14 DAY TRIAL // The Thunderbird team has announced that there will be an extended support release of the email client, just like the one for Firefox.
Thunderbird ESR will be supported for one year with security updates enabling companies, organizations and institutions to have time to test the software to make sure it complies with their policies and works with their infrastructure and existing software.
"We are pleased to announce that Thunderbird is following the Firefox Extended Support Release plan as documented in proposal for an Extended Support Release (ESR) of Firefox," Mozilla Messaging announced.
"As mentioned a few months ago in Thunderbird Enterprise specific wiki pages, the ESR version of Thunderbird is for use by enterprises, public institutions, Universities and other organizations that centrally manage their Thunderbird deployments," it explained.
"Releases of the ESR will occur once a year, providing organizations with a version of Thunderbird that receives security updates but does not make changes to the email client features or Thunderbird Add-ons platform," it said.
The ESR is the result of discussions that arose when Mozilla switched to the new six-week rapid release cycle. The new release cycle meant that Firefox and Thunderbird releases would be obsolete as soon as a new one was made available.
At the same time, Mozilla did not guarantee that these updates would not break compatibility or did not include new features that might force companies and institutions to re-test the software, which would be precisely against the goal of the rapid release cycle.
The appropriate solution was a special-purpose release that would get security updates for one year, ensuring that Firefox and Thunderbird could still be used by companies. At the same time Mozilla could continue to improve and update its apps at a rapid pace.
The initial plan was to release Thunderbird ESR 1.0 alongside either Thunderbird 8 or Thunderbird 9. However, it is likely that it will be pushed back to Thunderbird 10 if the team is not ready by the end of the month when Firefox 10 and Thunderbird 9 are scheduled to be released.