Governance and Release Model updates

[Mark Banner]

As part of the summary of discussions on the governance and release
models, we have been putting together a fuller description of the module
owner and release driver system that has been proposed:

https://etherpad.mozilla.org/FKop5z1C5L

This has been based on the discussions so far, including the most recent
ones, and tries to address various concerns and questions that have been
raised.

In addition to this, we have now summarised the rest of the discussions
that have been taking place around the various areas of Thunderbird.
These have been updated on the wiki page:

https://wiki.mozilla.org/Thunderbird/Proposal:_New_Release_and_Governance_Model

Whilst we recognise that these can change over the longer time, we need
to be finalising these proposals by 6th November. This will then give us
time to prepare announcements to push out about the completed release
and governance model at the same time as the Thunderbird 17 release on
20th November.

Therefore, please provide comments as soon as possible. To aid our
effort in completing this, if there are parts you are not sure about, it
would really help to have counter-proposals/suggested wordings.

Thanks
Mark

[Gervase Markham]

On 23/10/12 18:53, Mark Banner wrote:
> Therefore, please provide comments as soon as possible. To aid our
> effort in completing this, if there are parts you are not sure about, it
> would really help to have counter-proposals/suggested wordings.

This seems generally excellent as a place to start. I'm sure, like the
rest of the project, arrangements will change over time as circumstances
change.

A few nits:

"product externalities" - what are these? Is this stuff like FileLink
etc.? If so, it might be worth defining.

"engagement purposes" - does that mean "getting people to use
Thunderbird"? If so, why does money from product externalities need to
be restricted in such a limited way?

"Money generated by donations is to be used for engagement or other
purposes. Donations are for general purposes."

-> These two sentences say the same thing.

"The module owners group at large decides by consensus money spending
community propositions."

-> This could do with a little clarification of the English. Are the TB
module owners going to have their own mailing list for this sort of
discussion?

Gerv
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tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

[Ben Bucksch]

OK, my feedback, on 3 points:

Ownership:
Given that Mozilla Corp has removed most funding, and the current owners
can no longer invest as much time, please actively hand over ownership
to volunteer contributors *now*. We have a number of people who have
proven that they are interested in Thunderbird development, and shown
long-term commitment, and proven coding skills and good judgment.
There's no need to wait any further, please approve the new owners now.
I am particularly thinking of aceman and protz, but also jcramner, rkent
and a number of others.

I can also see a little bit of fresh air going through TB, good
decisions are made, volunteers focus on valuable things like outgoing
filters. This is great and gives me a bit of hope. But to use that
momentum, we need to put those good contributors actually in charge,
both to allow them to use the momentum they have now, and to keep them
long-term. If the module owners stay as they are right now, TB will soon
die a honorable death of old age, instead of using this opportunity to
refresh.

Money:
Please define "engagement".
I wholly disagree with the sentence "Therefore, paid-for development
should not be considered.". I think that development is (apart from
servers and machines) the most valuable that an open source project can
invest in. I understand the political side, but the module owners just
need to agree among themselves, and I think they can.

ISPDB:
"ispdb expected to be brought up to replace the static files for
autoconfig."
I disagree here, I think the static approach using SVN we have right now
is more secure for the high-value sites that we currently have.

[Blake Winton]

On 02-11-12 14:00 , Ben Bucksch wrote:
> Ownership:
> Given that Mozilla Corp has removed most funding, and the current
> owners can no longer invest as much time, please actively hand over
> ownership to volunteer contributors *now*. We have a number of people
> who have proven that they are interested in Thunderbird development,
> and shown long-term commitment, and proven coding skills and good
> judgment. There's no need to wait any further, please approve the new
> owners now. I am particularly thinking of aceman and protz, but also
> jcramner, rkent and a number of others.
>
> I can also see a little bit of fresh air going through TB, good
> decisions are made, volunteers focus on valuable things like outgoing
> filters. This is great and gives me a bit of hope. But to use that
> momentum, we need to put those good contributors actually in charge,
> both to allow them to use the momentum they have now, and to keep them
> long-term.

From personal experience, we would be doing them a much larger favour
by letting them remain contributors instead of forcing them to take over
the code reviews and endless arguing about direction. ;)

(But, as I've said before, if someone else feels like they want to take
over as the UX lead, I would be happy to step down and get back to
fixing things. On the other hand, at this point, I'm a volunteer, so
perhaps I should keep the role…)

Which kind of brings me to my main point. Aceman, protz, jcranmer,
rkent, do any of you actually want to be the module owners for
Thunderbird, or would you rather continue fixing things and driving the
direction of Thunderbird by doing the work you're interested in?

> Money:
> Please define "engagement".
> I wholly disagree with the sentence "Therefore, paid-for development
> should not be considered.". I think that development is (apart from
> servers and machines) the most valuable that an open source project
> can invest in. I understand the political side, but the module owners
> just need to agree among themselves, and I think they can.

I agree that development is one of the most important things a company
can invest in an open source project, but I don't think that module
owners will be able to overrule Mozilla's decision in this case, and so
not considering paid-for (by Mozilla) development seems like the best
option available.

(Think about it this way: If Mozilla was going to pay for Thunderbird
feature development, why would they be removing paid-for developers?)

> ISPDB:
> "ispdb expected to be brought up to replace the static files for
> autoconfig."
> I disagree here, I think the static approach using SVN we have right
> now is more secure for the high-value sites that we currently have.

As long as the security team is happy with the ISPDB code, I don't see
what the problem with switching is.

Later,
Blake.

--
Blake Winton UX Engineer
bwi...@mozilla.com

[ace]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Governance and Release Model updates
From: Blake Winton <bwi...@mozilla.com>
To: tb-pl...@mozilla.org
Date: Fri, 02 Nov 2012 21:45:41 -0400
> Which kind of brings me to my main point. Aceman, protz, jcranmer,
> rkent, do any of you actually want to be the module owners for
> Thunderbird, or would you rather continue fixing things and driving the
> direction of Thunderbird by doing the work you're interested in?

The second option for me please :)

aceman

[Patrick Ben Koetter]

* Ben Bucksch <ben.b...@beonex.com>:

> ISPDB:
> "ispdb expected to be brought up to replace the static files for
> autoconfig."
> I disagree here, I think the static approach using SVN we have right
> now is more secure for the high-value sites that we currently have.

We could use automx <http://automx.org> to serve the autoconfig profiles from
SQL, LDAP and or static files or retrieve values from script results.

p@rick

--
state of mind ()

http://www.state-of-mind.de

Franziskanerstraße 15 Telefon +49 89 3090 4664
81669 München Telefax +49 89 3090 4666

Amtsgericht München Partnerschaftsregister PR 563

[Kent James]

On 11/2/2012 6:45 PM, Blake Winton wrote:

Which kind of brings me to my main point. Aceman, protz, jcranmer, rkent, do any of you actually want to be the module owners for Thunderbird, or would you rather continue fixing things and driving the direction of Thunderbird by doing the work you're interested in.

The short answer is that I am not currently interested in taking on a "module ownership" position and its responsibilities.

Here's the longer answer.

I want Thunderbird to be a career, not a hobby. I am not motivated to spend lots of my free time donating my experience "so that enterprises can have free software" (which is the phrase that Mitchell Baker used in our conversation, describing why it does not make sense for Mozilla to donate significant funds to Thunderbird.) I don't really want to discourage those who are so motivated, yet that is hard without being completely silent about my own perspective. Still, I intend to spend about 10 hours per week on public Thunderbird work, as my responsibility to "give back" to the project, while I spend the bulk of my time on my own extension work.

At this point, I am convinced that what is really needed is a rework in direction for the mailnews client, allowing resources to be devoted to 1) enterprise-friendly options and features, 2) better compatibility with the mobile and web space, 3) fixing old bugs, and 4) expanded protocol capability beyond traditional IMAP. For that to happen, the project management would need to really focus on developing income, as we would need at least $1,000,000 per year to make any real progress. This is not going to happen with an all-volunteer project - nor should it happen that way, as "free (as in beer) software for enterprises" is not a cause worthy of our efforts.

What is not clear is whether that is even possible given the current market and product realities. JB is in the best position to know this, and he really doubts it.

