EPISODE · May 30, 2024 · 1H 3M
Thunderbird with Brendan Abolivier
from Rust in Production · host Matthias Endler
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 servers 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.
What this episode covers
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 servers 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.
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Thunderbird with Brendan Abolivier
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