Mozilla 1.0 Release Parties

Screaming Lunatic writes "With the release of Mozilla 1.0 almost here, the open source Mozilla community is planning a bunch of parties all over the world. You can choose to attend a party already planned somewhere in the world or start up a party in your own neck of the woods. The main party will be at 8pm Wednesday, June 12, 2002 at the DNA Lounge in San Francisco." Currently 37 parties listed, but many of them look awfully lonely... none near Ann Arbor yet ;)

Comments

No party... but capitolism

[Lumpy]

I plan on burning cd's of OO1.0 and Moz1.0 with both Windows and linux versions on them ready to go.. and then I'm gonna sell the Cd's at the hamfest I'm attending for $5.00 each (covers my costs of CD's cases,label printing, etc...)

I hope to get at least another 100 people using OO and Moz and away from microsoft products...

I have an excellent banner for my booth too..

Hey, if you aren't being an advocate... then you're just dead weight.

Re:No party... but capitolism

[AntiTuX]

You'll be donating some of the proceeds to the mozilla group, right? I mean, since you'll be making money off of their product and all. I don't mean to sound like a dick, but they did all the work, and you're making close to 4 bucks on each CD you sell. Also, mozilla.org will probably want to do their own CD's too.
I hate to sound like a troll, but I really think what you're doing is wrong unless you're going to give back to the community.

Re:No party... but capitolism

[Lumpy]

wow... where can you get 4 color printed CD's + jewel case + color printed inserts for $1.00 each?

Please let me know as I am paying $3.25 each + shipping. + shrinkwrapping at $0.25 each.

I'm making $.75 each for my time....

I picked the wrong supplier to get the CD's predded at. (waiting on me sending the ISO, they'll print and return to me in 5 days my order of 200 CD's)

Re:No party... but capitolism

[Lumpy]

BTW... I am also having them ship me burnables already printed in cases with insert (no shrinkwrap) for $2.25 each.. so I can spit out a newer version from my burner after the fact...

I'm just trying to recoup expsenses.. I know I'll end up donating at least 50-75 to the local LUG of the pressed ones.

Tokyo party

[cxreg]

I see there's one in Tokyo, but I'm disappointed.

It should be called "MOZILLA DESTROYS TOKYO IN MASSIVE RELEASE" or something!

Well,

[MonkeyBot]

...any reason to party is a good reason! I can see it now--RMS drunk on vodka dressed up as Godzilla, Linus up on the turntables spinnin' some wicked trance music, AND NO WOMEN TO BE SEEN FOR MILES!

Re:Well,

[Ledge]

The women are the ones with the body hair. Legs, armpits, and facial.

Re:Well,

[Fiver-rah]

Let's say, hypothetically, that I were a girl. This is easy for me, since I am. And let's also say that I liked mozilla and linux and was relatively rabid about open source. Which is also easy, because all that's true, too. Now, when the first thing people do when talking about some open source party is grouse about how there's gonna be no gurls there, and if there are, they'll all be UG-LY, it doesn't really make me want to go hang out with them.

This is probably going to come as a shock to some of you, but there are girls out there who run linux and like mozilla.

Now, it seems to me that if you're going to all spend your time whining and moaning about how there's no gurls to be found except ugly apes (and even if there were, they'd wreck everything, 'cause they have the cooties), you're going to annoy those of us that are smart, geeky, and reasonably pretty. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: you whine; we avoid you.

Now I can't speak for all the other myriad geeky girls our there, but I don't want a guy who's going to:

• Drool over me 'cause I'm pretty, plus I run gentoo
• Act like I'm a horrible aberration, rather than realize that I'm really a harbinger of Droves of Geek Girls To Come.

Seriously people, if you want women to go to your parties, don't alienate them. I know there's not many of us right now, but if you play nice, maybe we'll bring friends, and maybe in another twenty years slashdot will be more like 60/40 instead of 95/5.

Sorry for the rant, but this is only about the billionth time I've seen this particular whine on slashdot. This isn't directed specifically at the original poster, or even anyone who voiced these sentiments on this particular thread. I know it's not everyone, and not even most of everyone, but for those of you who haven't yet figured it out: girls don't like boys who whine about not having girls.

Oh, and I'll probably be at the SF party. :)

Re:Well,

[Pedersen]

Now I can't speak for all the other myriad geeky girls our there, but I don't want a guy who's going to:
* Drool over me 'cause I'm pretty, plus I run gentoo

Now, what about worshipping such a woman? I know of one who is a proto-geek, and I think the absolute world of her. With some patience, and some luck, I'll marry her someday. So, I'm trying to learn everything I can to avoid putting her off, and am worried that, by thinking too highly of her, I might make her desire to leave (this is just one of my worries, and a new one to boot, since I read your post). Care to shed some insight for a hopeful soul?

Re:Well,

[jimmcq]

I attended the original mozilla dot party in 1998, and there were more women there than I expected (including a fair share the non-geek type).

