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AOL Lays Off 50 Netscape Coders
xcable points out a CNET story which begins "America Online on Tuesday said it has laid off 50 employees involved in Web browser development at its Netscape subsidiary amid a reorganization of its Mozilla open-source browser team," and offers a reminder that "AOL recently made a deal with Microsoft to use IE in future AOL releases." This adds a bit more detail to yesterday's (updated) story about the establishment of the Mozilla foundation.
So are AOL's long-term lease on IE, and its buy-high-sell-low Netscape strategy precursors of further mergers (think MSN/AOL)?
Not only could it provide many more chances for opportunistic middle managers to use layoffs to make it look like they're Doing Something, but the thought of putting Time Warner's clout behind its longstanding efforts at being a multimedia content provider must make MS salivate. (MSNBC? Zzzz.)
Wait a minute, there are 10 coders working on Mozilla and 450 (down 10% from 500) working on Netscape, even though Netscape is practically just a skin and some annoying AOL branding on top of Mozilla??? What's wrong with this picture?
The requested URL
Regardless, this is sad news. Sad, but not unexpected. Here's hoping some far-sighted investors will pick up Netscape/Mozilla -- it would probably be the bargain of the week, especially if MSIE really is dead in the water until Longhorn is finished.
Maybe this is Larry Ellison's chance to show us once again how badly he hates Bill Gates.
"Obviously, I'm not an IBM computer any more than I'm an ashtray" (Bob Dylan)
$2e6/50 = $20,000/yr
And, if that 50 was only 10% of the Netscape workforce, and we split that $2 mil over 500 users, that's a Christmas bonus, not a salary.
So, $1 mil/yr for the Moz Foundation is chump change. An earlier statement that "5 coders is plenty for Mozilla" seems kind of silly to me. I wonder how big the IE team is.
Thanks for the good time, honey, I'll call you. Here, buy yourself something nice.
Now we get to see how Moz survives as a *real* open-source project (i.e., w/out funding). At least it's got a good code base (right?).
John.
>> If Mozilla surpasses IE ...
That won't happen unless Microsoft drops IE and starts shipping Mozilla.
-- Slashdot: When Public Access TV Says "No"
if they had worked on the portable Gecko completely and forgotten (Or at the very least, pushed right back) things like XUL and skined interfaces, they could have written a handful of application shells for their supported platforms and dropped in an excelent browser engine.
So, Mr. Know-It-All Anonymous Coward, pontificating from on high, here's a pop quiz. If you have to implement an entire widget set in your browser to have any hope of supporting styleable form controls etc. (as outlined in CSS2 and above), is it better to:
a) Write one user interface for all platforms using those same controls, and use that UI as another testbed for them
b) Write five or more separate user interfaces, and have to keep them all up to date and in sync?
Without XUL, there would have been no Netscape help in doing Mozilla for Linux, Mac, BSD etc. because there would have been no incentive to chase such a small part of the browser market.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
The reason that AOL uses IE is to that MS will have AOL pre-packaged on the computers with a nifty shortcut link to install the software. This way a user doesn't have to download the software online, or worry about how they are going to get online. Most users are still using a modem, and have no way to get online unless they first contact an ISP. This way, AOL is already on the computer, and they don't have to call anyone. It's just there. That is why they use IE. And MS wants them to use it, well, because they are the largest ISP and they all use IE.
AOL will stop using IE when Windows starts to lose it's market share (by a LOT)
"Time is long and life is short, so begin to live while you still can." -EV
AOL kept them around long enough to extract that $750M from Microsoft without having to waste time and money pursuing the antitrust complaint.
Microsoft paid what is pocket change to them to deliver the final blow to the stake in the heart of what was once their biggest competitor in the browser arena. AOL/TW got badly needed cash, Microsoft got another seven years of IE dominance amongst the mouth-breathing internet user set. Web pages will continue to be designed so they'll look good for AOL retards instead of being designed to comply with established standards so they look good in all standards-compliant browsers.
As usual, Microsoft wins, the other party to the agreement thinks they won but will later realize they didn't, and the internet-using public loses.
Tieing yourself to a browser more than 9 of 10 people don't want to use seems like a good way to cut sales, not increase them.
That's a little more harshly stated than I think the reality is. What survey has shown that 9 out of 10 people don't want Netscape/Mozilla? And if that survey exists, did people get to try the advanced features that these browsers have that IE lacks?
I think it's more an issue of 9 out of 10 people don't know there's a better browser out there, so they use what comes with their computer.
Personally I'd say it's more like 9 out of 10 people are perfectly happy with what they have and don't want to move away from something they're comfortable with.
Which is exactly the same as saying 9 out of 10 people don't want Mozilla.
(after all, if they did want an alternative, they'd have downloaded it - which is what we all did)
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The problem with Joe Average User trying to use any browser other than IE is that there are too many websites out there that ONLY work on IE. They don't use web standars, they use IE-specific code. Try to view those pages on Mozilla (or nearly any other browser that is standards-based,) and they simply don't work. It's a chicken-egg problem: those sites won't change, because 90% of users use IE. Users won't change, becuase many sites won't work outside IE. I had always hoped that if AOL switched to Mozilla, it would FORCE those websites to change, because of the number of users AOL has. Unfortunetly, it doesn't look like it will happen.
