> Thunderbird seems to be somehow apart from Mozilla now

I don't think that's the case.

"Thunderbird is part of MZLA Technologies Corporation, a wholly owned subsidiary of Mozilla Foundation."

Thunderbirds sourcecode is literally part of the same mercury codebase as Firefox.

Thunderbird does have a very small team, and I think everyone that uses it should considering donating.

▲ Vinnl 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Yeah it's all a bit complex (just like the US tax code, I suppose). MZLA (which makes Thunderbird) is a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. The Mozilla Corporation (which makes Firefox) is also a subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation. In practice, this means that the people running Firefox day-to-day aren't the people running Thunderbird day-to-day, although of course they do talk, and technology choices made in Firefox can and do effect Thunderbird, just like they effect e.g. Zen Browser or Tor Browser.

(Also, someone help a non-native speaker: I think the "effect"s above should be "affect", but for some reason that looked wrong here. Why is that?)

	▲	mplanchard 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		For their more common meanings, like in your paragraph, as a verb you want affect, and as a noun, effect. So, when in doubt, use that as a rule of thumb. However, both have alternative meanings as the other part of speech. Affect as a noun means emotion or disposition, and is mostly used in psychology. Your psychologist may say you have a depressed affect. Effect as a verb means to bring about. You might say that a successful protest effected change in society. As a verb, in addition to “have an impact on,” affect can also mean “to pretend to have,” like “she affected an air of mystery,” although this is less common.
	▲	wccrawford 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		"Effect" as a verb means to bring about, or to bring it into existence. "Affect" means to have influence on them. It's definitely wrong in that paragraph.
	▲	throwaway667555 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev \| next [-]
		Companies will often state a subsidiary is wholly owned by the ultimate parent regardless of which tier the subsidiary is at. The Thunderbird subsidiary could be under the Firefox subsidiary and the statement would still be true.
	▲	antisol 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		I agree that it should be "affect". Affect doesn't look wrong to me: `and technology choices made in Firefox can and do affect Thunderbird, just like they effect e.g. Zen Browser or Tor Browser.` I'm no expert on the rules of english, but I think maybe it would be slightly more gramatically correct to say that "choices made in Firefox can and do have an effect on Thunderbird". I would probably have phrased it like that. Maybe that's why it looks wrong to you? English is a bit of a bastard language IIUC, and so we accept the way you've phrased it too, but in that case it should be "affect". I hope this helps rather than making things more confusing! ;)

▲ antisol 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Thunderbird has always been mozilla. They split it out into the other company a few years back.