But what is clear is that Mozilla (which also means "Thunderbird")� has no interest in this battle. For Thunderbird to even attempt this direction would have significant risk and controversy, and that is exactly the last thing that Mozilla wants for Thunderbird right now. The culture is such that a minority of people opposed to a focus on income generation would try to claim the moral high ground, and derail the focus that would be needed. This is not intended as a criticism of Mozilla, they have chosen their direction, Thunderbird is not it, and they don't want to risk any problems in their other projects by being forced to resolve basic values conflicts over Thunderbird's direction. It's safer to just accept the status quo, even though that does not lead to a vibrant future for Thunderbird.

So making progress, IMHO, would have to be done with a different trademark that would protect Mozilla from the issues. (Two years ago, I even the reserved the name "SwanFox" as a potential name for such an alternate trademark.) But that removes the possibility of generating income in the short term, which is tied to the Thunderbird brand. A fork is not the answer, PostBox tried that and by my analysis is struggling right now. Instead, you would want to "wrap" Thunderbird with alternate packaging, support, and extensions, preserving compatibility with all of the previous and future Thunderbird work and extensions. You also need to maintain a sense of cooperation between the alternate brand and Thunderbird, avoiding any appearance of an unfriendly split or coup. None of this is easy.

So that is where I am at. Personally I am content with my current direction, which is focusing my energies on developing the Exchange Web Services capabilities for email, while� putting in my fair share to make sure that Thunderbird lives. So far, Thunderbird 18 and 19 seem to be going just fine, which is encouraging. Yet I still have this lingering sense that there is a missed opportunity here to develop a serious player in the communications client market using the Mozilla base code. Perhaps if we had 10 people seriously interested in pursuing this, then we could make progress.

:rkent

[Mark Banner]

On 02/11/2012 18:00, Ben Bucksch wrote:
> Ownership:
> Given that Mozilla Corp has removed most funding, and the current
> owners can no longer invest as much time, please actively hand over
> ownership to volunteer contributors *now*.

I'm not sure if you intended on it sounding like this, however speaking
generally, because a person moves from full-time to part-time (or not
paid at all), shouldn't automatically mean they should be pushed
out/replaced from module ownership.

Personally, as a module owner, I am still committed to helping improve
Thunderbird, providing guidance, reviews etc. Yes, I may no longer be
paid to work on Thunderbird full-time, but I would still like to
continue to offer my skills and experience in my volunteer time. I'll
admit, that my commitment may change over the next few months or years,
and if so, I'll take myself off the list.

If, on the other hand, you have a specific concern with one or more
module owners, please come and discuss it direct with us.

With all that said, I would absolutely love for more people to become
peers, sub-module owners, and module owners (this has just reminded me
that I forgot to move your offers forward - that I will do next week). I
would also say, that if anyone wants to take on more responsibility,
please feel free to put yourself forward. We in the past have tended to
ask/suggest people when we feel they have the necessary experience, but
we've not always noticed as soon as we could do perhaps.

> I can also see a little bit of fresh air going through TB, good
> decisions are made, volunteers focus on valuable things like outgoing
> filters. This is great and gives me a bit of hope. But to use that
> momentum, we need to put those good contributors actually in charge,
> both to allow them to use the momentum they have now, and to keep them
> long-term. If the module owners stay as they are right now, TB will
> soon die a honorable death of old age, instead of using this
> opportunity to refresh.

I definitely agree there has been some good fresh air, and what I really
like have been some of the community-lead initiatives like papercuts and
"the list", where discussions have been held and outcomes reached, these
didn't need to start, or come from the module owners.

> Money:
> Please define "engagement".

This is really community engagement where we can provide swag (e.g.
t-shirts, and other things), community meet-ups, and whatever else that
is reasonable that we can think of would encourage and enhance community
involvement.

> ISPDB:
> "ispdb expected to be brought up to replace the static files for
> autoconfig."
> I disagree here, I think the static approach using SVN we have right
> now is more secure for the high-value sites that we currently have.

The issue I have with the static approach is that it is manual process
that takes up more time than really necessary and is difficult for
people to hook into (e.g. bugzilla account required, filing a bug,
working out the format, reviews, checking in etc). With Gaia starting to
use autoconfig as well as other apps, I am expecting that we may get
more submissions which will be much easier to handle with an online
service. Of course, as Blake mentioned, we'll also get the necessary
security reviews before rolling it out.

Mark

[Andrew Sutherland]

On 11/05/2012 03:08 AM, Mark Banner wrote:
>> ISPDB:
>> "ispdb expected to be brought up to replace the static files for
>> autoconfig."
>> I disagree here, I think the static approach using SVN we have right
>> now is more secure for the high-value sites that we currently have.
> The issue I have with the static approach is that it is manual process
> that takes up more time than really necessary and is difficult for
> people to hook into (e.g. bugzilla account required, filing a bug,
> working out the format, reviews, checking in etc). With Gaia starting
> to use autoconfig as well as other apps, I am expecting that we may
> get more submissions which will be much easier to handle with an
> online service. Of course, as Blake mentioned, we'll also get the
> necessary security reviews before rolling it out.

I had a talk with the privacy people before we (partially) implemented
autoconfig for Gaia. (We don't do domain guessing yet and we can't
support certificate exceptions.)

The privacy team seemed happiest if we could do our MX lookups from the
device (platform still can't do it) and just stored the ISP database
locally on the device, since that takes the security of the ISP database
server out of the loop. Right now we do ask the server because we have
to ask it for the MX lookups anyways, so there's no real benefit to
storing the entire ISP database locally. We are still interested in
moving to storing the database locally once the platform allows, and
assuming we can make it small enough that it doesn't fill up the device.

I am generally in agreement with Ben about the dynamic implementation
being a bit scary. A compromised ISP database server has great
potential to man-in-the-middle attack new account creation, and the
dynamic implementation arguably has at least an order of magnitude more
surface area to attack. This is partially mitigated by the fact that we
are locally installing ISP database entries in gaia for the most popular
services and ActiveSync's auto-discovery process will run prior to
consulting the ISP database, just as we look for autoconfig.DOMAIN
entries prior to consulting the ISP database.

My main concern is that security will do a quick pass on it (they have
limited time), see no problems in the code proper, but the backing
libraries like Django or whatever it uses will have a security issue and
the ISP database won't be actively maintained by anyone and then we are
boned. If we are able to get webdev to adopt it, that would be good.
B2G/gaia may be able to provide the impetus to give it to webdev, or we
may be able to eventually provide review bandwidth (possibly augmented
by offline verification of the proposed ISP database entries.) B2G has
a work week this week and I will try and raise the issue with product
management.

Andrew

[Jonathan Protzenko]

I've intentionally stayed out of the discussions so far, but since I'm
somehow asked for a statement, here it is. I believe it's a little
premature to engage into big discussions as to what the responsabilities
of various people should be. What about we let things evolve naturally
and let people who have enough time step in and contribute as they please ?

As to my personal case, I'm fairly busy right now, so I haven't tackled
any massive feature work on Thunderbird in the past few months, but as a
module peer, I make sure that whenever I'm asked for advice / a review,
I respond in a timely manner.

Therefore, I guess my answer is "please don't make me a module owner as
it wouldn't change anything in my opinion ; just let me contribute and
review whenever I have time, and things should sort out by themselves".

Cheers,

jonathan

[Joshua Cranmer]

On 11/2/2012 8:45 PM, Blake Winton wrote:
> Which kind of brings me to my main point. Aceman, protz, jcranmer,
> rkent, do any of you actually want to be the module owners for
> Thunderbird, or would you rather continue fixing things and driving
> the direction of Thunderbird by doing the work you're interested in?

I have the sobering problem that my desired commitments greatly exceed
the available time in the day, as might be evidenced by the delay in
responding to this email. The reality is that my bandwidth for being
able to do reviews is rather low, so I don't have a stellar
review-turnaround time--especially if it's code I'm unfamiliar with. I
can be on hand for technical discussions and commentary, but I don't
think there would be much gained by adding me as a generic catch-all
reviewer.

--
Joshua Cranmer
News submodule owner
DXR coauthor

[Gervase Markham]

On 04/11/12 21:00, Kent James wrote:
> I want Thunderbird to be a career, not a hobby.

An entirely reasonable desire.

> At this point, I am convinced that what is really needed is a rework in
> direction for the mailnews client, allowing resources to be devoted to
> 1) enterprise-friendly options and features, 2) better compatibility
> with the mobile and web space, 3) fixing old bugs, and 4) expanded
> protocol capability beyond traditional IMAP. For that to happen, the
> project management would need to really focus on developing income, as
> we would need at least $1,000,000 per year to make any real progress.