Would people really be praising Netscape/AOL instead if they had constantly hacked the limping, near dead Communicator codebase? Would we really be pleased that the two most popular browsers BOTH sucked at standards compliance? Is a 20%/80% market share split OK, when they are both as bad as each other?
The fact is that the moment Microsoft decided to kill Netscape, they were dead. I've seen many suggestions about what they should have done, but the fact is that none hold water. If they hadn't started over, they'd have still lost, because IE was better engineered, had more resources and so on. If they had started over but not used XUL, XPCOM or NSPR Mozilla would have been Windows only. It would have minimal marketshare on Windows, as opposed to having nearly 100% marketshare on Linux.
As it is, they started over, and took their time about it, and made something good.
I'm not convinced that they'd have more market share even if they had carried on using the old 4.x codebase really, at least this way Mozilla/Firebird has legions of geek fans who are spreading the word, as opposed to dumping all over it like they used to.
Poor old Netscape - put in a lose/lose scenario, they lost. You have to give them some credit for making the best of a bad situation. That's something most journalists won't say though, it's realistic and therefore boring.
Well it looks like the day of Netscape's execution is nigh, but I wonder, with the formation of the Mozilla Foundation, why doesn't AOL donate the Netscape trademarks to the foundation.
Though Netscape has been increasingly marginalized, I think from a sheer brand name recognition point of view, if Mozilla, or Mozilla Firebird become Netscape, they will have a much easier time entering the collective conscious of many more people out there.
I tried Mozilla Firebird 0.6 for the first time yesterday and have to say I was very impressed! It was Netscape and Mozilla minus all the bloat, as advertised. If a Netscape 8 label is thrown on this and the usual barrage of AOL advertisements doesn't install with it, it could have a great chance of siezing some market share from the stagnating Explorer 6.
Of course, AOL will likely keep the Netscape trademark and simply let it get full of dust bunnies (as a portal web site no one will go to) to the point where no one remembers it anymore.... but if they'd only donate it to the Mozilla Foundation... it at least seems like a reach around for the current and future rounds of Netscape employees being fired.
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
IE will continue to be developed and extended by MS army of coders. they're just going to lock the browser major version to the OS and not supply a standalone download. if you're thinking that IE is on feature freeze, you're greatly mistaken.
aside from that, new features and standards are only added by web developers when the critical mass of the target market has access to them. I doubt any 2nd party browser can pick up critical mass to get significant developer support - let alone in the span of time between MS OS releases.
MS just isn't offering IE as a free standalone download. No doubt it's to escape legal backfire from their declaration that it's an integral part of the OS (if it really is - then you can't offer a free download as they do.)
i'm not going to dismiss the possibility that something else might eclipse IE - but i am willing to dismiss the possibility that it'll happen as a result of lack of development and extension by MS.
// "Can't clowns and pirates just -try- to get along?"
Main features, desired first of all by 90% of browser users, to add to Mozilla and Opera will be feature already in IE: (1) *stable* support of *all* plugins that needed to display a plugin-based content that is already on the Web and (2) simulating IE to display a IE-oriented content that is already on the Web.
Let me try it in few small logical steps. Why do people use browser? To access online content. What content? The one published for existing web users. What do people use now to surf? IE. So, what is the main feature they need? IE-compatibility. What about W3C standards? leave for academicians. IE is the real standard.
Personally I hate IE way of standard ignorance. I love W3C standards. But when I develop my content I develop it not for myself, but for other people, 90% of them are IE users.
Mozilla (and/or Opera and/or KHTML) can surpass IE only if it will work *exactly* (including all standard problems) as IE *plus* it will have some additional useful feature, (like tabs, gestures and smart bookmarks) many of them all non-IE browsers already have.
Less is more !
Two things, though.
First, IE and Windows help to provide a mutual lock-in, while bundling Mozilla with Windows would permit easier migration away from Windows because users would no longer have to confront Something Different as a browser.
Second, security holes have afflicted Microsoft for long enough that they simply shrug them off, claim that they'll be fixed in the next update, that premature open notification of vulnerabilities is Bad, and that Hackers are responsible for Evil.
The cumulative problem of security holes will be used as evidence for the need to have TCPA instituted as a standard, which will also cut down on Terrorism and Pedophiles as well as Bad Hackers.
No need for MS to adopt Mozilla and compromise a perfectly useful leveraging tool in IE, that now has over 90% of the market.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
The problem with this argument is that you're looking at it from the standpoint of someone who has at least a partial clue. 90% of the people in the world that use a web browser only use it because that's what browser was there for them to use.
Ask the average Joe off the street what web browser he uses, and you can expect either a blank look or "uh...AOL?" to be the answer. Do you really expect them to have the skill to go download another browser and install it? Why should they?
It's the principle of Path of Least Resistance. If you want Mozilla to take over, get Dell and Gateway to make it the default browser, and AOL to replace IE in its client. They won't. That would piss off MS. Hey, maybe that's why they say monopolies stifle change?
