CardBook postulates to become a Thunderbird featured addon.

[Philippe VIGNEAU]

hi folks

The development of CardBook goes on, and I think that it is now eligible
to become a Thunderbird featured addon :

CardBook offers the possibility to use contacts from CardDAV, Google
(groups not yet supported) and Apple accounts and of course also local
address books which may be files or directories

CardBook is translated in 9 languages (pl coming soon)

CardBook is compatible with Lightning, Mail Merge and Mail Redirect

CardBook supports lists of contacts CardBook uses a indexedDB database
to store its cache

CardBook offers the possibility to import Thunderbird standard address books

CardBook offers the possiblity to import|export from|to CSV and VCF files

CardBook offers the possibility to collect outgoing emails

CardBook offers the possibility to merge contacts modified both locally
and on the server

CardBook is fully integrated in the main Thunderbird window (yellow
stars, possibility to edit|remove|add standard and CardBook contacts)

CardBook has a birthday manager to show birthdays by a popup or to
export them into Lightning

CardBook offers the possibility to connect directly softphone or IM
addresses (Jabber)

CardBook extends Lightning by adding a view of all events for a contact

CardBook also offers a view of all emails for a contact

CardBook offers the possibility to define and save complex searches

CardBook offers the possibility to find and merge duplicates contacts

CardBook offers the possibility to attach a vCard to outgoing emails

CardBook offers the possibility to create filters related to CardBook
address books

CardBook offers a colored autocompletion when writing an email (as well
as in Lightning)

CardBook offers a powerfull contact sidebar when writing an email

CardBook offers a powerfull print

CardBook offers the possibility to restrict the use of contacts by email
accounts and by address book

and much more...

comments seem acceptables :
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/thunderbird/addon/cardbook/reviews/


About the future of Thunderbird, whatever would be the path to the new
Thunderbird, I'm ready and open to work to make CardBook the new
Thunderbird addressbook.

Also to reply to Joshua :

For my part, I have one non-negotiable requirement: we should be able to ship CardDAV support to our users by 2018. Beyond that, I think there
should be means to implement new features in TB in a more rapid basis "if prudent" (and I'm leaving it vague on what exact criteria that entails).

I think we may say that CardBook is the answer to this.


Philippe

twitter : https://twitter.com/CardBookAddon/

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[Mihovil Stanić]

Good job with CardBook. Just started using it after this email, didn't know it existed.
Looks like a solid replacement for address book.

Mihovil

[Jörg Knobloch]

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1336357#c11

(Aside: IMHO it is really a pity that this much work is being done
without an attempt to make the addon code readable by others, nor
following standard coding practices used in Mozilla. The code is also
under GPL which is not compatible with Thunderbird. Collaboration,
proper testing, proper documentation, MPL or more lenient licensing, are
all part of making this usable as the default Thunderbird address book.
These are not features that can just be tacked on at the end. So I just
want to make it clear that this addon shows no sign of being on a path
to replacing the default address book in Thunderbird. There is more to
production code than just working.)

Jörg.

[Ben Bucksch]

Jörg Knobloch wrote on 10.04.2017 12:56:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1336357#c11
>
> (Aside: IMHO it is really a pity that this much work is being done
> without an attempt to make the addon code readable by others, nor
> following standard coding practices used in Mozilla.

You can't impose the code style rules on others, for their projects.
There are different valid options on where the place brackets, how to
indent, etc.. I'd set that aside.

However, code should be readable in any case. Jörg, can you be more
specific what you find and what you would expect in this regard?

I haven't looked myself yet.

> The code is also under GPL which is not compatible with Thunderbird.

Philippe, would you be willing to re-license under MIT or the MPL?

> There is more to production code than just working.

True. "It works" is a necessary requirement, but not a sufficient one.

