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This was addressed in a few Slashdot articles awhile ago. Check out the Mozilla Roadmap. They explain how things will be modularized. This means Firebird will be used instead.

I was thinking the same thing. Apparently that was the plan but they have been forced to change things (perhaps due to the Netscape break).

Buried deep in the To Do list on the official Roadmap page is one small but significant change. This is the passage that has been added. (There are probably other changes today as well but that is the one I noticed and pertains to this question).

It's clear now that we will not be able to switch to Mozilla Firebird by the Mozilla 1.5 final milestone. Instead, we expect Mozilla 1.5 to coincide with Mozilla Firebird 0.7. But we intend to implement the new application architecture in the next several milestones, till most of the community is won over to the new apps.

Hmmm... At the bottom of the page, the Roadmap states that it was last changed July 22, 2003 - so it appears that they were forced to make the change and only sort of let it be known. Wonder what is going on?

Well, until then, I will keep using Firebird. But for those migrating - another positive is that 1.5alpha is 1.4 Mbs smaller.

Re: 210630 -- Make install.com be smarter

Bitch get smarter!!!

Moz,
Illa

Does camino have a future?

I still use it and wouldn't count it out yet. If you check their project page there was news about updates as recent as last week. And they still have nightly builds. Stick with it, seems to me they are still working on it.

I'm in Firebird too, and the article's just fine. Perhaps you are not using the latest build?

That this page generated a pop-up ad for Window Washer.


What's a pop-up?

A similar legislative goal is behind class action suits, but there are other goals, such as efficiency and conservation of scarce judicial resources.

As several others have said: Roll your own version. That is what offering the source is for anyway.

In fact, just the other day (yesterday) I rolled a nightly Firebird install (optimized for Athlon) with SVG support. I've yet to test it though. (If you want it, just ask)

The other problem? They've yet to fix bug #111152...

No shit. I haven't tried it yet, but you can apparently download the worldpeace plugin here

What, this?

A common technique in web development is to serve things in a compressed format. Virtually all browsers support this by transparently decompressing the files after they are recieved. This is part of HTTP (content-encoding).

What happens is that when a web browser opens an HTTP connection it (Mozilla and Opera, probably Konqueror) sends Accept-encoding: gzip and then then GET /index.html or whatever, something like that. The server responds with Content-encoding: gzip followed by the gzipped file, which is decompressed by the browser.

It happens transparently, the files on the server are uncompressed. Internet Explorer supports it too, but refuses to send the Accept-encoding: gzip string, but will work if forced to using a filtering proxy like Proxomitron (great for removing ads, by the way).

This is supported by Apache.. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/apache/gzip/

(PLEASE NOTE: I am not entirely sure about the accuracy of what I have said regarding the exchange with the server, but something happens and it comes across gzipped)

(No, I didn't forget PNG. It has some technical and ideological advantages, but browser support is still, well, incomplete.)

So what's wrong with SVG plugins? They don't exploit the full power of SVG. It's not just a graphics format, it's an XML application. In other words, it's a markup language, just like HTML. A good XML-aware browser (something both IE and Mozilla pretend to be) shouldn't isolate SVG from the rest of the document.

Consider the gif-filled Slashdot page you're looking at right now. They have gotten rid of a lot of bitmaps (though the left hand clickbar looks slightly less cool as a result). But they still use some weird little bitmaps, plus a lot of weird tables and font kludges that are hard to maintain and tend to be browser dependent.

There's a simple fix: put SVG support in the browser (it is a W3C invention after all) and allow indiscriminate embedding of XHTML and SVG in each other. (Not to mention any other XML applications the browser happens to support.) The Mozilla people know this, but still consider SVG support experimental and non-standard. This has been the status quo for quite some time, and given AOL's abandonment of Gecko, is not likely to change.

Maybe if Mozilla had concentrated on basic technological improvements like this and less on eye-candy and silly features... well, AOL, would probably still have screwed them over. But I might feel bad about it.

KHTML looks to be the new leader in open-source web browsers. And their does seem to be a lot of interest in using the engine to render SVG. Alas, the KDE people still think of SVG as something you embed in something else.

...now all we need are some browsers with native SVG support. With the Mozilla SVG project still seemingly no closer to delivering a shippable release, and no hope whatsoever of MS releasing an SVG enabled IE, looks like we're stuck with the Adobe plugin for now. Until we get past that, I doubt SVG will enter the mainstream (more's the pity).

One of the goals of Perl 6 is to make non-trivial projects possible. That's good. The way it's being done is bad. Perl was once a lightweight, extremely flexible language. Now it's become a huge ugly monster. People wanted OO, so a nasty hack was bolted on top to allow some semblance of it. Now this nasty hack is being expanded. Sure, the code's different, but the basic form is the same. Kludge upon kludge upon kludge; I'd much rather have a nice, clean, pure language (and not one with loads of irritating whitespace thank you very much).

