Slashdot Mirror
Mozilla's Major New Roadmap
kerz writes "mozilla.org today released a new version of it's famed roadmap, this time with some pretty major changes. First and foremost, they plan on ditching the large Mozilla suite in favor of Phoenix and Minotaur. Secondly, they have plans to change the milestone cycle to allow for more time to fix the Gecko layout engine to be smaller and more efficient. MozillaZine has the scoop..."
Nice to see a focus on keeping the engine and the codebase lean and mean. Good luck to em.
it is about time they cut down the size of the package. Do we NEED chatzilla?
It's good to hear they are redefining their goals here. I think the majority of people would rather have a more stable Phoenix like browser.
This is a Good Thing, IMHO, as Mozilla itself was getting fat and bloated. Of the Mozilla step-children I like Pheonix the best and I'm glad to see that the Mozilla team has the self-honesty to realize the better way to go and ditch major portions of their established work.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
1. Smaller
2. Faster
3. Less bloated
Less is more, in many, many things. Including software.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
This is lame. I *LIKE* the existing XPFE browser / application suite.
Phoenix is nice, the new standalone mail/news client will probably be nice as well, but I see no good reason for them to drop the application suite.
All this talk about how Mozilla is too big, too bloated, has too many features, etc., is a load of shit, IMHO. Unless you're trying to run Mozilla on a freaking Pentium 100 with 64 megs of RAM or something else antiquated like that, performance is fine. And if anything, there are still plenty of features that *should* be put into Mozilla, that the Mozilla.org folks refuse to implement, despite how many votes the RFE has, or how many people want it.
I say they should just keep developing Mozilla as it is, keep improving it, keep adding features, and let the people who want to work on Minotaur, Phoenix, whatever, do so.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
Mozilla originally took too much of its Netscape roots to heart. That is understandable, but its a very good thing that people were finally able to break from that past. Netscape Communicator was supposed to be all things.. Mozilla continued that track, but with a nicer rendering engine and snazzy features.
I don't personally I have a problem with the size of mozilla, but since I only use it for browsing, it will be really nice to get rid of the rest of this monolithic application.. but to have it available for when I want it.
The path it has set now reminds me of the KDE applications. The PIM/Mail suite has a great deal of functionality.. but you don't have to load it just to browse a web page. (Though many would argue that Konqueror also tries to be all things to all people..)
On Linux.. Mozilla and Phoenix are the way to go.. though on OS X, Safari is a really nice browser.
Well, they aren't competing any more than Mozilla and Camino compete. When you're dealing with open, free projects, there really isn't such a thing as "competition".
I imagine that people would use Phoenix on the Mac if they wanted to have that nice "one browser on every platform" feeling. I know that's why I sometimes use Mozilla on my Mac.
All this means is that Mac users have even more choice when it comes to browsers, and to me that's a good thing(tm).
By the way, Phoenix already exists for the mac (sorta).
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
The RFEs you mention, will hopefully be things that are implementable as extensions to Phoenix - this will take some of the burden of feature enhancement requests off of the Mozilla.org folks and let others develop them independently.
That's not what it says. It does say one of its goals is :
Deliver a Mozilla 1.4 milestone that can replace the 1.0 branch as the stable development path, then move on to make riskier changes during 1.5 and 1.6. The major changes after 1.4 involve switching to Phoenix and Thunderbird, and working aggressively on the next two items.
Make risky changes to 1.5 and 1.6 Mozilla. That doesn't sound like ditching to me. The post and the Mozillazine blurb miss the jist of the document.
It might also be detrimental to Mozilla on the Mac. Right now, it's basically Camino vs. Safari. If it becomes Phoenix vs. Camino vs. Safari, the Mozilla camp becomes split.
Learn to Play Go
I know there has been a lot of kvetching on /. about the integration of the browser, mail, etc thinking it is "bloated" and "slow". As long as they communicate well (and I do mean well), I don't really care if they are developed in a more modular fashion. That is not bad and is potentially very good.
What I'm most concerned about in the roadmap is the seeming focus on just the browser and the mail app. (Yes I realize the purpose of mozilla.org is not strictly to produce those apps but realistically, those apps are the main reason anyone cares about Mozilla) I use those heavily and anything that improves them is just ducky as far as I'm concerned. But just as important, and much more ignored IMO, are the address book and calendar. These are applications that almost everyone uses in some form. Obviously people choose other options (Outlook, etc) frequently but that's in part because the ones built into Mozilla are fairly bad. I use them because they are the only transparently cross platform option which is important to me. I use them all and if they were better I think many others might too.
