Mozilla Foundation in More Development Trouble

sebFlyte writes "After the reports of problems with Firefox' development earlier this week there are now rumblings about more serious problems with the Mozilla Suite. Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for, and others want to create a Firefox Foundation to deal with the success of the standalone browser."

Comments

pointless?

[dhbiker]

wouldn't it be foolish to create a firefox foundation when so much of the firefox code comes from the mozilla suite (and vice versa to some extent)?

Re:pointless?

[Liskl]

i'd say it'd be foolish just for that fact alone, but stating that both firefox & mozilla both got their core from the gecko browsing engine, this point really stands mute --- http://spinhex.sytes.net/

Re:pointless?

[LurkerXXX]

Since when has that stopped the open source community from forking code? It happens all the time. Most of the time it IS foolish and useless. Occasionally some good comes from the split. Like evolution, it's all a crapshoot.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

MOOT!

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

More to the point, the Mozilla foundation is dealing with a whole bunch of products from the original Mozilla suite (Thunderbird, Firefox, Sunbird, and others). What would be the point of pulling Firefox away from that?

It seems like the Mozilla Foundation made a decision that they preferred the Firefox development model. Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird are set to be the *new* Mozilla suite, and the old one is in maintenance mode. It seems like this is comparable to people complaining that Microsoft isn't putting enough development into Windows 3.1.... Well, yeah, it's the old product that they've discontinued.

Now, it's all open source, so if someone wants to work on it, go ahead. But why people are trying to convince the Mozilla foundation to offload their new, exciting, successful, popular line-up of software and head back to what's become a bit of a dead-end, I don't know.

Re:pointless?

[Ubergrendle]

Proving once again that the Open Source community continues to be its own worst enemy. There's alot of pig-headed "If you don't play by ~my~ rules I'm taking my toys and going home!" attitude. I suspect its an artifact of the enterprenurial spirit that leads people to contribute to open source in the first place. And because the code is open, anyone can do this. Its the nature of the environment.

Unfortunately, a serious break with Mozilla at this point will INSTANTLY cripple Firefox adoption across enterprise organisations. Now not only do you have to pick a browser (or browser suite) to standardize upon, now you have to pick the flavour of that suite. IT managers (or CIOs) have to bet twice -- once that Firefox will continue to be an optimum choice down the road, and a second time that you chose the right 'branch'.

Microsoft, IBM, Google win their audience over by representing consistency. Here's a quick example: think of McDonalds -- poor quality food, but consistent in quality. People 99% of the time will go with what they know, rather than gamble on the family-run restaurant across the street, even though the family-run restaurant might represent a great hidden and unknown deal.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

We all knew what he meant you pedantic twat.

One ot the beauties of English is the ease with which one can infer the correct meaning from context.

Re:pointless?

[owlstead]

For evolution to work, you need enough specimen (and a sufficient environment). If all specimen are bad, the entire species dies out. In other words, you need enough splits, and enough good developers for each split. And there must be a sufficient userbase to test out these splits. I wonder if this is the case with firefox.

Re:pointless?

[LurkerXXX]

Frankly, it's doubtful. I think the split is a bad idea.

If anything, I wish someone would start fresh, because although it is 'lighter' than Netscape, it's still a friggin pig on my system when I look at the amount of memory it uses. I dont' know if it is the gecko engine or what, but something is a RAM hog and I'd like to see a fresh start from a clean slate rather than just a fork from the current codebase.

Unfortunately, you and I don't get to vote on it. Only the people donating their time to program it get to vote and do whatever they want. Most likely a split will end up as a waste of effort, like most forks, but maybe not.

If both forks end up dying, there's always Opera, IE, or Safari.

Re:pointless?

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Solely that triemos conformitate gonorrheal standards so zero incorrect as long as a tempting maid approximates claritin.

Re:pointless?

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Only insofar as we are all making the attempt to reach the general standards set forth by previous usage. There's little understanding lost if the words approximate clearly defined patterns. However, you should be cautious in saying that because we usually can infer correct meaning from incorrect text, we can all then relax and speak freely, incorrectly.

Re:pointless?

[kkovach]

Amen.

If you can say anything about Microsoft, it's that they are consistent. ;-)

- Kevin

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

This "Firefox Foundation" stuff is flamebait, designed to attract a bunch of readers to the page. The Mozilla Foundation's flagship products are Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, and they appear to have zero interest in handing those off to another group -- with very good reason.

Re:pointless?

[aeproberts]

Firefox is Mozilla's most successful project. It would be a big mistake to seperate it from Mozillas organization. Mozilla gets a lot of exposure from firefox and firefox gets more support because of Mozilla.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't believe in Evolution, only Creation.

Where Linus is a god, and satan is known as "Bill"

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't mean the code base, coders, and other resources can't be shared.

Re:pointless?

[starwed]

Lets be clear on the actual discussions taking place here...

1. MoFo doesn't want to have to fully support two differant projects; they don't have the resources to do that. So it's proposed that there won't be a 1.8 final release, as that would take a lot of QA work and entail still more work later on to keep up with security patches.
2. Obviously some people don't like this. Oddly enough most of them are users of the suite.
3. Several developers have stated that mofo shouldn't continue suite releases, at least not in the same way. None of them have suggested spinning firefox off into a seperate foundation.
4. Slashdot has posted an inflammatory article about the issue; very few people commenting have bothered to go to the primary sources to see whats going on. (Surprise! :))

Re:pointless?

[starwed]

But why people are trying to convince the Mozilla foundation to offload their new, exciting, successful, popular line-up of software and head back to what's become a bit of a dead-end, I don't know.
Because the slashdot article distorts the actual situation? ^_^ If you read the linked article, it mentions that "one user commented" with the firefox foundation suggestion; and that suggestion was really to rename the mozilla foundation to reflect its primary product.
What is being suggested is to spin off the suite into a community driven project rather than one handled by the MoFo.

Re:pointless?

[MindStalker]

When did "Evolution" split, I'm confused. I know its a good groupware package and all, I must be behind in my history.

-1 Bad Pun

Re:pointless?

[XorNand]

Ummm.... Linux? There's more distros than I care to count. That certainly hasn't prevented large organizations from adopting one (or more) of those distros.

Re:pointless?

[MindStalker]

People 99% of the time will go with what they know, rather than gamble on the family-run restaurant across the street, even though the family-run restaurant might represent a great hidden and unknown deal.

Amen brother, I recently came to this realization when a great coffee house opened in my office complex, but workers still went to starbucks and never even tried the place. The owner even told me that if someone came in and told them I sent them shed give them a free drink. I've told several of my coworkers, none of them have taken up the offer. Morons :)

Re:pointless?

[CTho9305]

This is different from users complaining about the discontinuation of a product - in this case, a large portion of the Suite fans are its developers. Unlike Firefox, which has lots of users and not enough developers, Suite has many interested developers. It's some of these developers who are worried about losing the browser (and mail app) they love.

Re:pointless?

[pfunkmallone]

Are you sure about that? Adoption might be higher for ALL the distros if the distros would just standardize some tools. For example; It's difficult to train employees to how init.d works for Debian, when they're used to the RedHat mechanism of using ntsysv, chkconfig utilities. There are tons of examples like this too.

Overall, each distro does something better than the others...and it's the sysadmins goal (nah, RESPONSIBILITY) to pick the one that is the most appropriate. However, having all these differences CAN affect the the likelyhood of implementation of the "right" distro.

It's a good and bad thing...just make sure you realize both sides.

Personally, I would like to see the suite continue to be the stable monolithic (ie. business-class) application that it is. While, focusing Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird on slightly more cutting edge and home user style developing. I love seamonkey...but again, there are places where the Fox is more appropriate. I like the fact that with the current system, they both stay very similar...yet slightly different. Splintering either one off to another foundation will inadvertantly cause them to splinter too much IMHO.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Because the slashdot article distorts the actual situation? ^_^ If you read the linked article, it mentions that "one user commented" with the firefox foundation suggestion; and that suggestion was really to rename the mozilla foundation to reflect its primary product.

What is being suggested is to spin off the suite into a community driven project rather than one handled by the MoFo.

Actually, I did read the article. The user comment said, "You Firefox boys start a separate foundation -- 'The Firefox Foundation'." Now, a lot of this argument ends of being about technicalities, and not about whether people can continue to develop the old suite. I totally agree that if there's a community that wants to continue to develop Seamonkey, then they have every right to do so. If someone wants to take Mozilla in a totally new direction, they can do that too. That doesn't require some sort of a "spin off" by the MoFo, it just requires that the community pick up the source code and start working.

But I have heard people before comment (the user cited in the article isn't the only one) that Mozilla is somehow at fault for deciding to focus on a Firefox/Thunderbird/Sunbird suite instead of developing Seamonkey more. Sort of a "The MoFo is for the old suite. If you want a 'Firefox Foundation', go start one, but get Firefox out of the Mozilla Foundation!" attitude. Clearly these people favor the old suite, which is fair, but they [at least] seem to be in the minority of those who actually use Mozilla based software.

Also, the idea of naming it the "Firefox Foundation" is a little silly. It's not all Firefox, but it is focused on Mozilla-based products, which should eventually all tie together into a new Mozilla suite. "The Mozilla Foundation" is an appropriate name.

Re:pointless?

[EnronHaliburton2004]

I'll disagree.

In my experience, the large number of distros has most certainly prevented many shops from picking up Linux. From their perspective, the Linux world looks totally fragmented and unreliable. Redhat's main marketing pitch is "Hey look at us, we're the most common distro and we're stable!".

This is why many shops sill go with Solaris or Windows and don't even consider Linux-- with Solaris & Windows they have a better idea of what they are getting.

Re:pointless?

[Poltras]

If both forks end up dying, there's always Opera, IE, or Safari.

Wouldn't it destroy the goals of the project in itself?

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

This is different from users complaining about the discontinuation of a product - in this case, a large portion of the Suite fans are its developers.

I didn't say it was like "users" complaining that MS wasn't putting enough resources into Windows 3.1, I said it was like "people" complaining, and I'm gonna go out on a limb and say that developers are people. Anyway, I would assume that the developers are users, or else why would they complain? I mean, they're users of a sort. Or are you saying people who work on Mozilla, who don't use it at all for anything, are annoyed because they don't get to work on it anymore?

Now, I'm in no position of authority, but my personal suggestion to developers would be that, if you love Seamonkey but not Firefox, then move over to Firefox and work on it in order to fix what you believe to be its shortcomings. Sure, you can spin off the old suite and continue working on it, but I would hope you'd have a reason why besides merely "loving" it.

I don't know, maybe it's because I'm just a clueless user who likes Firefox better, but the whole thing seems a little strange. To me, it'd be comparable to developers being upset that all the development on the linux kernel is going into the 2.6 branch, and no one's paying enough attention to the 1.4 branch anymore. Because they "love" that branch. I mean, fine, if you want to spend your time back-porting improvements to old versions, go ahead. But it seems strange to me.

Re:pointless?

[LurkerXXX]

Yep. But it happens. Sometimes species die. The fossil record is full of examples. So is Sourceforge.

Re:pointless?

[CTho9305]

Sorry, I thought people != developers was implied.

Anyway, as I've mentioned in other comments, improving Firefox is not an option - for a couple of reasons. First, things I see as improvements the Firefox devs often don't. Suite developers have a more similar vision. Second, things Firefox devs may also see as improvements can't be done because they don't want to change things after 1.0 (now that users are used to them). If I wanted to fork Firefox to make my own "improved" version, I could, but it would have only one user (and take a lot of effort to maintain, if it diverged much). With Mozilla, other developers, and at least a few thousand other people use it.

Mozilla vs Firefox is not Linux 2.4 vs Linux 2.6, it's more like FreeBSD vs NetBSD or KDE vs GNOME. An even better analogy might be Sawfish vs Metacity (ignoring that these probably don't share much code).

Re:pointless?

[16K Ram Pack]

Same thing with an independent record shop in my town. I recall going to one of the majors, checking the price and then walking 50 yards up the road to check the independent. It was something like 25% cheaper.

The guy said that even if they dropped the price another quid (about $1.50), they still wouldn't get takers.

People trust all the crap about sales in big stores. Most of what they say is true, but it just persuades people they are likely to get a better deal from the major guy.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Mozilla vs Firefox is not Linux 2.4 vs Linux 2.6, it's more like FreeBSD vs NetBSD or KDE vs GNOME. An even better analogy might be Sawfish vs Metacity (ignoring that these probably don't share much code).

Again, maybe this is a function of me being a clueless user, but I don't see that. Take KDE and Gnome as an example... these are two *very* separate and competing projects being developed in parallel by different groups. Firefox, however, *is* the new Mozilla browser. Sure, it's very different, and has been through a massive re-write (which is why I originally compared it to Windows 3.1 vs. XP or really old Linux kernels), but it's been groomed during the past couple years *specifically* to replace the old Mozilla browser. I know, it started out as a different project, but Mozilla took it on and announced that the standalone apps would *replace* the Mozilla suite-- I don't remember when, but over a year ago. They continued to develop the old version while the stand alone apps were still in beta, but now Firefox and Thunderbird are both >1.0.

While it makes a lot of sense to me to continue to maintain old products for a while, in order to support users who haven't moved on yet, I'd still think that, eventually, people need to move on. I still don't see why we shouldn't view the stand-alone apps as the new, upgraded Mozilla suite, especially considering that was the MoFo's intention. If you want to branch the old version and make a competing browser, then that would be the new, competing/alternate product.

But I guess it's all in how you look at it.

Re:pointless?

[jschrod]

Maybe that's because you like Firefox and don't use Mozilla?

Firefox is mom-and-pop-software and it's good at that. To achieve that goal, several design decisions were taken -- among them to remove much of the Preferences dialog that is confusing to end users. For us power users, it's not confusing, it's nice.

In addition, the last time I look at Firefox (1.0 release) it did not had a password management facility that was as good as that of Mozilla. E.g., it wasn't able to remember proxy passwords. And it wasn't adaptable enough to use arbitrary mail clients; it wanted to use Evolution, or insisted on GNOME being installed, etc. (Neither of which is configured on my system.)

That observation made for a quick decision: While I install Firefox on my parent's Windows system; I'll continue to use Mozilla on my Linux system until Firefox has improved for power users.

Re:pointless?

[orasio]

No way.
God doesn't play dice.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Maybe that's because you like Firefox and don't use Mozilla?

Right. I do like Firefox, and so I use that rather than the Mozilla suite. I also prefer Windows XP to Windows 3.1, and I prefer OSX to System 8. I even prefer the most up-to-date version of OSX than 10.0. Generally, I do find that there are advantages to using up-to-date software. Now, it isn't always the case, but usually, when I upgrade to the newest version of whatever software I'm using, I find that the new version is improved in at least a few meaningful ways. Sometimes I've had to go through a PITA migration period, but it usually ends up being worth it (in my experience) to stay up-to-date.

A few bugs aside, I've found Firefox to be a worthwhile upgrade. I understand you disagree and, though I'm not trying to tell you that you can't disagree, I find your distinction between "end users" and "power users" to be problematic. Often, self-proclaimed "power users" end up using the term "end user" to be a euphemism for "stupid know-nothings", while these "power users" are, in fact, simply users who suffer from a strange form of OCD that requires them to tweak computers endlessly with little or no result.

Perhaps that's not what you meant, but even (or especially) smart people who use their computers for real tasks can understand the value of consolidating and reorganizing cluttered interfaces to provide easy access to commonly-used settings.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously some people don't like this. Oddly enough most of them are users of the suite.

Huh? Why would this be odd? If IE and Opera users didn't like this then yeah it that would be odd... But if Mozilla suite users don't like the idea that there might be no 1.8 release, I think that is not odd at all :P

Re:pointless?

[CTho9305]

The thing is, just because some group says "Firefox is the new Mozilla", it doesn't mean that Mozilla suddenly becomes a bad, inadequate, or obsolete product. As you note, they ARE very different applications, and this is the problem - the group that says "Firefox is the new Mozilla" doesn't appreciate that some of the Mozilla hackers and users don't *want* a new Mozilla.

Imagine you had a group of volunteers building a car like the Accord, and one year the "head honcho" says "next year's model will be a Civic". Many people love the Civic, and it becomes hugely popular. Is it so wrong for the Accord designers to still keep maintaining their Accord line if they have the necessary skills and resources?

What you have to understand is that this is not just a version increment - it's a new product which can live in parallel. The developers mentioned in the story mostly want to know whether the head honcho of the volunteer group will let them develope the same way they used to, or if they have to create their own group with its own things.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

The thing is, just because some group says "Firefox is the new Mozilla", it doesn't mean that Mozilla suddenly becomes a bad, inadequate, or obsolete product. As you note, they ARE very different applications, and this is the problem...

I really don't think that this isn't covered in comparing different versions of the Linux kernel or different versions of Windows. I mean, it might be a different situation in other ways, but like the Mozilla situation, just because Windows XP comes out and a lot of people like it better and Microsoft says, "This is the version of Windows we're supporting," that doesn't make Windows 3.1 any worse than it was. Just because there's a newer version of the Linux kernel doesn't make old versions not-work-as-well. However, the fact that there's a new version written with the intent of replacing the older version is meaningful in terms of whether it's "up-to-date". I wouldn't call Windows 3.1 up-to-date, and even though Windows 98 is still perfectly fine for many uses, I would say that any version of Windows before Win2k is out-of-date. Likewise, useful as it may be, Mozilla is showing its age.

...the group that says "Firefox is the new Mozilla" doesn't appreciate that some of the Mozilla hackers and users don't *want* a new Mozilla.

A lot of people don't like progress. Sometimes for good reason, but still...

Imagine you had a group of volunteers building a car like the Accord, and one year the "head honcho" says "next year's model will be a Civic". Many people love the Civic, and it becomes hugely popular. Is it so wrong for the Accord designers to still keep maintaining their Accord line if they have the necessary skills and resources?

No. I haven't been saying there's anything wrong with people who want to maintain a Mozilla branch based on the old suite. If you like, you can branch off of Mozilla 1.0. It's old software, but if you have the resources and the inclination, go for it and good luck. If Windows 3.1 was open source, and you wanted to go back and develop on it because you loved Window 3.1, and you had the resources to do it, again, I'd say fine. I also wouldn't see the point.

The developers mentioned in the story mostly want to know whether the head honcho of the volunteer group will let them develope the same way they used to, or if they have to create their own group with its own things.

I don't speak for the Mozilla Foundation, but their website has been saying for over a year that the old Mozilla suite won't be actively developed by them because they're focusing on stand alone apps. I haven't heard anything to the contrary since then. Seems like a hint to me.

Re:pointless?

[jschrod]

Just for the record: An end user is not a "stupid know-nothings". I'm the CEO of a consulting company, and I have to care every day for end users -- and they're very smart. UI design is actually part of my education; I did my Ph.D. thesis in the area of user-centered design.

With the term power user I classified users (a) whose main task in computer work and not different work and for whom small rises in efficiency pay out, much more than for people who don't use computers several hours a day; and (b) developers who are more of the abstraction-first and not the manipulate-first kind. (Read `Tog on Interfaces' for that distinction.) Mozilla is from developers for developers, just like Unix is - or was, once. And just as plain Unix (i.e., CLI interfaces) is not for the heart of everybody, Mozilla isn't. That's not bad, that's software for minorities; and that's fine.

As I wrote previously, I take exception with your viewpoint that Firefox is the f'up to Mozilla. It isn't; it's a complimentary development with a different target audience. What's so bad about that? Why do some Firefox supporters want to make Mozilla developers abandon their project? They should go on and find additional ones for their project part and both can live happily within MoFo.

Re:pointless?

[pyrrho]

evolution is still a crapshoot... that's what I found last I installed it... so I've never tried again.

they'll probably get it right eventually.

Re:pointless?

