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Problems With the Firefox Development Process

Posted by Zonk on from the eyes-on-the-prize dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Mike Connor, one of the core Firefox developers, is raising a flag concerning the Mozilla Firefox methodology of development. From his blog: "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think were in trouble. Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews." In an earlier entry, he raised concrete concerns about the community involvement. Asa Dotzler recently elaborated on the process, as previously covered on Slashdot."

72 of 563 comments (clear)

  1. It's the Branding by Baricom · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Seriously. Mozilla's obsessive-compulsive disorder when it comes to their trademarks is above and beyond any other open source project's, and I think it's probably turning a lot of people off toward helping them.

    1. Re:It's the Branding by buckhead_buddy · · Score: 4, Informative

      Trademarks (unlike patents and copyrights) have to be defended against misuse and abuse or they may be judged to be unenforcible later.

      This is probably a harder thing to do in the open source world, and also much more important to establish a trustworthy brand and indentity.

    2. Re:It's the Branding by Dulimano · · Score: 5, Informative

      Somewhat related to the branding question, another Mozilla problem:

      RMS wants to rebrand Firefox.

      This thing will surely appear soon as another sensationalist Slashdot headline.

    3. Re:It's the Branding by eln · · Score: 4, Interesting

      The problem is, if you're an open source project wanting to become the new mainstream product in a mainstream area (such as web browsing), your biggest obstacle is overcoming the idea that open source is the realm of teenage hackers and unstable processes. The most important thing for you to do is to establish some stability in your brand, and to convince people that you are an entity that is here to stay.

      People have been conditioned to think that software is unstable and buggy. This means that a primary requirement in choosing a software vendor is stability and support. People want to know that the company they're getting their software from is stable, and will continue to support the product. If Firefox, or any other open source project, wants to enter the mainstream of the consumer market, they must have an answer to these concerns. This means building a strong brand, part of which is constant trademark defense.

      Like it or not, if you want to break into the consumer market, you must let people know that you are going to be there for them, and the average open source project cannot do that. Firefox is doing the best they can to do this, even though it flies in the face of the traditional open source ethos.

      If this philosophy flies in the face of the average open source hacker's philosophy, then that's really too bad. The goal of Firefox is to replace IE, not only in the minds of other open source hackers, but in the minds of the general public. It is not simply to prove that open source programming can produce an equal or superior product, but that open source can produce a more economically viable product, a product that can beat the competition not only technically, but also in the market. This idea puts it at odds with much of the traditional open source philosophy, which seeks merely to produce technically superior products.

    4. Re:It's the Branding by iabervon · · Score: 5, Insightful

      They have to be defended against violations in order to avoid becoming generic and therefore invalid, but that doesn't mean you can't license them to the general public for a variety of uses that you approve of. The trademark on "Linux" is perfectly fine, despite all of the Linux variants calling themselves "Linux", because Linus licensed it for that purpose. That doesn't mean that Sun could call their next Solaris version "Linux" with impunity, if it didn't have a Linux kernel.

      Mozilla is trying to establish a trustworthy brand and identity, as you say; however, having an identity excludes potential participants, who are being identified as not part of the project. And their fear that other people's versions would reflect badly on them excludes those other people from feeling welcome.

      One of the key strengths of the Linux brand is that people you trust for other reasons have a stake in it. Sure, there are people out there who release terrible versions of Linux, but you don't get it from them. There are also people out there who release versions of Linux with special features for just your problem, and that's part of what Linux is about (e.g., Intrinsyc ships a Linux version with special support for the hardware on their embedded devices; the Linux Audio Development project has a version which avoids skips when recording audio; these projects couldn't call themselves Linux if Linus managed the trademark the way Mozilla manages theirs, and it would reduce the recognition of Linux as something that can solve any problem you happen to have).

    5. Re:It's the Branding by guet · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is, we're talking about a browser here, not an operating system like Linux - it's far easier to persuade people to download a web-browser rather than an operating system (Linux). Maybe that will change, but right now the Mozilla/Firefox people have to worry about security and all the unscrupulous free-loaders who would attempt to use their name.

      A lot of spyware vendors for example would be tempted to ship their own special 'enhanced' version of Firefox with the same branding and call it Firefox+ or something, with built in weather, clock, terrorist headcount, free desktop pictures, plus of course key logging, pop-ups and god knows what else. Just enough fluff to make it seem useful to a non-expert user, and just enough spyware to keep them happy. Then when it all comes out that it is spyware, Firefox will be tarred with the same brush.

      That kind of thing is one good reason not to allow just anyone to use the brand.

  2. That's strange... by Smerity · · Score: 5, Interesting

    That's strange...

    From what I read on the last Slashdot Mozilla/Firefox article, people thought that there were too many coders in Firefox, thus creating bloated code...

    I guess that's a myth, eh? Community misconception?

    1. Re:That's strange... by SubTexel · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Funny how people always bitch about products when they dont have X feature, etc.. But when they include all of those nice features everyone wants they bitch about how bloated it has become..

