Mozilla's decision to put development of the Thunderbird email client on the back burner to concentrate on "more promising" projects like Firefox OS has caused quite the stir on the Internet and especially among Thunderbird users. That's despite the fact that there is not really a lot to add to the email client in terms of functionality or features, at least not those that are available on the frontend of the program.
The decision was made to involve the community - more - in the updating process to move Mozilla engineers to other projects. What this basically means for the next foreseeable future is a concentration on security fixes and major bug fixes, and not on adding new features to the email program.
Thunderbird is still following the same release schedule as the Firefox web browser, it comes therefore at no surprise that version 17.0.3 was released yesterday alongside Firefox 19. Please note that 17.0.3 is the version that the stable channel was updated to. It appears that beta channels are still increasing in full version steps.
So what is new in Thunderbird 17.0.3?
Mozilla fixed eight security vulnerabilities in the client. Four of the vulnerabilities have received the highest rating of critical, two a rating of high, and two one of moderate.
- MFSA 2013-28 Use-after-free, out of bounds read, and buffer overflow issues found using Address Sanitizer
- MFSA 2013-27 Phishing on HTTPS connection through malicious proxy
- MFSA 2013-26 Use-after-free in nsImageLoadingContent
- MFSA 2013-25 Privacy leak in JavaScript Workers
- MFSA 2013-24 Web content bypass of COW and SOW security wrappers
- MFSA 2013-23 Wrapped WebIDL objects can be wrapped again
- MFSA 2013-22 Out-of-bounds read in image rendering
- MFSA 2013-21 Miscellaneous memory safety hazards (rv:19.0 / rv:17.0.3)
That's nothing compared to the 19 vulnerabilities that Thunderbird 17.0.2 fixed though. Still, if you are running Thunderbird make sure you update the program as soon as possible to protect your system from attacks targeting those vulnerabilities.
The only other issue fixed in this version of Thunderbird repairs that attachments sometimes could not be removed using the keyboard. Check out the release notes for additional information.
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While I can understand the emotional aspect of Mozilla's decision, once you get past that, it really doesn't matter that much. Email is about as mature as applications get. Differences in email clients are mostly cosmetic these days, so essentially email applications are in sustainment mode. Unless someone comes up with some new way to read or send email, there isn't really a need for active development since there are no new/significant features to add. If they're fixing the bugs and not introducing new ones, the bug count should drop to zero. Nirvana is reached because the application is reliable, stable, bug-free, and fulfills all the requirements. If someone needs some sort of specialized functionality, they can build an add-on.
Mozilla has mustered up the courage to do what many will not do in today's development world. Code does not have to be continually modified and "played with" to be good. The old adage, "If it ain't broke..." is a good rule to use. The other plus is I don't have to worry about updating my software every few weeks. Bonus points!