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FireFox and Longhorn: Meant For Each Other?
News for nerds writes "According to the internetnews.com report, Microsoft's technology evangelist Robert Scoble said in his blog and interview that while he is a user of Firefox it can be improved if Mozilla developers take advantage of Longhorn technologies such as XAML, Avalon and WinFS, instead of making it only within GNOME/Mozilla coalition."
Lather, rinse, repeat.
I run FireFox on linux, solaris, and windows 2000 regularily. I'd rather see FireFox efforts put into features which are easily cross-platform, rather than a Longhorn branch.
What about making those technologies available to other platforms with a no-royalties license instead?
WinFS strikes me as a bit odd, anyone care to explain?
Firefox is meant to be a web browser - and no extras. So why would it need to use the filesystem? It's not like somebody wants to integrate Firefox into Longhorn to such an extent as to make it 'part' of the os. Also is WinFS open, did I miss something?
I would love to see MS, Mozilla and Opera do some work together to make the web a more friendly place. Every time I make a new webpage, I have to fight with atleast 4-5 browsers to make it look nice all over.
Yeah, my english sucks!
--
Believe it or not, everyone that works for Microsoft isn't an evil person trying to crush the free software movement. The point of this article seems to be that a Microsoft employee recognizes Firefox's superiority. If this guy is able to admit openly on a Microsoft website that he doesn't even use IE, maybe developers should listen to him. Sure, making a Longhorn only version is not the solution. GNOME should investigate these features to see if they are worth trying to duplicate. Ideas shouldn't be cynically disregarded just because of where they originated.
If the Mozilla developers feel that cross platform is most important (which I feel is most important), they should just consider what these suggestions mean and maybe make them design objectives if they are at all possible.
One one hand, "HOW DARES HE SUGGEST THAT..."
On the other hand, does it mean they're willing to work with third-parties to provide some software like web browsers? It doesn't have to be from the Free world, they could just arrive to a settlement with Opera, for instance.
Sure, Linux is better, and I use it myself. But quite a lot of Windows problems would be solved if Microsoft would just stop shipping their own mail client and browser.
I completely agree. Windows 2k/XP, and in the future, longhorn, is firefox's most important platform. If people start using open source software on windows and see for themselves that it is as good or better than anything else, the jump to linux wouldn't be as significant. If people didn't have to learn new programs even Joe Sixpack could make the switch. Firefox, especially, since it's such a great browser, is the perfect program to promote open source and linux as a viable alternative.
So Firefox doesn't use Avalon or WinFS yet. Not surprising considering they are not in use except in Microsoft development shops. His argument seems to be "but then you'll be a couple of years behind everyone else". I'm not sure it matters that much. I doubt anyone but IE developers are doing any coding against these frameworks ATM because they just aren't solidly locked down yet. Coding against a changing framework and API with disappearing/suddenly new features is a recipe for disaster unless you have a good inside track.
If you read the comments he spends a lot of time saying how wonderful Avalon and WinFS are. If anyone asks why he says "because they're revolutionary". So what sort of features are they actually going to have in the release version? He spends pretty much the entire thread dodging that.
Microsoft has no clue exactly what is going to make it into Longhorn, nor exactly what sort of feature set these "revolutionary" technologies will posses. Why on earth would start trying to code against them now?!
And in the end, if he really thinks it will be that wonderful to have Firefox using Avalon and WinFS... well, he can always write the code himself can't he. It is open source, so he can fork and do what he likes.
My impression (after reading through the comments to the blog): All hype and bluster and no content. I don't think Mozilla should be the least bit concerned.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
So he is suggesting that the developers implement technologies that won't be availible on the desktop for at least two years? And then only on one platform?
It sounds like he is wanting them to use these technologies just for the sake of using them, not because there are some great ways they could be used. Besides, doesn't Mozilla already have an XML specification of its GUI?
Descibing how Mozilla could use these to provide truly inovative features would be interesting. THe developers aren't going to use the technologies if they increase OS tie in without providing something truly new.
