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Ask Mozilla Foundation Chief Mitchell Baker
There have been several recent reports of squabbles and problems involving Mozilla and Firefox development. In an attempt to clear the air about what's going on inside the Mozilla Project and the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker has agreed to answer 10 - 12 Slashdot questions. Please look at some recent interviews with Ms. Baker and check her blog before posting in order to avoid duplication. We'll publish her answers within the next week.
Please look at some recent interviews with Ms. Baker and check her blog before posting in order to avoid duplication.
Ah... if only slashdot editors followed this advice and checked their own site, we too might avoid duplication.
Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.
What is the volume of complaints you have received when the Mozilla suite was cancelled - more or less than you expected?
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
Now that the Moz suite is apparent non-official, how will new code be tested? Will there be some sort of "beta" Firefox release for testing? Or a new very minimal piece of code that is a testbed yet not useful to consumers?
Could you explain how the Mozilla Foundation currently gets its funding and what your vision is on the long-term funding for open source projects like Mozilla?
Sig for sale or rent. One previous user. Inquire within.
I imagine this next year will be some of the most trying times for the Mozilla foundation as lots of people and companies are going to expect Firefox and Thunderbird to do and be lots of things. How do you plan to handle this all this pressure?
--
suso.org website/email hosting, no disk space quotas and personalized support.
to use the 'official' Mozilla branding if they wish to?
Get a free iPod Nano 4GB!
her blog
...
Her?
a/s/l!!!!11
Hey, why does my little dragon icon guy have such an overbite? Does he have dental? Just trying to think root-cause here.
Note: This sig contains nine S's, nine I's and five O's which... means absolutely nothing.
Just curious what propelled you to choose fantasy creatures as your mascots.
As opposed to, you know, magical structural elements flying around.
And if so, what 1970's muscle cars will they be renamed for?
sulli
RTFJ.
Do you have a brother named Sue?
Parent is being honest, it really is a joke. She is NOT a fox.
pic
Prior to making the decision to not release a final 1.8 version of the Mozilla Suite, did you analyze the affect this would have on large corporate customers doing internal deployments? Although we are small, I work with some fairly large entities who are using 1.4/1.7 for internal deployments (>10,000 seats in one case) and were expecting there is be a 1.8 final - even if that was the last one.
Does this decision to drop Suite 1.8 in mid-stream as it were affect the credibility of Mozilla Foundation in the long run?
sPh
Composer is the only reason I keep the Mozilla suite around now. Will it be a standalone product? A Firefox extension like ChatZilla?
I saw it on Slashdot, it must be true!
So, what do YOU use on the desktop? Firefox and Thunderbird, Mozilla Suite, Internet Explorer and Outlook, Opera and Eudora?
Are there any more plans to put weight behind the calendaring solution?
I know that Sunbird exists and there's now Lightning but the project details are quite vague. The Mozilla Suite could benefit greatly from a fully functional calendar, especially in the small business realm.
Why didn't you release 1.8 before abandoning the suite? What have you to say to people who dedicated their energies to a product which will no longer be affliated with Mozilla? If you never intended the 1.8 Suite to be released, why do you have 1.9 alpha development on your roadmap?
I can understand reasons for releasing the suite, but I think your application of those reasons definitely needs to be categorized in the "How to Alienate Your Base Users in 30 minutes or less" department. It's like you filed for a divorce, split up the property, moved everything out, and finally after the dust settled, you informed your wife.
ewwwwwwwww, someone was beaten with the ugly stick.
Your active X support sucks...what will you be doing to allow websites to auto install things on my machine?
What are the plans for incremental security updates to the Firefox suite? Currently we only get a new release of Firefox that has to be reinstalled. Are there plans to allow small security patches to be applied without having to reinstall the whole application?
Things you think are in the Constitution, but are not.
As a female with a fairly high profile among the open source community, do you get a lot of unwanted attention from losers like me?
I am trolling
Where do you see the Mozilla foundation in 5 years?
What types of new projects are the Foundation considering?
Why should the average consumer use Mozilla software over Microsoft's offerings?
What is Mozilla's greatest challenge in getting the average PC user to utilize their software?
Shouldn't the Firefox team be more concerned about crashes? These two ABC news stories, Chavez: Low Oil Rates a Thing of the Past and Blair's Anti-Terrorism Law Wins Approval, for example, crash the latest version of Firefox (1.01) every time. The crashes have been known and fixed for 6 months (Copy and paste the URL, Bugzilla does not accept links from Slashdot.). They have been fixed in the recent developer builds (see bottom of page), but you are warned that recent builds may have other bugs. Shouldn't the developers of a program with "more than 25 million" users release crash fixes quickly or at least warn users?
More reports from users, sometimes imperfect, with minimal editing for clarity:
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11864609 "The last few releases have a habit of freezing up in various ways. It's not something that happens every day, but it happens a lot more than it used to."
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11865831 "... firefox DOES NOT let other applications that need it [memory] get it back. it [Firefox] routinely crawls the machine to a halt until it's killed and restarted."
http://developers.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141 586&cid=11866690 "[Firefox] really shouldn't use as much memory as it does, and it shouldn't have the memory retention policy that it does either. The amount of memory that it uses does matter, because it completely fragments the heap, it pushes the address space of other programs to disk, and it performs... [badly] after you've used another program that requires a lot of memory.
