
Thunderbird’s Future Home - buovjaga
https://blog.mozilla.org/thunderbird/2017/05/thunderbirds-future-home/
======
newscracker
Last year when donating specifically to Thunderbird was made possible on
mozilla.org, I donated to the project because it has provided a lot of value
over the years.

Recently I started looking at the discussions on the tb-planning mailing list
and it looks like we'll get a revamped (fully rewritten) Thunderbird. That
sounds like a very long project to me - probably a few years just to bring it
to what Thunderbird already provides today. Plus the extensions system needs
to be revamped as well (similar to what's happening on the Firefox side with
XUL ones going out). Getting Exchange calendaring done is also not a priority
because of the complexity and the effort needed. So it looks like we will get
a better maintainable product after some years. I'm not sure if that's going
to appeal to many people to donate.

I'm happy with Thunderbird and some extensions that I use regularly, with the
only exception being calendaring support for Exchange being very poor and
unreliable (even with the Exchange EWS Provider extension or with external
solutions like DavMail). Since I don't like taking risks with email client
alpha or beta releases because of the fear of data loss (and with huge
mailboxes, even detecting data loss would be a chore), I'll just stick with
the current version and hope that the new revamped one comes in a stable form
sooner (of course, I will donate periodically). I'm excited and afraid!

~~~
dotancohen
That fully rewritten Thunderbird will apparently be based on Electron, the
Javascript GUI.

The CPU-thrashing, memory hungry, battery killer Electron. I do not want an
email client, or any other software that is meant to run constantly in the
background, to be written in Election.

~~~
buovjaga
Why are you spreading this information, when you know no such thing has been
decided?

~~~
dotancohen
The issue was discussed previously on HN:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156251](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14156251)

~~~
buovjaga
Yes, there has been lots of discussion, but no decision.

------
elipsey
My CS instructor once asked everyone in the class to "raise you hand if you
still use an email client." My hand was the only one that went up, and a
couple of people laughed and said "really?"

I think that was almost 10 years ago.

~~~
tjoff
I don't get how anyone (that are somewhat computer savvy) can live without
one. Sure, webmail is an awesome backup for when you don't use your main
device. But seriously, gmail and the like are absolutely horrible to use
compared to a real client.

I guess the sad state of affair in regards to email syncing protocols (POP3
and IMAP) are partly to blame, JMAP might help a little but I guess it's too
late.

~~~
chrisseaton
What are you doing that's so complicated with email?

I get email. I read them. I archive them. I only interact with each email for
about 10s and then it's gone, usually forever. Very occasionally I need to
search for something in the archive. I also need to send so I just need a text
box to write in and somewhere to drop attachments.

What else is there that you need in a client?

~~~
statictype
Being able to search through old emails and conversations.

Finding an attachment someone sent last week that you didn't have time to look
at until now.

Finding a long set of instructions you sent to someone two years ago so you
can forward it to someone else.

~~~
chrisseaton
But searching seems like something that is definitely don't better as a web
service with people like Google and their extremely sophisticated and
proprietary searching and natural language analysis algorithms. That's a
reason to use web services rather than local clients.

~~~
tripzilch
Google's biggest trick has been convincing people that "search" is something
that is much too hard and sophisticated to do locally.

see [https://notmuchmail.org/](https://notmuchmail.org/) your email archive
just isn't that big

as for natural language processing, I'm not aware that Gmail does this for
user search? maybe it does, but I haven't noticed more than some basic
stemming. and given the choice (is not hidden), even most basic users prefer
exact/stemmed keyword search over "cleverly" second-guessing returning noise
results you didn't ask for.

also there's many non-proprietary search result sorting and filtering
techniques that do a great (and predictable!) job, locally, without having to
go all deeplearning about it.

remember that a lot of the sophisticated NLP analysis stuff Gmail does, is for
the benefit of targeted advertising first and user experience second.

------
Chirael
Day to day I use my email provider's regular web interface but I use
Thunderbird every few months when I need to do a massive email cleanup - there
is no other tool I'd rather use and it's indispensable to me for that purpose.

Also the article states, "In many ways, there is more need for independent and
secure email than ever" and I agree 100%. Thank you to everyone who works on
this project!

~~~
Chirael
Also for travel purposes, being able to "do" email offline with Thunderbird is
very nice as well.

------
nickcw
I use Thunderbird as my main email client and I have a bit of a love-hate
relationship with it! I have a complicated email set up with 1000s of folders,
and lots of mail accounts and filtering and by and large it does a great job.

I still use mutt when I really want an email powertool, but I can't use it as
my daily email client any more (and haven't for years) now that HTML emails
are so prevalent.

