[Council; DR] Council Discussion Summary, Weeks 2021/05-06
Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg)
Discussions this week were primarily about employment and a potential
cooperation; we didn't make progress on the publicly visible topics.
Employment:
- There are discussions related to potential new hires.
- There are discussions related to the hiring process.
Project Strategy:
- There are discussions regarding a potential cooperation regarding
an issue that is specific to a particular Linux distribution.
- We will have an internal strategy meeting in week 2020/08.
Communication / Transparency:
- We briefly discussed community feedback privately received by some
councilors regarding CPG and mailing list policies.
- No new developments regarding the financial report or CPG policy.
___
Voting record for official motions in this period:
No motions in this period.
____
"We" is the council speaking in the name of the Thunderbird project.
Some aspects may be missing or intentionally vague, as the council works
with confidential information that cannot be shared with the public.
_______________________________________________
tb-planning mailing list
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https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning
Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg)
> The vision would be helping people, non-enterprise users, to move all
> their Contacts (aka AddressBooks) from any version of Microsoft
> Outlook to Thunderbird.
I tried to capture that direction with 'drop-in replacement of
proprietary tools', but maybe you have an even shorter and/or more
precise phrasing of the high-level goal?
After all, a vision is not about concrete features (like importing a
specific file format), but about more abstract directions to focus on
(like "enterprise" or any topic in my summary mail).
Kind regards,
Dirk / rsjtdrjgfuzkfg
Am 24.02.21 um 22:57 schrieb Óvári:
> Hi Dirk and *,
>
> Outlook contact import is not an enterprise feature for us. We and other
> people who email with us have Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010,
> etc and all their emails and contacts are stored in the *.pst file.
>
> Thunderbird has an Outlook *.pst filetype _Email_ import feature; but
> Thunderbird does not have an Outlook *.pst filetype _Contacts
> (AddressBook)_ import feature.
>
> We and others do *not* have Exchange.
>
> The vision would be helping people, non-enterprise users, to move all
> their Contacts (aka AddressBooks) from any version of Microsoft Outlook
> to Thunderbird.
>
> Thank you
>
> Óvári
>
> On 22/2/21 6:30 pm, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:
>> Hi Óvári,
>>
>> > Any reason why you didn't state the specific Linux distribution?
>> Any reason you ask me directly and not publicly on the list?
>>
>> I did not include the distribution's name, as this was a confidential
>> request for cooperation. I do not know which parts of the request are
>> public or which ones are private, so I erred on the side of not
>> violating the trust of the party suggesting the cooperation.
>>
>> If it is important to you, you could ask on the public mailing list
>> and hope that somebody who knows which parts are confidential gives
>> you a better reply.
>>
>> > Can you please help ship Thunderbird deb files
>> I'm not Thunderbird's release engineer, and have no idea if and how
>> Debian packages are supported by Thunderbird's build infrastructure. I
>> do know, however, that you can use the official tarballs under
>> Debian-based operating systems.
>>
>> So you can just download the official build for Linux (.tar.bz2) and
>> use that instead of a Debian package, or ask in public to get a reply
>> from somebody more qualified than me ;)
>>
>> Regarding your second mail: the vision is not about any features, but
>> about what direction we want to go in (so effectively, what guidelines
>> we evaluate feature proposals against). That being said, most people
>> involved in any part of the address book agree that it is bad and
>> needs a rewrite no matter what happens, so this will likely remain on
>> the roadmap no matter the result of the vision discussion.
>>
>> What could be part of a vision, though, is the split between
>> enterprise and private users. I read your mail as a vote for more
>> enterprise; if you feel strongly about that I suggest publicly posting
>> a vision snippet regarding 'enterprise-focused', 'drop-in replacement
>> of proprietary tools' or something else in that direction (whatever
>> matches *your* vision). If something like that ends up in the vision,
>> features like import from Exchange would likely gain relevance.
>>
>> Kind regards,
>> Dirk / rsjtdrjgfuzkfg
>>
>>
>> Am 22.02.21 um 07:57 schrieb Óvári:
>>> Hi Dirk,
>>>
>>> Any reason why you didn't state the specific Linux distribution?
