I’ve already tried that. I’ve done everything. Re-install. Create new accounts. Repair folders. Test against older versions. Updated the email server. The email server has uncorrupted emails on it. K-9 has no issues with them. Older versions of TB seem to have no problems with them.
Right now the codebases are totally different, but how much will be borrowed from one project to fill the other? I don’t know. And that is what worries me.
I’m very much a fan of K-9 Mail. But I can’t help but feel some anxiety from this announcement. And I generally don’t feel anxiety over anything.
Desktop version’s code is very, very different. I doubt you would have to worry that much, existing thunderbird features will probably be completely rewritten so they work on android, which means the same problems are very unlikely to happen (new problems may arise tho, as with any software)
I hope this changes something in “the relationship between community and developer”… and not continuing this shit in the past (“i want to get your money, but stfu” / “developing just for my own”, bla bla)…
Congratulations, @cketti! I’m so happy to see your work get a home and a long-term supporting org.
Would you suggest we transfer our librapay subscriptions to mozilla’s donation page for K-9 at this time? I want to make sure my contributions are going to your work as much as possible.
Congrats @cketti ! This is great news and a fantastic continuation of your code base and a good match with the Thunderbird team. Looking forward to even faster evolution in the near future.
I suppose colors will change - that’s ok and cosmetic!
Congratulations and I’m looking forward to the future!
I’m a bit surprised by the negative feedback. Are so many really attached to something like a name? It’s not like they had so much influence on the general direction the development was going in (and yet nobobdy of the ones complaining most undertook the effort to fork and maintain their own version…).
I have literally four different ways to access my main “private, serious” email acount. One is Tbird on my Win desktop, and another, which I use more and more, is K-9 Mail on my Chromebook. (The other two ways I will skip over.) If Tbird and K-9 are merging, will I still be able to use the resulting app on my Chromebook?
I would avoid making the comments of the “If you don’t like it just fork it” kind, its rather annoying. Also, a name has importance, that’s simply true.
Don’t get me wrong, I am really happy with the unfolding of these events, I can’t wait to see the new changes that are still to come, Ijust want to mantain some of the legacy that K9 had on android. Others are even more against these changes, but that’s just what happens when users face new unknown things lol
I am quite happy about that given K9mail deliberately lacked money (donations) and development power, e.g. see how long it’s material design thing took. And even that is not at all finished.
So Thunderbird could bring that project forward a lot!
So let’s see how that goes. Especially the design could be polished and having proper maintainance, including security fixes etc., is also always a good idea!
IMHO this was a clever move of you two (projects and people behind each one)!
I have loved k-9 and put it on every Android phone I’ve ever had. I’m disappointed that oauth2 seems to have been ignored and makes the program unusable (or more difficult to use) for Gmail. Maybe the Thunderbird folks can fix this and make the app usable for me again. Thunderbird on desktop has gotten a lot better the past year. So please quickly fix k-9 without all the Mozilla mumbo jumbo that plagues Firefox, but seems to not pull Thunderbird down as much. Thanks.
Ryan Sipes, the Thunderbird Product Manager here. I want to just add my own thoughts here and how Thunderbird sees this relationship, and hopefully that will help some of you feel more at ease and add more fuel to the fire for those who are excited.
I’m a longtime K-9 user. In fact, I don’t really remember a time when I had a smartphone and wasn’t using it (although I’m sure very, very early on a time might have existed). I have an attachment to the K-9 name and its history, and have loved it and continue to love it.
When Cketti and I started talking, I wanted to see how we could best collaborate so that Thunderbird and K-9 users would be happy. But looking at the project and some of the blockers it had, I thought it was pretty clear that a lot of them came down to resources and the time commitments of the people working on K-9. So over time I found myself thinking, “how can we provide resources to the K-9 Mail project and remove the barriers preventing it from getting better?”
One thing I’ll share is that Thunderbird is governed by its community, who approves our budget and top level goals. The K-9 community is now a part of that governance structure and can help set our direction as well. We are in a separate legal entity from Firefox and do not benefit from their revenue, our revenue comes from our users in the form of donations - and donations have been very, very good for us the last few years. As a result our focus is purely on trying to please our users, that’s it. The great donations allow us to invest in the development of K-9 as we are doing.
I say that to make this point: Everyone on the Thunderbird side just wants to see K-9 improve, full stop. No one has voiced any other desired outcomes for K-9 from our end. We want to ensure this project has multiple developers working on it full time producing the best email experience on Android. The name K-9 may live on in some form, as I know it is sentimental to many of you here (perhaps it can live on as a branch that is slightly different than Thunderbird on Android). But ultimately, our focus is the same as K-9’s: privacy, powerful tools and customization, and a focus on open standards and everything being open source. That’s why this works.
I hope with time, all of you see that we are here to help improve a project that you love and that we are making a large commitment to K-9 and this community. I’m looking forward to talking to each of you and understanding what your wants, needs and concerns are. Feel free to DM me here or email me at: ryan@thunderbird.net (I may not reply immediately, but I’ll try to answer everything that comes in).
There’s currently no plan to add this. But information on how the app is actually used is helpful when prioritizing development work. If we do add telemetry, you’ll of course be able to disable it. And we’ll use our own servers, not a third-party service.
