Posted by
Hemos
on from the updating-the-.plan dept.
berteag00 writes "The mozilla.org staff has posted an updated roadmap detailing the Mozilla code base's relationship to the upcoming launch of Netscape 6."
you can come close, but you'll NEVER make it. i mean yesterday i was fighting a bug in PHP of all things, and when i tried attaching gdb to apache, discovered a bug in FreeBSD's binutils, where you can't get into the internals of a shared object despite having symbols properly loaded.
that means, without writing a single bug, i had to deal with a) a bug in PHP and b) a bug in binutils which made it hard to find the bug in PHP. ----------------------------
Re:Mozilla is running great today.
by
Matt+Amato
·
· Score: 3
I'm not trying to troll or anything, but I've noticed an increasing trend hear on/. Mainly, when a article gets posted dealing with a hot topic, i.e. mozilla or KDE/GNOME debate... There's always a few biased posts that completely praise the named product. In this case, mozilla. I'm all for making mozzila the best browser available, just as I am for making GNOME AND KDE great desktop environments, downing any open project is a Bad Thing(tm) BUT I find it hard to believe mozilla is fast and stable on a 166. I've been running the builds(out of cvs) for a long time now and it chugs slowly along even on a P3 500. So how about some honest comments for a change instead of just praising a project because you like it.
Looking at the milestone, they are now saying that M18 is the last release using the Mx naming conventions adn now they are going with Mozilla 1.x or startting at.9. Well this looks like history repeating itself. If you look at Netscape they actually started with.9 as a browser and then moved to 1.x and so on. If history repeats itself Mozilla will ahve to wait about 2 years before Mozilla 2 or 3 get out and it has a viable (supportable) user base. By then kfm or the Konqueror will be out in 2.x or 3.x fashion with full flash, JavaScript and Java support and people will have UNIX users will have moved to another browser. I know that Konquere is looking better and better and am waiting for kde2.0.
I wonder when Netscape 6.0 will actually be released and how stable it will be. I also wonder how the themes contest is going. No updates of that mentioned on slashdot.
And the winner is???
Here is agood browser timeline.http://www.dejavu.org/ I know it may be old for some but it was rather interesting to get to try these out;-)
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
--
Only 'flamers' flame!
Re:Maybe I'm just not smart...
by
mackman
·
· Score: 3
As far as I can tell, the code handed over to the commercial Netscape developers is going to be called the "Mozilla 0.9" branch, and very little Mozilla development resources will be applied to it from then on.
The reason it continues is twofold, first, because Netscape 6.01 will probably be based on the Netscape 6.00 code instead of newer Mozilla code, and second, because things like MathML are maintained by the Mozilla team but need to work with Netscape 6.00.
Re:That last ten percent...
by
Rombuu
·
· Score: 3
Fixing bugs really sucks!
That's why most programmers like to be paid for their work.
--
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Netscape 5.0 was under development, when the decession was made to go opensource. A pre-alpha of NS 5.0 was the code that was turned over to Mozilla.org in March of 1998. In October of 1998 the 5.0 base was scrapped, in favor of Gecko.
There WAS a Netscape 5.0. It never reached Beta but it exisited. The Classic skin in Mozilla is based on Mozilla Classic, which was the 5.0 code. If you want a look at it the source is still avaible at Mozilla's ftp.
About all thats left of Netscape 5.0 now is the icons in the Classic skin and a directory called users50, So it makes perfect sense to call the new browser Netscape 6.0
-- Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
PSM, Java, Javascript all work
by
tjwhaynes
·
· Score: 3
Mozilla is still a long way from being useful. It still eats up 80Meg just for one session... Until they clean that up, Navigator and IE will be the best options.
Guess you aren't up to speed on things (and from your comments you are still deep in the woods) the current version of Mozilla runs at about 35MB on both Linux and Windows and no longer leaks memory left right and centre. Java works on Windows, PSM is available for Windows and Linux and the NSS 3.1 beta should help fill in a lot more of the https functionality. So Netscape has been left pretty much forgotten on my Linux box as Mozilla now handles my browsing and mail needs. I also run Mozilla at work on Win NT as it now outstrips Netscape and runs neck-and-neck with IE for speed, despite the GUI independent interface, so Mozilla is my browser of choice on my two main platforms. Stability is now better than five or six hours and its getting better pretty swiftly.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
-- Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't
necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
If I understand it correctly, their choice to release the source code, was to expand the user base. How has this been going for them? What percentage of users actually use Netscape?
I cannot imagine that the average user would be lured to using a package, simply because the source code is available. I only know two people who use it, and one of them uses IE most of the time. Do Linux users see Netscape as an attractive option (is it even available for Linux)?
Nice picture by the way. Do I have to put up NetNanny for the youngsters?