    2. Re:That's strange... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Well it makes sense, people want the products they use to only have the features THEY want. This is why plugins/extensions are nice. I don't believe that Firefox is bloated.

    3. Re:That's strange... by WIAKywbfatw · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Uh, compared to at least one of its rivals, Mozilla/FireFox is bloated.

      Compare the feature sets of FireFox and Opera. Now compare their relative footprints when installed (or even the size of the downloads). Pound for pound, Opera is faster, lighter and does more (it even includes mail and IRC clients in it's small size).

      Also, almost without exception, those features that are common to both (a great many of which were browser innovations by Opera itself) are far better implemented in Opera than they are in FireFox.

      So, Opera seems to be proof that you can have your cake and eat it too. It's small, fast, powerful and bloat-free. If the guys at Opera can do it, then other people can do it too, can't they?

      --

      "Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
    4. Re:That's strange... by mrchaotica · · Score: 3, Interesting

      All I was saying is that Firefox can be used as a foundation for things other than a web browser, and that requires infrastructure. Whether that makes it better or worse than Opera isn't the point.

      --

      "[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz

    5. Re:That's strange... by orin · · Score: 3, Interesting

      Firefox has a memory leak. To fix it read the following article:

      http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=8 166

      Without the fix - leaving FireFox open for > 24 hours will bring most Windows systems to a halt.

      I believe that there may be other issues - especially for people that leave > 20 tabs open for > 24 hours. I've switched back to Opera after being a bit of a FireFox evangelist for a while because Opera handles leaving a large number of tabs open for a protracted amount of time without eating all my memory.

      I'm guessing that some of the memory issues are significant and difficult problems to fix - otherwise they would have been fixed by now.

    6. Re:That's strange... by MrNemesis · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Whilst I agree wholeheartedly with your comment (I'm an Opera user myself, under Linux and windows) and I was quite surprised you weren't modded into obliviion by some of the seemingly anti-Opera /. members, remember that Opera makes most of their money from the embedded market, especially mobile phones and PDA's. Hence there's an awful lot of incentive to get the browser to be as lightweight as possible. Similarly, alot of Opera's innovations have been related to making a browser useful with limited screen size (tabs, small screen rendering) and navigation tools (gestures, incredibly extensive shortcuts).

      Conversely, FF's main aim was to develop a leaner browser than the Moz suite whilst still maintaining a Moz/Opera-like level of functionality. Now that the browser is more-or-less set in stone, expect to see alot of work being done in the smaller/faster areas. Especially with the up-and-coming Gecko-powered embedded browser that's being worked on.

      --
      Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
    7. Re:That's strange... by KarmaMB84 · · Score: 3, Informative

      According to the Mozilla Foundation, Firefox is meant to be a browser. I guess the project is a complete failure if they have you thinking that Firefox is the next Java or something....

  3. Bah, what's the big deal? by PalmMP3 · · Score: 3, Funny

    Microsoft has been getting away with bloody murder for years, shipping buggy products. So who's to make a fuss if Firefox has a couple of measly problems for a while? They'll definitely get fixed before IE, that's for sure...

    --
    Laughter is the best medicine, but in certain situations the Heimlich maneuver may be more appropriate.
    1. Re:Bah, what's the big deal? by lukewarmfusion · · Score: 5, Insightful

      *SLAP!*

      Don't set your standards low just because the competition does. Set 'em high because you can and should.

      (I've just been in the mood to slap someone lately. Nothing personal.)

    2. Re:Bah, what's the big deal? by shadowmatter · · Score: 5, Interesting

      From the article:

      Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews. And I'm on the verge of just walking away indefinitely, since it feels like I'm the only person who cares enough to make it an issue.

      What good is people submitting patches if no one is there to review the code prior to commit? Indeed, I submitted a very trivial usability enhancement to Firefox, and it was quickly swept under the rug. Perhaps it should simply be made into a plug-in, I don't know. Just thought I would share it as first-hand experience.

      - shadowmatter

    3. Re:Bah, what's the big deal? by theborg1of4 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's sort of funny to watch how some people will compromise their morals just a little bit further as open-source projects become increasingly complex and start to suffer the same pitfalls as their closed-source brethren. The first slide occurred when Firefox security holes went unpatched for weeks. Now I see that at least one person is attempting to justify this latest concern by comparing Firefox to IE - how ironic considering the former is considered to be a completely different alternative to the latter.

      The fact of the matter is that developers - open-source or closed-source - would largely prefer to work on writing new code rather than maintaining old code (especially bug fixes). New code is trailblazing and ego-stroking and cool, while bug fixes don't have nearly the same sexiness. Once a project is deployed, enthusiasm for it tends to fall away.

      Now, with closed-source commercial projects you're paying people to maintain the code throughout its whole life cycle, so you can ensure that the software is enhanced and fixed as is appropriate for your business needs. People will grumble and try to squirm out of it, but if their paychecks rely on getting bug fixes and small enhancements done they can be forced to finish the work. But if you're volunteering your time to a project freely you have far more flexibility to pick and choose what you work on. I think the enthusiasm for getting 1.0.1 out the door is far thinner and weaker than the excitement generated on the march towards 1.0. This is what I perceive to be the Achilles heel of most large-scale open-source projects that don't at least have some sort of corporate interest (and therefore backing) to ensure forward progress will be continued.

