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(CC'ing JBP + Kent here as my Emails go through moderation, no idea
why)<br>
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Kent James<b> wrote on </b>Friday, 13/07/12 14:19:03 14:19 GMT
Daylight Time +0100 <br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_50002047_2010202_caspia_com"
cite="mid:50002047.2010202@caspia.com" type="cite">On 7/13/2012
3:57 AM, Wayne Mery (d531) wrote:
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="Cite_4" type="cite">I admire
everyone's enthusiasm but I think we are blazing ahead too
quickly, announcing a process and potentially blogging already
only a couple days after discussion started.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Right now, we are partly battling time. The Thunderbird brand was
enormously damaged by the announcement of last Friday (dare I say
botched announcement?) that has been interpreted much more
negatively than I think was intended. Now we have a small window
of time where people are watching Thunderbird a little more
closely than usual. It is really critical that a positive
statement is given in that window of time, and that statement
needs to show hope that there actually is a community effort that
will back up Thunderbird.
<br>
</blockquote>
+1<br>
<br>
as regards instead of announcing decisions, why not just publicise
the fact that there is a group of people actively working on the
innovation road map, and (maybe) encourage participation. Of course
I wouldn't know whether publicising Tb-Planning toeverybody would be
a good move, but some form of publicising has to be done so the
public at least knows this isn't stagnant. <br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_50002047_2010202_caspia_com"
cite="mid:50002047.2010202@caspia.com" type="cite">
With Andreas and atuljangra also signing up, we now have 8
developers who have committed to investing in the Thunderbird
project over the next year. It would be good to get that message
out, and my target is Sunday night.
<br>
<br>
I agree that the rest of the process is not well defined at the
moment, and perhaps you are correct that I should be cautious
about talking about the specifics of a process that is still in
development.
<br>
</blockquote>
there are some enhancements that are long overdue, so restriction to
just [["minor"]] fixes would definitely be a mistake. I would be
happier if we could land one or two power features aimed at power or
corporate users, that directly compete with features from other mail
clients (such as a filter wizard, or an improved HTML composer).<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_50002047_2010202_caspia_com"
cite="mid:50002047.2010202@caspia.com" type="cite">
<br>
But there is a second part of this that I'd also like to talk
about about, and it is a little more delicate. Part of what is
going on with the TB changes is that Mozilla is emphasizing
stability over innovation with Thunderbird. That is actually good
news for a large part of the Thunderbird user base. The last thing
many users want is constant, unnecessary churn in the user
interface. (My own pet peeve: removing the folder class selection
from the folder pane, forcing someone to write an extension to put
it back which is now very popular).</blockquote>
<pet peeve alarm> It is "One of those" changes falling under
the umbrella of "simplification" that can be discussed for a long
time (and I was opposed to this as well). Simplification of
something that might be inherently "not simple" or "simplification
for simplicity's sake" is something that I hope will fall by the
wayside with the new innovation model - or at least critically
discussed. There are quite a few people in design teams that mistake
simple with ergonomic, which is not always the same. I feel this
definitely needs further discussion before any major UI decisions
(e.g. calendar in window / Compose in Tab) are made.<br>
<br>
Without going into detail, I just want to remind everybody of
Firefox's controversial "Tabs on Top" decision (which actually makes
more sense in Tb) ..., imho it was a hastily implemented feature and
not very well researched; let's avoid this trap with Thunderbird and
focus on the burning issues.<br>
<br>
</pet peeves end><br>
<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_50002047_2010202_caspia_com"
cite="mid:50002047.2010202@caspia.com" type="cite">I would like to
find some positive ways to engage those people. And emphasizing
that we are going to be taking more concrete steps than in the
past to try to listen to their needs, and respond to them, is a
Good News story.
<br>
</blockquote>
It also depends on your target audience - is it mainly developers
who read your blog, or your Add-On users? A link would be nice.<br>
<blockquote class=" cite" id="mid_50002047_2010202_caspia_com"
cite="mid:50002047.2010202@caspia.com" type="cite">
<br>
But this is delicate because it is partly critical of what Mozilla
has done in the past - or could easily be interpreted that way. It
is also extolling the glories of slower release cycles at a time
when Mozilla is already working to respond to recent criticism of
rapid release (the "Firefox Update Discussion" email). I'm aware
of these sensitivities and want to be careful - but I think that
subtle criticism is acceptable and even desirable.
<br>
</blockquote>
I think the "rapid release cycle topic" is not something to be
emphasized so much, after all before that we did have irregular
security updates; so this is really just an internal process, and
ultimately discussing it diverts attention from innovation and
productivity, which I find much more important from the users point
of view. How often one releases isn't something that should be even
portrayed as internally contentious.<br>
<br>
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