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Firefox - The Platform
Strudelkugel writes "Business 2.0 reports Firefox is becoming a problem for Microsoft. But FF is not just a problem as a browser; its potential as a platform is significant. From the article: 'It all adds up to a business opportunity for startups, established software companies, and Web giants alike. Though Ross and the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation don't stand to make money, Firefox's open platform gives it enormous potential to hatch a new class of applications that live on the desktop but do business on the Web.'"
The potential for development within firefox is fairly impressive...microsoft had better be concerned.
Maybe Firefox is like the third-party candidate of browsers. Sure, it may not ever hold a dominant market share, but it will guide those who DO towards the right issues...
'If you're flammable and have legs, you are never blocking a fire exit.'
It's about time the Mozilla foundation is getting the recognition they deserve. As a Windows user (yes, flame me), Internet Exploder has been nothing but a giant general protection fault.
Just goes to show, when you take out competition, you get stale, passionless software. Thank you Mozilla.
IGB: More fun than eating oatmeal!
The title is a catchy one because Firefox is "new and cool". Really, it's Mozilla as a Platform, and that just really means XUL as a Platform. XAML is Microsoft's attempt at XUL, because it's XUL's a "Good Idea".
Get Firefox!
Can you say google?
Yes, we can. And so can the article -- In the paragraph immediatly above what you quoted.
Technoli
Before taking back the web, I think Firefox team should start by making their website W3C valid.
I noticed that today: Firefox page and "spread firefox" page are both invalid html code. Is it just be or they are supposed to be the ones caring about standards?
perception is reality
Firefox is a great browser, and there are a number of useful plug-ins available for it. It's also supported on many platforms.
But I have my doubts whether it's a good applications development platform as it is. Out of the box, you get, what, XUL and JavaScript? I'm sorry, but that doesn't strike me as a good platform for application development. In particular, JavaScript is just far too flaky to develop anything significant or complicated in it, and a lot of libraries just don't exist for JavaScript at all. And, like it or not, even if you put part of the application on the server, things still get complicated if you want a high quality GUI.
Maybe if Firefox shipped with a small, efficient JVM or CLR runtime and JIT that tie into the DOM, XUL, HTML, SVG, and event handlers (but without most of the bloated class libraries that Sun or Microsoft want to force on you), it could become a full platform. It would be even better if it included a small IDE out of the box.
As it is, I think it will remain limited to simple web apps created by rather dedicated Firefox hackers (and thank you for it, it is a great browser).
The reason so many holes are found are due to the Bounty that the mozilla foundation puts forth for each security hole found. this means that people are actively looking for security holes to turn them in and get i think $500.
Why are they doing this? Simple really. Find the holes now and lock firefox down pretty good. Better that the holes are found and fixed ASAP than found but not fixed at all... say.. like internet explorer. they're simply trying to make it more secure and this is a pretty good way of doing it.
Look at it this way, if you develop software you look at the same code all the time and once you see it so many times you don't potentially see the security holes that you might otherwise see because you've looked at it so much that you kind of become numb to the fact that something could be wrong there. by having new eyes looking at the code you are having new eyes put on that older code and they're finding the problems, $500 is just an incentive to get people to look at the code.
Kyle
http://www.unlogikal.net/
Have you ever worked in a real office before?
Most companies now use at least one IE (sadly, almost all are heavily locked into ActiveX atm) based app.
I'd guess that most of new big backoffice apps are being developed for the web now. The benefits are so big.
Firefox is what we should be focusing our attention on. Not Linux. Linux is at this stage a pipe dream on the desktop, at least for now. All Firefox needs to get is killer installs in the office, which I don't see too hard especially with the status of IE patching, and those tricky ActiveX issues can be got round with the use of an icon that opens IE only for that certain site and for the rest of the things, Firefox is the default.
But, I've thought this for a long time that Linux is harping up the wrong tree. Look how quickly FF has got hold - this is the sort of real changes OSS can do. However, I'm not undermining Linux's achievements in the server room. I think that is where it will get hold next.
Anyway, this is what I think we as an OSS 'people' should evangelize:
1) Use of Linux in the server room. Mail servers, web servers. Anywhere that it works.
2) Use of XUL in Firefox/Mozilla. Get Safari to support it.
3) Get BigVendor (tm) cooperation. Show them how XUL is really a lot better than using ActiveX, especially as Microsoft is really not a great partner to work with.
4) Watch as the books, tutorials etc for XUL gathers up. Watch the small developer presence increase.
Basically what we want is XUL/PHP/mySQL (a very strong combination) is to become the new VB. Once we have this, it's going to be a cakewalk to get Linux on the desktop everywhere. Then the hardware support jumps up, and boom, desktop too.
IntechHosting - Free domain, 2GB, PHP, £4.95/$8.95
If you're interested in helping find memory leaks, look at how David Baron has been finding them:
l s. htmlw nbag.h tml= 25682 2#c2d =25721 8#c0
http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/MemoryToo
http://www.mozilla.org/performance/leak-bro
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?i
Or e-mail David Baron and say "I'd like to help find memory leaks in Firefox. How can I help?".
If you're not interested in helping, and you're just trying to get people already volunteering to shift their priorities, that's ok too.
The shareholder is always right.