      This isn't an open-source bash, by the way - I have great respect for people who donate their time freely to these sorts of efforts, and open-source has done some pretty amazing things for software development.

  4. Firefox by blobzorz · · Score: 4, Funny

    Yeah, IE has been horrible with security and whatnot, who cares if firefox makes one mistake? They're still perfect in my eyes.

    --
    http://onticfusion.sytes.net/
  5. Firefox is also Mozilla by TelJanin · · Score: 5, Informative

    Many of the devs are hard at work for plain Mozilla. This makes the development of Firefox seem slow, but a lot of code from Mozilla can be (and is) used in Firefox through the Gecko engine. You don't have to exclusivly work on Firefox to help Firefox.

    That said, I wish there were more devs working on Firefox-specific issues.

    1. Re:Firefox is also Mozilla by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      honestly, I can't see why one would want to use Firefox under Linux at all.

      No other browser supports the Abe Vigoda Status extension.

    2. Re:Firefox is also Mozilla by Myen · · Score: 3, Informative

      IIRC, he's also thinking of a startup. See his blog (Google Feeling Lucky on his name), Feb 11 2005, third paragraph. I'm also guessing school is probably also a part of it :)

      (Who are the six that mconnor mentioned anyway?)

  6. Engineering documents? by Vthornheart · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Have they produced any Documents that new programmers to Firefox could use to quickly begin becoming useful to the cause? It sounds to me like their problem is that the overall architecture of the system is under-documented (either that, or they're just not allowing sufficient access).


    If it is a problem of documentation, then those two remaining programmers had better work on documenting it... and quickly. If they want the architecture to be preserved when new programmers who don't understand it come along.

    --
    -Vendal Thornheart
    1. Re:Engineering documents? by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Bingo. Provide architecture docs for the browser. Also put together extension tutorials.

      --
      You can't handle the truth.
  7. Re:Good! by ShawnDoc · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Perhaps you missed this story here, where it was found that Mozilla is actually faster than Firefox.

  8. Why can Microsoft et. al get good people... by rsborg · · Score: 3, Insightful
    to work on frickin Windows, when the MoFo has a hard time getting people to do work with sexy Firefox/Mozilla?

    I think some things need to be funded, and if Mofo needs the cash, then Cashdot should be able to help out (maybe do a sidebar-fundraiser or something)... I'd pitch in a couple of bits for my fave browser! Hell make it a contest so people can win firefox/mozilla SWAG!

    --
    Make sure everyone's vote counts: Verified Voting
    1. Re:Why can Microsoft et. al get good people... by MrResistor · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'd pitch in a couple of bits for my fave browser!

      Well, why don't you then? Or did you not notice that "Donate" button on your first link?

      --
      Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
  9. How else to topple IE? Re:It's the Branding by dj42 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I think right now what is needed is a strong branding for Firefox that will create a reputation among the "tech-oriented" masses that get their information from magazines and cursory reading of pop-tech articles. How else will they truly gain ground against what many people perceive as the ONLY way to get online?

    I think it's important to realize some people synonymize "The Internet" with Internet Explorer, because of IE auto-dialing, and auto connecting, as well as broad-band connections always being on and using it as default browser with windows.

    Anything you do mainstream (particularly in the US) is already being done branding first and content second. Just take a look at TV.

    We're dealing here with the WWW, possibly the most impressive achievement to date in terms of communication and information sharing. It's going to take some power to muddle through the masses, and you're not going to do it by sticking exclusively to principles at the expense of reaching the clueless.

    The infrastructure, particularly the end-user "filter" of that information, is of critical importance. Idealism about open-source initiatives has to play tug-of-war with practical ways to get a broad following.

    --
    We are one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. Back to you with the weather, Bob!
  10. Same ol', same ol' by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It's nothing new, really, just a little more extreme.

    Mozilla has for years made a constant and ongoing argument that they're open to all comers and want all the help they can get, only to turn people away without consideration. I don't know what it's all about, and I'm not sure I care anymore.

    It's a shame, because while (for example) Ben Goodger is obviously a talented programmer, his belief that he is the only person capable of doing what he does is just crippling the effort. Allowing a few people to prove they're as good as he is (hmmm... maybe he's afraid to find that out) could move things along tremendously.

  11. Lack of community involvement by adepali · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I believe the main reason for this is lack of developers-oriented documentation. Even for simple extensions, one has to search around the web and hack through existing modules to see how things work; things get harder when you try to work with the actual code, which comes with a whole bunch of its own graphics toolkit, scripting etc. Sure some people may know the entire code by heart, but these things need extensive, robust documentation if more independent developers are to get involved.