The same goes for the syntax. All the switching between $, @ and % is really irritating (ask a newbie how to get at the length of the keys array of a hash inside a hash, for example), and the changes proposed for 6 are just making this worse -- it seems that Larry, in his infinite wisdom, wants to prefix every data type with a different hard-to-type character. Perl was only designed for the three data types, and adding more is a mess.

Perl 6 is a complete rewrite, but it keeps all the mess which has accumulated over the previous versions. This is not good. Sure, my const int $var = 27; may look neat (in the same way that, say, Pascal does), but $var isn't entirely constant, or entirely an integer, it's just a hack which makes it sort of behave like one. The whole thing is an exercise in pseudo-computer science masturbation with little real purpose except to please the managers who dislike the one thing that makes Perl special.

On a similar note is regexes. I'm an avid fan of regular expressions simply because a nondeterministic finite automata is far more flexible than linear code. However, Larry must have been smoking that cheap $2 crack when he wrote this. Does he want Perl 6 to be flex or something?

I won't be going on to use 6. It's a nice idea, but it's completely unnecessary. It won't make large projects any easier to manage (the language is still, at heart, an almighty hack -- an impressive one, but still a hack). It won't make OO any cleaner. It won't make development any faster. To put it bluntly, Perl scripts will still look less beautiful than our friend Mr Goatse. I'd prefer to use a language which has always been pure synthesis of science and engineering, not some half-baked imposter.

Perl 6 will be nice, but I'm guessing it will be the end of Perl. It can't do what it wants to do whilst still being based upon a nasty mess. There are now other options, which provide all of Perl's power and none of the mess. Sorry, but *BSD^H^H^H^HPerl is dying. Larry is buggering it up the ass without lubricants, just like Shoeboy is doing to Larry's daughter.

I've said it before and will say it again... you can run Moz at work with no privs. I do! Spread the word.

Maybe you should switch to Mozilla. I've been happily-popup-free for quite a while now.

It sounds more and more like AOL is cutting ties with the Mozilla project, first with the Mozilla Foundation and now dumping their development team. But as I understand the Mozilla Public License, all contributions are still owned by AOL, and they have the right to create a closed-source fork of Mozilla any time they feel like it.

So my question is, who owns the copyright to the code base now? AOL or the Mozilla Foundation? More important, does this fact mean that AOL can continue to use it as a hedge against Microsoft, even as they pass on all development costs to the community at large?

If that's the case, it sounds like a raw deal. Does anyone know? If someone understands the ins and outs of the MPL, and how it affects the new relationship between AOL and the Mozilla Project, I think a lot of people would be interested.

Heck, I'm so dependent on Firebird and Thunderbird now, I can't work without these tools. Can't some of us who are employed contribute small parts of our paychecks towards the Mozilla Foundation?

Heck, I'm so dependent on Firebird and Thunderbird now, I can't work without these tools. Can't some of us who are employed contribute small parts of our paychecks towards the Mozilla Foundation?

Personally, I'd like to see NO middleware layer, but a well-defined API that anyone can use, but so well defined that it can't be ABused, letting people write the frontend in anything they like from Motif/C to Tcl/Tk.

What, like this? The doxygen server is down right now, so some links don't work; but we do have an excellent embedding API - used by Galeon, Epiphany, Camino, and many other projects.

the firebird/mozilla integration will undoubtably take place, but with 50 developers and monetary support gone, I doubt it will be to its full potential, and only be a footnote in the history of browsers. But I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong.

People are already raving about, and switching to, Mozilla Firebird, and it's only at 0.6.

Anyway, if you sit there and watch, you are more likely to be right than if you come and give us a hand :-)

Gerv

Mozilla supports MathML. I don't know how much of it does support, though. Last time I checked, it was only in a separate build. However, notes on the Mozilla page make it seem as if it's in recent versions of Mozilla. And when I look at MathML test pages, my version (1.4) views usually displays them fine. I think you have to download special fonts to handle all the characters specified in MathML.

On a side note, I'm getting frustrated with using Word and Open Office to set equations. I've thought about using LaTeX, but I'm not sure that LaTeX formatting is as easy for the other sorts of papers I write (I'm sort of in an odd field in that way).

I'm sort of surprised that Open Office hasn't incorporated LaTeX as part of its equation editor, or MathML for its equations. Or does it? Does anyone know of any efforts by Open Office to do such a thing? It would probably be the thing that would cause me to switch to Open Office once and for all.