You may be right.

If you think Postbox is failing at this, what makes you think another
effort would succeed?

> But what /is/ clear is that Mozilla (which also means "Thunderbird")

> has no interest in this battle. For Thunderbird to even attempt this
> direction would have significant risk and controversy, and that is
> exactly the last thing that Mozilla wants for Thunderbird right now. The
> culture is such that a minority of people opposed to a focus on income
> generation would try to claim the moral high ground, and derail the
> focus that would be needed.

I think we need to distinguish. I would oppose people who are opposed to
all forms of income generation by anyone; but I would suggest that
Mozilla has already tried generating income from Thunderbird and not
succeeded to the degree necessary, so if there are going to be efforts
surrounding Thunderbird which generate income, I think it's a political
reality that they will need to be organizationally independent of
Mozilla-the-organization.

Gerv

[Kent James]

On 11/8/2012 6:27 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> On 04/11/12 21:00, Kent James wrote:
>
>> At this point, I am convinced that what is really needed is a rework in
>> direction for the mailnews client, allowing resources to be devoted to
>> 1) enterprise-friendly options and features, 2) better compatibility
>> with the mobile and web space, 3) fixing old bugs, and 4) expanded
>> protocol capability beyond traditional IMAP. For that to happen, the
>> project management would need to really focus on developing income, as
>> we would need at least $1,000,000 per year to make any real progress.
>
> You may be right.
>
> If you think Postbox is failing at this, what makes you think another
> effort would succeed?

That's the key question isn't it? To believe in success, we have to
explain not only why Postbox is struggling* but also why both JB and
David Ascher failed to generate sufficient income to continue funding
development.

Briefly though, here's theories on each of these:

Postbox: As a fork, they lost access to the innovations that were being
funded by Mozilla in Thunderbird without considerable backporting
effort, plus addons were not directly compatible. They really have no
effective market differentation from Thunderbird that I can see, other
than trying to be a better Thunderbird. If Mozilla had reduced their
funding for Thunderbird in 2007 instead of 2012 (which is probably the
bet that Postbox made and lost) they would have done much better.

Mozilla (JB & DA): To believe that both of these failed to generate
sufficient income, you have to believe that there is something in
Mozilla culture or organization that prevented them from seeing or
pursuing other paths. There are plenty of candidates: 1) not enough
focus on the enterprise, 2) too much focus on hoping to fulfill
Mozilla's mandate of gaining internet influence, 3) complacency born of
dependency on Firefox income, 4) protecting a Mozilla image that relies
implicitly on that same Firefox income, 5) strong belief in Mozilla that
desktop clients like Thunderbird are obsolete, 6) unable to pursue
directions that involve direct payment from users.

But these are theories only. Still, the "JB and DA" story is one of the
reasons that people like myself and BenB keep trying to make the case
that there needs to be a more radical break from the past governance if
there is to be any hope of a revitalization of Thunderbird.

>
>> For Thunderbird to even attempt this
>> direction would have significant risk and controversy, and that is
>> exactly the last thing that Mozilla wants for Thunderbird right now.
>

> I think it's a political reality that they will need to be
> organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization.
>
> Gerv

I'm so glad to hear you say that. It's been difficult to talk about
possible alternate governance of a future Mozilla-based communications
client without being viewed as anti-Mozilla, or trying some sort of coup.

To avoid the Postbox situation, it really is important that this
"organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization" entity be at
least cooperative with, and ideally highly symbiotic with Thunderbird.

I'm still considering possible futures. If anyone else is interested in
discussing this more, what do you think would be the best forum for that?

:rkent

===========================================

*Postbox

Here's my evidence that Postbox is struggling:

1) They cut their price in half, which is never a sign of strength.
2) They no longer provide any path for user support, not even a
user-to-user forum.
3) One of their founders, Seth Spitzer, is now working for Zygna. His
page at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sspitzer describes Postbox as having
"tens of thousands of paying customers". That means that their total
sales over 5 years have probably been less than $1,000,000 - certainly
not enough to fund 3 full-time silicon valley types.
4) They did not even incorporate Gecko 10, so they have no path
currently for security updates. If they announce a new version that
incorporates Gecko 17 in the next few months, I'll have to revise my
evaluation.

But they are still doing releases, did a 3.06 this week.

[Gervase Markham]

On 09/11/12 23:01, Kent James wrote:
> Mozilla (JB & DA): To believe that both of these failed to generate
> sufficient income, you have to believe that there is something in
> Mozilla culture or organization that prevented them from seeing or
> pursuing other paths.

Or that it's just not possible.

> There are plenty of candidates: 1) not enough
> focus on the enterprise, 2) too much focus on hoping to fulfill
> Mozilla's mandate of gaining internet influence, 3) complacency born of
> dependency on Firefox income, 4) protecting a Mozilla image that relies
> implicitly on that same Firefox income, 5) strong belief in Mozilla that
> desktop clients like Thunderbird are obsolete, 6) unable to pursue
> directions that involve direct payment from users.

I don't know JB that well really, but I know David Ascher is a smart
guy. I'm pretty sure that 5, 4 and 3 were not factors.

1) and 2) may be true, and may be connected, but I don't think either
man needs to apologise for trying to see how best to fulfill the Mozilla
mission, given that he was being paid by Mozilla. Messaging is currently
heading down a more proprietary path; Mozilla would very much like to
stop that. And that remains true irrespective of whether "make
Thunderbird" is an important piece of our response or not.

>>> For Thunderbird to even attempt this
>>> direction would have significant risk and controversy, and that is
>>> exactly the last thing that Mozilla wants for Thunderbird right now.
>>
>> I think it's a political reality that they will need to be
>> organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization.
>

> I'm so glad to hear you say that. It's been difficult to talk about
> possible alternate governance of a future Mozilla-based communications
> client without being viewed as anti-Mozilla, or trying some sort of coup.

I don't want to be misunderstood; I was saying that if an organization
wants to go out and *raise funds for employing people* to develop the
codebase, I think it would need to be not-Mozilla. But then I point out
that Postbox tried something like this, and don't seem to have done all
that well. So I wonder whether it would work.

However, I'm not saying that I'm in favour of moving Thunderbird the
product and brand out from the Mozilla umbrella.

> To avoid the Postbox situation, it really is important that this
> "organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization" entity be at
> least cooperative with, and ideally highly symbiotic with Thunderbird.

I would hope any organization, company or group wanting to work on the
Thunderbird codebase would be cooperative with Thunderbird!

> I'm still considering possible futures. If anyone else is interested in
> discussing this more, what do you think would be the best forum for that?

Here seems fine to me :-)

> 3) One of their founders, Seth Spitzer, is now working for Zygna. His
> page at http://www.linkedin.com/in/sspitzer describes Postbox as having
> "tens of thousands of paying customers". That means that their total
> sales over 5 years have probably been less than $1,000,000 - certainly
> not enough to fund 3 full-time silicon valley types.

Depends if by "customers" he means "people" or "companies".

Gerv

[Vincent]

Hi,

About monetization, just wanted to highlight the fact that, in my opinion, there is still a lot to do.

The NextSend case is a good example : we have a French hosting service provider which claim that he would like to do a partnership in order to be integrated in Thunderbird. The only answer that is given to him his: first do an add-on, and then we may consider to do something... In my opinion, Mozilla should have taken more attention to this demand,try to contact him directly by phone or something like this. Maybe it is not possible with the current organization, but it is a pity because some commercials opportunity may be lost (although it  is not too late for NextSend, it seems to me that a lot of time has been waste).

Developing local partnership with hosting services dedicated to enterprise is in my opinion something good for Thunderbird's future (which could be more famous in the enterprise market) and users (which like to use localize services in Thunderbird, and not only US hosting services).

However, I must admit that I have no idea of the amounts of these partnerships, maybe it is very little and shouldn't worth discussing it?