>>>
>>> Can you please help ship Thunderbird deb files that can be
>>> incorporated into the default Linux Mint distribution so that users
>>> will not be stuck on Thunderbird 68.10.0 until the next Ubuntu LTS
>>> version is released in late 2022?
>>>
>>> Thank you
>>>
>>> Óvári
>>>
>>> P.S. Please feel free to pass this message to anyone.
>>>
>>> On 22/2/21 11:05 am, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:
>>>> - There are discussions regarding a potential cooperation regarding
>>>> an issue that is specific to a particular Linux distribution.
>>>
>
Óvári
Hi Dirk and *,
Outlook contact import is not an enterprise feature for us. We
and other people who email with us have Outlook 2003, Outlook
2007, Outlook 2010, etc and all their emails and contacts are
stored in the *.pst file.
Thunderbird has an Outlook *.pst filetype Email import feature; but Thunderbird does not have an Outlook *.pst filetype Contacts (AddressBook) import feature.
We and others do not have Exchange.
The vision would be helping people, non-enterprise users, to move
all their Contacts (aka AddressBooks) from any version of
Microsoft Outlook to Thunderbird.
Thank you
Óvári
Hi Óvári,
> Any reason why you didn't state the specific Linux distribution?
Any reason you ask me directly and not publicly on the list?
I did not include the distribution's name, as this was a confidential request for cooperation. I do not know which parts of the request are public or which ones are private, so I erred on the side of not violating the trust of the party suggesting the cooperation.
If it is important to you, you could ask on the public mailing list and hope that somebody who knows which parts are confidential gives you a better reply.
> Can you please help ship Thunderbird deb files
I'm not Thunderbird's release engineer, and have no idea if and how Debian packages are supported by Thunderbird's build infrastructure. I do know, however, that you can use the official tarballs under Debian-based operating systems.
So you can just download the official build for Linux (.tar.bz2) and use that instead of a Debian package, or ask in public to get a reply from somebody more qualified than me ;)
Regarding your second mail: the vision is not about any features, but about what direction we want to go in (so effectively, what guidelines we evaluate feature proposals against). That being said, most people involved in any part of the address book agree that it is bad and needs a rewrite no matter what happens, so this will likely remain on the roadmap no matter the result of the vision discussion.
What could be part of a vision, though, is the split between enterprise and private users. I read your mail as a vote for more enterprise; if you feel strongly about that I suggest publicly posting a vision snippet regarding 'enterprise-focused', 'drop-in replacement of proprietary tools' or something else in that direction (whatever matches *your* vision). If something like that ends up in the vision, features like import from Exchange would likely gain relevance.
Kind regards,
Dirk / rsjtdrjgfuzkfg
Am 22.02.21 um 07:57 schrieb Óvári:
Hi Dirk,
Any reason why you didn't state the specific Linux distribution?
Can you please help ship Thunderbird deb files that can be incorporated into the default Linux Mint distribution so that users will not be stuck on Thunderbird 68.10.0 until the next Ubuntu LTS version is released in late 2022?
Thank you
Óvári
P.S. Please feel free to pass this message to anyone.
On 22/2/21 11:05 am, Dirk Steinmetz (rsjtdrjgfuzkfg) wrote:
neandr
Hi Óvári,
you're talking about "Outlook contacts import" ... so not like accessing Outlook contacts when composing a TB email with their correspondents, right?I'm not saying TB/AB has a broad/flexible import capability, but does it make sense to invest in an "Outlook import function" as part of TB/AB?
IT Support @ Henk
Somehow the post below got stuck in moderation for some reason.
Just to let you know that we concluded our work on the access to the Outlook address book from Thunderbird.
While we were there we also checked import of mail and address book from Outlook and that appeared to be working bar one minor issue which got fixed. If you're interested in the detail, check out the bugs referenced here:
https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/log?rev=henk
Everything should be available in Thunderbird v88 beta 1, or maybe even v87 beta 3.
So far the functionality isn't exposed in the UI, see here how to enable it:
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_Outlook_and_OE_contacts_with_Thunderbird_or_Mozilla_Mail
Robert.
On 25 Feb 2021 08:57, Óvári wrote:
Outlook contact import is not an enterprise feature for us. We and other people who email with us have Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007, Outlook 2010, etc and all their emails and contacts are stored in the *.pst file.
