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Ars Technica Interviews Scott Collins
SnoopTodd writes "Ars Technica has an interview with Scott Collins of Mozilla. 'That's the thing I learned to lust after as a programmer. It's not my ability to solve one problem, to plow this field, but the ability to build a plow that every farmer uses. The ability to make something that touches not ten people, not a hundred people, not a thousand people but a hundred million people. I want Mozilla to be there again. IE is a browser with no soul. I want it to be Mozilla because I think that people who care deserve a browser with a soul.'"
It's really nice to see this sort of passion, and such an ambitious goal for an F/OSS project.
Disconnect and self-destruct, one bullet at a time.
In the article, he talks about how Netscape wouldn't have died if management had let them release netscape 5. I don't agree - netscape 4 sucked scissors, and IE was already coming in and showing netscape how a web browser was supposed to be done. Netscape 5 would have continued this trend because it was based off of the same crappy code. Today, however, the situation is reversed - IE sux scissors, and Mozilla is showing IE how it should be done.
...of PURE EVIL! If you look real close you can see a 666 under help/about.
Then again maybe IE sold it's soul to Milhouse for five bucks..
Beings aspergers AND pulling chicks... I enjoy the challenge!
if it has "soul" or not. I want something that's better than IE, not because I don't want to use an MS product, but because I know it's mediocre. Why is it mediocre? Because it can be---the general public uses it anyway because it's right there on the desktop. I want IE to be innovative the way Mozilla and Opera have been. Why? because good, innovative products make for better competition.
Don't be a looter...and yes, I know that it's spelled with an "A" instead of an "E".
I imagine a lot of developers at Microsoft would also like to feel that way, but corporate cutthroat agendas being what they are, they cannot really "do the right thing".
Whereas in open-source, free (as in speech) software, it's encouraged.
It's hard to see where it will end, this development-with-social-consciousness, but considering we've had the soulless variety for so long, I say we give it a shot.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
When it comes to "soul" no browser can compare to the "Sacred editor".
Stallman 3:16!
I don't need a "soul" in my browser; I need a good, standards-compliant and stable rendering engine in my browser.
Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
There was a fundamental mistake made by Netscape management, twice, which cost us a release at the most inopportune time. I think we can attribute a great deal of our market share loss to this mistake that was pretty much based completely on lies from one executive, who has since left the company (and left very rich) and who was an impediment to everything that we did. He was an awful person, and it is completely on him that we missed a release. We had a "Netscape 5" that was within weeks of being ready to go, and this person said that we needed to ship something based on Gecko within 6 months instead. Every single engineer in the company told management "No, it will be two years at least before we ship something based on Gecko." Management agreed with the engineers in order to get 5.0 out.a
Three months later they came back and said "We've changed our mind, this other executive has convinced us, except now instead of six months, you need to do it in three months." Well, you can't put 50 pounds of [crap] in a ten pound bag, it took two years. And we didn't get out a 5.0, and that cost of us everything, it was the biggest mistake ever, and I put it all on the feet of this one individual, whom I will not name.
Aww, c'mon, who is it? You don't want us to accidentally hire him, do you?
I think he means that the people working on the program have soul, which could yield a great product.
stuff |
... into casual sex. I mean, casual sex is fine and all, but you want it to be GOOD. If you are used to lackluster casual sex... well.. so be it.
Hmmm.
i think he is confused. by soul he means tabs.
-ninjaneer
There is a guy here on slashdot, and his sig is
:P and Mozilla is coming back in a big way. Fast, clean, lots of new features (I'm not going to call it fresh), and lots of choice.
"The only thing a liberal has to do to become a conservative is to not change views for twenty years"
Or something similar. The point is, Netscape was crap by 4.7, and Internet Explorer was fresh, new, fast and hade the exact same pricetag.
But now, Internet Explorer is, well, you know how it is
I think this time, with Mozilla being in the hands of the OSS community, and not a corporation, it will stay on top of Internet Explorer for a long time to come (well at least I hope so).
--
The last digit of pi is four.
You must be new here or have never even tried Mozilla. All you are basing your opinion off of is reviews, comments, and maybe a couple pretty pictures.
You also do not have to reinstall a browser. In fact, good luck uninstalling IE. The point is that you can use both. Hell, with the ZIP file Mozilla release, you don't even have to install the browser. You can run it right from the directory!
My overwhelming point is to try something before you make opinions on it. I can read reviews until my eyes bleed, but I usually like to try it out myself before making the final decision. The would encourage the same to you... ITS FREE!
