A lot has happened in the last couple of months that affect the future of Thunderbird. I'd like to bring you up to date, and ask for additional input.
Financially, we started asking for donations, and beginning in July added a request for donations to the Thunderbird start page. As of the end of August, 2016 (after two months of asking on our start page), we had available funds of $176,000. It will be awhile before we can really determine what is likely to be a sustainable donation level, but it is fairly clear that we have a supportive community who is willing to fund a small group of people working on Thunderbird.
Concerning a long-term legal and financial home, a team of us visited the conference for LibreOffice in Brno, Czech Republic and met with the board of The Document Foundation (TDF) to evaluate whether there is a fit between Thunderbird and TDF as a possible long-term home. Generally the meetup in Brno went well, and we left satisfied that TDF is a viable partner that has a lot to offer for Thunderbird.
But there are also other alternatives. Software Freedom Conservancy (SFC) is still under serious consideration. Also, the likely resources available to Thunderbird as a project seem fairly comparable to other successful open source Foundations (and an order of magnitude higher than the typical SFC project for example), so we also are considering either a short-term or long-term plan to have some sort of independent organization (although Simon Phipps recommended against that in his report, at least in the short run).
The Thunderbird Council met to discuss the Brno visit, and try to understand what our actions should be. While there were diverse opinions on the proper direction, trying to synthesize the issues, really it comes down to two questions:1) Does Thunderbird believe that the long-term best home is likely to be an independent organization (typically but not necessarily a Foundation), or are we better off allied with others legally and culturally?
2) Does the existing Thunderbird team have the capacity (both
in available skill sets as well as leadership) to transition to
function independently of Mozilla? If we are lacking, which
organization is likely to provide those skills or leadership? Or
is this something we are likely to successfully attract, either as
volunteers or as hired staff?
As of today we have not reached a recommendation about direction for a legal and financial home. At some point we will reach a decision, and at that point we will likely need to coordinate with our future home the best way to announce such a decision. While we strive to maintain as much transparency and public input into this process as we can, at some point a quiet period may be necessary, but we are not there yet.
We would appreciate comments on these issues, either generally or with respect to your personal availability to be part of a transition process.
In addition, one question we struggled with was how difficult it would be to acquire the services of someone with the skill set to lead a transition (which is likely to be needed regardless of what path we take, but a stronger candidate would make independence a more achievable goal). Let's call this the Executive Director role. If you have any insights into this role, including 1) examples of similar open-source organizations that hired such a position, or 2) specific suggestions of people (including yourself) who might fit the role, we would appreciate hearing from you, either publicly or privately.I don't think this is a question which can be answered in the abstract. It depends on how close the cultural fit is with the organization in question and, if the fit is not perfect, how much flex there is, and in the inflexible areas, whether people are willing to tolerate a change. Particularly given that six months have now gone by, I would advise against spending time considering this theoretical question, and instead spend time comparing the actual concrete options available to you, in the understanding that no option is a panacea. I think that both TDF and SFC are good enough options that there is no case to go back to Mozilla and say "we can't find anything that works". Therefore, you should look at the specific pros and cons of TDF and say "is this, as a package, better than being basically independent but with someone else handling the charity admin (i.e. SFC)?". That is the question before you.
-- Mark Rousell
Thanks for the summary !
On 10/03/2016 12:22 AM, R Kent James wrote:
> so we also are considering either a short-term or long-term plan to
> have some sort of independent organization at least in the short run).
I had some exploratory discussions around potential structures to
accommodate Thunderbird at TDF. One reasonably attractive option - that
should enable you guys to change direction / entity in future - is to
have a special purpose vehicle - a non-profit corporate entity dedicated
to Thunderbird but owned by TDF. That has the flexibility to allow
future evolution into an independent organization if that's the way you
guys want to go, as well as some overheads as well as all such things do.
Anyhow - just wanted to throw that option into the mix here.
All the best,
Michael.
--
Michael Meeks, Director of The Document Foundation
Kurfürstendamm 188, 10707 Berlin, Germany
Rechtsfähige Stiftung des bürgerlichen Rechts
Legal details: http://www.documentfoundation.org/imprint
PS: My gut feel would be to go with TDF as they have done such an awesome job with LibreOffice.
-- Mark Rousell