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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."
Could one not consider XAML just a re-implementation of the XML-based UI builder that the Mozilla guys developed?
:)
Can anyone explain to me why a web browser would care about filesystems?
When will I be able to run Avalon on my Red Hat 9 machine?
Perhaps these guys would be better served by using Free systems for the functionality provided by XAML and Avalon. I happen to like the Mozilla system and Gnome works great for me.
MS won the browser war... but a new war is brewing, and once again, it will revolve around API's and who controls them. Linking Mozilla closely or completely with MS proprietary API's would be equal to surrender, before this war has even begun. Make no mistake, MS will offer one sweet set of API's, custom written to lure the developers of projects which might threaten MS's control of the market. If successful... those API's will "evolve" to "offer a richer user experience" (i.e. hamstring the competition)
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Great! He knows what he wants. The next step is for him to code it, and release it under a Mozilla compatible license.
If he does, then the ball is in the court of the Mozilla team, and they can decide whether or not they're interested. If he doesn't, then perhaps he can interest someone else in doing so. If he can't, that's the way the ball bounces.
N.B.: I don't think much of his chances for acceptance, but anyone who want's a Mozilla extension has the same choices. Perhaps he could create a Mozilla fork, if the Mozilla team doesn't like his shiney new software. That's perfectly legit. I doubt, however, that he'd get many FOSS coders supporting his fork, so it might be a rather large job.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I know you're trying to be funny, but I've seen a huge surge in the number of automatic spyware XPI installers showing up on all kinds of different websites over the past few months. Currently, the situation is no better than Microsoft's "click yes to install" ActiveX controls, and Firefox's don't even need to be signed to be installed. by default.
The only upside, I guess, is that they're never installed via buffer overrun exploits.
Where he flames apple for downplaying one remote-root exploit. Neglecting to mention that thanks to Microsoft's refusal to take advantage of the security capabilities of NT any remote exploit is a remote-root exploit.
And he thinks Mozilla would benefit from better integration with Longhorn? Integrating browsers and the OS has proven such a win for Microsoft.
Or, as I wrote on the site:
I'll put up with Apple downplaying a buffer overflow better than I'll put up with Microsoft deliberately building an architecture that's almost impossible to secure when they integrated IE (a component that has to be designed to deal with untrusted data) with the desktop (a component that has to assume that data is trusted).
I banned IE, Outlook, and any other programs I could identify that used the MS HTML control almost ten years ago now, and the result was that our Windows systems had few virus problems, and they were minor... and could often be traced down to people who used Outlook or IE against our policy.
Before throwing stones at Apple and talking about how Microsoft is "getting it", how about undoing ten years of virus promotion by allowing people to run a secure Windows desktop, with no browser integration, no Active Desktop or ActiveX, no flakey HTML-ised control panel components.
I'd be MUCH happier about the Windows box on my desk if Microsoft would back out a lot of their "innovations". I know it might cause some loss of face to admit that integrating the browser was a mistake, but over the longer term it would produce a significant benefit to both users and to Microsoft's public image as the system became safer, more reliable, more secure, and faster.
XAML, Avalon
It already does. It's called XUL. There is no reason to replace that with a Microsoft-proprietary technology. If it's going to be replaced with anything, it's going to be replaced with a general-purpose XUL-based toolkit (XUL itself isn't quite there yet).
OSS will offer XAML interoperability probably only if it looks likely that Microsoft won't be able to sue over it. Given Microsoft's rash of patents and intellectual property claims over the last couple of years, that doesn't look likely to me. But the ball there is in Microsoft's court: if they want interoperability, they need to make ironclad legal guarantees to the OSS community that their standards are open.
WinFS
WinFS is just a marketing construct, not new technology. It is some combination of user-mode indexing technologies and databases with some kernel support. Guess what, other systems have had that for years, including Linux.
Microsoft is trying to shove their particular combination and APIs down the throats of developers, but there are reasons people haven't settled on a single standard for this sort of thing: it doesn't make sense for anybody other than the OS vendor.
In the case of mailers, the standard database formats needed are mbox, maildir, and/or mh. The database format Thunderbird has chosen for mail is mbox, which is perfectly reasonable, and it's open and non-proprietary. (Maildir and MH support would be nice, too; I don't think it has that yet.)
instead of making it only within GNOME/Mozilla coalition.
Thunderbird works fine on Windows (arguably, better than on Linux) and MacOS, in addition to Linux. It just happens not to incorporate every single poorly thought out API that Microsoft keeps coming up with. And that's just fine, as far as I'm concerned. Anybody who wants that sort of thing can use Outlook.
However, I'm sure that Thunderbird will eventually incorporate some platform-specific code to make its messages indexable by WinFS, just like it does some platform-specific things on each platform.
Does anyone here remember why Firefox/Thunderbird was born? To escape Mozilla's bloat. I think the Opera browser influenced its initial design, which in earlier versions even fitted on a floppy while being IE6 compatible for the most part. The whole appeal of firefox over mozilla and others is the simplicity and therefore the speed and efficiency.
