If this was an open source "project", rather than a "foundation" whose mission is to build a better web for its users, I'd say it was their call and that's the beauty of OSS. This is not that.
This is another decision in a long string of decisions which are either not in their users' interest, questionable, or poorly communicated and implemented.
If I were to give the benefit of the doubt here over the question of whose interest this is in (Mozilla or its users) it is still being horribly communicated (otherwise one might better understand why it's in one's interest) and horribly implemented, to the point which I'm beginning to question whether Mozilla, as an organization, is up to the task of building a better web for its users.
Why not more discussion around Pocket, the new tab page, Thunderbird support, etc. Why pop these decisions, fully made, on their user base? And why not, in the case of XUL, incrementally replace features or develop in parallel until a drop-in, validated solution exists.
To me, one of two things is going on. Either Mozilla is not acting in the best interest of its users or this is amateur hour. Both scenarios suck.
Uhhh... the final point in the mailing list message is this:
---
> 12. This message is about the future and there’s a lot to work out. It’s explicitly not to announce changes in daily activities at this point. People using Thunderbird will not see any change in the product they use. We have started this conversation early because Mozilla works best when our community is engaged. This is how we gather the people who are interested, and enable those folks to engage productively
---
So this is exactly not a case of confronting people with made decisions, but discussing long term strategic considerations in the open. Bakers message is actually remarkably explicit about this, discussing various pros and cons explicitly out in the open.
---
> 10. The fact that the Foundation is facilitating these discussions does not necessarily mean that the Foundation is or is not the best legal and financial home for Thunderbird. The intent is not to make technical decisions about support of Thunderbird by Mozilla employees, or merging repositories, etc. Point 6 above is the shared organizing principle for both of us.
---
So Mozilla is actually not talking about no longer supporting Thunderbird, they are talking about decoupling the projects, possibly within Mozilla. When did it become hip to just randomly hate on Mozilla for everything? I use Firefox daily, and some random Pocket icon appeared there. I don't know what it is, it took me one right click and one left click to remove it from my toolbar, done.
When Facebook forces a user to opt-out it's acceptable to denounce their actions. How is the Pocket example different?
One of my biggest, if not my biggest, complaint about the OSS community it the lack of sympathy toward non technical users. If I was a point-and-click, non-technical user do you think I'd have any clue what you meant by 'mailing list'? Not likely.
And if I was that user what are the chances that I understand that the Pocket application was a third-party application and that my data was not staying with Mozilla? Would I understand that removing the icon did not remove the code for my install?
Bigger picture here, and the point I was trying to convey in my original comment, is that this is another instance in a string of instances that, when each taken on its own might not be a huge deal, together paint a picture. The writing is on the wall, as they say.
I'm not a Mozilla hater. But before I am a Mozilla user, I'm a citizen of the Internet. So when a participant of the Internet begins to lose their way, I figure I should do what good partners do, which is to plainly speak my mind in a manner that is respectful and open to listening. I think Mozilla is great, and I think they'd value others being constructively honest with them.
> When Facebook forces a user to opt-out it's acceptable to denounce their actions. How is the Pocket example different?
Except Pocket is still opt-in; you have to click the button for it to do anything. I think springing these integrations was a poor move strategically for Mozilla, but it's not like they installed Alexa toolbar on everybody's browser. The code for the extension is even open source.
I haven't seen any denouncing of Facebook in a long time, even though they keep getting worse every month. I assume it is because people accepted they are assholes, they won, they can't be replaced and that's that.
And personally I consider the backlash against Pocket to be either undeserved kneejerk reactions, or a discreditation strategy sponsored by Mozilla's competition. Because seriously, why aren't we seeing the same backlash against Chrome, which includes proprietary bits not present in Chromium (like the PDF viewer) and that explicitly does not support extensions on Android because of Google's fear of losing ad revenue? Or maybe we should talk about how Chrome does not encrypt data by default, most users giving access to Google for their whole browsing history. We could talk about IExplorer^WEdge or Safari and how Apple and Microsoft are blocking alternative browser engines on their mobiles, but that's not as fun as bashing the only open browser that's backed by a non-profit without ulterior motives.
But then lives without our double standards would be boring.
The difference is that Google and Facebook have always been commercial entities with a profit motive, they are not public utilities. Exactly because Mozilla is (supposed to be) something else, it's held to a higher standard by its users and donors.
> We could talk about [...] how Apple and Microsoft are blocking alternative browser engines
But we do. In a way, Mozilla is what it is because a lot of people were pissed off at MS.
A "public utility" has very specific meaning, being an organization that maintains the infrastructure for a public service, that is subject to forms of public control and regulation and for which you pay taxes.
Is Mozilla subject to forms of public control and regulation? Do you pay taxes for Mozilla's existence? If not, then Mozilla does not qualify.
My problem is actually twofold. On one hand bashing Mozilla is like bashing a charity and most people doing it have never donated or contributed anything. But also I don't understand what's the freaking deal with that Pocket button, which is nothing more than a shortcut that consumes nothing, that can be easily removed and for which Mozilla got nothing in return for the deal.
This is why Free Software will never happen at scale. Far more aggravating than the problem of the business model is all the shit these people have to put up with.
