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It looks like Mozilla is chasing tech buzzwords, but are always a few steps too far behind to actually do any impact. Why not focus on what they are doing best (i.e. browser, email)? There's still plenty to do, Firefox keeps crashing both on my desktop PC and Android phone, now Thunderbird is abandoned. IoT market is full of big players with vast amount of resources and saturated not less (if not more) than smartphone market, I don't see how they gonna compete there. As for OSS, Linux is doing great and keeps doing better in IoT scene[0], why not merge efforts? I appreciate Mozilla's efforts, but lately it lacks focus and clear goals. Maybe some fresh blood would help?

We will explore and prototype new use cases in the world of connected devices as an open source project with a clear focus on the user benefit and experience.

..yada yada, sounds like a buzzword filled marketing crap with no substance whatsoever[1].

0. https://www.linux.com/news/embedded-mobile/mobile-linux/8180...

1. https://media.licdn.com/mpr/mpr/p/5/005/04f/263/04c1eb8.jpg

They focus a ton on the browser. I use chrome a lot less than Firefox and I still see chrome tab crashes more often. Spidermonkey performs amazingly today, and even beats V8 on its own benchmarks. FF used to be resource hungry, but now is a lot lighter on memory usage than chrome. Beyond current tech, they're investing heavily into Rust and Servo for the next generation, and their ES6/7 support has been steadily growing. By all measures, it's clear that they have goals on the browser and they take those goals seriously. What else can they do?

Third party desktop mail clients are just not a killer feature for the vast majority of users. IoT may not be a winner for various reasons, but I'm sure it can't be easy trying to figure out where to go from here. (let's face it, IoT is going to be the same locked-down, vendor-specific experience that Internet tv has become; and without manufacturing a must-have device or buying out a manufacturer of one, why would Mozilla win in that field?)

Rust and Servo are easily the most important things they're working on IMHO. And WebAssembly, which combined with Servo I hope will have a big impact on web UI development and performance.

> Spidermonkey performs amazingly today, and even beats V8 on its own benchmarks.

And yet somehow Firefox manages to run WebGL a lot worse than Chrome and Opera (Blink/V8 based browsers)...

Because what they're doing good - desktop browser and desktop mail client - are becoming more and more irrelevant.

Browsing is quickly becoming a thing most people do on (only) their phone and email is for more and more something you do on the web.

If Mozilla keeps focusing on these two aspects they will start to cater to a niche market and lose the ability to influence the Internet at large.

> [...] email is for more and more something you do on the web.

Yeah, I would say that I agree with that, but about a month ago, I have joined a tech team of an NGO that works with a lot of sensitive data.

Convincing them to use Enigmail with Thunderbird is hard. Convincing them to use Enigmail with Thunderbird even though you are not sure what will be the future of Thunderbird is just plain frustrating.

And no, there's absolutely no alternative that could handle all three desktop OS's (Windows, Linux, OS X), attachments, and other things that are completely necessary to have a safe, encrypted communication.

There's absolutely no alternative what so ever. I really wish that some cool project (like LibreOffice) takes over Thunderbird and makes it great, but the odds for that are practically non-existing.

+1 for the point about Thunderbird. We need good open-source mail clients. I'm not sure we need a Firefox OS, and regardless they just don't have the market power to make it work.

There's Mailpile: https://www.mailpile.is/

That looks neat but doesn't fufill the "low resource client on my desktop with notifications" that Thunderbird does.

Maybe re-package the Firefox OS Mail Client? ;) It's "low resource" ;) -> https://github.com/mozilla-b2g/gaia/tree/master/apps/email

Low resource? Thunderbird?

You might want to check out claws-mail. You get notification via a plugin (on debian/ubuntu, the plugin is in another package, but it's very easy to get).

>We need good open-source mail clients

Take a look at https://nylas.com/N1

It's not the traditional mail client, it requires server (https://github.com/nylas/N1/blob/master/CONTRIBUTING.md#runn...)