Kindest regards,

[nea...@gmx.de]

Am Mo 12 Nov 2012 11:35:04 CET schrieb Gervase Markham:
>
> I don't want to be misunderstood; I was saying that if an organization
> wants to go out and *raise funds for employing people* to develop the
> codebase, I think it would need to be not-Mozilla. But then I point
> out that Postbox tried something like this, and don't seem to have
> done all that well. So I wonder whether it would work.
>
> However, I'm not saying that I'm in favour of moving Thunderbird the
> product and brand out from the Mozilla umbrella.
>
>>
>> To avoid the Postbox situation, it really is important that this
>> "organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization" entity be at
>> least cooperative with, and ideally highly symbiotic with Thunderbird.
>

All the time Postbox was released and went thru some improvement cycles
I was wondering how silent the Thunderbird community was, may be I
haven't listen to right channels.
Now different voices are pointing to it telling us that experience
failed .. or is going to fail. If they fail, I think it's like with any
relation both side have their part. Is it too late to correct? Think
Postbox has good experience, people .. I'm sure the Thunderbird
community could win with them.
So I would applaud if Mozilla/Thunderbird consider also to have a closer
look at their model .. or if there is a possibility for a business
concept to re-combine both.

Günter

[Kent James]

On 11/12/2012 2:35 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:

For Thunderbird to even attempt this
direction would have significant risk and controversy, and that is
exactly the last thing that Mozilla wants for Thunderbird right now.

I think it's a political reality that they will need to be
organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization.

I'm so glad to hear you say that. It's been difficult to talk about
possible alternate governance of a future Mozilla-based communications
client without being viewed as anti-Mozilla, or trying some sort of coup.

I don't want to be misunderstood; I was saying that if an organization wants to go out and *raise funds for employing people* to develop the codebase, I think it would need to be not-Mozilla. But then I point out that Postbox tried something like this, and don't seem to have done all that well. So I wonder whether it would work.

However, I'm not saying that I'm in favour of moving Thunderbird the product and brand out from the Mozilla umbrella.

Note that I used the phrase "future Mozilla-based communications client" and not "Thunderbird".

I've pretty much accepted that Mozilla for the foreseeable future is not going to participate in any activity where Mozilla is managing activities to pay for future innovation in a communications client based on the Thunderbird code.

If that is the practical reality, then the best thing that you could do would be to continue to confirm that position. The worst thing that Mozilla could do would be to encourage continued discussion under the "Mozilla umbrella" about the issue, thus sucking strength away from the not-Mozilla entity without really providing a valid outlet for real discussions that have a chance of changing something. (This is not an accusation that you have done such a thing, only an encouragement to be clear about what Mozilla is *not* going to do, so that others would have the freedom to do it.)

So when Vincent writes "about monetization, just wanted to highlight the fact that, in my opinion, there is still a lot to do" you would say "fine, but that is out of scope for Mozilla, please discuss this with the not-Mozilla entity".

Unless I hear a strong statement otherwise, I am going to consider Standard8's "Therefore, paid-for development should not be considered" and your "efforts surrounding Thunderbird which generate income ... will need to be organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization " as definitive. We need a not-Mozilla organization.

:rkent

[Jb Piacentino]

Vincent,

Please see my inline comments.

On 11/11/12 23:01, Vincent wrote:

Hi,

About monetization, just wanted to highlight the fact that, in my opinion, there is still a lot to do.

The NextSend case is a good example : we have a French hosting service provider which claim that he would like to do a partnership in order to be integrated in Thunderbird. The only answer that is given to him his: first do an add-on, and then we may consider to do something... In my opinion, Mozilla should have taken more attention to this demand,try to contact him directly by phone or something like this. Maybe it is not possible with the current organization, but it is a pity because some commercials opportunity may be lost (although it  is not too late for NextSend, it seems to me that a lot of time has been waste).

This is not fair: NextSend has come at the eleventh hour, too late to be integrated in Thunderbird 17. Next train will be Thunderbird 24, unless, we, as a community, decide to do an intermediate release. I think we all will be happy to bring NextSend in and negociate their service distribution through Thunderbird. I have personally answered NextSend and explained this in details, as you very well know.
Also, please consider that when it comes to making the choice between
1) forcing a revenue generating opportunity to the Thunderbird core by breaching TB QA policies, to the risk of destabilizing the product,
vs.
2) providing _users_ with the same benefits through an addon and not making money immediately,
I hope we can all agree that we recommend doing an addon. At least, it's my position and has been my decision.

Developing local partnership with hosting services dedicated to enterprise is in my opinion something good for Thunderbird's future (which could be more famous in the enterprise market) and users (which like to use localize services in Thunderbird, and not only US hosting services).

Re: Enterprise partners, YSI & Box are first and foremost Enterprise service providers. I which we had similar choices for email (But it's not too late: email providers are added online and can therefore be proposed at any time).
I cannot agree more on the need to have local partners. For Filelink, we have looked at many local providers, including in France and Germany: None considered it worthy enough at that time. Gandi, on the other hand, decided they wanted to take the bet, and they're in.

However, I must admit that I have no idea of the amounts of these partnerships, maybe it is very little and shouldn't worth discussing it?

Kindest regards,

[Jb Piacentino]

Kent,

"We need a not-Mozilla organization"... but you still want to be able to enjoy the 'Mozilla Thunderbird' brand? Can you please explain how you see this happening?

Jb

[Blake Winton]

I think having a not-Mozilla organization dedicated to enhancing Mozilla Thunderbird could work out well.  They wouldn't be responsible for releasing it, but I see no problem with them (say) charging money to support it in enterprises.  (Or, maybe we could look into a model like the "Microsoft Solution Providers", where other people build businesses around the Thunderbird codebase?)

Later,
Blake.

[John Crisp]

On 13/11/12 12:21, Jb Piacentino wrote:
>
> "We need a not-Mozilla organization"... but you still want to be able to
> enjoy the 'Mozilla Thunderbird' brand? Can you please explain how you
> see this happening?
>

Having followed most of the TB threads it would appear that the whole
thing is stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Go 'Not Mozilla' and risk losing the support in terms of cash, support,
branding etc

Go 'Mozilla' and risk being dragged slowly into the mire by a parent
body that has already made its position clear having cast the product
adrift.

No one really wants to pick up the cudgel (it's a big ask), but without
clear leadership and direction, the project will go nowhere whether it
is under Mozilla or not.

4 months after the announcement, and despite an enormous amount of
debate, I can't see that any real progress has been made. Lots of offers
to help, but no real solutions.

I really don't know what the answer is, but as a user the current
experience reminds me of watching a patient slowly and painfully
slipping away.

Personally I think that if Mozilla don't want to develop they have to
let it go completely. Put the code somewhere open and on a given date,
cut the ship lose. If current Mozilla TB developers choose to work on it
then that is fantastic. If Mozilla pays some of their hours to assist or
sponsors in other ways then so much the better.

But if it isn't 'released' from the Mozilla fold it is going to wither
and die where it is, because fundamentally Mozilla aren't interested in
developing it any more.

If it is released and dies in the open it's because it wasn't the
product that people wanted. Very sad, but such is life.

It may also have the effect of forcing some players hands - I am sure
there are some companies out there who might do more if either they had
too if Mozilla pulled out, or won't do more because they feel that
Mozilla were still going to be controlling the whole thing.

Wish I had the skills (or a big pot of cash) to do more !

B. Rgds
John

[Jb Piacentino]

Ok. This I understand and agree with.

Jb

[acel...@atlas.sk]

I understand it that some non-Mozilla organization could collect money and pay developers to create and push code into the existing Mozilla run repositories/release process. But even if this couldn't work, can't Mozilla transfer the branding to some other organization if needed?

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Jb Piacentino" <j...@mozilla.com>
> Komu: <tb-pl...@mozilla.org>
> Dátum: 13.11.2012 15:17
> Predmet: Re: Governance and Release Model updates

>
>Ok. This I understand and agree with.
>
>Jb
>On 13/11/12 15:13, Blake Winton wrote:
>> I think having a not-Mozilla organization dedicated to enhancing
>> Mozilla Thunderbird could work out well. They wouldn't be responsible
>> for releasing it, but I see no problem with them (say) charging money
>> to support it in enterprises. (Or, maybe we could look into a model
>> like the "Microsoft Solution Providers", where other people build
>> businesses around the Thunderbird codebase?)
>>
>> Later,
>> Blake.
>>
>> On 13-11-12 6:21 , Jb Piacentino wrote:
>>> Kent,
>>>
>>> "We need a not-Mozilla organization"... but you still want to be able
>>> to enjoy the 'Mozilla Thunderbird' brand? Can you please explain how
>>> you see this happening?
>>>
>>> Jb

[Jb Piacentino]

On 13/11/12 15:45, acel...@atlas.sk wrote:
> I understand it that some non-Mozilla organization could collect money and pay developers to create and push code into the existing Mozilla run repositories/release process. But even if this couldn't work, can't Mozilla transfer the branding to some other organization if needed?

