Ryan Lee Sipes ⚡🦅

CEO of Mozilla Thunderbird

Making tech that is both good and good for people.

https://ryanleesipes.me

Website: https://ryanleesipes.me
Thunderbird (Work): https://thunderbird.net

Last Notes

2026-04-15 22:07:00 UTC

Thunderbird Appointment will always be open source.
Repo here: https://github.com/thunderbird/appointment
Come talk to us and build with us. We'll help you replace Cal.com
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/116/410/989/425/289/525/original/d82583789d678dc7.png

2025-04-02 22:16:29 UTC

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also worth noting that we (Thunderbird) WILL NEVER sell user data or use it to train AI. Thunderbird primarily doesn't want user data. Period. We are going to try to ensure user data is encrypted with Thundermail so we never see the contents of a user's email.
That is who we are.

2025-04-02 22:11:14 UTC

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hello, I run Thunderbird. The AI is an experiment that is in an add-on. We are playing with the technology trying to figure out if there are any useful features worthwhile with it. We may never ship that add-on at all.
Thunderbird is forever free and open source, these services are optional, opt-in features that will always be an add-on. We are not going to force AI on anyone.

2025-04-02 15:16:26 UTC

It's time to explain Thunderbird's relationship to Mozilla again.
Thunderbird is in its own legal entity - MZLA Technologies and is governed in part by a Community Council elected by and from our open source contributors.
Thunderbird is currently 100% donation-funded. We do not receive any money outside what our donors give us.
This is good for Thunderbird and makes us unique. Our whole structure only works to serve the interests of our users and contributor community.

2025-03-16 00:43:50 UTC

The beginning of Mozilla, for those of you who haven't ever seen this before, it's a snapshot of a really interesting moment in the history of #opensource software.
https://youtu.be/4Q7FTjhvZ7Y?si=YNpxy-NdC9KyCWFE

2024-08-19 00:56:56 UTC

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you can check out the add-on here: https://github.com/kewisch/birdbox-extension

2024-08-18 13:46:57 UTC

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there could be. But this add-on is limited to experimenting with what would be useful for closed/proprietary webapps support in Thunderbird.

2024-08-18 12:25:36 UTC

What is this? WhatsApp and Slack in Thunderbird? Love it or hate it, it's VERY interesting!
https://files.mastodon.social/media_attachments/files/112/983/007/671/628/772/original/5f31c5fce6b09e12.png

2024-08-04 01:21:07 UTC

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I have spoken to @npub1svh…wtrm about Autocrypt a number of times. I love Autocrypt. I would love to see some standard be adopted for this. I do think Autocrypt should describe ways in which email providers can create and manage the keys. Users losing their keys is always the problem with any encrypted mail use and adoption.
Anyway, in my talk, I was saying that Proton should make their connection protocol into a standard (not their encryption protocol). But I'm all for pushing Autocrypt.

2024-08-03 11:09:23 UTC

Want to know the Thunderbird turnaround story? If you are into open source software, you will appreciate this tale.
Check out: "Thunderbird, The Death and Rebirth of an OSS Project" - my talk at GUADEC.
https://youtu.be/pWw1A1aKfh8?si=vX_EKmV8_PU1_woo