off.net · Domains · Slashdot Mirror

Mozilla's VP of Engineering On H.264

Yro · Mozilla · 2010-01-24 03:14 · posted by Soulskill · from the on-again-ogg-again dept. · 675 comments

We recently discussed news that YouTube and Vimeo are each testing their own HTML5 video players using the H.264 format. Firefox does not support H.264, and Mozilla's vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver, has now made a post explaining why. Quoting: "For Mozilla, H.264 is not currently a suitable technology choice. In many countries, it is a patented technology, meaning that it is illegal to use without paying license fees to the MPEG-LA. Without such a license, it is not legal to use or distribute software that produces or consumes H.264-encoded content. Indeed, even distributing H.264 content over the internet or broadcasting it over the airwaves requires the consent of the MPEG-LA, and the current fee exemption for free-to-the-viewer internet delivery is only in effect until the end of 2010. These license fees affect not only browser developers and distributors, but also represent a toll booth on anyone who wishes to produce video content." Mozilla developer Robert O'Callahan has written a blog post on the same subject, following a talk he gave on Friday about the importance of open video on the web.

Mozilla Unblocks Microsoft's .NET Addon

Tech · Microsoft · 2009-10-19 00:45 · posted by CmdrTaco · from the tag-yer-it dept. · 275 comments

bonch writes "Mozilla previously blocked the Firefox addons Microsoft included with .NET, citing security concerns. After talking with Microsoft, they have now unblocked the .NET Framework Assistant addon and are working on a way for enterprise users to unblock the Windows Presentation Foundation addon as well."

Firefox Gets Massive JavaScript Performance Boost

Tech · Mozilla · 2008-08-22 14:00 · posted by Soulskill · from the firefox-has-a-caffeine-buzz dept. · 462 comments

monkeymonkey writes "Mozilla has integrated tracing optimization into SpiderMonkey, the JavaScript interpreter in Firefox. This improvement has boosted JavaScript performance by a factor of 20 to 40 in certain contexts. Ars Technica interviewed Mozilla CTO Brendan Eich (the original creator of JavaScript) and Mozilla's vice president of engineering, Mike Shaver. They say that tracing optimization will 'take JavaScript performance into the next tier' and 'get people thinking about JavaScript as a more general-purpose language.' The eventual goal is to make JavaScript run as fast as C code. Ars reports: 'Mozilla is leveraging an impressive new optimization technique to bring a big performance boost to the Firefox JavaScript engine. ...They aim to improve execution speed so that it is comparable to that of native code. This will redefine the boundaries of client-side performance and enable the development of a whole new generation of more computationally-intensive web applications.' Mozilla has also published a video that demonstrates the performance difference." An anonymous reader contributes links the blogs of Eich and Shaver, where they have some further benchmarks.

Feature:Zeal, Advocacy, and the Future of Linux

Linux · Linux · 1999-06-28 02:00 · posted by CmdrTaco · from the stuff-to-read dept. · 185 comments

Joe Shaw has sent us a feature on a topic that is near and dear to many of our hearts: Linux advocacy. Specifically related to the recent mindcraft email posting, and practically any journalist who writes an article with a non-glowing comment about Linux, and the hoards that swoop down and proceed to shove them through a cuisinart. Hit the link to read it. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Joe Shaw

Zeal, Advocacy, and the Future of Linux The future of Linux in the computing world, now so centralized around the Internet, worries me.

It REALLY worries me.

What worries me, specifically, is the light that Linux is being put in because of very bad advocacy. Anti-advocacy, almost, from those who claim to love and support it the most. Rude, insulting, and obscene attacks fly out of the "mouths" of these people to anyone who speaks one thing about Linux that doesn't put it into an immaculate light. Never before has the ordinary, everyday user had such a voice in the software industry. In this Internet-centralized computing world, the everyday advocacy by the average user can have huge ramifications on how Linux is presented to the world.