Anyway , I see the browser, mail, address book and calendar as the four major applications that most users really need. The Mozilla browser (and I include Phoenix and Camino here) is great and is arguably the best on the market. But the other three apps have largely been ignored for some time. They have a basic level of capability but haven't been refined significantly in some time. I still have trouble sharing information with co-workers on different systems. I still cannot easily share data with the PDA of my choice. Mozilla could really make a lot of this stuff really transparent for users. I'd love to be able to not worry about OS for these four apps. Mozilla is better than halfway there but I'm not quite sure what this change in direction means.
... in the first place.
I know I'll loose points for this, but heck, even IE and OE/Outlook are seperate applications even though they mostly use the same core (MSHTML, Outlook uses the base OE libraries). Why can't Phoenix and Minotaur be like this? I love Phoenix. I use it almost exclusively at work, and pretty often at home. And, for the record, Mozilla is a dog on my home laptop, but Phoenix runs quite snappily. Modularity (more than just selecting components from the 'net install) is the way I think the Moz project should go, and I'm glad that they're heading down that path.
So they are going to weight down Phoenix with the features they feel are "must have" from mozilla and the "new" mozilla will lose features. Why not just keep up the ultra lean Phoenix AND the feature rich mozilla? Maybe I am unusual but I have used almost every feature of Mozilla, be it grouped bookmarks, tabbed browsing, popup killing, LDAP support in the mail client, multiple POP accounts, different SMTP servers per account etc. It has taken years to get all these features into Mozilla, how long will it take to get them into the "new" mozilla? Will they ever make it in, or will it be fealt that they weigh down the new system too much?
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Now we know the new name for Phoenix... Mozilla!
So use Pine.
Don't laugh! I still use it as my email of choice. I used to use Netscape, but when I got DSL and my Linux machine fully running, I just stuck with Pine. (I tried Kmail for a while, and Opera mail). People laugh at me, but when I am at home, I can view attachments fine with it. When I am away from home, it is a bit harder. But I don't have to download my email either. I can download PuTTY wherever I am, ssh into my box, and read my mail in about a minute. I did this recently while traveling in France. I also use fetchmail to gather my various accounts into one on my machine at home. Even on dialup I can check my mail pretty quickly.
People can't believe that I still use Pine, but it is light, fast, and easy. Of course, if access to my home machine is cut off for some reason, I have to use my ISPs webmail, but I LOATHE webmail. I don't have a compelling reason to use a GUI mail client.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Now if only Open Office would do the same thing...
FreeSpeech.org
IANAMD (I am not a Moz developer), but I believe one of the problems is that some things in Gecko cam't be fixed without redoing the architecture. By every account I've read, most of the Gecko codebase is a mess.
we should expect that after 1.7 Phoenix's Gecko will be diferent than Minotaur's one
Huh? Do you even know *anything* about how Moz/Phoenix/etc. work? Gecko is developed as a component which is embedded in applications, not as a part of applications themselves. Hence, there won't be a "Phoenix Gecko" and a "Minotaur Gecko". There will be Gecko, and Phoenix and Minotaur will embed it. From what I've read, installing them both on the same machine will likely have them share a common Gecko install, they won't even install two copies of it.
Not to mention that they want the Mail app to be able to stand alone or embed in Phoenix according to the user's wishes . . .
The idea is that the Gecko stuff will be put into the Gecko Runtime Environment, which will be a DLL - loaded once, rather than for each process using it.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Mozilla could seriously do with some more large sponsors, though. It's just such a pity Apple didn't go for Gecko, for instance.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
Good riddance! We should all go back to surfing the web with Lynx, and typing up e-mail with mutt.
:)
In all seriousness though, I'm glad to see this new road map. IMO, this shows a lot of maturity and foresight on the part of the Mozilla team, and I applaud them for it. They realize the shortcomings of the approach they've taken during the last 5 years, and they have put together a solid plan for where they want to go from here. While this will undoubtedly cause some instability and uproar within the community (and the code) to some degree, once the dust settles down we'll be left with a better browser. And a better e-mail client. If I had the coding skills to help them out, I'd dive right into the Mozilla project right now and lend a hand. But for now, I shall cheer them on from the sidelines of bug reporting.
"Wow, you're like some kind of superhero able to ward off happiness and success at every turn."
-- Ryan Stiles
You seem unfamiliar with Mozilla and mozilla.org. Here's a free clue or three:
Phoenix and the Mozilla app suite share a ton of code.
Phoenix is not a rewrite, or an especially big effort.
The stability of the Mozilla browser, such as it is, is mostly to do with that ton of shared code, not with the XUL and JavaScript UI that Phoenix replaces.
I think you're wrong, and here's why:
First, I'd like to address your "stability and adoption" comments. Stability - Phoenix is, at the very least, as stable as Mozilla, and anecdotal evidence I've seen suggests that it may, in fact, be far more stable. Adoption is certainly not an issue - it's not like mozlla.org is saying "Hey, our previous product sucked, try this new one!" - they're merely integrating similar, better technology into an existing product, and removing some of the not-so-great parts.
