What is Thunderbird?Wednesday October 9th, 2002Blake Ross has posted some details about Thunderbird to the Phoenix General forum. Thunderbird (formerly Minotaur) is a lightweight stand-alone mail client that will accompany Phoenix. It's about time someone took a sledgehammer to the monolithic "everything and the kitchen sink" app model that Communicator inflicted upon us years back. Go Blake! Woohoo! -JR What bloat are you taliking about? The kitchensink from http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=122411 hasn't even been checked in yet! ;) BelchBird would have been more fitting since Phoenix and BelchBird combined will amount to nothing more than a fart in a whirlwind. Really people. Phoenix. Thunderbird. For Christ sakes, who the hell is running this sorry outfit! Forever yours, Jenny -- Jenny Craig - #1 Success Rate in Blubber Busting Just say NO to Mozilla/Netscape BLUI - Blubber Layered User Interface Jenny Craigs War on Blubber: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/ Jenny Craigs BLUI Addiction Therapy: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/signup.html Sounds like YOU need Jenny Craig. The only blubber around here is what you keep typing in these forums. If you want to stop blubber, just stop yourself. Phoenix is the best thing put out by the Mozilla folks so far, and Thunderbird is just another step in the right direction. The Phoenix dev's are doing a great job, keep it up!!! Let me guess... you are a Mozilla user. Only a BLUI addicted Mozilla user could exhalt Phoenix. -- Jenny Craig - #1 Success Rate in Blubber Busting Just say NO to Mozilla/Netscape BLUI - Blubber Layered User Interface Jenny Craigs War on Blubber: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/ Jenny Craigs BLUI Addiction Therapy: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/signup.html Nope. Wrong. I WAS a mozilla user, but after 1.0 the project seemed to be dragging, boated, felt....clunky, and it wasn't something I wanted to use anymore. I didn't enjoy Mozilla (or Netscape7) at all, and haven't been using nightlies since. Then I tried Phoenix and every three-year old bug/feature that was watiting to get fixed in Mozilla was suddenly fixed in Phoenix in about 2 weeks. The program size is about 4/5M smaller, runs faster, is MUCH more customizable (toolbar customization), pref panel was trimmed down, unnecessary menu items removed...and it goes on and on. Been using it ever since the nightlies arrived and haven't stopped yet. This is what Mozilla/Netscape SHOULD have been. Maybe you should actually TRY Phoenix, if you haven't. If you think this is like Mozilla, you're wrong. I'm starting to wonder though, what is the performace memory loss in running them seperatly. It seems as though the basic components of mozilla would have to be loaded twice if your running the pheonix and thunderbird. If not can anyone explain how this is done.? There should be no noticible loss because the shared libraries are only loaded into memory once. This is an operating system feature and true for all shared libs. (Practically) every Unix app, for example, uses libc, so once the first app. has loaded it, all the other apps get to use it for "free". Without actually knowing much about Mozilla's internals, I'd bet there's an additional speed increase from less shared data (and therefore less locking) and smaller data structures. I thought you were against bloated apps and UIs. Phoenix and Thunderbird are exactly the opposite of what you so detest (Mozilla) so what's your problem? XUL? You have a problem with that? If so, post some constructive alternatives, some real ideas on how to build cross-platform UIs or, if you can't do that, just fuck off. please. --Asa "I thought you were against bloated apps and UIs." I'm against BLUI not a feature complete browser suite. A feature complete browser suite using BLUI is a bug ridden and blubber infested piece of char broiled lizard lard. Phoenix isn't a solution, it is compromise. A dead ended one at that. "Phoenix and Thunderbird are exactly the opposite of what you so detest (Mozilla) so what's your problem? XUL?" It is not called XUL.... it is called BLUI, and yes, BLUI is the problem. "If so, post some constructive alternatives, some real ideas on how to build cross-platform UIs or, if you can't do that, just fuck off." Here's a novel concept. Don't make a cross-platform UI. Try making a non-crossplatform UI. Now it's your turn to blow off. Forever Yours, Jenny Craig -- Jenny Craig - #1 Success Rate in Blubber Busting Just say NO to Mozilla/Netscape BLUI - Blubber Layered User Interface Jenny Craigs War on Blubber: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/ Jenny Craigs BLUI Addiction Therapy: http://www.geocities.com/moz_blubber/signup.html test test Allright I just had to voice the opinion of the silent majority of happy Mozilla-users who actually like their feature-ladden integrated browser/mailnews/calendar/tetris beast (yes I do use Emacs and not vi most of the time :) ) But it is wonderful to have another incarnation of a gecko-xul based browser/mail combo that will make the ascetic minimalists happy - let 1000 browsers bloom! One thing though: I wonder how the general public will react to this - or even, will the sheer number of gecko-based browsers be and advantage or disadvantage in establishing an alternative to IE? What about PR? Just wondering ... Well I know a hell lot of users who don't want to switch from IE to Mozilla, cause there still are some pages that have problems to be displayed properly. But all of those IE-Users really hate Outlook. Reason number one are virues! Yeah, almost all the big viruses & E-Mail worms were spread via Outlook. Thunderbird will be great programm for a better (virus free) world; and also an entrance to the Mozilla world. There's a huge obstacle in the way of Thunderbird or Mozilla replacing Outlook. Outlook clients can connect to Microsoft Exchange Server using Microsoft's proprietary protocol, but Mozilla cannot unless the server is configured to use IMAP. This problem is listed in bug 128284 <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128284>. Maybe someone who has inside information