[mabinogi]

Firefox is not an improvement on Mozilla, it is _different_ to Mozilla, a difference that some people happen to prefer. Personally I believe that if the Mozilla suite had a catchy name like 'Firefox' and was marketed as heavily as Firefox was, it'd be just as popular with non technical ex IE users, but we'll never know whether that's true.

At one point the Mozilla Foundation thought they might abandon Mozilla, but then they found out that a lot of people don't _want_ to abandon it, and so they changed their minds and stated that Mozilla would continue to be actively developed for the forseable future.

a 10 second google search found this -

Some in the open-source community thought Mozilla would abandon the full suite, but foundation spokesman Bart Decrem said Mozilla remains committed to it. Mozilla is expected to publish this week an updated development roadmap that confirms plans for future development of the suite, he said.

There's only a couple of developers working on Firefox, but there's an entire community of developers working on Mozilla.

Mozilla and Firefox have mutually incompatible goals as far as interface and user experience go, so you can't just 'Fix Firefox' to include what the Mozilla developers are missing. And if you did manage to do that, you'd waste a year or more to recreate Mozilla when it already exists right now.

Re:pointless?

[ShagratTheTitleless]

Yeah.

God Plays Marbles. The Dinosaurs Know.

Incoming Beeaaatches!!!!

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

A split probably is bad in many ways but lets bear in mind there have been numerous complaints about how far apart the Mozilla and Firefox projects have gotten - extensions being one thing that fuels this... a greater distinction between the two IS probably required in some way...

Firefox actually uses about 5% greater resources than other browsers becuase it DOESNT use the same MOSIAC derrived core, IMHO its better if still quite young.

and just to add 2cents (of likely flame bait) IE is NOT a good browser - at the moment, Opera is pay to play or you get ads which bother myself and MANY others and isn't safari platform limited..?

Re:pointless?

[benb]

Unfortuantely, technicalities like control is what this is all about.

Who controls the core (Gecko, XUL etc.)? Is it the same company that ships Firefox? Will they make changes to the core that will break the suite, so that the maintainers of the suite will have to regression-fix behind them? That's where it's currently heading, and nobody wants to do it, because it's a thankless - because pointless - job, a lot of hassle and hair-tearing and time consuming.

Also, is www.mozilla.org, the former home of the suite, allowed to market Firefox as the successor, pushing the Suite to be a sidenote? Then it's not wonder when everybody's switching.

What about trademarks? Is the "Mozilla Foundation" allowed to forbit Debian and long-time Mozilla developers to use the Mozilla trademark for modified builds of Mozilla?

All of that is currently happening.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Firefox is not an improvement on Mozilla, it is _different_ to Mozilla, a difference that some people happen to prefer.

"Windows 95 is not an improvement on Windows 3.1, it's _different_ than Windows 3.1, a difference some people happen to prefer."

-or-

"OSX is not an improvement on System 9, it's _different_ than than System 9, a difference some people happen to prefer."

So what's the difference?

And yes, there were lots of people who stuck with Windows 3.1, and lots of Mac users to this day who won't upgrade to OSX, yet they were both upgrades intended to replace the old system. Upgrades that had many differences from the software they were intended to replace, but upgrades none the less.

Personally I believe that if the Mozilla suite had a catchy name like 'Firefox' and was marketed as heavily as Firefox was, it'd be just as popular with non technical ex IE users, but we'll never know whether that's true.

Funny, because when Firefox originally started pulling users away from Mozilla, it wasn't called Firefox, and a lot of people claimed that "Mozilla" was a catchy name (don't ask me why). And it didn't start with a cult following. It didn't start out being heavily marketed. In fact, all this hype happened pretty much after Firefox had stolen a large portion of the Mozilla suite's user base. Seems pretty clear to me that Firefox has caught on because it's offering *something* that users like that isn't available from the Mozilla suite.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

First, I do understand what the term "power user" is intended to mean. However, I would maintain that many self-proclaimed "power users" are people with computer-related-OCD. You know, people who claim that they can't use OSX because they're a "power user", and OSX doesn't allow them to skin their interface easily enough, and the white color (as opposed to an off-white color) of the interface would cause a 90 second/day drop in their efficiency that just isn't allowable. However, they're spending their time posting these complaints [and Natalie Portman jokes] on slashdot. Oops, there goes that efficiency!

I know that's not the case with every "power user", but I've seen it often enough.

As I wrote previously, I take exception with your viewpoint that Firefox is the f'up to Mozilla. It isn't; it's a complimentary development with a different target audience.

It's not a follow-up to the entire Mozilla project, but it is intended to be the replacement for the old Mozilla browser. Insofar as the Mozilla Foundation is in charge of the Mozilla browser, that just seems to be fact. It's their stated position.

Why do some Firefox supporters want to make Mozilla developers abandon their project?

I don't think it's so much that Firefox user want Mozilla developers to "abandon their project". I think there are actually a couple of [connected] things going on at the same time.

First, the whole thing seems like the same-old anti-progress some-guy digging his heels in because he's used to something and he doesn't like the position some project has taken. People have gotten angry when they had to move from Windows 3.1 to 95, Windows 98 to 2000, from OS8 to OSX, from Gnome 1.4 to 2.0, from 2.6 to 2.8 (I think that was when the spacial Nautilus came in). Hell, there are still people who insist on running Netscape 4.0. Sometimes the resistance to change has good reason for it, but often enough, it's just somebody who's accustomed to doing things the old way, and wants to hold up progress for the rest of us rather than learning to adapt. So you're running into a perception, whether true or not, that you're just digging your heels in for no real reason.

Second, as much as you're annoyed at Firefox pulling development resources away from the old suite, Firefox users want to see their software developed too. They want the project that they benefit from to get as much in the way of resources as possible. On the other hand, you want resources to be spent on a project that doesn't address these users' needs. You want to support a product that, in the view of many, is old and growing-quickly-out-of-date.

Further, a lot of people will rebel against something specifically because it's popular. Using it doesn't live up to the 733t uber-geek image, so these people want to trash it. I think part of what might be going on is that there's fear that, merely because Firefox is successful, there's an uber-geek contingent that wants it gone. You know, the idea that N00bs running linux threatens my ego by suggesting that I might not be so 733t just because I made it through a Fedora install.

Now I'm really not trying to flame you here. You asked why Firefox users are saying certain things, and I'm telling you my best guess, sort of based on my opinion, but largely based on what I've heard others say.

The perception of many Firefox users, I think, is that you are doing the equivalent of advocating taking some of the resources from developing the 1.7 Mozilla branch in order to develop a new branch off of Netscape 4.0, and the stated reason is because you "love" Netscape 4.0, and think all changes since then were a mistake. Additionally, you're not claiming any intention to address the issues that people had with version 4.0, because, as I've said, you "love" Netscape 4.0, and feel it makes you more productive as it is. This only raises the question, if Netscape 4.0 is so perfect for you, then why does it need so much development anyhow? Why not just pou

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Unfortuantely, technicalities like control is what this is all about.

I agree.

Who controls the core (Gecko, XUL etc.)? Is it the same company that ships Firefox?

So it seems, insofar as anyone can control open-source software.

Will they make changes to the core that will break the suite, so that the maintainers of the suite will have to regression-fix behind them?

It does seem it will come to this. I get the sense that if there are developers who like the Mozilla suite and want to continue developing it, they'll have to branch and develop it independently. At least that's the way it's looking, unless the Mozilla Foundation decides to change their minds.

Also, is www.mozilla.org, the former home of the suite, allowed to market Firefox as the successor, pushing the Suite to be a sidenote?

Well, Mozilla.org is currently the website of the Mozilla Foundation's Mozilla-based software. Seems to me that whoever's running the Mozilla foundation can do what they please with it, and remove the old suite altogether if they please. Luckily, since it's open source, that doesn't have to be the end of things.

Then it's not wonder when everybody's switching.

In fairness, that's not why people are switching. Mozilla is pushing Firefox because Firefox picked up a user base very quickly and it's very popular-- not the other way around.

What about trademarks? Is the "Mozilla Foundation" allowed to forbit Debian and long-time Mozilla developers to use the Mozilla trademark for modified builds of Mozilla?

Yeah, I think if someone branches the old suite and wants to distribute it independently, the Mozilla Foundation has the right to withhold permission to use the trademark. They own it. However, if the new-old suite is really so good as to win users, I'm sure its new snazzy name will catch on.

Re:pointless?

[mabinogi]

No, that's not true at all.

Phoenix when it was originally developed was intended as an alternative not an upgrade to Mozilla, an alternative to an all in one browser / mail suite.
If it was an upgrade to anything, it was an upgrade to the Netscape 4.0.x standalone browser (not to be confused with the 4.5 communicator suite), or the browser only component of Mozilla.

Windows 95 and OS X were intended as upgrades, and intended to do everything that their predecessors did, as well as adding needed improvements.

Phoenix / Firebird / Firefox was never intended to do everything that Mozilla could do, so it would never suit the needs of someone that wanted a suite of integrated internet applications.

And the only users Firefox during the Phoenix or Firebird times started pulling away from Mozilla were those that _already knew_ about Mozilla, but for whatever reason decided they wanted only a lightweight browser.
There was no significant migration from IE to Phoenix or Firebird, because at that time the application was not mature enough, so those suggesting alternative browsers would suggest Mozilla, which was stable by that point.

I'm not disputing that Firefox offers something that Mozilla doesn't provide, but you seem to be saying that there's no reason why Firefox can't be made to provide everything Mozilla does, which is silly, because if that were to happen, we'd go through the whole cycle again.

Let Firefox be Firefox, and let Mozilla be Mozilla, they are two independant code bases with different developers that have different goals, and there's no reason why both cannot co-exist.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Good point, verbosely made.

Re:pointless?

[nine-times]

Phoenix / Firebird / Firefox was never intended to do everything that Mozilla could do, so it would never suit the needs of someone that wanted a suite of integrated internet applications.

OSX started at NeXT, and was intended to be an alternative to the old MacOS. Then Apple bought NeXT, and they started developing the OS as OS X with the intention of replacing the old MacOS. Likewise, when Phoenix was created, it was an alternative. When the Mozilla Foundation took the project in, it was done as part of a plan to replace the old Mozilla Suite with a series of stand-alone applications. The development since then, as Firebird and now Firefox, was aimed at completing that plan, and the current roadmap still reflects that plan.

There was no significant migration from IE to Phoenix or Firebird, because at that time the application was not mature enough, so those suggesting alternative browsers would suggest Mozilla, which was stable by that point.

And yet there wasn't significant migration from IE to Mozilla at that point, either. Believe me, I tried suggesting Mozilla as an alternative browser, and users didn't like it. I explained it prevented popus, I showed them tabbed browsing, and users didn't care. They still didn't like it. Yet somehow, every time I install Firefox, even for people who've never heard of it and seem to think Firefox is a stupid name-- almost every time, I end up getting thanks.

Let Firefox be Firefox, and let Mozilla be Mozilla, they are two independant code bases with different developers that have different goals, and there's no reason why both cannot co-exist.

I see no reason to get rid of the Mozilla suite. Being open-source, I don't think there's much danger of it, so long as people like it and find it useful. However, the arguments going on here seem to be more about the question of whether a specific group, the Mozilla Foundation, is wise/fair/right/allowed to focus their efforts on Firefox rather than the old suite. For a wide variety of reasons, I'd say yes. As a Firefox user and as an open-source advocate, I hope developers will jump on-board.

Re:pointless?

[shellbeach]

Phoenix when it was originally developed was intended as an alternative not an upgrade to Mozilla, an alternative to an all in one browser / mail suite.

Yes, but then see the current mozilla roadmap (http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html): I'll quote from the first key point ...

"Focus development efforts on the new standalone applications: the browser currently code-named Firefox, the Mozilla Thunderbird mail/news application, and standalone composer and other apps based on the the new XUL toolkit used by Firefox and Thunderbird. We aim to make Firefox and Thunderbird our premier products, and encourage extension authors and other ISVs to target these applications for their work as well." [my emphasis]

Re:pointless?

[mabinogi]

There's a difference between making Firefox their premier product, and abandoning Mozilla.

However, having seen the latest slashdot headline, it seems abandonment is the route they've chosen to take afterall, which is a pity...

Re:pointless?

[starrsoft]

Obviously some people don't like this. Oddly enough most of them are users of the suite.

Huh? Why would this be odd? If IE and Opera users didn't like this then yeah it that would be odd... But if Mozilla suite users don't like the idea that there might be no 1.8 release, I think that is not odd at all :P

Humans haven't come up with this thing called sarcasm. Therefore what you just said is perfectly reasonable.

Re:pointless?

[SomePoorSchmuck]

Good point, verbosely made.

...and made verbosely for a reason, though the moderators seem to apply ratings to individual comments before understanding the context of the whole thread, so the companion to my comment [which isn't as effective on its own] has already been modded down to 0 as "offtopic".

Re:pointless?

[ahdeoz]

The problem is that Mozilla is dead. Firefox is still alive because there are a half a dozen core developers with a passion who wanted to build a UI with javascript and and tweak it. The Mozilla Foundation is just an administrative remnant living off of the remnant of money which must be getting pretty low. You could see the writing on the bottom of the barrel when the bottom feeders started their "rebranding" craze about a product that is really just a javascript UI.

Re:pointless?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha! I get it; Firefox = flamebait

Good one!

The wonders of open source

[Sparr0]

FOSS is great. They can do any or all of the above. I could fork my own version of Mozilla or Firefox right now if I felt that my development process was superior to that of the existing community. I dont see why there is such a big debate here. Do it, see how many developers flow to each side, work from there.

Re:The wonders of open source

[Anonymous Coward]

*sigh*
I'd love to live in such a simplistic world as you do. How many drugs does it take?

Re:The wonders of open source

[coolcold]

because the source code is already available for community to develope, there is no need to "make" a community for it. However if the current developer flow out, it would mean there are fewer developer working on the current version and very likely, time would be spent to re-invent the wheel. diverse is good but too diverse is bad since there aren't any standard. this kind of problem would appear when this and that started to split.

Re:The wonders of open source

[marsonist]

There are those who would take your comment a step further.

Some Cherry OS developers would say you can "fork" even if you thought your development process was inferior (ex: non-existant)

Re:The wonders of open source

[demachina]

FOSS is not great because it tends to suffer a surplus of prima donnas, all of whom would rather be the boss of their own project rather than cooperate on one project. And of course once they fork their own project they continue to be prima donnas and make life miserable for people who want to contribute to their project, causing those people to want to fork and start their own project to escape Prima Donna #1, and in the process have a high risk of becoming Prima Donna's #2 through 8.

FOSS is great when a project stagnates like XFree86 so X.org starts fresh and fixes a broken system.

FOSS is not great when you have massive duplication of effort, for example in putting out a Linux distribution mutation #106. It takes a lot of work to collect all the bits for a distribution, build them, get a critical mass of people to test them, and fix the bugs. When you fragment and duplicate this effort 106 times you are wasting vast amounts of man(woman) power that could better be spent moving forward instead of reinventing the same wheel over and over again.

FOSS is not great when it develops 10 GUI "standards", 8 audio "standards" and 104 window managers. Its great for tinkerers but it is living hell for people who just want to develop and deploy applications that solve problems and for users who just want their problems solved.

Anytime you develop the urge to be a prima donna or to fork, just look at Linus. He is, in my book, not worthy of the God status most bestow on him around here, but his one greatest attribute is he holds together a complex and often problematic development team and he has so far managed to avoid a serious fork that would potentially wreck future kernel development. He is great because he is not a prima donna.

Re:The wonders of open source

[Anonymous Coward]

FOSS is great. They can do any or all of the above. I could fork my own version of Mozilla or Firefox right now if I felt that my development process was superior to that of the existing community. I dont see why there is such a big debate here. Do it, see how many developers flow to each side, work from there.

In theory, that's a great idea. In reality, I don't think anybody will actually do this.
The project is big enough so that one person can't be a hero and save the entire thing. You still need a team, working together. For free. On a regular release schedule. In addition to their regular day jobs, family time, etc. And keeping the documentation up to date. And tracking and fixing bugs... and remember that in order for the Mozilla apps to be competive in end-user space (against IE, etc) there still HAS to be a central organization to manage all this. You're certainly not going to put another ad in New York Times telling users which CVS server and fork to pull their next copy of Firefox from!

Good luck with that.

Re:The wonders of open source

[CTho9305]

There are a couple issues here:
1. It isn't completely certain yet that the suite will be killed. Interested developers are making sure the Foundation knows they don't want it to die.
2. If the Foundation does decide to kill the suite, the developers DON'T want 50 forks, all different (at least, that's the impression I get). In order to avoid this, they're trying to figure out how to organize themselves, and who is available to do what sorts of work.

Right now, we're seeing Firefox fanboys flaming the developers who like Mozilla, and the Mozilla devs trying to figure out what's going to happen, and planning for the worst.

Re:The wonders of open source

[Anonymous Coward]

You are blind. It's a big debate becuase you then create a lack of consistency. People desire consistance and normality in everything. The uber geek may not care but presenting yourself to 1% of the computing population is suicidal at best. This is one of the reasons why FOSS will never catch on.

Re:The wonders of open source

[oliverthered]

reasons to fork.

#1 The current administrator of the project you are working on it severally hampering progress.

#2 There are major issues with the design of the current project, and no amount of politely asking or SHOUTING helps

#3 The current administration insists of shipping shite features to what otherwise is a good project, the whole thing needs stabilising and bring into the real world so that others will work on a project.

hopefully once you've sorted out the design issues the OPO's will take you design considerations into account, otherwise your left with a white elephant.

So, who wants to fork KDE then?

Re:The wonders of open source

[Anonymous Coward]

man(woman) power

What the hell? 'Manpower' is a word. Just like 'mantra', 'management', and 'many' are words. So is 'man', but the fact that all of these start with the letters m-a-n doesn't make them related.

If you're going to start letting etymology make you feel guilty that's your problem, but don't fool yourself that your more sensitive than the rest of the English-speaking world just because you make up words. (Or else go all out consistant and say "womanagement" too, I won't bother pointing out that it also contains the hated three letters anyway.)

no, just gecko!

[protomala]

I belive acctually that a gecko foundation would be better. I love the rendering engine of mozilla, but the xul is just... well I don't like it. That's why Firefox is a sucess, they minimized the interface/xul.

Re:no, just gecko!

[tehshen]

The Firefox interface is all XUL - not minimised at all, just with fewer features. It's what allows themes to change the interface, and extensions. If you want a XUL-less browser, try K-Meleon.

Mozilla has become a well-known name (through its history and through Firefox), while the Gecko engine is relatively unheard of. Similarly, people know Internet Explorer instead of Trident or Tasman, Opera instead of Presto, and so on.

Re:no, just gecko!

[Anonymous Coward]

actually, K-Meleon does support XUL, it simply doesn't use it for the interface.

Try entering this into the K-Meleon location-bar:

chrome://aggreg8/content/aggreg8.xul

Not using native widgets slows down responsiveness.

Re:no, just gecko!

[alyosha1]

I have to disagree with you here. I've been playing around with XUL for the last couple of months, and I'm finding it a very nice gui development toolkit. Having previously used: MFC, WTL, QT, Tcl/Tk, wxWidgets (and even Visual Basic), XUL is now my current toolkit of choice.
That said, I haven't pushed it very far yet, and I haven't tried doing anything with XPCOM, though I have used xml-rpc to talk to remote components.

Give it a try - I think that in XUL the open source community is sitting on a goldmine whose potential hasn't been fully realised.

Meh

[AKAImBatman]

Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for, and others want to create a Firefox Foundation to deal with the success of the standalone browser.

Or maybe... they could just leave it where it is? Is the Mozilla Foundation really all THAT bad? While I'm sure that everyone has reasons for their position, this smacks of a variation of "Not Invented Here Syndrome".