You can host a server yourself or use a version hosted by the company. If you are not concerned with privacy issues, it works like a traditional mail client.

He said he wanted a mail client, not a mail client that requires a self hosted server infrastructure or giving the email out.

> it works like a traditional mail client.

Except it's not just a client.

Wait, last time I checked, the API/Server wasn't free software? Did I miss something, or has the licensing model changed?

It seems that sync engine was AGPL licensed from the start https://github.com/nylas/sync-engine/blob/master/LICENSE

I didn't realize the sync engine was available and possible to use for a 100% self-host solution -- but evidently it is :-)

FossaMail is an Open Source, Mozilla Thunderbird-based mail, news and chat client for Windows and Linux, brought to you by the Pale Moon developers (and therefore not affiliated with the Mozilla Corporation). It is an alternative version of the Mozilla Thunderbird mail&news client, and based on the Pale Moon browser core.

http://www.fossamail.org/

Thunderbird is / was probably the last comprehensive desktop mail client that enabled ordinary users to decouple themselves from e-mail providers.

Unfortunately Mozilla [ com | org ] have shackled themselves to Googlemail internally, so seem to have abandoned any aspirations to fight for openness in the domain of e-mail.

The irony of this pivot is that Andreas Gal, one of the creators of Firefox OS,[1] has already tried to do IoT with Firefox OS[2] and failed. His startup is now doing IoT with NodeJS.[3]

Li Gong, former executive in charge of Firefox OS,[4] also has a startup focusing on Firefox OS smartphones.[5] Having raised $100 million and poached dozens of Mozilla employees, he is looking for even more funding.[6]

[1] http://www.cnet.com/news/mozillas-new-cto-javascript-firefox...

[2] http://www.cnet.com/news/firefox-os-in-flux-as-mozilla-loses...

[3] http://www.cnet.com/news/startup-aims-to-make-home-devices-s...

[4] https://www.linkedin.com/in/ligongcn

[5] http://www.cnet.com/news/startup-lands-100-million-to-challe...

[6] http://www.cnet.com/news/startup-acadine-picks-up-the-torch-...

Whoa at the last two points. I wonder if Acadine Technologies means that the reports on the death of the Firefox OS smartphone are premature?

http://www.fiercemobileit.com/story/acadine-undeterred-effor...

> So, at first, they've told us that they don't have enough resources to pour into Thunderbird because they were working on something else. That something else was Firefox OS

I'm not really familiar with Mozilla's internal org - so I have just had a look at Mozilla Corp's leadership page[1]: there is an SVP for Firefox, and an SVP for "Connected Devices" - who authored the linked article. There are no other SVPs: which suggests MozCorp consider connected devices to be as important as Firefox . It looks like Thunderbird is orphaned and has no champion within Mozilla (I don't think the Firefox division wants it).

So it looks like it boils down to org structure & politics (for the lack of a better word): Thunderbird is dying because it's an unwanted step-child, and FirefoxOS is revived because it's the biggest thing going on for an entire division/department ("Connected Devices")

1. https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/about/leadership/

They're also removing tab groups (panorama) in the next version. Apparently due to low usage -- which is surprising considering how much they've advertised the feature. /s

I'm not sure where you got the idea that Thunderbird was sunset to keep resources for Firefox OS, but that's not the case. There's only one former TB dev that works on Firefox OS, and guess what, he's in charge of the email app.

If you want to try Firefox OS, even with no carrier support, take a look at https://firefoxos.mozilla.community/devices/ which lists supported devices.

From Mitchell Baker's blog post, it appears that it is Firefox that has diverging needs from Thunderbird.

"Thunderbird and Firefox are interconnected in a few different ways. They are connected through our technical infrastructure. Both use Mozilla build and release systems. They’re connected through the sharing of some pieces of technology. The time has come when it is no longer effective for Thunderbird and Firefox to keep sharing the same technical infrastructure. Firefox and Thunderbird have diverging needs."

https://blog.lizardwrangler.com/2015/12/03/thunderbird-updat...