Hello Mark, it seems that you are highly concerned with the path
Thunderbird is taking for the future. Might I suggest to you, and
everyone following this exchange for that matter, to head over the [tb-
planning][1] mailing list. It's purpose is to, quote:

1. *Offer an easy, transparent venue for getting constructive,
Thunderbird-related work done.*
2. *Offering community members the chance to post until they get
satisfaction about their concerns.*

I am pretty sure that if you were to gently explain your concern and
future perceived issue, somebody would gladly take the time to answer
you. It is not, however, a place to request supports.

Take care,
Ludovic


[1]: https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/tb-planning

On dim, 2020-10-25 at 15:49 +0000, Mark Rousell wrote:
> On 25/10/2020 06:33, Simon Walter wrote:
> > On 10/25/20 7:20 AM, Mark Rousell wrote:
> > > The reason for this change is that Thunderbird is deprecating all
> > > its old addons (the entire ecosystem) and Enigmail won't work on
> > > the new Thunderbird. It's less than satisfactory.
> >
> > Yes, I understand the reasons. They may make sense for FF. Though,
> > I don't know if they apply to TB.
>
> I do not think they make sense for Thunderbird. Thunderbird was in
> effect railroaded into it because it cannot part ways with whatever
> the Firefox project does with Gecko (or whatever it's called now). I
> view this as a bug, not a feature.
> I understand that the Thunderbird project lacked resources to go its
> own way (i.e. forking Gecko to be able to support their own addon
> ecosystem) but I still view this as severely damaging to
> Thunderbird's future and, as such, is a systemic problem. It is
> destroying one of Thunderbird's USPs (i.e. fully capable addons).
> > That's interesting and may be a good thing. I should do more
> > investigation. I recommend TB to most of my clients. I want to make
> > sure that is still a good recommendation.
>
> I'm in the same position with respect to recommending to clients. I
> think that Thunderbird is still a good recommendation pro tem but I
> do not see this as a long term situation. I do not think that the
> current leadership's direction is the right one in order for
> Thunderbird to be able to maintain unique USPs over potentially
> competing mail and calendar clients.
> As an aside, I don't think that Firefox has a great future either. In
> summary, it seems to me that it's being converted more and more into
> a Chrome clone and if users have a choice between Chrome and a
> Chrome-alike then they simply seem to choose Chrome. Firefox has lost
> its USPs (not least its earlier fully-capable addon ecosystem), and
> Thunderbird under its current leadership (and, I admit, with its
> current resources) seems to be inexorably following.
> So, I'm sticking with Thunderbird for now until I identify a better
> alternative. The loss of the old addons ecosystem and, in particular,
> the loss of Enigmail and replacement with a less capable internal
> OpenPGP implementation were the final turning point for me (together
> with planned UI changes that are not so appropriate in my opinion for
> desktop use and with general project leadership quality).
> The replacement (for me) for Thunderbird might not yet exist but I am
> confident that something will emerge.