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Mike Shaver Leaving Netscape
Rumours have been floating around for the past week or so that Mike Shaver is leaving Netscape/AOL After e-mailing with Mike yesterday, and reading the recent posting on Mozillazine, I'm sad to confirm it's true. However, while he won't be working on Mozilla as his full time job anymore, he will still be involved with the project, going so far as to say: "Though Mozilla will no longer be my full-time job, I will continue to participate in the community as much as
possible, and my new employer is very supportive of that." In any case, we'll miss you.
(First post? Nahhh... I doubt it. But it was fun to think about. ;)
Zontar The Mindless,
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Again, thanks.
Do the obvious to e-mail me.
They both claim to be open source evangelist. They took their money from their stock options and went away. Open source and payed developer doesn't work. The only true open source is VOLUNTEERSOURCE. Those people work at nights. Those people come from different countries.
Mozilla doesn't require AOL's support to become a reality. It requires developers.
Stop crying in your beer and start coding (or documenting, or testing, or ANYTHING).
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If you can find someone to pay you to do something you love or if, like JWZ, you can convince your employer that the OSS philosophy is a good way to go, then more power to you.
Besides, you should be applauding Shaver -- once again, he's working on Mozilla in a volunteer way.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
M12 was ok but the nightly build of what will be M13 rules. I now use it inplace of Netscape for most things, in fact im using it now. It is faster then NS 4.X and just as stable. If you ask me they are in the alpha stage and close to beta. Its only a matter of time.
I have to return some videotapes...
This is the stupidest thing I've heard today. The only GOOD open souce software is that which complies with the Open Source Definition. It has got little or nothing to do with volounteering.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
>Open source and payed developer doesn't work. The only true open source is VOLUNTEERSOURCE.
This is such utter nonsense that its probably not worth responding to, but I feel compelled to, anyway...
Can you just remind me, dear Coward, whether or not Mr Stallman draws his unemplyment checks and codes on the side? Or is he on a salary from FSF? (or rather was he, since I seem to recall him saying he had no time to write code anymore) I could be wrong, but I guess I have to say I think its the latter. Doesnt Alan Cox work for Red Hat? Dont VA Research pay salaries for Rasterman and Mandrake? Wasn't Larry Wall working for JPL when patch, Perl et.c were first written?
You see, Mr Coward, it doesnt actually matter where the money comes from (unless its arms sales, which I personally disapprove of, but is generally minimal as a source of Open Source development funding.)
What matters is the work; what matters is the code, and the license. What matters is what they gave. Mr C., I'd put my money on both these gentlemen ('Shaver and jwz') having contributed more to Open Source last week than you've done in your life.
So what if they got stock options. You think only rock stars and film stars are allowed to make money? Gee, imagine someone having a comfortable life because they did good things for the world at large.
free experimental electronic music netlabel at www.viablehybrid.com
So, who becomes resident talking head now? Shaver has done quite well for mozilla both within the open source community (he's done some kick ass fud damage control here on slashdot) and to the world at large. And look at his checkin logs from bonsai (which is apparently down for maintenence at the moment). Happy to see that he'll still be involved with mozilla.
You say that the browser war has been won by MS, but the fact is that the browser war is not over and is never likely to be.
;D
The simple truth is that in the software world no matter how much of a lead you may have, that doesn't mean that it's easy to keep. Netscape could take another year to release their next browser, and when it arrives it'll appear on every magazine cover CD, for every platform under the sun and people will try it. If the browser is good then people will use it and the fact that Netscape didn't have a decent product for years and years will mean less and less.
Anyway, perhaps it's a good thing that IE is dominating, with Microsoft broken into three bits and IE opensourced then Netscape-AOL-Time-Warner will be the big conglomerate boogie-man
Boffoonery - downloadable Comedy Benefit for Bletchley Park
I just submitted this to slash, but I doubt it'll get posted as a main article...
Mozilla is now unoffically dogfood status according to the latest status report. The evaluation of whether it's dogfood or not is if at least 50% of mozilla.org are using mozilla for at least 50% of their browsing time. After that, bugs start getting fixed faster as people are really using the product (and pressuring their peers to make it better).
For those that haven't tried a nightly build - do so. It's incredibly unintrusive (just installs in your $HOME directory - and can be deleted just as easily), real stable, and is great as an every day browser.
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Open source and payed developer doesn't work. The only true open source is VOLUNTEERSOURCE.
This is not quite true. I'm giving Red Hat as an example simply because that's the environment I'm familiar with; I'm quite sure the same holds true of most other paid open source developers:
Virtually all people who get hired have been working on open source projects (as volunteers) before.
