Thunderbird.next/TB:NG/whateveritscalled Feature request/idea

[Qwerty Chouskie]

I keep thinking I should write some really good, convincing email, but I keep not doing it, so I'll just make it simple.

Is there any chance of Thunderbird.next/TB:NG/whateveritscalled having riot.im integration?

• It's open, privacy-friendly, etc.
• It's well made
• It's written using Web technologies (Javascript, etc), and runs in the browser
• It could ease the implementation of the chat component by providing a solid base, thus only needing to implement other protocols (IRC, XMPP, twitter, etc) on top of it
• It would make TB:NG more than just another email client.  It would be an email client+"Slack"+"Google Hangouts" all on one free, privacy-friendly, easy-to-use program.
  

I think riot.im integration could bring a lot to the table for both Thunderbird and roit.im.  Thunderbird already sees a lot of corporate use, think of how much more it could see if it served the role of a email program and a messaging program (Slack) and a voice/video communications program (Google Hangouts, Skype, etc).  Less programs to keep up-to-date, less accounts to deal with, no messy EULAs to deal with, easier for everyone in the end.

TB:NG would be more than just another email program, it would be an Free, privacy-friendly communications hub.

-QwertyChouskie
Thunderbird user

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi

I had started to use riot.im some weeks ago and it is a keeper for me. With all the hipsters using discord and slack, I wanted something open source that can it be at the same level, I found that riot (and using free service matrix.org) was very good for me. I have some chat channels and some connected to IRC freenode. The chat bots are decent and easy enought to use. And with riot.im being available on Android, Windows, iOS and web I'm connected everytime.

It is a good idea. Right now Thunderbird chat function is very limited, slow and has a confusing GUI. Maybe some mix between riot and pidgin IM can be eventually think to improve the Thunderbird chat functions.

Regards

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--

Martín Itúrbide

http://www.os2world.com

mar...@os2world.com

martini...@gmail.com
Quito - Ecuador

[Óvári]

Ring is free software for universal communication which respects freedoms and privacy of its users.

https://ring.cx

1. Free software

   1. Free

   2. Released under GPLv3 licence

   3. Supported by an active community

2. A network

   1. OpenDHT protocol

   2. Decentralized communication

   3. Peer-to-peer discovery and connection

3. Secured

   1. End-to-end encryption with authentification

   2. Identity managed by X.509 certificates

   3. Based on RSA/AES/DTLS/SRTP technologies

Ring (formerly SFLphone) is free distributed multimedia communication software published under the GNU General Public License 3. It is developed by Savoir-faire Linux with the help of a global community of users and contributors. Savoir-faire Linux is a Canadian company specialized in Linux and free software.

Perhaps Ring could be integrated into Thunderbird.next/TB:NG/whateveritscalled too?

[Philipp Kewisch]

On 5/6/17 4:34 AM, Qwerty Chouskie wrote:

I keep thinking I should write some really good, convincing email, but I keep not doing it, so I'll just make it simple.

Is there any chance of Thunderbird.next/TB:NG/whateveritscalled having riot.im integration?

Hi Folks,

thanks for making suggestions, we appreciate your support! While I can certainly imagine integrations with third party services and software in the future, I think we should concentrate on the core functionality first ( like, reading email :D ) Once we are further down the line we can consider such integrations.

However, the next version of Thunderbird will be designed in a way that it would be easy to hook in new features, either through add-ons or as core code. If done right, such integrations could also be contributed by the community.

Philipp

[Qwerty Chouskie]

The tricky thing there is Ring is written in Java, not JavaScript, so any code used to connect to that network would have to be written from scratch.

[Ben Bucksch]

Philipp Kewisch wrote on 07.05.2017 14:38:
> thanks for making suggestions, we appreciate your support! While I can
> certainly imagine integrations with third party services and software
> in the future, I think we should concentrate on the core functionality
> first ( like, reading email :D ) Once we are further down the line we
> can consider such integrations.
>
> However, the next version of Thunderbird will be designed in a way
> that it would be easy to hook in new features, either through add-ons
> or as core code. If done right, such integrations could also be
> contributed by the community.

