What should Mozilla do with the email client?

Jul 27, 2007 09:41 GMT  ·  By

Mozilla developed two famous products: Firefox and Thunderbird. Since the Internet world started to talk about the web-browser Firefox, the email client Thunderbird was somehow abandoned by both users and the parent company. That's why today, after a long period of time, Mozilla decided to take attitude against this matter and posted a message to demand users' opinion concerning the future of the email client. "Are you someone who could contribute to such an effort? Do you have expertise and a desire to be involved in an innovative mail effort and / or a focused Thunderbird effort? If so, Mozilla would like to hear from you," Mozilla wrote.

Of course, Firefox had a huge success on the Internet because it was described as the Internet Explorer alternative, the browser included in the famous Windows operating system. "As a result, Mozilla doesn't focus on Thunderbird as much as we do browsing and Firefox and we don't expect this to change in the foreseeable future," the Mozilla stated. "We have concluded that we should find a new, separate organizational setting for Thunderbird; one that allows the Thunderbird community to determine its own destiny."

Now, what should Mozilla do with Thunderbird in order to keep the project alive and also develop the popular email client? It seems like the Firefox producer has 3 options: number one - to build a non-profit organization for Thunderbird that would be focused on the application, number two - a new subsidiary of Mozilla that would have the same responsibilities as the current Thunderbird team or number three - to continue working as an open source project based on users' support.

"We don't know the best answer yet. And we don't expect to without a broad public discussion and involvement, which we hope this message will trigger. Today someone suggested to me that perhaps there is another foundation that might be a good home for Thunderbird. I hadn't thought of this; it's a creative idea."