  12. His blog... by digitalchinky · · Score: 4, Funny

    Best he be careful, blog entries regarding 'conserns' might get him sacked :-)

  13. Community, Induviduals and Fun by Gopal.V · · Score: 3, Insightful

    > because this isn't fun anymore.

    Mmm... "Just for Fun !!"

    If you look at very successful FOSS projects, you'll see a comitted 3-5 member team which does pretty much everything for that project (projects like KDE or gnome don't classify as projects, they are meta-projects).

    A project needs lots of users and around 3-4 x times the core team contributing bits and peices to keep it alive. Once that is reached, the project is pretty much self sustaining.

    I feel that firefox has got a bit of elitism in their top level. Maybe those developers should take a look back into where THEY came from.

    --
    Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum videtur
    1. Re:Community, Induviduals and Fun by Afrosheen · · Score: 3, Informative

      Yeah, take a look at Linus Torvalds. He was the beginning kernel dev, but he sought help from individuals while the kernel was growing. Now he's pretty much a yay/nay guy that makes a few decisions now and then.

      Basically, if you document what you're doing, it's fairly easy to turn your project over to more people. If you don't document, then you're cementing your position as 'the coder' and making it that much harder for others to join in.

  14. The number one problem with Firefox? by earthbound+kid · · Score: 5, Funny

    Lack of new, innovative names. Look, I like "FireFox" as well as the next guy, but let's face it, that name is getting a bit stale. Sure, 6 months ago, FireFox had a "hip," "edgy" feeling, but today, FF just isn't cutting anymore. Only Korean old people use browsers with such old fashioned names. We all know that the most productive period in FF's history was the period in which it was changing its name every other week. Features got added like crazy during those couple of months. Some people look at that as coincidence, but as I always say, "Correlation is causation." Therefore, if we want to add new features to FF quickly, we're going to need to start changing the project name weekly, if not daily or even hourly.

    In order to help out the FireFox team, here are my suggestions for new, catchier names:

    Fox Fire

    Brush Fire

    Brush Fox

    Foxy Britches

    Fancy Pants

    Panda Britches

    Moz Illa Than You

    Moz Def

    Linky Clicky

    Clicky Linky

    Spider Webby

    The Amazing Spider Webby

    Ultra Browser

    Supa Browsa

    Supa Browsa II: Supa Browsa Remix

    and finally,

    Internet Explorer II: Electric Bugaloo

    1. Re:The number one problem with Firefox? by LS · · Score: 4, Funny

      You forgot "Fire Bush"

      --
      There is a fine line between being a cultivated citizen and being someone else's crop. - A. J. Patrick Liszkie
  15. Quick Clarification by _defiant_ · · Score: 3, Interesting

    His problem seems to be with the development process of Firefox itself, not with stuff that happening in the main Mozilla trunk. For example, the following projects he doesn't have problems with: XTF, SVG, XForms, E4X, and xulrunner (lifted from the comments).

    What I gather this means is that Firefox 1.1 will get some cool new backend features but that its front end stuff will remain mostly the same (excepting the preferences dialog). Is this really a bad thing?

  16. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by asa · · Score: 3, Informative

    Firefox uses Mozilla (Gecko^H^H^H^H^HNGT) layout engine and network code, so FireFox is mostly a stripped down version of the Mozilla suite.

    Actually, you're wrong. Firefox isn't any kind of version of anything else. It is an application built on top of the Gecko core technologies, designed from the ground up to be a faster, cleaner, and more capable web browser for the largest possible audience.

    Mozilla 1.x is a completely different application built on top of the Gecko core technologies which was designed by a half a dozen different committees to emulate a seven year old monolithic suite of internet applications for a shrinking audience

    --Asa

  17. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by roman_mir · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Yes, technically they are a new code base on top of NGT, but honestly speaking it is a stripped down version of Mozilla, it runs on the same core. It is just that Mozilla is more than a stand-alone browser.

    --
    You can't handle the truth.
  18. Reading code... by Tuck · · Score: 4, Insightful
    ... can be harder than writing it. When you're writing code or fixing a non-trivial bug, your understanding is built up as you work on it. When reviewing someone else's patch, you're starting cold and it can take a significant effort to comprehend it enough to even attempt to review it.

    Brian Kernighan is widely quoted as saying: "Debugging is twice as hard as writing code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."

    When you're debugging, it involves rereading code you're already familiar with, so I suggest a corollary: reviewing someone else's code can be harder than writing it in the first place too.

    That said, don't let it stop you from trying! Pick a patch from your favourite project and review it. Try to understand it. Look for places where it could be wrong.

    Reviewing is a related but distinct skill from developing, and it can be improved with practice. A good reviewer is worth their weight in gold but it's often a thankless task (so let me take this chance to say a big thank you to markus and djm for putting up with my diffs :-).

    --
    $ find /pub -beer "James Squire Amber Ale" -drink
  19. Case in point: vcards by mccalli · · Score: 4, Insightful
    OK, so it's Thunderbird not Firefox. But I since I was an OS X user on a laptop and Windows user on a desktop, and since I could find no way to synchronise my address book, I decided I'd do the coding and write the vCard import module for Thunderbird which many people have been crying out for.

