Thunderbird/FundingAppeal2014/Script: Difference between revisions

Unfortunately we are seeing the slow erosion of support for open internet communications by private and government entities. Some popular internet sites have closed communications methods that only their users can access. Others rely on ads for revenue, so that they compromise your privacy to sell you as a product. We are determined to keep Thunderbird current, ad-free, secure, and relevant in a changing internet.

Freedom is not free, somebody has to pay the bills. Several years ago, Thunderbird had a significant paid staff, subsidized by Firefox. But Firefox needs to focus on its own issues, so now volunteers are responsible for supporting and improving Thunderbird. Thunderbird is really important to millions of people, but it is hard for a small group of volunteers to provide the quality, features, and reliability that our users expect. We believe we need a small team of dedicated staff to respond to urgent issues, keep Thunderbird secure and reliable, and move forward with new features.

We've already received a lot of input from users on where Thunderbird could be better.Our Address Book needs to reliably sync with modern Cloud-based contact systems. There are too many old bugs that need fixing.  We would really like to move those things forward.