Podcast
Thunderbird - Brendan Abolivier, Software Engineer
There are probably only a handful of open-source projects that had a bigger impact on the world than Mozilla Thunderbird. The email client has been around for over two decades and has been a staple for many users (me included).
Dealing with a legacy codebase that serves millions of users is no easy feat. The team at MZLA, a subsidiary of Mozilla, has been working hard to modernize the core of Thunderbird by writing new parts in Rust.
In this episode, I talk to Brendan Abolivier, a software engineer at MZLA, about the challenges of working on a legacy codebase, the new Rust-based Exchange protocol support, which is the first new protocol in Thunderbird in over a decade, and the future of Thunderbird.
Show Notes
About MZLA
The MZLA Technologies Corporation is a fully-owned subsidiary of Mozilla that develops and maintains the Thunderbird email client. The project can be supported at give.thunderbird.net.
About Brendan Abolivier
Brendan joined the Thunderbird team in 2023 and has been working on the Rust-based Exchange protocol support. Previously, he worked on the Matrix protocol and the Element chat client. He is a strong advocate for open-source software and maintains projects written in Rust, Python, and Go.
Links From The Episode (In Chronological Order)
- Bringing Exchange Support To Thunderbird
- element
- synapse
- State of Open conference London
- Thunderbird as part of MZLA
- Evolution Exchange Support
- FOSDEM’24: “Thunderbird: How to Exchange Rot For Rust”
- quick_xml crate
- http crate
- Donate to Thunderbird
Official Links
About corrode
"Rust in Production" is a podcast by corrode, a company that helps teams adopt Rust. We offer training, consulting, and development services to help you succeed with Rust. If you want to learn more about how we can help you, please get in touch.