I would strongly suggest that the fork into the Mozilla and PR3 branches not occur just yet, particularly if PR3 is supposed to be a feature-freeze for NS6 (and judging from that illustration, it appears that's the case). There's still a lot to be done on Windows/Linux, and the Mac version is lagging far behind those, particularly in terms of security (no PSM, despite it being promised "soon" for many months now) and helper apps (which, last I checked, didn't even work with InternetConfig yet, though it was certainly planned).
Besides, I liked the old Milestone system. Granted, some of the Milestones might need to be changed to reflect new developments, but it gave a clear look at where one is, how much progress has been made, and above all it wasn't a version number so there was no mistaking it for anything but a developmental release (this was Netscape's biggest problem with the preview releases; people keep seeming to think these should be fully finished browsers). ----------
We are near the last ten percent of the "Mozilla 1.0" project, where the going gets tough.
We all know the quote about the last ten percent taking the other ninety percent of the time, etc, etc. I think the last ten percent of the project is going to keep expanding (always remaining at "ten percent," of couse:-) unless they impose a freeze on the nifty neato keen cool shit that keeps getting added.
/. has seen many articles about all the/stuff/ that gets thrown into Mozilla because it's "k3wl." Is there any information on a Mozilla feature freeze? I don't see any on the site...
-- You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Re:That last ten percent...
by
Hard_Code
·
· Score: 5
You know what's even more satisfying that both? Creating elegant and bugless code in the first place. Sure it may sound facetious, but I really do get a lot more satisfaction upon committing rock solid code that does its job right, and is designed well, than coding up some whizbang piece of code in a frenzy then leaving it for poor bug hunters to waste thier lives trawling through for bugs. I'm of the opinion that even if it takes you twice as the first time to get something right, that still far outweighs the penalty of having to come back over and over again to fix bugs. The only "bugs" there should be are either typos, brain-blackouts, or really subtle design issues like threading and locking, etc.
/. has seen many articles about all the/stuff/ that gets thrown into Mozilla because it's "k3wl." Is there
any information on a Mozilla feature freeze? I don't see any on the site...
From an outside perspective, it's easy to say this. But, realistically, it's a lot more fun to code in new features than it is to fix bugs. I mean, anyone who develops professionally knows how much cooler it is when your manager says "hey, figure out a way to code in feature X" than when she says "could you take a look at bug A1.006 and check in the fixed code when you're done?" And then you have to sit there and stare at this stupid text box that sometimes pops up and sometimes doesn't for no apparent reason, and check out 4 modules you didn't even think were affected because they're not interacting properly... etc etc etc. Fixing bugs really sucks!
It kind of goes back to the theory that open source programmers are scratching their own itch when they contribute to a project. And most of the itches have been 90% scratched on this project. So who's still going to be contributing? Fortunately, there's a lot of effort still being put in by netscape; I don't think mozilla has really been depending much on huge fleets of independent developers. And we see how quickly it has gone so far. I wouldn't expect the pace to pick up now that the fun work is over.
A ton of people are writing saying that mozilla should have started off as "just a browser" because "that's all I really want, a stable browser for UNIX." Unfortunately, that's not what there's a market for! These days most sites require javascript and/or java to run "correctly," and email and AIM are both really popular. So, saying that those things should wait until later is basically garaunteeing that mozilla doesn't gain any marketshare until later.
Of course, one could argue that hey, this is an OpenSource project, it's the platonic ideal of software development, we the hackers can have whatever we want. Well, yes. Go ahead and check out a mozilla build and roll your own. You can do that. The thing is, the people who actually ARE contributing to mozilla are still strongly tied to netscape (okay not all of 'em), and they have wide acceptance as a goal. Which means it needs all that stuff. I don't think they made a poor decision by including it.
Whoa! You start with saying the browser needs to be extended with javascript and/or java and you are right there. There's no point shipping a browser which won't work on the majority of web sites.
Then you make a huge logical leap by saying that email and IM is important so must be part of the browser. They are completely unrelated to browsing.
It's ironic that Microsoft got into so much trouble for including a browser with the OS which they had a monopoly with while Netscape at the same time was including email and a development platform with the browser they had a monopoly with.
elegant and bugless code... yeah... right.
you can come close, but you'll NEVER make it. i mean yesterday i was fighting a bug in PHP of all things, and when i tried attaching gdb to apache, discovered a bug in FreeBSD's binutils, where you can't get into the internals of a shared object despite having symbols properly loaded.
that means, without writing a single bug, i had to deal with a) a bug in PHP and b) a bug in binutils which made it hard to find the bug in PHP.
----------------------------
I'm not trying to troll or anything, but I've noticed an increasing trend hear on /. Mainly, when a article gets posted dealing with a hot topic, i.e. mozilla or KDE/GNOME debate... There's always a few biased posts that completely praise the named product. In this case, mozilla. I'm all for making mozzila the best browser available, just as I am for making GNOME AND KDE great desktop environments, downing any open project is a Bad Thing(tm) BUT I find it hard to believe mozilla is fast and stable on a 166. I've been running the builds(out of cvs) for a long time now and it chugs slowly along even on a P3 500. So how about some honest comments for a change instead of just praising a project because you like it.