Re:Well,

[Fiver-rah]

Look, there's only one rule: pay attention to your SO. Some girls like being worshipped. Others find it off-putting. I haven't a clue which category your SO falls into. So *talk* to her. Find out what she likes (which is, sadly, not always what she says she likes, sorry). So pay attention to how she accepts compliments, et cetera, and moderate your level of worship to maximize her enjoyment of your company.

If she's really worth it, she'll figure out what you like, too.

Re:Well,

[MicroBerto]

* Drool over me 'cause I'm pretty...

Don't worry, I tend to only drool over the girls that AREN'T cocky and self absorbed.

Re:Well,

[Lemmy Caution]

The Bay Area has cooler geeky guys, and a better gender balance, than other geekzones. Most every geek I know here has no problem finding dates - and every 3rd geek I know is a woman.

The whole "can't find any girl" complaint, amusingly enough, on this thread reminds me of the "booth babes" bullshit about E3 - gee, by advertising products using gimmicks designed to attract sexually-frustrated late-adolescent boys, are you surprised that you aren't attracting women? Would you feel welcome at an expo in which all the products were advertised using buff male Chippendale models? No, you'd get the feeling that you weren't really welcome.

Re:Well,

[LoveMe2Times]

Thank you. Thank you for standing up and declaring, "I am woman, hear me, um... CODE!!" Unfortunately, I think you may be falling for the same trap as the how-can-we-hate-the-MIAA-and-still-go-see-Star-War s? crowd. /. is diverse. There are whiny boys here, there are uber-studs here, and there are guys like me. Cute girls, hot babes, and very plain women.

Now, about this party--it's 21 and over. A lot of those whiny boys are just that--high school kids and what not. They probably won't be at the party, cause guys that whine about gurls don't tend to go to parties anyway!

On behalf of all the decent guys on /., if I see you there, though, I'll buy you a drink and ask you to dance. How's that? And if you are as cute as you say, I'll even talk about something besides code, Linux, or computers ;) In the meantime, I'll be learning the Lizard Mambo :)

Re:Well,

[tswinzig]

Now, it seems to me that if you're going to all spend your time whining and moaning about how there's no gurls to be found except ugly apes (and even if there were, they'd wreck everything, 'cause they have the cooties), you're going to annoy those of us that are smart, geeky, and reasonably pretty. This creates a self-fulfilling prophecy: you whine; we avoid you.

Hear, hear!

And I would personally like to offer up my house for a party for all those young ladies you speak of. You're invited too, but you'll have to foot the expense of flying to Orlando.

Re:Well,

[MAXOMENOS]

Now, what about worshipping such a woman?

I can't speak for the parent poster, but my experience is that women (both geeky and non) are much easier to get along with when you're talking with them and not worshiping them. Especially if they're co-workers, or potential co-workers.

If you're attracted to someone, try flirting. If you're afraid of scaring them off with flirting, well, your hoving from a distance because you don't want to frighten them is actually scarrier than your flirting with them. At least with flirting they know what's up.

If you get rejected...hey, it happens. And it's not the end of the world.

Hope this helps.

Re:Well,

[daoine]

*cackle*

No date for you, whiny moderator!

Let us pause while my karma sacrifices yet another of its bretheren just to be obnoxious...

Re:Well,

[rbeattie]

Ahem,

I know I speak for the vast majority of /. readers when I ask, "Will you marry me?"

-Russ

P.S. Crap, I almost forgot... I'm already married. (With a new baby boy to show for it! Pics at the above home page, I'm a proud papa.)

Re:Well,

[Lemmy Caution]

Gay geeks are also geeks I'd imagine could be a bit annoyed at the booth-babe syndrome, although less so. But yes, I was obviously talking to the straight male stereotypical "target audience" (a self-fulfilling prophecy at best) of the bikini-girls. I'm sure that the rampant homophobia - or, more accurately, the hysterical demonstration of disgust at the male form by previously picked-on straight men who are trying to prove, against the taunts of the schoolyard, that they *aren't* gay - of that set would come into play as they avoided any booth featuring an oiled, ripped Adonis.

Re:Well,

[glitch_]

Cute Kid!

I wish you the best of luck, and I pray that you are able to get some sleep!

Hope that he brings you lots and lots of happiness. =)

Re:Well,

[Lemmy Caution]

But, menso: 20% of the women also play for the other team. Trust me, the local geeks are cooler, and here, it's far cooler to be a geek, as long as you are a relatively cool, tolerant, well-rounded geek. And you don't wear Rush t-shirts.

I'm serious. You wear a Rush t-shirt, you may as well castrate yourself, because Your Little Elvis will be seeing no love. Same goes for khakis and polo shirts with tech company logos on them. ThinkGeek swag works fine.

Don't start chilling the champagne just yet...

