As of today, the Thunderbird project will be operating from a new wholly owned subsidiary of the Mozilla Foundation, MZLA Technologies Corporation.

According to Mozilla, the move will not impact Thunderbird’s day-to-day activities or mission: Thunderbird will still remain free and open source, with the same release schedule and people driving the project.

There was a time when Thunderbird’s future was uncertain after it was decided Mozilla Corporation would no longer support it. However, Mozilla says that donations from Thunderbird users have allowed the project to grow and flourish organically within the Mozilla Foundation. Moving to MZLA Technologies Corporation will not only allow the Thunderbird project more flexibility and agility, but will also allow the project to collect revenue through partnerships and non-charitable donations, which in turn can be used to cover the costs of new products and services.