Thunderbird has an Outlook *.pst filetype Email import feature; but Thunderbird does not have an Outlook *.pst filetype Contacts (AddressBook) import feature.
Hello,
Thunderbird can import the Outlook address book, see Tools > Import, Address Books, Outlook. Disclaimer: unknown if really working.
Thunderbird can also open die Outlook address book directly, this has been fixed and should mostly be working in TB 87 beta, see:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1679525
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1681824
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682620
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1685166
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693154 (left to do).Robert.
-- IT Support @ Henk A good system administrator is one that has nothing to do, because everything works OK
ISHIKAWA,chiaki
I know this is tangent to the question discussed.
But I have to ask. Does anyone use LDAP integration feature mentioned in
the URL below?
http://kb.mozillazine.org/LDAP_access_via_Address_Book
is referenced in the URL below.
http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_Outlook_and_OE_contacts_with_Thunderbird_or_Mozilla_Mail
Using LDAP via address book is a natural action.
However, I believe TB ldap code is not 64-bit clean. The ldap code
lives in ./comm/ldap directory.
(I am using 32-bit version and not use LDAP at the office.)
I wonder how widely LDAP code is used at university campuses,
enterprizes, etc.
I realized the 64-bit issue many years ago when someone mentioned 64-bit
firefox was made available. And I have been trying to address it in my
patch along with the major issue of sign vs unsigned comparison in the
bugzilla.: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1243121
Comment 3 specifically mentioned 64-bit cleanness. I was referring to
about 10 years old issue of hash table corruption probably. Hash value
is calculated only using the lower 32bit of address which leads to not
so efficient collision handling or possibly an outright bug.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1243121#c3
Since nobody mentions a possible strange behavior of LDAP support in
64-bit version of TB in bugzilla (as far as I can tell), I am
wondering who is using LDAP feature after all.
Can such usage be monitored via Telemetry?
If nobody is using it, I would rather have that code eliminated for all.
(although I do believe there must be a population of ldap users since it
would be so handy in non Windows environment),
The code has been orphaned upstream.
As I have checked the ldap code over the last few months (actually a few
years), I found more problems each time I dug deeper.
It never assumed address space would become 64-bit at all, it seems.
Either we need to scrap it and forget about LDAP support, or we may want
to write something from scratch while keeping the published internal API
intact.
Chiaki
On 2021/03/11 7:48, IT Support @ Henk wrote:
>
> Somehow the post below got stuck in moderation for some reason.
>
> Just to let you know that we concluded our work on the access to the
> Outlook address book from Thunderbird.
>
> While we were there we also checked import of mail and address book
> from Outlook and that appeared to be working bar one minor issue which
> got fixed. If you're interested in the detail, check out the bugs
> referenced here:
>
> https://hg.mozilla.org/comm-central/log?rev=henk
>
> Everything should be available in Thunderbird v88 beta 1, or maybe
> even v87 beta 3.
>
> So far the functionality isn't exposed in the UI, see here how to
> enable it:
>
> http://kb.mozillazine.org/Using_Outlook_and_OE_contacts_with_Thunderbird_or_Mozilla_Mail
>
> Robert.
>
> On 25 Feb 2021 20:23, IT Support @ Henk wrote:
>> On 25 Feb 2021 08:57, Óvári wrote:
>>>
>>> Outlook contact import is not an enterprise feature for us. We and
>>> other people who email with us have Outlook 2003, Outlook 2007,
>>> Outlook 2010, etc and all their emails and contacts are stored in
>>> the *.pst file.
>>>
>>> Thunderbird has an Outlook *.pst filetype _Email_ import feature;
>>> but Thunderbird does not have an Outlook *.pst filetype _Contacts
>>> (AddressBook)_ import feature.
>>>
>> Hello,
>>
>> Thunderbird can import the Outlook address book, see Tools > Import,
>> Address Books, Outlook. Disclaimer: unknown if really working.
>>
>> Thunderbird can also open die Outlook address book directly, this has
>> been fixed and should mostly be working in TB 87 beta, see:
>>
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1679525
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1681824
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1682620
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1685166
>> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1693154 (left to do).
>>
>> Robert.
>>
>> --
>> IT Support @ Henk
>> A good system administrator is one that has nothing to do, because everything works OK
>
>
Magnus Melin
The code is certainly not in a great state, and much of the library
functionality is not really used in Thunderbird. The plan is to
re-implement what we need and drop the old cruft - this is tracked by
bug 1696625.