You know what? I'm a victim of this too. That little E is sitting right next to my start menu. Want to bet which browser gets used most? From a technology standpoint, both browsers show web pages almost identically, and the differences are only visible on pages where people consciously use the latest-and-greatest. You know, the ones that any sane company wouldn't use because it doesn't work with the Lowest Common Denominator.
Personally, I'd like to see NO middleware layer, but a well-defined API that anyone can use, but so well defined that it can't be ABused, letting people write the frontend in anything they like from Motif/C to Tcl/Tk.
:-)
What, like this? The doxygen server is down right now, so some links don't work; but we do have an excellent embedding API - used by Galeon, Epiphany, Camino, and many other projects.
the firebird/mozilla integration will undoubtably take place, but with 50 developers and monetary support gone, I doubt it will be to its full potential, and only be a footnote in the history of browsers. But I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong.
People are already raving about, and switching to, Mozilla Firebird, and it's only at 0.6.
Anyway, if you sit there and watch, you are more likely to be right than if you come and give us a hand
Gerv
Netscape killed themselves with their own hubris and irrational reverence for Communicator 4. The rewrite might have been justfied, but the goal of making an exact clone of the old version was just a terrible management decision.
I guess they missed the memo where users decided that Communicator sucked. The whole premise seems to have been that there was some sort of giant secret Netscape fanbase out there that was only concerned about standards compliance issues. Quite the opposite -- in the laundry lists of bitches about Netscape, for most users compatibility was very low on the list.
It seems like they had this arrogant, obsolete Rule The World independant platform strategy left over from the Netscape Communication days and it just did not fit either AOL or mozilla.org. Not to mention the just plain arrogant decisions about compatibility that was not befitting a browser with 1% marketshare.
Even when you go back to old slashdot discussions about Mozilla, the concerns were being echoed -- Why make the mailer run in the same process space as the browser? Why not lightweight and modular like IE? Why so bloated? And the answer was "Because the way Netscape does things." Well, end users looked at it and just said "Netscape? Bleck." They were dead from the get-go.
It wasn't until the writing was on the wall and the pinkslips were in the mail did mozilla drop their Party Line of "When In Doubt, Copy Version 4". Firebird is what Mozilla should have been since the beginning -- a fresh new platform that had a chance at attracting users and devs.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Guess what, hotshot? The answer to that question is: Whichever one will not take 4+ years to ship in a working form while the world's largest and most predatory corporation is working overtime to dig your grave.
Please notice that despite the nonstop handwaving from the Mozilla team about how maintaining seperate native interfaces for the assorted Gecko frontends was supposed to be some sort of impossible herculean task that no reasonable person could be expected to tackle, in the time that it took to produce ONE semi-functional version of Mozilla, Opera Software, a company with not even a tenth of AOLNSCP's resources, produced multiple versions of a fully functional web browser, for all of Mozilla's major target platforms. Not only did they produce, maintain and upgrade native Windows, MacOS and Linux versions of Opera, but they increased their market share, and made money doing it.
"We had no choice but to implement XUL/XPFE" is the Big Lie of the entire Netscape saga. The fact that mozilla team members are still stating it with cultish earnestness suggests not that you all came to a reasoned engineering decision, but that your project management was not merely incompetant, but downright pathological. If 1% market share and the firing of your entire development team isn't enough to convince you that somewhere, somehow, you made the wrong decision, you are simply delusional.
Hopefully, some of the core Mozilla developers and managers will use some of their newly acquired free time to read Fred Brooks' "The Mythical Man-Month." When Brooks talks about the Second-System Effect, he's talking about you.
News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters? Like hell.
What happens then if Mozilla really does start to gain market share?
How threatened would Microsoft feel if Mozilla's user base hit 10%, 25%, or 50%? How high would the level have to get before they took action? My guess is that the first tactic would be to accelerate the next version of Windows, and provide incentives to make sure that the public upgrades (who says competition is a bad thing?). But if that's not enough, and Mozilla/Gecko use kept rising, how would they respond?
My hunch is that there is some threshold -- and I don't know what it is any more than anyone else does -- above which Microsoft would have no choice but to take IE out of mothballs, and the malarkey about "we can't improve IE without improving the underlying operating system." That's baloney, as should be obvious to anyone that has used any browser that has made a release since IE5/IE6 came out (Mozilla, Phoenix, Safari, Opera, OmniWeb, iCab, CrazyBrowser [which is even IE based!), etc).
So, if the sleeping giant stirs, and independent IE development is reactivated, how long would it take to ramp up work on it? It wouldn't surprise me if a point release (with atrophied features like popup management, maybe tabs) could be out in three to six months, and a full release within six months to a year. At a guess, obviously I don't know how long it would take to allocate people to work on it, get them familiar with the existing codebase, etc, but it wasn't that long ago that Netscape and Microsoft were release major browser upgrades on something like a nine month schedule, and maybe -- just maybe -- some stiff competition from Mozilla (and, to a lesser extent, Safari & Opera) can spur on another round of that.
Rabbits wake up, you know...
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL