New maintainer for FossaMail

Development discussions for FossaMail
DutchPete

New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-11, 14:30

I really don't understand this. Why start a new project without completely thinking through the ramifications & how to proceed with existing work in case the new project is successful? FM was proudly offered at a time when Mozilla was looking to get rid of Thunderbird; FM was supposed to be a great alternative. Now you in turn are looking for ways to get rid of FM.

Looking for a "maintainer" does not exactly give me confidence that FM will be handled the right way. I am very disappointed, to ut it mildly.

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Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-11, 16:42

Really?

So you'd think my approach would be better if I keep maintaining it without having the necessary focus and time to do it properly, and prefer something half-assed as a result?... :wtf:

FossaMail at the time was released as an alternative for Mozilla Thunderbird to offer an alternative that had no ties with Mozilla. Because that is what people wanted, out of principle. That was before Mozilla wanted to eject Thunderbird from its organization.

It's grown since then, and I simply don't have the capacity to maintain it properly next to Pale Moon. Rather than letting it die, I offer it up for anyone who wants to do this responsibly. I don't want to get rid of it, quite the contrary, but it's just a reality check: can't do it properly, so let someone else handle it who can do a better job. Alternatively, I can also simply dump it in the graveyard and anyone else who wants to pick it up won't have the benefit of name building.

I don't understand this negative spin. I'm trying to do what's best for FossaMail.
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DutchPete

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-11, 17:12

I understand that you are doing your best, and finding a maintainer is better than not doing anything. But you sidestep my point. For my comment I took a step farther back: why start something new when you already had a successful project??? And if you did feel you should start the FM project, I now get the distinct feeling that the ramifications weren't thought through properly. Like, for example, what you would do if PM would keep growing and FM would turn out to be a success too. The fact that, at this juncture, you have chosen for PM means FM was more like a glorified appendix to the PM project. You did not even have a separate forum for FM but merely a branch off PM.

To be honest, I do not want another "maintainer" app, which is what Thunderbird had become when you stepped in with FM. As a user I feel I am back to square 1. You can answer to that that I am not obliged to use FM, but it is not that simple. I transferred everything from TB hoping that FM would be something with a future. And maybe it will be, but transferring it to a "maintainer" does not inspire me with much hope. You have a good reputation with PM, so that was enough of a "quality certificate" for me to transfer to FM. But what is transpiring now does not ring right. You talk as if you have users' best interests at heart, but the possibility of having to give it someone else, and how users would react to that, should have been evaluated beforehand, not afterwards. I repeat: I am disappointed.

dark_moon

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by dark_moon » 2017-03-11, 17:23

I understand Moonchilds decision.
Its the same with Pale Moon for Linux and Pale Moon for Android.

Pale Moon (for Windows) need a lot of work and dont forget the stuff beside that, like the homepage and the other services!
So it is only logical to give the other projects to another guys. Even Moonchild is only a human.

So instead of make "bad" posts, help to find a guy how help us.

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Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by eskaton » 2017-03-11, 17:28

DutchPete, I can assume you've never in your life had to alter plans due to circumstances changing? You have always been able to forsee any contingency and/or accomodate anything that was unforseen? If we were all held to the ideal that we never start anything that we can't 100% guarantee that we'll carry through to our death, then we'd never start anything.

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Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-11, 17:45

DutchPete wrote:But you sidestep my point. For my comment I took a step farther back: why start something new when you already had a successful project???
Why do you think I included a statement why it was started? At the time people wanted a non-Mozilla thunderbird. Since I was already building Thunderbird privately, I branded and published it. The divergence of Fossamail from Thunderbird was never big. Its code is primarily application/front-end code, and the effort required to maintain it was certainly within the capabilities at the time.
DutchPete wrote: I now get the distinct feeling that the ramifications weren't thought through properly.
Things change. Pale Moon has become more demanding than expected, and that has more to do with developments on the internet than project management.
And you should realize that predicting the future is never a prerequisite for software development. You can make educated guesses about what to expect, but you can never know for sure how things pan out. As the Dutch say: "Ik kan geen koffiedik kijken".

In this case, responding to these changed circumstances, the only option to responsibly deal with FossaMail that has fallen by the wayside in terms of attention given to it recently, is to find someone who can focus on it properly. Lacking someone stepping forward, I will have no choice but to stop the project overall, but I'd prefer to avoid that and first have an open offer to anyone willing to step up to take over. That is the spirit of FOSS: let those who can do a better job improve things (with freedom: even if it would not be exactly the way you envision it) and take on what you cannot.
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DutchPete

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-11, 18:19

dark_moon wrote:I understand Moonchilds decision.
Its the same with Pale Moon for Linux and Pale Moon for Android.

Pale Moon (for Windows) need a lot of work and dont forget the stuff beside that, like the homepage and the other services!
So it is only logical to give the other projects to another guys. Even Moonchild is only a human.

So instead of make "bad" posts, help to find a guy how help us.
This is NOT a bad post, I am merely stating a serious user's point of view.