Re:Meh

[CTho9305]

It's not that the Mozilla Foundation is evil - there are a few issues here. First, they aren't saying much. Pretty much everything we hear is coming from only Asa Dotzler, not official statements by MoFo. Second, the Mozilla Foundation does have limited resources - the points people are making about two products being difficult are valid. Marketing is another big issue. It would be in the Mozilla Foundation's best interest to present ONE front: the aviary products (Firefox, Thunderbird).

I don't think NIH is the big problem - the problem is that while Firefox could have been just the browser portion of the suite, it isn't. It looks and feels different. The people who like the suite like the look and feel of it. Switching to Firefox means giving up a mature, stable, familiar user interface for something different that changes a lot with every 0.1 release (for example, Firefox 1.1 will have a completely rewritten preferences panel).

One of the major concerns right now of developers interested in SeaMonkey is the development process currently used for the aviary products: gigantic patches are included without any review, and often with very little testing. Regressions are found by users, and they file bugs which get fixed. However, the lack of review still allows much lower-quality code to enter the source. Between the landing of the patch and fixing of regressions, nightly builds (which developers work from) are often in very bad (unusable) shape.

The SeaMonkey front-end currently requires not one, but TWO reviews of all code. Does this slow the pace of development? Yes. It's extremely difficult to thoroughly review the bigger patches (doubling a patch length probably quadruples the work), but it maintains high code quality, and minimizes the introduction of new bugs. It helps that the SeaMonkey front-end is already mature, because less development needs to happen.

In theory, the Mozilla project was supposed to offer a cross-platform application development toolkit. This toolkit would be maintained, and an application written for it should work properly on future versions of the toolkit. This would offer a way to easily save Mozilla: port it over to this toolkit (which is just a modified version of what it uses right now, minus thorough code review). However, there is doubt among the developers that the Mozilla Foundation will actually keep this toolkit in usable shape - the track record of Firefox developers has been "change what we want when we want to", which would mean any application using this toolkit would need frequent updates. Porting the suite to a toolkit like this would mean we get all of the downsides (less code review), plus extra maintenance work required.

Basically, I think most of the suite developers just want their favorite browser not to die, and not to be based on shoddy code.

Re:Meh

[chrisvdb]

Somehow, after reading this extremely interesting remark from Asa, I get a bit troubled when you mention him as the (unofficial) spokesman of the Mozilla Foundation...

Chris.

Re:Meh

[cshark]

The toolkit already exists, and has for at least a couple of years. I've seen it refered to as Gecko Run Time, and XPCOM (which I believe is one of it's core componants). They're documented well, but may be out of date. I haven't checked on it in awhile. About a year ago, we were talking about porting Shorthand over to XPCOM and GRE because it already had the complete API set (shut up I know) we needed. There aren't many apps that I know of that are written for the Moz tool kit, but there are a few. It's not marketed well. You might want to check sourceforge and freshmeat.net for a list of the known oss apps that use it.

Re:Meh

[CTho9305]

First off, I apologize for the lack of clarity regarding the word "toolkit". There are a few things under this name, part of which is the source code directory called "toolkit". This code provides implementations for things like text boxes, tabbed objects, etc. in XBL. This code was copied from XPFE (cross platform front end) code to give Firefox its own copy with more freedom, and was subsequently modified (sometimes heavily). This is the problematic code.

Right now, some people are working on something called "XULRunner" - basically an environment that launches XUL applications and offers a toolkit ("toolkit" directory in the source code). The problem is that this toolkit isn't stable; for example, Ben Goodger modified a bunch of its components without any review for his rewrite of the Firefox options window. Had Mozilla been depending on it, we would now be scrambling to fix whatever would have been broken.

I understand what you're saying about GRE & XPCOM, but they're not the same as this "toolkit" ;-). GRE/XPCOM are good (and AFAIK, pretty stable, with a decent number of frozen APIs).

Re:Meh

[cshark]

Fascinating. I wasn't aware of this new toolkit. Sorry for being so presumptuous. Maybe the thing I'm confused about is how something like this differentiates itself (or would differentiate itself) from the existing tools and applications out there for working with the Mozilla application framework. Or are we talking about something else entriely?

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Ask on IRC - bsmedberg is probably a good person to talk to. I *think* it's something new (XULRunner).

Re:Meh

[benb]

The slashdot article was wrong, giving it wrong spin. It's not that people want to take something away from MoFo, but MoFo doesn't want to have it, and we either have to live with it dying or taking it elsewhere.

With all that, you have to keep in mind that a large portion (I'd guess 50%, at least) of the Mozilla developers favor the suite. Basically, it's MoFo that went off.

Instability

[canofbutter]

I see this sort of instability as only hurting the cause. It will show the general public and/or typical PHBs that closed source software is better because the companies/foundations making it are more stable. Mozilla really needs to try to keep it together.

Re:Instability

[smitten0000]

While I agree that this may give it the *perception* of being unstable, this is probably not the case. The discussion of the future of the suite is public domain, and therefore anyone is free to eavesdrop on the latest news (as obviously happened here) and spread all kinds of rumours or silly what-if's. Remember, that corporate entities probably go through the same discussion, but behind closed doors, so the client is left in the dark.(Microsoft sure as hell hasn't maintained IE....)

I am confident that the Mozilla foundation will find an appropriate solution. And if not, I'm sure someone else will. If they drop the ball completely (not likely), it sounds like an excellent way for another entity (company or other) to swoop in and gain some credibility by maintaining the suite.

My $0.02.

Re:Instability

[BabyDave]

... the companies/foundations making it are more stable.

... in other words, the instability, bitching, etc is kept hidden from the customer (instead of being public along with the rest of the development process). It's usually still there though.

Re:Instability

[canofbutter]

I agree that in such cases it's internal bitching, however to the typical PHB, they think it doesn't exist. Business-types are affraid to adopt what appears to be unstable (for example they could be affraid that with such instability the foundation may fold and consistent updates may stop). Hiding the instability from the customer is good for the company for this reason, however it is invariably going to be there; it just becomes a problem when the shareholders find out about it.

Re:Instability

[MerlinTheWizard]

What does it have to do with closed source or not? If an open source project forks, it's usually for the project's sake. Major project decisions in a closed source setting can actually be made to maximize profit, to the expense of the project's quality. So, there is no definite answer to the question of stability in either context.

Re:Instability

[canofbutter]

I was certainly not saying that either model is more or less stable than another; I was merely referencing what would be perceived. In a closed model, internal disputes, changes in project leads (or whole development teams) are generally not publically known. This sort of thing rarely has a negative impact on the whole of a project, however any form of instability that a typical corporate customer sees is thought to imply that the product will not be around and be updated for much longer. That's what's seen by the typical "PHB" (I deal with these types myself and know how they see it in general). I personally feel it usually goes the other way (just look at XFree and Xorg: XFree just sat there doing little/nothing; Xorg branches and suddenly several years worth of things start getting introduced into the code base). It's a new model that corporate customers don't understand, and to win them over they need to show stability; I just feel it's too early for something like this to happen without it having a negative impact on the image of the foundation.

Re:Instability

[MerlinTheWizard]

I see your point, and you may be quite right. Weirdly enough, Firefox has "taken off" as a web browser in spite of that. If anything, for the average user, Mozilla Firefox was even less seen as a stable thing than the full Mozilla suite itself (which has been around for a long time now), and it was in fact suffering from the exact thing you're talking about, a forking that was not exactly easy to understand for everyone. Yet, a surprisingly high number of users are switching to it lately. This is something new here. But don't we get our hopes too high, I'm thinking it might be explained by the fact that more and more people actually don't care anymore what the stuff they use comes from. Maybe this is the beginning of a new "era": consumers starting not to care at all about brands and image anymore (in some way), and just considering the fact that it's cheap (or even free) and "works ok" for them. I mean, I don't believe one bit that the majority of users switching to Firefox did so because it was more compliant to standards, more secure, etc. I believe they did because it was free, and because there was this "new and exciting" bit about it. Then security comes second, in my opinion: but most people don't really care about security in itself; they are just happy to find a web browser that will not force them to reinstall Windows every month because it's gotten invaded with crap.

firefox in for a spin

[dutt]

Sounds like firefox is in for a spin. I just hope that they manage to keep it on track and not argue themselves into a dead end.

The best would be for the foundation to keep together and not slipt up.

Re:firefox in for a spin

[Anonymous Coward]

and not slipt up.

What is a slipt up? Kind of like a slip, split, spork up.

strategery

[Anonymous Coward]

Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox.

Could we pick one and go with it please? I vote for Firefox.

Re:strategery

[stupidfoo]

any way google can just buy it all?

Re:strategery

[superpulpsicle]

It is my fear that they don't make the correction quick enough while the new IE is right around the corner. That might spell the end of firefox due to this political mess.

Re:strategery

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget about Netscape. It's toast.

Both Firefox and Mozilla Application Suite are based on the same Gecko core. The outer layers are what is different.

Creating two separate products will be good because it means we will be friendly competitors, even as we share the best of our code with each other.

Helpful news?

[n0dalus]

This must be the third article about Firefox/Mozilla development process problems this week.
Aren't these kinds of problems going on with most projects, including proprietry software projects?
I can't help but feel as though people are just trying to run a smear campaign against the Mozilla Corporation.

Re:Helpful news?

[thirteenVA]

Of course it is, but slashdot brings drama to those with no lives.

Re:Helpful news?

[Anonymous Coward]

This must be the third article about Firefox/Mozilla development process problems this week.
Aren't these kinds of problems going on with most projects, including proprietry software projects?

Sure they are. But the developers of propriety software have the advantage of being paid for what they produce. If an OSS project loses focus, it'll just wither and die. It's a downward spiral... the project loses focus, developers lose incentive to DONATE personal time and effort to support it.

Re:Helpful news?

[DogDude]

Aren't these kinds of problems going on with most projects, including proprietry software projects?

No. That's the benefit of proprietary software. One entity owns it and controls it. If somebody wants to do their own version of proprietary software, they'll be prompty sued and shut down. There is no code forking in proprietary software. If there is, then the project manager/owner is generally promptly canned. Hence, there's ONE recent version of IE, ONE of Quickbooks, ONE of just about every proprietary app out there.

This is a HUGE problem that scares many people away (including myself and my business) from open source. I won't deploy Linux in our business, because compatibility is so difficult between versions, versions come and go so quickly (Red Hat was releasing new full versions every 6 months before they dumped their personal version). People who are using software for more than just a hobby want STABILITY, and code forks are the exact opposite of stability. If Firefox forks, that'll severely damage any credibility that Firefox once had.

Re:Helpful news?

[cshark]

"I can't help but feel as though people are just trying to run a smear campaign against the Mozilla Corporation. "

They're not a corporation. They're a foundation. Basically means that the way they can get and use money is a little more limited than a NFPC.

Re:Helpful news?

[Anonymous Coward]

You might want to notify the Boston Stock Exchange that just moved their ticker processing systems to Linux that Linux is not stable.

Sheesh...

[gowen]

The article is headlined "Mozilla's future under debate"

How the hell did "under debate" become "More Development Trouble" in the /. headline.

(Answer : someone high up at OSDL clear believes "scandal-mongering = advertising revenue")

Re:Sheesh...

[Laurentiu]

If said advertising revenue is supposed to come from Firefox users, then tough luck, most of them already have Adblock up, running and happily removing ads.

Maybe the gloating IE users are the targeted audience. Although, this being /., I'd be very surprised if their numbers would be significant.

Re:Sheesh...

[bill_mcgonigle]

(Answer : someone high up at OSDL clear believes "scandal-mongering = advertising revenue")

And they probably got 8 ad impressions from you on the way to this comment. ;)

Re:Sheesh...

[SeanAhern]

someone high up at OSDL clear believes "scandal-mongering = advertising revenue"

Considering that article headlines come from the article submitter (the rank and file), I find your claim of high-level scandal-mongering to be, well... scandal-mongering!

Re:Sheesh...

[gowen]

Thanks all. I know have my answer (and it's

"Time on the Deep Space Radio Network is bastard expensive"

Re:Sheesh...

[innate]

OSDL doesn't sell advertising, and isn't related to Slashdot or OSTG .

Everytime I try to get out...

[Dancin_Santa]

This is the primary thing you need to remember about Free Software. You can't take it.

You can borrow it. You can improve it. You can give it to all your friends.

But you can't take it.

The copyright doesn't belong to you. It belongs to the guy who licensed the Free Software to you in the first place. Sure, you may own the copyright to the little bit of code that you wrote yourself, but you are forced to release that code under the Free Software license of your licensor's choosing. Not really free for you, the developer, eh?

Well, that's because the GPL is communism, and I like it that way.

Mozilla is Free Software.

This is misread by almost everyone in the business community and more seriously almost everyone in the OSS community. Even the originator of the concept (RMS) doesn't fully grasp the depth of the statement as he has become one of the proponents of what I call "the Free Software Lie". The Lie is that the "Free" in Free Software is freedom for the developer. It is NOT.

The Freedom referred to in Free Software is freedom for the software under the GPL. Because of the license, the Software has gained Freedom from being exploited in a commercial sense. It is Free from the possibility of being exploited for personal gain of a company. It ceases to be a slave.

It is precisely unfit for business or for personal forks because of those things that give it its freedom. Companies can't imprison or hide the software and remain in the good graces of the GPL and copyright law. If you want a license that grants developers rights, then stick with the BSD (UnFree) license. If you care about the Freedom of Software, then go with the GPL.

I think it is sad...

[AHarrison]

In a time when the open source community needs solidarity, one of the largest and most popular organizations is spreading itself too thin to the point of breaking.

Re:I think it is sad...

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

The fact is that MoFo is looking to focus its development efforts on Firefox and Thunderbird, while keeping Seamonkey stable at 1.7, mainly for testing purposes.

There are many, however, in the MoFo who like the Suite, and that's all this whole thing is really about.

If those developers who support Seamonkey are to follow in MoFo's direction, in order to maintain solidarity in the open-source community, this would hamper the spirit of the open-source community, while saving its face. And this is something these developers will not do, and this is a good thing, the very essence of democracy at work.

Re:I think it is sad...

[cshark]

It's not sad, just poorly organized. Mitch, if you're reading this, give me a call. I'm almost certain I can fix this little foundation situation thingy.

We need alternatives.

[Anonymous Coward]

Thats right. Mozilla did have a nice marketing but due to the recent layoffs it was no wonder. Also people on the Open Source architecture get more and more settled to either KDE or GNOME desktop environments and thus like a Browser that smoothly embedds into their overall environment which is slick and easy to use.

While Firefox was the right approach in this direction it still is a huge monster compared to solutions such as KHTML (Apple WebCore or GTK+ WebCore).

People want small solutions that does the trick such as Atlantis Screenshots from Atlantis Homepage.

Atlantis is planned to become Open Source soon (as soon as the code gets cleaned up) and hope fully will lead a unified Browsing experience amongst KDE and GNOME by using the technological same Rendering Engine as well as sharing the same Bookmarks System.

Re:We need alternatives.

[Quattro Vezina]

While Firefox was the right approach in this direction it still is a huge monster compared to solutions such as KHTML (Apple WebCore or GTK+ WebCore).

I really agree with this. Normally, I'm strongly anti-anti-bloat (see this post for why), but KHTML is so much faster than Gecko, without sacrificing features, it's insane. As an HTML renderer, it's just as capable as Gecko, and it's faster. It also has far better CJK support than Gecko--I still can't get Japanese text to display right in Firefox, but I have no problems with Konqueror. There are only two reason I still use Firefox: JavaScript and AdBlock.

KHTML still lacks a good JS engine for Linux--KJS just plain blows, and I've not seen Safari/WebCore's JS engine ported to Linux yet. As for ads, Privoxy is decent, but going through a proxy server (even a local one) causes a whole host of problems, not to mention that since it's not in the browser, I don't have that handy AdBlock button and dialog.

Re:We need alternatives.

[Anonymous Coward]

there is a move to make gecko use pango from the gtk stack, which would provide top class support for CJK and other languages.

Re:We need alternatives.

[babyblink]

I think it makes sense to put pango over webcore. I didn't take a look at gtk-webcore yet though, but I guess the design could adapt webkit that put OpenStep's text system over webcore.. the same way Cocoa/GNUstep did.

Re:We need alternatives.

[Anonymous Coward]

GTK+ WebCore already uses Pango and/or Cairo.

I don't get it

[Jaeger]

I've been using Mozilla, in some capacity or another, for almost six years, and it's been the only browser I've used (on purpose) for at least five years. So I was confused when Firefox showed up on the scene and suddenly attracted attention. What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla? Firefox has tabbed browsing, and pop-up blocking, and all that, but Mozilla did it all two years ago.

Re:I don't get it

[tweek]

You have to understand the Mozilla mindset on development.

Mozilla suite is the reference platform. Pure and simple. It was intended for people to spin off thier own projects.

Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird are all spinoffs from the mozilla code base. Sunbird was actually the result of a bunch of work done by OEone, IIRC.

Re:I don't get it

[nine-times]

As far as I know...

• Firefox is faster- I haven't tried it in a while, but at least a couple years ago, when I made the switch, Firefox loaded faster, and seemed generally more lightweight
• Firefox is prettier- totally a matter of opinion, but it seems to be the majority opinion that Firefox has a better interface all around
• Firefox's Extensions- I'm not a developer, but people seem to think that Firefox's extension system is easier, more flexible, and generally better than any means to alter/add-on to the Mozilla suite. (don't know much about it though)
• the Mozilla suite seemed stagnant- this is an issue of perception, but I've talked to a number of people that thought the Mozilla suite has a clunky interface from 10-15 years ago (it still looked like Netscape 4). The mere appearance of 'newness' was enough to get some people excited. Along these lines, the Firefox people have done a better job of making Firefox look native on various operating systems
• breaking Mozilla suit up made sense for development- eh, it's arguable, but many people seem to believe that breaking the suite up into its components (browser, e-mail, calendar, chat, composer, etc.) would make it possible for each individual component to progress faster. Besides giving people the ability to pick and choose the components they wanted, and increasing the efficiency of the resources used by not including components that people weren't going to use, there's the idea that breaking some of the interdependencies between components will allow developers to do, for each component, what is best and will make the most sense, without needing to worry as much about the effect on other components. The rapid progress of both Firefox and Thunderbird seems to indicate that there's something to it.

So that's what I can think of off hand. Personally, I'm not sure why a web browser ever had a e-mail program and HTML editor and chat all built into it anyway. Sure, make a suite, distribute them all together, but why make them all part of the same program?

Re:I don't get it

[edwdig]

Here's the differences:

Firefox starts up slightly faster.

The Firefox UI has a lot of features removed. The idea was to make the core browser "simple" and allow it to be customized via extensions.

Firefox generally used IE's UI as its model, whereas Mozilla used Netscape 4.x as its model.

Once the browser is loaded, rendering and speed wise they're the same. Benchmarks recently posted on Slashdot showed that the 1.8 versions of the suite were significantly faster than Firefox (based on 1.7). The next Firefox release should gain those improvements.

If you use FireFox and Thunderbird, you end up with higher memory usage as you get two copies of the Mozilla core loaded, whereas with the Suite you only have one copy loaded. This problem gets worse if you also use the standalone Composer or Calendar.

The biggest difference is to get a change done in the Mozilla UI, you have to get a large group of people to agree. Firefox has about 2 people who decide on the UI, so its easier to get changes done there.

Really, the biggest difference in Firefox is it shuts up the people who want to be able to download just a browser without the other stuff, but who also refuse to use the Mozilla net installer. If you used the Suite's net installer, you've always been able to tell it not to download the extra junk, but there's a large portion of people that liked to ignore the net installer and then bitch about being forced to download and install the parts they don't want.

Re:I don't get it

[mr.newt]

the Firefox people have done a better job of making Firefox look native on various operating systems

I think this point is understated. If you have two things that work equally well, but one of them blends in with your meticulously selected theme, and one of them doesn't....well, which one would you pick?

