The developers of the Thunderbird email client have published the financial report for 2021. During the year, the project received donations in the amount of $2.8 million ($2019 million was raised in 1.5, $2020 million in 2.3), which allows it to successfully develop independently.
The project's costs amounted to $1.984 million (2020: $1.5 million) and almost all (78.1%) were related to staff salaries. The remaining costs relate to professional services fees (such as HR), tax administration, and agreements with Mozilla (such as fees for access to assembly infrastructure). About $3.6 million remains on the accounts of MZLA Technologies Corporation, which oversees the development of Thunderbird.
According to available statistics, there are about 9 million daily active Thunderbird users and 17 million monthly active users (a year ago there were about the same figures). 95% of users use Thunderbird on the Windows platform, 4% on macOS and 1% on Linux.
Currently, 20 people have been hired to work on the project (in 2020, 15 worked). Staff changes include:
- An engineer was hired to provide technical support to enterprises and write documentation.
- The business and community manager position is divided into two positions: “community manager” and “product development and business manager”.
- A Quality Assurance (QA) Engineer has been hired.
- One more chief developer was employed (was 2 became 3).
- The post of Director of Operations has been created.
- Hired designer.
- Hired marketer.
- Posts saved:
- Technical manager.
- Add-on Ecosystem Coordinator.
- Lead interface architect.
- Security Engineer.
- 4 developers and 3 main developers.
- Infrastructure Maintenance Team Leader.
- Assembly engineer.
- Release Engineer.
Of the nearest plans, the release in June of the release of Thunderbird 102 is noted, among the most notable changes in which the following stands out:
- New address book implementation with vCard support.
- Spaces sidebar with buttons for quick switching between program modes (email, address book, calendar, chat, add-ons).
- Ability to insert thumbnails to preview the contents of links in emails. When you add a link while writing an email, you are now prompted to add a thumbnail of the associated content for the link for the recipient to see.
- Instead of a wizard to add a new account at the first launch, a summary screen is offered with a list of possible initial actions, such as setting up an existing account, importing a profile, creating a new email, setting up a calendar, chat, and news feed.
- A new import and export wizard that supports the transfer of messages, settings, filters, address book and accounts from various configurations, including migration from Outlook and SeaMonkey.
- Changed the design of email headers.
- Built-in client for the Matrix decentralized communications system. The implementation supports advanced features such as end-to-end encryption, sending invitations, lazy loading of participants, and editing sent messages.
A complete user interface overhaul is scheduled for 2023 and will be offered with the release of Thunderbird 114. Future plans also mention the development of an Android version of Thunderbird.
Source: opennet.ru