I was quite glad I could stop studying and devote ALL of my time to Linux (instead of just my free time) when I got the offer.
Just because we're paid doesn't mean it's just a job for us.
Those people work at nights.
You'd be surprised at seeing how busy the Red Hat offices are at nights or in the weekends.
And no, nights and weekends are not paid overtime. We just want to get it right.
Those people come from different countries.
So who claimed all Red Hat employees are from the same contry?
This message is provided under the terms outlined at http://www.bero.org/terms.html
his new employer is Microsoft.
Thank you for the countless hours you put toward a project we all value. Your charisma and determination were an inspiration and helped to solidify my commitment to the project. Good luck in your new work. I hope that it is both challenging and rewarding. Just don't let it interfere too much with your "Mozilla time" :) But seriously, thank you for all you've contributed, both in code and PR, good luck, and stay visible.
Asa
(posted with 1/11/00 build of mozilla)
Microsoft employees work late into the night too, for salaries.
Some would say that Red Hat and Microsoft have many similar ambitions.
Based on my read of the article, he is only leaving AOL/NetScape.
- Sam Ruby
Hello Intel... Best of luck Mikie... -stav
Verify here. They submit their changes all at once because they work in the same timezone and building. Everyone knows that incremental changes are far better then huge change sets. This doesn't occur if people checkin from different time zones. Also, how many collegues do you hate if they work your building and how many do you hate if you only are touch via mailing-lists?
but at this stage, in randomly browsing you should not crash more often than every hour or so.
if you find that you crash too much on a particular web site (or mail host or ...) the best you can do is searching BugZilla (http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/) for a similar problem and/or submitting a new bug with a decription of what happens.
regards.
Who the hell is Mike Shaver anyway?
They submit their changes all at once because they work in the same timezone and building.
No..., Mike Shaver works out of Toronto, Canada. That's 3 hours ahead of Mountain View and 2500 miles diagonally across the continent.
Makes my post somewhat less relevant now...
- Sam Ruby
"I woke up really hungry this morning, but I realised didn't have enough milk for my Shreddies, so I figured: `Why not reheat some Kraft Dinner, eh?' and ate that instead. I sat down to watch Canada A.M., my favourite TV programme on CTV, when the signal got weak and all the colour faded to grey.
This doesn't look like the spelling of someone from Michigan... I expect this archaic, French inhibited language at The Register, since they're British, but not from a real American (someone in the U.S.)...
Moderate as appropriate -- just don't think I'm 100% serious :-)
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E2 IN2 IE?
I don't have much to argue with the initial argument, but I might take the opportunity to note a few things on "The Great People who made it all happen"
/famous/ (having authored a program 1000 people use?) will help you get a job. The interviewer will love this information and you have better chances to find a good job with lots of coding.
I wouldn't want to be flamed for "putting down the great folks -- go write open software and then talk and clean your mouth before mentioning them again". Its just that I understand them as a programmer.
Programming is a cool hobby. A sleepless night over a terminal, coding _is natural for a programmer -- even fun. Being tired after 15 hours of coding is a great feeling too!
Anyway if you are a programmer (hobbist? doesn't really matter) you'd probably develop Open/Free software. Here is some reasons:
1) You'd program anyway because its fun!
2) Making your hobby a `serious hobby' is even better; The feedback from the people will trigger you to write better and more stable programs.
3) Becoming even a little bit
4) You'll learn many things, gain experience and even meet people like you, share knowledge, etc..
5) You may even hit the `big one'
6) At the same time you can promote your ideas on how the specific application should be structured.
The bottomline is that you don't have to ``pay the open/free software people or they'll go away''. If they can get a job which is their hobby that will be good for them but life is not always as we want it. If skiing is your favorite hobby, being a professional skier would be the best that could happen to you but if it doesn't you will still go skiing on sundays:)
Nobody is forced to contribute to Open software, and nobody should be prompted to do so. If you're not a programmer just contribute with your feedback. Nobody should be accused (or feel guilty) for not doing so.
If you want to contribute to the free software, just Demand to have an operating system with a compiler. Give your kids the opportunity to learn that a computer is not something which can download XXX pictures, but a tool they can customize through programming.
sax.
Are The going to rename the company, or just add more dashes? Time-Warner-AOL-Netscape ? TWAN ? Time-Warner/America On Line/Netscape ? TWAOLN ?
I don't know who you're talking about, Anonymous one -- but long before Shaver was associated with Netscape, I had the pleasure of working with him for a while, and I can tell you that he put more hours into Linux in general than I can count.
He should be applauded for his work, both in the general interest of open source, and with Netscape/Mozilla. It's close-minded thinking like your stock option comment that keep these sorts of people from receiving their due respect.
