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Debian IceDove kicks the bucket after Thunderbird revisits Debian Repositories

Evers since Thunderbird found its way back to the Debian community, the tussle between Firefox and Debian has finally resolved. Everything is well and normal now except for IceDove which has turned out to be a collateral damage. A year ago, Iceweasel, a browser related to IceDove, was laid to rest.

The Genesis of Iceweasel/IceDove was due to the cute little logo of Firefox which was copyrighted under terms that didn’ t fit Debian’ s free software guidelines, the DFSG. Hence, as a solution to the conundrum, Debian started to ship Firefox without its Logo. No major problem plagued the Debian camp until Mike Conner, who was then Firefox’ s lead developer, abrogated Debian from using Firefox’ s name in 2006, and this led to the rebranding of all the Mozilla products in Debian. Firefox underwent metamorphosis and turned into Iceweasel, and Firefox’ s email client Thunderbird became Icedove. Same thing happened to Sunbird and SeaMonkey as they were revamped as Iceowl and SeaMonkey.

It has been a year now since Debian and Firefox have buried their hatchet. Since then Firefox and all its aided packages which include Thunderbird and its integrated calendar Lightening have found their way back to Debian with their real names intact.

Tag : debian
FAQ
Q
In case you have found a faulty extension, check if it is up to date if the extension is installed manually?
A
You can always install any extension within your local profile. The Thunderbird maintainers have no control over such extensions as the user has installed them. You need to take care of such extensions on your own.

If the extension is installed from the Debian archive you will probably need to report a bug against this package. If you are unsure, contact the Thunderbird maintainers; we will guide you and push the problem to the correct people if possible.
Q
Have you tried to disable all plugins to check if the issue is now still existing?
A
In case something is misbehaving on your side it's good to know if the problem is in Thunderbird or in some (or more) extensions. You can check this by starting Thunderbird in safe mode, which will disable all extensions for that specific session. If Thunderbird is working now normally the problem is typically in one or more extensions. You can start Thunderbird from a CLI with the following call to start in safe mode.

$ thunderbird --safe-mode
Q
Is there any Tracking of Bug Reports for Icedove to Thunderbird Migration?
A
To see all bug reports that are related to the Icedove -> Thunderbird migration you can look at all bugs tagged by icedeove-thunderbird-migration. To add additional bug reports you can simply use bts.
Q
Is this support mail/news client with RSS?
A
Icedove is an unbranded Thunderbird mail client suitable for free distribution. It supports different mail accounts (POP, IMAP, Gmail), has an integrated learning Spam filter, and offers easy organization of mails with tagging and virtual folders. Also, more features can be added by installing extensions.
Q
What is Debian IceDove?
A
The Genesis of Iceweasel/IceDove was due to the cute little logo of Firefox which was copyrighted under terms that didn&rsquo t fit Debian&rsquo s free software guidelines, the DFSG. Hence, as a solution to the conundrum, Debian started to ship Firefox without its Logo.