What exactly is MZLA? How does it relate to Thunderbird? How is Thunderbird funded, and what does its future look like? This month, Heather and Monica are asking Managing Director Ryan Sipes these big questions in the April 2025 edition of the Thunderbird Community Office Hours.

00:00 Introduction 00:01 A brief history of Thunderbird 04:03 Changes in Thunderbird's structure 13:12 Challenges of transparent governance 16:28 Thunderbird's core values 20:10 Thunderbird's funding model 23: 05 Why Thunderbird is building its own services 30:05 Demonstrating a better internet 34: 15 Avoiding feature bloat and Thunderbird tools 40:34 Questions about future chat integration 44:09 The future of Thunderbird 48: 58 How to get involved 52:16 A project that feels good to work on/Closing

Resources: The untold history of Thunderbird: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2023/11/the-untold-history-of-thunderbird/ The Mozilla Foundation: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Foundation Thunderbird's New Home at MZLA: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2020/01/thunderbirds-new-home/ Community Office Hours with the Thunderbird Council: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2024/09/video-learn-about-the-thunderbird-council/ The Mozilla Manifesto: https://www.mozilla.org/about/manifesto/ Thundermail and Thunderbird Pro Announcement: https://blog.thunderbird.net/2025/04/thundermail-and-thunderbird-pro-services/ Get Involved: https://www.thunderbird.net/participate/