Spencer Ogden
...a microsoft technology adviser to say something other than "product x could be improved by using our techology"...?
Netscape as a platform was scary to Microsoft but Mozilla as a platform is much scarier. Longhorn's new XAML is a way to lock-in enable the internet, a way to bait companies into making web sites and web pages tied to Windows. Currently Microsoft is in a unusually weak position because most important things that are done with a computer can be done on non-Windows OS's. XAML would lock a whole new generation of people into using Windows.
If Mozilla comes up with an alternative to XAML that works well across all platforms it has the potential to not just thwart Microsoft's new lock-in plans but also drastically increase the ability of cross platform web-based applications and further reduce the differentiation Windows enjoys. Mozilla + Gnome sounds like something we should all be paying attention to.
set softtabstop=4 shiftwidth=4 expandtab nocp worlddomination
Hey Robert Scoble, Firefox is open source. That means if you want those features then contribute patches or find a company to fund you to do that development. Unlike the company you work for, where people must beg for features or bug fixes and then hope and pray they are implemented, with software such as Firefox you can do it yourself. How's it feel to be fully in control of your own computer? Exhilarating, isn't it?
Prevent email address forgery. Publish SPF records for y
On one hand the guy says, that its Microsofts mission that Longhorn not break existing apps? And yet in the same report is asking the developers to start thinking about building for the new longhorn framework. So what is it? Make your apps work for longhorn or make longhorn work with existing apps? A little bit of contradiction there.
;
...
Anyhow
While its good that Microsoft are encouraging open source developers to build for their OS, dont you think its a bit lame that they are so against open source software? They need to make their minds up. And if they are going to encourage it how about supplying the tools and documentation to the community in order to enable good interoperability with other programs and operating systems?
Its in Microsoft best interests that software works with Longhorn if it is to be a success. Having said that you can bet your bottom dollar that "certain applications" Office perhaps ? will offer a reduced experience on longhorn requiring you to purchase a newer longhorn version. I dont think its unwise to be cynical about this given the pages of the history books.
Longhorn is a way off now, there are going to be several new generations of OSX and Linux between now and when it is released. A lot can happen in this time frame. If the linux take-up continues at the pace it is at the moment Longhorn is going to have to take interoperability more seriously whether Microsoft or Open Source developers like it or not.
nick
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Isn't that the entire point of open source, though? That it saves companies/people time and money, because someone else does all/most of the hard work for them, while "we" get the fixes/improvements they make to it? As long as the licence is complied with, who cares? You can't say "Oh, but it's MS, and I don't like them!", that's not how it works - Free is Free for *all*, not some.
So some guy at MS likes FireFox and thinks it should use more Longhorn-specific tech. So what? I prefer Mozilla, and think that development should concentrate on that, instead. My opinion means about as much, when you get right down to it, unless this guy somehow manages to persuade MS to devote a dev team to it.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
If Microsoft wants Firefox to work so great with Longhorn they can code the patches themselves. It is Opensource code after all.
I'd rather not see a web browser be too tied down to any platform specific features. If the content can't be run on the trifecta of PCs (Linux, Win32, Mac) than it really shouldn't be embraced. I would prefer to go as far as saying browsers should only support open standards, but then I exclude Flash and Java, but at least these make an effort to work everwhere.
Except he's not even asking for Microsoft and Mozilla to work together. He's asking for Mozilla to come and work with Microsoft, without any clearly defined APIs or featuresets, and little apparent intent of releasing any any time soon.
If Microsoft was prepared to work together with Mozilla - well, that would probably involve Microsoft engineers comitting code to Firefox to add Avalon and WinFS support themselves.
Even he isn't crazy enough to ask for that one.
Jedidiah.
Craft Beer Programming T-shirts
Sales 101 Rule #1: Tell the other guy what he wants to hear.
How would a relational database filesystem layer, a bloated 3D interface graphics framework, and a new UI markup language (which Mozilla already has) help a web browser in the slightest?
