Thunderbird 2020 Financial Report
Ryan Sipes
I am pleased to share with you the 2020 Thunderbird project financial
report (attached). I am happy to report that the project is very healthy
and I think the report clearly shows that due to this community's
support and the support of our wider userbase, that we are in a very
good place resource-wise.
The TL;DR version is that 2020 was our best year yet and that over $2.3
million were donated to the project, we have over $3 million in the
bank, and we have 15 people hired and working on the project. On top of
that we are not spending as much as we bring in, so there is room to grow.
I have been working with Sancus to make this data available at
https://stats.thunderbird.net <https://stats.thunderbird.net> and I
intend to update the information there as I receive it. So you may refer
to that website for an ongoing look at the financial health of the
project. Currently this information is live on the staging server, and I
expect it to go live on the website itself very soon.
I'm happy to answer your questions and hear your feedback.
Ryan Sipes
Treasurer, Thunderbird Council
Tanstaafl
Board - is greatly appreciated.
One thing I would really, REALLY like to see, is a Roadmap like web page
that shows Thunderbird's direction, especially with regard to major
features/bugs being worked on, but including graphical depictions of UI
changes that people could comment on.
For example, I'd really like to know where we are with the long awaited
total rewrites of the 'Composer' and the 'Address Book', getting the
longstanding problems with the 'Vertical View' fixed, and what is
planned or being done to make TB fully multi-threaded (to eliminate UI
freezes when, for example, large calendars are being sync'd), as well as
the numerous IMAP bugs - ie, is ISHIKAWA still working on these? How is
that work coming along, and when is it targeted for inclusion in
production code.
I do see occasional emails about bugs being worked on, and I'm super
glad that Alessandro is working on one of my favorite feature requests
(adding a fully customizable 'Favorites' grouping that can be pinned to
the top of the Folder pane), but there should be a web presence where
these things are revealed to anyone.
One other big one is JMAP support. It seems to be stuck in the
chicken/egg conundrum, and I'd really love to see Thunderbird take a
leap of faith, and be the first full blown IMAP client that has full
support for the now finished JMAP protocol. This would be a monumental
step, and a great selling point, especially if Thunderbird worked a deal
with Fastmail (since Fastmail fully supports JMAP now) to be a new
'email provider' where TB could quickly add/create a new email address
there (hopefully they'd be willing to allow TB users to create smallish
free accounts that could at least show off the capabilities of JMAP)...
On 3/16/2021 4:13 AM, Ryan Sipes wrote
tb-planning mailing list
tb-pl...@mozilla.org
https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning
Andrei Hajdukewycz
https://stats.thunderbird.net/#financials
Thanks to Ryan for compiling this data, I feel like this is very
significant. Publishing recent
donation totals and spending information is a signal of increased
transparency for the project,
and more transparency is something I've been wanting to see for some time.
Andrei
Mihovil Stanić
And it was on time (middle of March)! Good job!
I do have one question, but since it would probably sound negative and
maybe be followed with more negativity I'll leave it for some other time.
16.03.2021 u 17:37, Tanstaafl piše:
> For example, I'd really like to know where we are with the long awaited
> total rewrites of the 'Composer' and the 'Address Book', getting the
> longstanding problems with the 'Vertical View' fixed, and what is
> planned or being done to make TB fully multi-threaded (to eliminate UI
> freezes when, for example, large calendars are being sync'd), as well as
> the numerous IMAP bugs - ie, is ISHIKAWA still working on these? How is
> that work coming along, and when is it targeted for inclusion in
> production code.
In my view, this should be focus for TB in 2021. Not so much in
introducing new feature, but more on fixing current experience to be as
fast and as pleasant as possible.
> One other big one is JMAP support. It seems to be stuck in the
> chicken/egg conundrum, and I'd really love to see Thunderbird take a
> leap of faith, and be the first full blown IMAP client that has full
> support for the now finished JMAP protocol. This would be a monumental
> step, and a great selling point, especially if Thunderbird worked a deal
> with Fastmail (since Fastmail fully supports JMAP now) to be a new
> 'email provider' where TB could quickly add/create a new email address
> there (hopefully they'd be willing to allow TB users to create smallish
> free accounts that could at least show off the capabilities of JMAP)...
>
As I wrote I last paragraph, I don't see this as being important, at
least not for this year.
Thunderbird already supports full use of Fastmail features trough IMAP
and cal/carddav, so nothing is stopping financial deal with them. JMAP
is new "nice to have" protocol, and TB should support it, but in my view
fixing current bugs, rewriting address book and implementing carddav,
making speed improvements etc. should be more important for short term.
Mihovil