The team behind the open source email client Thunderbird has unveiled its latest side-project. Thunderbird Appointment is an online service designed to help everyone schedule meetings and make appointments.

The project is in a prototype stage currently. It is the second project of the Thunderbird team that is not linked directly to the email client. The first aims to revive Firefox Send, a file sending service that Mozilla disabled years ago because of abuse.

It is a good fit for an email client, considering that emails are still severely limited by size. With a service like Thunderbird Send integrated into Thunderbird, it would allow users to send larger files through the service.

Thunderbird Appointment

Thunderbird Appointment offers the following main features according to the official website:

• Plan an event -- with multiple ways of organizing and setting up meetings.
• Set your availability -- choose when and how people can book time with you.
• Share with others -- send your personal link via email, or add it to your website.
• Connect your calendar and see all your meetings in one place.
• Book one-off or recurring events and invite people to join you.

Users may link third-party calendars from Google, Apple, or Microsoft to Thunderbird Appointment. The source code of the service is available on GitHub.

Quite a few features are unknown at this point:

• Is Thunderbird Appointment an online-only service, or does it support email client integrations, e.g., in Thunderbird?
• Will it be a free or a commercial service, or both?
• When will it launch?

Closing Words

Thunderbird Send and Thunderbird Appointment serve multiple purposes. While one could argue that they take away resources from Thunderbird development, they may also help finance development of Thunderbird and increase the reach and brand recognition.

Thunderbird Appointment looks like a service aimed at businesses on first glance, but there is clearly also potential for home use. If you have ever tried to get a get-together organized, you may know how difficult this can be.

This new service could improve that as well, especially since you can generate links or embed functionality on third-party websites.

A first release of the service will give everyone a better understanding of what it does and how useful it will be.

What about you? Would you use Thunderbird Appointment? (via Sören Hentzschel)