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<p>I'll defend the Council a bit too. It took time to scale up to
this where we are at now, and donations were not near what they
are now. So hiring 3 years ago was about getting a skeleton crew
in to keep the project from falling apart completely.</p>
<p>Now that we have the resources the Add-ons Support Engineer is
feasible. But its not the first resource we have thrown on
add-ons. Geoff has done considerable work in this area. But this
is an acknowledgement that this is a big job and we need more
folks on it.<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-signature">Ryan Sipes
<br>
<small>Community and Business Development Manager</small>
<br>
<a href="https://thunderbird.net">Thunderbird</a><br>
<br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2/5/20 10:48 AM, Eyal Rozenberg
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:19beab9a-fc24-ad0f-af4b-3e6e95d01c9c@technion.ac.il">On
05/02/2020 18:43, Will wrote:
<br>
<blockquote type="cite">Add-on Support Engineer
<br>
"To ease the process for add-on authors to convert their code
over to
<br>
the new way of doing things, as well as making sure needed APIs
are
<br>
available, the Thunderbird team is looking for someone to help
add-on
<br>
authors make the jump for the next version (Thunderbird 78). "
<br>
<br>
We'd say you are about 3 years too late. That should have been
done at
<br>
the start, not now. And in any event, what is the point if you
think
<br>
that very few users actually use plugins? It is illogical.
<br>
</blockquote>
<br>
Now it's my turn to defend the council, or the project...
<br>
<br>
You need to remember that Thunderbird is a project in crisis,
gradually abandoned by Mozilla (and IMHO, denied a large amount of
money which Mozilla should have gotten from Google over the
years). A small number of volunteers have had to work very hard to
keep Thunderbird going _at all_, extensions or no extensions. And
it is only now that funds are even available for that kind of a
position. Also, 3 years ago, there was nothing in need of
adaptation: The breakage started later than that.
<br>
<br>
So while I share your frustration, I think you're channeling it
ineffectively.
<br>
<br>
Also - Mark Banner is himself an add-on author; I made a
somewhat-annoyed reply to him (which in hindsight I should
probably have toned down), not the Thunderbird council.
<br>
<br>
Eyal
<br>
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<br>
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<br>
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<br>
</blockquote>
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