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<body><div>On Fri, Jul 10, 2015, at 09:58 PM, Mark Rousell wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite"><div>On 10/07/2015 12:11, Mihovil Stanić wrote:<br></div>
<blockquote type="cite" cite="mid:559FA869.6030501@miho.im">For any
signifficant growth/development you need private companies like
Kent's company or FastMail to find their financial interest in
Thunderbird. They don't need to "pay" something to Thunderbird
community, they "just" need to help develop Thunderbird in a way
that helps them earn more and community to get more in same time.<br></blockquote><div> </div>
<div>
It seems to me that the trick is to ensure that such third party
development actually helps sustain the core Thunderbird. There is no
automatic reasons why this should be the case. It commonly might be
the case but there is no guarantee of it whatsoever in the current
model. Demonstrably, the current model is *not* successfully funding
core Thunderbird development.<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>
It seems to me that for the core product to be sustainable in the
longer term, the core community/corporate entity (whether the
"corporate entity" is a commercial company or a
charitable/non-profit organisation) needs to be pushing,
controlling, and as far as possible funding and actively
implementing its direction and development.<br></div>
</blockquote><div> </div>
<div>For FastMail, Thunderbird isn't really a key part of our offering, which makes it tricky to find a fit. If it was (see my reply on the other thread about signing up accounts) a significant sales driver that would be a different matter of course. I'd have a hard time justifying putting someone full time on Thunderbird work to the other directors.<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>As Kent is already coming to the Open Messaging Day, I'm sure we'll be having a chat amongst the group there to see where we see Thunderbird fitting in with Cyrus and the web based clients in the suite of software that we're bringing together.<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>I'm sure you've seen that Roundcube did a big crowdfunding drive recently:<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div><a href="https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/story">https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/roundcube-next--2#/story</a><br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>(though the amount they raised wouldn't be enough to keep Thunderbird running for years either, and most of that was a handful of $10k contributions)<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>Bron.<br></div>
<div> </div>
<div>--<br></div>
<div id="sig567075"><div class="signature"> Bron Gondwana<br></div>
<div class="signature"> brong@fastmail.fm<br></div>
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