    I downloaded the code, posted up onto the relevant bugzilla entry, and waited for a response.

    And waited.

    And waited.

    Still no response.

    Seven months later, the bug flickers into life again and people start asking why this isn't here. Again, I post up reminding people that I offered to write the code, and still would. Again, utter silence. Tumbleweed drifts across the face of the bugzilla page...

    Have a look, entry 79709 if you're interested (Mozilla's bugzilla set-up disallows direct linking from Slashdot). My main motivation for writing this has now gone, as I bought an OS X-based desktop too and can synchronise contacts fine now. I might still have a crack at it just for interest's sake though, but I wouldn't count on getting any contact from Mozilla people.

    Cheers,
    Ian

    1. Re:Case in point: vcards by mccalli · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Ummm....so why didn't you write it?

      Duplication. Check the bug report I mentioned - it seems to me as if vCard handling is actually pretty much there in Thunderbird but simply has no UI, so I wanted to re-use the existing code rather than create my own vCard library which would be out of sync with the rest of the code and probably would be rejected as duplicated work anyway.

      Cheers,
      Ian

    2. Re:Case in point: vcards by Osty · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Duplication. Check the bug report I mentioned - it seems to me as if vCard handling is actually pretty much there in Thunderbird but simply has no UI, so I wanted to re-use the existing code rather than create my own vCard library which would be out of sync with the rest of the code and probably would be rejected as duplicated work anyway.

      Yeah, and? The point of the question was, "Why didn't you go ahead and do what you wanted to do, rather than file a bug and wait for permission?" In cases like this (and in many things in life), it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. If you are willing to write the code it takes to do what you want, there's a much higher chance of your bug getting noticed if it's accompanied by a patch. The patch doesn't have to be perfect code. It could be as simple as a proof of concept (though if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right). But a bug saying, "Hey, Project X needs feature Y. I'm willing to write the code. What say you?" is easily ignorable, while a bug saying, "Hey, Project X needs feature Y. Here's a patch with an implementation. Please give me feedback, and if you feel the feature is appropriate for Project X, check it into the tree," is hard to ignore. You've suggested a feature and provided an implementation all at once. The implementation may need tweaking, but the work is pretty much done, making it an easy feature request to approve.

      From the bug, it seems that you got stuck on a few points and need some clarification. That's fine, but I wonder if asking that type of question within a bug is the right place to do it? Doesn't Mozilla have an IRC channel for development questions, or mailing lists for the various components? In short, that you didn't try to find the information you need elsewhere (assuming you didn't, from your posts here and in the bug) makes one question whether your commmitment to code the feature was genuine.

    3. Re:Case in point: vcards by mccalli · · Score: 3, Interesting
      Yeah, and? The point of the question was, "Why didn't you go ahead and do what you wanted to do, rather than file a bug and wait for permission?".

      Fundamentally misunderstood. I'm not asking for permission, I'm trying to do the work within the existing framework. Saves everyone time, guarantees consistency in vCard import.

      As for the remainder, yes - the defect tracking system is absolutely the correct place to keep discussions about the defect. IRC? Who logs that, and what if I'm hit by a bus and someone wants to finish what I'd stared? Nope, that's the entire point of bugzilla and similar systems - to keep information most local to where it's needed. A fine programming principle...

      In short, that you didn't try to find the information you need elsewhere (assuming you didn't, from your posts here and in the bug) makes one question whether your commmitment to code the feature was genuine.

      Well, I wasn't about to buy it an engagement ring that's for sure. How 'genuine' would be enough for you? A tattoo on my forearm? A declaration of undying commitment before a gathering of my peers? A nice romantic dinner, just me and the bug?

      Or perhaps I should stick to talking about code enhancements in the enhancement/defect tracking system.

      Enjoy the remainder of your aggression. Remember the point of this Slashdot thread? About how Mozilla was failing to build a community...?

      Cheers,
      Ian

    4. Re:Case in point: vcards by Osty · · Score: 5, Insightful

      As for the remainder, yes - the defect tracking system is absolutely the correct place to keep discussions about the defect. IRC? Who logs that, and what if I'm hit by a bus and someone wants to finish what I'd stared? Nope, that's the entire point of bugzilla and similar systems - to keep information most local to where it's needed. A fine programming principle...

      As I read the comments in the bug, you were looking for technical information (ie, "do I have to create a stream, or is it provided to me by the dialog?" (not a direct quote)), not design. The design should be kept close to the problem, and definitely in the bug. The technical implementation details, and especially minor questions about how you do this or that, don't need to be logged in the bug. Again, as I read it, what you really needed was a comprehensive architecture document of Thunderbird, or failing that at least someone familiar with similar code that could point you in the right direction. That's a task for IRC channels (because the discussion is ephemeral, and doesn't need to be logged for anything but your development purposes) or mailing lists.

      Well, I wasn't about to buy it an engagement ring that's for sure. How 'genuine' would be enough for you? A tattoo on my forearm? A declaration of undying commitment before a gathering of my peers? A nice romantic dinner, just me and the bug?