[Philipp Kewisch]

On 4/10/17 12:56 PM, Jörg Knobloch wrote:
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1336357#c11
>
> (Aside: IMHO it is really a pity that this much work is being done
> without an attempt to make the addon code readable by others, nor
> following standard coding practices used in Mozilla. The code is also
> under GPL which is not compatible with Thunderbird. Collaboration,
> proper testing, proper documentation, MPL or more lenient licensing,
> are all part of making this usable as the default Thunderbird address
> book. These are not features that can just be tacked on at the end. So
> I just want to make it clear that this addon shows no sign of being on
> a path to replacing the default address book in Thunderbird. There is
> more to production code than just working.)

For others that (initially) didn't click the link, this was actually a
bug comment that Jörg referenced, made by someone else. I'm not sure
what this has to do with the add-on being featured though. Jörg, are you
suggesting that those requirements would be criteria for being featured?
If so, I don't agree with that. Featured add-ons are not about code
style, licensing, or documentation, but about functionality. Of course,
the add-on must follow minimal requirements w.r.t user privacy and
add-on policies, but most of this is actually handled by AMO reviewers.

As far as I know, we haven't changed the featured add-ons for
Thunderbird in quite a while. Mostly this is because we don't have a
process around it. We don't have a feature board that rotates these
add-ons regularly, nor anything else in place. I'm not saying we need to
use the same process as for Firefox, although it is a possibility.

Philipp

[Jörg Knobloch]

On 10/04/2017 17:35, Philipp Kewisch wrote:
> I'm not sure what this has to do with the add-on being featured though.

Nothing really.

> Jörg, are you suggesting that those requirements would be criteria for being featured?

No.

I'm just pointing out that we're wasting valuable resources. The TB
address book has its well-known deficiencies, but instead of joining the
project to fix that by integrating a very nice-looking and function-rich
add-on, with, let me just pick one function at random that TB users are
asking for, "find and merge duplicates contacts", the author has created
his own project. Especially sad to read was: "this addon shows no sign

of being on a path to replacing the default address book in Thunderbird".

Sure, it's a free world, it's open-source, everyone can do what they
want, but a coordinated effort to achieve a better overall product,
would be preferable. It's one thing to provide an add-on for a niche
market, say mail-merge, signature-switch, template management or an HTML
editor, but providing a "replace-on", IMHO isn't the best use of
resources. Maybe the author is not even to blame, maybe TB is to blame
for not being more open and embracing work by others. We all know that
it's hard to get a review, and it's almost impossible to get a review
for dramatic changes like ripping out one component and replacing it by
another.

Jörg.

[Philipp Kewisch]

On 4/10/17 6:19 PM, Jörg Knobloch wrote:

On 10/04/2017 17:35, Philipp Kewisch wrote:

I'm not sure what this has to do with the add-on being featured though.

Nothing really.

Jörg, are you suggesting that those requirements would be criteria for being featured?

No.

Ok, thanks for the clarification. Given this thread is about featuring an add-on I think we should stay on topic. I agree that it would be great to have everyone working on core features, but finding ways to encourage this is something we should discuss separately (and also falls into the domain of a community manager, btw).

Do you have an opinion on how Thunderbird should determine featured add-ons?

Philipp

[Richard Marti]

On 4/10/17 6:58 PM, Philipp Kewisch wrote:
>
> Ok, thanks for the clarification. Given this thread is about featuring
> an add-on I think we should stay on topic. I agree that it would be
> great to have everyone working on core features, but finding ways to
> encourage this is something we should discuss separately (and also
> falls into the domain of a community manager, btw).
>

I think Jörg had this in mind when he replied:

On 4/8/17 11:10 AM, Philippe VIGNEAU wrote:
> About the future of Thunderbird, whatever would be the path to the new
> Thunderbird, I'm ready and open to work to make CardBook the new
> Thunderbird addressbook.

For me this sounds like a offer to integrate CardBook.

