping
Thunderbird would be aiming for better performance and
<br>
behaviour for its present function, rather than jazzy frills
and
<br>
'improvements' that result in a retrograde state, as has
happened
<br>
with KMail.
<br>
</blockquote>
I would say that the planned changes to Thunderbird are aimed
directly at people like you. That is, what the Thunderbird team is
seeing is that many, many of their users would much prefer a
stable email client instead of one that is constantly changing. So
instead of trying to satisfy those in favor of constant
innovation, they are going to try to satisfy those who are not
interested in "jazzy frills and 'improvements'" while still being
open to innovation driven by the community.
<br>
<br>
It's a pity that so much of the reporting is interpreting this as
"Thunderbird is dead!" rather than "Thunderbird is finally
stable!".
<br>
</blockquote>
Yeah I think the original announcement from Mitchell somewhat wasn't
really very clear in communicating this - rather it was putting the
emphasis on moving Mozilla's future innovative focus to the other
projects. Personally I do not think this is such a great problem if
the community is enabled to provide innovation themselves (e.g.
through contribution of patches) and not weighed down with having to
take over purely administrative efforts (such as hosting and
distribution). <br>
<br>
One thing I would not like is for Thunderbird becoming another
Mozdev.org (which still continues to be operated and is even open
for new business, but the overall opinion on this - even amongst
Mozilla employees - is that it is dead). Also, we do need some key
persons with available on IRC to nurture the community in their
efforts to get involved in the innovation part. I do like the new
module governance model though, it might be a good idea to
specialize people a little more. For instance, we still need
somebody who would like to take over the composer piece, that's in
need of new leadership, badly. If we could motivate the more
talented members of the community in some way to take this on (e.g.
maybe with a specific credits page, like on other high profile
software dev efforts such as commercial games) I see a chance that
Tb could come out as a better (and not just more stable) product.<br>
<br>
Axel<br>
<br>
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<b class="myName" style="text-shadow: 1px 1px 2px
#DDD;cursor:pointer;-moz-transition-property:font-size;
-moz-transition-duration: 0.5s;">Axel Grude</b>
<br>
Software Developer
<br>
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer
<span style="color:#666666; font-size:xx-small">(QuickFolders,
quickFilters, QuickPasswords, Zombie Keys, SmartTemplate4)</span>
<br>
AMO Editor </div>
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