User talk:Eddyn:Report for Thunderbird

Introduction:

This report was compiled from hundreds of comments, ideas and suggestions made to various web blogs, wikis and mailing lists, due to the recent Email call to action by Mitchell Baker. It aims to provide an overview of the information we found important, ordered by feasibility and relevance, with possible suggestions for a future road map and plan for the Thunderbird mail application and possible revenue schemes and targets. It takes into account current limitations such as a limited team of lead developers (2) and the current focus and attention of MoCo on the Firefox browser. The report is intended to be helpful in the decision making process of an eventual organizational change and defining the future of Thunderbird.

Thanks to many contributors for this collaborative work!

Preliminary Summary:

The enterprise market as a possible target by becoming a strong competitor of Microsoft Outlook is viewed as one of the ultimate goals of Thunderbird. Improved support of additional communication protocols (IM) and sharing/synchronization of data (calendar views, tasks, address books and more) are viewed as essential in order to accomplish this goal. Closer cooperation with software vendors of group ware applications and servers, including better support for Microsoft Exchange server are suggested. Marketing efforts (campaign), bundling with Firefox, Easy Account Setup for ISPs were also suggested for faster adoption.

Reduced focus and involvement in Thunderbird by MoCo might prove to be counterproductive, which might hurt the image and adoption of all products. It was suggested that expectations were high and a "breakthrough" close what usability and adoption concerns, specially in the advancing of the Sunbird/Lightning project. Rapid organizational changes might send out the wrong signals to users and volunteers, but also to the corporate world which might be the ultimate target for mail desktop applications and a source of revenue.

Improvement of the code base and documentation are viewed as vital in order to gain greater support and involvement by volunteers. Shifting of organizational and other tasks to different persons than the current core developers was suggested. Arrangements by the community of bounties, sponsored by interested parties (i.e. server and group ware software vendors, corporations) might accelerate development, fixing of bugs and feature requests. Better tools (aka Firefox user extension library) for Thunderbird might accelerate third party development of extensions.

Support contracts for the enterprise via third parties, integration of Google SMS, Calendar and Map into Thunderbird could provide revenues. Exchange server support as add-on.

Feature Requests and Ideas:

• Full integration of calendar (Lightning). Bundling the extension in Thunderbird download.
  
  The bundling of Lightning in Thunderbird could be implemented fairly easy. The Lightning (Sunbird) extension provides many features the enterprise and (previous) Outlook user needs. This feature request could have an immediate effect on adoption and popularity without much effort.

• Support and integration of an XMPP/Jabber compliant Instant Messenger.
  
  Contacts could be used by various means for communication. The XMPP protocol is used by Google Talk and has about 50 million users in a decentralized server network. It allows for encrypted communication, conferencing and support for VoIP. Many providers (XMPP servers) support bridges to other networks such as AIM, MSN, Yahoo! and more.
  • Other IM and P2P networks have been suggested (retroshare for example), however its use in TB has been questioned for various reasons.

• Synchronization and effective sharing of data such as address book, calendar and tasks as provided by the Sync Kolab extension.

• Device synchronization (Palm, PocketPC, iPod, phone, etc.).
  • Palm Address books with Tb address book
  • Cell phone call lists with Tb Address book

• Integrate Google SMS (from Contacts) for sending SMS.

• Integrate Google Maps for location info in the calendar (Lightning).

• Integration with web applications, including
  • Web based mail like Gmail,Yahoo,MSN Live or Bongo mail
  • Web based calendars and To do lists like Google Calendar or iCal
  • Possibly provide an open API for developers to plug in their desired web apps.

• UI: Tabs for calendar, compose, IM, etc. (Under implementation in current TRUNK)

• Tag clouds.

• MiniTB similar to MiniMo.

• CAPS Documentation to guide custom CAPS for trusted domains.

Code specific requests:

• Code cleanup
• Rework address book
• Extend instructions and documents for developers
• Protocol handler API for extensibility
• Plug-in code activated for NC4.x type of support

Potential Revenues:

• Introduce a search field in TB for Google search. Potentially open search results in tabs within Thunderbird or launch Firefox. Tabs are introduced in TB3.

• Support additional Google features such as SMS and Maps. Calendar could use Google Maps for locations (of meetings).

• Providing support of Exchange Server. This could have licensing issues, but also potential of providing support as add-on. This add-on (and/or support thereof) could be a potential for revenues.

• Cooperating with Groupware vendors.

• Support contracts for the enterprise provided by capable third parties.

Organizational Changes:

Suggestions made by Mitchell Baker:

• Option 1. Create a new non-profit organization analogous to the Mozilla Foundation - a Thunderbird foundation.
• Option 2. Create a new subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation for Thunderbird.
• Option 3. Thunderbird is released as a community project much like SeaMonkey, and a small independent services and consulting company is formed by the Thunderbird developers to continue development and care for Thunderbird users.

Responses and suggestions:

• There is already the Mozilla Foundation as caretaker for all Mozilla related projects. Option 1 is superfluous.
• Should TB operate under MoFo (option 3), it was suggested that a release and build team should be dedicated to MoFo (financed by MoCo).
• Questions arouse concerning option 2 about overhead, repeated tasks, ownership.
• Organizational changes might send the wrong message and it was suggested to make improvements from within the current framework.

Developers and Volunteers:

• Shift organizational, documentary and other tasks to volunteers (free the developers)
• Arrange bounties for bug or feature requests sponsored by interested parties.

Summary and Recommendations:

These are the conclusions and recommendations of this report:

• Defining of a road map is essential to describing current and future needs. The road map should reflect the targets as seen in this report, in respect to features, revenues and higher involvement by volunteers.

• Implementation of features which are expected to have the highest impact on adoption and most frequently requested should be applied immediately, taking into consideration the "investment" needed. This specially applies for the inclusion of Lightning (calendar) in default builds.

• Organizational changes should be avoided. Any change should be applied with greatest sensitivity. Current commitments should be kept in any case and depending on the road map intensified.

• A team should be formed for the supervision of the project and implementation of the road map. It would be responsible for the development process and contacts with software vendors. It would preform actions to increase involvement by development volunteers as outlined in the report.

• Form an Evangelist Team to do the marketing studies and search for revenues. The team would also take action to increase involvement by volunteers. The team Will need support of PR and Business specialists to capitalize on there expertise.

Authors:

Eddyn 05:49, 4 August 2007 (PDT)
Ron K. 12:35, 4 August 2007 (PDT)
Mohamed samy 17:20, 4 August 2007 (PDT)