Richard

[Philipp Kewisch]

On 4/10/17 7:12 PM, Richard Marti wrote:
> On 4/10/17 6:58 PM, Philipp Kewisch wrote:
>> Ok, thanks for the clarification. Given this thread is about featuring
>> an add-on I think we should stay on topic. I agree that it would be
>> great to have everyone working on core features, but finding ways to
>> encourage this is something we should discuss separately (and also
>> falls into the domain of a community manager, btw).
>>
> I think Jörg had this in mind when he replied:
>
> On 4/8/17 11:10 AM, Philippe VIGNEAU wrote:
>> About the future of Thunderbird, whatever would be the path to the new
>> Thunderbird, I'm ready and open to work to make CardBook the new
>> Thunderbird addressbook.
> For me this sounds like a offer to integrate CardBook.
>
> Richard

Ah yes you are right, I'm sorry I missed this bit, that is totally my
fault. Jörg, I am sorry I took this wrong.

In any case, I am happy to hear that Philippe is interested in helping
us with the future of Thunderbird!

Philipp

[Axel Grude]

Subject:Re: CardBook postulates to become a Thunderbird featured addon.
From:Philipp Kewisch <moz...@kewis.ch>
To:Jörg Knobloch; Tb-planning
Sent: Monday, 10/04/2017 17:58:23 17:58 GMT ST +0100 [Week 15]

I would quite like if highly positive review rating could be somehow included (not necessarily number of users, because sometimes it's hard to get discovered. If the current users love it, it's usually useful to them.

Axel

[R Kent James]

On 4/8/2017 2:10 AM, Philippe VIGNEAU wrote:
> hi folks
>
> The development of CardBook goes on, and I think that it is now
> eligible to become a Thunderbird featured addon

Yes, that would be great, it is an excellent addon.

The current issue is that nobody is managing featured addons for
Thunderbird. We were contacted about that, I believe a couple of years
ago, but did not get anyone willing to take it on. So that feature is
dormant. It would be great if someone would agree to take on the task of
reviewing and selecting featured addons for Thunderbird.

> About the future of Thunderbird, whatever would be the path to the new
> Thunderbird, I'm ready and open to work to make CardBook the new
> Thunderbird addressbook.

Perhaps you are asking if, prior to the switchover to Thunderbird++,
Thunderbird should switch to Cardbook for a year or two.
Cardbook is not a demo of Thunderbird++ technologies, but a proposal for
an alternate address book with the current version of Thunderbird. Let's
make sure we keep those issues separate.

I hope everyone understands that Thunderbird++ is a rewrite without
XPCOM and XUL. Cardbook, in spite of being an excellent addon, is not at
all focused on the issue of migrating away from Gecko. So while it could
be a candidate for replacing or supplementing the existing address book,
it would need to be rewritten (as does the rest of Thunderbird) to a
future technology without XUL or XPCOM. BenB is proposing that we do NOT
rewrite existing XUL/XPCOM code to port to a new approach, but rather
start from scratch. That is up for debate still, but Cardbook uses the
old technologies and would need to be rewritten (along with the rest of
Thunderbird) for Thunderbird++.

As a coincidence, in my Monroe class today we installed a local
Sabre/dav carddav server and your addon (Cardbook) as one of various
demos of address book UIs and backends.

However, I had to give them a cautionary speech about the licensing
issues. Any product released by Thunderbird would likely be MPL
licensed. Anything released through the Caspia project would likely be
Apache or MIT licensed. There are serious license compatibility issues,
as we have discussed earlier, between your GPL code and future code.
"ready and open to work (together)" can only start when Cardbook is
relicensed as MPL or weaker. You've said you are willing to do that, and
I would encourage you to urgently pursue relicensing away from GPL if
you hope for your addon to be available for use (either in part or in
whole) as part of the Thunderbird core.