As for the lack of a migration path - remember, Phoenix is based on the same technologies (Gecko, XUL, XBL) as Mozilla, so development-wise, that all stays pretty much the same. The main difference for developers will be the new code ownershp model, about which I can only say "It's about time!"
So, while the "resistant-to-change, mozilla-loving" part of me agrees with you, the logical, wants-the-best-for-Mozilla part knows that this is the rigt path for the project.
If all the world's a stage, anyone who says they want better lighting spends far too much time in a dark theatre.
Secondly, they have plans to change the milestone cycle to allow for more time to fix the Gecko layout engine to be smaller and more efficient.
Why is Gecko allowed to undergo fairly hefty changes? Easy. Apple's release of Safari brought attention to KHTML. Heck, Mac rumor sites had all but crowned Chimera (now Camino), based on Gecko, into the OS as the default browser. Then wham, out of left field, here's Safari.
Why did such a large company go away from what the open source community considered the gold standard, Mozilla and its technologies? KHTML was a smaller codebase than Gecko, and easier for a new project to make completely their own. That's right, there was a better open source alternative out there most people had never really thought about.
People started talking about KHTML, Safari, Mozilla, and Gecko. Apple managed to shine a new light on what had been seen as acceptable without question because of, get this, a lack of competition (!) in the open source browser community. Until the little man came on the scene, Mozilla and its Gecko brethren had a near monopoly on the "not-IE" browser market.
So the next time someone wants to know what Apple's given the open source community after taking BSD for the core of its new OS, you'll know what to tell them. Not only has Apple open sourced Darwin and checked their improvements back into KHTML, they've also provided a competitive peer for Mozilla and other open source projects.
It's all 0s and 1s. Or it's not.
I think that mozilla had become a monster - a friendly one, perhaps (just look at the endearing pointy toothed grin on that red monster), but a monster all the same. And that kind of "lets pile everything together into a heap" integration is a pain for users who want to be able to pick and choose. There are lots of examples - both in the windows world and in the unix/linux... worlds.
In the windows world this is to be expected - one company wants to build one product - make you buy a new one every time any of the components changes. Given that most windows users are going to put about as much thought into selecting the products they buy/use as they do when they drive to macdonalds and have to choose between a "large" and "super size" fries, thats not unreasonable. (I'm not saying they're stupid - just that they're not putting any intellectual effort into their computing systems.)
But in the unix world, this grates on me Both KDE and Gnome seem to want to build bigger and burlier integrated thing-a-ma-bobs. Consider, for example, the rise of the desktop managers vs window managers. Or evolution - quite a nice mail client, an address book, a calendar and who knows what else - and I always managed to click on the wrong button and lose things. Or open office - nice spreadsheet - absolutely crappy word processor - but they come as a unit.
I would like to see XUL continued, and the roadmap looked like it was not being dropped - I think it offers lots of potential.
I'd also like to say in response to the person who asked "why chatzilla" that chatzilla might not be a requirement for most users - but it was probably a very good thing for mozilla - as chat has different requirements (in user interaction, display and in performance) than a browser does. As such, it has probably helped to shape the way mozilla has developed. Then too, I'm kind of tired of everyone saying that MIRC is IRC as though the only things allowed to exist on the network are windows applications.
I think you're misreading them.. mostly at least.
To your first quote I think they're saying that when it comes to UI design you need somebody in charge.. keeping things from moving back and forth pointlessly or getting schizo. They're moving to a decision structure more like other large opensource projects. You can still make changes, they'll just have to be approved and tweaked before making it into main builds.
To your second quote.. to many cooks spoil the soup. They don't need sudden floods of inexperienced help that will quickly get bored and quit. That does horrible things to a codebase. If you really want to help then jump in and work on something you're interested in. If it holds up to the standards of the project and will be useful to others I'm sure they'd consider adding it to the trunk. Right now might not be a good time for scratching itches though. This big a transition will take some experienced Moz developers and they won't want to start adding features in the middle of such a transition. Familiarize yourself with what they are doing, test for bugs, submit bug reports, submit bug patches.. then they'll ask for your help coding.
At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
A lot of people talk about Phoenix being so snappy compared to Moz, and using less memory. Now I don't know if this is a accurate measure of anything, and I KNOW it isn't directly comparable to IE, but in Task Manager, on this XP box, Phoenix currently has a Mem Usage of 35816 K. Is that supposed to be GOOD /lightweight?? I'm seriously wondering. It takes more memory than anything else on my machine right now. (FB: I have 5 tabs open).
Random is the New Order.
The basic no frills standalone HTML editor the world needs is vi.
And if people would stay away from Frontpage and the like, the world would be a better place too.