I use lots of plugins with Thunderbird (Copy Sent to Currrent, Enigmail,
External Editor, Nostalgy, QuickFolders, Identity Chooser, Mail Redirect, ...)
to try to bring back some of the functionality I'm used to with mutt and it
works quite well now.

In recent months I find Thunderbird needs restarting once a day which is
frustrating. It goes into some kind of internal loop processing an email and
never returns. Probably a consequence of too many plugins!

~~~
vog
_> I can't use [mutt] as my daily email client [...] now that HTML emails are
so prevalent._

Whats the problem? What prevents you from viewing HTML emails as plain text?
Often, that's more readable anyway.

Just put the following lines into your ~/.mailcap file:

    
    
        text/html; w3m $(grep -qi 'content-type.*charset' %s || echo '-I UTF-8') -dump %s; nametemplate=%s.html; copiousoutput
    

Feel free to skip the encoding fix, or to use another html-to-text converter
than the text browser w3m.

~~~
Twirrim
It's certainly a better option than reading straight HTML, but it never quite
does a complete job, and whenever I use mutt these days I routinely find
myself having to kick in a mail client with full HTML support.

I like mutt, I used it for nearly a decade as my primary method for handling
work emails, but unfortunately HTML email is the way of the world and it got
to a point where mutt was hindering me (and others) more than it was aiding
me.

~~~
xaa
> unfortunately HTML email is the way of the world

Is it really? I still use mutt, and I have found 99% of the time, heavy HTML
in e-mail means the mail is spam.

Occasionally an important e-mail (bank, etc) might contain a few HTML links,
easy enough to visually parse. Real individual people IME send plain text,
even non-techies.

~~~
Twirrim
Have you been using it in an enterprise scenario? Essentially the main email
clients people use, Outlook etc, all default to HTML emails these days. Plus
there is a big love of embedded images in signatures, different fonts around
the text in their signatures.. all sorts of stuff. Roughly 90% of the direct
email I receive in my inbox comes through in HTML form. Plain text is more
often coming from mailing lists and automated systems that email me.

~~~
xaa
> Have you been using it in an enterprise scenario?

Yeah, sort of, an academic/hospital setting. Actually, I combined my academic
and personal e-mail addresses into one at a custom domain, and forward other
accounts to it, which annoys some colleagues.

Most people here use Outlook. Sometimes people might have a mailto: link in
sig (which gives me a chuckle as it's pointless), but I don't ever remember
encountering embedded images.

The biggest human offenders for sending HTML-heavy e-mails are university-wide
announcements. In my mind, these fall closer to spam than ham, and what useful
information is in them can usually be gained from the title.

> Roughly 90% of the direct email I receive in my inbox comes through in HTML
> form.

Same, because I haven't bothered to set up spam filtering. But of the e-mails
I actually want to read, well below 5% do.

> Plain text is more often coming from mailing lists and automated systems
> that email me.

Fascinating. For me it is just the opposite. People don't usually seem to
bother using HTML, consciously at least. But automated systems use it quite
liberally.

~~~
taejo
> The biggest human offenders for sending HTML-heavy e-mails are university-
> wide announcements. In my mind, these fall closer to spam than ham, and what
> useful information is in them can usually be gained from the title.

If only! My alma mater always uses the subject "Important message from
<University>". It never is.

------
stinkytaco
I see this:

>But there are still pain points – build/release, localization, and divergent
plans with respect to add-ons, to name a few. These are pain points for both
Thunderbird and Firefox, and we obviously want them resolved. However, the
Council feels these pain points would not be addressed by moving to TDF or
SFC.

and then this

> We have come to the conclusion that a move to a non-Mozilla organization
> will be a major distraction to addressing technical issues and building a
> strong Thunderbird team. Also, while we hope to be independent from Gecko in
> the long term, it is in Thunderbird’s interest to remain as close to Mozilla
> as possible to in the hope that it gives use better access to people who can
> help us plan for and sort through Gecko-driven incompatibilities.

So I'm not sure I fully understand their direction. Are they simply less
focused on solving those issues right now?

I use Thunderbird but don't really have a horse in the race, I get what I need
out of it and I support them, I'm just curious.