DutchPete

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-11, 18:22

eskaton023 wrote:DutchPete, I can assume you've never in your life had to alter plans due to circumstances changing? You have always been able to forsee any contingency and/or accommodate anything that was unforseen? If we were all held to the ideal that we never start anything that we can't 100% guarantee that we'll carry through to our death, then we'd never start anything.
It is easy to call this unforeseen, but it does not make sense. PM was successful, so with Moonchild's capabilities there was a good chance FM would be successful too. In any case, if you do your project planning properly, "success" would have been 1 of the possible scenarios considered, incl. how to deal with success other than to just pass it on to someone else.

DutchPete

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-11, 18:26

Moonchild wrote:
DutchPete wrote:But you sidestep my point. For my comment I took a step farther back: why start something new when you already had a successful project???
Why do you think I included a statement why it was started? At the time people wanted a non-Mozilla thunderbird. Since I was already building Thunderbird privately, I branded and published it. The divergence of Fossamail from Thunderbird was never big. Its code is primarily application/front-end code, and the effort required to maintain it was certainly within the capabilities at the time.
DutchPete wrote: I now get the distinct feeling that the ramifications weren't thought through properly.
Things change. Pale Moon has become more demanding than expected, and that has more to do with developments on the internet than project management.
And you should realize that predicting the future is never a prerequisite for software development. You can make educated guesses about what to expect, but you can never know for sure how things pan out. As the Dutch say: "Ik kan geen koffiedik kijken".

In this case, responding to these changed circumstances, the only option to responsibly deal with FossaMail that has fallen by the wayside in terms of attention given to it recently, is to find someone who can focus on it properly. Lacking someone stepping forward, I will have no choice but to stop the project overall, but I'd prefer to avoid that and first have an open offer to anyone willing to step up to take over. That is the spirit of FOSS: let those who can do a better job improve things (with freedom: even if it would not be exactly the way you envision it) and take on what you cannot.
I am not talking about predicting the future, I am talking about serious project planning, which includes going to various "what if" scenarios & how to deal with those in a sensible way. Just passing it onto someone else, or worse still, stopping the project altogether, is not what I would call good project management.
But what's done is done, there is no turning back, but, given your good reputation, I am very surprised that in such a short timespan you have come to this point and are even prepared to stop the project if worse comes to the worst. Oh well ...

Aube Bleue

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by Aube Bleue » 2017-03-11, 19:04

dark_moon wrote:Its the same with Pale Moon for Linux and Pale Moon for Android.
Why do you put these two platforms on the same level? In light of the recent survey results (have you really read them?), the support for the Linux platform will only increase:
Pale Moon Survey 2017 wrote:At any rate, it will mean that we will most definitely provide ample focus on Linux-specific improvements going forward.
And, of course, that's an excellent thing! :thumbup:

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Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-11, 19:15

DutchPete wrote:I am not talking about predicting the future
I'm sorry but that is exactly what you are talking about. Your whole argument revolves around me somehow being able to look several years into the future and knowing what evolving software in a rapidly changing environment like the Internet is going to require.
DutchPete wrote:I am talking about serious project planning, which includes going to various "what if" scenarios & how to deal with those in a sensible way.
And in the same breath you are saying I'm not doing my due diligence in my project planning.
Thanks a lot.
If I was "so bad at this", that you feel like you need to bash on it, then I wonder how you can reconcile that with the fact that we've been going strong with these projects for long years in the face of adversity and a hell of a lot of resistance from more than a few groups who kept preaching that what we've been achieving was impossible.

Seriously, You don't seem to have a clue at all about either the reasons for publishing FossaMail in the first place, or what project planning for these pieces of software really entails, or what drives me to ask for someone else to take over, and you don't seem to want to listen to me trying to explain.
As such, there's very little I can do to further clarify it.
You can think what you want, but please don't call me a bad planner when you refuse to look at this from any perspective but the narrow vision you seem to have of not just this change, nor just FossaMail, but me personally as well.
I'll hold my tongue otherwise, since there's no point in letting this spin out of control.

Now, if there's anyone who is actually interested in examining the request and looking forward, I'd like to hear it.
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dark_moon

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by dark_moon » 2017-03-11, 19:16

Aube Bleue wrote:
dark_moon wrote:Its the same with Pale Moon for Linux and Pale Moon for Android.
Why do you put these two platforms on the same level? In light of the recent survey results (have you really read them?):
And who is the maintainer for the Linux build? Right, not Moonchild ;)

Aube Bleue

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by Aube Bleue » 2017-03-11, 20:05

dark_moon wrote:And who is the maintainer for the Linux build? Right, not Moonchild ;)
Yes, I know, Travis is the main Linux dev -- and he's doing excellent work. Still, I think you cannot put both platforms on the same level the way you phrased it. Linux is (much) more important for this project than Android is. How many Pale Moon for Android users are there compared to Pale Moon for Linux users? The gap between the two must be (h)uge. ;)

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Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by ron_1 » 2017-03-11, 20:17

Off-topic:
Why does this thread have the same subject as Moonchild's thread (other than the "M" in FossaMail not being capitalized)? I think the subject line needs changed to avoid confusion.