I really doubt this would be practical as Mozilla will need to be sure
the product and brand value remains inline with the mission. But even
though, my suggestion is that we don't put the cart before the horse: as
expressed many, many times, I think we need to show there is enough
innovation to justify such a structure.

Having said that, nothing prevents any one from operating a company
focused on creating Thunderbird valuable additions and generate revenue
from it. This is nothing new, really.

[Kent James]

On 11/13/2012 3:21 AM, Jb Piacentino wrote:
> Kent,
>
> "We need a not-Mozilla organization"... but you still want to be able
> to enjoy the 'Mozilla Thunderbird' brand? Can you please explain how
> you see this happening?
>
> Jb

I think we can agree that the Thunderbird brand is one of the most
important assets that exists right now in our quest to improve the
product. And we can also agree that monetization is very difficult. Even
with the brand, you and David Ascher struggled to achieve levels
sufficient to sustain development. That will be even more difficult if
the brand is not available in any shape or form to the not-Mozilla
organization. So I think a lot of how to leverage the brand in ways that
would not be threatening to Mozilla, or that Mozilla would view as
contributing to their overall mission.

I'm getting tired of calling this the "not-Mozilla organization". I'll
be using the name "Swanfox" for this nascent entity in the future, so
let me just start using that here as well. (swanfox.con, swanfox.org,
@swanfox are all names I have reserved).

Let me just give a few examples of possible cooperative arrangements
that could exist.

1) In support: If a paid support option existed managed by Swanfox, then
the free support pages offered by Mozilla could point to the paid
support options provided by Swanfox. Even more extreme, they could be
integrated, so that paid support answers are also visible to the free
users, and free users who find their questions unanswered, or who need
more sophisticated support, would see clear choices to switch to a pay
support model.

2) Donations: Mozilla does not appear to have any interest in managing a
donation process surrounding Thunderbird. SwanFox could manage the
process, doing the front-end work to prepare the in-product
communications, and managing the developers that would be hired with the
donations to work on the core product.

3) Mobile: If Swanfox wanted to develop a mobile app that was designed
to work seamlessly with Thunderbird, then Mozilla could license the
trademark to Swanfox.

4) Addons: If Swanfox wanted to publish paid addons, then those addons
could be promoted directly within the Thunderbird product.

I don't see Swanfox as a traditional investor owned organization, but
closer to a coop of Thunderbird key contributors.

[Benjamin Kerensa]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Kent James <ke...@caspia.com> wrote:

On 11/13/2012 3:21 AM, Jb Piacentino wrote:

Kent,

"We need a not-Mozilla organization"... but you still want to be able to enjoy the 'Mozilla Thunderbird' brand? Can you please explain how you see this happening?

Jb

I think we can agree that the Thunderbird brand is one of the most important assets that exists right now in our quest to improve the product. And we can also agree that monetization is very difficult. Even with the brand, you and David Ascher struggled to achieve levels sufficient to sustain development. That will be even more difficult if the brand is not available in any shape or form to the not-Mozilla organization. So I think a lot of how to leverage the brand in ways that would not be threatening to Mozilla, or that Mozilla would view as contributing to their overall mission.

I'm getting tired of calling this the "not-Mozilla organization". I'll be using the name "Swanfox" for this nascent entity in the future, so let me just start using that here as well. (swanfox.con, swanfox.org, @swanfox are all names I have reserved).

Let me just give a few examples of possible cooperative arrangements that could exist.

1) In support: If a paid support option existed managed by Swanfox, then the free support pages offered by Mozilla could point to the paid support options provided by Swanfox. Even more extreme, they could be integrated, so that paid support answers are also visible to the free users, and free users who find their questions unanswered, or who need more sophisticated support, would see clear choices to switch to a pay support model.

    
   +1 for that idea

2) Donations: Mozilla does not appear to have any interest in managing a donation process surrounding Thunderbird. SwanFox could manage the process, doing the front-end work to prepare the in-product communications, and managing the developers that would be hired with the donations to work on the core product.

   I agree that donations are integral to getting events put together and other things so having a org for contributors could do that.
 

3) Mobile: If Swanfox wanted to develop a mobile app that was designed to work seamlessly with Thunderbird, then Mozilla could license the trademark to Swanfox.

I love the idea of Thunderbird for Android :)
 

4) Addons: If Swanfox wanted to publish paid addons, then those addons could be promoted directly within the Thunderbird product.

  and we could attract more add-on developers by offering paid addons

I don't see Swanfox as a traditional investor owned organization, but closer to a coop of Thunderbird key contributors.

:rkent
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

--
Benjamin Kerensa

http://benjaminkerensa.com

"I am what I am because of who we all are" - Ubuntu

[Jim]

On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 11:20 AM, Benjamin Kerensa <bker...@ubuntu.com> wrote:
> On Tue, Nov 13, 2012 at 8:50 AM, Kent James <ke...@caspia.com> wrote:
>> 3) Mobile: If Swanfox wanted to develop a mobile app that was designed to
>> work seamlessly with Thunderbird, then Mozilla could license the trademark
>> to Swanfox.
>
> I love the idea of Thunderbird for Android :)

I'd argue that it would make a whole lot more sense to port the
Firefox OS email app to other platforms than to try to port
Thunderbird. Most of the stuff you could reuse from Thunderbird is
backend code, and do we really want to write a new app that uses
libmime? (No.) The Firefox OS email app already reuses some
Thunderbird features, most notably the autoconfiguration database. As
time progresses, we'll incorporate more Thunderbird features;
reply-to-list is something in particular we really want to do.

- Jim

[Kent James]

On 11/13/2012 7:13 AM, Jb Piacentino wrote:
> I think we need to show there is enough innovation to justify such a
> structure.

Are you saying we need to show that there is a need for innovation, or
that we need to show that people will actually come forward and do
innovation.

re the need, I see huge holes in enterprise support, mobile support, and
many other areas. I myself have been trying to develop a compatible
setup where I can read and process emails under both Thunderbird and
Android, and frankly so far it has not been going well. If even I cannot
come up with a workable scheme of using Thunderbird and Android
together, then what hope does the average user?

re the people, discussions of monetization is IMHO absolutely critical
to getting and keeping experienced people involved in the project.

So I don't know what it is that you are looking for. I *think* what this
"enough innovation" discussion has been about in the past has concerned
whether volunteers will step forward. Very little of what I have
discussed has promoted that as the answer.

:rkent

[David Lechner]

For the last year, I have been working as a self-employed software
developer. I have been primarily working on customizing proprietary
software and I don't like the fact that due to the license of that
software, I cannot just give away what I have been doing. It seems like
such a waste of my effort for only one business to benefit. So, I have
been thinking about how I could make a living from open source software.
Since it relates to this discussion, I figured I would share my ideas
and apply them to Thunderbird.

I really like the OpenERP philosophy (http://www.openerp.com/node/465).
Basically, I think that if you want to make a living as a software
developer, you should be selling your services, not a product. My ideas

are something along the line of what Blake said:
> I think having a not-Mozilla organization dedicated to enhancing
> Mozilla Thunderbird could work out well. They wouldn't be responsible
> for releasing it, but I see no problem with them (say) charging money
> to support it in enterprises. (Or, maybe we could look into a model
> like the "Microsoft Solution Providers", where other people build
> businesses around the Thunderbird codebase?)

So here is my hypothetical future of Thunderbird...

First you have Mozilla. As has been stated before, Mozilla will continue
to provide infrastructure for testing (try servers), building (build
servers), and maintaining (bugzilla, wikis, getsatisfaction, etc.) and
personnel for security and stability fixes and driving releases. If an
external organization chose to fork the code, it would be an enormous
task to try to do these things themselves. Not a good idea. Rather,
Mozilla *needs* to be the keeper of the code.

Next, you have the volunteer contributors. These are the people who just
like Thunderbird and want to do something useful to make Thunderbird
better. These folks are already here and will most likely keep doing
what they are doing, so no need to explain further.

Now, following Kent's lead, we have Swanfox. (As a side note, I might
choose a name like ThunderbirdPros if you could get away with it).
Swanfox is a for-profit organization that sells services for Thunderbird
software. These services would include support, development, training,
and partner certification.