Re:I don't get it

[nine-times]

Sure, sure.... I used to run Galeon (spelling?) on Gnome, Camino on OSX, and Firefox on Windows, merely because I like consistency in my interfaces. However, ever since Firefox began looking native on all three, I pretty much stick with Firefox (and sometimes safari) and it's very nice to have the same browser on whatever OS you choose without it ever looking out-of-place.

Re:I don't get it

[swv3752]

Actually that review where Mozilla and Firefox and several others were tested; Mozilla was faster. Moz 1.7.3 (with some backports patched I think) and Firefox 1.0 and they take the same time to load on my Linux box.

Re:I don't get it

[n0-0p]

I just have a comment on the memory usage issue. MoFo is moving the apps to a shared GRE with either FF 1.5 or 2. It's part of the whole XULRunner thing. That should result in a much smaller memory footprint for the combined apps as most of the code will be shared read only pages in memory. This will also make mozilla based apps easier to write and integrate. It's interesting that the Firefox development originally moved away from the integration, but now they're reincorporating it in a more structured and less monolithic form.

Re:I don't get it

[FuzzyBad-Mofo]

I've talked to a number of people that thought the Mozilla suite has a clunky interface from 10-15 years ago (it still looked like Netscape 4).

Why the MoFo continues to ship Mozilla with the horribly outdated and Netscape-ish default theme boggles the mind. The Modern theme is better, but still not nearly as nice looking as the Firefox default.

That said, there are a couple of reasons (besides the default theme) for which I prefer Firefox:

• The browser seems to load faster
• Browser extensions are handled better, in general the browser seems more extensible
• Toolbar customization kicks ass
• Live Bookmarks

Re:I don't get it

[nine-times]

If you use FireFox and Thunderbird, you end up with higher memory usage as you get two copies of the Mozilla core loaded, whereas with the Suite you only have one copy loaded. This problem gets worse if you also use the standalone Composer or Calendar.

But why would I want an IRC client built in to my browser anyhow? I mean sure, I could also build an office suite, photo-management software, an MP3 player, a DVD player, scanner software, a Pac-man game, and everything other app I could possibly want into the same executable, and if I ran all of them at once, it might be a more efficient use of memory resources (though. Still, it seems to me that it's a better approach to only put things together in the same application if they're related tasks.

Really, the biggest difference in Firefox is it shuts up the people who want to be able to download just a browser without the other stuff, but who also refuse to use the Mozilla net installer. If you used the Suite's net installer, you've always been able to tell it not to download the extra junk, but there's a large portion of people that liked to ignore the net installer and then bitch about being forced to download and install the parts they don't want.

Now where on the Mozilla website is the net installer for OSX? I've looked around a bit, and if it's there, they sure are putting it in a non-obvious place.

Re:I don't get it

[NutscrapeSucks]

What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla?

Firefox is popular and Mozilla isn't.

Mozilla Appsuite and it's Netscape variant has been around about 5 years now and it's never gotten above 1% marketshare as far as I know, despite a fair amount of promotion. The program is obviously disliked by users because there's been millions and millions of downloads that haven't "converted" in the browser stats.

Since Firefox hit 1.0, it's been nothing but going up -- about 5-6% now and 10-15% is certainly realistic.

If there needs to be a 'triage; with dev resources, I can't imagine why they'd support a loser like AppSuite over Firefox. The point of Mozilla.org was to "take back the web", and that means putting out something consumers want to use.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course the question has to be why the fuck mozilla was written to be "monolithic" in the first place. That was a big complaint about Netscape 4, and Mozilla was supposed to be a "platform".

Re:I don't get it

[Donny Smith]

Mozilla is has an ugly SoB GUI, it sends your searches to the ugly and useless Netscape portal and has a bunch of other annoyances.
I can't stand it even on a choice-poor server machine (where I prefer links, the text browser).

The first things I always do in a Gnome based X-Windows is yum install firefox and rpm -e mozilla and related RPMs.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I think the fact that Mozilla comes with an IRC chat client by default is reason enough to use Firefox. People were happy to switch to Firefox because Mozilla is bloatware. I rather use Internet Explorer than Mozilla.

Re:I don't get it

[R.Caley]

What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla?

Smaller, faster, more stable. Firefox might tempt me away from Opera, Mozilla never would have.

To be fair, Mozilla is rather better now than it was when firefox was young - stays up for hours at a time, and the area where Mz stinks most for me is only marginally (and I suspect accidentally) better in Firefox, 'cos it's something no one at mozilla.org cares about (Java support, just the thing which M$ handed to them on a plate...)

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I've also been using Mozilla suit for years. I load Firefox, Thunderbird on users boxes when they want separate applications. However, functionally, I prefer the suite. Mozilla provides two things in particular, 1) It has a menu item under file to send links. 2) it has enough sense to open Mozilla mail or Mozilla browser whenever a link is clicked. I've ran it on Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, and OSX. To me it is like an old friend.

Re:I don't get it

[estarriol]

"Firefox is prettier"

Not just that - it has a *really cool name*, as opposed to the relatively dull and meaningless "Mozilla".

I think a lot of coders underestimate the value of a really cool name - one that is cool not just to coders, but also to the general public.

If Firefox and IE were totally identical save for the name, and starting from a totally equal standpoint, I'd lay hard cash down that Firefox would be the more popular. IE's function is easy to understand from it's name, which has value, but not as much as the "vibrant energy" of Firefox. Firefox is also more simply memorable.

Firefox is simply the coolest-sounding browser around. There's an awful lot in a name, Will.

Re:I don't get it

[nine-times]

Not just that - it has a *really cool name*, as opposed to the relatively dull and meaningless "Mozilla".

Correction: it's had a long line of *really cool names*.

Re:I don't get it

[an_mo]

I used to think like you did, and I think for a while there was no reason to switch to FF. I gave ff another try 2 days ago, and I am going to stick to it. The main reason is that the UI is much nicer. Sure you're going to need a bunch of extensions (also make sure you install it with the dev tools).

So far, I found one thing firefox can do that mozilla can't (there might be others but I don't need them): edit a page in NVU (use the viewsourcewith extension).

Re:I don't get it

[Matt Clare]

Firefox replaces Internet Explorer very nicely.

Thunderbird replaces Outlook.

The Mozilla suite replaces Internet Explorer, FrontPage/DreamWeaver, mIRC, Eudora/Outlook, your (or your work's) calendar tools and your kitchen sink.......

When people ask why Linux on the desktop is not as big a success as Firefox the answer is not the merits, but the ease of the switch. I think (hope) we've all realized that it's not the technical merits that drive adoption of software.

I personally use Firefox over Apple Safari but stick with Mac's Mail.app because it's a lot of work to switch, and I'd say it's on par with Thunderbird.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Interface, graphic design and branding. The three things that geeks care the least about but that the market cares the *most* about. IHMO

Re:I don't get it

[edwdig]

But why would I want an IRC client built in to my browser anyhow? ... Still, it seems to me that it's a better approach to only put things together in the same application if they're related tasks.

Mozilla isn't a browser. It's a suite of internet applications, including a browser. In that context, IRC makes perfect sense to include. Look at the sizes of the XPI files - IRC only adds 160k to the suite, which is essentially free when you realize the full suite is around 13MB (give or take depending on your OS).

The efficiency difference between running the suite verses the different standalone Mozilla applications comes down to something like 90% of the code is shared between all of them. The standalone apps make no effort to share them. The apps were designed to share a core, but are being artificially seperated to shut up the whining of people who think its more efficient that way.

I don't see an OS X version of the net installer either. Looking back at past releases, it looks like MacOS Classic had a net installer, but OS X never did. Apparently either their isn't much demand for one, or no one cares even to code one.

Re:I don't get it

[bonch]

Firefox is faster

The recent browser comparison article Slashdot posted showed that the Mozilla suite actually starts up faster than Firefox.

Firefox is prettier

There is very little difference in the interface. I doubt your standard user would even notice the difference if you replaced one with the other. If the only difference is the interface, Firefox should have just been an XUL theme for Mozilla in the first place then.

Firefox's Extensions

Extensions required a whole new browser?

the Mozilla suite seemed stagnant

And yet, the recent development trouble articles posted show that it is Firefox that is stagnating, due to lack of developers and commitment. 2.0 ain't coming out this year as planned. Just watch.

breaking Mozilla suit up made sense for development

This simply hasn't been shown to be the case. As for the end-user who just wants a browser, Mozilla has always had the "Browser Only" option during install.

Firefox, when you get right down to it, really is somewhat pointless. Not that it matters if people continue to like and use it, but I think a lot of people just use it because they've been told it's better than Mozilla, not because they actually decided that it was.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

I mean sure, I could also build an office suite, photo-management software, an MP3 player, a DVD player, scanner software, a Pac-man game, and everything other app I could possibly want into the same executable, and if I ran all of them at once, it might be a more efficient use of memory resources

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, someone invented the concept of shared libraries. Just about every popular operating system supports this concept readily today. Are you really telling me that Firefox and Thunderbird don't share the same core code in memory and each load their own copy? No wonder they're worried about the development processes! (And start-up times, and bloat, and...)

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I like the old theme. Its functional and easy to find stuff. I find the modern and firefox themese to be flashy messes. I think firefox looks more like windows XP. I can't stand the xp interface.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

Give me an AMEN brother! I couldn't agree more with all of your points.

Re:I don't get it

[Matt Clare]

There is no net installer for OSX - and a couple of other not Windows or Linux OSs.

That said, I don't think we're about to get one.

The net installer for OSX is to download firefox, then download Thunderbrid.

Re:I don't get it

[nine-times]

There is very little difference in the interface. I doubt your standard user would even notice the difference if you replaced one with the other. If the only difference is the interface, Firefox should have just been an XUL theme for Mozilla in the first place then.

Well, ok, so what you're saying is, claiming Firefox is prettier isn't valid, because if Mozilla were to adopt the interface changes from Firefox, Mozilla would be just as pretty? Yeah, I guess that's true.

Extensions required a whole new browser?

No, extensions required a partial rewrite. Changing certain interface issues also required a partial rewrite. A lot of things required partial rewrites, and so the end result is a browser that uses many of the same components, but has been massively rewritten.

And yet, the recent development trouble articles posted show that it is Firefox that is stagnating, due to lack of developers and commitment. 2.0 ain't coming out this year as planned. Just watch.

Sounds a little circular... Developers shouldn't want to develop for Firefox because Firefox isn't as good because it's development is stagnating because developers don't want to develop for it.

What I was saying is, people got excited about Firefox because the Mozilla browser development seemed stagnant. The changes between 1.0 and 1.7 weren't highly visible to most users, whereas Firefox seemed to give nice little features and improvements all the time. Sure, the Mozilla browser was progressing, but not in the areas most people were interested in or even noticed.

This simply hasn't been shown to be the case. As for the end-user who just wants a browser, Mozilla has always had the "Browser Only" option during install.

What about the user who only wants an e-mail client? Or the one who only wants the calendar? Oh, and as I've mentioned elsewhere, where is the "Browser Only" option for the OSX install?

Firefox, when you get right down to it, really is somewhat pointless. Not that it matters if people continue to like and use it, but I think a lot of people just use it because they've been told it's better than Mozilla, not because they actually decided that it was.

Well, ok. The new rewrite of the Mozilla browser is pointless, because all the advantages offered by the rewrite could have been offered by the old Mozilla browser if the old browser had been rewritten to make the same changes as the changes made in the rewrite? I can't quite argue with that.

But... because the old mozilla could have been rewritten just like the rewrite, if we like the new rewritten browser, it's because we've been brainwashed? It's that part that doesn't follow for me.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

oooh open source bad.. bad bad bad open source bad

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla?

That, contrary to the know nothing Developers of this world, Users prefer seperate apps to do the job than a all-in-one Suite app.

People have been bitching about this Suite-shit for almost 5 years now, the developers thought they know better than the users and made the all in one crap anyways. (current examples? look at gnome's file manager... I dont want my file manager to render html, burn CD's encode mp3's and act as a Seti-at home client with email capabilities. i want a DAMN file manager.)

firefox is proof that the users were right. make an app do ONE THING WELL.

Re:I don't get it

[Anonymous Coward]

I personally use Firefox over Apple Safari but stick with Mac's Mail.app because it's a lot of work to switch, and I'd say it's on par with Thunderbird.

Setup IMAP (or subscribe to an IMAP provider) and switching mail apps will never be difficult again (in fact you can use them simultaneously). You can even use IMAP temporarilly for switching. Connect to IMAP, copy local mail into IMAP folders, and as an optional step copy from IMAP folders to local in your new mail program.

Re:I don't get it

[jp10558]

You know, this is the same argument we Opera fanboi's have all the time with people. The idea that some people want an internet suite.

And the fact that if you use the E-mail and Browser and IRC client in the suite, you get more efficient use of memory. They don't believe us though. I'm glad FF exists for those who like that development paradigm, but it would be sad if either of the internet suites dies IMHO. There are likely as many people who want ONE piece of software to update/maintain, and then have the internet experiance taken care of.

Re:I don't get it

[dcam]

I was in the same position until recently. Most of the other reasons people mention as why they switched don't hold true for me. The reason I switched is that most current extensions are being built for firefox, and not for Mozilla. This may sound unimportant, but I acutally find someone of them invaluable for my job or general web usage. Things like:

- LiveHttpHeaders
- prefbar
- colorzilla
- flashgot
- bug me not

Re:I don't get it

[edwdig]

No, FireFox and Thunderbird don't share the same libraries. The code is just coupled too tightly for the libraries to really be seperated out. Mozilla.org has had seperating the libraries on their todo list for years. The target date has always been "6-12 months from now", but it's simply not a priority and doesn't look like it'll happen anytime soon.

Re:I don't get it

[eraserewind]

Simple, people don't like Mozilla because they think it's the re-incarnation of Netscape 4.x (shudder). Firefox is new and shiny.

Re:I don't get it

[EvanED]

Thunderbird replaces Outlook Express; Thunderbird doesn't even come close to replacing Outlook proper if you use anything other than its POP/IMAP mail features.

Re:I don't get it

[gandy909]

Joe User wants a *browser*, not a *suite*. Why wait longer to load up a monolithic pile of stuff you don't use when you already have another favorite email client, irc client, etc.

Re:I don't get it

[Matt Clare]

You're correct about Outlook Express vs. the full Outlook.

Re:I don't get it

[RedWizzard]

Firefox, when you get right down to it, really is somewhat pointless. Not that it matters if people continue to like and use it, but I think a lot of people just use it because they've been told it's better than Mozilla, not because they actually decided that it was.

I agree, Firefox is now somewhat pointless. But when I switched, around 0.8, it was definitely faster and nicer to use than Mozilla. So for me, the question is "why should I switch back"?

Google to the "rescue"

[gpinzone]

If GBrowser is for real, why couldn't Google essentially take over by forking eithe Mozilla or firefox (or both)? They could become the effective owners of the software. Would that be considered good or evil?

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[kevin_conaway]

Neither, they aren't doing it. Google is a SEARCH company. Every single one of their ventures have been search related. I believe they hired Ben from Mozilla because he was the UI nazi that made Firefox the success that it is, not because they want to fork a browser.

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[thirteenVA]

"Would that be considered good or evil?"

Neither... it would be considered STUPID. If google wants to invest money and manpower to mozilla, they should do just that... contribute resources directly to the mozilla project. If google creates their own fork of the mozilla product line we wind up with yet another browser and another opportunity for 'interpretation' of standards.

I'd much rather see them back the mozilla foundation rather than do their own browser. Remeber... just because it comes from google should not make something better...

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't agree with the other posters. What does Google have to loose by making a gBrowser? Not only do they already employee the main developers, but they could bundle in all their services directly into the interface. It makes perfect sense to me, and is hardly dumb! People like the Google toolbar, why not the Google browser? If google was JUST a SEARCH company like this other idiot said then why do they provide email? Email has nothing to do with search...

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[Anonymous Coward]

See that little search bar at the top of your gmail screen? Searching webmail was horribly inefficient and they improved upon it.

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[Retrospecter]

I never wanted to fork a browser, till I got ahold of the Noia Extreme Firefox theme. So pretttty...

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[maxume]

Google sells eyeballs to advertisers. They also happen to run a nifty search service for the purposes of procuring said eyeballs. They most certainly are not a search company, there is very little revenue in search.

There are some strong parallels with broadcast companies, who sell eyeballs to advertisers. Sure, they make a bunch of programming, but at this point the programming is just a side effect of their real business, selling ads.

I'm not complaining, I use google a bunch and probably watch more tv than I should, but I don't have any illusions that google is trying to provide me with 'product'. I am the product.

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[jsantos]

You know, I have been about to post something along the same lines in the many Google browser stories that have been posted, but then I remembered Picasa and, furthermore, Blogger, which don't have much to do with searching (specially the latter) and now I'm not so sure. They probably will do a lot of research related stuff, given their background, but don't dismiss other profitable ventures. Also, a Google browser could be seen as search related, just as their mail service is.

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[ICECommander]

So I started with Netscape then "upgraded" to Mozilla then "upgraded" to Firefox and now I have to "upgrade" to GBrowser. when will it end?!?!?

Re:Google to the "rescue"

[spoiledlittlelucy]

gmail? orkut? I mean I guess these are search related if you count that they have search functions...

Not to mention the fact that MS is going to be linking MSN search to IE with toolbars et al. Google needs to get into the browser business if it's going to stay above water in the search engine business, and last I checked that was a given. The only speculation I was aware of that was left is are they going to take a vested interest in Firefox or make their own browser? And last I checked on THAT Ben is still working on Firefox.

Just started doing Firefox/XUL development

[Anonymous Coward]

Well I hope they don't lose any momentum because I just started doing Firefox development for some financial services companies. However, my perception is that development is much more difficult than it needs to be. In order to do anything significant, you have to get the entire tree and program in C++ with many different layers in between. I just think that the development doesn't feel like it's a "platform" you're developing on. The development SDK should be more like a development "kit". I know it hasn't stopped thousands of extensions from being written, but perhaps there could be more significant applications written otherwise.

Re:stop the divide in open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed, and don't you find it strange that this divide started to rear its ugly head when Google recruited one of the leading Firefox developers?

I would find it remarkably coincidental if the Google corporation ride in on a white horse, rescued the desperate Mozilla foundation, and began to nurture it within its wide, open arms.

Firefox still missing some things...

[RyanFenton]

Tabbed browsing is nice for most - but for some reason, I still prefer opening up links in new windows much more often than in tabs. There's just something about the dynamic ability to position independant windows and close them in several ways that appeals to me.

But Firefox still has no obvious options or plugins that let me override the functionality of the middle-mouse button. This isn't a rag on Firefox - I've just got an unpopular configuration preference. I've casually googled and searched the usenet for leads, but no dice thus far. I've also tried various tab-killing plugins, and exerimenting with about:config, but nothing obvious worked.

Any suggestions short of re-compiling?

Ryan Fenton

Re:Firefox still missing some things...

[RyanFenton]

Ah - experimented further with about:config. Found that "browser.tabs.opentabfor.middleclick" seems to do it. Cool - now I'm not so anxious about losing future Mozilla updates.

Ryan Fenton

Re:Firefox still missing some things...

[Stumbles]

I suppose tabbed browsing is an "acquired taste" and to each their own. I for one have used those for so long now with Konqueror. I find it very annoying and trouble some to use anything but tabbed browsing.

Mod Parent up

[rider_prider]

I would if I had mod points. This is healthy open discussion about the future of an open source project. I seem to remember the original developers of what became Firefox started that project because they were unhappy with the direction of the mozilla browser at the time. This is not instability or trouble, it is part of the evolutionary process of open software...

Re:mod parent up

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, that's because the GPL is communism, and I like it that way."
Untrue, and a flamebait.

This is bad because:

[Phil John]

Whilst the Devs are busy arguing, Microsoft is busy inventing their next browser-os tie in (After receiving carte-blanche from the US Bush/Cheney regime).