------
finnjohnsen2
I don't use Thunderbird, but I like that it exists and I hope they survive.
Perhaps because it's my life boat if I need to abandon spying web hosted
clients (gmail etc).

~~~
karussell
These days the word 'spying' is used frequently but somehow ironically (?) Why
not be honest to you and say that your laziness is more worth for you than
your privacy?

'spying' is perceived as boring or 'it happens anyway' or 'we cannot do
something about it'. Of course you can. You have the choice to be slightly
less lazy and actually use the alternatives where you can&want, maybe even if
they are worse! I'm not implying here that Thunderbird is worse than gmail ;)

Furthermore 'spying' should not have the personal touch (only). Instead
companies should take this issue really serious to reduce the possibilities of
econmic spying. I know companies fighting hard against Google with their
products, having strict NDAs but then yes, they use non-encrypted gmail
accounts for everything.

Thunderbird is important like all of these alternatives (be it open source or
not like DuckDuckGo) to reduce influence of monopolies. As monopolies are bad
for users&customers. Always.

BTW: you can donate here: [https://donate.mozilla.org/en-
US/thunderbird/](https://donate.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/)

~~~
finnjohnsen2
Personally, my choice of words would be 'convenience' rather than 'lazyness'.
It's a 100% conscious decision on my part to abandon an unknown degree of
privacy for the convenience of free online (ex. google) products. I would
expect this to be true for a significant proportion of the technical readers
you get here on HN.

But the trust can be broken. Which was my point.

------
mariusmg
So for the moment, at least, Thunderbird stays with Mozilla. That's good.

------
phantom_oracle
I hope Thunderbird lives on for a long time, but in the FOSS world, one should
never depend on a single piece of software for their day-to-day functionality,
thus here are some alternatives:

[https://alternativeto.net/software/mozilla-
thunderbird/?lice...](https://alternativeto.net/software/mozilla-
thunderbird/?license=opensource&platform=linux)

You must also keep in mind that desktop mail-clients make the (otherwise)
complicated PGP-encryption of emails a bit more user-friendly.

~~~
NoGravitas
I keep forgetting that I intend to give Geary a try.

~~~
jdboyd
Geary hasn't been very reliable for me and I have been keeping up to date with
the latest versions. I mostly just use it for retrieving attachments and stick
to mutt and k9mail the rest of the time. I think it is sad than an android
mail program works more reliably and faster than most established desktop mail
clients.

------
frik
_A Bright Future

The Thunderbird Council is optimistic about the future. With the
organizational question settled, we can focus on the technical challenges
ahead. Thunderbird will remain a Gecko-based application at least in the
midterm, but many of the technologies Thunderbird relies upon in that platform
will one day no longer be supported. The long term plan is to migrate our code
to web technologies_

Mozilla dumps XUL tech from gecko left and right, removed proper "classic" mod
support from Firefox... how is this a bright future. Thunderbird as a big XUL
app is stuck with an soon to be not supported old gecko. And how is the plan
to slowly rewrite it viable? Replication of the dated UI with HTML5 will be an
even bigger clusterfxxk.

We need a proper open source offline client. And it should have a modern UI
with at least conversation view like Gmail. Wasn't there a HTML5 based email
client in FirefoxOS. Start with that code and set up a new Mozilla foundation
funded offline email client, and keep security support for Thunderbird until
the new email app is ready.

~~~
ChefDenominator
IDK, I like that Thunderbird sorts without conversation. It is the primary
feature I look for in a MUA.

The only feature I find annoying is the search feature, which seems to be a
universally accepted weakness of Thunderbird.

~~~
unethical_ban
I'm confused by its two search bars. It doesn't make sense to have two.

~~~
doughj3
One is a global search, the other is a simple filter for the currently opened
mail folder. I use both for their respective use cases all the time.

------
JetSpiegel
Frankly, I think it would be easier to write a GUI over mutt than to rewrite
Thunderbird.

I was a heavy user of Thunderbird, but after migrating to mutt, it's basically
obsolete. The only pain point is really HTML, but converting it to text is
Good Enough most of the time. Outlook-produced emails still look like crap,
but I can click a button and open it on Firefox.

Mutt is not only alive and kicking, there's the new NeoMutt project that is
the NeoVim for Mutt. We have initial Lua scripting capabilities now.

[http://neomutt.org/](http://neomutt.org/)

------
tracker1
In my mind, there are a handful of things that are essential to getting
Thunderbird back to a usable state... some of these could be plugins...

First, the exchange/calendar integration options clearly suck... establishing
a clear calendar interface as a built-in with extensible points for plugins
for authentication/sync of calendars would be a good start.

Second, likewise with calendar auth/sync would be an extensible interface for
folder sync and authentication, so that a cleaner integration for common
providers based on an underlying IMAP can be used... this way the conventional
"junk, spam, inbox, sent" folders could be presented the correct way as well
as the underlying storage for a given provider.

Also, along with calendar/email would be more extension points for scheduling,
contacts, etc...

As it stands, even if there were different plugins for a google calendar and
an exchange/o365 calendar, contacts, etc... if the underlying pieces can be
shared, it would be a better user experience.

Moreover would be some serious reconsideration regarding the UI/UX... I'm a
big fan of material design, but some variation on that coming a lot closer to
a Gmail app for desktop would be a really nice start... but getting a
calendar/task/contacts integration points and primitives for extension would
go a long way here. Having the core UI going the same direction as Servo, and
having most of the UI/Extensions being HTML/JS based would be nice.

Likewise, NPM compatibility for extensions' modules would be nice as well.