[Artifice_Eternity]

Someone should formulate, in mathematical notation, the principle that the current release of Mozilla will approach, but never reach, 1.0.

How many more incremental releases will there be?

Re:Don't start chilling the champagne just yet...

[Guignol]

like this ?
Mozilla_Release_version(t)=1.0-exp(-t*num_dev)

Re:Don't start chilling the champagne just yet...

[oever]

like this ?
Mozilla_Release_version(t)=1.0-exp(-t*num_dev)

No, in this formula the release number goes down if the number of developers decreases. And the number's continuous, which is not realistic.

Party list

[tcd004]

For some reason explorer won't render that list...

Find your ol' Prison Buddies Online

tcd004

Re:Party list

[flacco]

Find your ol' Prison Buddies Online [lostbrain.com]

Gee, I actually went to look :-(

Irony...

[LinuxGeek]

JWZ resigned in a very public manner from the Mozilla project and now the official release party is at the DNALounge, the club that JWZ started? Irony abounds..

Re:Irony...

[rnb]

Yep, JWZ threw a hissyfit and declared the whole thing dead. AOL had bought it and would drive it into the ground. Has he posted a retraction yet, or is he the typical arrogant full-of-shit geek?

Sounds to me like he had his own reasons for leaving the project and stands by them:

I even manage to studiously ignore the messages I see every time mozilla.org announces a new alpha release: invariably some twinkie will pop up out of nowhere and claim that the fact that mozilla.org is asymptotically closer to maybe someday actually releasing an end-user product means that somehow I've been proven wrong about something. They usually say something about ``this ought to teach jwz a lesson!'' I just don't get that. My point was not that mozilla.org would never be able to finish the product: my point was that they were already a year late, and showed every indication of being even later. Which they have been: it's now more than two years later, and they still haven't finished it. Even if they had finished it six months ago, my reasons for leaving would still have been valid: that mozilla.org did not manage to ship an end-user product in any kind of reasonable timeframe, and that I was tired of waiting. I had certain goals, and I didn't see those goals being met.

Re:Irony...

[rnb]

That's called rewriting history - read his original statement. Only later does he claim it was about "shipping an end-user version soon." That extra bullshit only makes me dislike the arrogant shit even more.

Okay, from his original resignation from AOL and Mozilla:

But despite all this, in the last year, we did not accomplish the goals that I wanted to accomplish. We did not take the Mozilla project and turn it into a network-collaborative project in which Netscape was but one of many contributors; and we did not ship end-user software. For me, shipping is the thing.

Perhaps my goals were unreasonable; perhaps it should have been obvious to me when we set out on this project that it would take much longer than a year to reach these goals, if we ever did. But, it wasn't obvious to me then, or now. These are the goals I was aiming for, and they have not yet been met.

And so I'm giving up.


Not sure where else I should be looking.

Re:Irony...

[LinuxGeek]

I didn't mean to throw flames towards JWZ with my original comment. When I met Jamie at Duke during LinuxExpo, he was very cool and talkative about mozilla just a few months after the netscape code release. I didn't use words like asshole or hypocrite because they don't apply. I do think he has a large ego, but he is a great programmer and has some great accomplishments to his credit. I also assume that JWZ and the Mozilla team are still pretty tight since the boogie bash is at the DNA Lounge.

I hope my point has now been made complete.

Here ya go...

[Misch]

Here ya go, you're all invited... now why don't you print out a bunch of these onto glossy postcards and leave them around your local college campus like all the promoters do at mine?

Re:What is that.. Never trust the 1.0 version...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

That happened to me with NS 4.79 under Win2K. Only worked right if you happened to be logged in with admin rights.

Humor: Party and release dates

[Seth Finkelstein]

Oh, this is mean, it's ungrateful ... but I can't resist ...

How many people will show up "fashionably late"? :-)

Sig: What Happened To The Censorware Project (censorware.org)

St. Louis area?

[Skeezix]

Anyone interested in a Moz party in the St. Louis, MO USA area?

Re:St. Louis area?

[XBL]

I might be, if more than 2 people come ;-)

Re:St. Louis area?

[Skeezix]

I'll pursue this a bit further then since there seems some initial interest. There would definitely be beer involved.

Re:St. Louis area?

[King Babar]

Anyone interested in a Moz party in the St. Louis, MO USA area?

Won't everybody be heading out to Columbia instead? OK, so everybody who wants to come, send email to the MLUG mailing list, and maybe something will happen. :-)

Everybody can have a Party...

[zulux]

With Mozilla's Javascript pop-up blocker and pornzilla features, everybody can have their own party in their pants on 'release' day.

Spam Bait

[Codex The Sloth]

All those email addresses in spam friendly format! Just think of the fun!

My Mozilla's Icons are nothing like the Explorer

[quantaman]

With apologies to Willian Shakespeare, or anyone with taste for that matter

My Mozilla's Icons are nothing like the Explorer;
China is far more red than her licence red;
If button mean down, why then she come back up?
If html be wires, broken wires jut one of her engine;
I have seen webpages advertising other browsers;
But no such promotions I see in her windows;
And in some MS java there is more delight;
Than in the broken applets that from my browser reeks;
I love to browse her tabs, yet well I know
That some Flash hath a far more pleasing look;
I grant I never saw OS X though;
My Mozilla, when she browsers, slumps through links;
And yet, by Linux, I think my browser as rare
As any I belied with false compare;

"none near ann arbor yet"...

[Wakko Warner]

...well, Rob, start your own. Break out the old Hope College Bong and invite a few friends.

I knew geeks were antisocial, but begging for a party to spring up near you is downright pathetic.

- A.P.

Re:"none near ann arbor yet"...

[Wakko Warner]

Maybe their car broke down on the way to a better place (i.e. anywhere)...

- A.P.

Mozilla on the beach

[SlashdotTroll]

I'm throwing a Mozilla Troll party on the beach. All Trolls invited:

Trollificus
Metrollica
IAgreeWithThisPost
Subject Line Troll
OriginalUsername
Klerck (CmdrTaco)

and

John Carmack

We'll be playing pin the tail on CowboyNeal, after that Frost the Pist, and at night we'll be bobbing for Grunion. The person with the least karma in the Troll Games will be given the lowest latency Internet Access in the world for 1 hour and unlimited posting privileges.

Are there any other people that would like to join the list? Please send submissions to slashdottroll at yahew dot com

Mozilla on the beach party

[Anonymous Coward]

After your beach party would you fine fellowes like to please come to my house and see my beowulf clusters and perhaps play some of my favoirte Linus game, DOOM? I promise it is a fun game in which you run throuug h a maze and shoot monsters and evil humans. There will not be girls, as I perspire a lot when I see one.

None near Anne Arbor yet...

[wowbagger]

Oh give me a break, Rob! If YOU want a party near your home, why don't YOU organize one?

Unlike most people, you have the forum to get the interest in and you can write it off as a business expense!

Seriously - if you want to see a party nearby, MAKE ONE!

(of course, one wonders about the sort of people who would go to a Mozilla release party... will there be many "wimmin of the female persuasion" as a certain squint-eyed sailor might ask...)

Re:None near Anne Arbor yet...

[MAXOMENOS]

There are now TWO Ann Arbor parties as of this writing. I think his method worked.

Party one: Ann Arbor party (That's its actual name)

Party Two: Ann Arbor Destroyed by Mozilla

Re:None near Anne Arbor yet...

[stienman]

I've requested my entry (ann arbor destroyed by mozilla) be removed to favor Ann Arbor Party in ypsilanti. Please sign up for the Ann Arbor Party, that's where I'll be going...

-Adam

Re:None near Anne Arbor yet...

[guttentag]

He's just been spoiled by MacHack. This brief appeared on MacNN.com this morning:

Slashdot's Malda to visit MacHack

In a "rare" public appearance, Slashdot founder Rob Malda is expected to attend the MacHack 2002 annual developers conference in Michigan, this June. Malda is an accomplished programmer, and founded one of the most popular computer news Web sites "for nerds."

<SARCASM>If you live anywhere near Michigan, don't miss this rare opportunity for nerds to see people who matter. Oh, and there will probably be some cool hacks shown off too.</SARCASM>

Re:parties for a web browser?

[Misch]

Successful? It took 5 times as long to get to version 1.0 than MS did with IE

I would dare say that the world of web browsing is severley different since version 1.0 of Internet Exploder. Remember, even back then, IE was *just* a web browser, and, for the most part, still is. What HTML spec did IE support then? How many different versions of the HTML spec are there now? Stylesheets? How many different image formats?

If you're looking to compare Mozilla 1.0 to IE 1.0, then I think you're trying to compare apples and oranges.

Re:parties for a web browser?

[Anonymous Coward]

It took 5 times as long to get to version 1.0 than MS did with IE

Have you included the development time of Spyglass? Have you, in fact, compared the features and supported technology of IE 1.0 to Mozilla 1.0?

Now, if you had said "It took 5 times as long to get to version 1.0 than MS did with getting IE to version 6.0", then yes, you might have a point. But you didn't say that, and besides, it has taken less than half the time for Mozilla to reach 1.0 than it has taken IE to reach 6.0...

Activities?

[naloxone]

Hey, I'm hosting the (hopefully large) Houston Release Party and am looking for suggestions for activities. So far, I have:

1. Internet Explorer Pinata
2. Godzilla Vs. movies projected as background
3. Lots and lots of beer

But I'm at a loss to think of other activities. Suggestions?

Booth Babes?

[Chibi]

So, will there be any booth babes at any of these parties?

Before you try that link, the site has not yet recovered from this morning. :)

IE is Mosaic

[yerricde]

It took 5 times as long to get to version 1.0 than MS did with IE.

