TechCrunch
has published an internal Mozilla email which says that the company will all but abandon its Thunderbird email client to the open source masses. Is this the end for the world's biggest open-source email client?
In the email, the Thunderbird project's manager says the company doesn't think it's worthwhile to invest resources in a desktop email client as its primary work is in the online space. Like all Mozilla's products, Thunderbird is an open source project, and the company wants to use the community of developers who work on it for free to keep the product moving forward in the future. It's not total abandonment: Mozilla will still help out with the security and stability of the product, it just won't develop new features.
From the email:
We're not "stopping" Thunderbird, but proposing we adapt the Thunderbird release and governance model in a way that allows both ongoing security and stability maintenance, as well as community-driven innovation and development for the product. This will mean an eventual shift in how we staff Thunderbird at Mozilla Corporation – we are still working out details, but some people will likely end up on other Mozilla projects.