Open source developers are not your employee/slave, they will do whatever the hell they want and, as a user, you should just feel fortunate that your needs were similar to the coder's. Every newbie who wants to have a longterm relationship with open source must come to terms with this. Unfortunately, there are still a lot of clueless newbies out there and a high concentration of them at MS.
If MS wants Mozilla to support Longhorn, why the hell does not MS submit some code! It is open source for godsakes! That is far more cooperation than MS EVER gives outside developers wanting to support MS software!!! It is amazing how clueless these people are . . . "why want you code for free for us, we are just a poor, multi-billion dollar, monopoly that has been convicted of criminal behavior on both sides of the Atlantic."
If MS has an itch with Mozilla, why not stop BITCHING, shut the hell up, and code! If MS were to code half as much as it bitched, I am sure worms written by 18 year olds wouldn't be ripping new ones out of corporations stupid enough to trust MS.
(This rant has been brought to you by my intolerance of stupidity masquerading as arrogance)
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Microsoft have spent the last thirty odd years re-inventing thousands of wheels that weren't theirs. Everything they have ever made has been a re-invention of someone else's wheel. It doesn't matter. Most people will use XAML just because it's Microsoft's, and it quite frankly has no relevance that others have done the same thing before, regardless of which one is technologically better too. Thus some or other XAML compatible extension to Firefox that allowed people to use it for XAML applications might be useful for Mozilla? And if enough people used Firefox for XAML, MS would have less power to pull 'embrace and extend' (hmm .. on their own spec? sounds a bit odd but the idea is that if enough customers used open implementations of MS standards, MS would have less power to modify the standards to enhance lock-in - breaking the standards in later versions might actually push corps away from MS and towards Firefox for those who are using, um, "Open XAML"). Basically the idea is to pull the inverse of MS's usual "embrace and extend" strategy. Instead of MS taking an open standard and introducing proprietary extensions, you take an MS standard like XML, create an "Open XML" (open version of XAML), convince enough people to use the *OPEN* XAML instead of the MS one (via marketing/strategy etc), and then MS "lose" their control over the standard because the market forces the standard to be and remain open.
I don't know why a web browser would care about specific filesystems.
I'm sorry, but under what authority does this guy have over Mozilla? At MS he might have programmers licking his toes, trying to make him happy, but out in the real world he is just another jerk that is having trouble coming to grips that the world does not revolve around him or view of things.
The Mozilla programmers got where they are on the project because they have talent in programming and want to surrond themselves with such talent. What talent does this guy have? In this community, talk is cheap. He wants the Mozilla programmers to listen, show us the CODE. Otherwise, why the hell should these guys give him the time day!? People write open source code to GET AWAY from jerks like this, who have authority but don't have a clue how things work.
Title means nothing here. I really wish we would just ignore the guy and spend more time appreciating the talented developers that are increasing the quality of all our lives.
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!
Embrace and extend is just another word for "added value". It's a good thing. If you want to be portable, you simply don't use the added value.
The problem is that Microsoft Embraces a crippled version of the standard then makes its own extentions to provide similar functionality. Sometimes the crippling is in a very fundamental way, so if you want to provide nontrivial functionality, you can't help but use the extentions. That leaves companies with two choices, either write two versions of everything or just standardize on the market leader and hope that everyone else can live with the decision.
Microsoft's basic strategy is "Embrace, Cripple, Extend, Extinguish".
has nothing to do with taking advantage of operating system specific features. Joe Blow end user wants the richest, easiest experience they can get their hands on.
If you free software/open source evangelists want to really stick it to MS like you say you do then you had best start providing packages that are richer and ESPECIALLY easier than the MS ones.
I'm also perplexed at how many people on slashdot worship open source/free software but hate outsourcing... when you do work and generate value then give it away for free how can you turn around and argue that your time is worth more $$$ than some indian developer?
Maybe they have investigated them and found them not worth bothering with.
"First of all, Longhorn has a mission not to break existing apps. If we broke existing apps, we'd be hurting our customers, our partners and ourselves," Scoble told internetnews.com.