      Consider it from the approver's point of view. You offered to help, ran into a technical snag, asked a question in an inappropriate forum, and disappeared for 7 months. I get that it's open source, and work is done by individuals in their spare time, but that doesn't sound to me like you were really committed to fixing the bug. If you were, you would've tracked down the information you needed (it wasn't a design question requiring a committee vote), and continued with the work. That's how I define "genuine".

      Enjoy the remainder of your aggression. Remember the point of this Slashdot thread? About how Mozilla was failing to build a community...?

      That wasn't aggression, and I'm not affiliated with Firefox in any way (in fact, aside from having it installed but never using it, I have no association with the project at all). To turn it around on you, perhaps Mozilla is failing to build a community because people don't follow through on commitments? Of course, it's more likely that they're failing to build a community because they've failed to build a community. (no, really -- the fact that your technical question went unanswered can be seen as a sign of a lack of community, and short of some group of people stepping up and actively trying to build that community, the community will continue to not grow ...)

  20. Solution by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Switch to IE...

    Bill Gates says "i told ya so"

  21. ok by SweetAndSourJesus · · Score: 5, Informative

    Architecture documentation

    How to write Firefox extensions

    --

    --
    the strongest word is still the word "free"
  22. GPL It? by MBoffin · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The source code is out there. If development completely stalls on this project, maybe they should just GPL the thing and let some other group of developers take over. I'm sure there are holes in this suggestion, but it seems a sensible thing to if things really grind to a halt.

  23. this is what happens when v hype anything too much by krayfx · · Score: 4, Insightful

    why are we obsessed with firefox being too perfect! c'mon this is a community based product and even though they strive for perfection and do quite a good job at it. they are humans and bound to be prone to problems. and we arent paying them. its our fault that we raise them to some levels and then expect them to be there just because we praise them and raise them to exhalted levels and get a free download of our favourite browser!

  24. Coders != Maintainers by jd · · Score: 4, Interesting
    There are a few tens of thousands of Linux kernel coders, but there are only about five or six people you can actually say are "maintainers", who filter the code and turn the chaos into order.


    One maintainer for Firefox would be fine, if it were a little more modular. The problem is the same one Linus had, fairly early on. People don't scale as easily as lines of code. Basically, the Firefox code needs to be ripped into managable parcels, such that the maintenance that is done can concentrate on one parcel, rather than ALL interactions in ALL parts of the code.


    Monolithic code is problematic, because for N lines of code, there are potentially !N interactions that can occur. !N gets big, very very quickly. When you use procedures wisely, then N is the number of procedures, rather than the number of lines, but it is still a VERY big number, far too big for ANY finite number of maintainers to handle sensibly.

    --
    It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
  25. They often act out their anger. by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 5, Informative


    I've posted bugs to Firefox Bugzilla. All I know about the Firefox "community" comes from that.

    One of the bug posts, about a serious memory leak that causes a complete crash, was handled in an angry way, even though I had spent hours documenting it on two computers and two operating systems.

    This is an extremely common phenomenon among Open Source authors. They often use their position as a way of acting out their anger. I was criticized because I use Firefox in a more intense way than other users! When I posted a carefully written response to the criticism, I got criticism for posting a long response.

    I offered to re-write the manual for another Open Source project, and got a negative response that was encouraging and discouraging at the same time.

    On another project, I entered a minor bug. The program was crashing if it saw a DOS end-of-text-file character in its text file input. I got back a long, philosophical discussion about why they were not willing to fix the bug because it was a problem that came from DOS.

    One person with an anger problem can literally control the development of an Open Source project by scaring away potential helpers.

    In my experience, the anger is often not expressed in a way that is obviously angry. It comes as opposition, sometimes very subtle opposition, even to good ideas or to useful help. The opposition vastly increases the amount of time required to contribute to a project.

    The serious Firefox crash I reported in October 2003 was still there in February 2005 in version 1.0, even though it was verified by others in a careful way.

    The background for all this is that Firefox is apparently the best browser, and an important window to the world for millions of people.

    This is an important subject, and there is a lot more to say, but I don't have time now.

    1. Re:They often act out their anger. by oo_waratah · · Score: 4, Insightful

      This is a real concern. The whole process of programming 'should' be egoless. The person who writes and maintains the code often feels to much ownership and instead of taking the the change in good grace and thankfulness they often approach the whole thing defensively. "The code was never intended to do that".

      This is NOT a problem with Open Source development but with programmers as a whole, myself included but I try and suppress it. You have to 'give up' code that you have too much ownership in.

    2. Re:They often act out their anger. by bonch · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The reason you see it in OSS more often than, say, the commercial world, is that people who piss off clients usually get fired. That sort of accountability to the consumer--mostly because consumers eventually affect the bottom-line--doesn't exist in the OSS world. We have to rely on trust and goodwill, and often people don't feel the need to follow any social rules because they're not being employed by anyone.

      Like any development model, OSS has its good points and its bad points, and that is certainly a bad one.

