Thunderbird is funded by donations and operates under the MZLA banner.
These articles today are doing a disservice to the Thunderbird team who work independently of Mozilla afaik.
this post was submitted on 02 Apr 2025
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As written in the article
Moz doesn't contribute financially to Thunderbird's development, according to Sipes, and whatever revenue the Thunderbird team generates will go straight into furthering its work.
Independently of the Mozilla team, yes.
However, my understanding is that, if Thunderbird were to become ~~hugely~~ profitable, the Mozilla Foundation would benefit financially, though indirectly.
The organizational structure:
- Mozilla Foundation = parent organization
- MZLA Technologies Corporation (which owns Thunderbird) is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation
- Mozilla Corporation (which produces Firefox) is also a subsidiary of the Foundation
When Thunderbird moved to MZLA Technologies Corporation in January 2020, this was specifically done to allow Thunderbird to "collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations".
As a wholly owned subsidiary, any profits generated by MZLA would ultimately flow back to its parent organization, the Mozilla Foundation.
In the end, that revenue would probably go to all the smart investments we've seen the Mozilla Foundation make over the previous years. 🙄
You're right, but I think "hugely profitable" is probably optimistic - I'd expect something to the level of Proton or Fastmail. Fine, but not a big money maker like Firefox is.
Sure, applies to getting to any level of profitability.
Few know how things are structured. Or more importantly, how it could be restructured later.
These articles purport to be written by journalists though. Fact checking is meant to be a staple of the job description.
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They’re looking for a sustainable revenue stream because the Google subsidy is bound to dry up.
if they manage to make it an actual good product and also not host it in the US, they might even be able to pull it off
They are thinking of having the user choose the juridiction. So far their testing is hosted in the EU apparently.
Just be Proton without the support for fascism. Easy.
isnt the proton ceo praising trump publicly?
Congratulated him on day 1, I don't think said anything since
which means its ok for you. I cant follow
fascism
Huh? What did I miss
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I'd need to be able to choose a non-US server too. And even then, all the major tech firms breached EU laws by later transferring data back to the US. But if I had to trust an American company Mozilla would be among the better choices.
Isn't Mozilla a US company?
Somehow I don't see them leaving the place where they do business
Thunderbird and Firefox are developed by separate companies (both under the Mozilla Foundation). Thunderbird is funded through donations. Firefox is funded through (among other sources, such as Pocket and advertisements) the Google search deal. As far as I know it's not legally feasible (or even possible) for the Firefox money to go to Thunderbird or vice versa.
Article says revenue from this won't fund firefox.
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Uh oh. The reason gmail is profitable is because they see all your emails and sell your profile to others.
I dont want Mozilla doing that.
In the article it says they will have no ads and no data mining. The user will pay for the service.
I really hope this doesn't impact the client too significantly. A substantial part of why I use Thunderbird is to keep out of these "ecosystems".
I think the purpose is to find a source of revenue so that they don't have to ruin their product. There's a lot of potential good here, in addition to the unfortunately undeniable potential bad.
I'm sure Mozilla will run a heathy and sustainable project straight into the ground.
That's what they do
Mozilla doesn't run Thunderbird
Well... The Mozilla Corporation doesn't. But both the Corporation and MZLA (which makes Thunderbird) are owned by the Mozilla Foundation.
But yeah, the different org does probably matter.
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Sounds like good news. I just hope they won't put some bullshit in the TOS saying they can scan your emails to train their AI.
Ah yes the move from software developer to service provider. Smells like en(shit)tification.
Lets hope they do this right unlike everyone else.
Smells like en(shit)tification.
What are the parenthesis here for? Without it would be "smells like entification"??
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I’m cynical and already looking at forks
Good for you, but those forks too owe their existence (among other things) to the donations (and down the road subscriptions) to Thunderbird.
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when they said they would look for a way to monetize firefox i was worried, but this is actually great if they make a good service.
I agree. I would love to see a competitor to gmail/office365 that respects privacy
They are really not selling me with their recent antics
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Would be great if they create a real competition to proton mail
Always felt like this needed to happen for long time now. I guess now better than never. Got to figure out a business model. Reselling Mullvad as Firefox VPN was a start. I feel like everything that Proton does, Firefox should be doing but with a Linux file manager application
This is great news!
People should check out thunderbird appointments if they haven't.
Oh, bother.
I hope they’re going to keep the late 90s theme from Thunderbird. Maybe a dancing baby gif.
Have you used Thunderbird lately?
What do you consider 90's?
I use Thunderbird and it is anything but 90's
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A big step forward for Mozilla on the "mail" side. Diversification of income. Advertising in the browser was not to everyone's liking, but you have to make money somehow. On the private mail service with the transfer of large files in the form of cryptocontainer... They'll make a normal one the clients for Android and iOS... Link to Mozilla Account... This is the right way, one of them. And see integration with various approaches to trusted AI (trusted exactly, without transferring user data to the cloud). That's the right way, too. A very appropriate response to tectonic changes in the external environment.
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