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On 9/11/2014 1:45 PM, R Kent James wrote:<br>
<blockquote cite="mid:541209FC.6000102@caspia.com" type="cite">
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I've collected some random thoughts on the proposed direct appeal
to users on a wiki page:<br>
<br>
<a moz-do-not-send="true" class="moz-txt-link-freetext"
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/FundingAppeal2014">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/FundingAppeal2014</a><br>
<br>
...</blockquote>
Tanstaafl had some great comments on this at
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Talk:Thunderbird/FundingAppeal2014">https://wiki.mozilla.org/Talk:Thunderbird/FundingAppeal2014</a> I am
going to reply here because I want to encourage larger discussions
of these issues. I would encourage folks to read his full comments
there. This message will only deal with one of the issues raised.<br>
<br>
"I didn't notice anything about supporting the add-on community. ...
this plan only targets Thunderbird developers. "<br>
<br>
You've only mentioned addon authors, there are code reviewers, QA,
support, Mozilla infrastructure, and marketing as well that could
easily justify funding. That last time that we had a discussion
about possibly trying to raise funds for development, aceman and I
put together a list of existing Thunderbird contributors. That is <a
href="https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Community_Members">here</a>.
Preparing that was quite sobering. We had about 70 people on that
list who contribute in significant ways to the success of
Thunderbird. There is no way that we could reasonably raise enough
money to reward all of those people at market rates for their
contributions, and it would fundamentally change the nature of
Thunderbird if we tried. For the current plan, all that we are
hoping to achieve is to identify key areas that are either
threatening the continuing existence of Thunderbird (keeping up with
the rapid changes in m-c) or glaring weaknesses that we need to fix
to be competitive (some bugs and address book). There is really no
reasonable expectation that there can be any "spreading of the
wealth" beyond those bare essentials.<br>
<br>
Yet as someone who is primarily an addon author, I certainly
understand the issue. What I think is the answer, that I have
promoted on and off over the years, is some sort of "Thunderbird
Professional" that would try to combine a number of extras into a
product that would require annual licensing. That would include
proprietary addons such as ExQuilla, perhaps maintained versions of
free addons, along with support and enterprise packaging.<br>
<br>
Yet when I have raised the issue, the only person who regularly
supports this is Axel. I'd like to discuss it again at the Summit,
yet at the moment Axel and I have largely developed our own methods
of accomplishing our goals. A Thunderbird Professional would require
significant buy-in from people (as you will certainly get plenty of
pushback) which has yet to materialize. We can discuss this perhaps
at the Summit to see if there are additional supporters of this.<br>
<br>
:rkent<br>
<br>
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