Thunderbird Project

Hello Thunderbird Community! Alessandro here with another monthly development digest. This one is full of updates on Rust and #Exchange support, a better mailing list subscription experience, and a successful ESMification!

Our developers have been busy this April. Their progress on bugs new and old, as well as progress on features for the ESR release due in July, is detailed in our latest issue of the Monthly Development Digest. ✨ Read about these updates and more on the Thunderbird Blog. If you'd like to follow and even join Thunderbird development as it happens, be sure to follow the link to our TopicBox lists on the bottom of the post. https://lnkd.in/eyqVYy4S

Thunderbird developers are bringing native Exchange support - in Rust - into the next ESR release. We've learned from the experience, and want to share the accomplishments and where we're heading with you all. While this blog post may be intended for a more technical audience, it offers insights into the development process, from deciding on programming languages and handling challenges to building for the problem at hand and the future. If you're especially interested in Rust and/or email protocols, this post is also excellent 'homework' in advance of our community office hours on April 23 at 16:00 UTC, all about Rust and Exchange. https://lnkd.in/gNWNarEG

Native support for the Exchange protocol, written in Rust, is coming to Thunderbird! But, why is this support crucial for current and future users, and why does the programming language it's written in matter? Three of the developers who have been working on developing this feature, and talking about it in numerous conferences, sit down with our Community Office Hours hosts to provide an overview of this significant addition to Thunderbird's core capabilities, as well as the decision to write it in Rust. If you're interested in a great example of how open source development is done, join us on Tuesday, April 23 at 16:00 UTC. Details on how to join, along with links to our previous updates on Exchange Support, can be found in the blog: https://lnkd.in/gCmqNaKS

Community feedback and questions come from many places. For Thunderbird, that includes (but isn't limited to) social media, bug trackers, and in-person conferences. We're grateful for such an engaged community! During last month's Community Office Hours, we put some of the most recent frequently asked questions to our team for a lively, enlightening discussion. We've taken that chat and turned it into a blog post with official answers to the community's most pressing questions. From Thunderbird for Android to the desktop app, read the latest updates to the issues on our community's mind! https://lnkd.in/g3mUb-NV

🕘 Transport yourself back to December 2009: Maybe you were upgrading your computer to the new Windows 7, or checking out Ubuntu 9.0. Perhaps you were pouring all your free time into Valve’s ridiculously fun survival shooter Left 4 Dead 2. And maybe, just maybe, you were eagerly anticipating installing Thunderbird 3.0… Step back into the Thunderbird Time Machine as Jason looks at what made this such a landmark release! https://lnkd.in/g4K-cFZC

I gave a talk at #FOSDEM! 🥳 And the recording is now available! Over the past few months, Sean, Ikey and I have been hard at work bringing #Rust to the Thunderbird Project. The end goal: implement support for Microsoft #Exchange, the first time a new protocol is implemented in Thunderbird since it grew out of Netscape Communicator over 20 years ago. Join us in this journey, to learn about the hurdles we've faced along the way and how we've overcome them to pave the way forward.

What features and updates are being planned for Thunderbird? Get an early glimpse in this month's Development Digest, written by our Director of Product Engineering Alessandro Castellani. #Development #Rust #Exchange #OpenSource

This is your friendly reminder for our monthly Community Office Hours this Thursday at 18:00 UTC! Team Thunderbird will be joined by John Bieling, who will be talking to us about Add-ons. Find out how to join live and more on the blog post: https://lnkd.in/ehS8Y6nB

Every month our mobile developers (cketti and Wolf) write a detailed progress report showing what's been completed on our journey from K-9 Mail to Thunderbird for Android. Our newest progress report runs down improvements to Account Setup, UI, and more: https://lnkd.in/giBTpZ_s