Support: As Kent mentioned:

> the free support pages offered by Mozilla could point to the paid
> support options provided by Swanfox. Even more extreme, they could be
> integrated, so that paid support answers are also visible to the free
> users, and free users who find their questions unanswered, or who need
> more sophisticated support, would see clear choices to switch to a pay
> support model

The 'more sophisticated support' could also include helpdesk type
services for large businesses.

Development: Swanfox could offer a bug fix service. For example, if
there is a bug that is not high priority for Mozilla or volunteers, but
is a real blocker for a business, then that business can hire Swanfox to
fix the bug and continue to use Thunderbird. And of course, the
Thunderbird Community as a whole gets to benefit from the fix. Swanfox
could also provide add-on development to integrate Thunderbird into a
business' specific enterprise needs. I suppose you could even venture
into product development. A mobile client is a hot topic at the moment,
so I will use that as an example. Having a mobile client that is
"designed to work seamlessly with Thunderbird" would defiantly be a big
appeal to many businesses.

Training: Swanfox could offer training services for a number of things.
They could offer end-user training for businesses that are using
Thunderbird as their email client. They could offer more technical
training for IT staff that have to support Thunderbird. They could also
offer developer training for those who want to become developers and
prefer a classroom experience to teaching themselves.

Partner certification: This is really the key here. The above tasks are
really too many and geographically spread out for a single organization
to take on. I see partners as people who want to work for themselves or
have their own business and use Thunderbird as part of their business
offerings. For example someone might want to start a business that
offers a complete email solution including a mail server and Thunderbird
as the client. Hopefully Swanfox would be very well known, so if this
partner could say that they were 'certified by Swanfox', that would
really mean something to their potential customers. Partners would earn
their certification by contributing to Thunderbird as a volunteer -
certification could not be just bought. Swanfox would maintain a
directory of partners so that potential customers could find someone
hopefully local and with the required expertise. Additionally, if
Swanfox had more requests than they could take on, they could outsource
to partners. Likewise, if a partner had a problem that was beyond their
expertise, they could outsource to Swanfox (or another partner).

So, in the end, hopefully what you get is Mozilla has an enterprise
grade mail client that they get to give away to promote a free and open
web, individuals who get to use enterprise grade software for free if
they want, businesses who get free software along with the level of
support that they need and jobs for people who want to make a living as
software developers.

:dlech

[Gervase Markham]

On 12/11/12 17:28, Kent James wrote:
> Unless I hear a strong statement otherwise, I am going to consider
> Standard8's "Therefore, paid-for development should not be considered"
> and your "efforts surrounding Thunderbird which generate income ... will
> need to be organizationally independent of Mozilla-the-organization " as
> definitive. We need a not-Mozilla organization.

I'm sadly not in a position to make definitive statements in this area
(JB may be able to), but if the question is: "Is Mozilla going to go
back to employing significant numbers of people full-time to work on
Thunderbird, effectively reversing the recent decision?", I would be
deeply surprised if the answer was anything but No.

So if people are interested in creating a not-Mozilla organization which
provides support and services for Thunderbird, and employs people to
work on the code, then that would be great. The thorny question is, of
course: if they shipped their own version rather than sometime directly
from Mozilla (e.g. if there were patches they needed which had not been
upstreamed), could it be called Thunderbird? That's a tough question
with a lot of grey, but I can see that the potential founders of such an
organization would want some clarity on it before pressing forward.

[Gervase Markham]

On 13/11/12 16:50, Kent James wrote:
> I'm getting tired of calling this the "not-Mozilla organization". I'll
> be using the name "Swanfox" for this nascent entity in the future, so
> let me just start using that here as well. (swanfox.con, swanfox.org,
> @swanfox are all names I have reserved).

Despite the fact that you've reserved the names, I think using something
with "fox" in the name for a product which is based on the Mozilla
codebase but is not a browser would be deeply confusing for people.

I also can't imagine a "swan-fox". What does that look like?

> 1) In support: If a paid support option existed managed by Swanfox, then
> the free support pages offered by Mozilla could point to the paid
> support options provided by Swanfox. Even more extreme, they could be
> integrated, so that paid support answers are also visible to the free
> users, and free users who find their questions unanswered, or who need
> more sophisticated support, would see clear choices to switch to a pay
> support model.

In Mozilla's early history, there was a paid support option for Mozilla,
from a 3rd party company who Netscape had engaged, and this possibility
was integrated. So it's not impossible that Mozilla could offer a
contract to Swanfox to provide paid support for Thunderbird on a
per-incident basis. Swanfox would probably have to make its money from
the customers rather than a fee from Mozilla, though.

> 2) Donations: Mozilla does not appear to have any interest in managing a
> donation process surrounding Thunderbird.

I'm not sure how you draw that conclusion; I have said several times on
the list that MoFo is indeed happy to do this.

> 3) Mobile: If Swanfox wanted to develop a mobile app that was designed
> to work seamlessly with Thunderbird, then Mozilla could license the
> trademark to Swanfox.

I think it's unlikely, although not impossible, that Mozilla would want
the Thunderbird mark used for on mail clients which shared little code
with Thunderbird itself, and which were developed by 3rd parties.

> 4) Addons: If Swanfox wanted to publish paid addons, then those addons
> could be promoted directly within the Thunderbird product.
>
> I don't see Swanfox as a traditional investor owned organization, but
> closer to a coop of Thunderbird key contributors.

I guess the question would be: does Swanfox have a privileged
relationship with Mozilla? Having their addons directly promoted inside
the Mozilla-shipped product would imply so. I wonder whether Mozilla
would be ideologically keener on a "level playing field" model, where
any number of companies could provide services around Thunderbird on an
equal basis.

Then again, if we don't even have one such company, there's not much
point planning for 10.

Gerv

[acel...@atlas.sk]

______________________________________________________________
> Od: "Gervase Markham" <ge...@mozilla.org>
> Komu: Kent James <ke...@caspia.com>
> Dátum: 14.11.2012 11:05

> Predmet: Re: Governance and Release Model updates
>

>So if people are interested in creating a not-Mozilla organization which
>provides support and services for Thunderbird, and employs people to
>work on the code, then that would be great. The thorny question is, of
>course: if they shipped their own version rather than sometime directly
>from Mozilla (e.g. if there were patches they needed which had not been
>upstreamed), could it be called Thunderbird? That's a tough question
>with a lot of grey, but I can see that the potential founders of such an
>organization would want some clarity on it before pressing forward.

I think this is an important point. Who decides what gets upstreamed? The module owners (for now). They will largely not be Mozilla employees. What if they become Swanfox employees? Then they can push anything Swanfox needs. I understand that then Mozilla would not be happy to have such a uncontrollable product under its brand.

On the other hand of Mozilla has any control of the module owners (or they are independent as today), how can Swanfox really provide any services or even contracts? There is no guarantee the Swanfox code gets upstream. They can push addons or a forked release (but not Mozilla branded).

Looks like a weird situation. Do I miss anything?

aceman

[acel...@atlas.sk]

_____________________________________________________________
> Od: "Gervase Markham" <ge...@mozilla.org>
> Komu: Kent James <ke...@caspia.com>
> Dátum: 14.11.2012 11:05
> Predmet: Re: Governance and Release Model updates
>

>> I don't see Swanfox as a traditional investor owned organization, but
>> closer to a coop of Thunderbird key contributors.
>
>I guess the question would be: does Swanfox have a privileged
>relationship with Mozilla? Having their addons directly promoted inside
>the Mozilla-shipped product would imply so. I wonder whether Mozilla
>would be ideologically keener on a "level playing field" model, where
>any number of companies could provide services around Thunderbird on an
>equal basis.
>
>Then again, if we don't even have one such company, there's not much
>point planning for 10.

There could be a level playing field for all companies. The module owners decide what gets upstreamed. What doesn't can be shipped as addons by the individual companies. Problem would be if a module owner becomea employee of any of the companies.

aceman

[Gervase Markham]

On 14/11/12 10:33, acel...@atlas.sk wrote:
> I think this is an important point. Who decides what gets upstreamed?
> The module owners (for now). They will largely not be Mozilla
> employees. What if they become Swanfox employees? Then they can push
> anything Swanfox needs. I understand that then Mozilla would not be
> happy to have such a uncontrollable product under its brand.

It is not necessarily a problem to have module owners be employees of
other companies; in fact, it's something Mozilla would like to see more
of. However, those people must understand that they wear two hats. If
someone is abusing their MO position for the benefit of their employer,
then there are complaint channels within Mozilla to raise that issue.
But I'm not aware of it ever having happened.