There was an episode of nip/tuck last season that had the partners wanting to split the business up after an altrication, as the "divorce" attorney pointed out, when something like that happens cusomters don't know who to turn to, they get confused and more often than not switch to the competition.

Now, the customers are PHB's thinking about maybe doing an enterprise deployment of firefox. But, they will now be worried that if the foundation that backs it splits up, there will be no further development and it will stagnate.

You and I both that's not true, but PHB's aren't like you or I, they don't possess common sense, they are like scared springboks being chased by an ,in this case imaginary, lion. They will panic and in the ensuing mess mandate nothing but IE to be used company wide.

This is bad because it will slow adoption of Firefox (people who use it at work may actually try it at home, like it and switch). We wan't people to switch to firefox because it's more standards compliant and, at the moment, more secure, which is a good thing(tm), not like this infighting, which is a bad thing(tm).

Re:This is bad because:

[Anonymous Coward]

Fuck off, asshat! Why do you have to bring the EVIL ADMINISTRATION into everything?

My ass smells. Is that the fault of the Bush/Cheney "regime"?

Get a fucking life, twatwaffle.

Re:This is bad because:

[selectspec]

...after receiving carte-blanche from the US Bush/Cheney regime...

I'd just like to point out for the record that Microsoft employees contribute more to the Democratic party than any other company in the United States and that the Microsoft itself has made only negligible political contributions to both parties. Bill Gates is certainly no conservative.

The idea that the Bush/Cheney regime as you call it should be determining whether a browser should be embedded into an OS is rediculous. The last thing we want is our elected officials telling us how to package and sell our software. Let's press them on software patents, not bundling issues.

Re:This is bad because:

[Anonymous Coward]

Microsoft is busy inventing their next browser-os tie in (After receiving carte-blanche from the US Bush/Cheney regime).
...
There was an episode of nip/tuck last season
...
PHB's aren't like you or I, they don't possess common sense

You think George Bush and Dick Cheney give a damn about Internet Explorer, you watch really shitty reality TV shows, and you think you have more common sense than management types?

Buddy, you're headed for management!

And when was the last time you even saw a springbok? Don't lie; we know you're an ex-pat.

Re:This is bad because:

[Phil John]

You think George Bush and Dick Cheney give a damn about Internet Explorer

No, they care about not pissing off Microsoft who bring in a lot of business when the US is looking at a steady decline in their exports and a record budget defecit.

you watch really shitty reality TV shows

Nope, despise them, and Nip/Tuck isn't one of them, it's a drama, and not actually that shoddy (when you hold it up to some of the dross that comes out of the tv these days).

and you think you have more common sense than management types?

No, I know that I have more common sense than management types, my company deals with them everyday, most of them don't know their arse from their elbow.

And when was the last time you even saw a springbok? Don't lie; we know you're an ex-pat.

Not really relevant as I was merely using it as a metaphor, now go back to your cave troll.

Re:This is bad because:

[DogDude]

Now, the customers are PHB's thinking about maybe doing an enterprise deployment of firefox. But, they will now be worried that if the foundation that backs it splits up, there will be no further development and it will stagnate. You and I both that's not true, but PHB's aren't like you or I, they don't possess common sense, they are like scared springboks being chased by an ,in this case imaginary, lion.

Oh right. Open Source projects never die. I forgot. Hell, the Netscape browser died on the vine just a few years ago. Management is going to be (rightly) thinking, "Is this going to be another Netscape dud, if it splits? Shouldn't I just be safe and stick with something that definitely will be supportable a few years down the road, like IE?"

Re:This is bad because:

[big-giant-head]

Tell Bush and Cheney to stay out of your A**, sounds like a personal problem to me......

Re:This is bad because:

[big-giant-head]

But.... They love ALL big business, the bigger the better, and believe in little or no regulatory restrictions. They did file a friend of the court brief against the breakup, essentially siding with M$.

So regardless of why, they have give M$ Carte Blanche

Re:This is bad because:

[theantix]

Whilst the Devs are busy arguing, Microsoft is busy inventing their next browser-os tie in

You make it seem like development on Mozilla products has stopped because Mozilla has internal disagreement, while the lack of internal disagreement has let IE development steam ahead. What makes you think that either is true? It seems logical to me that there is a fair amount of internal disagreement within Microsoft as well about the direction of their browser... the only difference being that their disagreements are not in public because of their corporate structure.

Re:This is bad because:

[zemoo]

No, politics, just a quick note:

Though the employees are heavily Democratic and the company itself contributes equally to both parties, Bill Gates himself is a staunch Republican.

Take a look: OpenSecrets.

Not only Republican but a clever one at that, he contributed to all the Republican parties in each battleground state.

Re:This is bad because:

[Anonymous Coward]

rediculous? Don't ridicule the comment if can't even spell right...

Re:This is bad because:

[selectspec]

Bill Gates is not a Republican. He's a registered Independent, socially liberal, and against repealing the death tax.

Sure he's given to some Republican campaigns, but also note the gifts to Harry Reid (Democrat Minority Leader of the Senate) and to Tom Daschill (former Minority Leader of the Senate). He spreads it around pretty even.

Re:This is bad because:

[metamatic]

What you say may be true, but it's misleading by omission and largely irrelevant.

Microsoft gave money directly to Ashcroft's campaign, and of course he was the guy who ultimately decided not to bother going forward with anti-trust remedies after the company was convicted.

How much they give to Bush and Cheney and the Democrats is really beside the point.

Re:This is bad because:

[lcsjk]

I watch the news from about four sources and then search for another John Wayne movie. I find a new one every week, and I think I have seen about 10,000 so far. Now and then I wonder if my memory is going and I just keep watching the same ones over and over.

Seriously, I use mozilla and have firefox setup to goto the same email as Mozilla. Isn't it nice to know that the "not designed here" sysdrome is still prevalent. All mozilla and netscape managed to use "Preferences" under the Edit tab. Firefox could not be both consistant and new so someone decided that new was better.

Wouldn't it be nice to setup your email so that it can easily be viewed by either Mozilla or Thunderbird?

Re:This is bad because:

[BigGerman]

If the Bush/Cheney regime is responsible for IE features/release cycle, our only salvation is to have Dems fork Firefox and release a Dem-branded copy. maybe with Howard Dean providing sound effects - "404 - Eeeeeyaaaaaaaa" ;-)

Re:This is bad because:

[digitalchinky]

I'm thinking it's just a web browser. Of all the management types I come across, and there are many, they simply don't give a crap so long as they can roughly see what is being presented. For most managers I should think a web browser is below the care threshold - unless the business depends on it of course, but they number significantly less.

I still see more than enough version 4 netscape browsers to know it never died, the source may have vanished, but the product lives on - at least where I work anyway.

Re:This is bad because:

[qray]

Yes, Microsoft, Apple, and probably others will make document rendering part of the core OS. Making the browser we know today a quaint piece of software.

Moz needs some innovation to stay out in front. Firefox maybe a better browser, but it's still a browser, saddled with all the deficiencies of a browser.

Eventually we'll enter the world instead of sitting inside viewing it through a window.

--
oxtra modrock kratar jocktor

Re:This is bad because:

[MrYotsuya]

Bill Gates is not a Republican. He's a registered Independent, socially liberal, and against repealing the death tax.

Oh god, not that "death tax" crap again.

It's simple. If you die and leave an estate, the estate becomes income for the recipient and should rightfully be taxed.

The Estate Tax is one of the crucial things that stop the US from becoming more of an oligarchy than it already is.

Re:This is bad because:

[selectspec]

It's simple. If you die and leave an estate, the estate becomes income for the recipient and should rightfully be taxed.

What about when you're alive. Should children be forced to pay their parents rent? Pay for schooling and cleaning services? For the gas and use of the parents car? Where do you draw the line? It's not so simple.

Social motives aside, the death tax costs this country far more than the revenue it produces in wasted estate-planning entity structures and accounting schemes designed to avoid the estate-tax. With unexpected deaths, heirs are forced to suddenly raise large amounts of cash to offset "income" from newly inherited assets, especially privately owned businesses and real estate.

The result is that these inherited assets are either sold in "fire sales" to quickly generate the capital, or the dead guy wasted enumerable amounts of money establishing estate-tax proof trusts and holdings, special life-insurance, and lots of lawyers and accountants. Private companies get sold to public ones, etc. People who "worked for the family" for decades suddenly find themselves working for a less-caring public corporation. Either result is a burden on society. People should have to pay taxes, but if they choose to give their earned assets to AIDS research or their children they shouldn't have to pay taxes on that as well.

Despite the liberals claim that "The Estate Tax is one of the crucial things that stop the US from becoming more of an oligarchy..." historical evidence proves that since the adoption of the estate tax, the gap between the rich and the poor has increased. Look at the Kennedy's, the Melons, the Rockefellers, etc and you'll see rich families that seem to have found ways around the estate tax.

The death tax actually is a burden on the wealthy - but not the super rich politcal class to which you refer. The super rich can afford half of their assets to be wacked by the government when they die. (have of a few billion is still a lot). The majority of those who pay the estate tax only have a few million in assets when they die.

The death tax is a penalty on people for dying. It hurts our society by causing a loss in productivity and wasted resources. The revenue it brings in is trivial compared to the other federal and state revenue sources. In summary, it is unfair, unjust, and impractical.

Re:This is bad because:

[zemoo]

I may not agree with your views, but I must say - well done!

Re:This is bad because:

[starrsoft]

LOL! It's sorta funny when these flame wars get so heated you can't even tell which side someone's on! For instance you: I can't tell whether you love GWB or hate him; I don't know if you're doing a ridiculous parody of a liberal or whether you believe that stuff. It's actually quite amusing...

Ahhhh...

[Visceral Monkey]

Here's a cookie :(

But I did read your story on osnews first.

As a project progresses

[Anonymous Coward]

and it becomes more visiable, the likelyhood of a fork/branch of some sort approaches exactly 1.

Again this is a permutation of the constant

Goodwins law :

http://www.killfile.org/~tskirvin/faqs/godwin.ht ml

Re:As a project progresses

[the_2nd_coming]

but only for very large values of 1.

Maybe...

[thirteenVA]

Maybe they should shit-can the Mozilla suite and concentrate all efforts on their most successful products... Firefox, and Thunderbird. Considering the huge success of Firefox as a stand alone browser and thunderbird as an email client. I see no point in keeping the mozilla suite around any longer.

From a marketing perspective they've already put all their eggs in the firefox basket...

Even netscape wants to ride the firefox wave to success with the release of the Netscape 8 browser.

Re:Maybe...

[hcdejong]

I see no point in keeping the mozilla suite around any longer.
I still prefer Mozilla over Firefox, mainly because Mozilla has configuration options I miss in Firefox.

Re:Maybe...

[windex]

about:config

How hard is that?

Re:Maybe...

[CTho9305]

It's trickier than that. A lot of developers like the suite much more than Firefox. Some core devs have suggested they might stop working on Gecko if the suite dies. The Mozilla suite is basically in the opposite situation of Firefox: Firefox has LOTS of users and apparently way too few developers; Mozilla has LOTS of developers and not as many users. Killing the suite doesn't mean all of those developers would jump ship to Firefox. I personally don't like Firefox, so I write code for Mozilla. If it comes down to "Firefox or else", there's a good chance I'd find something else to do with my time.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Serious question: What is frustrating with Firefox is that on my installation on my computer at home, some pages do not work, pages that work perfectly fine in Mozilla on my computer, or Firefox on any other computer. What the hell is up with that? Does anyone have a clue? I tried to reinstall, and to clear the cache and whatever... still the same annoying result.

Re:Maybe...

[nine-times]

That's kind of what they're doing. Not 'shit-caning' the suite, but according to their development pages, Seamonkey (the suite) is continuing to be maintained with security updates, but the stand-alone apps are the focus of the active development.

Not that I'm an insider and know for myself. I only know what publicly available on their website.

Re:Maybe...

[thirteenVA]

If a tree falls in the forest and no one is there to here it, does it make a sound?

If a developer only wishes to develop for the moz suite but no on is there to use it, are you making a difference?

In addition consider these additional points: Many of your changes could wind up in firefox anyway... and MORE IMPORTANTLY>>>>> YOU ARE A DEVELOPER, IF YOU DON'T LIKE FIREFOX MAKE IT BETTER. If you abandon mozilla for dropping the suite you were never a true open source developer to begin with.

Re:Maybe...

[hcdejong]

Interesting.
1. It hadn't occurred to me that Firefox has more preferences than are accessible from the Preferences dialog. "How hard is that?": obviously, harder than it needs to be.
2. How to change the "Animated images should loop" isn't abvious when I look at the about:config in Mozilla. Searching for 'animate', 'loop', 'GIF' all yield 0 results. "How hard is that?": obviously, harder than it needs to be.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

WOW!!!!

How is parent flamebait? MOD PARENT UP!!

If i had mod points i'd boost you up. Your point is well taken, if a developer of open source abandons due to not liking the evolution of the product, was he ever part of the solution to begin with?

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aside from the atrocious spelling and grammar, parent makes a good point, even if in a rather sarcastic way.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that "better" is really a matter only of taste in this case. The Moz devs apparently love their NS4 UI and their options dialogs with 1000s of buttons.

Re:Maybe...

[DogDude]

You're exactly right. From a management perspective, that's exactly what should be done. Problem is that management in this case doesn't have total control over it's own people, making an exceutive decision relatively impossible.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Disclaimer, I've used / tried to use mozilla from M12 and up and before that I used Netscape. Firefox is a Internet Explorer work a like, it is polished and all (and does some things better than sea monkey - admittedly), but I don't like it as much as Mozilla proper.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe if he (or she) does what you suggest that Firefox would start to look more like Seamonkey? You wouldn't want that to happen, would you? Why would somebody spend his or her free time fixing something he or she does not use or care for, for free? Just because you're screaming at him or her? Get real! Personally I will stay with Seamonkey thank you very much and leave Firefox to all you Internet Explorer refugees.

There will be more than enough people in the forrest to hear the tree fall (if it were to fall, which I doubt). By your logic Mozilla would never have come to fruition and Firefox - yes your beloved Firefox - would not ever have existed! Because all of us know that we should actually be working on Internet Explorer to make a difference.

Re:Maybe...

[Qzukk]

YOU ARE A DEVELOPER, IF YOU DON'T LIKE FIREFOX MAKE IT BETTER.

So if the reason I like Mozilla is because it has an IRC client, mailreader, DOM inspector, javascript debugger, and an HTML editor built in, do you think they'd let me add all that into firefox? :P

The problem is that the Mozilla suite fits the developer lifestyle. It does everything, and its all at your fingertips. It's the emacs of the browser world. Firefox was coded by the developers who went above and beyond scratching their own itch and said "hey, normal users who just want a webbrowser and nothing else are being turned off by the size of the suite, so lets make just a browser!"

Re:Maybe...

[thirteenVA]

That's what the extension architecture is for...

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's still bad design because all that stuff runs in the same process space. You don't want your IRC client crashing your emailer.

Re:Maybe...

[thirteenVA]

then maybe you don't want your browser integrated with your email client...

Isn't this the reason we hate IE so much, because of all its integration its opened itself up to so many exploits.

Maybe the browser just needs to be browser... the popularity of firefox is a testament to that.

Re:Maybe...

[CTho9305]

Many of your changes could wind up in firefox anyway...
No, they CAN'T! Firefox people are very strict about not adding things for transitioning Mozilla users - for example, they rejected a patch I wrote that allows ctrl and alt to be un-reversed based on a hidden preference (basically, ctrl+enter and alt+enter are backwards in Firefox - an unnecessary annoyance). There are many other things they don't accept - my definition of "better" is just not the same as theirs.

If a developer only wishes to develop for the moz suite but no on is there to use it, are you making a difference?
So what, am I wasting my time working on Mozilla? No, it's a hobby which happens to benefit me (since I get a better browser). Besides, there is a difference between not having 25 million users and not having ANY users. If a Mozilla 1.8 is released, I'm sure there will still be many thousands of downloads.

If you abandon mozilla for dropping the suite you were never a true open source developer to begin with.
I liked Mozilla, but wanted it to do something it didn't support (play a sound when a download finishes). I found this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16498 and with a lot of help from existing developers, fixed it. As time went on, I found other things I didn't like, and worked on them. Since then, I've fixed quite a few bugs: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact& email1=cst%40andrew.cmu.edu&chfieldto=Now

Does the fact that I do this work for free, in my free time make me a "fake" open source developer? Am I supposed to continue to contribute if the project moves in a direction I don't like? If that's what's required to fit someone's definition of "true open source developer", then fine, I'm not one.

It really boils down to this: I don't like the same things Firefox devs like, and as such, making Firefox "better" in my opinion would require that I fork it. Instead, I choose to contribute to Mozilla, whose developers I see eye-to-eye with much better. Unlike a personal Firefox fork, Mozilla at least has some users.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

If a developer only wishes to develop for the moz suite but no on is there to use it, are you making a difference?

Does it really matter? The only reason he is working on Mozilla is because he enjoys it. If he wouldn't enjoy working on Firefox (either because of the attitudes of the developers or because of the product itself), why should he feel the need to do so?

Myself, I spend my time working on projects with orders of magnitude less users than Mozilla. Should I abandon doing what I like and start doing things I don't enjoy, just to be a "true open source developer"?

Re:Maybe...

[an_mo]

Look I liked the suite because it had chatzilla, the editor, the dom inspector and venkman. Yesterday I gave firefox another chance, I found out that you CAN install it with the dev tools, and that you CAN install chatzilla as an extension. You can also install an extension (viewsourcewith) so that when you view source it opens up in NVU or any editor of your choice.

What I am trying to say is: perhaps it's time to say goodbye to the suite. I can see no advantages to it. It has become an unmaneagable mess, especially the UI. Some people like the integration of the mail client with the browser, and that is fine. But why should MF resources be spent on it when there are better alternatives (even for developers)?

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Just curious, but why do you like Mozilla better than Firefox?

Re:Maybe...

[Realistic_Dragon]

Well thanks for all your efforts on it (as well as everone elses) - I really hope they keep the suite alive. It's much nicer than FF for my use, and I'd be very sad if it were ever to die.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent is flamebait because it tells an open source developer that the only reason to work on an open source project is to develop for end users. Developing for one own's goals, scratching one own's itch, is at the heart of open source work. The OP doesn't understand this, and you obviously don't do either.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

It has become an unmaneagable mess, especially the UI.
I'm not sure what you think is an unmanageable mess... the code is certainly not worse than Firefox's, and the actual interface is fine once you get used to it.

Re:Maybe...

[T.Hobbes]

Just curious, but why do you like Firefox better than Mozilla?

Different strokes for different folks, as they say. I like Mozilla because the interface and the program feel more mature, and I'm more familiar with the menu layout. Also, I rarely use chat but when I do mozilla saves me from installing another program. I've use firefox a fair bit, and it felt too lightweight, and too much like IE, for my taste.

Both programs are essentially the same underneath; it really boils down to a question of taste.

Re:Maybe...

[metamatic]

I'm glad someone has mentioned the key problem... it occurred to me reading the last Slashdot article. It's a very common problem with software companies:

The developers are either out of touch with what the users want, or they strongly want different things than the users want.

In this case, the Mozilla developers seem to want to bring back the all-singing all-dancing web browser, mail client, news client, HTML editor, chat client and kitchen sink that was Netscape Communicator. Perhaps they still have dreams of world domination and supplanting desktop applications with web applications.

The users, in contrast, just want a web browser. If they need mail or news, they'll run a mail and/or news client. If they want chat, they'll run a chat program, probably something AIM-compatible.

My theory is that there are two main reasons why users prefer separate apps to monolithic suites: Firstly, Firefox has a cleaner, simpler interface than Mozilla. It's simply easier to switch application contexts in one consistent way, and have UI complexity parceled up neatly into separate bundles. When I'm configuring my web browser, I don't want to see options for accounts and offline news and so on.

