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<p>A lot has happened in the last couple of months that affect the
future of Thunderbird. I'd like to bring you up to date, and ask
for additional input.</p>
<p>Financially, we started asking for donations, and beginning in
July added a request for donations to the Thunderbird start page.
As of the end of August, 2016 (after two months of asking on our
start page), we had available funds of $176,000. It will be awhile
before we can really determine what is likely to be a sustainable
donation level, but it is fairly clear that we have a supportive
community who is willing to fund a small group of people working
on Thunderbird.</p>
<p>Concerning a long-term legal and financial home, a team of us
visited the conference for LibreOffice in Brno, Czech Republic and
met with the board of The Document Foundation (TDF) to evaluate
whether there is a fit between Thunderbird and TDF as a possible
long-term home. Generally the meetup in Brno went well, and we
left satisfied that TDF is a viable partner that has a lot to
offer for Thunderbird.</p>
<p>But there are also other alternatives. Software Freedom
Conservancy (SFC) is still under serious consideration. Also, the
likely resources available to Thunderbird as a project seem fairly
comparable to other successful open source Foundations (and an
order of magnitude higher than the typical SFC project for
example), so we also are considering either a short-term or
long-term plan to have some sort of independent organization
(although Simon Phipps recommended against that in <a
href="https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/files/2016/04/Finding-a-Home-for-Thunderbird.pdf">his
report</a>, at least in the short run).</p>
The Thunderbird Council met to discuss the Brno visit, and try to
understand what our actions should be. While there were diverse
opinions on the proper direction, trying to synthesize the issues,
really it comes down to two questions:
<p>1) Does Thunderbird believe that the long-term best home is
likely to be an independent organization (typically but not
necessarily a Foundation), or are we better off allied with others
legally and culturally?</p>
<p>2) Does the existing Thunderbird team have the capacity (both
in available skill sets as well as leadership) to transition to
function independently of Mozilla? If we are lacking, which
organization is likely to provide those skills or leadership? Or
is this something we are likely to successfully attract, either as
volunteers or as hired staff?<br>
</p>
<p>As of today we have not reached a recommendation about direction
for a legal and financial home. At some point we will reach a
decision, and at that point we will likely need to coordinate with
our future home the best way to announce such a decision. While we
strive to maintain as much transparency and public input into this
process as we can, at some point a quiet period may be necessary,
but we are not there yet.</p>
<p> </p>
<p>We would appreciate comments on these issues, either generally or
with respect to your personal availability to be part of a
transition process.</p>
In addition, one question we struggled with was how difficult it
would be to acquire the services of someone with the skill set to
lead a transition (which is likely to be needed regardless of what
path we take, but a stronger candidate would make independence a
more achievable goal). Let's call this the Executive Director role.
If you have any insights into this role, including 1) examples of
similar open-source organizations that hired such a position, or 2)
specific suggestions of people (including yourself) who might fit
the role, we would appreciate hearing from you, either publicly or
privately.<br>
<br>
:rkent<br>
Treasurer, Thunderbird Council<br>
<br>
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