The Mozilla Foundation is expected to formally announce Monday it's halting development of its Thunderbird free email program. And although it's pulling its resources away, the organization says it's not killing it – a distinction that's leaving some folks scratching their heads. It said in a blog post:
Mozilla is focusing a lot of its efforts towards important web and mobile projects, while Thunderbird remains a pure desktop-only email client. We have come to the conclusion that continued innovation on Thunderbird is not a priority for Mozilla and that the most critical needs for the product are on-going security and stability. In fact, it is quite possible that Thunderbird is already pretty much what its users want and there is not a high demand for innovation in this field.
It says it still plans to support its users, though. On Monday, it plans to release a governance plan, says TechCrunch. This plan will include maintenance and "community-driven innovations for the product." Just last month, it was touting a new release featuring the ability to send large files and to create custom email domains. It's been pulling people off the project since January, though, according to TechCrunch. Some people are likely to be reassigned to other projects, according to a leaked internal memo. That's likely to be the Firefox Mobile OS that's under development. Indeed. Its job listings include several for software engineers for mobile, user experience designers for apps and mobile, and security specialists. It also released in June its Mozilla Thimble, which lets anyone learn how to create web pages in their browser.

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