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The code for the DRM module Firefox uses is not part of the Firefox build system, but is downloaded at runtime. This can be done whether it's a Firefox built by Mozilla or not. So the DRM question has no bearing on whether you can call your version Firefox or not.

This series of blog posts: http://blog.gerv.net/2010/01/p... explains why Mozilla doesn't let just anyone call their modified version "Firefox".

Gerv

The forums were not hacked. They upgraded to latest OpenSuSE Factory, which includes cdrtools again.

And guess what, this time the Anti-SuSE message in cdrtools really went big time.

Seems Firefox has had some problems: http://blog.gerv.net/2011/01/why_firefox_on_linux_is_not_accelerated/. The salient quote being: "We tried enabling OpenGL on Linux, and discovered that most Linux drivers are so disastrously buggy (think 'crash the X server at the drop of a hat, and paint incorrectly the rest of the time' buggy) that we had to disable it for now."

Also doing some more basic compositing and doing a full out 3D game are things that are a bit different in terms of complexity and problems.

I'm going to say Blizzard probably knows what they are talking about. They have quite a few graphics developers, quite a few QA people, quite a few sysadmins, and so on and oh, they were the ones who wrote the client. They probably have a reason for what they are doing.

... The many good plugins.

I already know this isn't starting out well, given you've called the extensions plugins.

Hate: A single tab can hang the whole browser.

A phenomenal amount of work is going into improving this.

No convenient way to view an image with the wrong MIME type in the browser anyway.

that took 2 seconds to find

Too little and dumbed down settings.

about:config

No more status bar.

It's now the add-ons bar

Still no good debugging tools

You're right with this one. Fortunately it'll be in Firefox 15 releasing at the end of this month, play with it in the beta right now

The weird branding thing they do that caused Archlinux to not call it Firefox but various other lame names in the past (are they for open source or what?).

Trademarks have nothing to do with the code being open sourced. Users are safer because Mozilla can defend the trademarks.

No more innovation (why not try things like multiple tab groups or so

You mean like Panorama that's been there since Firefox 4? (Ctrl Shift E)

The Android version sometimes crashes and once made the whole phone reboot after a crash.

In about:crashes there are links to each crash report, perhaps you can visit irc://irc.mozilla.org/mobile and share those links to help improve it.

its slowness.

If you meant responsiveness, see my first linked answer. If you just mean javascript speed, the Ionmonkey js engine is coming along nicely.

I'm probably missing many things :)

Just one. Firefox.

Various DigiNotar intermediate certificates had been cross-signed by other trusted CAs. In order to achieve full blocking, we implemented code which checks for DigiNotar's name in the certificate chain.

http://blog.gerv.net/2011/09/diginotar-compromise/

Implemented code to compensate for the DigiNotar chaining?

Stark example of how the current model is well and truly fucked.

If you haven't been following this story, Gerv (one of the Mozilla people directly dealing with this) has a good overview post with something of a timeline, hitting all the salient points about just how much DigiNotar has fucked up.

Well man just confused me more than anything else.... just listing out a whole bunch of switches with some description of what they do that itself doesn't actually mean anything to me, isn't enough.

As a newbie, I remember man actually being useful, sometimes. First, read the name and the description -- these will generally tell you what the command does. In general, if you don't understand at least the name, you don't need to use that program -- for example:

gcc - GNU project C and C++ compiler

If you know what C and C++ are, and what a compiler is, that makes sense. If you don't know what they are, do you need to be using gcc at all?

Once you've got that, usually the synopsis will give you an idea of how it should be used, and what options to look at. If not, look for the examples.

And try info, not just man. It takes just a bit more effort to learn info, and you'd be much better off finding some sort of web-based info browser, but if the program does have an info page, that's likely to be much better organized and easier to understand.

At least, I think that's what worked for me. I actually learned how to use things like gcc and tar from man and info, and I didn't find it particularly difficult.

On the other hand, I was 15, so I'm not really sure how I did it, and it's possible 15-year-olds are just better at learning these things, when motivated.

Google reveals a lot of very helpful and well-written newbie guides though. Perhaps the best of those should be adapted and built-in to the documentation shipping with new distros?

I'd argue they should be mirrored, perhaps absorbed into version control and/or the wiki of the project in question, but I don't see how including them on the CD is that helpful. What would be much more helpful are some meta-tutorials, like how to Google intelligently, how to find the project mailing list -- or failing that, an email address of someone responsible -- and how to ask smart questions -- though it might be easier to start here.

The reason is that no distro could ever include every possible tutorial, or keep them entirely up to date, though it would still be useful to try. It would be much more useful to train users to find the best possible documentation, and when that fails them, ask the best possible questions.

The objection is not that embryos are potentially people, is that they are people. This is not true about some cells harvested in such a way that it does not destroy a person (whether embryonic or adult).

Whether you agree with the classification of embryos as people is what the debate should be about. See http://www.gerv.net/writings/foetal-personhood/ for some pointers

The motivation has changed... (sorry gerv, I couldn't resist)

God, of course, is the ultimate hacker in the "master programmer" sense - one only needs to briefly peruse of some of the things he has made to see that. The elegance of design in some biological systems is breathtaking. When you compare human DNA to chimpanzee DNA, you see they are around 96% the same. Some people see this as evidence that both evolved from the same original species; I see it simply as sensible code reuse.

That is a not a good solution.

You're seeing the effect of bug 179944 ( http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=179944 ). To learn how to apply for the "canconfirm" privilege on bugzilla.mozilla.org, which grants the ability to file NEW bugs or to change UNCONFIRMED bugs to NEW, read Bug Triagers' Guide and Before you mail Gerv. If you're good at reducing examples of Gecko misbehavior to test cases, you may want to apply for "editbugs" as well.

Hmm, ask Gerv about that.

My passwords are all stored in Keyring for Palm OS in my Treo (with the database backed up to a PC), and the master password is written down in a "useful information" appendix to the original copy of my will, along with my bank account details. My original will lives in the walk-in safe in my parents house, and both my executors know it's there.

The will contains a person nominated to take ownership of my machines and conclude my online affairs, including notifying interested parties and posting a message on my website.

So don't worry guys, if the hit succeeds, you'll find out fairly quick ;-)

Gerv

My test page demonstrates that the suggested solution doesn't work. Even when I externally document.write() the <object> or <applet> tag, the popup still appears.

Gerv

The Intellect document has a number of inaccuracies and mischaracterisations in it. I've spent that last two evenings preparing a line-by-line commentary, which can be found here.

Comments welcome.

Gerv

> And here I was thinking hard work and practice is
> what gave them their "gifts", thanks for setting
> me straight.

If I worked as hard and practised as hard as, say, Lucio does, I would still not be as good as him at football. And I don't know if I'd have the qualities to work that hard anyway.

Among the gifts he's been given are great footballing skill, but also determination and drive.

> Maybe if I pray a whole lot I will suddenly learn Java,

If you had a relationship with Jesus, and believed in your heart that learning Java was something he really wanted you to do (for some good reason), and prayed about it, you may well find you found it easier to do than otherwise.

For example, I wasn't at all stressed about my final exams at the end of three years of University, despite being diagnosed a few weeks before with a malignant cancer. I believe this is because I asked God to help me and give me peace and reassurance, and he did. Here's the full story.

Gerv

You're welcome. Gerv suggested it and Pudge checked it in

(Consider it my little contribution to Mozilla and to the Semantic Web.)