So this is not a dig at them, but what are they trying to achieve? Mozilla overall has recently issues with both user retention and funding. I’m not sure i understand why they’re pushing for an entirely new thing (which I assume cost them some money to acquire k9) rather than improving the core product situation?
Guesses: a) those projects so separate in funding that it’s not an issue at all, or b) they’re thinking of an enterprise client with a paid version?
Seems pretty clear by the usage of the word “subsidiary”
Subsidiaries are separate, distinct legal entities for the purposes of taxation, regulation and liability. For this reason, they differ from divisions, which are businesses fully integrated within the main company, and not legally or otherwise distinct from it.[8] In other words, a subsidiary can sue and be sued separately from its parent and its obligations will not normally be the obligations of its parent.
The parent and the subsidiary do not necessarily have to operate in the same locations or operate the same businesses. Not only is it possible that they could conceivably be competitors in the marketplace, but such arrangements happen frequently at the end of a hostile takeover or voluntary merger. Also, because a parent company and a subsidiary are separate entities, it is entirely possible for one of them to be involved in legal proceedings, bankruptcy, tax delinquency, indictment or under investigation while the other is not.
They’re going to need to work on a lot of things, including a lot of stability improvements as well as better/more standard support for policies and autoconfig/SSO for Thunderbird to really be useful in enterprise.
Frankly, Thunderbird is the only real desktop app that I know of that competes with Outlook, and it’s kind of terrible… there really is a market here, and I don’t think that working on android client is what they need
Gnome Evolution works better than Thunderbird in an enterprise. For thunderbird IIUC you need a paid add-on to be able to connect to Office365 Outlook mailboxes (in the past there used to be an EWS plugin that worked with onprem Outlook, but doesn’t seem to work with O365), whereas Evolution supports OAuth out of the box.
Thunderbird supports IMAP/SMTP Oauth2 out of the box, which O365 has if your org has it enabled. What it lacks (and what Evolution has in advantage) is Exchange support.
If your org has IMAP/SMTP/activesync enabled then you can even do calendaring and global address completion using TbSync, which I rely heavily on for CalDAV / CardDAV support anyway (though I hear Thunderbird is looking to make these two an OOB experience as well)
I can’t say for certain, but I think maybe they’re looking to provide a similar desktop experience on mobile. I use Firefox and Thunderbird for work, and it is a curious thing to note that Thunderbird did not get any kind of Android version. Firefox already released base and Focus as Android applications, so it would be cool to see a Thunderbird exist in the (F)OSS Android ecosystem.
I have been a K-9 user for a number of years but I do think it’s UI could use a bit of an update. I have been using it since Android 5.0 and it has basically had the same interface since the initial Material release. This could be an exciting time for K-9 to get a new coat of paint. I will love K-9 mail even if this doesn’t pan out well.
K-9 mail is almost perfect the way it currently is on Android (at least when it comes to connecting to personal mailboxes). I can’t speak about how well it’d work in an enterprise because I keep work stuff off my phone on purpose.
The biggest functional shortcoming with K-9 is no support for OAuth2 logins, such as GMail and Office365. You can currently use K-9 Mail with an app-specific password in GMail, but Google will be taking that ability away soon. I also have some minor issues with notifications; my home IMAP server supports IDLE, but I still often see notifications being significantly delayed.
In terms of interface, there was a Material cleanup a while ago, and the settings got less complicated and cluttered, so it’s very usable and reasonably presentable. But it does look increasingly out of date (though that’s admittedly both subjective and an endless treadmill).
Genuinely sad that we’ll be losing the K9 name and logo at some point. 😅 A real part of that app’s appeal (alongside being an excellent mail client of course).
So this is not a dig at them, but what are they trying to achieve? Mozilla overall has recently issues with both user retention and funding. I’m not sure i understand why they’re pushing for an entirely new thing (which I assume cost them some money to acquire k9) rather than improving the core product situation?
Guesses: a) those projects so separate in funding that it’s not an issue at all, or b) they’re thinking of an enterprise client with a paid version?
These things are indeed separate in funding. Thunderbird is under a whole different entity than, say, Firefox
Aren’t they both funded by the Mozilla Foundation? How are they separate?
https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/
@caleb wrote:
Your link’s first sentence:
I’m confused…
Seems pretty clear by the usage of the word “subsidiary”
They’re going to need to work on a lot of things, including a lot of stability improvements as well as better/more standard support for policies and autoconfig/SSO for Thunderbird to really be useful in enterprise.
Frankly, Thunderbird is the only real desktop app that I know of that competes with Outlook, and it’s kind of terrible… there really is a market here, and I don’t think that working on android client is what they need
Gnome Evolution works better than Thunderbird in an enterprise. For thunderbird IIUC you need a paid add-on to be able to connect to Office365 Outlook mailboxes (in the past there used to be an EWS plugin that worked with onprem Outlook, but doesn’t seem to work with O365), whereas Evolution supports OAuth out of the box.
Thunderbird supports IMAP/SMTP Oauth2 out of the box, which O365 has if your org has it enabled. What it lacks (and what Evolution has in advantage) is Exchange support.
If your org has IMAP/SMTP/activesync enabled then you can even do calendaring and global address completion using TbSync, which I rely heavily on for CalDAV / CardDAV support anyway (though I hear Thunderbird is looking to make these two an OOB experience as well)
I can’t say for certain, but I think maybe they’re looking to provide a similar desktop experience on mobile. I use Firefox and Thunderbird for work, and it is a curious thing to note that Thunderbird did not get any kind of Android version. Firefox already released base and Focus as Android applications, so it would be cool to see a Thunderbird exist in the (F)OSS Android ecosystem.
I have been a K-9 user for a number of years but I do think it’s UI could use a bit of an update. I have been using it since Android 5.0 and it has basically had the same interface since the initial Material release. This could be an exciting time for K-9 to get a new coat of paint. I will love K-9 mail even if this doesn’t pan out well.
K-9 mail is almost perfect the way it currently is on Android (at least when it comes to connecting to personal mailboxes). I can’t speak about how well it’d work in an enterprise because I keep work stuff off my phone on purpose.
The biggest functional shortcoming with K-9 is no support for OAuth2 logins, such as GMail and Office365. You can currently use K-9 Mail with an app-specific password in GMail, but Google will be taking that ability away soon. I also have some minor issues with notifications; my home IMAP server supports IDLE, but I still often see notifications being significantly delayed.
In terms of interface, there was a Material cleanup a while ago, and the settings got less complicated and cluttered, so it’s very usable and reasonably presentable. But it does look increasingly out of date (though that’s admittedly both subjective and an endless treadmill).
oauth2 was merged a few days ago https://github.com/thundernest/k-9/pull/6082
Ah, yeah, I saw elsewhere that it’s the only priority for the next release.
I think pooling these efforts is great, and I’m looking forward to the releases
Fairmail is good enough for me!
Just concentrate on making a great cross platform desktop client. Chasing mobile will only slow you down and make you lose focus.
Lots of people like (or at least find it to be convenient, or need) to read their email on their phone, however.
Genuinely sad that we’ll be losing the K9 name and logo at some point. 😅 A real part of that app’s appeal (alongside being an excellent mail client of course).
Funnily I have the opposite reaction :P Finally that infuriating dog reference will disappear from my phone!
Sacrilege! More Doctor Who references on my home screen please.