French military contribues to Thunderbird 3, Gallic rooster beware

By on Dec 10, 2009 at 5:23 PM
News December 10, 2009

Thunderbrid 3 IconOkay, maybe the “not really a bird” thunderbird won’t be taking the place of the Gallic rooster as the avian mascot of France, but as far as the French military is concerned, Thunderbird is number one. Back in 2003 the French military began debating whether it would be wise to continue using a proprietary email client, such as Microsoft’s Outlook, or if it would be of greater benefit to transition to an open source client like Mozilla’s Thunderbird. In 2007 the decision was made, and officials agreed that Thunderbird would help, “seek maximum technological and commercial independence.” Fast forward to today, the French have TrustedBird — the name they’ve given Thunderbird when loaded with their developed extensions — deployed on over 80,000 military machines running a variety of operating systems. Oh, and for those of you wondering, the French are being good open source community members. This week Mozilla released Thunderbird 3, an effort which took nearly two and a half years, and you may (or may not) be happy to know that code located in Thunderbird 3 is a direct result of the TrustedBird project. France’s Col. Bruno Poirier-Coutansais acknowledges that open-source software, “is never completely free,” for large organizations to adopt, however they are quite pleased with the performance, features, and flexibility provided by their Thunderbird iteration. We’re curious, what email client are you using on your desktop/laptop? Viva la Thunderbird!

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  • Black Friday

    I’m glad the French have finally found something their military is good at. (emailing)

  • Zyzzyx

    Email client? On the desktop?

    *blink*blink*

    • Zyzzyx

      *opens FireFox and heads to GMail*

    • Ian

      *Opens Gmail in Chrome*

  • QuickWeevil

    I just use mail on my Mac

  • GadgetKing

    Outlook

  • Bit

    Viva la… what? I’ll take it that you’re trying to speak Spanish.

  • jim

    @Black Friday,

    that’s so funny you American wee wee

    Posted from BGR Mobile (iPhone).

  • Frogford

    I still use Eudora. Thankfully, email has not evolved beyond the capabilities of Eudora. I have seen the proposed successor to Eudora (Penelope) and it is awful.

    Thunderbird is actually very very close to Eudora (Eudora mail files can be read by thunderbird directly), but I have not yet made the move.

  • Andrew

    I’m using Outlook. It’s just easier when syncing with my WinMo phone. I also use a program to sync Outlook with my Google Calendar.

  • Justin

    Outlook all the way!

  • webby

    I use T-Bird email for two email accounts, and just upgraded to T-Bird 3 last night. It works great! I like it most because it is so so much easier and quicker to switch back and forth between multiple email accounts than Outlook Express was.

  • Jeremiah

    I intended to use Microsoft Office Outlook, but I accidentally tried to set up my Exchange account from off campus, and now I’m stuck with Windows Live Mail until I can return. I hate how you can’t completely reset Outlook even after reinstalling it.

  • http://www.geekextreme.com Travis

    Thunderbird. I’ve got 4 IMAP accts setup; 2 of which are straight GMail, & one of which is GMail for enterprise-based. I also have 2 separate RSS accounts setup; one for news, & one for shopping/Craigslist. The support for addons (XUL framework, like FF) is yet another reason to love it. Been using it for years.

    @Bit: yeah, was wondering about that. Andrew: “viva” is Spanish.
    @Frogford: I’d thought Eudora releases are now based on Thunderbird?

    The only issue w/TB 3.0 right now is, of course, the lack of supported addons. As an early-adopter, I expected it, but I almost lost it when Lightning didn’t work out of the gates. Observations here: http://is.gd/5jBmn

    • http://www.bgr.com Andrew Munchbach

      I was trying to be funny with the “viva” as opposed to “vive” but I suppose since I’m explaining the joke it just ain’t that f***ing funny.

    • Paps

      Still on TB2 until early-adopter issues are solved (all the add-ons I need).

      Can’t wait to upgrade, but I need certain essential extensions and don’t want to deal with nightly builds:

      Lightning – You think that would have been released by launch, that’s the hardest one to wait for.
      Enigmail – at least they are on top with 1.0 out.
      Provider for Gcal – no ready for tb3 yet
      Remember the milk provider – probably not going to be ready for along time
      Gmail UI – still need it for tb3
      minimize to tray – i heard you can just edit the max version and it will work
      send later – never really worked for me, but wish someone would bring it back…

  • http:www.twitter.com/jazzyl Jazzyl’s Spicy Chicken

    Gmail on Ubuntu 9.10.

    Outlook

    Sent via BlackBerry.

  • sbank

    Mutt FTW.

    “All mail clients suck. This one just sucks less.”

  • Paul Driver

    Thunderbird 3 with lightning and some other goo mixed in

  • Luke

    The news in this story is that the French have a military.

    Who’d a thunk that one.

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