[Project_owners] Clarification for a SeaMonkey User

[Pete Collins]

I'm a SeaMonkey user (have been for a very long time). I use the 
traditional Mozilla "Browser Suite" in my day to day life. I frequently 
hack and distribute Phoenix/Firebird (whatever it's called now) 
browsers.  I just downloaded Thunderbird mail/news.

So let me see if I have this correct:

Firebird (still referred to as PHOENIX if you are compiling the sucker) 
is a "stand alone" browser.

   9.2M (tarball)

Thunderbird is a "stand alone" mail client:

   9.5M (tarball)

So for a browser and mail client:

   9.2M + 9.5M = 18.7 M download

Mozilla (SeaMonkey) is a "Browser Suite":

   15M (tarball) download

So if I want a browser and mail I need to install Firebird *and* 
Thunderbird, extract them seperately and have them occupy complete 
*separate* redundant distributons of the Mozilla base libraries.

Or I can use Mozilla (SeaMonkey) and get a browser, mail/news, html 
editor, addressbook, etc for a 15M download.

Is there a compelling reason why I would want to use Firebird/Thunderbird?

What is the future of the Mozilla/SeaMonkey suite?

Why all the disparate shoot offs of the same Mozilla base libraries?

Why not have the Mozilla browser be "the main browser". The Mozilla mail 
client be "the main mail cleint" etc. Unify the effort to making these 
be best they can possibly be? If Firebird and Thunderbird are the new 
"defacto" effort, then call them "Mozilla". Then offer stand alone 
distributions of each module for end users who don't want an entire suite.

AFAIK, no one owns SeaMonkey anymore. Am I correct in presuming it is 
essentially abandoned?

Or does Netscape still retain some kind of intellectual property 
ownership of the old suite?

I personally prefer to run ./mozilla instead of ./MozillaFirebird.

Or is all of this just a "transitional" stage until "Gecko Runtime 
Environment" (Mozilla base libraries)  is mature enough to use as an SDK 
and Firebird and Thunderbird can eventually be released as xpi packages 
that install on top of a base GRE install?

I don't think Mozilla.org is doing a good job *clearly* articulating at 
a higher level the direction the project is heading.

You'll have to excuse my ignorance. I am still relatively new to the 
Mozilla project., I got involved April 1999.

--pete

-- 
Pete Collins
www.mozdev.org
www.mozdevgroup.com