Everyone remembers the Amiga, OS/2, the BeBox. For their times, they were technologically superior to the Intel/Microsoft framework that dominated. Their (relative) failures to reach a substantial portion of the marketplace cannot be narrowed down to one cause, but among the many, advocacy was definitely a poignant one. A defensive and often rude greater-than-thou attitude without addressing the shortcomings of their products pushed away possible supporters and hurt their chances of widespread support. Rumors, myths, and speculation ("The Amiga is just a game machine! It couldn't possibly by used for any productive task.") became widespread. An inability to dispel this hearsay through supportive, informative, and polite advocacy implied that it was _not_ unsubstantiated, regardless of how untrue it really was. As

members of this open source community and supporters of our projects and ideals, it is important to correct erroneous reports and dispel FUD[1] directed at us, but it must be done in a polite and professional manner. WE are the spokespeople for our community, for our ideals, and for our projects. There is no PR department in the open source community that can sugar coat our feelings and statements. Some of our most vocal proponents, such as ESR, RMS, and Linus, have somewhat taken on this responsibility, but even they are flamed and criticized. Without politeness, professionalism, and pride we will dig ourselves into a hole that we may not be able to get out of. And the shovels have already broken ground. Take, for example, the posting of the EXTREMELY embarrassing comments directed at Mindcraft regarding their Linux vs. NT benchmarks[2]. Want more dirt? After an article[3] by Jack Bryar from the Andover News Network that he himself admitted was hasty ex post facto was posted to Slashdot[4], he was flooded with hateful email telling him hundreds of different places to stick it. Was the article appropriate? Certainly not from our point of view, but many readers courteously and meticulously described the errors in his article, much to his delight. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the proper way to handle with this situation, not with obscenities. Fortunately, in his response article[5], he put the flames in a much better light than anyone could reasonably expect. This is not a slam on the Slashdot folk; it is a problem that the entire community suffers from. Nobody is perfect, obviously, but please give thought before you shoot off an email like the ones mentioned. There ARE real people with real feelings on the other end and many times they have a valid point.

You are all ambassadors for the open source community whether you like it or not. You don't want to be ostracized and called "rabid fanatics" or "zealots" by the rest of the world. It defeats our purpose and will ultimately doom us. Advocate Linux. Advocate open source. Don't put down competitors. Despite what some of you may think, many in (and perhaps most of) the community do NOT believe that Microsoft is the enemy and the evil corporation that we must kill. Rather than narrowing in on destroying Microsoft, focus on this: improving the software. And if you can't code, there is still much more you can do: dispel the rumors, the myths, the speculation, the FUD. Test the programs that these people write, offer well-thought suggestions, report bugs. Many coders aren't good writers and their programs need documentation. Offer to help them with it or join the Linux Documentation Project if that's a strength. The programmers are only a part of making this thing work, although the most glorified in this community. But they simply can't do it alone.

[1] Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
[2] Linux Net Rage
[3] Article 1
[4] Slashdot
[5] Response to article 1

Feature:Zeal, Advocacy, and the Future of Linux

Linux · Linux · 1999-06-28 02:00 · posted by CmdrTaco · from the stuff-to-read dept. · 185 comments

Joe Shaw has sent us a feature on a topic that is near and dear to many of our hearts: Linux advocacy. Specifically related to the recent mindcraft email posting, and practically any journalist who writes an article with a non-glowing comment about Linux, and the hoards that swoop down and proceed to shove them through a cuisinart. Hit the link to read it. The following was written by Slashdot Reader Joe Shaw

Zeal, Advocacy, and the Future of Linux The future of Linux in the computing world, now so centralized around the Internet, worries me.

It REALLY worries me.

What worries me, specifically, is the light that Linux is being put in because of very bad advocacy. Anti-advocacy, almost, from those who claim to love and support it the most. Rude, insulting, and obscene attacks fly out of the "mouths" of these people to anyone who speaks one thing about Linux that doesn't put it into an immaculate light. Never before has the ordinary, everyday user had such a voice in the software industry. In this Internet-centralized computing world, the everyday advocacy by the average user can have huge ramifications on how Linux is presented to the world.