I don't use Netscape, but I've been using the nightly builds of Mozilla Firebird as my default browser for MONTHS and I have fallen in love. =) It's stable. It's fast. No popups. Tabbed browsing. And, the most important thing: FireBird won't install any spyware on my computer just because I visited a website. I don't use Internet Explorer because it, well, sucks.

I might be able to get a fairly lightweight mail app that I can tolerate

Thunderbird should be right up your street.

Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)

Well, you could always post to a bug report or feature request offering a $1000 donation if the improvement you want made is completed...

From the description of their "media OS" based on Linux, http://interact-tv.com/EOS.php, I noticed something...

ItvXUL: XML based description language for describing itvgui based applications.

Does that mean their UI is based on http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xul/?

http://www.mozilla.org/banners/

I hope the slashdot effects cripples the graphics.com servers and sets them on fire in a glorious blaze of divine revenge! Take that for full screen popups!

Ye shall know the lizard, and the lizard shall set you free...

What have you been hiding under a rock for a few years? Mozilla has had popup blocking since like, '01, and Opera does it too. If you tried it a year ago and didn't like it for some doofus reason, do yourself a favor and download the latest MozillaFirebird from mozilla.org

Make a text file with the following:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\M ozilla]
"CurrentVersion"="1.4"

[HKEY_LOCAL_MAC HINE\SOFTWARE\mozilla.org\Mozilla\1.4\Main]
"Inst all Directory"="C:\\Program Files\\Mozilla\\bin\\"

Rename the file as mozilla.reg (or whatever.reg), and run it as a user with Administrator privileges. It will import the data into the right place in the registry. You can delete the reg file if the operation was successful.

Shut down Mozilla completely, restart it, and Java will work. I didn't have to use the Java Control Panel. The CP still won't let me check "Mozilla 1.1 or later" in the Browser tab, but it works anyway for me.

'Mozilla is slow and ugly.'

You call yourself a Mac user?

Camino (Chimera/Navigator/et al.) was sickeningly fast, even in 10.1.x. I saw great speed gains between that and IE 5.

Firebird is a bit slower, but very skinnable, combatting that 'Moz is ugly' retort that's so quick to roll off the tongue.

And while we're on the topic of UGLY, let's look at that 'brushed metal' theme...

'Mozilla is slow and ugly.'

You call yourself a Mac user?

Camino (Chimera/Navigator/et al.) was sickeningly fast, even in 10.1.x. I saw great speed gains between that and IE 5.

Firebird is a bit slower, but very skinnable, combatting that 'Moz is ugly' retort that's so quick to roll off the tongue.

And while we're on the topic of UGLY, let's look at that 'brushed metal' theme...

From the http://www.mozilla.org source:

@import url("/frontpage/nav4Sucks.css");

This wouldn't happen to be a reference to Netscape Navigator 4, would it?

This is better than trying to make us believe that first they save the whales, then go for profitability..

Umm you do realise this is a "non-profit organization" right? While they certainly need money for the organization to survive, profits don't fit into the equation. At most they might save money so they don't have to beg as much later.

Why should I give money to Mozilla when I don't give money to and other open-source software I use? Why do they need it? What will they use it for?

There is absolutely no reason for you to donate. Nobody is forcing you to do so. On the other hand, if everybody applies the same philosophy, most OSS projects will depend solely on the goodwill and the mutable live conditions of their developers Or on companies looking for a cheaper/better software development process).

This is very different from donnating to Mandrake, a for profit company in continuous state of finnancial turmoil. As thousands upon thousands of other OSS software, Mozilla is not sold, does not carry spyware or anything allowing for a money flow.

The point is, some people will feel grateful enough to donate money or resources to some projects. Some will feel grateful but won't have nothing to donate. Some will feel grateful but won't donate, period. And some won't feel anything but will use the software anyway. None of these are unwelcome, the software is open and free to use, no strings attached.

As for, They need to make a lot better case for themselves if they're going to warrent a piece of that pie, I believe you can download a new case every night, here...

We just launched Mozilla Marketing and a marketing mailing list. So we're going to start marketing Mozilla's products much more proactively. Please join us in this effort by joining the new marketing mailing list.

All together now:

http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firebird/

This is nothing but a Good Thing(TM). Congrats to the Mozilla team on their (apparent) independance. In other news, check out the redesigned web page.

Isn't it ironic that the top cells don't render the way they meant in Mozilla 1.4? They shouldn't be using tables for layout!

Of course, for all those complaints, you can forward them right on over to Firebird. I'ts everything that Mozilla wants to be (faster, lighter, more extensible). Gee, I wonder if the could do the same for OOo? I'd use *that* in a heartbeat.

