According to Mozilla's Thunderbird ESR Overview page, the EOL for v10 was FEB 12. That would mean the v10.0.12 PortableApp is the final one.
Is there a plan to release a portable v17 ESR? Currently at 17.0.3, I believe.
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Use the stable branch. Stable 17.0.3 and ESR 17.0.3 are exactly the same app. Rename the ThunderbirdPortableESR directory to ThunderbirdPortable.
It's worth noting that all of Thunderbird is essentially ESR now. There are no plans to do further active development of Thunderbird the way Firefox is developed. Just maintenance and bug fixes. That's why Firefox is at 19.0 and Thunderbird will remain for the foreseeable future at 17.0.x.
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The availability of downloads for ThunderbirdSetup17.0.3.exe *and* a ThunderbirdSetup17.0.3.esr.exe is at the root of the confusion.
I take your reply to mean as you have had a ThunderbirdPortableESR_10.0.12_English.paf.exe, there will be never be a ThunderbirdPortableESR_17.0.x_English.paf.exe.
I've known Thunderbird was not to be subject to the Rapid Release cycle of Firefox as well that the next TB will be v24 scheduled for this September.
My focus on the use of ESR versions has always been to avoid the "great new toolbar buttons" releases of the Personal versions.
So, stable branch it is.
There is no plan even for a Thunderbird 18.0 at this point, let alone 24.0. Thunderbird 18.0 Beta 1 was released at the end of November alongside Firefox 18 beta releases. But it was abandoned when it was announced that Thunderbird would no longer be actively developed, only actively maintained with security and bug fixes. As such, there's basically only Thunderbird 17.0.x planned.
We only move our ESR branches up when the stable splits off, since the whole point of the portable ESR branches is to enable extension/email developers to test both versions at once. So, we'd have moved Thunderbird ESR to 17.0.x once Thunderbird stable hit 18.0. As that is now never likely to happen, it will likely never be moved up. It would be a waste of development time to package the exact same app as two sets of releases for two different channels in perpetuity.
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According to hxxp://www.mozilla.org/en-US/thunderbird/organizations/faq/ there will be a Thunderbird ESR 24.0.
It's been my understanding the ESRs are to isolate users from the update-for-the-sake-of-updating feature builds and concentrating only on maintenance builds. As to why Mozilla makes available a Thunderbird 17 *AND* a Thunderbird ESR 17 and why, within the context of this discussion, they are the same shall remain beyond my perception.
So, here's to hoping subsequent releases of 17.0.X will focus on security and fixes and not for the zippy fonts plugin support and a new gee-whiz side bar.
I've been using TB since v1.5 and given the what's been going down, I should be grateful it still exists. And even more grateful for your labor and support.
No reply expected... Thank you.
Thunderbird is itself "dead to Mozilla". And, as is not atypical, pertinent documentation has not been updated to reflect this, such as the page you point to. There will be no updates other than for security/critical fixes--just as you wish. And unless something miraculous occurs, Thunderbird will stay dead [this time]. Something like Postbox may or may not continue, may or may not go "free" (and may or may not go portable), but it and anything else based on Thunderbird will likely wither. I'm still using Thunderbird 9 (and Postbox 3) myself--and if one just wants plain text email, then using older releases should work fine regardless.
That page on Mozilla's site was written before Thunderbird was moved to maintenance status. Note that the version schedule is now completely wrong.
For all intents and purposes, stable is now ESR as no new features are planned at all, making ESR irrelevant.
Sometimes, the impossible can become possible, if you're awesome!