Here's another quote I remember:
"Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run".
What's stopping MS from doing the work and submitting it to the mozilla team? Or even forking the project? Why should the mozilla team go out of its way to incorporate these great new technologies?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
Of course they're a threat to Mozilla. The entire point of Mozilla is that it is cross-platform. Avalon and the laughably-useless WinFS might be able to be used by Mozilla without tying it to Windows. But the cheap XUL knockoff known as XAML? Please.
This is clearly a cheap attempt by Microsoft to Embrace and Extend Mozilla's cross-platform capabilities, with the end goal being, of course, "Extinguish".
Clearly you haven't met any 'softies, either in person or online.
Clearly, neither have you.
The level of vitriol toward Microsoft on this site has gotten ridiculous--it's almost sunk to the level of discrimination, like racism but toward employees of a company. "Oh, they're all evil. They're all sheep."
This coming from someone who is posting a reply in a Slashdot discussion--the Internet king of groupthink and propaganda.
I guess I'm just one of the few left in the world who believes that people are people, and that some guy working at Microsoft who suggests Mozilla take advantage of some Windows technologies that are out in the developer betas now ISN'T something to get worked up over--it's not even newsworthy. Only on Slashdot is this some sort of issue. Look at the sheep baaing, "Embrace and extend, embrace and extend!" over Mozilla possibly using some, dare I say it, XAML in its Windows version.
Your Kool-Aid comment was just ridiculous--like the rest of your post.
Where's your code?
Or is your opinion just as baseless as his?
In this community, talk is cheap.
Indeed.
"Microsoft steals other people's ideas!" So says the Linux user typing his post in an integrated file/net browser, using a start menu, taskbar, the same print dialogs, a "Control Center," Minimize/Maximize/Close buttons, etc., etc., etc....
.NET/WinFS/Avalon clones, I'll be grinnin'.
The power of all the volunteers in the world, and what do we do? We make a UNIX clone. Then we make a Windows clone on top of it. Nice.
A couple of years after Longhorn comes out, and GNOME/KDE decide to implement their
So Firefox doesn't use Avalon or WinFS yet. Not surprising considering they are not in use except in Microsoft development shops.
Have you been living under a rock? Longhorn betas come out all the time. The WinHEC build is used by major development companies like Adobe and Macromedia to test-run the new technologies with their apps.
I've never seen so much whining and bitching over some guy at Microsoft daring suggest Firefox, an OSS app that 99% of you haven't even contributed code to yourself, support some Windows features for its Windows port! You guys sound ridiculous.
Couldnt a group just maintain the Longhorn version of the browser, much as the Windows version of GAIM is handled? The thing about gaim is that it uses GTK on windows so the windows ports just deals with the issues that are different on windows and linux and not abstracted by GTK. Alot of the windows specific stuff is implemented as plugins and more look and feel oriented like the taskbar icon plugin. This microserf is proposing the mozilla team make changes to low level part of firefox.
--- Justin Dearing http://www.justaprogrammer.net/ We're just programmers.
They own it, legally or not, and they wield a mighty financial hammer to prevent any use of it that they do not want. They control it. Unless they release it under the GNU or some such similar and appropriate license, I would not use it, and I doubt any OSS coder of worth would either (coding for OSS). Of course, there may be some exceptions, but they always come at a price.
So, to the MS evangelist, tell MS how great a product this is and how important it is to place MS code in the public domain. Tell MS how important it is to participate in the OSS community as an active, honest, open member. If you can convince MS that these are all good things, and MS starts doing these things, then maybe it might be a good idea to include MS technology in core OSS technologies.
InnerWeb
Freud might say that Intelligent Design is religion's ID.
I don't think this MS schmuck is saying re-write Firefox in XAML, or if he is then he is an idiot. However, the Windows implementation of XUL and the Gecko runtime could make use of Longhorn APIs. The current Windows implementations definitely make use of Win32 APIs, just read the build instructions for Windows. Going from XUL to XAML is just a matter of doing an XSLT transformation. Firefox could still be done in cross-platform XUL, just its implementation on Longhorn systems could make use of Longhorn specific APIs, kinda like its implementation on Linux making use of GTK+ for example.