    3. Re:They often act out their anger. by nberardi · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I think you are partly right and partly wrong. With Open Source all that you get is the recognition of your project in most cases. If one person draws all the attention away from the group then you can feel left out and angry. How many people here can name any of the people on the FireFox team that haven't been in Wired Magazine. No cheating...

      There are probably not many and personally I think this is what drives some of the negativity.

      A couple times I have posted a bug to the FireFox Bugzilla, both times they have been duplicates. Both times I have been critisized by the person managing the bug to look before submitting. Both times the title of the bug has been totally different than anything I would have thought of.

      Most of the problems come from the lack of dealing with other people. Many of these developers shouldn't be doing the customer interaction. That is why even in small companies 1st level tech support is not the developer who created/developed the project.

    4. Re:They often act out their anger. by dattaway · · Score: 3, Insightful

      When I posted a carefully written response to the criticism, I got criticism...

      This happens in every profession at every employer from anyone who has to do work. Its human nature to take the gravy from the plate and give others the left over bones. Of course, this doesn't help when there are no other people to enjoy the left over scraps so they get discarded.

      Next time you have a problem, bring lots of gravy. The dogs might attack the problem next time without going after YOU!

      More proof that the difference between us and other animals in the kingdom is that we have opposable thumbs. The advantage is we get to meet a lot of monkeys. And an infinite number of them are proficient at typing on a typewriter typing the Complete Works of William Shakespeare while ignoring your very simple question.

    5. Re:They often act out their anger. by Xunker · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I feel your pain, but I disagree with that it's acting out anger -- instead, from my experiences I feel that it's not anger but a lack of ability or experience with dealing with someone who says, either directly or indirectly, that something you made is "wrong".

      One thing the FOSS paradigm has done is made it possible that people with no experience in the social aspects of software development to write code that is potentially used by millions of people. It can open up a "cowboy culture" where everyone is at odds with everyone else and where, if I may borrow a line from a certain movie, "we're all our own countries with temporary allies and enemies".

      I say this with the benefit of hindsight, to be sure: I was a once a pimply, antisocial code-contributor and inlooking back on my own exchanges I see that I was as bad as it gets: if someone found a bug in what I did, instead of fixing it I would spend all my energy in combating the person who reported it because surely this person was out to get me. It wasn't until a few years later when I got a "professional" job that my boss pulled me asside one day and gave me a half-hour verbal bitch-slap that I realized that a bug report is usually someone who _wants_to_help_me_. Basically, I was too arrogant to see that, and now that I'm "old and wise" I see that same thing on others.

      Of course, I'm not saying you should let them off the hook because thay don't know any better.. in fact, I'd hazard the sentement that more bitch-slapping needs to be done in the open-source world!

      I don't know were I'm going with this, but that's my two cents.

      --
      Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
  26. The Firefox people are great compared to Microsoft by Futurepower(R) · · Score: 4, Insightful


    An additional remark:

    The problems with reporting bugs in Firefox are trivial compared to reporting bugs to Microsoft, in my experience.

    A top-level Microsoft support technician got interested in a very well-documented bug in Windows XP that I reported. He decided, partly as an experiment to teach himself about Microsoft, to work with several Microsoft groups. Result: An entire waste of time of many, many hours, over a period of months.

    I've been reporting several bugs in Windows XP for literally years, and they haven't been fixed. If you work with both Linux and Windows XP, do you notice that Linux has a powerful, bug-free Command Line Interface, and the CLI in Windows XP is weak and buggy? (Yes, I know they are working on replacing it.)

  27. Firefox's Exclusive Developer Policy. by Aaron+England · · Score: 5, Insightful
    Perhaps it has something to do with their stated developer policy?

    Q5: How do I get involved?

    By invitation. This is a meritocracy - those who gain the respect of those in the group will be invited to join the group.

    It was elaborated on slashdot once before.

  28. extensions? by dhbiker · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Sounds to me like there is a community of hackers waiting in the wings (just have a look at the large numbers of extensions available for firefox) - its just that they haven't allowed any of them to get past the first steps and into more involved hacking

    my $0.02

  29. Typical? by m00nun1t · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From my observations of lots of open source projects, and involvement in a few, this seems fairly typical. With only a few exceptions, it seems like most projects have the bulk of the work done by a very, very small number of people, usually just one. I often wonder how much the "many eyes makes all bugs shallow" maxim, while probably true, applies in practice when on most projects there simply aren't many eyes.

    [dons flame retardant suit]

    --
    Read reviews of shopping cart software
  30. Re:Agreed by dhbiker · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well I for one think that it's awesome that Mozilla develop for the Windows platform, I have one Windows PC at work, an HP-UX and at home I use Linux. I HAVE to use Windows at work because we must support our software on Windows, Solaris and HP-UX so I think its great that I can use the same tools on all three.

    FWIW this will type of thing will gradually wear Microsoft down - I no longer need to pay for MS Office, Open Office is more than good enough (and getting better all the time), eventually the only bit of MS software I'll be running on a windows box will be the OS itself.