Just my 2 cents..
Matt
I wonder when Netscape 6.0 will actually be released and how stable it will be. I also wonder how the themes contest is going. No updates of that mentioned on slashdot.
And the winner is???
Here is agood browser timeline.http://www.dejavu.org/ I know it may be old for some but it was rather interesting to get to try these out ;-)
I don't want a lot, I just want it all!
Flame away, I have a hose!
Only 'flamers' flame!
As far as I can tell, the code handed over to the commercial Netscape developers is going to be called the "Mozilla 0.9" branch, and very little Mozilla development resources will be applied to it from then on.
The reason it continues is twofold, first, because Netscape 6.01 will probably be based on the Netscape 6.00 code instead of newer Mozilla code, and second, because things like MathML are maintained by the Mozilla team but need to work with Netscape 6.00.
Fixing bugs really sucks!
That's why most programmers like to be paid for their work.
DrLunch.com The site that tells you what's for lunch!
Netscape 5.0 was under development, when the decession was made to go opensource. A pre-alpha of NS 5.0 was the code that was turned over to Mozilla.org in March of 1998. In October of 1998 the 5.0 base was scrapped, in favor of Gecko.
There WAS a Netscape 5.0. It never reached Beta but it exisited. The Classic skin in Mozilla is based on Mozilla Classic, which was the 5.0 code. If you want a look at it the source is still avaible at Mozilla's ftp.
About all thats left of Netscape 5.0 now is the icons in the Classic skin and a directory called users50, So it makes perfect sense to call the new browser Netscape 6.0
Quemadmodum gladius neminem occidit, occidentis telum est
Mozilla is still a long way from being useful. It still eats up 80Meg just for one session... Until they clean that up, Navigator and IE will be the best options.
Guess you aren't up to speed on things (and from your comments you are still deep in the woods) the current version of Mozilla runs at about 35MB on both Linux and Windows and no longer leaks memory left right and centre. Java works on Windows, PSM is available for Windows and Linux and the NSS 3.1 beta should help fill in a lot more of the https functionality. So Netscape has been left pretty much forgotten on my Linux box as Mozilla now handles my browsing and mail needs. I also run Mozilla at work on Win NT as it now outstrips Netscape and runs neck-and-neck with IE for speed, despite the GUI independent interface, so Mozilla is my browser of choice on my two main platforms. Stability is now better than five or six hours and its getting better pretty swiftly.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
gotta love that professional looking graphic illustrating the branches.
Vote for freedom!
---
If I understand it correctly, their choice to release the source code, was to expand the user base. How has this been going for them? What percentage of users actually use Netscape?
I cannot imagine that the average user would be lured to using a package, simply because the source code is available. I only know two people who use it, and one of them uses IE most of the time. Do Linux users see Netscape as an attractive option (is it even available for Linux)?
Nice picture by the way. Do I have to put up NetNanny for the youngsters?
--
I would strongly suggest that the fork into the Mozilla and PR3 branches not occur just yet, particularly if PR3 is supposed to be a feature-freeze for NS6 (and judging from that illustration, it appears that's the case). There's still a lot to be done on Windows/Linux, and the Mac version is lagging far behind those, particularly in terms of security (no PSM, despite it being promised "soon" for many months now) and helper apps (which, last I checked, didn't even work with InternetConfig yet, though it was certainly planned).
Besides, I liked the old Milestone system. Granted, some of the Milestones might need to be changed to reflect new developments, but it gave a clear look at where one is, how much progress has been made, and above all it wasn't a version number so there was no mistaking it for anything but a developmental release (this was Netscape's biggest problem with the preview releases; people keep seeming to think these should be fully finished browsers).
----------
We are near the last ten percent of the "Mozilla 1.0" project, where the going gets tough.
We all know the quote about the last ten percent taking the other ninety percent of the time, etc, etc. I think the last ten percent of the project is going to keep expanding (always remaining at "ten percent," of couse :-) unless they impose a freeze on the nifty neato keen cool shit that keeps getting added.
/. has seen many articles about all the /stuff/ that gets thrown into Mozilla because it's "k3wl." Is there any information on a Mozilla feature freeze? I don't see any on the site...
You cannot apply a technological solution to a sociological problem. (Edwards' Law)
Of course, one could argue that hey, this is an OpenSource project, it's the platonic ideal of software development, we the hackers can have whatever we want. Well, yes. Go ahead and check out a mozilla build and roll your own. You can do that. The thing is, the people who actually ARE contributing to mozilla are still strongly tied to netscape (okay not all of 'em), and they have wide acceptance as a goal. Which means it needs all that stuff. I don't think they made a poor decision by including it.