Just because Shaver and jwz have been rewarded for their insight and effort does not mean that they have made less of a contribution than the rest of us.
As far as working nights goes -- you really should take a look at bugzilla sometime.
meisenst
Green's Law of Debate: Anything is possible if you don't know what you're talking about.
booboo'd on that url:
this is what i meant.
Does this mean shaver even codes? I was under the impression that the biggest mistake in software development is that a management person is involved in coding the project he wants to manage. Now I understand even better why mozilla is soo late...
What will the name of the Time Warner Browser be when it is finally released?
This might be the most highly capitalized and visible company yet to benefit from the hard work of all those open source volunteers out there. I would imagine that it can only help to have highly visible people heading these companies so you have someone you can rally around. This would be especially true on those late nights when you're stuck on a difficult bug.
Knowing that all your hard work is making Ted Turner's portfolio bloat even larger must certainly give one a warm sense of satisfaction.
I'm sure the soldiers who help Caeser defeat the Gauls must have felt something similar; of course, they at least got a plot of land when they retired. Open source developers only get the joy of knowing they're helping someone else grow richer. Perhaps Time Warner could send out a bronze bust of Ted Turner to everyone who contributes to the source tree?
If you think I'm not a good open source evangelist, I can't really disagree; I must not have evangelized to you very well at all, though I was certainly trying harder to make Mozilla look good than to make myself look good. (That's the easier task, of course: Mozilla's a lot more lovable than I am.)
As for nights and nationality, people familiar with the project know what hours I work, and from where.
I'm honoured to be grouped with Jamie, though -- he's a fine evangelist indeed. (Even when he makes me cry.)
Disclaimer: I haven't actually worked on Mozilla, although I've tried it out from time to time, and I keep an eye on the status.
Why is Mozilla taking so long? Is it because it is Open Source? I don't think so.
I think it is taking so long because it is a huge project. A typical piece of software (Open Source or otherwise) would generally start out small, and in future versions would have increased functionality, performance, etc. And this is how the original Netscape started. If Mozilla was trying to recreate Netscape 1.0, they could have been done long ago.
But developing Netscape 1.0 wouldn't be sufficient. Netscape and Mozilla are trying to compete with IE, which has been around for awhile. The original version of IE pretty much stunk. It took a couple of years after the first version to whip it into shape.
Unfortunately, Mozilla can't really follow the "release v1.0 and then improve from there". Because if the world tried the browser and saw all of its limitations, most would give up on Netscape/Mozilla and decide that it would never be up to the competition. Not only would user support drop, but developer support would drop as well. The comments for this article are evidence with this -- many people have given up on Mozilla being able to produce a good browser, and it hasn't even been released yet. Just imagine the comments if the current Mozilla was labeled "v1.0" instead of "alpha".
So when Mozilla is released, it has to be able to compete with browsers that have been around for a few years...including the old Netscape and IE. Yes, Mozilla was able to build off of the old Netscape source, but the developers decided (correctly in my opinion) that now (or rather, near the beginning of the project) would be the best time to remove all of the junk that had accumulated over the years, and redesign the browser so that it could be more useful, more easily maintained, and more easily extended.
So why is it taking so long? Because the Mozilla developers are trying to write a world-class browser that implements technology that has been developed over a period of years in as little time as possible. Not an easy task.
Do you Americans not have Shreddies? I don't know why, but to not know about a breakfast cereal as basic as Shreddies is just ... odd. It's like not knowing about Cheerios (you do have THOSE, right?)
You'd be surprised at seeing how busy the Red Hat offices are at nights or in the weekends. And no, nights and weekends are not paid overtime. We just want to get it right. Hey, that's your stupidity. Working for free is for morons. Well, I guess I'll see ya' out at the bars around Raleigh. Or wait, maybe I won't! You'll be too busy coding while I'll be spending the money I'm earning as a well paiud contractor. Get a life, RH weenie.
Shaver isn't management. Neither was jwz. Both are hackers given "evangelist" status to put a human face on the project.
This is so cool to see Positive feedbacks on /. about mozilla for a change.
..He'll probably be the next person to disappear into the shadowy halls of Transmeta.. :)
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-- mind over pixel
just to tell you that i do not code either... i'm testing, searching for bugs and sometimes submitting too. and i think it's VERY important. We are not "JUST" testing, We are "TESTING", that's important and we should be proud of doing it :)
I remember that one day, mozilla could not let me fetch my favorite web page (it entered some kind of infinite loop). I submitted a bug with a test case and it was fixed in one day !!!
that's something we'll never see in closed software, so let's enjoy it !)
I hope you're reading this. Regards.
What part of that post was funny?
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.