Testing pleasure? Does a user want to be a tester? Does a user know what a "nightly" or a "milestone" is? Probably not, but they do know that Version 0.6 means Not Ready For Prime Time, if they are semi-quasi-kinda-sorta tech savvy (as I would expect anyone to be who would even consider trying an alternative browser). That's misleading, because Mozilla Firebird, while lacking a few features, really is ready. I use it all the time.

By contrast, if I were to recommend Opera (I wouldn't), I could say "go to opera.com" and there's a red button right there that says "free download." I should be able to say "go to mozillafirebird.com and get it" (.com not .org) and a user should find something similar.

Testing pleasure? Does a user want to be a tester? Does a user know what a "nightly" or a "milestone" is? Probably not, but they do know that Version 0.6 means Not Ready For Prime Time, if they are semi-quasi-kinda-sorta tech savvy (as I would expect anyone to be who would even consider trying an alternative browser). That's misleading, because Mozilla Firebird, while lacking a few features, really is ready. I use it all the time.

By contrast, if I were to recommend Opera (I wouldn't), I could say "go to opera.com" and there's a red button right there that says "free download." I should be able to say "go to mozillafirebird.com and get it" (.com not .org) and a user should find something similar.

Testing pleasure? Does a user want to be a tester? Does a user know what a "nightly" or a "milestone" is? Probably not, but they do know that Version 0.6 means Not Ready For Prime Time, if they are semi-quasi-kinda-sorta tech savvy (as I would expect anyone to be who would even consider trying an alternative browser). That's misleading, because Mozilla Firebird, while lacking a few features, really is ready. I use it all the time.

By contrast, if I were to recommend Opera (I wouldn't), I could say "go to opera.com" and there's a red button right there that says "free download." I should be able to say "go to mozillafirebird.com and get it" (.com not .org) and a user should find something similar.

Testing pleasure? Does a user want to be a tester? Does a user know what a "nightly" or a "milestone" is? Probably not, but they do know that Version 0.6 means Not Ready For Prime Time, if they are semi-quasi-kinda-sorta tech savvy (as I would expect anyone to be who would even consider trying an alternative browser). That's misleading, because Mozilla Firebird, while lacking a few features, really is ready. I use it all the time.

By contrast, if I were to recommend Opera (I wouldn't), I could say "go to opera.com" and there's a red button right there that says "free download." I should be able to say "go to mozillafirebird.com and get it" (.com not .org) and a user should find something similar.

Testing pleasure? Does a user want to be a tester? Does a user know what a "nightly" or a "milestone" is? Probably not, but they do know that Version 0.6 means Not Ready For Prime Time, if they are semi-quasi-kinda-sorta tech savvy (as I would expect anyone to be who would even consider trying an alternative browser). That's misleading, because Mozilla Firebird, while lacking a few features, really is ready. I use it all the time.

By contrast, if I were to recommend Opera (I wouldn't), I could say "go to opera.com" and there's a red button right there that says "free download." I should be able to say "go to mozillafirebird.com and get it" (.com not .org) and a user should find something similar.

Mozilla (at home - here at work, I am stuck with IE)

I was in a similar situation to you until a friendly slashdotter told me that that Firebird can be run on Windows from the executable. If you have sufficient permissions to copy something from a CD onto your desktop, you can run Moz at work -- just run MozillaFirebird.exe It automatically copies over all your IE bookmarks as well : )

Give it a try, you'll be pleasntly surprised.

Yes it does. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/calendar/

The mail aspect of the Mozilla suite will be called "Mozilla Mail" but for development purposes it will be codenamed "Minotaur."

Actually, the developmental name of Mozilla's new mail client got renamed to Thunderbird, it is no longer Minotaur.

Actually, if you'd done some research, you would've noticed that the project have had a 1 year anniversary already...

Apparently somebody else cares, or else there probably wouldn't be a Bugzilla entry about it. It seems cool, but since it doesn't affect me, I don't care that much. Still, it seems like you should be able to display simple Ruby with tables; perhaps that's how they'll implement the tag.

Mozilla Tech Evangelism

Yes, but that's why Mozilla is seperating the browser (Firebird) and the email client (Thunderbird).

I'm personally very psyched about this, as I love mozilla both as an idea and most of the results, but I hated the fact that it was this massive all-in-one beast. Firebird is just fantastic, and I can't wait to start playing with Thunderbird when it's a bit more mature. Until then, MozMail is quite good.

Yes, but that's why Mozilla is seperating the browser (Firebird) and the email client (Thunderbird).

I'm personally very psyched about this, as I love mozilla both as an idea and most of the results, but I hated the fact that it was this massive all-in-one beast. Firebird is just fantastic, and I can't wait to start playing with Thunderbird when it's a bit more mature. Until then, MozMail is quite good.