> On the other hand of Mozilla has any control of the module owners (or
> they are independent as today), how can Swanfox really provide any
> services or even contracts? There is no guarantee the Swanfox code
> gets upstream. They can push addons or a forked release (but not
> Mozilla branded).

That is the issue. Swanfox would want to be able to make guarantees to
its customers, but it cannot guarantee the content of a particular TB
release. So it would probably want to do its own releases, unless it
could use an addon to bridge the gap. Hence the branding question.

Gerv

[Walter Schwartz]

Just a users thoughts.

How about something along the lines of the SeaMonkey Council, and a separate thunderbird-project.org site, which is still accessible (but hard to find) through the link in "See even more awesome software based on Mozilla technologies" near the bottom of the Products page at mozilla.org?

I'm sure users would eventually bookmark thunderbird-project.org.

[Kent James]

On 11/14/2012 2:05 AM, Gervase Markham wrote:
> I guess the question would be: does Swanfox have a privileged
> relationship with Mozilla? Having their addons directly promoted
> inside the Mozilla-shipped product would imply so. I wonder whether
> Mozilla would be ideologically keener on a "level playing field"
> model, where any number of companies could provide services around
> Thunderbird on an equal basis.
>
> Then again, if we don't even have one such company, there's not much
> point planning for 10.

I like the way that you expressed this question, Gerv - "does Swanfox
have a privileged relationship with Mozilla"? The short answer is
ideally yes. How to do that in a way that is comfortable to Mozilla and
the Thunderbird community, and viable for the Swanfox contributors, is
of course a very difficult question. All I can ask for now is an open
mind. Nobody is agreeing to anything yet, nor will they for months, we
are just talking.

I think that one thing we can all agree on is that making this happen is
going to be extremely difficult, and we will need every advantage that
we can muster. After all, David Ascher's Momo company and JB's
Thunderbird labs project had an extremely privileged relationship to
Mozilla, and they failed to generate sufficient income to make
Thunderbird self-supporting. The goal here is to try to keep as many of
those privileges as possible, while identifying and shedding any
obstacles or biases that blocked progress. That is going to be a painful
process, as we have to deconstruct Mozilla culture and separate the
chaff from the core values. "Mozilla would be ideologically keener on a

'level playing field' model, where any number of companies could provide

services around Thunderbird on an equal basis" is a perfect example of
an existing expectation of Mozilla culture that may need to be rethought
as you focus on your true core values, like what is really in the best
long-term interest of Thunderbird users?

:rkent

[Kent James]

On 11/14/2012 2:33 AM, acel...@atlas.sk wrote:
> I think this is an important point. Who decides what gets upstreamed? The module owners (for now). They will largely not be Mozilla employees. What if they become Swanfox employees? Then they can push anything Swanfox needs. I understand that then Mozilla would not be happy to have such a uncontrollable product under its brand.
>
> On the other hand of Mozilla has any control of the module owners (or they are independent as today), how can Swanfox really provide any services or even contracts? There is no guarantee the Swanfox code gets upstream. They can push addons or a forked release (but not Mozilla branded).
>
> Looks like a weird situation. Do I miss anything?

The issues that would arise do not typically involve code-level
decisions, but business, branding, and strategy-level decisions. It is
more akin to the question "Do we ship Dropbox as a default option for
big files?" rather than "Do we add another default filter action?". The
first type of question has not traditionally been decided by module
owners. No responsible module owner or peer would accept code that
raised issues of that nature without referring to appropriate
authorities first. As for code hooks, it has never been a problem to get
backend hooks added to the Thunderbird base code that are need for
specialized applications or extensions, and I don't expect that will
change in the future.

Conflicts of interest will occur, though, and already do. Fallen is
supported by Linagora. I understand that Sid0 will be working for
Facebook. One of our overall module owners now is David Bienvenu, who
works for Google. Even within Mozilla, squib and asuth now work on the
Gaia email product, which is at least somewhat competitive with
Thunderbird. All of these are potential conflicts of interest that we
navigate already.

One of the keys to managing conflicts of interest is disclosure. There
is no shame in having conflicting interests, but there is shame in
hiding your biases. That is one of the reasons that I am constantly
asking for people to disclose their organizational affiliations,
including whether they are paid by Mozilla, and if so for what.

Yet even with these comments, your concerns and the concerns of other
people in your position are valid. We don't have much experience with
symbiotic relationships between independent organizations, and we have a
lot of experience of corporations pushing their narrow interests on the
rest of us.

So I think a lot about how to design Swanfox to be comfortable to
Mozilla, and to be comfortable to the Thunderbird key contributors. I
would hope that Mozilla would view Swanfox as an entity that is
promoting Mozilla values independently of Mozilla-the-organization, and
working in the best interest of Mozilla users. For the Thunderbird key
contributors, I would hope that there is some fluidity of affiliation
between Swanfox members and Thunderbird key contributors. For example,
Swanfox members would be expected to contribute to the Mozilla effort,
and Thunderbird key contributors would view Swanfox as a potential
career path should they decide that they need to earn some income from
the skills they have developed in the Thunderbird product.

Aceman, someday your significant other may start to ask why you are
working so hard and not getting any financial reward for what you are
doing, when others seem to be paid for doing the same work (Mine
certainly is!). Wouldn't you like to at least have a viable alternative
available to you? It would also be great if people like Sid0, squib,
jcranmer, Benb, bwinton, mconley, RealRaven, paenglab, protz, wsmwk,
magnus, Matt, Vincent, and I am sure others I have neglected, who have
developed significant experience around the Thunderbird product, would
have a viable career option available to them that involves continuing
to advance that code base, rather than being diverted to other
companies, or to other areas within Mozilla, or only participating a few
hours per week.

:rkent

[Kent James]

On 11/13/2012 1:15 PM, David Lechner wrote:
> I have been thinking about how I could make a living from open source
> software. Since it relates to this discussion, I figured I would share
> my ideas and apply them to Thunderbird.

"Make a living" is also where I am at.

> I really like the OpenERP philosophy
> (http://www.openerp.com/node/465). Basically, I think that if you want
> to make a living as a software developer, you should be selling your
> services, not a product. My ideas are something along the line of what
> Blake said:
>> I think having a not-Mozilla organization dedicated to enhancing
>> Mozilla Thunderbird could work out well. They wouldn't be responsible
>> for releasing it, but I see no problem with them (say) charging money
>> to support it in enterprises. (Or, maybe we could look into a model
>> like the "Microsoft Solution Providers", where other people build
>> businesses around the Thunderbird codebase?)
>

"dedicated to enhancing Mozilla Thunderbird" is not how I would describe
the core mission of Swanfox. Rather, Swanfox is a community that is
dedicated to providing income to its members, using means that are
consistent with Mozilla values, and working within the general area of
internet communications clients beginning with the Mozilla codebase.

"Mozilla Thunderbird" as currently envisioned by Mozilla is a desktop
email client whose future development will be done by volunteers. Any
time we try to push beyond those boundaries, we get pushback. At this
point in time, rather than continuing to push, I am ready to accept that
definition of Thunderbird, but claim that I am interested in something
else that I guess is not "Thunderbird".

> So here is my hypothetical future of Thunderbird...
>
> First you have Mozilla. As has been stated before, Mozilla will
> continue to provide infrastructure for testing (try servers), building
> (build servers), and maintaining (bugzilla, wikis, getsatisfaction,
> etc.) and personnel for security and stability fixes and driving releases.

I am not convinced that Mozilla really wants this job in the long run.
In the short run, yes, but the motivation is that they want to do the
right thing by their existing users, not that they really believe in a
long-term future for Thunderbird. So although I hope that Mozilla
continues to do these things, I am not willing to assume it.

> If an external organization chose to fork the code, it would be an
> enormous task to try to do these things themselves. Not a good idea.
> Rather, Mozilla *needs* to be the keeper of the code.

Nobody is proposing a fork, but "Mozilla *needs* to be the keeper of the
code" does not necessarily follow from "no fork". Again, in the short
run yes, but in the long run I am not positive that Mozilla really wants
Thunderbird, they are too-focused on "the web" with Thunderbird viewed
as an anachronism that no longer fits into their "everything is a web
app" rhetoric. When Axel and I discussed some of these issues with
Mitchell in Warsaw, she said that Mozilla would consider transferring
Thunderbird to another entity, but she would be more comfortable with a
non-profit.

