team
Other resources
Process
Contact
To get in touch with the entire Tails Team, you can:
- write to the foundations@tails.net Schleuder mailing list;
- mention
@tails-team
on GitLab: GitLab will send an email notification about it to every member of the Tails Team, and add it to their To-Do list.
You can encrypt your email with our OpenPGP key (details).
Priorities
Priorities for 2025
MUST
-
Remediate vulnerabilities identified by security audit and pick low-hanging fruits to avoid repeating past mistakes
-
Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's — MUST bundle
- Hand over ticket gardening role to intrigeri (tails#20510)
- Revisit Tails Team Lead / Project Manager arrangements for FY 2025-2026 (tails#20700 (closed))
-
KTLO, including:
- Release Tails 7.0 based on Debian 13 (Trixie)
- Upgrade Tor Browser to new ESR
- Upgrade Thunderbird to new ESR
- Prototype and collaborate on using Arti
-
Fix long-lasting usability issues (P165 C.1)
- We'll determine which ones when we prioritize UX Debt issues.
-
Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool, still with a focus on identifying high-impact work (P165 C.2)
- We'll determine in Q1 if this work should have a particular focus in 2025 (in 2024 it was Persistent Storage & partitioning robustness).
-
Improve test suite robustness, focusing on time sinks (P165 D.1)
-
Research alternatives to Etcher for Windows; then, if there's a good enough candidate, switch to it
- Goal: Improve the privacy of the Tails installation process
-
Improve website navigation
SHOULD
-
Bring the list of UX Debt down way more
- Grant Tor Browser access to files as designated by the user (tails#10422 (closed))
- Persistent language and keyboard (tails#5501)
- Tor Connection bundle
- Drop some issues of least priority
-
Kickstart project to collect the metrics we need in a privacy-preserving manner: potentially a poor-person's version implemented; potentially, have plans e.g. an analysis to get grants with the rest of Tor (so this would happen >= 2026)
- Goal: Enable ourselves to make decisions and evaluate progress based on usage data
-
Talk with sysadmins about the future of Jenkins (tails#20774)
-
Improve website onboarding
- Make plans on the big issues (after having installed your first Tails)
- Fix smaller issues
-
Rename GitLab label: Foundations Team → Tails Team (tails#20746 (closed))
- Goal: finish the migration to the new terminology, avoid confusion caused by using obsolete terminology.
-
Start integrating our doc for contributors with Tor's, identifying other problems in this section along the way (tails#20768)
-
Develop better interoperability with mobile messaging apps aka. Signal support (tails#14567)
-
Improve story for Persistent Storage backups (tails#20194)
-
Persistent Storage features (iff. specific crowdfunding)
MAY
-
Finish the initial exploration and prototyping of the automatic verification of Tails downloads
-
Define 5-years strategy for the Tails product & team in the Tor organization
-
Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's - MAY bundle
- Migrate from Schleuder to Mailman
- Migrate from XMPP to IRC (unless we build confidence that TPI will migrate away from IRC by the end of 2026)
Past priorities
- 2024
- priorities were not set, beyond doing the work planned as part of S11
- done in 2024
- 3-year strategy for 2023-2025
Roadmap
This is the big picture. For details about what's happening on the short term, see the board for the upcoming milestone.
Projects
Project 165
- Calendar: 2024-12-01 to 2025-11-30
- Wiki page with details
- Kanban Board
2025 Q2
-
Frontdesk (@intrigeri) -
Upgrade to Debian 13 and release 7.0: do the bulk of the porting work (P165) (@intrigeri, @anonym) -
Help get grant proposals for 2026 ready (tails/tails#20767) (driven by @intrigeri, may need help from others) -
Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's (@intrigeri) -
Finish migrating away from keyringer (tails/tails#20752) -
Rename the @foundations-team GitLab group to @tails-team (tails#20826)
-
-
Improve website navigation (tails#20766) (@sajolida) -
1. General navigation -
2. Accessibility issues
-
-
Document why we are using /home as the homepage of Tor Browser in Tails (tails#20822) as a starting point to figure out how to integrate Tor's calls for donations in Tails (@sajolida) -
Public report about security audit (tails/summit#186) (@sajolida) -
Start integrating our doc for contributors with Tor's, identifying other problems in this section along the way (tails#20768) (@sajolida) - Recurring P165 (OTF FOSS Sustainability Fund) work
- A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti (@boyska)
-
Redesign and draft our run-in-netns for Arti (tails#20811) -
Monitor the work on Arti's RPC and make sure our needs are met (tails#20508)
-
- B.1 Release management and smaller OS migrations
- C.1 Fix long-lasting usability issues
-
Persistent language and keyboard (tails#5501)(@boyska) -
Rename "Tor Browser" shortcuts and folders as "Downloads" (tails#15028 (closed), @anonym) if sajolida thinks it's worth it - Lower priority: if we have spare capacity
-
- C.2 Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool (candidates: tails#20785 (closed))
-
Research on admin password prompt (tails#15268) (@boyska)
-
- D.1 Make the Tails development process more efficient (test suite) (@anonym):
-
Fix most frequent sources of failures: -
tails#20297 "The proxy server is refusing connections" after Tor has bootstrapped -
tails#20890 Test suite: step "available upgrades have been checked" fails a lot
-
-
tails#18215 Upgrade Chutney (2025 edition) - Other potential candidates:
- tails#20851 Test suite: make the remote shell server handle aborted client commands
- tails#20570 Test suite: improve Chutney network bootstrap with launch phases
-
- A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti (@boyska)
-
Metrics (tails#19476): inform the Tor-wide policy discussions about metrics with our own needs & draft design (@boyska)
Boards:
2025 Q3
- Frontdesk (@intrigeri)
- Upgrade to Debian 13 and release 7.0 (P165):
- KTLO
- Upgrade Tor Browser to ESR 140 (P165) (tails#20770) (@anonym)
- Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's
- User support parity with other Tor products (tails#20773) (@intrigeri)
- Talk with sysadmins about the future of Jenkins (tails#20774) (@intrigeri)
- Recurring P165 (OTF FOSS Sustainability Fund) work
- A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti (@boyska)
-
Switch to a feature flag approach for Arti integration work (tails#20675) - conflicts with tails#20675 (comment 254286)
-
Make sure we can integrate Arti RPC into Gtk (tails#20809)
-
- B.1 Release management and smaller OS migrations
- C.1 Fix long-lasting usability issues
- Tor Connection bundle (@intrigeri some of it?)
- C.2 Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool (candidates: tails#20785 (closed))
- D.1 Make the Tails development process more efficient (test suite) (@anonym)
- A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti (@boyska)
2025 Q4
- Frontdesk
- Upgrade to Debian 13 and release 7.0 (P165):
- Coordination (@boyska)
- Release
- Post-release feedback & fixes
- KTLO
- Upgrade Tor Browser to new ESR (P165) (tails#20771) (@anonym)
- Upgrade Thunderbird to new ESR (P165) (tails#20772) (@anonym)
- Converge workflows and tooling towards Tor's
- User support parity with other Tor products (tails#20773) (@intrigeri)
- Improve website onboarding (tails#20777) (@sajolida)
- Recurring P165 (OTF FOSS Sustainability Fund) work — until the end of November
- A.2 Prototype and collaborate on using Arti
- B.1 Release management and smaller OS migrations
- C.1 Fix long-lasting usability issues
- C.2 Act on feedback received by email and in-app tool (candidates: tails#20785 (closed))
- D.1 Make the Tails development process more efficient (test suite) (@anonym)