~~~
Psilidae
Regarding NPM compatibility: I'd be worried about potential security issues
with something like npm. I recognize that one must already put a lot of trust
on developers when using extensions, but I'd worry NPM would make it a lot
easier for a nefarious developer to add malicious code to a really deeply
buried dependency.

~~~
tracker1
Maybe it's just a matter of using node/npm tooling to develop/package an
extension... using a bundler.

Of course, at this point, it might be worth re-doing the whole thing using
electron as a base.. the more I use VS Code, the more inclined I am to feel
that it may be good enough, and if it's a react app, maybe target react-native
for phone/tablet platforms, and electron for desktop.

------
clishem
> A Bright Future

> The long term plan is to migrate our code to web technologies

~~~
cookiecaper
What we really need is a good way to execute desktop apps as if they were web
services: accessible from nearly any device, access to your data with minimal
complication wherever you happen to sign in from, and a lightweight, instant-
response, zero-install interaction model. If we value "native clients", we
need to address the things that make web clients more convenient.

~~~
u801e
> What we really need is a good way to execute desktop apps as if they were
> web services

I think the closest thing we have is the remote desktop protocol. I have used
Thunderbird on my desktop via the rdp client I have installed on my phone
(though with some degree of difficulty due to the interface and input
limitations).

I think something like that could work if rdp clients provided a better
interface for clients not using a desktop computer.

------
echodevnull
Here's a proposal on how the move to a new Thunderbird based on web
technologies could be handled: [https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-
planning/SPs8gzO5...](https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/tb-
planning/SPs8gzO5Wy0)

------
pkaler
I've gone from using Sparrow to Mailbox and now to Spark on macOS and iOS.
Every time a good email client comes around, someones seems to kill it.

------
orionblastar
I hope The Document Foundation gets it to add to Lubreoffice to be a foss
alternative to Outlook.

I get thousands of emails a day. I have several email accounts as I switch to
a new one because the old one got a lot of spam. I email my friends and family
my new email but they keep writing to my old emails. Message filter helps me
sort stuff into different folders to find important emails and attachments.

------
systematical
I use thunderbird because my work uses gmail. I guess (maybe) I could add the
secondary work gmail account to my regular gmail. Not sure, the other
alternative is to keep a separate incognito window or keep work email open in
a separate browser.

I just use Thunderbird instead.

~~~
Macha
You can log into multiple Google accounts at the same time. You then get a
user switcher in the top left, which as far as I know does not invalidate
existing sessions.

------
edpichler
I like to read about these open source organizations apparently very well
administrated. It's a very interesting business model to me.

~~~
Erik816
I'm not sure this is a textbook example of open source leading to a well
administrated organization. I realize these decisions are complex, but the
people who work on Thunderbird have been talking about the inevitability of
this move for years at this point. Those are years that a more nimble (and
profit motivated) organization could have been spent actually moving to a new
technology instead of endlessly debating what to do.

------
panamafrank
Have mozilla considered Tracy Island?

------
Vinnl
tl;dr Thunderbird will remain independent, but legally and fiscally be part of
Mozilla (rather than e.g. The Document Foundation (of LibreOffice) or the
SFC).

Also of note: apparently Thunderbird is receiving enough donations, and has
been for a while, to give faith that it will be able to manage just fine
independently. Good news IMHO.

~~~
mrweasel
I wonder if email providers would pay for to be included as an easy
setup/signups in Thunderbird? Sort of like search engines pay to be the
default in Firefox

~~~
jcranmer
The short answer: not really.

About a decade ago, Mozilla decided that Thunderbird should be making a bigger
effort to pay for its own funding. The two business opportunities that were
implemented were paid email accounts (driven by a survey that found that a
substantial portion of new users expected they were getting an email address
when they downloaded Thunderbird), and paid support for the large-attachment
uploads. Some of the companies involved have since withdrawn the contracts.

In any case, the money being involved (I'm told) isn't stellar--on the order
of $10s of K per annum in total.

