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Comment by mhurron | Hacker News Reader

How is focusing on Firefox not inline with a mission statement of 'building a better web for it's users?'

It might be. But what about the discussion? Is focusing on a native mail application not inline with their mission statement, given all the privacy issues of late? And your point doesn't address the issue of implementation. Firefox is one initiative out of many initiatives in Mozilla's portfolio. And the web is not the browser. So I, personally, would say no, focusing on a browser to the exclusion of all other aspects of the Internet is not inline with that mission. But, I'm one of many users, and without open dialogue, it's impossible to say whether other Mozilla users agree with me.

Why do they have a public discussion to justify their actions. If they choose to, fine but I do not see why they have too.

> the web is not the browser

Actually yes, the web is the browser, or more correctly the browser is your interface to the web. HTTP/HTTPS is the web, everything else is the Internet. Mozilla is focusing on providing a web experience, a SMTP client is not the web experience and they no longer wish to expend resources on it.

Do you realize that this discussion is going on right now, in the open, on the appropriate mailing list?

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/mozilla.governance/kAy...

Take Andrew Sutherlands email for example, that directly, out in the open, discusses the very points you raise:

https://groups.google.com/d/msg/mozilla.governance/kAyVlhfEc...

"The problem with Thunderbird is not that it is a mail user agent or that user agency in messaging is unimportant. The problem is that Thunderbird has had a serious technical debt problem since the day its code-base transitioned from Netscape. Its low-level integration with Gecko has been a maintenance burden for Thunderbird developers and non-Thunderbird developers alike.

The Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Corporation put serious financial resources into trying to address both of these problems with the creation of Mozilla Messaging. The idea, as I understand it, was to attempt to alleviate the burden on Firefox development by separating Thunderbird development while simultaneously providing Thunderbird with people and resources to attempt to address this technical debt."

"An important question that falls out from all of this is and your original question is: which is more important? Mail user agency or Thunderbird the product, especially if there are serious opportunity costs related to Thunderbird?

Within the funded efforts of the Mozilla Corporation[2], mail user agency has not been abandoned and continues to be advanced as part of an open development process."

I agree a discussion of a kind is occurring. My reply was specific to the comment it addressed, in that, the comment did not fully engage with my initial comment and instead cherry picked one part of it. A more fully formed response, much like yours, wouldn't have elicited my above response. Context.

Showing me sponsored ads on the new tab page is not building a better web for users.

Switching search engines from Google to Yahoo instead of giving users a choice at install is not building a better web for users.

Both make money. Yahoo pays more than google.

Not enough money to support Thunderbird apparently...

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