    Microsoft will shrink or they will have to adapt and start writing more quality software for less cost to the consumer - I fail to see how this is a bad thing unless you hate Microsoft for the sake of it? (I dislike them very much, not for the sake of it but because of their hideous business practices)

  31. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by Elranzer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    What features does IE have over Firefox?

    RSS? PNG support? Popup blocker without a service pack? Proper CSS support? Integrated Sherlock? Tabbed browsing?

    Oh wait, those are all features Firefox has that IE doesn't. About the only thing IE has that Firefox doesn't is ActiveX support, and the only good thing that has come from that is keeping me in business (people pay me to clean their computers of spyware/malware).

  32. misconceptions by TuxPaper · · Score: 5, Insightful

    - Reviewers != Coders. There are more Firefox coders than reviewers. A bottleneck is created, but hardly a crisis

    - Most of Firefox's changes come from Gecko, which is done by Mozilla coders (I guess you could call them Gecko coders, although I've never heard anyone say that). There are currently about 70 reviewers, and 20 super-reviewers for mozilla. There's about 84 coders a month (down from the 150+ haydays of the Netscape area)

  33. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by binford2k · · Score: 5, Funny

    You realize that you are arguing with a firefox developer about how firefox is built, do you not?

  34. Re:Agreed by Mant · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Maybe they aren't doing the project "for free and open source software" but for users who want a decent browser on any platform? Mozilla aren't fighting any war for the desktop, because they make browsers, not desktops.

    That seems to be their goal, so quite obviously windows is included, and the Mac. I notice you don't comment on the Mac, but that is also a closed source OS, even if it has Darwin underneath.

    Your right that offering FireFox for Windows isn't going to get people to move off Windows. I've seen some people make the argument, but never seen it as being listed as a goal of the Moz and FF people. You can't call it failure if it wasn't their goal.

    In fact, you seem to be against cross platform development altogether. It is hardly the only OSS software to do this (Open Office anyone?), and it is usually touted

    Open source isn't some huge, unified movement dedicated to destroying Microsoft (although some individuals are). There isn't a "true open source" community, maybe you mean the free software community, which is based on the ideals of free software, rather than the more pragmatic open source community? (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Even then I'd think the point of open source is freedom, and that includes the freedom to delevop in MS Windows. The GPL and other licenses don't say you can't develop on a closed source OS.

    Like freedom of speech lets people say things you don't like, including ideas that are against freedom of speech. Freedom to code lets you code for closed source systems, even if the people that came up with the idea don't like what you are coding for.

    It isn't any half way measure, they are doing exactly what they want to do (and other major OSS projects do), and they are doing very well. It just isn't what you want, but you are free to go make a *nix only fork if you think it will get more support by loosing all the Windows people.

  35. The four AWOL people by fr0dicus · · Score: 3, Funny

    I bet they just bought Macs and got on with real life.

  36. Community Involvement??? by 3seas · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Ok, what about the ad campaign funding???

    Oh, you mean about software improvements?

    Here's a serious one:

    when downloading and the isp drops your dialup connection, firefox still thinks it is DL'ing, even hours later.

    On a 90meg file (over 9 hours of dl'ing with earthlinks advertised 56k, 28.8 at the very best) gettng a dropped carrier at 60% reall sucks, having no resume, especially considering there is existing wget -c that simply should be called to handle such large files.

    But here is the kicker:
    after resuming the DL via wget -c and getting it, I then needed to dl an unrar program, upon which I found firefox still acting like it was dl'ing teh file, so I canceled it and guess what? The 90meg file vanished.

    Icing on this issue:
    firefox was dling a file with .part appened, yet deleted a file w/o it.

    IS this what is ment by community support?

  37. Surprising? by Pan+T.+Hose · · Score: 5, Informative

    January 2005: "A Firefox developer talks about the project's controversial invitation-only developer recruitment policy and explains why Firefox will never grow up."

    March 2005: "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think were in trouble."

    --
    Sincerely,
    Pan Tarhei Hosé, PhD.
    "Homo sum et cogito ergo odi profanum vulgus et libido."
  38. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by Scarblac · · Score: 4, Funny

    Reminds one of this anecdote.

    --
    I believe posters are recognized by their sig. So I made one.
  39. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by geminidomino · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Konkqueror == Nothing for those of us that do not use KDE.

  40. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by Big+Nothing · · Score: 3, Insightful

    "What features does IE have over Firefox?"

    It comes pre-installed on every Windows box. Don't underestimate availability.

    --
    SIG: TAKE OFF EVERY 'CAPTAIN'!!
  41. I tried by Anonymous+Cowdog · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I tried and failed to become a Firefox developer. You have to know several people who are already on the inside, so they can vouch for you. It's an exclusive club by design, not encouraging for newcomers.

  42. Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface by ArgoTheWonderSquirre · · Score: 5, Funny
    Gentlemen, I am the developer of Firefox. I wrote it using parts of Office 2000 and itunes basing it entirely on the Ski Free core.

    Respectfully, Albert Gore