Thunderbird to form its own organization

A blog posting by Mitchell Baker, chief lizard wrangler and CEO at Mozilla Corp., set off a firestorm of reaction, as it suggested that it might be best for Thunderbird to split off from Mozilla. The reaction was probably much stronger and louder than Baker expected, so she has followed up with a number of additional posts, clarifying her statements. Though it is rather counter-intuitive, it may actually be for the best, the main developers are backing the plan. It could lead to bigger and better things for the project.

Baker posted her thoughts last week, which were picked up by various online news sources and the controversy began. Various conspiracy theories, typically involving Google, were promulgated. The ultimate mission of both Mozilla Foundation (MF) and Mozilla Corp. (MC) were debated, those organizations alternately ridiculed, reviled and defended. In short, it was a typical internet flamefest, with far more heat than light. Baker's original posting was lacking in many of the details that she filled in later, making it far easier for commenters to provide their own explanations. The picture that is emerging actually seems quite positive for Thunderbird development.

Essentially, Baker, other Mozilla Foundation board members and the lead developers all recognized that Thunderbird was not getting the attention it deserved - it is overshadowed by Firefox, its higher profile sibling. The MF has been focused on Firefox from the outset and created Mozilla Corp. as the for-profit entity to handle the revenue from the Firefox deal with Google. The vast majority of MC employees are working on Firefox which is not likely to change. The two Mozilla entities want to focus their energy on Firefox - Thunderbird was suffering because of it.

Thunderbird has never attracted the following that Firefox has. In terms of users, developers and community members, Thunderbird is probably two orders of magnitude smaller than Firefox. Increasing the size of the Thunderbird community is at least part of what Baker is trying to do. Her original post is titled Email Call to Action and contains some thoughts about coming up with a wider email vision that have mostly been drowned out in the Thunderbird governance debate.

Baker outlined three possible scenarios for how to move Thunderbird out from under the current structure and asked for suggestions on others. The first and second options are similar in that they create a new foundation for Thunderbird, either as a subsidiary of MF or as a full-fledged company of its own. Both are considered to have a fairly high overhead, organizationally, and creating a subsidiary foundation still does not really address the problem, as MF will still be dealing with Thunderbird issues. The third option is to spin off the developers into a small, independent, for-profit services and consulting company, while turning Thunderbird into a Mozilla community project, like SeaMonkey. Another, potentially viable, option has emerged from the comments: Thunderbird could move to another organization, the Apache Foundation is often mentioned, where it would be on a more equal footing with that organization's other projects.

Based on the thoughts posted by Thunderbird lead developer, Scott MacGregor, it would appear that the independent company option is emerging as the lead contender. It has the advantage of being the simplest to set up and get going, with "start-up" funding being the major question. Based on Baker's posts, it would seem likely that MC would help with funding, at least for a bit, but a revenue model of some kind would have to come along relatively soon.

With Thunderbird as a community project, very little would change from an external view. The development would stay on the Mozilla servers, the source code repositories and bug tracking systems would not move. The main difference would be that Thunderbird Corp. (or whatever it ends up being called) would be responsible for making releases of the code, much like the community handles SeaMonkey releases today. This would presumably allow Thunderbird to be released on its own schedule, without any link to the Firefox schedule.

A Thunderbird Corp. may very well struggle for revenue. MC has been so successful because of their agreement with Google, making it the default Firefox search engine and homepage. This has brought in tens of millions of dollars in revenue, but it is hard to see how Thunderbird could capitalize on a similar deal. Thunderbird is, at some level, in direct competition with Google's Gmail service, which is what led some to believe Google was behind the "ouster" of Thunderbird from Mozilla. Baker has clearly stated that Google was completely uninvolved in the Thunderbird discussion, but there are still some who believe otherwise.

Many vocal commenters on the various postings and stories are looking at this as a hostile act by Mozilla. It appears, however, that this is truly an attempt to recognize that things are not working and to try and find a solution that will work. According to Baker, MacGregor and others, it simply is not possible for two projects as disparate in size as Firefox and Thunderbird to be handled within the same organization; the smaller always gets the short end of the stick, a disproportionate short end. In order for Thunderbird to thrive, it needs to find its own way.

It is hard to visualize Mozilla without Thunderbird or vice versa. Thunderbird's adoption rate has definitely been helped by the association with Mozilla (and Firefox). While they may officially be splitting up, that may not affect very much in the minds of the public. SeaMonkey is still associated with Mozilla, though it is run as a community project. Thunderbird will still share lots of code with Firefox - the community affiliation probably will not affect much, Thunderbird and Firefox are likely inextricably linked.

The bigger question is whether a new Thunderbird organization can continue to deliver email client innovation that can attract more users and a larger community. The Lightning calendar is something that Thunderbird has needed for a long time. It is often the "yes, but" that is heard when organizations are considering dropping proprietary alternatives in favor of Thunderbird. There are plenty of new and exciting features on the Thunderbird roadmap, it is merely a matter of choosing wisely, getting them implemented and released, while struggling to find a revenue model that works. It is a tall order, but, with a lot of hard work and a bit of luck, it is achievable.