about the protocol can help fix that bug. Another problem is that Outlook includes a calendar and scheduling software that many companies use to organize meetings and other planned events. Mozilla would also need to be an Outlook clone for these features as well to replace Outlook in these organizations. This is covered by bug 172611 <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=172611>. Arg! The link syntax in this forum is different from the other forums: Bug 128284: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=128284 Bug 172611: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=172611 Here's a list of many bugs that prevent Mozilla easily replacing Outlook or Outlook Express: http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?short_desc_type=anywordssubstr&short_desc=outlook+exchange&product=Calendar&product=MailNews&bug_status=UNCONFIRMED&bug_status=NEW&bug_status=ASSIGNED&bug_status=REOPENED There are a lot of things you described which are primarly used in Outlook. I was thinking about all the users who just use Oulook (or Outlook Express) just as a simple mail client. I know a lot of people who like Mozilla's mail programm but don't want to download and use the whole package. So maybe just Outlook Express users (who don't need, Exchange Server, Calendar, etc.) want to change. 1) Combine and decode news messages 2) yyenc decoding Implement those, and a few million pr0n browsers will likely convert. These missing features is keeping many users from using Mozilla MailNews. Another thing that should be added in the newsreader is background downloading of articles. Well, this is just my point of view. I want like a 3 month of deathmatch with all opened bugs and no innovation in this 3 months period. Then, after this 3 months of bug hunting only period, there should be enough time for doing a threaded-Mozilla, a stand-alone-navigator, a stand-alone-MailNews, etc, etc and etc. I just hates bugs, do you too? :-) Don't you think it's a little rude to tell people volunteering their time what they should and should not work on? (I'll give you a hint -- of the people working on Phoenix, at least 50% are doing it on their own unpaid time. Perhaps more; I don't know internal Netscape details). You know, making Thunderbird doesn't add features and/or bugs to the Mozilla trunk. Thunderbird is a separate project, that could inherit bugs from Mozilla's Mail component but in no way could make Mozilla itself buggier. Stop worrying :) 100% of the developers working on Phoenix are doing it on their own unpaid time. Neither Netscape or any other company that I know of pays anyone to write code for Phoenix. --Asa According to Daniel Glazman of Netscape ( http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/weblog/#82680142 ), there has been at least one Netscape developer working full time on Phoenix. Also, as I have pointed out before, according to Bonsai and Bugzilla, there have been Phoenix code checkins at all times day and night as well as Phoenix related bug comments and patch attachments. If none of the Phoenix developers are working on Phoenix while on the clock for their employers then they must have extremely odd working hours. I have no doubt that Phoenix developers are donating some of their own time, but I have a very hard time believing that none of them have done any work while on the job. "According to Daniel Glazman of Netscape ( http://daniel.glazman.free.fr/weblog/#82680142 ), there has been at least one Netscape developer working full time on Phoenix." Read the relevant bits again carefully: "By the way, one quoted line above contains a false assertion since one Netscape engineer works full time on Phoenix. Phoenix is therefore not independant of Netscape... well, CaScadeS became a Netscape thing at the very second I started doing something about it from my desk, from my workstation, using its network, during working hours. You don't believe it ? Be sure a lawyer will believe it. Can you be 100% affirmative that the person I am thinking of never ever touched a single line of Phoenix in these conditions ?... Addendum : I never said that Blake is being paid by Netscape to work on Phoenix. Check my exact words." I think what he's saying is that although no Netscape developers are being paid by Netscape to work on Phoenix, they are using Netscape resources to do it and that therefore Netscape has some ownership rights to Phoenix. Kind of like the way most employment contracts say, "If you invent anything while working for us, it's ours." They can justify this by saying that the employee used some of the expertise s/he got from the training that s/he was given (since the training was paid for by the employer, they can claim that they own all the results of it). I'm not saying that this situation is right or that Netscape would try to exercise control over Phoenix, just trying to explain what I inferred from Glazman's comments. If just using Netscape resources does mean that Phoenix is owned by Netscape then I guess so is MozillaZine, as I'm almost certain that Kerz has done some things to the site while at work (or at the very least, thought about it on company time). Alex "Read the relevant bits again carefully: " Check the time stamps carefully. The stuff you are quoting was posted AFTER I made my post to Mozillazine. It is rather difficult for me to read stuff AGAIN when I had never read it before. Regardless, my point is still the same: Phoenix developers are not doing Phoenix work exclusively on their own time which is what Asa keeps trying to claim.
I never intended to be rude. Please forgive if I did sound so. I just wanted to express my personal(as a user) point of view. As a developer I think bug hunting periods are a normal thing to do and to suggest during development. I know Mozilla developers and working and working hard just for free. To help the community and world. And I thanks them and support them. But, again, I never intended to be rude. That happened before... during .9.5 or so... can't remember exactly when. (Correct me if I'm wrong.) Basically, nothing except bugfixes were checked in. I think it was called a stability period. - MXN http://mxn.netfirms.com/ |