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Hi All,<br>
<br>
In the last couple of Thunderbird Status Meetings, we've been
discussing the idea of having a Thunderbird Summit. We're currently
looking at having a summit at the Mozilla office in Toronto
somewhere around October 17-18, 2014.<br>
<br>
Because this is early in the planning process, the details are
pretty sketchy at this point in time, but we thought it would be
good to make sure that a broader group of people is aware that we
are working toward this. Here are a few points:<br>
<br>
1. The exact dates of the summit are still being discussed. We would
like for the actual duration of the summit to be four full days,
with perhaps one or two days of discussions, and (optional)
additional days used for working together on projects. Several key
contributors have some potential conflicts that we are still trying
to sort out, trying to find the best single day when we could have
any critical all-hands discussions. So possible actual dates of the
summit could stretch a little before or after that October 17-18
core time. So October 16-19 is one possible date, Oct 17-20 is
another, or we might stretch even another day in either direction.<br>
<br>
2. Funding is also still a big question mark, and we are just
starting to work on issues in raising money for the summit. Ideally
we would like to be able to fully fund the travel and living
expenses of 10 - 20 active contributors. The conference will be open
though, so if people beyond those we offer to fund still want to
come, they will be welcome (space permitting) if they can pay their
own travel and living.<br>
<br>
3. The overall purpose of the summit is to empower and encourage
Thunderbird contributors to ensure the continued sustainability and
relevance of Thunderbird (probably mainly biased to the code base,
but there's obviously a bunch of topics alongside that). Some
specific suggestions I have received from others include:
<blockquote>
<ul>
<li> "feature delivery/product improvement (project roadmap if
you will) is critical"</li>
<li> "A week (or whatever) of hacking on Thunderbird would be
good too."</li>
<li> "I am looking forward to squash crash bug on the summit
with other guys."</li>
<li> "time to sit down and talk address book with people, and
maybe start sketching out a proper plan and implementation"</li>
<li> "the main thing would be to create a project roadmap so
that we can focus our limited efforts"</li>
<li> " build on IRC personal relationships ... discussing
project governance ... focus on the larger scope"</li>
<li> "the public does not know where we are going to, what the
plan is. We should have some wiki pages with tasks that
can/should be done"\</li>
<li> "community building and hacking sessions would be the most
beneficial"</li>
<li>"talking about Enterprise Vs. Individual target audience,
main focuses for the future, consider in more detail donations
in product"</li>
<li> "make plans on things that need to be finished (say
ensemble / maildir)"</li>
<li> "A sequence of presentations on what people have done/are
doing/are planning to do"</li>
<li> "Solve (perceived) failures of the current Thunderbird
development efforts"</li>
</ul>
</blockquote>
<p>I should probably add that I've received a few comments that
specifically say DON'T do some of the things listed above, so
there is a range of thoughts! But everyone that I have talked to
seems to believe that a summit is a good idea, so it looks pretty
likely that we will be moving forward with this.<br>
</p>
<p>Feel free to make comments or suggestions. We'll keep you updated
as plans are solidified.<br>
</p>
<p>:rkent<br>
<br>
</p>
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