The problem is that Mozilla really really would like you to believe that they're doing a public service. "We keep the web open! We defend your privacy! Donate now or Bad People will win!" That's their message. So yeah, it's a charity, but they make it sound like it's a charity that must exist, so it borders on being a utility.
> most people doing it have never donated or contributed anything.
Since when, in order to criticise something you use, you have to join it first?
> But also I don't understand what's the freaking deal with that Pocket button
I'll bite. Two issues:
1) Pocket is basically a centralized service to keep track of your reading. This goes quite clearly against Mozilla's own message of placing privacy and users' rights above everything else. Shipping such a feature as opt-out and fundamentally un-removeable is just bad on every possible level; it could have been worse only if Mozilla had started routing all your traffic through Microsoft servers.
2) There are umpteen services like Pocket, always have been, and none of them ever got a button in Firefox. So why Pocket? Why not one of the bazillion other services? Who chose it and why? Does that mean FF's toolbar is now open for business? Who do I bribe to get a button? ... That's a very opaque and fundamentally corrupt process, in an organisation constantly preaching openness.
You can ask a priest how it feels having to constantly adhere to a higher moral standard; it's the price you pay for getting people to listen to you, trust your judgement, and give you free labor. At any time you can just stop preaching and go do your own thing, but then you can't expect other people to still follow you.
> This is why Free Software will never happen at scale.
There's scenario 3: a news site took a mail on a project mailing list, and wrote a misleading article with a clickbaity headline. So far so common.
To their credit, they did include the full text of the mail, and it simply doesn't support the "Mozilla about to stop Thunderbird maintenance" subject this is being titled with. And the title here on HN looks nothing like the title of the actual article either (though that might have been edited later, of course).
It might be. But what about the discussion? Is focusing on a native mail application not inline with their mission statement, given all the privacy issues of late? And your point doesn't address the issue of implementation. Firefox is one initiative out of many initiatives in Mozilla's portfolio. And the web is not the browser. So I, personally, would say no, focusing on a browser to the exclusion of all other aspects of the Internet is not inline with that mission. But, I'm one of many users, and without open dialogue, it's impossible to say whether other Mozilla users agree with me.
"The problem with Thunderbird is not that it is a mail user agent or that user agency in messaging is unimportant. The problem is that Thunderbird has had a serious technical debt problem since the day its code-base transitioned from Netscape. Its low-level integration with Gecko has been a maintenance burden for Thunderbird developers and non-Thunderbird developers alike.
The Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation put serious financial resources into trying to address both of these problems with the creation of Mozilla Messaging. The idea, as I understand it, was to attempt to alleviate the burden on Firefox development by separating Thunderbird development while simultaneously providing Thunderbird with
people and resources to attempt to address this technical debt."
"An important question that falls out from all of this is and your original question is: which is more important? Mail user agency or Thunderbird the product, especially if there are serious opportunity costs related to Thunderbird?
Within the funded efforts of the Mozilla Corporation[2], mail user agency has not been abandoned and continues to be advanced as part of an open development process."
I agree a discussion of a kind is occurring. My reply was specific to the comment it addressed, in that, the comment did not fully engage with my initial comment and instead cherry picked one part of it. A more fully formed response, much like yours, wouldn't have elicited my above response. Context.
Why do they have a public discussion to justify their actions. If they choose to, fine but I do not see why they have too.
> the web is not the browser
Actually yes, the web is the browser, or more correctly the browser is your interface to the web. HTTP/HTTPS is the web, everything else is the Internet. Mozilla is focusing on providing a web experience, a SMTP client is not the web experience and they no longer wish to expend resources on it.
I think this is just a reaction to Firefox's rapidly declining market share. We've been through this cycle before, when MSIE and Windows were the dominant browser platform and Netscape Communicator hit a local maxima. It took a few years, but they came back, with Firefox.
Before we did a big transition from Desktop to Web; now a lot of people are shifting their focus from Web to Mobile. The Desktop never went away, and the Web won't either, but development there will likely stagnate. But unless Mozilla and Firefox reinvents itself for mobile, it will become mostly irrelevant, like DOS and Netscape and Opera.
As I mentioned in another comment, Mozilla stopped developing updates back in 2012 and passed it to the community. I imagine the maintenance will move likewise.
If you're upset about decisions that have been made with Thunderbird, submit a pull request.
Mozilla is pretty much a regular for profit as this point, it just doesnt have share holders.
Still is for profit. Mainly benefits the people at the helm instead.
This is another decision in a long string of decisions which are either not in their users' interest, questionable, or poorly communicated and implemented.
If I were to give the benefit of the doubt here over the question of whose interest this is in (Mozilla or its users) it is still being horribly communicated (otherwise one might better understand why it's in one's interest) and horribly implemented, to the point which I'm beginning to question whether Mozilla, as an organization, is up to the task of building a better web for its users.
Why not more discussion around Pocket, the new tab page, Thunderbird support, etc. Why pop these decisions, fully made, on their user base? And why not, in the case of XUL, incrementally replace features or develop in parallel until a drop-in, validated solution exists.
To me, one of two things is going on. Either Mozilla is not acting in the best interest of its users or this is amateur hour. Both scenarios suck.