BTW, I'm a Mozilla user - most people may use IE, but that doesn't make them right.
"Alcohol, Tobacco, & Firearms" should be a convenience store, not a government agency.
I have met some 'softies, as you put it. Had a business relationship with them for a year. I went to the Redmond campus for a week and escaped unscathed.
When I was there (December 1999), the talk around the campus was the anti-trust suit. Most of the employees felt wronged, they just didn't understand why charges were being brought against the company. When I'd mention things like breaking competing applications and hidden APIs, they just stared at me blankly.
They're smart people, certainly, but I really do think that they are somewhat brainwashed, when it comes to the company, and what it does. They're not knowingly against other companies or Open Source software, they just see a Microsoft solution as the only solution.
-- Joe
This looks pretty cool, but I wonder if there is any security built in to this kind of stuff. Does this mean that someone could send an XAML document in an email and its the new adware instelled virus that downloads your data in 50 lines of XAML? While I think it is cool technology, don't get me wrong. I am concerned that if it is that easy to write code, it then becomes that easy to exploit Longhorn. I hope MS builds security into their Outlook client in Longhorn that will match that of the new firewall tools that I have heard they are coming out with in their new OS.
On an off NOTE, I think that the Linux competition as small as it may seem ( market share wise ) and the number of viruses that are coming out, are actually prompting MS to step up its product and make it much better. New firewalling capabilities that are improved about as good as iptables, but easier to use. I hope they fix some of the bugs in IE, in particular IE 5&6 window.open() should not forget the cookies in the opening window. Yes this is a bug, go search their web site.
I guess now that they are in every market they have only one thing left to do and that is make their product really better.
Only 'flamers' flame!
Does slashdot hate my posts?
Now can you explain to me what does this have to do with a web browser? because I don't see it.
And for the record I have been developing web applications for over 5 years, and I can tell you, it's a _bad_ idea.
And the use of XML over HTTP as some kind of RPC is just stupid, wasn't CORBA already bad enough? "Hey, yea, but if we use HTTP we can bypass firewalls!" Marvelous! You could as well dump the firewall into the trash can.
The essence of XML is this: the problem it solves is not hard, and it does not
solve the problem well.
-- Phil Wadler, POPL 2003
P.S.: I have great respect for the Mozilla development team, they are all nice people, I still have my t-shirt from the first European Mozilla Developers Conference(and from the second), I just hope they don't become too misguided and blinded by stupid fashions.
"When in doubt, use brute force." Ken Thompson
HFS and HFS+ are from Apple.
And yes, NTFS 5 can defrag itself; all copies of NTFS 5 are shipped as part of operating systems that include a Defrag applet for the Microsoft Management Console. To launch it under Windows 2000 Professional, go to Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.
Release a good product tomorrow instead of a bad one today.
Customers who vote with their dollars have seemed to prefer a bad product today.
Guys, settle down!
This dude is only expressing his opinion! All you are doing is making fun of it. Remember this?
First they ignore you, then they make fun of you, then they attack you and then you win.
I worked full time for an University "ResNet" program where it was our job to get student owned computers in the resident halls on the network. Because of the DMCA complaints and network worm problems, we are using SWU's Network Registration System to force a login that is associated with the network card's MAC address. Of course, before prompting for username and password, we setup the system to use SSL encryption. What we found is that 1 out of 10 Windows XP machines either shipped without the DLLs for the Crypto Service properily registered or the registration was lost during install of XP SP1. Microsoft is even aware of the problem.
The bottom line is that about 10% of the students could not get to SSL encrypted web pages. The solution was to promote use of FireFox which doesn't have dependences on these broken Win32 services. What Robert Scoble considers to be an "improvement" for FireFox, I would consider to being a step back making it just as worthless as IE when something causes IE to break.