-Magnus
Matt Harris
What you are asking for is native file import and that is Bug 153419 it has been around for 19 years, and in the interim Microsoft have release documentation of the file format so it is technically possible to implement it. I do wonder however in a world of IMAP accounts and online contacts if effort might be better spent interfacing with the online presence via other means. PST was always a propriety format that was not really suitable for archival, but that has not stopped the misguided using it as such. However I rarely see outlook contact import questions in support as those that are transitioning have a good option and those with PST files can purchase tools on the web to convert their PST files to more open formats such as CSV and mbox./eml
I would not see this as a vision subject. However the vision might be well placed to emphasis efforts/ priorities into things that will benefit the majority of users as opposed to discussions and efforts on subjects that affect a very small minority for instance.
Matt
Óvári
Hi Matt,
Thunderbird has always imported Outlook contacts as well as data using the outlook application using windows DDE/MAPI technologies. A prerequisite is that the user must have functional copy of outlook installed, even if it is a trial type version. Today on V78.8.1, I open the import wizard and select address books, Outlook is offered as an import option because I have Outlook installed.
Could you import Outlook Contacts? Or was this to only import Outlook emails?
It is understood that Thunderbird only imports emails from Outlook PST files, not Contacts.
Outlook was broken on Thunderbird and thanks
to the extensive work of IT Support @ Henk Outlook is being
added as address book provider to preferences and UI in
Thunderbird
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1697669
I would assume that as a Linux user you get no access to outlook import of any sort as MAPI is a windows technology, unless someone has implemented some form of open source implementation.
We have seen Outlook Contacts being imported into an Excel spreadsheet with VBA which was using MAPI using GNU/Linux operating systems.
What you are asking for is native file import and that is Bug 153419 it has been around for 19 years, and in the interim Microsoft have release documentation of the file format so it is technically possible to implement it. I do wonder however in a world of IMAP accounts and online contacts if effort might be better spent interfacing with the online presence via other means. PST was always a propriety format that was not really suitable for archival, but that has not stopped the misguided using it as such. However I rarely see outlook contact import questions in support as those that are transitioning have a good option and those with PST files can purchase tools on the web to convert their PST files to more open formats such as CSV and mbox./eml
* Contact photos
* Notes which have embedded documents
* Notes which have text in Rich Text Format/HTML format
It is understood that mbox/eml are for emails not contacts
Thunderbird has Tags (Categories) for emails and calendar events;
however, this feature is currently missing in the Address Book.
Unfortunately this means that it is not yet implemented in
Thunderbird. Hopefully in the release after Thunderbird 91 ESR
Categories/Tags will be implemented in the Thunderbird Address
Book.
I would not see this as a vision subject. However the vision might be well placed to emphasis efforts/ priorities into things that will benefit the majority of users as opposed to discussions and efforts on subjects that affect a very small minority for instance.
Outlook 2010 has recently been no longer supported by Microsoft and it would be a great opportunity for helping users transition from Outlook to Thunderbird.
Should increasing market share from
currently supported versions of Outlook also be part of the
vision? i.e. helping users with Outlook 2013 and later
transition to Thunderbird?
The User Story by Thomas D. on [Bug 75711] Ability to organize/group/search addresses with custom Tags/Categories/Keywords (vs. current broken mailing list design) https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=75711 is a good read. Should the vision include ux-efficiency?
We know a lot of people who use email and
address books, but don't use the calendar; however, including
the calendar module in Thunderbird core was a good idea.
The vision is to make the core address book a first class module with more than feature parity with other offering available in the marketplace. The vision is for the Thunderbird Address Book to be the industry standard. Some points along the way to the Thunderbird Address Book vision being:
1. Categories/Tags
2. Notes field allowing Rich Text / HTML format
3. Unlimited email addresses, phone numbers, physical addresses, web addresses, etc
4. Improving the UX/UI, for example enabling
a "Business Cards" view. "Business Cards" view is also for
non-enterprise users as it makes it easier to see and find
Contacts as it shows their pictures.
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1226155
https://gitlab.com/CardBook/CardBook/-/issues/363
Thank you
Óvári