There are ongoing issues with Thunderbird for quite some time now: as Mozilla Foundation’s mission evolved over time, Mozilla decided to stop further development. Today Thunderbird is released as a community project, and as a result Thunderbird has become a lower priority. It now lacks the resources it desperately needs to move forward – Thunderbird community is struggling to keep this important project up and running.

Swiss-based p≡p Foundation is offering help here by stepping up to the plate and making sure Thunderbird continues to survive and ultimately continues to thrive. p≡p Foundation itself has the technical as well as financial resources to fork Thunderbird. Yet p≡p elects to continue working with the Mozilla Foundation and the Thunderbird community to find a joint, long term and clear solution to help Thunderbird. "Our common project is to consolidate and support Thunderbird development and help Thunderbird become sustainable, financially viable and autonomous as possible in the long term. p≡p is very passionate about this." says Volker Birk, President of p≡p Council.

This cooperation would additionally allow Thunderbird to include an easy-to-use encryption solution. Thunderbird is a primary platform for p≡p as a mail client which is critical to crypto-party movement. “We want to make Thunderbird self-reliant again and aspire for the Thunderbird community to grow and flourish: We envision Thunderbird being an independent project, dedicated to open source and transparency, being community-driven, and at the same time promoting privacy to its users.” adds Volker Birk.

p≡p Foundation believes everyone deserves privacy and security by default and without hassle. With the p≡p project, it is set to finally deliver free software for what the cypher-punk movement has been striving for since the late 1980s: Easy Encryption for Everyone! The p≡p engine is Free Software, so p≡p software is free for the Internet community and all mankind.

Media Contact:

Hernani Marques hernani.marques@pep.foundation
Tel.: +41 79 191 23 70 (ENG, FRA, GER, ITA, POR)
Web: https://pep.foundation/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/pEpCouncil/