What's happening at Betterbird during that the Germans call summer hole (Sommerloch), also called silly season in parts of the world?
The new ESR version 153 shipped about 10 days ago, and so far we had only little feedback, but all the feedback received was positive. Version 140.13.0-bb25 was also shipped around the same time.
We're constantly monitoring developments at Thunderbird, so a few days ago we shipped a build 2 for Betterbird 153.0esr-bb6. In that build, we shipped two minor corrections and additional upstream fixes.
While things are generally quieter, we've used the time to upgrade our macOS build machine to a Mac mini M4. This delivers faster builds, and keeps up with Apple's ever-changing Xcode requirements, and thus ensuring that Betterbird continues to build natively for Apple Silicon; it also allows a cross-compile for Intel Macs.
If you've been enjoying Betterbird, please tell a friend or colleague about it. And if you'd like to help keep the project going, consider sending a donation. Summer is traditionally a bit of a donation lull, so every contribution is especially appreciated. We don't run three or four yearly donation drives like the Thunderbird folks, only one in December.