Exactly. That's the plan.

Ben

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi.

Allow me to disagree. E-mail was the "killer application" when the internet started, everybody wanted the internet at that time to have e-mail. Now times has changed, check how the millennials are using the e-mail now, they mostly use it because it is a requirement to register to social media.

If we only want Thundebird to "read e-mail", that's fine, but that is what it is doing right now. If Thunderbird will only focus on e-mail we are just putting some nails on the project coffin. Maybe reading e-mail can be the initial short term goal while the project changes architecture, but it will be better if Thunderbird can be turned into a "collaboration platform" in the long term future than just a "read e-mail" tool.

Maybe today we see millions of downloads of Thunderbird and people/organization using it, but that can change very fast based on how the internet works.

Regards

[Philipp Kewisch]

Hi Martin,

there may have been a misunderstanding then. The "read e-mail" bit is the initial short term goal. I was just saying that it doesn't make sense to plan specific integrations at the current time while a rewritten Thunderbird hasn't yet started. Turning it into a messaging platform that would allow for such integrations should definitely be part of the plan.

Philipp

[Patrick Cloke]

On 5/5/17 10:34 PM, Qwerty Chouskie wrote:

Is there any chance of Thunderbird.next/TB:NG/whateveritscalled having riot.im integration?

Current Thunderbird nightlies (and the upcoming beta of Thunderbird 54) [0] actually have support for the Matrix protocol (riot.im is just a web interface for that protocol) [1]. It's current preffed off [2] because the integration isn't complete [3], but there will be a Google Summer of Code student working on finishing it up this summer [4]. Hopefully it will be turned on for the next ESR!

• It's open, privacy-friendly, etc.
• It's well made
• It's written using Web technologies (Javascript, etc), and runs in the browser
• It could ease the implementation of the chat component by providing a solid base, thus only needing to implement other protocols (IRC, XMPP, twitter, etc) on top of it

I don't think this would help, I doubt the the riot.im codebase would give us any sort of foundation to write additional protocols on top of. We already have JavaScript implementations of IRC, XMPP and Twitter.

• It would make TB:NG more than just another email client.  It would be an email client+"Slack"+"Google Hangouts" all on one free, privacy-friendly, easy-to-use program.
  

I think riot.im integration could bring a lot to the table for both Thunderbird and roit.im.  Thunderbird already sees a lot of corporate use, think of how much more it could see if it served the role of a email program and a messaging program (Slack) and a voice/video communications program (Google Hangouts, Skype, etc).  Less programs to keep up-to-date, less accounts to deal with, no messy EULAs to deal with, easier for everyone in the end.

I wholeheartedly agree with the idea of using distributed communication! No major silos to buy into, but I don't know if this would cause corporations to adopt Thunderbird more readily.

--Patrick

[0] See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1199855
[1] https://matrix.org/
[2] You can set "chat.prpls.prpl-matrix.disable" to "false" to enable it.
[3] https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?component=Matrix&product=Chat%20Core&bug_status=__open__&list_id=13573298
[4] http://patrick.cloke.us/posts/2017/05/05/google-summer-of-code-2017-matrix-protocol/

[Martin Iturbide]

Hi Philipp.

I get your points and it is good that project does not maintain a close mind about other long term goals.

Even if including Riot on Thunderbird may be not possible (technical, license, or any kind of issue), I still think that the idea is good. Not specifically Riot, but how Matrix/Riot, Slack or Discord are working on these days focusing on being a "collaboration tool" and not just a chat. If there are people that haven't use it or just don't want to see those tools without even evaluating it, they are just missing an idea on how to improve communications.

Currently Thunderbird has a very limited chat functionality. For example I'm really trying to use it for twitter (with three twitter accounts) but it is so limited and slow that just locks the rest of the Thunderbird application.

I know that today's priority is e-mail and to release a new Thunderbird, but don't dismiss other ideas for the future yet.

Regards

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