Not much has been said about this: Has KDE given up on its KMail? Kubuntu 20.04 moves to Thunderbird

Surprise. Or that is what I felt when I learned something that has been said very little: KDE has decided to use Thunderbird on Kubuntu 20.04 LTS Focal Fossa, the famous Mozilla mail manager that replaces the KMail of the "K" project. It is a surprise because they are not talking about what should be done about this change, which is actually something more profound. And it was a surprise because Thunderbird appeared (it was already installed, but I discovered it today) on my Kickoff by accident almost two weeks after the release of the latest version of Kubuntu.

And it is that, as a server wrote last summer, it was a recommended change. KMail it has some good things, but some really bad things like a system for adding email accounts that looks more like 15-year-old software than modern one. In fact, it is something that I mentioned to its developers and they recognized that they had a lot to improve. They worked on it, but it seems like the best move for the present was to make major changes that didn't just stay in your mail manager.

Thunderbird replaces KMail and the rest of PIM applications disappear

When we publish our article about Kubuntu 20.04, we forget about this detail that does appear in the official website. But the Kubuntu team only mentioned that «Thunderbird is now the mail client provided in the default installation, replacing KMail«. This point is true, but it is half true because all applications have disappeared de KDE PIMThese are:

• Contact: personal information management suite.
• Akregator: news feed app.
• blog: blog client.
• KAddressBook: address manager.
• KAlarm: alarms.
• KMail: the mail manager.
• KNotes: adhesive notes.
• KOrganizer: personal organizer.
• KonsoleKalendar: a command line calendar:
• KJots: utility for taking notes.

Until never or until later?

KDE has not published, or at least I have not read it, much information regarding this change. Kubuntu includes a lot of software after a clean install and one of the reasons they might have decided to remove their PIM is include less bloatware in your operating system. KDE continues to work on the PIM app set, as demonstrated in this article released just three days ago, but it seems they have preferred to let Kubuntu be lighter from the start, at least for now. If they decide to go back and add all these applications back in future versions, it is something that only time can reveal.