Hmmm.
Joel Spolsky on joelonsoftware.com (he provides some excellent insights for programmers - highly recommended) wrote a great article titled 'Things You Should Never Do, Part 1' - using Netscape 5 as the case study.
0 00 69.html
http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog00000
tabbed browsing
:/
better bookmarks
themes
find as you type
works identically on all 3 platforms
secure (and you never have to be paranoid about clicking on dodgy links)
popup-blocking
ad-blocking
a zillion extensions, some of which are extremely useful
nobody's denying that ie also lets you browse the internet
... not render correctly, but I haven't had an actual crash using mozilla. Is this limited to a specific OS? Do you have any reference URLS where mozilla crashes? 20% seems like a high number to me. I go to quite a few different sites a day, and have yet to see that happen one time. BTW, using moz 1.6 here on FC2.
IE is buggy to the point of being dangerous; inaccessible; and almost devoid of useful features.
It is also damaging the web for everyone by preventing designers from having to use open standards and by allowing them them to write buggy code.
Catch up? I would argue it is a means to push browser technology where Internet Explorer has stalled. Sure IE is getting pop up blocking. Mozilla/Firefox has had it for how long? Same for tabbed browsing.
As for being identical pieces of software, well that is to be expected. Two hammers made by different manufactures are both hammers when you get down to it.
Besides, if two pieces of software are going to take the same document and render it the "same" way to the user, then exactly how do you expect them to be worlds apart in difference?
One innovation that Firefox has on IE that I don't expect to change any time soon--open source.
I think it is time to remind everyone how things once were...
Do you remember some years ago, that the Mozilla project was held up as an example of an OSS failure? By the majority of people, even here on Slashdot?
It was taking too long to develop, was too bloated, Microsoft would always be one step ahead...
These days Mozilla is now one of the trophy projects of the OSS community. But it was that same community that derided it not so long ago. We should be thankful for the persistence and long term vision of the Mozilla team.
I recently had to switch *back* to IE after an enjoyable hiatus on Firefox, and that's when i noticed just how over the hill IE is: ... etc etc.
- no tabbed browsing
- no native pop up control
- no caret browsing
- no form management
- no "block images from..." feature
I know that some (many) of these things are available as extras (for example with the google toolbar) but i was migrating back because i could no longer install software on my work internet machine(including the toolbar). It was like moving back to your childhood neighborhood and suddenly realizing how rose tinted your memories really are: all of a sudden i've got umpteen windows open (some pop ups, some i had to open to not lose the thread of what i was reading), everything's covered in ads, and i have to use the mouse to do everything. Basically: surfing sucks.
Mozilla/Firefox isn't a better browser because it's open source or non-Microsoft, it's a better browser because it enhances the quality of your surfing experience.
#!/usr/bin/english
JWZ wasn't an executive, he was the project technical lead.
http://rocknerd.co.uk
I really hate it when people go on about how IE is the only browser that renders all sites properly. More like it is the only browser that webdesigners work their butts off tying to design webpages that render properly on it.
I get sick of trying to hack around the IE bugs and non-standards.
Sometimes on websites I like to put in a white PNG with stuff written in the alpha channel, so that only the BROKEN SUPPORT OF PNG IN INTERNET EXPLORER actually shows the message to all the IE users. It is about how their browser does not support the latest PNG technology. Because IE sux d00d! upgrade to firefox now!
what's that? oh wow IE doesn't support translucency in CSS backgrounds, oh too bad for you then. IE SUX d00d
<matrix>MS Longhorn: "What's the use of a browser with soul...if you can't even surf?" </matrix>
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
IE is buggy to the point of being dangerous; inaccessible; and almost devoid of useful features.
Really? And yet it works reliably for me (and hundreds of thousands of others) during marathon surfing sessions. With the exception of tabbing, I never find myself thinking "If only IE had this feature..."
You need to pull your head out of the dark place, and look around at this strange thing called reality.
- sarcasm is just one more service we offer -
Good ol' Slashdot. Where mentions of a "soul" bring countless references to the Simpsons and the episode where Bart sells his soul, but none (that I saw) referring to Faust (sold his soul), South Korea (Captial: Seoul), Dr. Scholl's (in-soles), New Orleans (soul food) or Marvin Gaye (soul music).
Personally, I love Safari, other than the problem with a handful of sites, such as Citibank's online banking, that only work with Camino.
Have you tried faking the user agent string to make Safari identify itself as Internet Explorer? You can do it by enabling the 'Debug' menu.
