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<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: -moz-fixed;
font-size: 14px;" lang="x-western">Dear tb-planning:<br>
<br>
A week ago, I sent out the email below to 19 people who
represented my best estimate of formal Thunderbird project
leadership, trying to reach a consensus agreement on at least some
of the issues we have been discussing here concerning a donation
link. Unfortunately, although I received a number of positive
responses and no outright negative responses, I was unable to
reach the standard that I set for declaring a consensus. With the
holiday break approaching, rather than leave this proposal open
indefinitely, I have tabled it until at least sometimes in
January.<br>
<br>
Feel free to comment on the proposal, particularly if you think I
have misrepresented what is the current consensus of comments
here. This is much less specific than my formal proposal, and was
an attempt to find the lowest common denominator of agreement to
ensure enough backing that I could gather additional information,
and have discussions with Mozilla leadership.<br>
<br>
No further progress will be made with this until I get some formal
backing from Thunderbird leadership.<br>
<br>
Kent James<br>
<br>
========================================================<br>
Sent email:<br>
<br>
I'd like to see if there is a consensus among the people
responsible for Thunderbird leadership that we should pursue
donations with some sort of in-product visible link, as we have
been discussing on the tb-planning list.
<br>
<br>
You are receiving this email because you are either a module owner
or peer of a Thunderbird module per <a
class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Thunderbird">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Modules/Thunderbird</a>,
or you are listed as a member of the Thunderbird release drivers
team at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/New_Release_and_Governance_Model">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/New_Release_and_Governance_Model</a>.
As I discuss at <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donations_Proposal#Process_for_Approval_of_This_Proposal">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Donations_Proposal#Process_for_Approval_of_This_Proposal</a>
I am not sure what is the group that will need to make any
significant decisions involving Thunderbird, but given what is
written officially I feel that the combination of these groups is
the best current representation of the Thunderbird governing body.
<br>
<br>
While there are still a number of outstanding issues concerning
how donations would be solicited and used, my interpretation of
the discussions on tb-planning is that there is no significant
opposition to the concept that Thunderbird should attempt to raise
funds through donations in some manner. It will be easier to
collect additional information and plans for donations if we can
come to a partial agreement. Then we can better resolve remaining
issues since we will have more concrete information.
<br>
<br>
I would like us to agree that there is consensus on the following:
<br>
<br>
1) We would like for the Thunderbird project to begin raising
funds through some sort of method that is visible from within the
product itself. (Methods that have been discussed but not agreed
yet include a link on the start page, or an opened tab, and/or a
button on the status bar.)
<br>
<br>
2) The funds raised would be directly available to the Thunderbird
project (unlike the current Firefox campaign which is directed
toward raising funds generally for the Mozilla Foundation).
<br>
<br>
3) Kent James may gather information and have discussions with
relevant Mozilla staff about possible methods for implementing
this.
<br>
<br>
4) The list of people receiving this email have sufficient
authority, as a group, to agree on a consensus that represents the
official position of the Thunderbird Project and Community.
<br>
<br>
This leaves many issues open that will be discussed later, but
allows us to start making progress on this in various ways that do
not depend on final decisions on user interface, governance, or
usage of funds. Also, a consensus is only intended to reach
agreement on issues that are not likely to result in significant
opposition. Point 4) in particular does not ask you to agree that
this group is the exactly correct official body representing
Thunderbird, but only to agree that the group is sufficiently wide
to ensure that there is significant official support, and lack of
significant opposition, to the points here.
<br>
<br>
Although you may of course discuss this further if you like, the
intent of this email is not to solicit further discussion of
details, but to simply get you to state your agreement or
disagreement with the points that have already been openly
discussed on tb-planning. If there is the need for further
discussion, or there does not appear to be significant support,
then we should table this and continue the discussion. But if
necessary we could have some discussion here about the wording of
the 4 points if you feel they are flawed but easily corrected.
<br>
<br>
I will define a "consensus" agreement to the four points proposed
in this email if I receive (using reply-to-all) a positive
agreement from at least half of the email recipients, no more than
one opposing vote, and no official objections from relevant
Mozilla staff that we do not have the standing to pursue this
issue.
<br>
<br>
So can you reply-to-all and agree or disagree with the 4 points
listed above?
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-txt-sig"><span class="moz-txt-tag">-- <br>
</span>R. Kent James
<br>
MesQuilla, LLC
<br>
Redmond, Washington, USA
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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