On 27/10/2020 22:47, Rick Moen wrote:
> Quoting John Crisp via Dng (dng@???):
>
> [snip much-appreciated picture of behind-the-scenes management
> folderol at Thunderbird Project:]
>
>> The problem is decent alternatives are not great [...]
> Just in case people have lost track of this, the long-term nub of the
> problem is: revenue model.
>
> Firefox brought in money. Thunderbird did not.

Yes, this was certainly, as I understood it, an issue at the time that
Thunderbird was cut loose. Mozilla was described as "paying a tax to
support Thunderbird".

At the time, I seem to recall (from mail list discussions) that one of
the things that the then Thunderbird council had to sort out with
Mozilla was the proportion of donations that came in via
Thunderbird-related links and was thus due to Thunderbird.

However, things do seem to have been sorted out. According to recent
statements on tb-planning, MZLA Corp (the corporate owner of
Thunderbird) now has around 15 employees! That's some real money there.

Presumably the income that allows for 15 employees is derived partly
from donations and partly from Thunderbird's own commission income from
email signup links.

One might cynically observe that now it seems that money is there,
Thunderbird is back in the Mozilla fold. ;-)


--
Mark Rousell