My father uses the European Citibank's online banking with Konqueror itself - it needed the user agent thing doing, and (I think) popup windows enabling, but I don't think he's had any problems with it since.
Tedious Bloggy Stuff - hooray?
How about this thought:
If only IE didn't let my machine (and 'mom & pop's') get infected with spyware/adware/malware/hostageware by JUST CLICKING ON A LINK.
Remember, ~60% of spam comes from infected windows machines, and IE helps this problem along.
There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
Yes, Mozilla has a lot of nice features. But you know what's keeping people from switching (at least in our organization)?
.ics file. Not friendly for users.
Calendar.
Netscape 4.x had a nice calendar that worked great with Netscape Calendar Server.
Mozilla Calendar (sunbird/whatever) just doesn't cut it. It fails to send calendar invites properly. When a user receives one, it opens it in a browser window, displaying the raw
We don't even use Exchange at all - and people still want to cling to Outlook because of its Calendaring features.
I cannot stress how important this actually is! We're not the only company that has users sticking to Outlook because of the calendar... I've dealt with quite a few others.
Users like to have their email & organizer functions in one.
None of them use Palm Desktop because it's still a seperate app.
The users that I *have* moved to Mozilla really like it. But the rest? They won't budge unless there's a fully functional calendar - one that lets you accept calendar invites, add them to the calendar, and send them with a few clicks.
Mozilla Calendar just isn't doing this right now and I don't understand why the team doesn't direct effort towards 'enterprise features' rather than Chatzilla.
Yeah, IE "works" for hundreds of thousands of people, that's why spyware sites occupy so many of the top 100 most hit sites on the web. The people using those computers generally have no desire to visit those sites, their hijacked computer does it automatically for them, that's really working now isn't it!
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Well I can only prove it insofar as my clients setups do not allow users to install software and yet they still get this crap, even the ones who use alternative email clients like Novell Groupwise. The only vector on those machines is IE and they still get hijacked six ways from sunday.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Firefox is better is that IE may well have a soul, but it often has ghosts (popups) and sometimes gets possesed (hijacked, "LET BILL GATES F*CK YOU!!!, YOUR OS SUCKS COCKS IN HELL!!!") where as firefox has a TABBED SOULS open and has a protection from evil 10'radius cast by a 7th level cleric of the church of stallman. That will give you at least +1 more on your save vs. a gnna shocksite.
Sure at first it was some bloated multi-class character under second edition rules and owned by AOL. But now they only level in one class at a time. Like einstein says, god doesn't play dice.... therefore we must make every effort to min-max firefox so that it can level up faster.
The bottom line is you'd never hear a D&D analogy praising IE, you'd only hear it for an OSS browser: THAT my freinds, is a soul. The soul isn't IN the browser you hobgoblins, it's in the community. And whether you are shaking you fist at corporate capitalism, or having a good time no other browser has a soul like firefox.
Three cheers for one of the best examples of OSS. Be damned all you karma-whoring-by-anti-slashdot-groupthinking bastards the groupthink is right on this one. There is a soul in OSS and IE is a frigid disgrace and the most shining example of (three years without update) monopoly stagnation.
Firefox and Jesus save, the rest of you take full damage from the fireball!
Once when I was visiting San Jose I invited myself to go out to dinner with the mozilla developers. I ended up riding to dinner with Scott. It was a memorable experience. I had never taken a corner at 60 MPH in a parking lot before :-) It made me want to go and buy a Saab.
I had a great time that night. There were some realy nice people working at Netscape.
Calendaring is the biggest organizational problem that I have to deal with at work.
Calendaring is also the feature that time-crunched execs with multiple assistants cannot live without, and about which they will not compromise. They aren't welded to Outlook as an email client. Email is a highly standardized medium. They're equally comfortable using Yahoo! mail as Outlook for their mail.
But the calendaring server landscape is populated by standards-oblivious applications that don't talk to each other. Some times the same vendor's own servers and clients don't get along well. MS Entourage is the equivalent of "POP calendaring," whereas Outlook is "IMAP calendaring." Entourage works fine if you always, only do your calendaring from one machine. Doesn't work AT ALL as soon as you walk to another machine. God help you if your laptop crashes, or is stolen, and you didn't have a recent back up of your monolithic, 2GB binary database that Entourage uses to store your mail.
At my company more than one exec is sick and tired of the daily regimen necessary to protect their Windows machines against viruses, worms, and security vulnerabilities. Calendaring via Outlook+Exchange is the single largest obstacle to those execs abandoning Windows entirely.