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Re: New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by mr tribute » 2017-03-11, 23:23

I use FossaMail daily. Yet I can't be upset if it is dropped/unmaintained. There are many other mail clients, which behave in a similar way. Seamonkey and Thunderbird come to my mind. Mozilla wants to get rid of Thunderbird and that might be a good thing. On Linux, Evolution and Geary are two other alternatives. On Windows there is even more choice.

Pale Moon is a much more unique and critical application. It can't be replaced. It's as simple as that.

I have fully embraced Pale Moon now. I planned on using Firefox 52 ESR (with Classic Theme Restorer) until End Of Life(-cycle), but it wasn't good enough.

It was serving sites at half the speed compared to Pale Moon (on my low end machine). Also PM is now compatible with all my favourite sites.

I like FossaMail and I'll keep using it. But I think we can all agree that it doesn't have one tenth of the value of Pale Moon. PM is a game-changer. FM is "nice to have".

DutchPete

Re: Looking for a new maintainer for Fossamail

Unread post by DutchPete » 2017-03-12, 05:52

Moonchild wrote:I'm sorry but that is exactly what you are talking about. Your whole argument revolves around me somehow being able to look several years into the future and knowing what evolving software in a rapidly changing environment like the Internet is going to require.
You chose to operate in that environment, so you must also accept the way that environment works & therefore have to deal with it appropriately.
Moonchild wrote:If I was "so bad at this", that you feel like you need to bash on it, then I wonder how you can reconcile that with the fact that we've been going strong with these projects for long years in the face of adversity and a hell of a lot of resistance from more than a few groups who kept preaching that what we've been achieving was impossible.
If you have been through adversity you should be able to take criticism better than you are able to at this stage.
Moonchild wrote:...please don't call me a bad planner
Should I call this fantastic planning: releasing an app, then pulling it 1 year later?

Moonchild, I understand what you are trying to say, and I do not doubt that you put a lot of time & effort into what has turned out to be a fine app. What you refuse to accept is that putting something on the market & then pulling the plug on it only about 1 year later is not very professional. You have to realise that migrating from 1 email app to another involves a lot of hassles too. Being successful at developing an app is 1 part of the project, having to drop the project 1 year later just shows that another aspect has not been fully taken into account.

Besides, how do you think people will react in the future if you ever develop another app? Sure, PM is very good for your reputation & brand, but how will the FM saga affect that? Or will you just bank on people having forgotten it a few years down the road?

The fact that I even react means that I appreciate your app. There is no need to be defensive, you have to accept that people are not going to say hallelujah to everything you decide; even a big corporation like Microsoft gets stick from its users, so there is no reason why that should not apply to you too if you mess your users around. That is exactly what this does.

Having said all that, I will not bother you with this anymore because I can see you are just getting more angry (perhaps that is an indication I have put my finger on the sore spot?) so I bid you farewell.

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Re: New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-12, 11:51

Dutchpete. You clearly don't have the right data. FossaMail (as a named client) has been around for several years, since late 2013, and before that as "MailNews". I agree if it was only a year old, then I could have absolutely foreseen that I shouldn't take this extra load on. But it isn't. In 2013, that is the Firefox 24 era, and before for MailNews, there was no clear indication whatsoever that people would start pushing new technologies out to the web world this fast. So, take a moment and read my previous replies, and take it with that essential information in your mind.
DutchPete wrote:You chose to operate in that environment, so you must also accept the way that environment works & therefore have to deal with it appropriately.
And you chose to not take the nature of that environment into account when starting to complain about me taking the best interest of FossaMail to heart as opposed to just letting it sit and go stale for a few more years, at which point the death of it would be certain.

You think you can do it better? Be my guest. You are a masterful project planner? Go and do it.
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Re: New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by billmcct » 2017-03-12, 12:57

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Re: New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by Moonchild » 2017-03-12, 13:07

Made sure to comment to answer the question "It is unclear what is going to happen if no new maintainer is found."
If no new maintainer is found, then there won't be a way to properly continue development for FossaMail and the client will end up in the software graveyard. I would prefer that over a half-maintained client that won't provide proper security to its users (which would be the only other option).

There are many other mail/news clients available on Windows and Linux, so people will always have the opportunity to use a different one; and FossaMail's mailbox format should be fully compatible with Thunderbird so migration to that would be possible as well.
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Re: New maintainer for FossaMail

Unread post by Cassette » 2017-03-12, 13:37

I can attest that the transfer back to Thunderbird is relatively simple. The mail and accounts transferred without a hitch. The biggest problem is getting a theme that looks the way I like it that doesn't have problems. If FossaMail picks up a new maintainer, I can just move back, but given the lack of an Encrypted Web maintainer, I don't have much hope of that.

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