It can be used as a platform for other browser technologies, but they should be renamed, and firefox vanilla should always be as simple portable and small as reasonable possible for general browsing.
Theres nothing wrong with Someone with a lousy sparcstation 5 running NetBSD and using Firefox. With Mozilla, you couldnt work with an Ultra 60.
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XAML is windows-only and is a lame attempt at reinventing a wheel that the Mozilla working group has so nicely invented: The Mozilla cross-platform application framework. XAML would restrict apps to windows.
furthermore, i consider XAML to be a very dangerous technology as far as security is concerned. It looks to me like it attempts to further blur the line between web "pages" and full-blown applications running on the client-side with no permissions restrictions.
lemme put it this way: it is okay for "web pages" to embrace some technologies that enable various compelling user-interface paradigms to further enrich the browsing experience: DOM/CSS/JavaScript (DHTML), Flash and whatnot. As long as they cleanly operate within the browser sandbox.
It is okay for applications and application frameworks to embrace and build-upon web-based technologies to further enrich user interfaces that should inherit from web-browsing user-interface paradigms: Mozilla Application Framework, KHTML/WebKit. Such applications are real applications which users must go thru the conscious steps of installing, with the inherent knowledge that an application could actually hurt their computer system. Any application that works within this model is standalone, and was installed within the constraints of the operating system.
What microsoft appears to be doing with XAML is to push ActiveX one step further, and instead of blurring the line between a web-based document and a full-blown computer application, simply COMPLETELY REMOVING THIS SEPARATION. You'd be looking at running applications simply by pointing your application to a web-based URL: http://widgets.com/evilApp.xaml. Security implications of this are HUGE and horrific when considering microsoft's past track record.
I believe microsoft sees Mozilla as a threat. XAML is their answer to that threat. That blog is attempting to seed brains in that direction.
consider the fact that today, to upgrade windows, you are trained to go to http://www.windowsupdate.com/ and watch your whole upgrade happen INSIDE of your web browser. Forget downloading an executable and running it or having a separate application that is dedicated to software updates. NAH. let's just teach users that running software from your browser is ... OKAY. So next time they see an ActiveX prompt about allowing some code from Gator/Claria, Inc. to run, they'll think that's OKAY too. Let's really remove all layers of security and further open ourselves to stupid worm-spawning trojans.
i'll stop here. windows appalls me. if it doesn't appall you then you've never had to support armies of newbies running windoz, starting with your own family.
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Microsoft is having problems because their software is full of security holes. IE and ActiveX are the main reasons why people are having security problems, not updating. If M$ did their job right, and released secure software, then all these people wouldn't need to update before the hackers released exploits for the latest security hole. How about M$ properly securing IE, by totally disabling ActiveX? How about M$ patching the 50+ security holes in IE that have been known for over a year? Ever try disabling ActiveX totally? IE is totally useless, because its constantly nagging you over the fact that you were responsible and turned ActiveX off. Don't tell me to get an add-in that will do this. Firefox does all this right out of the box. I have gotten sick and tired, cleaning machines of spyware and viruses. In my consulting business, I roll-out Firefox. Even as a beta product, it is light-years ahead of IE.
.6. I have yet to clean up for free, a client who is using Firefox. They are happy they can devote their IT dollars to other projects, and I'm happy that I'm not spending my time in useless endeavours such as cleaning up spyware and viruses. I have even created a solution for small businesses, that only uses OSS (Linux, Firefox,Thunderbird, Openoffice, etc). When pitching to prospective customers, I give them the choice of either a M$ or OSS solution, with the OSS solution being cheaper, both from a initial installation and from a maintenance perspective. 70% of all perspective customers chose the OSS solution, once the costs of running a M$ shop are put into perspective.
I offer my clients who have agreed to Firefox, Thunderbird, disabled IE and no Outlook/Outlook Express, free cleanup of infected machines. Those that don't, I charge them for clean up services. I have been offering this discount since Firefox v
Microsoft fears this and they role the old adage - Why doesn't Firefox use X? I don't want Firefox to be a copy of IE, with all the same problems. A couple of years ago, the same marketing droids said - Why doesn't Netscape use ActiveX? I was happy that the Netscape group didn't fall into that trap. A plugin was eventually created, that has the same security problems that IE has. Therefore it wasn't deployed very much. Firefox is great just the way it is. Today, clients are using FF on Windows. Tommorow, they will be using FF on Linux. FF doesn't need any M$ technology. This would make the transition from Windows to Linux much more difficult. If M$ really wanted Firefox to use the technology, they would offer it to the W3C standards with no patent encomberances. M$ would never do this. They fear Firefox and want to kill it off. The way we kill M$ is to limit the use of their patented technology for anything. FF should only use technology that is open standards with no patent issues - plain and simple.
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