-Rafiq
http://rafiq.us

using an exchange server makes it pretty top notch.

Thunderbird has also other silly features, e.g., associating with a thread the time of the _first_ message rather than the one of the _last_.

Fact is, even pine is better than Thunderbird; way faster, and you can centralize both contact list and settings.

Thunderbird is headed to extinction, and I won’t regret it…

Separating TB operations into a standalone entity would only further reduce the growth.

Many many email clients ceased development in the last few years, despite some of them being relatively popular. It’s tough market.

I have tested Thunderbird few times, but to me my beloved Pocomail is still playing two leagues higher.

If you want an Outlook clone, there’s already Evolution. Why would anyone need two Outlook clones?

PIMs aren’t the be-all and end-all. Is there no room for a fast, light, not-resource-intensive standalone email client?

In any case, even if that is the Thunderbird developers’ aim they’re years away from that. Good grief, Thunderbird hasn’t even got a decent address book: it can’t import vCards, can’t store images, and can’t sync with a portable device. So let’s not talk about running before we can walk.

The reason Thunderbird hasn’t really taken off would no doubt be users aren’t happy with it. No other reason…

As soon as all WebMails are not offering local backups, clients such as Thunderbird will be needed.

I personally use Thunderbird (with PGP encryption extension) to backup my Hushmail accounts and my Gmail accounts…

I’m a Thunderbird fanatic. It would be really depressing for me if they let it wither and become a tiny niche product.

Email is for old people. Anyone that still uses email for personal textual communications is an anachronistic waste of air and water. Email is only useful for business crap (receipts when shopping, employees that “don’t get text messaging”, etc…).

Stop using email and end 95% of the Spam problem (think of what we could do with the extra non-Spam bandwidth!?!).

“The Mozilla Foundation and Qualcomm have announced that future versions of the Eudora mail client will be based on Mozilla Thunderbird.”

“Thunderbird and Eudora will remain separate products…”

“The mission to migrate Eudora to a Thunderbird-based application will be known as the Penelope project.”

Much of the sentiment above has Thunderbird as being dumped. And Mitchell’s posting failed to even mention Eudora/Penelope. I have to say that it sure does not feel like forward motion for any of these mail clients.

Written as an increasingly sad user of Eudora from the very early days.

Major problems of Thunderbird include:
1. It’s slow
2. Search function is pathetic
3. Mail and Calendar go hand-in-hand, and after all these years Thunderbird still does not have decent Calendar support
4. Not one of my clients are interested in switching to Thunderbird because it is not a viable replacement for Microsoft Outlook (whereas many are active users of Firefox)

The writing is on the wall – Thunderbird is rushing towards becoming a niche product. Smart move by the Mozilla Foundation.

For now It meets my needs although if the lighting plug in could get fleshed out a little more that would make my day.

I switch Outlook/Outlook Express users to it at least once a week and I can’t stand Apple Mail (hello lets get some decent IMAP support?).

It would be a shame to see Mozilla spin off T-bird, what they should do is put even more money and effort behind it. Thunderbird is at the same place (as far as adoption) that Firefox was years ago, lets rinse and repeat the success of Firefox rather than turn our back to a challenge.

A spin-off can be a mechanism to allow a group with greater ideas about how to exploit some assets to step in, but in an open source project, there is already very little blocking such a group from stepping in.

The more likely explanation is that Mozilla wants to integrate with Google’s services, and Thunderbird would complicate that.

I uninstalled thunderbird after I did not open it for many months. Gmail and Google Business Solutions (allowing domain names to use gmail) has ended my general need for some program on my computer.

The only time I might need something on my computer is when I am traveling with a laptop and no net connection … oh yeah, google gears might eliminate that need for a program on my comp soonish.

Mozilla isn’t “pondering” anything. This is clear cut move away from a “Mozilla” project and to a “Firefox” project. Thunderbird _will_ be spun off. The Mozilla Corporation and Foundation have been Firefox-focused for at least two years now; Thunderbird is dead weight to them. The arguments Mitchell has given in her post and in the comments of that post are nothing short of bull shit. The truth is, she can’t make it work because she doesn’t care to. Mozilla as a whole is being run as a business, not as an open source project. There will come a time in the not-to-distant future where Firefox won’t earn the revenue that it does now. When that happens, projects like Thunderbird are the ones that will keep Mozilla afloat… if they’re still around. I wonder how much money is just sitting in the bank now instead of being used for the “public benefit”.

If you look close enough, Duncan and Mike (Arrington), you’ll see this once vibrant, open source community is now killing itself off, piece by piece. You’d be wise to do a detailed post on the changes that are being made.

What Mozilla should do is implement a web-based email client as a plug-in for firefox. The open source email client must catch up with the direction things are going or it will eventually vanish into the hands of the giants (google, msn). It’s time for innovation, once again. I say use firefox for leverage into the web-based client industry.