The Mozilla team started from scratch and produced a working web browser in three years, after deciding that the Netscape 5.0 code on which they had been working for the last year just wouldn't cut it. The Microsoft Internet Explorer team bought the Mosaic browser (a project presumably begun in 1992) and released IE 1.0 in August 1995, and it wasn't actually usable until 3.0 in August 1996. Again four years.

Parties are cool but...

[sunset]

... I'd rather they fix bugs. Like maybe http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=144882 which has been broken since RC2. I can't even send mail.

Is this appropriate?

[IGnatius T Foobar]

Please read this entire message before giving any consideration to modding it down. It is not intended as a flame.

Is it really appropriate that Mozilla be celebrated at the DNA Lounge?

For those of you not aware, the DNA Lounge is owned by Jamie Zawinski (aka JWZ), a former Netscape employee. When things weren't going his way, JWZ made a very high-profile exit from Netscape Communications and from the Mozilla project. He was very rude about it; he had very harsh words about Netscape's newer employees, he pushed all of the same FUD arguments that MS mouthpieces such as ZDnet tend to do, and he basically declared the project a failure.

JWZ's high-profile registration was a big setback for Mozilla, because it lowered morale inside the team and served as a huge negative PR piece.

Now that Mozilla has successfully reached its 1.0 release, they're going to celebrate by paying JWZ for booze and entertainment? Is this the way to reward the person who did more to hurt the Mozilla project than any other single person in the industry?

Perhaps I'm just being curmudgeonly about this, but I really don't think it's appropriate. Mozilla succeeded despite JWZ.

Re:Is this appropriate?

[hellfire]

Yes, Mozilla succeeded despite JWZ.

And now they are going to his lounge, partying hard, celebrate success right in front of him, and throw the whole project in his face.

Its very appropriate! ;)

Re:Is this appropriate?

[Caine]

First of all, see the comment above.

Second of all, JWZ may be an arrogant prick at times, but I'm highly doubtful that Mozilla would exist without him. He's a very fine coder, and put a lot of work into it. I can understand if he gets pissed off at Netscape and AOL, when they don't listen to the coders, and hires new people that really aren't that good and just throw them in with the old team.

Re:Is this appropriate?

[marick]

Mozilla succeeded despite JWZ.

ON THE OTHER HAND, Mozilla succeeded because of JWZ. First, without JWZ pushing hard at the beginning, Mozilla would never have been released in the first place.

Furthermore, JWZ's high-profile exit had one major effect on Mozilla. It galvanized the community. I'm sure I'm not alone in seeing it as a highly-effective kick-in-the-pants that the community sorely needed.

Jamie got tired of waiting. I did too, to be honest. But then when he left the project, he had a point. The community hadn't yet formed around the project. Most of the bug-reports, bug-fixes, and code were being written BY NETSCAPE employees. Not members of the community. Months after Jamie's departure, things had changed for the better, but in the year just before, Jamie was right.

Re:Is this appropriate?

[msuzio]

I doubt JWZ thought his departure would spell the end of the project. He just didn't care anymore, judging from what he said at the time and since. The project was bogged down, going nowhere in his opinion, and he had better things to do with his time.

Like manage to renovate and open a club and operate it for almost a full year before they ever got the release done. :-). I think he's the one who has been laughing the whole time...

The only thing they're throwing at him is cash. I'm sure he has no problem with that...

...plus, he has posted several notes about *trying* to use Mozilla as the browser on his club kiosks. Submitted bug reports and everything... so he's trying his best to be a good open source dude.

Re:Is this appropriate?

[Lemmy Caution]

You don't understand JWZ's attitude towards Mozilla. He'd still rather it succeed than fail; he wants to run it on the kiosks at the DNA. He was frustrated with the mozilla project and left it, but that's a far cry from hoping it will fail. Of course, anything that has shades of gray more complex than a George Lucas movie is beyond the ken of many.

IE is an ActiveX control

[yerricde]

I bet they could use some of that Mozilla code in IE7! MS Mozilla!

You too can use the Gecko engine (Mozilla's rendering engine) in Microsoft Internet Explorer. Use this tool to patch iexplore.exe and other apps to use an ActiveX wrapper around the Gecko engine instead of MSHTML.

No women?

[wiredog]

What about Mrs. Torvalds?

Ann Arbor/Ypsi added

[mgkimsal2]

We'll be combining our regular PHP user group meeting with a Mozilla-release party on June 6 (hopefully that's close enough one way or the other). Food/drinks provided. http://www.tapinternet.com/ for contact info.

I'm not going home alone...

[kenthorvath]

I've already got my pickup lines ready:

Hey baby, wanna see my lizard?

Let interface at port 69...

Wanna exchange IP's. Better hurry - I'm dynamic!

On second thought, I'd better resort to large quantities of alcohol...

Re:I'm not going home alone...

