Mozilla Chairman Speaks on Open Source/Microsoft

ChrisMDP writes "Tom's Hardware has an interesting interview with Mitch Kapor, the chairman of the Mozilla Foundation. They discuss, amongst other things, what it's like competing with Microsoft, and Firefox as an operating system." From the interview: "Pragmatically, I think we have to distinguish between a base set of extensions and everything else. It gets progressively more difficult to create seamless solutions when there are nearly infinite possibilities for customization and tweaking of settings. There's a basic tension in principle that can never be completely resolved."

Comments

Bizarre article. Bizarre.

[ites]

Q: how does it feel to spend 20 years being beaten^H^H^H^H competing with Microsoft?

A: Microsoft totally cheat. They don't play fair. OK, sometimes they can pull their socks up, like when they bought Spyglass and abandoned MSN version 1.

Q: Firefox is like... the new operating system?

A: Yes, and one day it may actually instal Flash support automatically. There's no end to what's possible?

Q: How's Chandler doing?

A: Who?

Q: You know, the open source thingy.

A: Ah, yes, very well. That's such a kind thing to ask. Any day now. There's no beating open source.

Q: so, since CPU's have passed 3Ghz, does it make sense to write better code?

A: better code is better code.

Sigh.

I love Firefox open source as much as the next righteous Slashdotter, and Kapor is a totally cool dude, but WTF? WTFF?

Re:OS only reason it's popular

[kevinx]

Yes. It's a good thing we have a comercial product like Windows that is Bloat and Bug free.

MS Adverts

[ebzxzpp]

Had a hard time reading the article, with all the MS advertising in the page...

Mozilla OS?

[thekernel32]

Dang, it looks like mozilla is going the way of emacs... "What? You're exiting mozilla? Why? It has everything you'll ever need for your entire computing experience! It debugs itself too!"

Re:Mozilla OS?

[maxwell demon]

Hmmm ... now I have a problem: Should I run Emacs under Mozilla, or Mozilla under Emacs?

Maybe merge them to Emozillacs? Or would that be Emacszilla?

Wait a minute....

[ceeam]

Whassat? Firefox as an operating system? You mean a program that was cut off from the "bigger" mozilla to be "just a browser"? Hm.... When a new Firefox's Firefox is due to fork out? :-)

Re:xul

[Anonymous Coward]

How about learning XUL and writing it by hand in VIM like everyone else? That's 48 HRS work right there, about the same amount of time it would take to familiarize yourself with a decent IDE.

Wow, talk about a generation gap!

[windowpain]

"Mozilla Chairman Speaks on Open Source/Microsoft"

Mozilla chairman? Who's he? Ohhh MITCH KAPOR!?!?! The guy who developed Lotus 1-2-3!!!

I can already see a Slashdot headline from 20 years in the future. "Gates Foundation Chairman Speaks at AARP Convention."

Re:That's nice, but..

[Anonymous Coward]

From IMDB

Dark Helmet: So, Lone Star, now you see that evil will always triumph because good is dumb.

Re:What?

[geordie_loz]

I see you've been reading the latest Microsoft Anouncment for parents.

Re:That's nice, but..

[suso]

Why should marketing only go so far?

So that we don't wind up with companies saying things like:

"Buy our product or we'll use our connections at the bank to drain your account and default you on your home mortgage. Oh and by the way, if you say anything bad about us, we're going to tell the local news that you molest children."

Sure that's extreme, but you wanted an example.

Re:What?

[Phisbut]

It's this kind of thinking that has set up an enviroment where my 1ghz+, 512mb computer can't do anything more than my 2mhz, 64kb computer could do in the 80's.

Moore's law : The complexity of integrated circuits (processing power) doubles every 18 months.

Corollary : The speed of software halves every 18 months.

Re:posted in comments for previous article

[Anonymous Coward]

I would love to post logged in, but I really would get blasted for it

Come on, there is no shame in admitting you're using it so you can log in and mod up your point of view. :)

Me, Too.

[4of12]

....all make my car heavier, and this considerably slower and less fuel efficient. And yet, by and large, that's another load of creeping featurism that I don't seem to mind about.

Stay tuned. Imminent increases in the price of fuel will focus your attention on eliminating the less valuable pieces of vehicle feature bloat.

WOW!

[CRC'99]

"They discuss, amongst other things, what it's like competing with Microsoft, and Firefox as an operating system."

Wow. I didn't think Firefox had reached the functionality of emacs yet...

Firefox as operating system

[einhverfr]

Silly---

Firefox is not an operating system. EMACS, OTOH.....

Re:That's nice, but..

[DarkHelmet]

Forgot where that is from

*SLAP*

Signed,
DH

Re:What?

[quanticle]

My 20 year old computer couldn't do any of that.

Actually, since computers are logically complete Turing machines, your old computer could complete all of the above tasks, given enough time.