Hello fellow Fedorans,
Is there a particular reason (like legal matters) that Mozilla Thunderbird packages are outdated?
Both Fedora 40 and 41 offer only version 128, while the latest version is 137.
I would appreciate your comments.
Thank you.
I’m just another user, not an authoritative source, but it looks to me like Fedora packagers have decided that the thunderbird package should use ESR releases.
The latest ESR version is 128.9.0. Based on the “Recent Activity” here, it looks like the packagers are in the process of rolling out that version, but not 137.
Not sure the history behind this, and why the policy for Thunderbird is different for Firefox (where Fedora provides non-ESR versions). I guess it would be based on stability rather than legal reasons though. Interestingly, Flathub has made the same decision (latest version there is 128.9.0.esr).
If you want a newer version, this discussion thread recommends downloading the tarball manually and installing it in /opt.
Yup. I noticed that most distros I tried, including Debian 12 and latest Ubuntu, only allow ESR, even Firefox in Debian is an old, ESR version but you can add Mozilla repos and install the latest versions.
I can understand this in Debian’s case but it’s puzzling for a rolling distro such as Fedora.
The method for Fedora outlined in the other thread is easy enough though, even for a noob like me, and it works great. Even the built-in Thunderbird auto-update works.
I actually installed it in ~/Applications and it works fine too.
I am not sure this was a deliberate decision on the side of Fedora. From what I remember, it was the Thunderbird developers that recommended the ESR for normal users.
If you look at Thunderbird download page in the Wayback Machine from March 04, it defaulted to the “Thunderbird Extended Support Release” channel and switching to the “Thunderbird Release” via dropdown brings up a box with a warning
Thunderbird Release is available for testing purposes only until releases are deemed stable enough for official support. Make sure you backup important data regularly!
Today, that same page defaults to “Thunderbird Release (Recommended)” in the dropdown and the box that previously only appeared when switching from ESR to the “Thunderbird Release” channel now reads
The official monthly release. This release is intended for users who want all available new features and bug fixes on a monthly basis.
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I thought I remembered an announcement about this change somewhere and sure enough, they published a blog post on March 04, describing how to switch from ESR to the Release Channel. In it, they say:
Right now, you can switch to the Release channel through manual installs only from the Thunderbird website Downloads page. Other installation sources will have the Release version in the future such as Windows Store, 3rd-party sites and various Linux packages such as Snap and Flatpak.
On Windows (Windows 11, Firefox) , it always offered me the Release as far I can remember, not ESR, and I never had any issues with it. So perhaps there is/was something problematic with the Linux release for some time? That’s why most distros come with ESR? No idea.
I didn’t even notice until 135 or 136 dropped for Windows with dark mode support for message body and I immediately wanted it for my Fedora 41 PC and then I realized I can only get ESR from Discovery (both DNF and Flatpak).
I don’t know how you downloaded it, but when I downloaded it for Windows, it always gave me the ESR, too.
And the warning message was shown on the download page for both Windows and Linux as soon as you select the “Thunderbird Release” channel. Otherwise, why would they make a blog post about the change?
No clue. I never really paid much attention to this and I had the latest release version on Windows for years. I would just google for “download thunderbird” and the the resulting page gave me the release.
Thank you all for your replies.
Is there a way to politely ask for a change in policy, to provide the latest version in the official rpm packages?
I don’t think this is an issue with a policy that needs changing. Since ESR was the recommended release by the Thunderbird developers until just a month ago, I would guess that the package maintainers simply have not caught up with that yet. In fact, the Flatpak on Flathub is maintained by the Thunderbird developers themselves and even they have not upgraded that to version 136.x.y yet (at least as of 2025-04-03).
But the correct way to do this is to raise an issue in Bugzilla: I find the easiest place to start is by searching for the package in Fedora’s Package database. After clicking on the correct package in the result list, you get information on the package and some useful links (Builds, Updates, Bugs, …). Following the “Bugs” link takes you to the list of open bugs for that component on Fedora’s Bugzilla. Check if your issue has already been reported (in this case it has not, I checked). Take a note of the “Component” (in this case “thunderbird”) and “Product” (“Fedora”) above the list. This is what you need to file your new issue against. Now you can create a new issue. Select the right product, enter the component on the next page, then give it a good summary (e.g., “Thunderbird Release Channel is considered the recommended release now”) and a more detailed description, possibly pointing to the blog post and Thunderbird’s download page.
You should probably also read the bug writing guidelines before, if you have never reported a bug before.
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There is a blog entry from February stating that Thunderbird is changing its default channel from ESR to Release, which went into action in March. So yes, changing this in Fedora seems like a proper way to go.
I have created a bug report, thank you Lars for pointers!
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I’d like to keep it on ESR, as it’s just email and I don’t want to download any more 100MB+ files any more than necessary.
I’d like the latest version as it has features I want and 100MB is literally nothing these days.
Both should be available, whether you want the ESR or the latest release you have the choice.