That being said, we (Caspia) would love to figure out a way to work with
you. But also as I said to you earlier, the goals of your project and
ours are very, very different and may not be compatible. What we are
attempting is closer to Mark Banner's "define an experiment which is
limited in scope and goals" initially, trying to model a possible larger
Thunderbird rewrite using contact management as a base. We will be
looking at small experiments initially, seeing how we would port those
to Electon/NodeJS, or Myk Melzez's qbrt, or as a "pure" web app possibly
with a process or server to implement needed features missing from the
web (like non-http tcp/ip access). We're looking several years ahead,
while you are trying to fix the present. Both are needed. Let's keep
talking.

:rkent

[Philippe VIGNEAU]

Hi all

Sure, it's a free world, it's open-source, everyone can do what they want, but a coordinated effort to achieve a better overall product,
would be preferable.

--> I totally agree but I can say it's hard to be accepted ;O)

For me this sounds like a offer to integrate CardBook.

--> no offer at all , if you believe it's valuable for Thunderbird : no
problem for me... if you don't, also no problem...

Cardbook is not a demo of Thunderbird++ technologies, but a proposal for an alternate address book with the current version of Thunderbird. Let's
make sure we keep those issues separate.

--> right, but when the new technologies will arrive, I'll migrate
CardBook to them. Cardbook is not a Proof Of Concept, I hope to maintain
it on the long term (as I'm not a very skilled developper, and I hope to
be driven|helped for this migration ;O)

In any case, I am happy to hear that Philippe is interested in helping us with the future of Thunderbird!

--> yes very

That being said, we (Caspia) would love to figure out a way to work with you.

--> I would also love to quit my "Alone" project to work with others :O)...

Philippe, would you be willing to re-license under MIT or the MPL?

--> The best for the end : CardBook is now licenced on MPL 2.0 (I don't
know the implications but let's try :O)



Philippe

[Mihovil Stanić]

11.04.2017 u 10:56, Philippe VIGNEAU je napisao/la:
> Hi all
>
> ...

>
> --> The best for the end : CardBook is now licenced on MPL 2.0 (I
> don't know the implications but let's try :O)
>
>
>
> Philippe
>

LOL, good job Philippe! :)

TB council, you should try to encourage people like Philippe so we see
more of them joining TB ranks, and make joining development much more
easier then now.

I'm testing his addon for last few days on work and home computers. Only
thing I see missing for now compared to current address book are "email
lists".
Carddav seams to be functioning without problems.

Mihovil

[Philippe VIGNEAU]

email lists is possible : in CardBook preferences, second tab,
"Editing", under display tab check the "list" ... in CardBook,
categories are prefered to lists... ;O)

Philippe

[Óvári]

--> The best for the end : :rkent, would you be willing to re-license
all your add-ons under MIT or the MPL too?

On 11/4/17 6:56 pm, Philippe VIGNEAU wrote:
> Philippe, would you be willing to re-license under MIT or the MPL?
>
> --> The best for the end : CardBook is now licenced on MPL 2.0 (I
> don't know the implications but let's try :O)

[Aceman]

Hi, Philippe, thanks for your support and collaboration and for making an addon that many people seem to like.

I just have one small question:

When you mean 'featured addon', is that a special designation of an addon so that it is offered prominently in the "get addons" pane of the TB integrated Addon manager?

Or do you actually propose CardBook be shipped together with TB as an internal/system addon and be enabled by default, similar to the status of Lightning (calendar)? For this part the licence may need to be compatible. I'm also not sure if this would mean the code would be stored in the comm-central tree on our servers (similar to Lightning).

aceman
______________________________________________________________
> Od: Philippe VIGNEAU <cardbook.t...@gmail.com>
> Komu: tb-pl...@mozilla.org
> Dátum: 11.04.2017 10:56
> Predmet: Re: CardBook postulates to become a Thunderbird featured addon.