The second reason is that unlike developers, users are typically RAM and disk constrained. They don't have shit-hot machines. So the ability to run in far less memory is valuable, even if they don't use that ability all the time.

It's noteworthy that Microsoft haven't turned all their Internet applications into one big suite. They could easily embed IE and Outlook and FrontPage into one package, but they don't. Why not? I'm guessing that they've done their market research, and discovered that almost nobody wants that.

So, what should the Mozilla organization do? It depends what its goals are.

If the goal is to get Mozilla software onto as many desktops as possible, it should dump the Mozilla suite and work on Firefox and Thunderbird.

If the goal is to please the current set of Mozilla developers, then the suite will need to be kept somehow.

If there really aren't enough resources to develop both Firefox/Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite, then someone's going to have to make a tough decision: please the developers or please the users?

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

Keep up the good work please.

Re:Maybe...

[Anonymous Coward]

I need to echo the other cowards kudos... The suite is by far the better product in many ways. The UI has been consistent which makes supporting users (including family lol) so much easier. Installs for myself or family are simplified with a single product to put on for them. One product to track version availability and/or security issues. Unfortunately I think firefox will be a bit of a flash in the pan. Maybe it's just different audiences but I've yet to meet anyone (irl) who likes the UI or concept....

Re:Gee...

[brokenvoice]

Firefox is wonderful, but it isn't the Second Coming

Shit, don't let Asa hear you say that or he'll have a horde of fanboys gearing up to brand you.

The main problem is that you have a bunch of talented but young coders with shitheads hanging on their coat-tails repeatedly telling them how wonderful they are. Eventually, they will believe the hype about themselves and think they can do whatever they like and simply can't understand that a lot of people don't care about/don't like what they are doing.

cf. Mike Matas.

mod parent up

[Janek Kozicki]

I love GPL and I write my own PhD program under this license.

and I don't know why the parent was modded as troll. ...And about two days ago I had modpoints which I didn't had time to spend.

Redesign Mozilla?

[orb_fan]

Why not make Mozilla a container app for firefox and thunderbird? FF and TB would basically be plugins for Mozilla. That way you have a single code base for the browser and mail app. Adding the calendar to Mozilla would then be easy, you just load the plugin.

Imagine being able to open your email on new tab in the mozilla window?

Re:Redesign Mozilla?

[Slack3r78]

You just described what Mozilla either 1.5 or 1.6 was essentially supposed to be. Then the devs decided Firefox and Thunderbird weren't ready, and it got pushed back. I haven't kept up with whether there are still any plans to do so.

Re:Redesign Mozilla?

[YesIAmTheMan]

Opera essentially does this, but I'm not so sure people want to work this way. When you check your mail, you open a mail app. When you surf the web, you open your web browser. Having the ability to check your mail in one tab and browse the web in another tab seems cool, but it somewhat interrupts the "roles" different applications play on your computer.

STFU & GBTW

[bersl2]

I know they're trying to tweak every possible thing to grow as fast as possible, but this is just pointless. Nothing is ostensibly broken at this point, so why fix it when it may not be there?

Unless there's some creative differences happening that are only now coming to the surface, leave it alone, your organizational model is fine.

Re:STFU & GBTW

[sean23007]

GBTW?

George Bush - Time Warner?

That could be even more interesting than their last merger. Be careful though ... this is how rumors get started.

Re:STFU & GBTW

[Anonymous Coward]

I think they meant:

Get Back to Work

Growing pains

[YesIAmTheMan]

The MoFo is merely experiencing some growing pains that come along with supporting a newfound success. The more popular something becomes, the more people want to change it and ride the wave. I think Mozilla should stick to their current development policy, but they've got to get rid of Seamonkey at some point. Firefox and Thunderbird (and soon, Sunbird) are going to do for Mozilla what Seamonkey should have done: getting the technology into users' hands.

Re:Growing pains

[Anonymous Coward]

What about those of us who like the kitchen sink? Honestly, one instance of gecko to run the browser and the mail client, instead of two, just makes sense. If you use either sparingly, then I can see where you're coming from. Otherwise, Mozilla 1.8 has actually got SLIGHTLY faster startup times (in some tests, it seemed to be faster for me anyway) than Firefox, which is truely impressive. I like keeping mozilla and firefox together (they both use the same core, "Gecko", so it's basically the same as the idea to merge Firefox and Thunderbird to the suite). It just gives you options: All in one, or one at a time. Personally I hope seamonkey stays alive, just because.

Currently, seamonkey is the only way to allow the Calendar feature to both send email alarms (the sunbird 'plugin' as opposed to the 'standalone' can only do that if it's plugged into tbird) and visit urls (plugin only, if it's in firefox). The nicest thing about firefox (for enterprises) is that read mail points to the default client, which is usually Outlook, for now. In Mozilla, I believe I had a pain of a time getting mailto: links going to an external client.

(Yes, i'm a registered user posting anonymously, because I don't think I made sense at all)

Re:Growing pains

[YesIAmTheMan]

I think you should consider that Firefox and Thunderbird are 1.0 products, and in turn they're going to have shortcomings. Sunbird is at a quaint 0.2, and Nvu (the mozilla composer-based HTML editor) is at 1.0beta. So although these products are based on a mature codebase, they are still fairly immature.

The great thing these products are doing, however, is actually bringing Mozilla's technology to the end-user by making it more marketable, which also makes it more accessible to Joe Schmoe. Instead of trying to push a whole plethora of apps to Joe, you're giving him a web browser. And the web browser actually has a name. Likewise for the other apps.

I believe that as Firefox, Thunderbird, and the other products mature, you simply won't need Seamonkey anymore. I think the new product-driven approach also improves the development model by concentrating work into the polish of a product instead of each change (possibly) affecting an entire suite. As for how MoFo will deal with a lack of real developers remains to be seen.

Hello oooGALAXYooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice to see you still hang around /. :-D

Anyway, this really looks like a promising project and your post reminded me that I really forgot to try it out lately, so I will give it a shot now and see how it has come along.

P.S.: Hope the GoneME stuff and all the flaming doesn't get in the way of this nice project.

Just what Mozilla needs right now...

[bigtallmofo]

Recipe for disaster...

Mix one part success
With two parts confusion

Bake for a few months, and see what FireFox's market share is.

Weird...

[bahamat]

Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Mozilla Foundation formed because Netscape/AOL wanted Mozilla to become a community project that the corporation has no responsibility for?

If the Mozilla Foundation has no responsibility for the Mozilla codebase, just what is the point of their existence?

I say desolve the foundation permanently. Give project leaders direct control over their codebases. Fear will keep the users in line! Fear of this battlesta-- . . . no, wait, I mean Microsoft, fear of Microsoft.

Seriously though, if the Mozilla Foundation doesn't want control/responsibility of the Mozilla codebase they should just simply disband and give the code back to the community. Someone will pick it up.

Re:Weird...

[CTho9305]

The issue here is that the Foundation organizes releases, and deals with marketing. It seems that they only have resources to organize releases for one product, and don't want to send conflicting marketing messages with 2 products. The Foundation appears to be picking the aviary products (Firefox, Thunderbird) over Mozilla (which makes sense, given userbase numbers).

Many developers strongly prefer the suite - not all are interested in contributing to Firefox. If the Mozilla Foundation wants to kill off the suite, they risk losing many developer resources. As recent /. stories point out, Firefox ALREADY lacks a strong developer community.

Giving the suite "back to the community" isn't as easy as it sounds. We don't want 50 forks of the suite, each with no users - many of the suite developers are interested in sticking together, so we're trying to figure out how to have just ONE suite version in case the Foundation decides it's time to kill the product. Having one version of the suite is the best way to keep it alive for as long as possible.

Re:Weird...

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you stated this wrong, the "Mozilla Foundation" should keep mozilla, but the developers that want to go on with Firefox should leave the "Mozilla Foundation" and have to figure out a way to make money on their own, instead of riding on the coat tails of the "Mozilla Foundation". Isnt Firefox a fork of Mozilla and not the other way around? The Mozilla foundation was established so that mozilla would not go away.

split it off

[KingOfTheNerds]

I think a split off would be a good thing to happen, sometimes as products grow they need to be focused on independently. Firefox gets the product to the people, and it will funnel some users back to the mozilla project. Splitting it off doesn't mean there wouldn't be communication between the two projects, just more focus. This is similar to when apple made a hardware unit to focus on the ipod. S'all good in da hood.

CVS politics

[r00t]

Big projects using CVS somehow all wind up with
with nasty politics. This is because CVS commit
rights give a very visible rank to some people.
It only gets worse if you add "core" membership.

Linus keeps things fuzzy. The innermost circle
of developers is poorly defined. This lets
everyone think they are "in" or "out" as best
suits their personality.

I've seen the problem on wikis too, with admin
rights. Giving out explicit rank is dumb.

Re:CVS politics

[TheTomcat]

Based on your previous comment, you may find this interesting. Or you may not. I wrote it.

S

Re:CVS politics

[benb]

Finding CVS also horrible, and svk being very nice, this is so not about version control systems. VCS can't help you, if the next version of Gecko or XUL changes in a way that breaks your app, but you only realize why (or even *that* it happened) after 3 hours or 3 days or 3 weeks of investigation. That's the reality of Mozilla development.

Re:CVS politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Big projects using CVS somehow all wind up with
with nasty politics. This is because CVS commit
rights give a very visible rank to some people.
It only gets worse if you add "core" membership.

Linus keeps things fuzzy. The innermost circle
of developers is poorly defined. This lets
everyone think they are "in" or "out" as best
suits their personality.

Sorry, but this is just wrong, and completely irrelevant. The version control system has nothing to do with the politics. I can just as easily fork a CVS controlled project as one that uses Bitkeeper or patch exchange on a list.
Everyone knows who the core developers are on Linux, unless you are an idiot or trying to make conclusions from generalizations you read in Wired about the "Linux development model". Clearly akpm, Al Viro, Ted T'so, Alan Cox clearly have been in much closer contact with Linus and some of the overall direction than 99% of the other contributors. In the past 4 years the Linux development community has become much more compartmentalized and diverse because of all the different projects at IBM, OSDL, HP, Redhat, and Suse. If you don't think key technical leaders from these companies have more rank, then you clearly have never subscribed to lkml.

I'm not saying any of this is bad, but the core linux dev culture is an unabashedely and unapologetically a meritocracy.

Re:CVS politics

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh yeah, I thought I would follow up that there is an Interview with Linus floating out there where he actually describes that he relies on a certain group of maintainers with pretty much implicit trust for a wide variety of maintenance. The most noticeable for 2.6 is of course akpm. If this isn't effectively a core team, then I don't know what is.. And this core team is not based on any kind of democratic process, voting or otherwise, it is simply based on the groups of people that Linus (and the current "core", because akpm is basically another Linus in many ways) feels has been most reliable. It isn't "democratic", and for that I'm thankful. Democracy in specialized constructive endeavors leads to bureaucracy, where merit the first casuality. The fundamental goals of a kernel project and an far less than perfect, but reasonably stable government have very little in common.

Anyway... If you want to prove me wrong about how "fuzzier" things are compared to a CVS project, do a patch that implements paged kernel memory or handles floating point support in the kernel, and attempt to get it pushed into the mainline. If you can, then I will concede, otherwise I'd like to know what the effective difference is between CVS and the linux way if you still have to get your code accepted by certain people in the maintainers list.

Re:CVS politics

[r00t]

Oh no. You missed the point. FYI, I am a Linux kernel developer and I know damn well how it works.

I suppose that one could have CVS without giving out commit access, and one could use BitKeeper in a way that let everybody check into a single tree. This would be very much against the norm though.

And sure, forking is equally easy, but the motive won't be there without the nasty politics.

You say that Ted T'so has close contact with Linus. Sure, I agree. He does not however have a special title. He is not part of "core". He does not have any ability to check-in (commit) code to Linus' tree. Ted T'so may have a greater reputation than you or I, but he has no special rank.

This is key. This is what greatly reduces the ugly political battles. If Ted T'so starts making an ass out of himself, Linus need not take away a commit bit or core membership. If I wish to imagine myself to be as important as Ted T'so, I may do so. There is no indisputable evidence that proves I am of a lower rank than Ted T'so. Likewise, while he may suspect that he matters more than I do, he has no special access rights to brag about. The only thing to distinguish him from me is raw reputation.

Once you start publicly ranking people and offering them visibly different abilities, the politics get nasty. CVS encourages this, by the use of a shared source repository that requires access control.

Re:CVS politics

[r00t]

Can you name all the core team members? You can not. This is the whole point. Heck, nobody really knows. There isn't a firm boundry. If you could get Linus willing to answer, I'm sure lots of people would get rated "maybe" and "sort of".

As for your proof, a more interesting test would be if Ted T'so or Alan Cox were to submit those crazy patches. You think they are core... but I'm 99.999% sure that Linus would still reject the patches. Probably he'd say something about keeping away from the crack pipe. Core team members of a BSD project could indeed just commit such crap into the tree, unlike regular users who can not do so.

For saner patches, Linus does indeed take what I send him. I think I have an acceptance rate above 50%, and I don't claim to be the maintainer of any particular part of the kernel even.

What a forking mess

[motorsabbath]

Forking - the best way to kill a community project. Just ask anyone working in a multi-distro Linux environment...

Re:What a forking mess

[Dan Ost]

What problems do you have in your multi-distro Linux environment?

Most of the devs in my group run whatever distro they want (mostly Gentoo
and Fedora) and the production environment is either Solaris or RHES. There
are no headaches working with multiple distros on the same project. All the
headaches seem to be getting Linux developed code to play nicely on Solaris.

Re:What a forking mess

[motorsabbath]

Mostly packaging and dependency problems. Most of the "blessed" apps we have to work with are RPMs and tied to specific Red Hat kernels. Can be a beotch to get going on e.g. a Slackware box. Also, 3rd party vendor support is a problem. If you want Cadence to support an issue, do *not* tell them you're running NC-Sim on Slackware or Gentoo.... :-)

"problems" inaccurate

[bmetz]

Sounds like a debate, which is what organizations do. They debate strategic moves. Saying they are having "problems" implies something else entirely.

Re:shame on slashdot

[Anonymous Coward]

Indeed. Happens all the time - story appears on OSNews and then the same story appears on Slashdot between 6 and 24 hours later.

Anybody that dares to point this out gets instantly modded as Offtopic or Redundant. Anyone that mocks them for pointing out Slasdot's deficiencies gets modded up.

It's a shame that OSNews is such a wretched hive of half-witted trolls and teenage fuckwads. Unlike Slashdot which is errr... nevermind.

Huh?

[rpdillon]

People in a team having differeent ideas for the future of a project != "in trouble".

"Google is in trouble - some employee want to bring Google News out of Beta, while others do not."

Why isn't there a decent linux option?

[karmaflux]

Everyone always throws up K-Meleon as the Firefox alternative -- that's fine, under Windows. When you ask for a linux alternative, they blather about Galeon or Epiphany, or sometimes even Dillo, which is nowhere near useable.

Galeon and Epiphany require both Gnome and Mozilla to be installed on the system. That is a fuckload of dependency to browse the web. It also means Galeon and Epiphany aren't really standalone browsers; they're like MyIE or whatever IE wrapper is popular this week.

The only extension I ever use with Firefox is adblock*, and I'm learning to program in more languages specifically so I can strip Firefox down and get it back to where it was in the early days -- small, fast, and lightweight.


* -- yeah, yeah, I know adblock runs against the whole revenue stream of the web, and it keeps me from supporting websites, blah blah blah. If I want to support a website I'll donate to it.

Re:Why isn't there a decent linux option?

[Anonymous Coward]

The complaint about "dependancies" is ridiclous. If you want something that runs "native" on Linux you have no other choice but to use libraries that people have written. If you don't want "native", run Mozilla where they rewrote everything from scratch.

Re:Why isn't there a decent linux option?

[Compenguin]

There is no technical reason why galeon or epiphany couldn't have the gecko source included. The reasons are purely practical. Unlike camino or firefox they aren't hosted in the mozilal cvs, they are in the gnome cvs. And there is nothing about wrapping firefox or seamonkey that makes it slow. Thankfully seamonkey/firefox is modularized enough that they only needs to load a few components. as far as dependancies go, thay are gnome webbrowsers, complainging about gnome dependancies is like complaining that IE depends on MFC. In the end, dependancy on a standard frame work or libraries makes the projects easier to maintain and allows for far less code dupelication (unlike the firefox/thunderbird fiasco which on windows dupelicate all the way from glib and zlib up include nspr/nss all the way through the whole gecko engine). If you really wanted to you could hack togther a binary of galeon that is staically linked to most of those libs. Depending on these libraries also doesn't make it so you have to have or run metacity or gnome-panel or nautilus.

Re:Why isn't there a decent linux option?

[Brandan]

"* -- yeah, yeah, I know adblock runs against the whole revenue stream of the web, and it keeps me from supporting websites, blah blah blah. If I want to support a website I'll donate to it."

I noticed that you are not a subscriber to SlashDot. Does this mean that you do not want to support it?

You mean regedit?

[tepples]

The about:config interface in Mozilla Suite and Mozilla Firefox is as easy as getting the median point-and-drool Windows user to become familiar with regedit.

Re:You mean regedit?

[Lonewolf666]

Regedit is not that difficult to use. Knowing what all these obscure registry keys mean, on the other hand...

WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

[Qbertino]

Is the Licence so restricted? Can't anyone who would like to just fork the project?

It's open source people, this is how it works when heavy problems show up:

1) Gee cool project. I like the tool .

2) Gosh, I miss foo in this. But I guess someone would need to implement bar before that could work.

3)
- "Hey folks, I've done this patch. Could you check it out, merge it in and may I join the devteam?"
- "No. You stink. We don't want you. You know to much, and besides: I'm the big guru around here. Go away."
- "Ok. Sorry for wasting your time."

4) sf.net/my/.makeNewProject( my tool );

Or did I miss something here?

Re:WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

[Anonymous Coward]

5. ??
6. Profit!

Re:WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

[DogDude]

That's exactly how it works from the DEVELOPER end. From the USER end it works like this:

1. Cool tool. And it's free? Sure, I'll play with it for a while.

2. I've been using it for a while. No big problems that I can see. Maybe I should consider deploying this at work.

3. Oh, wait, it's splitting into 5 versions, and they're each a bit different? How do I know which one to go with? Which one will survive and which ones will die off?

4. Hell, there's just too much risk. I'll just stick with the ol' proprietary standby. It may not be the best, but at least we won't be stuck up shit creek without a paddle with this one. It's worth spending a bit of money just to know that we're getting a product that'll still exist in a few years.

If you don't care about users, then sure, fork away. You don't care about users now, so you won't care when they leave your projects in droves.

Re:WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

[bonch]

Except that very few people in the world understand the extremely complex Mozilla codebase. People think OSS means "someone will magically fork it and create a whole new project at will when something goes wrong," which is rarely how it happens. Not everyone is a programmer, and few are great ones.

Re:WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

People think OSS means "someone will magically fork it and create a whole new project at will when something goes wrong," which is rarely how it happens. Not everyone is a programmer, and few are great ones.

And the few great ones are rarely telepaths, so it will still take them a long time to get up to speed with a large, unfamiliar project. Even then, they will rarely, if ever, develop the same insight as the original dev team into all the little details, and they often won't even grok the overall architecture if the docs aren't good.

All part of growing up..

[delire]

Hair on the chest et al; necessary future-proofing for a growing organisation.

Just because it's an open-source driven organisation doesn't mean we should be surprised. Anyway it's not dissimilar to the factions and dissent occuring in any corporation at periods of massive growth.

Only that for the Mozilla Foundation we expect them to be more grown up about it, as it upholds fantasies that open collaboration naturally leads to unity.

Re:All part of growing up..

[DogDude]

Anyway it's not dissimilar to the factions and dissent occuring in any corporation at periods of massive growth.

Actually a significant difference is that in a corporation, the decision ultimately comes down to a single decision maker that says, "My way or the highway." There is no forking.

Re:All part of growing up..

[delire]

..Not when you consider what goes on in board meetings and the power of shareholder lobbying. The only real difference here is that everyone is a stakeholder - their ambitious and individual directions could be (albeit unfortunately) considered as a kind of capital investment. Ultimately it's positive, any fork here would produce the equivalent of a sister-company or strategic partner. Regardless it seem the MF is growing out of itself.

Re:All part of growing up..

[DogDude]

But the thing is that product decisions rarely make it to the board level in large companies. Very rarely. Besides, that's internal. It doesn't cause fear, uncertainty, and doubt among its customers like this kind of Open Source bickering does. And, much more imporantly, a real decision can be made. I don't remember any recent proprietary software apps that "forked". It's simply not possible because there's real ownership.

And no, I don't think it's positive. Managers don't want to have to pick one of several very similar projects to choose from, and hope that theirs will survive. When I pick an app for my business, I have to be as sure as I can be that our investment of time and money will not be wasted in a year when the software package/support/company goes belly up. I can't afford to waste any time or money on software dead-ends. In fact, right now, I'm reconsidering my decision to standardize my company on Firefox. It's not a big deal if Firefox gets all messed up, since it's not a *critical* application, but if we ever need a browser specific tool, I really doubt that I'd pick Firefox at this point.

OSS has ADD

[EraserMouseMan]

I just wish the OSS industry had some motivation to stay focused and organized. Seems like every OSS publisher leaves the software out there to die a couple years after developing it. They invent some great OSS then get married/kids and their priorities change. So much orphaned OSS out there. It's really too bad. That's why OSS may always have it's following, but it will NEVER kill the companies that charge for software. An OSS developer can decide to fall off the wagon for a year and he's not accountable to anybody. If you use his software or need his support you're just screwed. If the same guy charges for his software he can't fall off the wagon cause he'll starve. BTW, don't give me that, "Oh, you can get the source code and continue development yourself if you need to." I live my life in real-time. I can't push a pause button to develop/debug orphaned OSS.

Re:OSS has ADD

[RWerp]

You knew all this up front, when you deployed this critical OSS application, didn't you?

Re:OSS has ADD

[Anonymous Coward]

Some people do and they plan for the increased TCO. Some people don't and they get burned (and subsequently purchase the non-OSS/supported version).

Re:OSS has ADD

[RWerp]

I think that you wont' get burned if you use such applications that are used by many people, and are developed by many people.

Why Firefox?

[gvc]

I'm a Luddite when it comes to Firefox. I don't really understand why it was created, notwithstanding that I've been told several times that if I had any savvy at all I would find the reasons apparent, as everybody else does.

I see it as brand-name dilution. I was an early Mozilla evangelist. Now all the people I converted from the dark side are terribly confused and groaning "Do I have to change again?" You mean I have to replace Mozilla browser/mail by 2 different programs? "It's almost the same only better - I'll help you convert" doesn't play very well as an answer.

I have no ready solution, now that Firefox has established a beach head (IMO, due to surrendipity and marketing rather than inherent superiority). I suppose I'll have to try my best to convince the disciples that they should change horses yet again.

Re:Why Firefox?

[IthnkImParanoid]

If you don't see any convincing reason for them to change, why would you tell them to? Maybe there isn't a convincing reason, for those particular users.

Re:Why Firefox?

[Abcd1234]

IMO, due to surrendipity and marketing rather than inherent superiority

Funny, I switched over to Firefox specifically because I felt it was inherently superior:

1) (Mostly) Superior UI.
2) Faster. Waaay faster.
3) Smaller and less bloated, meaning lower memory requirements.
4) More easily extensible.

Frankly, I think the only step necessary to put the nail in the coffin of the suite is the GRE. Once that's in place, Thunderbird, Firefox, and Sunbird will be able to share the Mozilla run-time. And with three separate processes, instead of one monolithic one, a bug in Thunderbird won't pull Firefox down...

I do wonder, though, why Thunderbird isn't available as a Firefox extension. This would allow people to integrate the two if they really wanted to, much the way you already can with Sunbird.

Re:Why Firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, you're right and wrong at the same time. It's brand name dilution of the (imho, terrible) brand "Mozilla" and extreme strengthening of the (imho, much better) brand Firefox.

Mozilla, for many reasons, has never appealed to a wide market of "normals", "pointy-haired-bosses" or even "end users". For the same many reasons, the only people that use it are... GEEKS.

So, to me (an AC), it seems that Firefox and the other aviary products have a MUCH wider *commercial* appeal. It appeals to normals, phbs, home users, etc.

But the geeks like Mozilla. That's a long-standing fact. As a geek, I really don't understand it. But I guess that's why I work in advertising/marketing and you guys work in software.

And just as a side jab... the Netscape brand was really strong too. People worried that Mozilla would dilute it. In hindsight, I really wish it had. MANY more users trust the Netscape name than the Mozilla name.

This comment's getting long and it's going to get modded down anyway, but just to say... there's a lot in a name. Netscape is a good name. Firefox is a good name. Mozilla is a stupid name. And I think the market has demonstrated that.

So, while you're talking about brand dilution, remember your history. Remember Netscape. Netscape was the biggest brand of the internet for years and years and years. Why wasn't Mozilla? Why *is* Firefox? If it's all the "same" product? I argue that it has *everything* to with the name.

Re:Why Firefox?

[jalefkowit]

The answer to "Why Firefox?" is simple.

If Seamonkey felt like the ideal Web browser to you, then there's no reason to switch.

Firefox is for the 99.98% of the world that looked at Seamonkey and said "No thanks".

Where Seamonkey is complex, Firefox is streamlined. Where Seamonkey is highly tweakable, Firefox is not (unless you add extensions). Where Seamonkey does everything but make toast, Firefox does one thing: browse the Web.

Note that I am not saying that any of these things make Firefox "good" and Seamonkey "bad". They just appeal to different people -- and Seamonkey's design philosophy just didn't appeal to enough people to get it to critical mass in the marketplace.

Firefox deliberately runs in the opposite direction from Seamonkey because Seamonkey did not appeal to the vast majority of potential users. There needed to be a browser that appealed to those folks too -- as Blake Ross puts it, a Gecko browser "for Mom" -- and that's Firefox.

Re:Why Firefox?

[Anonymous Coward]

There is more to this "name dilution" among geeks that most geeks will admit. Let me give you one example: BIND. You have to be a real geek to know what BIND is and what BIND does.

Well, there is, among certain people, a perception that BIND is a bad piece of software. Despite the fact that the problems in question are in older versions of BIND. Despite the fact that BIND has been completely rewritten and the new version of BIND doesn't have the security problems old versions of BIND has had. Despite the fact that this new version has not had one single privledge escalation security bug in it.

However, some geeks assosciate the name BIND with these horrible security issues that are a thing of the past, and this negative name brand recognition still affects BIND adoption to this day.

- Sam

Re:Why Firefox?

[phrasebook]

1) (Mostly) Superior UI.
2) Faster. Waaay faster.
3) Smaller and less bloated, meaning lower memory requirements.
4) More easily extensible.


1. Yep it's a bit better

2. Another 'Firefox is faster' claim. It never has been in my experience. Maybe Mozila is actually faster.

3. Have you looked at the memory usage? Looks identical to me. Firefox can easily chew up 50mb or more just like Mozilla could.

4. And how does this actually benefit you, assuming you're not a developer? I only use adblock, which works on both.

I use Firefox, but it has never seemed to be a necessary or great advancement over the suite, and a lot of the reasons for switching to it seem like hot air. I hope the original Mozilla doesn't disappear as a result.

Libraries?

[BenjyD]

I'd always assumed that there was a libGecko, libXUL , libMozMail etc. that Seamonkey, Thunderbird and Firefox all used to avoid duplicating effort. That doesn't seem to be the case, however (from my understanding now, anyway): they all seem to use their own, slightly different components.

Wouldn't it be a good idea to just split out as much of the common functionality between the various Mozillas. The "Firefox team" becomes basically a browser UI team, for example.

That way, if the libGecko people need to release a security patch, they don't need to wait for the firefox people to merge it into their source tree as well. Or is my understanding incorrect?

Re:Libraries?

[Compenguin]

>I'd always assumed that there was a libGecko, libXUL , libMozMail etc. that Seamonkey, Thunderbird and Firefox all used to avoid duplicating effort. That doesn't seem to be the case, however (from my understanding now, anyway): they all seem to use their own, slightly different components.

This is the way development is structured for most of the development period. However, before a firefox/thunderbird realease (last time way before) a branch forks off and changes may be made to any of these components. Then when realeas time comes the whole tree minus mail is packed up for a firefox release and the whole tree minus the browser for a thunderbird release.

From what I understand this comes partly from a lack of package management on windows (and possibly OSX?). Where they don't want firefox to dpend on another istaller.

IMHO they really should install *versioned* libraries to C:\Program Files\Common Files\Mozilla.org (or /opt/mozilla.org) and then you can still have the files in two seperate isntallers but have one copy of code on the users PC.

Some people are cheering

[highcon]

Here's a couple of people who are happy about the possiblity of Mozilla being discontinued.

egocentric

[Anonymous Coward]

they can learn a bit about "non-egocentric-unified development" from apache.

I still use Mozilla

[Isldeur]

I don't know about the rest of you people but I still use Mozilla as my 3rd browser behind konqueror and firefox.

I'm sure other people have found similar things. It remains the only browser that opens most of those silly Javascript sub-windows. I can only imagine the other browsers don't do this because the javascript is some broken hack - but whether it is or isn't, sometimes you just need to open these things.

Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

[guanxi]

If they abandoned Mozilla Suite and its users, how do I know they won't abandon the current Firefox or Thunderbird apps?

That's the question every business will ask before adopting any other Moz app, if Mozilla Foundation abandons the Mozilla Suite. In fact, some will ask it about any FOSS product. That particular FUD already exists; this move would reinforce it.

It might seem unlikely that Firefox would be abandoned, but what happens to 1.0 when FF 2.0 comes out? Support and maintenance for old products is essential for any business customer; upgrading can be very expensive (deploying across thousands of computers, modifying any integrated software, etc) and often doesn't help the business' bottom line. IBM supports products forever, it seems; Microsoft supported Windows 98 until (last year?). The Linux 2.4 kernal is certainly maintaned; what about 2.2? IBM's name is behind Linux, anyway.

MoFo would look like an unreliable vendor with a good product. I posted in Slashdot previously that they aren't really community driven, which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's just different. It appears they may not be customer driven, either. What's driving MoFo?

Re:Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

[Karn]

Is it really abandonment when they give you separate products with the exact same set of features, that are compatible? There really isn't much to gain from having an all-in-one suite over separate applications.

Re:Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

[Scooby Snacks]

Maintenance is done on the stable branches all the way back to 2.0, although the smaller the number, the less frequently an update is released.

Re:Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you have a legitimate point. For example, let's look at AbiWord. AbiWord 1.0 was pretty good. However, once AbiWord 2.0 came out, the Abi project basically buried AbiWord 1.0. One has to really dig around Abi's site to find AbiWord 1.0. AbiWord 1.0 won't even compile on Fedora Core Three without serious hacking, and won't run once compiled. AbiWord 1.0 was only supported by the Abi project for about one year.

Anyone remember the problem with KMail 1.0, where it would stop working in late 2001? When this problem was brought to the KDE project's attention, their response was "You must upgrade to KDE 2.0 to fix this bug". KDE 1.0 was released in the summer of 1998; the bug popped up three years later.

So yes, certain projects are very flakey about supporting earlier releases of their software.

In terms of the Linux kernel, the last 2.0.x release was released about a year ago--some eight years after the first 2.0.x release. This is a longer support period than Microsoft's. The 2.2.x kernel also had its last release early last year, making this a kernel that was supported for five years.

Of course, in all cases, the source code is freely available and can be patched by anyone that wishes to do so. Unfortunatly, it can be very difficult to patch someone else's source code--a lot of source code is hard to read and patches which appear to fix things may introduce issues that only the original developer could foresee.

Re:Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

[Anonymous Coward]

The issue is that it's more of a pain in the ass to update to a new, different program than it is to just patch the old program. Especially when updating a lot of machines at once.

DIdn't they want this?

[drjimmy42]

Wasn't there a /. article a few weeks ago about how elite the firefox devs were and how they wouldn't tell anyone how to be part if the "inner circle" because figuring it out was part of the secret handshake bull$#!+. And now they are running out of people with no community support? Hmm, I wonder why. Am I reading that wrong or are they getting what they asked for?

True, that remark was flippant...

[Phil John]

...but before the current government came into power the previous administration was all for kicking microsoft into the middle of next week, when it came time to aportion punishment all MS got was a slap on the wrist.

I don't doubt that Bill Gates is no conservative but the conservative government in place currently has been more than kind to Microsoft, which is not that unfathomable as they do bring a hell of a lot of money into the US.

But all of that doesn't detract from the fact that if mozilla becomes embroiled in internal conflict it can only be a bad thing for further adoption of firefox and the suite.

Re:True, that remark was flippant...

[NutscrapeSucks]

The Clinton administration desprately wanted to to settle the case as well, but never came to an agreement that the states and MS found acceptable.

Rather than get angry at politicians, look to the appeals court which overrulled Jackson and found there was no merit to the charge that IE was "tied" to Windows. In otherwords, sticking IE into Windows was legal, and MS couldn't be punished for it, regardless of the administration in power.

Back on topic, AOL/Netscape walked away with $750 Million of Microsoft's money because of this whole thing. So if Mozilla.org is having resource problems, you might want to ask what happened to that money because only a small part went into browser development.

Re:True, that remark was flippant...

[Anonymous Coward]

"Rather than get angry at politicians, look to the appeals court which overrulled Jackson and found there was no merit to the charge that IE was "tied" to Windows. In otherwords, sticking IE into Windows was legal, and MS couldn't be punished for it, regardless of the administration in power."

Ummm, you better look at that again. The appeals court upheld the finding of fact, so Microsoft was found to have violated the law. The current administration just declined to punish them for it. The appeals court sent the case back because Jackson talked to the press before the trial was over.

You're obviously one of those people who doesn't let facts get in the way of their poorly formed opinions, but next time try a little harder not to look like an idiot, 'k?

Re:True, that remark was flippant...

[NutscrapeSucks]

No, YOU better look at the facts again, and you'll that Microsoft got off on several crucial findings of law:

3. Microsoft is found not guilty of bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows

4. Microsoft is found not guilty of attempting to monopolize the Internet browser market

The "tying" charge was then dropped by the government.

You're obviously one of those people who doesn't let facts get in the way of their poorly formed opinions, but next time try a little harder not to look like an AC idiot, In other words, don't believe what your read on slashdot.

Mod parent up

[KlaymenDK]

...I don't know why, but this "scandal-mongering" (along with dupes) has become more of a problem on /. this past year.

That's sad, because one of the things that marked /. when I first saw it was the factualness of the articles (*this point does apply to comments). This watering-down makes it ever more sleazy like the regular newspapers. :(

A common sense addition to an old adage.

[SomePoorSchmuck]

"Nothing succeeds like success... but then again, nothing fails like success either".

Why does it appear exceptionally difficult for IT companies to navigate the dangers that come with success?

Re:shame on slashdot

[Karn]

Perhaps you should learn how to sensationalize things like sebFlyte does. Honestly, what sounds better: "Mozilla Foundation in More Development Trouble" or "Mozilla Foundation Experiencing Perfectly Normal Behavior" ? The first implies that not only was the Mozilla Foundation in trouble before, they are now in even MORE trouble now! Based on this headline, I'd say it's only a matter of hours before the Mozilla project dies completely.

read animal farm

[Anonymous Coward]

sounds like the mozilla team still thinks socialism is the way to go.

On Paper Relationship Netscape+ Foundation+Firefox

[cannuck]

Is there an online web site to se the "On Paper" contractual relationship between Netscape, The Foundation and Firefox (and Google?). If such a disclosure(s) exist - that would be clarify the what, the why and the when.

Open Source Never dies...

[xtracto]

This story reminds me about the Phrack final issue story.

They say they will end the production of the Mozilla suite but, in fact, that wont happen, anyone can just get the sourcecode and as others have said, fork it.

I only wonder if someone would really like to stand as the project leader and officially the contact for the "outside world", because of the big monster that Mozilla had become.

Tricky Business

[CarlinWithers]

If any browser is ever going to overthrow IE, it's going to need the support of a large number of people. Firefox has made a quick shoe-in, and this hasn't happened since the Iron Curtain went down with the Windows 95 IE tie-in. I think as geeks we need to get over our petty differences, and support Firefox even if it isn't our favorite. If Firefox is wildly successful, that doesn't mean you can't still use Mozilla yourself.

What we need to do is allow Windows users to experience a change in web-browser, the last time this happened was 10 years ago by now. If Firefox captures a 25% 'market share', and we realise that it may eventually need to be replaced... so what? At least these 25% of the people would be more open to change after experiencing the difference between IE and Firefox than if they had just kept using IE for another 2-3 years.

The longer IE stays the de facto standard, the longer it will dominate the Windows browser market. And thus, the longer it will remain a tool of Microsoft's monopoly. Support and promote Windows users switching to Firefox, even if you think you have a better alternative. Why? Because it's good for your alternative. Your alternative will never have a chance until someone sinks IE.

Re:Tricky Business

[Anonymous Coward]

More w/regard to IE than Moz/FF, I've been comming across below more^more lately embedded in the code of web designers trying to push the liimits of the UA to achieve
greater aesthethics ^v functionality:

<body>
<script type="text/javascript">
<!--
if (browser=="Internet Explorer") {document.write(" Hi! It looks like you're using Internet Explorer, which won't display this site quite
as it was intended.You should still be able to see all the content, but for the best experience, you might consider upgrading to <a href=\"http://www.getfirefox.com\">Firefox</a>, <a href=\"http://www.apple.com/safari/\">Safari</a>, <a href=\"http://www.opera.com\">Opera</a>, <a href=\"http://www.omnigroup.com/products/omniweb /\">OmniWeb</a> or any other web standards-compliant browser. ")} // -->
</script>

The reason is that they're finally moving away from tabularization and using css and block level designs. Only IE sucks on standards (Lo..)

My point is that a Push to make a UA standards compliant with rich featuresets (like Xforms, XUL, whatever) to attract the coders and developers increases the Pull to get the graphics and design folks (the artists) to embrace and advocate the UA via their work (websites) is the surest way to reach the mass public and get them to convert over.

Complete utter BULL.

[Anonymous Coward]

What a waste of 2 posts...

"If you don't play by ~my~ rules I'm taking my toys and going home!"

Its bloody "open source," not "closed source." The only "toys" you are going to go home with is the skills you brought with you. The code you wrote is still licensed for everyone to use! RTFM (MPL, GPL). If you leave, we are one less coder, that is IT.

...a serious break with Mozilla at this point will INSTANTLY cripple Firefox adoption...

HOW!??!! Cause they formed a dedicated group of coders that will deal with Firefox? All they are saying is there seems to be little enthusiasm for the Mozilla Suite and most people want to move onto Firefox, and Thunderbird. But the suite is used by a lot of ppl so they can't abandon it.

There are already TWO product lines. One is the all-in-one suite and the other Firefox, and Thunderbird. Although I believe the suite is dying, there seems to be no "cripple" in Firefox adoption due to them being completely separate product lines.

TroubleFUD

[Doc Ruby]

What's the "trouble"? There's no trouble with the suite itself, or any of the software. There's some interesting, important discussion about focus of the project teams, and management of their combined work, defining future directions. These are growing pains, all from the success of Firefox. This is the kind of "trouble" that proprietary software corporations wish they had. But since it's an open project, everyone can see what usually goes on behind closed doors. And therefore, everyone gets to offer help - and criticism. Unlike the proprietary projects, this one can actually accept the help, but it's little different in its ability to ignore baseless criticism. The trouble is with critics with no sense of proportion.

US Senate in More Political Trouble

[Karn]

Karn writes "After the reports of problems with Social Security reform development earlier this week there are now rumblings about more serious problems with the US Senate. Some politicians want to leave Social Security in place with some adjustments, and others want to create a privatized retirement system in response to the pending fiscal troubles related to the Baby Boomer generation retiring."

This is starting to sound familiar

[gothzilla]

I remember reading JWZ's blog back in the Netscape days. I remember one entry in particular where he noted that Netscape had changed. It used to be full of people who wanted to help create a great company. It turned into a place full of people who just wanted to work for a great company. The people who live to help create get replaced by those who want to ride on their coat-tails. This happens when businesses become successful. Everything changes. Like the band that was good friends and partied together every night. They get signed, shit gets serious, and suddenly they're fighting and arguing about things till they break up and go their separate ways.

From an old post in his blog:
What is most amazing about this is not the event itself, but rather, what it indicates: Netscape has gone from ``hot young world-changing startup'' to Apple levels of unadulterated uselessness in fewer than four years, and with fewer than 3,000 employees.

But I guess Netscape has always done everything faster and bigger. Including burning out.

It's too bad it had to end with a whimper instead of a bang. Netscape used to be something wonderful.

The thing that hurts about this is that I was here when Netscape was just a bunch of creative people working together to make something great. Now it's a faceless corporation like all other faceless corporations, terrified that it might accidentally offend someone. But yes, all big corporations are like that: it's just that I was here to watch this one fall.

Perhaps the same fate awaits Mozilla. Hopefully not, but when your product becomes as successful as Mozilla and Firefox have, things do change and change is inevitable. It all comes down to how the people involved with the projects handle the change.

Mozilla did rise from the ashes of Netscape though. Hopefully some of the original Netscape people are still around to help lead Mozilla in the right direction, using their experience from the crashing and burning of Netscape in the late 90's.

JWZ's rantings can be found at http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/

Pathetic, not true

[Jedbro]

This is sad, just because some 13 year old kid posted the *lame* idea of a firefox founndation, doesn't make it worthy of a Slashdot post. The article that is being linked to is flawed and only quotes "personal thoughts" from random users and devs who are not even employed by the Mozilla Foundation (MoFo).

MoFo is only suggesting that it stops putting direct focus on Mozill Suite development and push the stand alone apps and their back-end code (which will allow integration in the future) like they had planned over a year or so ago. This is nothing new, just an idea of keeping the suite alive as a community project.

No controversy, no firefox foundation, just something that has been in their plans for years..

But oh... wait..., no one really cares to check, as dissing OS and creating lame controversal ideas is more fun.

(yeah, yeah, my spelling sucks).

If you can assure me...

[emil]

...that the Mozilla suite code is of higher security than Firefox, then I will dump Firefox like a hot potato and never look back.

For the same reason that I use OpenBSD, I would avoid a risky browser.

I was not aware of the difference in auditing between the two applications. What should I know?

Re:If you can assure me...

[CTho9305]

I don't think there would be a significant security difference - the backend code is shared, and most holes (besides UI spoofing type holes) are in the backend (I don't think UI differences could create a buffer overflow hole, for example). However, when it comes to stability and reliability, that's when the coding pracitces come into play.

The new options window for Firefox introduced many new bugs - for example, the code that was checked in doesn't even WORK! (The window is 100% transparent and unusable). There are plenty of problems with it.

Another example is the yellow information bar (which I spoof in the link above) - when I was porting it to Mozilla, with minutes of testing I found serious problems it caused. After fixing those issues, I found and fixed more subtle ones. The Firefox code had been checked in, apparently with almost no testing, let alone code review. Yes, users found the bugs and filed them, but I don't trust users to find many of the less overt bugs.

It is Common Sense

[alexhmit01]

Look, I had an all-Compaq shop pre-HP/Compaq merger. I hated Dell because I found their support lacking and loved Compaq, but I LOATHED HP gear. What did I do during the merger? Well, I was so distraught with our options in Windows land, that we finally started experimenting with Mac desktops and other options and made changes.

It wasn't dumb, it wasn't short sighted, my vendor was going through an upheavel and I didn't know what to do, so it was time to evaluate everything.

If I adopt Firefox (which I'm currently considering) then I need to migrate everyone's bookmarks over. I also need to believe that Firefox will be supported. We originally adopted Apple's Safari browser because it was easy to install in /Network/Applications, which Panther broke, and now each desktop has their own browser. We're now considering Firefox.

HOWEVER, if I don't know what is going to go on in Mozilla land, and suddenly I may have no upgrade OR migration path, that is a problem, and I need to know that I will have a browser with bug fixes that makes sense.

Forget paid vs. free support, I need to know that I won't be left high and dry with an out of date browser, intranet apps that take advantage of features in one that aren't in the other, and then be abadonned by someone turning 16, discovering girls, and losing interest in supporting their projects.

Alex

Another article about Firefox problems

[kjj]

Here is an article at EWeek about some of the problems with FF 1.0.1 update and the need for a better update system and more servers. He also mentions the problems with reviewers, but the update problems are far worse in the near term. The fact that the update.mozilla.org is very slow to update extensions was a bad sign. Of course extensions are non-critical compared to the browser itself. Now it looks like browser updates are handled the same way. I had much the same experience on my laptop as the author of the article. First it took forever for the update to appear. When it finally did show up the update system pushed out a completely new installer file, and messed up the installed program list with two install enteries linking to the same program. When Firefox went from 1.0PR to 1.0 it was handled much better. Only some files needed updating, it was not a complete reinstall. I believe that much of the criticism is valid and not just anti-Firefox FUD. Encourging more external contribution and finding more reviewers, as well as defining the relationship between the Firefox and Mozilla suite developers are longer term issues that need to be addressed, but better managment of the update system is something that is more pressing and is having a negative impact on users today.

Re:Another article about Firefox problems

[Ogerman]

..but better managment of the update system is something that is more pressing and is having a negative impact on users today.

I don't think the FF developers spent much time thinking about real-world deployment on Windows networks. This is an awful shame because it's the only reason why FF adoption has slowed. You can't embrace and extend a platform if you don't fully understand the platform. The initial adoption surge was primarily home users and enthusiasts -- for whom is acceptable to assume manual download of the installer and manual updates as needed. For businesses running Windows networks, this is entirely unacceptable. Initial deployments *and* updates need to be centralized. You can't expect users to take care of updating themselves. (Not to mention the bandwidth issues for both Mozilla servers and individual businesses!)

The FF team needs to assign someone to be an official "corporate deployment issues" coordinator. They need to produce their own MSIs and/or push-update client coupled with proper documentation for admins. For smaller / less sophisticated networks, they need to produce a tool that at least centralizes updates locally. It could be very simple -- such as the ability tell FF to look for and auto-install updates found in some network path instead of from the net and without any user intervention.

Re:Another article about Firefox problems

[51mon]

"problems with FF 1.0.1 update"

apt-get upgrade ? Oh must be one of those legacy operating system user.

From Redmond:

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear FOSS Community,
See! I told you so!
Sincerely yours,
Bill Gates

Mozilla Suite sucks...

[Anonymous Coward]

This might sound like a troll to some of you who are unable to comprehend an opinion but...

The mozilla suite is horrible. It is SLOW, and just plain god awful. Hell, I don't even think the code in Mozilla is the same as in Firefox considering how much faster and lightweight the latter is compared to the former.

I don't know why the same foundation is still working on Moz when it has better, more popular, products like Thunderbird/Firefox. Just make THOSE the new suite since they work so much better.

Ditch the old ugly interface and clunky POS browser and use the new stuff that works better. Simple.

...more serious problems with the Mozilla Suite...

[triso]

So, why is this so bad? It sounds like a natural step in the evolution of the two products.

As Lincoln said . . .

[Anonymous Coward]

"United we stand, divided we fall"

Outside of the technical merits of forking the code, Firefox and Mozilla as a whole, benefit from presenting a united front against Microsoft.

Whether or not people realize it, Firefox has become the de facto alternative to MS IE, and splitting it off from Mozilla would only confuse the oft-referenced "Average Joe." Firefox is at about 12.5% of the market and growing, with the Mozilla browser in the single digits and declining. If Firefox got split off, its growth would slow or stop and Mozilla's would probably increase slightly.

Why does this matter? Because if you want corporate America to stop developing websites that use MS-only code, IT people need to be able to point to a single alternative that has sizable marketshare and say "We can't ignore these users." If such an alternative ceases to exist, Microsoft's gooey badness will continue to permeate the web, and "Average Joe" will continue to use IE, not because it is better, but because he can use it with the websites he uses.

Mozilla

[leuk_he]

Mozilla was a long time a developement framework
However developeing a browser is much more inspiring that building a framework.

So i think the question "should we release mozilla 1.8" is a valid question since it is starting too lose from thunderbird/firefox. Maybe they just should maintain a Unstable(trunk) and an stable (1.7.x) branch and let the forking (foxfire/thunderbird/minimoz) make the applications.

Mozilla will die... long live mozilla!

Media sensationalism

[Kell_pt]

You people should be more careful with the titles you pick for ./ articles. To start with, there were no troubles with Firefox development. There were, and there always are, questions regarding how to handle its growth and continued development.

Similar thing with this news article and Mozilla... "trouble"? What trouble?

We don't need mainstream-media-like sensationalism - stick to the news please.

Serious problem?

[nrdlnd]

I don't see this as a serious problem! It's good that they discuss how to proceed.

What they have missed is to make the Composer a separate product but it now exists as NVU mostly supported by Linspire. NVU seems to become a very good product and needs more support.

I think it will only become good out of this!

Break up the Code!

[solomonrex]

You just nailed it. There is NO reason to distribute a single 'Internet' software suite.

Bundling should be done for economic reasons, not software reasons, and the MoFo's economic interest is in smaller downloads, not larger ones.

Focus on the competition: Mozilla's competition on Windows/Mac has everything split out (IE, address book, outlook/outlook express). Updating makes more sense this way (dial-up users still matter, especially internationally). Basically, the appeal of Mozilla is in the browser- that's why Firefox is popular. It's relatively virus free, works on _almost_ all platforms and is a relatively short download.

I can appreciate backwards compatibility, but everything dies sooner or later. It's a niche product currently, and it's not growing.

Re:Break up the Code!

[jp10558]

Well, some of its competition likes the suite interface. Opera. Size wise, it is smaller than just FF to download. One problem with having separate projects is that (at least on windows) they don't share any of the code that is basically the same. Hence why FF is 4.7MB and Thunderbird is ~8MB to download. Thunderbird has most of the gecko back end in it AGAIN for HTML e-mail, rather than hooking into the local HTML renderer (presumably FF).

Same Old Story

[CyNRG]

Got Success?

Engage ego warp drive.

You Mozilla guys might as well go to work for Microsoft now and get it over with.

The consequences of forking...

[dtjohnson]

When the Firefox idea of separate apps arrived, I didn't get goodness. It just seemed like a sop to Windows users who were used to having IE and Outlook slightly separated in Windows. Putting everything together seems better. Their usability is all interrelated anyway, so why not? You can still use another html editor or email client or whatever if you want. I want to drag and drop URLs seamlessly back and forth between email, browser, and composer. It is great to have everything quickly launch together and be available with a click.

If the future is to have the suite split up, then at least there should be uniform hooks that will allow any conforming app to interface with the others, as the suite allows now. If not, we have lost something.

mute is pronounced "mewt" while moot is "moot"

[Ayanami Rei]

So I don't know how people can confuse those two words. Please learn the difference. It's _very_ annoying, even more so than loose/lose

Re:mute is pronounced "mewt" while moot is "moot"

[Anonymous Coward]

Uh, "mute" is pronounced "myoot;" "mewt" and "moot" are phonetically identical.

Community

[Anonymous Coward]

Developer's are often their own worst enemies, throwing a hissy fit every time things aren't going smoothly. It generates lots of useless emails and /. posts, but rarely does much good.

Mozilla and Firefox are not two separate entities, they are just two flavors of the same brand ice-cream. One can live without the other, but they are stronger together. If they separate, only the competition will benefit.

I'm fairly confident that many in the Mozilla/Firefox community know this and are not going to let some whiney volunteers cause a rift. Its natural for there to be problems in the community and for people to voice their discontent, but that doesn't mean the project is in jeopardy. It just forces people to look at what their doing and decide if there really is a problem that needs to be addressed. This is what helps community/volunteer-based development thrive after all, the constant reflection and criticism of the project that drives developers to do their utmost.

Pointless, uninformed Bush-bashing--mod up

[Anonymous Coward]

The parent post uses the liberal buzzword "regime." Even though nobody here has ever actually lived in a regime or knows what life in a a REAL regime is like, please mod up.

Great, more bloat

[bonch]

Right, let's add even more bloat to an app that already defines its own generic string class and reinvents the wheel several times in its own code. Instead of downloading a simple web browser, I'll be downloading an "app container" that wants to be an OS that runs applications instead of just being a native application for the OS I already have.

Meanwhile, Opera will continue to be a ~4.5MB download...

Re:Great, more bloat

[orb_fan]

You are welcome to use whatever browser you want. Hell, if you are worried about bloat, use lynx. You are missing the point entirely. I'm simply suggesting that the code be designed to be reusable. People slam M$ all the time, myself included, but one thing they did right with IE was to make the browser a control, allowing the IE (the app) to be a simple container. I'm suggesting that something similar happens to Mozilla, Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird. At that point, the difference between each product is simply what plugins are bundled with the container.

Re:Great, more bloat

[drinkypoo]

Mozilla is already a framework with assorted stuff built upon it. It's already modular! It's already an app container! The difference is that you would download the framework and the modules you want, and you'd actually have a less bloated browser.

Meanwhile, Opera will still have fewer features and will still cost you money or show you ads.

Re:Great, more bloat

[jp10558]

Flame: You get what you pay for ;)

License it open source and deal with it

[heroine]

If you give away your source code and promote the open source aspect of it, you need to live with the fact that you're not going to be in charge of it. The only way to own it is to release only binaries and write all the supporting libraries from scratch so you're not restricted by the GPL.

It would be stupid

[tod_miller]

as others point out... there is a certain land rush in open source projects when they become uber sucessful, there is a lot of credit and prestige.

However, the good news... if it annoys me I can just copy my own cvs onto a server in the mountains somewhere and live like a ludite.

I can then make my own team of crack developers from random foliage I find in the frozen tundra, and pretend to shoot black suited NSA types with sticks and stuff.

This does bring up the serious aspects of the meritocracy of OS development... it needs management - as long as the world tried to download src/build from mizilla.org, then the people who 'own' that particular development branch, and manage it, will attract community developers.

If another project (k-meleon) that uses the similar code base or gecko (after all, gecko is the thing we love most, firefox isn't actually that hot a browser) wants to become more popular, fine.

If my PyroBox (firefox clone) is better, fine.

That is open source kids!!

Now where did I leave my gun.

Just like Apple and FreeBSD

[Black Jack Hyde]

Looks like Mozilla and Firefox are dead too!

Too bad one of the big commercial software companies haven't developed a browser that integrates well with an operating system...

It's a Microsoft Astroturf Campaign

[Anonymous Coward]

> This is not instability or trouble, it is part of the evolutionary process of open software...

Exactly. There is nothing wrong with the Mozilla development process. What is happening in the Mozilla camp is just a healthy debate over the best approach to moving forward, i.e. in a manner that is efficient, and avoids duplication of effort.

Contrary to the recent articles, the Mozilla development process has been extremely successful, judging by the technical prowess and popularity of the various Mozilla products, namely the Mozilla Suite, Thunderbird, and, especially, Firefox.

In fact, it is this very success that has prompted the appearance of these articles. The articles are, as the original poster suggested, part of a smear campaign, aimed at slowing down the adoption of Firefox and other Mozilla products.

And there is little doubt that the FUD campaign is coming from Microsoft.

Why? Because the growing success of Firefox represents a huge threat to Microsoft's future plans.

As described in the Halloween Document, Microsoft's strategy for stopping Linux and Open Source involves "decommoditizing" Internet protocols, and thus making access to the Internet dependent on Windows. A big part of that strategy involves pushing the use of .Net, with its Microsoft-proprietary protocols, for the development of Internet services.

But Microsoft strategy requires the widespread use of Internet Explorer, both as a means of spreading .Net to clients, and of convincing businesses that .Net will allow them to reach more users than other alternatives (Java, JavaScript, and so on).

Thus, if enough Internet users are using Firefox, instead of IE, it will thwart Microsoft's plans for controlling the Internet.

Given a large percentage of non-IE users, even if .Net is a commercial success, it won't give Microsoft what they want, namely, a monopoly on Internet development and protocols. Businesses would still have to deal with the Firefox, and other non-IE users, and thus might choose more cross-platform tools (Java, etc.). Perhaps worst of all, from Microsoft's perspective, businesses might choose to develop their web-enabled intranets using Javascript and Mozilla XUL, which are built into Firefox.

I'd feel sorry for Microsoft, if they weren't so evil. Meanwhile, people should remember to question any article which might tend to benefit Microsoft, given that company's history of lying, and manipulating the press.

Re: A plan to kill mozilla

[bussdriver]

I suppose the community will hurt itself enough that Microsoft will not have to pay people to cause trouble in the community??
(maybe they are, and if you think it impossible, you are naive.)

Mozilla for the enterprise

[kaaona]

I have not seen support for a Custom Configuration Kit or the Mission Control Desktop mentioned in the same sentence with Firefox. For that reason I must assume Firefox is targeted solely at individual users.

The Mozilla suite, on the other hand, contains at least vestigial code support for a CCK and MCD. These would be crucial tools for enterprise rollout and day-to-day active management of Mozilla suite components. Like its ancestor, Netscape Communicator, the Mozilla suite is clearly targeted at enterprise users. Its demise would be an unspeakable loss to all sizes of corporate and government enterprises.

Dumb Mods.

[Run4yourlives]

The parent isn't a troll, it's an analogy.

It may be a poor one, but it's still relevant.

Mozilla suite is crippling FF and TB

[Mark Gillespie]

Personally, I feel that having to conform to the traditional way of working of the Mozilla suite, is crippling Firefox and Thunderbird development. There are many naff things in both these products, and the common answer is, it's "because it's always worked like that" The sooner these 2 projects break loose from the contraints of the Moz Suite, the better as far as I am concerned.

Re:Mozilla suite is crippling FF and TB

[Anonymous Coward]

There are many naff things

Kudos for using the word naff.

A kick in the pants for me, for using the work kudos.

The Solution

[ShagratTheTitleless]

To maintain the interest of technically minded contributors the Mozilla foundation will need to continue releasing a browser with features the average user doesn't care much about. The suite and the stand alone apps must become one. Or perhaps I should say the stand alone app codebase must evolve until it can clone the suites features on request. I propose a "Lean/Suite" switchable configuration for the Firefox browser. This would add or remove menu options and references to suite applications from the browser and load a library of additional code to support the suites features. The suite browser code would slowly disapear without as many grumbles I would think.

Firefox claims stripped down speed and efficiency. That may have been the goal but it seems to me most of the same functionality is still there, but just hidden without menu access. For example, the suite has menu access to plugin information but firefox makes you enter "about:plugins" as a URL. Where I'm from that aint stripped down and cleaned up, it's hidden. And was the removal of the "new tab button" really worth the interface "clutter" savings? Many people who had used the suite for years didn't agree. Give us a switch to actually make firefox a replacement for the suite browser and we may just go along.

Here it comes...

[xS*kitten]

enter the gbrowser

Ummmm...

[Frank Dreben]

Isn't this what they said they were going to do a long time ago? (Stop development of the suite, that is)

I was going for yew/mew in mew-T.

[Anonymous Coward]

You're right... myoot is more clear.