Tech Shout!

Mozilla has just announced a new initiative in an effort to stimulate innovation in Internet mail and communications in general. Under this initiative, the company plans to develop Internet communications software based on its Thunderbird product and brand.

The company also aims to nurture a robust developer ecosystem that will hopefully bring about improvements via open source and community innovation in the tradition of the Firefox Web browser.

For this, Dr.David Aschter who is currently the CTO and VP Engineering of ActiveState, will join Mozilla in establishing a new company that will focus entirely on mail.

In fact, Dr. David Ashter is not new to Mozilla as he has been an active member of the Mozilla community since 2000 as the lead of Komodo, a Mozilla-based integrated development environment (IDE).

Besides, Dr. Ashter is an established leader in the open source community and is also the director of the Python Software Foundation.

According to Mitchell Baker, Chair, Mozilla Foundation, “Innovating in mail and communications advances our vision of choice across the spectrum of Internet software. David has been a respected member of the Mozilla community for many years and we’re excited that he is joining Mozilla to lead this important effort.”

Baker had delivered a call to action soliciting community feedback about Thunderbird’s future in July 2007. After much public discussion, the Mozilla Foundation Board approved the creation of a distinct new Mozilla Foundation unit dedicated to developing, innovating and improving Internet mail and communication software.

Thus came about this new Mozilla initiative. The company said that it would provide around 43 million seed funding for the establishment of this new ‘mail-centric’company.

However, Mozilla Thunderbird users have nothing to worry about as the company said that nothing would change for those who rely on Thunderbird as their primary mail application.

And, Mozilla will also continue to provide Thunderbird users with regular security and stability updates, while simultaneously establishing its new initiative and remaining committed to the needs of Thunderbird users.