>
>Hi all
>
>
>Sure, it's a free world, it's open-source, everyone can do what they want, but a coordinated effort to achieve a better overall product,
>would be preferable.
>
>--> I totally agree but I can say it's hard to be accepted ;O)
>
>
>For me this sounds like a offer to integrate CardBook.
>
>--> no offer at all , if you believe it's valuable for Thunderbird : no
>problem for me... if you don't, also no problem...
>
>

>Cardbook is not a demo of Thunderbird++ technologies, but a proposal for an alternate address book with the current version of Thunderbird. Let's
>make sure we keep those issues separate.
>

>--> right, but when the new technologies will arrive, I'll migrate
>CardBook to them. Cardbook is not a Proof Of Concept, I hope to maintain
>it on the long term (as I'm not a very skilled developper, and I hope to
>be driven|helped for this migration ;O)
>
>
>In any case, I am happy to hear that Philippe is interested in helping us with the future of Thunderbird!
>
>--> yes very
>
>

>That being said, we (Caspia) would love to figure out a way to work with you.
>

>--> I would also love to quit my "Alone" project to work with others :O)...
>
>

>Philippe, would you be willing to re-license under MIT or the MPL?
>
>--> The best for the end : CardBook is now licenced on MPL 2.0 (I don't
>know the implications but let's try :O)

[Philippe VIGNEAU]

for me "featured addon" means this :
https://addons.mozilla.org/fr/thunderbird/extensions/?sort=featured

CardBook may be shipped or not depending on what you think about it
(imho there is still some work to be eligible to a shipment)

my idea with CardBook is to become the twin of Lightning for the address
book...

Philippe

[Onno Ekker]

In october 2013 I sent an email to amo-fe...@mozilla.org to nominate my add-on Mail Redirect as a featured add-on. It was accepted by the amo-team and discussed in the addons blog <https://blog.mozilla.org/addons/2014/02/01/february-featured-add-ons/>, and it is now included in the list of featured add-ons (extensions) which is displayed on https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/ as well as in Thunderbird's Add-on Manager.

I think this is also what Philippe wants for CardBook, but the process may have changed since then, because at the moment XUL/XPCOM add-ons are more and more deprececated by the Mozilla Firefox team. There are however a couple of reviewers in the amo-team that review Thunderbird add-ons, so maybe the process still works...

Onno

[Axel Grude]

--> The best for the end : :rkent, would you be willing to re-license all your add-ons under MIT or the MPL too?

Would that be a requirement for any prospective addons for Thunderbird++ (or even future Thunderbird desktop addons)?

What implications would this have on monetisation?  most of my addons are GPL3 except for QuickFolders which I had to make "(CC BY-ND 4.0) Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0" because I had to protect the licensing schema on it. It is 100% open source (except for the license encryption key) and I don't mind people using parts of it but want to avoid complete clones being released as it would devalue the investment of anyone who bought a license (pro version only, 98% of the functionality is in the free version).

I had thought long and hard about that license choice, but maybe I am missing something here.

Axel

Axel Grude
Music Production and Composition
Thunderbird Add-ons Developer (QuickFolders, quickFilters, QuickPasswords, Zombie Keys, SmartTemplate4)
Mozilla Addon Reviewer
Visit my YouTube Channel for email productivity tips

Subject:Re: CardBook postulates to become a Thunderbird featured addon.
From:Óvári <ova...@gmail.com>
To:Philippe Vigneau; Tb-planning
Sent: Tuesday, 11/04/2017 11:23:51 11:23 GMT ST +0100 [Week 15]

.

[Ben Bucksch]

Philippe VIGNEAU wrote on 11.04.2017 10:56:
> --> I would also love to quit my "Alone" project to work with others
> :O)...

Hey Phillippe,

I'm happy to hear that! If we start that Thunderbird-NextGeneration
based on web technologies, can I count on you to help us?

> --> The best for the end : CardBook is now licenced on MPL 2.0 (I
> don't know the implications but let's try :O)

This is great news. Thank you, Phillipe!


Ben

[Philippe VIGNEAU]

of course ;O)

Philippe