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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?
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.
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
...a microsoft technology adviser to say something other than "product x could be improved by using our techology"...?
No need - there's already an organisation dedicated to making the web a more friendly place. The problem is, some, browsers don't follow the standards too well, choosing to implement proprietary extensions to published standards, and implementing standard extensions slowly at best.
<voice type="Blackadder-Wise-Woman">There are three solutions to this:
- Persuade certain browser vendors to comply with modern standards;
- Persuade the entire online community to switch browsers to modern, standards-compliant browsers;
- Kill everybody!
</voice>This is where the serious fun begins.
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.
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".
"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
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.
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