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<p>Hey all,<br>
<br>
Here are my thoughts on what I think Thunderbird's goals should
be, not sure how well they map to a "vision" but I think they're
similar.<br>
<br>
## Goals:<br>
<br>
A) Maintaining, or increasing, Thunderbird's current stability,
feature set, and supported platforms.<br>
<br>
B) Improving the Extension API, and making sure extension
developers can rely on it.<br>
<br>
C) Implementing synchronization for settings and data between
devices.<br>
<br>
D) Adding mobile OS's to the list of supported platforms.<br>
<br>
E) Improving the Calendar, Address Book, Chat, and RSS Reader
features.<br>
<br>
<br>
### Notes on A and B<br>
I don't have a lot to say on A and B, they just seem like the
areas that should receive the highest priority. <br>
<br>
### Notes on C and D<br>
I consider C and D to be related. While I have many laptops and
desktops, most people don't. But most people have at least a
laptop and a phone. Keeping those two items in sync would be a
seriously helpful feature for many people. <br>
<br>
#### Syncing<br>
For syncing, I'd love to see it implemented in a manner similar to
how you connect Syncthing clients together. Data is never stored
on a third party server, and you can limit it to your local
network. (Firefox sync is great, but I really don't like having to
authenticate to a third party server.) Syncthing's discovery
servers are also something a lot more affordable than having to
deal with transferring petabytes of email data.<br>
<br>
#### Mobile App<br>
I think the mobile app idea has been looked at, but it also seems
to be somewhat controversial. <br>
<br>
Here's why I think Thunderbird should take it on. First, none of
the open source Android email programs I could find were both
maintained and feature complete. A lot of them obviously died
because no community built up around them. <br>
<br>
Thunderbird has the name recognition that would let people know
they can trust it, and the community is already excellent. So any
mobile version of Thunderbird would definitely reach feature
completeness, and would stay maintained.<br>
<br>
I think part of people objections are related to how different
mobile apps are from desktop apps. It would require a very
different code base. (At least I think, I've not actually built
any mobile apps...) <br>
<br>
If the obvious route of building from scratch, or some kind of
port of desktop TB, is untenable, here is another idea: <br>
<br>
Find a good open source client and work with that community to
turn it into the Thunderbird client. Basically, we add our
community to theirs, to give the app the resources it needs to
take off. And if we implement syncing, then every current desktop
user will likely at least try the mobile app. <br>
<br>
One of the biggest things we might be able to provide is language
translation. I know that's a hard thing to do right, and
Thunderbird, plus Mozilla, have the processes and infrastructure
in place to make it work.<br>
<br>
<br>
### Notes on E<br>
I put the items in E at the bottom because the only strictly email
related one is the Address Book. And, while it's kinda bad right
now, it is functional. And I think a lot of the ways I'd improve
those items would be better left to extensions. That said, if you
consider Thunderbird to be a "communication" tool, rather than
strictly an "email" tool, those items are very important. So
eventually it would be awesome to turn them into world class
features. I'd just rather see A - D taken care of first. <br>
<br>
## Misc thoughts<br>
If we have the developer availability, it would be interesting to
refactor TB in a way that makes it easy to break away from
anything Firefox if Firefox goes in a direction we don't like.<br>
<br>
I really hope any user interface redesigns are triggered by the TB
community and not by a dependency on Firefox.<br>
<br>
Long term, if there was some way to bridge a git pull request
workflow into TB's HG based workflow, I think that would increase
the number of developers willing to contribute. (Let's not start
the whole git vs. hg discussion again. TB is firmly in the hg camp
right now, and we have better things to do than bicker about it.)<br>
<br>
## Final thoughts<br>
Thunderbird is a very solid email client already. I really believe
it's almost as feature complete as an email client can get. So I
hope the community makes sure that we don't screw that up by
chasing changes that are too much for us to handle. Or by getting
all up in arms over how the project is run. * ponders if a mobile
app is too much... *<br>
<br>
Anyway, those are my thoughts on where TB should go. If I ever
find the time to learn enough C and Javascript that I can,
finally, do more than talk, I'll be sure to help out. Life just
hasn't let me do that yet. <br>
</p>
<p>- David Reagan<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/22/21 6:23 PM, Dirk Steinmetz
(rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:f9d09373-b906-0ece-f0ef-90f37253d7b8@rsjtdrjgfuzkfg.com">Hi
Thunderbird community,
<br>
<br>
(For readability, "we" in this email is the council, "you" is the
Thunderbird community excluding the council.)
