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<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 9/10/2014 12:41 PM, Joshua Cranmer
đ§ wrote:<br>
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<blockquote cite="mid:5410A979.4080407@gmail.com" type="cite">On
9/9/2014 12:25 PM, Kent James wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">While Thunderbird remains a strong product
with a growing user base, it's become apparent that we need to
rework some basic ways that we operate if we are to successfully
meet our user's expectations in the future. Here I present in
brief summary the key features of a plan that I believe are
necessary to move us forward. Let's discuss this and see if we
can reach a consensus so that we can begin the process of
implementing any needed changes in conjunction with our upcoming
Thunderbird Summit.
<br>
<br>
Thunderbird Reorganization: Summary Plan
<br>
<br>
1) Thunderbird to remain an independent project under the
Mozilla umbrella, but with a large degree of autonomy.
Thunderbird to be subject to the Mozilla Manifesto and brand,
but may depart from the current Mozilla Mission of promoting the
web as a platform.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
I think it is worth pointing out that messaging and communication
are at severe risk of being closed off. While WebRTC is an open
standard, all of the major videoconferencing solutions don't use
it (Google Hangouts still requires you to install a plugin if
you're not on Chrome). Even venerable IMAP is being threatened:
several major webmail providers (including Google) are trying to
ban non-OAuth2 logins, which effectively requires clients to
hardcode a list of webmail providers. Even so, Thunderbird is the
largest open-source email project, and, from experience, I can
tell you that saying that actions will cause issues for
Thunderbird will have more of an impact than saying that actions
will cause issues for, say, Gaia Email.
<br>
<br>
IMAP and MIME are very complex specifications defined across
dozens of documents and containing several rules honored only in
the breach. I think Thunderbird could be doing more to make robust
implementations of these specifications available to other
prospective applications, and I think Gaia Email would love to
help (short the caveat that they are almost as badly stretched for
resources as we are :( ).
<br>
<br>
Thunderbird is a very powerful weapon to achieve Mozilla's vision,
and I think both the need to use that weapon and the realization
of its power are vastly undercounted in Mozilla as an
organization. We should certainly strive to make these facts more
well-known at Mozilla.
<br>
<br>
</blockquote>
Amen to all of that!<br>
<br>
One thing that I left out of this current proposal, that I included
in "Thunderbirdâs Future: the TL;DR Version"
(<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mesquilla.com/2014/07/31/thunderbirds-future-the-tldr-version/">http://mesquilla.com/2014/07/31/thunderbirds-future-the-tldr-version/</a>)
was "We should ask MoFo to fund one person on the Thunderbird team
to serve as an advocate for open messaging standards, contributing
product code as well as participating publicly in standards
development and discussions." I still think that we should do that,
but that issue can be treated separately from the current reorg
proposal. At the moment, we need a reorg that is pared to the bare
minimum so that we can get maximum buy-in.<br>
<br>
Self-respect within Mozilla will come not only from having a worthy
vision, but also from being financially independent as a project. As
long as our pleas for respectability with Mozilla are viewed as
veiled attempts to get Firefox to increase their subsidy of
Thunderbird, I don't think we will be heard. So to me financial
independence, which includes enough resources to move forward, is
critical to meeting our mission as stewards of a piece of the open
internet.<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
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<td> <img src="cid:part1.05080208.08020602@caspia.com"><br>
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R. Kent James<br>
Personal: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:kent@caspia.com">kent@caspia.com</a><br>
Business: <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:rkent@mesquilla.com">rkent@mesquilla.com</a><br>
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<td>
Web: <a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://mesquilla.com">http://mesquilla.com</a><br>
Twitter: @rkentjames<br>
Mozilla IRC: :rkent </td>
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