[kde-community] A new home for Mozilla Thunderbird at KDE?

[Laszlo Papp]

Dear Eike,

On Tue, Apr 26, 2016 at 7:33 PM, Eike Hein <hein at kde.org> wrote:

>
>
> On 04/27/2016 03:20 AM, Laszlo Papp wrote:
>
>> Given how respected, appreciated and well-used Thunderbird has been in
>> my experience, including industrial environments (only dream for certain
>> KDE subprojects?), I would suggest having a bit more good faith at this
>> point. Such early conclusions have been brought up about the Qt
>> framework as well after the Nokia decline. I am now being told that the
>> Qt business has been doing really well instead.
>>
>
> I'm not saying Thunderbird doesn't have users at present. I'm
> saying its usage numbers have failed to translate to a revenue
> stream or an excess of manpower; problems severe enough its
> original parent organization has struggled to keep it going.
>

* As I know, there was some decline in the payment of Kubuntu developer(s)
by Canonical, too.

* KO Gmbh could not continue its operation either as hoped for.

* How about the business behind Plasma Mobile that AS was trying to
establish?

(This is really not about blaming any of the participants. I am really
happy and grateful that they have all tried to do their best for this
community!)

These are just three examples of those that I am aware of. I could provide
more if needed, but I am not sure revenue defines a KDE project or some
support withdrawn behind a project. It is in my understanding neither in
the manifesto, nor the vision.

I would even go further claiming that many (most?) KDE projects have never
made it to that level, so for me, Thunderbird as a project is something to
look upon even if it is currently having issues to be resolved.

On top of that, it's facing immense technological challenges in
> the relatively near future that will make it harder, not easier
> to develop further.
>
> Thunderbird joining KDE.org would require us to invest
> resources (monetary, but also the time and motivation of e.g.
> our sysadmins and our board). Can we recoup those? Why us if
> others could not?
>

Would it be possible for you to give a rough estimate with concrete numbers
so that we can better understand the impact?

As I know, a couple of years ago, the sysadmins were processing the
infrastructure set up quite quickly. They had done an excellent job at this.

I understand your concern of for instance migrating bugreports, but do they
really have to be, at least right away?

I believe the monetary issues could be discussed for KDE as a whole. I am
not sure that they are only relevant for one or two particular subprojects.

For instance, Thunderbird could also do its own fundraising relying on the
success of that to a great extent.

(By the way, I am now writing writing these lines as a non-thunderbird user
before claiming any bias. I am still a happy mutt user. :-) )

Best Regards,
Laszlo Papp


> Best Regards,
>> Laszlo Papp
>>
>
> Cheers,
> Eike
> _______________________________________________
> kde-community mailing list
> kde-community at kde.org
> https://mail.kde.org/mailman/listinfo/kde-community
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://mail.kde.org/pipermail/kde-community/attachments/20160426/fa6e611f/attachment.htm>