<br>
<br>
Thanks for your input on the survey discussion and sorry for the
delay in processing your results, we were busy with the holidays.
Christmas is always so sudden...
<br>
<br>
In this mail, we compare your aggregated responses with ours, and
build upon that to map out the discussion ahead. From here on, the
discussion is open, feel free to get involved in any way you want.
<br>
<br>
<br>
1. Survey results
<br>
<br>
For those of you who wondered why we asked these specific five
questions: they are leading questions aiming to identify where
each person stands and what future they envision for the project.
As that works best if people are not influenced by the replies of
others, we did not share our own replies beforehand. Here they
are:
<br>
<br>
What are the first 5 words that spring to mind when asked to
describe Thunderbird?
<br>
- email (x4)
<br>
- open-source (x4)
<br>
- open standards / interoperable (x3)
<br>
- communication (x3)
<br>
- privacy (x3)
<br>
- powerful (x2)
<br>
- secure (x2)
<br>
- decentralized (x2)
<br>
- desktop (x2)
<br>
- configurable / extensible (x2)
<br>
- free (x2)
<br>
- multi-platform
<br>
- data ownership
<br>
- respectful
<br>
- community
<br>
- bold
<br>
- bird
<br>
Besides some outliers here and there and some shifts in frequency,
that has a lot in common with your responses. The overall most
popular topics are "open-source" and "configurable / extensible".
But what's interesting is that we did not think of negative
points, while your list includes two common negative topics: "slow
/ sluggish" and "outdated / ugly / cumbersome".
<br>
<br>
If you like visualize things, you can also have a look at the word
cloud attached to this mail. It was generated directly from all 18
responses.
<br>
...if you're wondering about the shape: it's supposed to be a bird
;)
<br>
<br>
<br>
What is it that Thunderbird does best?
<br>
While most responses do not actually reduce it down to a single
best thing, we had a similar range of responses (common topics are
"handling lots of email" and "multi-platform"). Notably, there is
a predominance of email-related responses, so that seems to be the
one area people agree Thunderbird is best in.
<br>
<br>
<br>
What makes Thunderbird different?
<br>
We all seem to agree that important factors are Thunderbird being
open-source and not tied to commercial interests, as well as
Thunderbird's extensibility and customizability. Again, we saw the
world more peachy, though – there were quite a few mostly minor
negative aspects in your responses as well.
<br>
<br>
What would you like others to think of Thunderbird?
<br>
We did this one in pairs; our responses were
<br>
- Professional grade, polished product. Better than a product you
might
<br>
pay for.
<br>
- Successful open source project, Free (Donate, donate)
<br>
- Respects the user -> user's needs, user's choices, user's
privacy
<br>
Again, there is a large overlap between our and your responses.
Our responses seem to represent the three dominant topics in your
replies: reliability / polish, freedom and a focus on the user.
<br>
<br>
<br>
2. Hot topics
<br>
<br>
During our discussions after taking the survey, we mapped out a
lot of common ground. Your responses confirmed that this is common
ground for the community as a whole: important aspects for a
vision include being open (both in terms of open source as well as
open protocols), reliable and user-focused.
<br>
<br>
That being said, there was also some disagreement about the scope
of the vision: we are not yet united on whether the vision should
include the project's identity, or only focus on the product
"Thunderbird". Furthermore, there is disagreement on whether a
vision should include concrete expansion areas, like mobile and/or
enterprise.
<br>
<br>
<br>
3. Next steps
<br>
<br>
As next step, we hope to distill aspects of the vision into
concise snippets (a few words max). We can then build the
"official" vision from these snippets.
<br>
<br>
That being said, the important part is not getting an official
vision at the end, but going through the process of reducing the
big topics into small words: this kind of summarization work helps
to truly understand the essence of the project.
<br>
<br>
The discussion is now open. Please note that council members
participate in public discussions as individuals, unless stated
otherwise.
<br>
<br>
Leading questions to start:
<br>
<br>
Where do you see the most dire need for improvement in
Thunderbird,
<br>
and what 1-3 words of your personal vision for Thunderbird is
that
<br>
based on?
<br>
<br>
- or -
<br>
<br>
What do you consider the best aspect of Thunderbird, and what
1-3
<br>
words of your personal vision for Thunderbird represent that
part?
<br>
<br>
<br>
Thanks for being involved in Thunderbird,
<br>
The Thunderbird Council
<br>
<br>
<br>
PS: if you want to provide constructive criticism without
discussing high-level vision, you can find suitable communication
channels for your topic on
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/#communication">https://www.thunderbird.net/en-US/get-involved/#communication</a>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">_______________________________________________
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