What's happening with Mozilla and Thunderbird

[Barry]

On 9/16/07, Liam Proven <lproven at gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is a summary of what's going on, as per my understanding.
>
> The Mozilla Foundation is the parent company developing the "official"
> Mozilla browsers. It's nominally a non-profit corporation, making a
> pittance from selling T-shirts and baseball caps and bags and things
> with the Firefox logo on.
>
> *A bit of history*
>
> The original Mozilla browser was Netscape 5, open sourced. Netscape
> was a complete suite: in one app, it was a browser, email program, Web
> editor, IRC program, newsreader and more. Some bits, for example
> collaborative calendaring (bought in when Netscape Inc. acquired
> Collabra), were not open sourced, sadly.
>

Very nice work! I sort of knew a lot of this but you really pulled
everything together and told it in a clear, clean and neat way.
Thanks.
> Historical detail that will become important: from the early days of
> the "Netscape Suite", Netscape also offered a standalone browser,
> without the email etc. It was called "Netscape Navigator". It was
> dropped when Netscape Communicator 4.5 was released.
>
> The name "Mozilla" was originally Netscape's internal codename for its
> all-singing all-dancing browser, based on Mosaic.
>
> Mozilla the product (more specifically known as the Mozilla Internet
> Suite), as in the open-source descendant of the Netscape suite, took a
> long time to finish, partly because Netscape 5 was far from finished
> or working when it was open-sourced.
>
> Mozilla was a popular browser on Unix, especially open source flavours
> like Linux and xBSD, but it didn't make much impact on Windows. It
> remained a minority product.
>
> Dave Hyatt & Blake Ross started a spinoff project, originally called
> Phoenix. It was a cut-down version of Mozilla that was just a browser,
> nothing else. Smaller, faster and simpler, it worked alongside other
> apps such as email programs (e.g. MS Outlook), but unlike other
> spinoff browsers (Epiphany, K-Meleon, Camino), it still used Mozilla's
> cross-platform XUL interface library, meaning that it was portable
> between Windows, Unix and Mac and worked much the same on all of them,
> including add-ins and extensions.
>
> Phoenix was a big success. Alas "Phoenix" is also a computer company,
> writing PC BIOSes. So Phoenix-the-browser was renamed "Firebird"
> (which is what a phoenix is).
>
> Success continues; downloads rise.
>
> Alas, "Firebird" is also an open-source relational database. So
> Firebird-the-browser was renamed Firefox.
>
> *Mozilla chages focus*
>
> Firefox has done massively well. It's taken about a one-quarter share
> of the world browser market, which is to say, it's taken it from MS
> Internet Explorer.
>
> Suddenly the fairly obscure Mozilla Foundation had a big success on its hands.
>
> So, the Mozilla Foundation changed its emphasis: from the Mozilla
> Suite, it shifted focus to Firefox, its successful offspring.
>
> After a while, the Mozilla Foundation stopped officially sponsoring
> development of the original Mozilla Suite, as it had only a tiny
> fraction of the users that Firefox enjoyed.
>
> The original Mozilla Suite was revived by a team of developers outside
> the Mozilla Foundation. It was renamed "SeaMonkey" and is still
> actively developed today.
>
> *And back to Thunderbird*
>
> Now, the Mozilla Foundation is doing the same to Firefox's sister
> program, Thunderbird. Thunderbird is the email and newsgroup bit of
> the Mozilla Suite, hacked out and turned into a separate program.
>
> Thunderbird has far fewer users than Firefox, partly because although
> it's very good, it has many more rivals - there are dozens of
> successful email clients out there. On Windows, Outlook Express is
> provided for free and everyone with MS Office has Outlook. Mac OS X
> users get Apple Mail for free. On Linux there are Evolution and
> Sylpheed and Claws and many more. There's Opera, and there are free
> webmail services like Gmail, Yahoo and Hotmail.
>
> The Mozilla Foundation is stopping sponsoring Thunderbird and hopes
> that an external team of developers will take it on instead. It is not
> yet clear that this will happen, but it seems likely.
>
> *the Qualcomm connection*
>
> On of the oldest and most popular email programs is Qualcomm's Eudora.
> It too is being discontinued: Qualcomm's main business now is chipsets
> for mobile phones. The official successor to Eudora is codenamed
> Penelope and it's based on Thunderbird.
>
> At the moment, Penelope is an addin for Thunderbird that gives it
> something of the look and feel of Eudora.
>
> This probably means that many Eudora users will ultimately switch to
> Thunderbird. This may be enough to bring it enough attention to
> attract a lot more developer effort to Thunderbird.
>
> Personally, I don't like the Eudora user interface much: I used to use
> it and I don't get on with it. However, many thousands love it. A
> version of Thunderbird which could switch between the Netscape look
> and the Eudora look might be really successful.
>
> *Summary*
>
> Thunderbird is about to go through a really troubled spot, but its
> prospects actually look fairly good.
>
> *An interesting sidenote*
>
> The Mozilla Foundation is a non-profit body, but actually, it's making
> tens of millions of dollars. Firefox includes a search box in the top
> right corner. By default, this searches Google. Google give a tiny
> kickback to anyone referring searches to them. The millions of Firefox
> users using the search box dozens of times a day made the Mozilla
> Foundation over US$70 million last year. So actually, Mozilla is doing
> *great* out of Firefox.
>
> On the one hand, it's only fair and reasonable that the Foundation
> focusses its efforts on its successful product.
>
> On the other hand, some - myself included - feel that some of this
> benefit should be reflected upon its other products, too.
>
> And on the gripping hand (to out myself as an SF fan), it would seem
> wise for the Mozilla Foundation to spread its bets and not place all
> its eggs in the basked of its hugely popular free browser.
>
> --
> Liam Proven • Profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/liamproven
> Email: lproven at cix.co.uk • GMail/GoogleTalk/Orkut: lproven at gmail.com
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>
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