[BlowCat]

My Mozilla (snapshot from 1.0 branch) doesn't want to "interface at port 69" (i.e. tftp): try tftp://localhost/tftpboot/bzImage

Perhaps you should visit a party for embedded developers. Real men use real ftp.

Re:parties for a web browser?

[Sj0]

Comparing Moz 1.0 to IE 1.0 is kind of wacky...Try using IE 1.0 (or even IE 2.0). If you can find half a dozen sites which render correctly, you've hit an incredible streak of luck.

Re:Tokyo party -- vs. mechaExplorer

[igottheloot]

ROOK! It's MOZIRRA!

Re:Thank you Fiver-rah

[Fiver-rah]

Indeed. Because the point of my post was clearly to try and advance feminist ideals, a personal passion for which slashdot is the ideal forum, not to rant about a personal gripe with some people's attitudes.

I'm so impressed by your use of pointless jargon and unfounded meaningless statistics that I've decided to switch from Linux, the operating system which causes men to oppress, rape, and kill women around the globe, to the more female-friendly MS Windows, which oppresses, rapes, and kills people around the globe regardless of gender.

Cheerio, troll.

Why?

[Dynedain]

I'm not trying to troll here, but seriously, why are people throwing parties (and why does that make it to /.)? Its a piece of software that helps people do their jobs in a way that they like more. I mean, its not like mechanics go and throw parites because Craftsman releases a new wrench. And architects don't go crazy when a CAD program goes gold.

What's the big deal?

Re:Why?

[(H)elix1]

I'm not trying to troll here, but seriously, why are people throwing parties (and why does that make it to /.)? Its a piece of software that helps people do their jobs in a way that they like more. I mean, its not like mechanics go and throw parites because Craftsman releases a new wrench

Here is my take on it. Unlike Apache (for the most part), Mozilla was a project that brought the end user into the development cycle - usability, bug hunting, feature enhancement, etc. It was more than just coders working hard to make it viable. Every end user who made the initially painful transition to early builds to where it rocks today has reason to celebrate. Whenever a large software project went gold, my team always partied. This just has a lot more people.

As for the wrench, I saw the strangest thing today as I paid my Discover bill at Sears today.

• 
  Craftsman 75th Anniversary Ratchet, Teardrop Quick release 22k Gold plated 3/8 in Drive
  This standard 2/8 in. drive, fully polished 22k gold-plated ratchet is a Craftsman collector's item. Comes with premium wooden storage display to show off your new collector's item.
  

Who said machanics don't know how to party... go to sears.com, search for "gold plated ratchet"

Re:Why?

[Servo5678]

And architects don't go crazy when a CAD program goes gold.

I see that you've never met my boss. He told one of the CAD guys today to go and download the demo for a product that was only first announced last month.

Re:Why?

[Dynedain]

Well yeah, I play with the new 3D and CAD tools too...but I don't throw a party for it.

Re:What is that.. Never trust the 1.0 version...

[Amazing Quantum Man]

Moz uses the Win2K "documents folder". It uses C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\..... as it's profile.

Re:Thank you Fiver-rah

[StandardDeviant]

Thanks. Now my nose hurtz becuase of the hot coffee... ;-) Anyway, in response to your original post: I think the guy you responded to was just throwing that out as a tongue-in-cheek joke. Cheap and stupid joke, perhaps, but... Another point: who says drooling is bad, provided it's done with class? Hell, I know I'm immensely flattered when a member of the appropriate sex has their hormones sing at the sight of me... (Note, obviously, I don't mean talking to the woman's chest or something equally crass.) I think it's wrong to be a slavering hound, in other words, but I think perhaps it's taken to far in the opposite direction sometimes, and any admittance of attraction is seen as crude... Dragging this post back somewhat to the realm of topicality... w00w00 mozilla! :-) I think I'm going to make either the Houston or Austin one... (/me checks the server maintenance schedule, shakes his head, and crosses his fingers...)

Re:parties for a web browser?

[sydb]

But Mozilla's 1.0 release is feature-equivalent or better than IE's 6.0 release.

Newsgroup for Mozilla users

[Nicopa]

For discussing these things and/or Mozilla problems or suggestions you can go to this Mozilla newsgroup.

Geek Party Pickup Lines...suggestions needed...

[bje2]

i was trying to think of some good nerd/geek/Mozilla themed pickup lines for a Mozilla party...i came up with...

"Do you wanna see my lizard?"

"Wanna help me with my buffer overflow problem?"

and...

"Are you interested in a brute force attack?"

any other helpful suggestions???

Re:Geek Party Pickup Lines...suggestions needed...

[bje2]

i forgot my favorite one...

"does your system have a back door entry?"

Re:Well, arghh..

[Vspirit]

no wonder escaping to geekdom com is favoured by so many.

anyone for a game of russian roulette?

