<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1">
</head>
<body text="#000000" bgcolor="#FFFFFF">
Hello,<br>
<br>
The discussion about money around Thunderbird is not closed yet and
time flies. By consequence, I've tried to regroup the
questions/discussions to help moving forward on this particular
topic. <br>
<br>
The major question stays <u>"What do we need money for?" </u>and
until we can answer this clearly, we will not find any
straightforward directions amongst revenue sources described below.<br>
<br>
Once we have collectively figured this out, there are 3 potential
revenue sources: <br>
<br>
A) In app: the Community could generate revenues directly <u>within</u>
Thunderbird and options are:<br>
<ul>
<li> do a crowd-funding campaign leveraging Thunderbird
property with a dedicated tab or from the start page</li>
<li> doing an engagement campaign on Facebook, Twitter, our
blog, via press announcement.... </li>
<li> or both</li>
</ul>
=> not that difficult to implement but where the money should go?
Mozilla Foundation or external organization... Community will have
to be clear upfront about the usage of this generated revenue in
order to craft the right crowd-funding message/commitment.<br>
<ul>
<li>Develop partners opportunities/affiliation programs ala
YouSendIt</li>
</ul>
=> we know that the money goes to Mozilla Corp and will be
allocated to future TB Engagement programs accordingly, but we don't
know WHO will be the lead on this biz dev initiative.<br>
<br>
B) Outside funding (revenue or resources): we can address large
organizations like French Government (leveraging the recent Prime
Minister commitment to help Open Source initiative) or IBM in
Germany that have equipped large part of public organizations with
Thunderbird...<br>
<ul>
<li>either we will get $$</li>
<li>or we could get "sponsored manpower"</li>
</ul>
=> This option might bring significant resources to the Community
but will require patience and dedication. If contribution is money,
the question of what will it be used for has to be determined now.
If this is manpower, we should avoid that it will only be manpower
that will address specific large organization topics but rather work
on Community agreed projects. <br>
<br>
C) Facilitating some contributors long term engagement: the
Community is thinking about funding its own efforts by getting
revenue from its work<br>
<ul>
<li>Get revenue from add-ons: it means setting-up a different
market place</li>
</ul>
=> it should be do-able, solutions can be evaluated in a
reasonable timeframe.<br>
<ul>
<li>Get revenue from features development, support or specific QA
test tools development: Community could set-up a developers'
market place that would be accessible to large organizations.</li>
</ul>
=> it should be do-able, solutions can be evaluated in a
reasonable time-frame but the question of "what kind of features
should be funded, when to release, level of quality required to pass
the drivers test...." all of this has to be determined asap.<br>
<br>
Let me know if you see different forms of money generation but it
would be nice to start focusing on the "what do we need money for"
then moving forward on one or two solutions will be easier...<br>
<br>
AM<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Anne Marie Bourcier
Mozilla Thunderbird</pre>
</body>
</html>