Everyone remembers the Amiga, OS/2, the BeBox. For their times, they were technologically superior to the Intel/Microsoft framework that dominated. Their (relative) failures to reach a substantial portion of the marketplace cannot be narrowed down to one cause, but among the many, advocacy was definitely a poignant one. A defensive and often rude greater-than-thou attitude without addressing the shortcomings of their products pushed away possible supporters and hurt their chances of widespread support. Rumors, myths, and speculation ("The Amiga is just a game machine! It couldn't possibly by used for any productive task.") became widespread. An inability to dispel this hearsay through supportive, informative, and polite advocacy implied that it was _not_ unsubstantiated, regardless of how untrue it really was. As

members of this open source community and supporters of our projects and ideals, it is important to correct erroneous reports and dispel FUD[1] directed at us, but it must be done in a polite and professional manner. WE are the spokespeople for our community, for our ideals, and for our projects. There is no PR department in the open source community that can sugar coat our feelings and statements. Some of our most vocal proponents, such as ESR, RMS, and Linus, have somewhat taken on this responsibility, but even they are flamed and criticized. Without politeness, professionalism, and pride we will dig ourselves into a hole that we may not be able to get out of. And the shovels have already broken ground. Take, for example, the posting of the EXTREMELY embarrassing comments directed at Mindcraft regarding their Linux vs. NT benchmarks[2]. Want more dirt? After an article[3] by Jack Bryar from the Andover News Network that he himself admitted was hasty ex post facto was posted to Slashdot[4], he was flooded with hateful email telling him hundreds of different places to stick it. Was the article appropriate? Certainly not from our point of view, but many readers courteously and meticulously described the errors in his article, much to his delight. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the proper way to handle with this situation, not with obscenities. Fortunately, in his response article[5], he put the flames in a much better light than anyone could reasonably expect. This is not a slam on the Slashdot folk; it is a problem that the entire community suffers from. Nobody is perfect, obviously, but please give thought before you shoot off an email like the ones mentioned. There ARE real people with real feelings on the other end and many times they have a valid point.

You are all ambassadors for the open source community whether you like it or not. You don't want to be ostracized and called "rabid fanatics" or "zealots" by the rest of the world. It defeats our purpose and will ultimately doom us. Advocate Linux. Advocate open source. Don't put down competitors. Despite what some of you may think, many in (and perhaps most of) the community do NOT believe that Microsoft is the enemy and the evil corporation that we must kill. Rather than narrowing in on destroying Microsoft, focus on this: improving the software. And if you can't code, there is still much more you can do: dispel the rumors, the myths, the speculation, the FUD. Test the programs that these people write, offer well-thought suggestions, report bugs. Many coders aren't good writers and their programs need documentation. Offer to help them with it or join the Linux Documentation Project if that's a strength. The programmers are only a part of making this thing work, although the most glorified in this community. But they simply can't do it alone.

[1] Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt
[2] Linux Net Rage
[3] Article 1
[4] Slashdot
[5] Response to article 1

Use Netscape Mirrors People!

Tech · Netscape · 1998-03-31 05:19 · posted by CmdrTaco · from the backup-plan dept. · 0 comments

Jamie Zawinksi wrote in to tell me to tell everyone to lay off Mozilla.org and try one of the many mirrors- the huge demand has crippled the machine. Hit the link below to get a decent list of com and edu mirrors. Update:Couple of neato things, A screenshot of NS5 was sent in by Christopher Blizzard, and an insider who requested anonymity sent us a picture from this mornings big event, wrote "The main three people in this picture are Jim Barksdale, Jamie, and Tara Hernandez. Tara is manager of the build team. Just to the left of JimB is Jim Roskind, who led the Java-ectomy." Thanks guys.

ftp://odin.appliedtheory.com/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

http://www.gbnet.net/public/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.landfield.com/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.epix.net/pub/mozilla/

ftp://netscape.primehost.com/pub/ftp.mozilla.org/

ftp://wuarchive.wustl.edu/packages/www/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.muc.muohio.edu/pub/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.bogalusa.com/mozilla/

ftp://sod.off.net:211/pub/mozilla/

ftp://mirrors.javanet.net/pub/mirrors/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.tux.org/pub/net/mozilla/

ftp://ftp.cache-world.com/mirror/mozilla.org/