They either love you or hate you. If you love 'em they will love to hate you, and if you hate 'em they will love to love you. Its all bout love right.

ohh well to hell with it, if you just pretend to love me I'll fuck you. Just be honest and keep me confused, else I'll get bored and replace you.

welcome to the game of love. pull, but don't pull too hard at the wrong time unless they need you to which they neglect to say when. push, but don't push too hard.

One thing is for sure, you'll never for sure know when to do what.

Fiver-rah, I respect you. Your sex really rules our minds. Fiver-rah, I accept you, but damn I want my beer.

Triangle party

[shaldannon]

I noticed a party for the folks in the Triangle (theoretically) at Tir na Nog (Party 53). Why you would pick a place in downtown Raleigh for an RTP party is beyond me, but what the heck...They really should provide a map to the place.

I've gotta get new glasses

[r_j_prahad]

When I first scanned the headlines, I thought it said "Mozilla Release Panties", and I started wondering whether they'd be new or used, and maybe I should go see if Opera's gonna be giving out sequined thongs with their new release.

IE, of course, would be boxer shorts with an indelible racing stripe.

JWZ is actually organizing it - his comments

[SeanAhern]

Jamie has some comments about this at his site at dnalounge.com:

Hey kids! Today I'm going to take this opportunity to ridicule my former employers, now that they are customers!

On June 12, we're hosting the release party for Mozilla 1.0. For those of you who haven't been following along at home, my first ever experience in nightclub promotion was throwing the first Mozilla party back in 1998. A year later, when the company proved to me that its head was so far up its collective ass that it wasn't going to be able to ship anything usable before I went insane, I threw a second party and quit in April 1999.

Well, it's now a bit over three years since I quit, and they're finally about to release 1.0! I'm actually very happy for them, because I think it will end up being a good product. But I'm sure glad I didn't have to help them roll that boulder up the hill for those last three years. In that time, I took about a year off, and then Barry and I created a whole new business from scratch in a completely different industry, and that was far more interesting than continuing to work on the same old thing I'd been doing since 1994. (Or 1985, depending on how you count.)

So anyway, I'm organizing this party for them.
...

It continues. Interesting story - go read it.

Re:JWZ is actually organizing it - his comments

[King Babar]

It took the guy an entire year to rehab a single nightclub, and he's still moaning about the long Mozilla release schedule?

Well, Mozilla may or may not have faced roadblocks of their own devising (I wasn't there, so I won't pretend to know. The DNA Lounge, though, famously faced roadblocks made of red tape and paper trails. Heck, I don't know if you could every permit you would need to run a nightclub in my wimpy little city in any kind of reasonable timeframe...

Pakistani Party

[irregular_hero]

Er, anyone notice that "osama.bin.l@den.net" is supposed to be attending the Mozilla party in Pakistan ("at Tariq's place")?

Re:Well, arghh..

[Lemmy Caution]

You will get a lot closer to figuring out women when you start figuring out yourself, and realize that neither men nor women really want to be figured out. They want to be related to, respected, turned on, loved, left alone, supported, admired, and played with. Not figured out. I'm not attracted to women who make figuring me out a project, I'm hardly surprised to find out that converse is true.

A stupid one...

[eclectric]

Any american living in the past 8 months or so who can't see that is too blinded by flags to see reality clearly.

Kansas

[macdaddy]

What, no one wants to host a party in Kansas? Fine! I'll drink for all of you!

Re:Kansas

[macdaddy]

I used to run their mailing list for them. Manhattan is 5 hours from me. Topeka, a little over 4. Lawrence, about 2 and some change (but I hate Gay-U!). Wichita, 3 on the dot. 1.5 from south KC. I don't think I'll be around for the party though. :(

Re:The release party flyer invitation

[thesolo]

Legal voting age is 18. Legal army age is 18. Legal drinking age in a good amount of states is 21. What the heck? You can vote for politicians, you can get yourself killed and die for your country, but you can't get legally inebriated?

OT, but the answer is simple; because teens in the 70s messed up, and "ruined" it for future teens.

In case you are unaware, people made this same argument after the Korean and Vietnam wars. Eventually, people started listening. In the early 1970's, 28 states in the USA lowered the drinking age from 21 to 18. This was raised back to 21 in the 1980s.
Why, you may ask?
Because drunk-driving accidents, public drunkenness, and alcohol-influenced fighting increased almost immediately, and steadily climbed in the 18-20 year old age bracket. Some states had increases of over 25% in the first year alone. In fact, the US National Highway Traffic Safety Administration estimates that changing the minimum drinking age laws to 21 years of age have saved over 16,000 lives since 1975.

18 year olds had their chance in this country, and they blew it. I'd be very surprised if the legal age was ever lowered again.

Re:Thank you Fiver-rah

[stevey]

Sounds like you could use some Lesbian GNU/Linux

Seriously you made some good points - but not all the people (men?) that will be at the parties will be the stereotype you present.

