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..."

Comments

I agree..

[elemur]

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.

Re:competing with camino

[SweetAndSourJesus]

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).

Re:Not a smart move and here's why

[mu_wtfo]

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.