I am talking very long term here, in the short run the assumption is
that Mozilla continues to do the same things, and owns and controls the
Thunderbird brand. Yet it is important when you start something new that
you do not make a mission statement or assumptions that you will regret
in the future.

>
> Next, you have the volunteer contributors. These are the people who
> just like Thunderbird and want to do something useful to make
> Thunderbird better. These folks are already here and will most likely
> keep doing what they are doing, so no need to explain further.

Actually an important issue for me is that we do not take volunteers for
granted. I specifically reject the idea that because someone has been
willing to do something as a volunteer in the past, that when we decide
to expand an activity for pay that we go outside to hire someone. Even
though taking a volunteer from, say, 10 hours per week for free to 20
hours per week for pay only adds 10 hours per week, while going outside
adds 20 hours per week, the organization needs to explicitly reject that
logic and offer first to honor their dedicated volunteers, should they
desire that.

>
> Now, following Kent's lead, we have Swanfox. (As a side note, I might
> choose a name like ThunderbirdPros if you could get away with it).
> Swanfox is a for-profit organization that sells services for
> Thunderbird software. These services would include support,
> development, training, and partner certification.
>
> Support: As Kent mentioned:
>> the free support pages offered by Mozilla could point to the paid
>> support options provided by Swanfox.

> The 'more sophisticated support' could also include helpdesk type
> services for large businesses.
>

+1 It should also include not only guaranteed response, but also
higher-tiered support, including involvement of core contributors if needed.

> Development: Swanfox could offer a bug fix service.

+1

> For example, if there is a bug that is not high priority for Mozilla
> or volunteers, but is a real blocker for a business, then that
> business can hire Swanfox to fix the bug and continue to use
> Thunderbird. And of course, the Thunderbird Community as a whole gets
> to benefit from the fix.

+1

> Swanfox could also provide add-on development to integrate Thunderbird
> into a business' specific enterprise needs.

I have done this for clients in the past. Swanfox could provide a
marketing and matchmaking role here.

> I suppose you could even venture into product development. A mobile
> client is a hot topic at the moment, so I will use that as an example.
> Having a mobile client that is "designed to work seamlessly with
> Thunderbird" would defiantly be a big appeal to many businesses.

+10! "designed to work seamlessly with Thunderbird" is exactly the goal
for such a client. It might even be based on the Gaia email app.

>
> Training: Swanfox could offer training services for a number of
> things. They could offer end-user training for businesses that are
> using Thunderbird as their email client. They could offer more
> technical training for IT staff that have to support Thunderbird. They
> could also offer developer training for those who want to become
> developers and prefer a classroom experience to teaching themselves.

I don't have much experience with this. I think that marketing of this
would be a real challenge.

>
> Partner certification: This is really the key here. The above tasks
> are really too many and geographically spread out for a single

> organization to take on. ... Hopefully Swanfox would be very well known.
The "well known" part I think is a killer here. For the foreseeable
future, the "Thunderbird" brand name is going to mean more than
Swanfox's brand (and Swanfox is really a project codename now and not a
brand), so this is a case where it would be essential for Mozilla to be
cooperative with their branding. Yet I fully agree that there needs to
be local organizations, and Swanfox is not the right entity to do that,
and we should be careful to be cooperative with rather than competitive
to such local organizations.

>
> So, in the end, hopefully what you get is Mozilla has an enterprise
> grade mail client that they get to give away to promote a free and
> open web, individuals who get to use enterprise grade software for
> free if they want, businesses who get free software along with the
> level of support that they need and jobs for people who want to make a
> living as software developers.

You used the concept of "free-as-in-beer" three times in that paragraph,
and "free-as-in-freedom" only once ("the free and open web"). We need to
have some really serious discussions about that. While I will defend
"free-as-in-freedom" as a core value, "free-as-in-beer" is the whole
reason that we are in the fix we are in, namely we have 20,000,000 users
and it seems to be an impossible task to get a nickel per year from each
of them so that we can have $1,000,000 to continue with a vibrant
product. The user's need to have a vibrant communications client is much
more important than their need to avoid paying $0.05 per year for that
product!

In our previously mentioned discussions with Mitchell, she said "Mozilla
has no interest in subsidizing a free software product for enterprises".
I'm fully in agreement with her there with respect to my personal
resources. Swanfox as I see it has no interest in promoting
free-as-in-beer as an intrinsic good. We provide something of value to
people, and we need to recoup some of that added value so that we can
earn a living, and continue to develop the product. If free-as-in-beer
is a tactic that we use, fine. But it is not a core value or mission.

Looking forward to your future involvement and discussions!

:rkent

[Tanstaafl]

On 2012-11-14 12:42 PM, Kent James <ke...@caspia.com> wrote:
> One of our overall module owners now is David Bienvenu, who works for
> Google. Even within Mozilla, squib and asuth now work on the Gaia email
> product, which is at least somewhat competitive with Thunderbird.

Since Gaia is where Mozilla is putting all of their resources, and since
I have heard many calls for a Mobile version of Thunderbird, why not
simply initiate an effort to create a Desktop App version of Gaia,
eventually to *replace* Thunderbird? I understand it would be a longer
process, and efforts would still be required to keep Thunderbird
updated, at least with Security Updates, but for the longer term, this
just makes much more sense to me. It would provide a path for total
modernization of the Thunderbird codebase, which is one of the biggest
reasons I have heard for long standing bugs not getting fixed.

[Andrew Sutherland]

On 11/15/2012 07:44 AM, Tanstaafl wrote:
> Since Gaia is where Mozilla is putting all of their resources, and
> since I have heard many calls for a Mobile version of Thunderbird, why
> not simply initiate an effort to create a Desktop App version of Gaia,
> eventually to *replace* Thunderbird? I understand it would be a longer
> process, and efforts would still be required to keep Thunderbird
> updated, at least with Security Updates, but for the longer term, this
> just makes much more sense to me. It would provide a path for total
> modernization of the Thunderbird codebase, which is one of the biggest
> reasons I have heard for long standing bugs not getting fixed.

I would indeed encourage everyone interested in messaging to consider
contributing to the gaia e-mail app back-end or to attempt to build
their own front-ends on top. But they should also keep in mind that our
feature-set is currently very limited and targeted exclusively at
resource constrained mobile devices. It will be quite some time before
we will be competitive with Thunderbird in terms of features, let alone
extensibility, and the B2G project most definitely does not have a goal
of creating a desktop-class e-mail app at this time. (No gloda!)

Which is to say, I think Thunderbird will continue to remain viable and
no one should take the existence of Gaia's E-mail app as a source of
stop-energy. Things implemented in HTML rather than XUL and JS rather
than C++ have a much greater potential to be reused in a desktop e-mail
client backed by the gaia e-mail libs, so I would suggest biasing
efforts in those directions when possible. Joshua's JS MIME parser is a
great example of such potential synergy.

Andrew

[Gervase Markham]

On 14/11/12 16:21, Kent James wrote:
> I like the way that you expressed this question, Gerv - "does Swanfox
> have a privileged relationship with Mozilla"? The short answer is
> ideally yes. How to do that in a way that is comfortable to Mozilla and
> the Thunderbird community, and viable for the Swanfox contributors, is
> of course a very difficult question. All I can ask for now is an open
> mind. Nobody is agreeing to anything yet, nor will they for months, we
> are just talking.

Yes. I think the worst possible world would be that Swanfox was set up
based on a particular understanding of what Mozilla would, or would not
do (technically, organizationally, in terms of brand agreements or
whatever) and then those expectations were not met. If Swanfox then
failed, it could be argued that Mozilla had contributed to its downfall
by being misleading. This would be very unfortunate. So Mozilla needs to
be cautious in what it promises.

> I think that one thing we can all agree on is that making this happen is
> going to be extremely difficult, and we will need every advantage that
> we can muster.

I suspect that inevitably, at some stage, we will hit a point where
there will be some advantages that you would like that Mozilla is not
willing to give you. :-) Go far enough in any direction, and eventually
you'll hit a river or a fence. So if you are thinking of taking this
step, an important part of the process is to work out what things you
would need or like, and how important each is to to you. And then
Mozilla can look at that list and work out how we can best support you.

This needs to be a process, working from big to little, so you don't put
in a ton of work preparing things only to find that there's a big piece
you absolutely need that you can't get.

Gerv