Some of us will be decent people who just happen to like Mozilla - well I say us, but there's no party in Scotland :(

The nerds become socially acceptable

[theolein]

This alone makes going to one of these parties worthwhile. Now if only we could explain this to the rest of society.

Re:Thank you Fiver-rah

[Fiver-rah]

Look, look, I know that most of the people reading/posting on /. aren't like this. That's why I said in my original post that I knew it wasn't everyone, or even most of everyone on slashdot who was like this. Hell, most of my best friends read slashdot (male & female). No, I don't believe that everyone on slashdot is a whiny bastard who deserves to wallow alone in freakish loneliness. No, I don't think that slashdot is a monolithic community represented fully by each of its posters.

My comment was directed only at people who regularly whine/joke about lack (or quality) of women. It wasn't meant to be a blanket statement condeming all slashdotters, nor by illogical extension, everyone at the Mozilla party.

If you're already decent, as most of you are, move along. There's nothing to be seen in that comment.

Most geeks don't want a geeky woman though.

[wackybrit]

It's true. You're whining about geeks asking for pretty ladies, which then pushes respectable female geeks away. Your point is good, but... most geeks don't want a geeky woman!

Who wants a woman that can code better than you? Who wants a woman who understands the ins ands outs of Linux? Not me! Sure, I don't want a total airhead, but an artist, a musician, a doctor, those are all very skilled things, but mean that the woman isn't a total geek.

I couldn't think of anything worse than having a girlfriend/wife who did anything closely related to my line of work. Variety is the spice of life you know.

Re:Most geeks don't want a geeky woman though.

[Xenopax]

Here here. That's the reason I keep chasing all these artsy type women. Too bad most of them like artsy guys. :-(

Of course all that means is when I find the right girl she'll be exceptional. :-)

Well ranted!

[danro]

Two things:

• I am a boy.
• What you said needed to be said!

The geek community at large has a awkward attitude at best towards women. A lot of my geek friends are either raving sexists in denial, view women as some kind of aliens, or ignore them altogether.

This makes a lot of girls hesitate to get into computers and that is truly a shame.
Those are 51% of the potential braincells alive we are talking about! There might be dozens of potential female Linuses out there for all we know!

If nothing else, I bet more geek girls would make my male geek friends a lot less irritating...
Am I the only male geek out there with 50%+ female friends?

Re:The release party flyer invitation

[addaon]

And the reason that the age was raised again... and the reason that no one expects to ever see it lowered again... that has nothing to do with a law on the books that says that any state that decides to lower the drinking age (since drinking age is, in theory, decided by the state, not the national government) immediately loses all federal highway funding... right?

You do not work for Los Alamos!

[jerryasher]

The main directory at Los Alamos National Laboratory is (well, look it up, let's not /. them) but it is in the 505 area code.

I called. I asked for Angela Taylor's direct number. They have never heard of Angela Taylor. I asked if she might be at another facility. They said that if she was, she would be listed in their directory.

Angela, you should call human resources. Perhaps you've been riffed and you haven't been told yet.

Re:You're joking right?

[Grishnakh]

I've went to all-male classes in college, I work in an all-male workplace; if I go to a party, I'd like there to be some of these alleged females around for once.

Re:The release party flyer invitation

[squarooticus]

I fail to see how 16,000 lives over 27 years justifies the incalculable loss of liberty inherent in taking away the rights of an adult to do as he pleases.

Please, no comments about how drinking isn't that important and how it's a right people don't need to survive. That's not the point: the point is that people should be free to live their lives without the interference of others, as long as they don't infringe on anyone else's rights.

The proper thing to do in this situation would have been to prosecute more enthusiastically those who drank and then proceeded to drive under the influence. But it's a lot easier just to take away the rights of the 90% who would obey the laws in order to protect the rest of society from the actions of the remaining 10%, right?

This is America, and that sentiment is un-American.

whine? observation.

[Trepidity]

I don't see it as a whine -- merely an observation that there aren't many girls at these sorts of things. I generally don't mention it, but if you look around at any sort of "geeky" gathering it's obvious that the ratio is 95/5 if you're lucky (more like 99/1 often). The Linux conventions are actually some of the more balanced ones, comparatively (often even with 90/10 ratios!). Take a look around at a Magic: The Gathering tournament sometime and note the number of girls present.

It is not easy for them to change.

[Futurepower(R)]

"Seriously people, if you want women to go to your parties, don't alienate them."

Seriously, a lot of programmers are the way they are because they were traumatized in childhood. They got into programming because they were needing the logic to counteract the illogic of their lives with their parents.

So, while your post is valuable, it is not easy for them to change. When they are around something that reminds them of the potential of being a warm and caring individual, they experience a huge amount of hidden inner conflict.

Your real hostility came out in this post.

[Futurepower(R)]

Your real hostility came out in this post. Read your post from the viewpoint of someone who is the target of that hostility. Would you know how to act around someone who is making you the target of hostility? Would you ever feel comfortable around hostility?