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 68266 "basically after using firefox heavily for a while (many tabs open and closed, often on complex pages) firefox will start eating 100% CPU and become slow as molasses and never recover."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 75707 "I have found that if I load a PDF document and then use 'Back' to back up to the page which had the link pointing to the pdf document that Firefox crashes. Eventually, the adobe reader process also crashes."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63855 "I'm on a Mac, so it tends to only actually crash when it's loaded down and I hit a bad flash or java applet"
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 63924 "Usually though it [Firefox crash] happens after an extend period of time, without fail really, as my lone firefox window often stays open for days on end, so while my usage habits aren't much (compared to some at least) in the short term, in the long term the crashes have been making me wonder if a memory leak may be the cause, but sadly I lack the time to investigate it myself."
http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=141586&cid=118 64110 "There are bugs that cause memory leaks and slowdowns, relating to plugins and Javascript. Any one of the page
Given how easy it is to deploy Firefox across a campus (load it into a Ghost loadset, then deploy in your next periodic reclone), why, in your opinion, are medium-to-large companies loathe to deploy anything but IE, especially given the tendencies of employees to use office machines for distinctly non-work purposes, which often leads to malware infections?
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
It's already available as a highly-developed stand-alone, called Nvu and sponsored by Lindows/Linspire of all people.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
Clearly the fact that Microsoft had a monopoly on the browser market reared its ugly head; we haven't seen any improvements to IE for around 5 years. However, as soon as the hint of competition comes, MS is back on their feet.
Now that MS has put people back on their IE development team, it seems inevitable that IE will soon have the same features that Firefox does: tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, 24-bit PNG support, etc. What is the Mozilla Foundation's move to keep people excited about installing Firefox over being content with IE? Many of my friends who are less than computer savvy are more than content staying with what Windows already has unless there are some compelling reasons to switch. Firefox at the moment has those reasons in spades, but a quick tune-up to IE would undermine Firefox's natural advances.
In short: how are you planning to keep Firefox ahead of the curve?
To make a pun demonstrates the highest understanding of a language
Please vote for my bugzilla bug:
3 39 6
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=25
Mitchell Baker
Mozilla's most recent figures seem to indicate a flattening off of Firefox's adoption. In what ways do you plan to change this trend? (Presumably through SpreadFirefox)
My 3D Texturing Skinning work (under construction)
Question: Are you available ?
Question: How about a hot date on friday with cold cheeze pizza, soda and a death match of Doom 3 !
Question: Can I see the tits please ?
The new Internet Explorer is coming (at some point). Regardless of ones affinity or lack-there-of for the current iteration of IE, IE7 is sure to hold some major improvements. I dare say it might even be a good browser.
Does Mozilla have a plan of any form for weathering IE7's release? With the practice of bundling the browser with the OS, how on earth can Mozilla compete (assuming IE7 holds the major feature enhancements that it needs so badly)?
-dave
http://millionnumbers.com/ - own the number of your dreams
Without the Mozilla suite development, are there any plans to continue embedded mozilla development?
How is the overall morale of the devlopment team as far as being able to kid around and have fun? One example I can think of is about:mozilla in mozilla or firefox. It is obviously a pun of some kind, or an inside joke. I think it boils down to: As the projects get bigger and more professional do you see a difference in the team's ability to "have fun" with the software, or is there more concern for the need to "act professional"?
sig: Playfully doing something difficult, whether useful or not
After considering two developments:
1) The increased usage of Mozilla/Firefox browsers has seemed to be flattening recently, although still growing.
2) It is rumored that Internet Explorer 7 Beta will be released this summer. This would appear to steal some thunder from Mozilla & Firefox browsers.
What can be done to make sure that Mozilla and Firefox browsers will continue to reach and surpass the 10% usage point? How can the community deal with the probable hype that would be generated around the release of a Internet Explorer 7 Beta?
...based browsing, it appears that security has become more of an issue in direct proportion. What security issues have come as a surprise for you? The growth of Mozilla specific exploits, the lack thereof? Et cetera.
Loading...
stop wondering why so many geeks don't have a girlfriend.
Is there a definite plan to abandon Mozilla development entirely for FireFox development? It would appear that that is what is going on.
1.8 was scheduled for release in December 2004.
the site still mentions 1.7.5 as being the most credible alternative.
If we want Security updates in Mozilla, will we have to code them ourselves since everybody has jumped on the FireFox bandwagon?
Also, about the calendaring project, is there any plan on syncing this calendar data with PDAs such as Palm OS, PocketPC, Blackberry?
And, is there any plans for Minimo to go on architecture besides PocketPC?
---
posted as AC, because all of the above are potential flamebait mods.
With the announcement of no 1.8, it shows that people arn't buying the whole "all-for-one" app concept anymore. Do you think suite applications, like Micromedia's and Adobe's, are the future, or that seperate non-suite apps are the way to go?
Dear Ms. Baker,
;-) I noticed the hiring of Josh Aas to the Mozilla Foundation and a commitment to improving Mac support, which I was very excited to hear about, and I was wondering if this includes improving the embedding libraries on Mac? (Modern Mac apps have significant troubles with the current embedding libs, which are geared towards OS 8/9 apps.) I realize this is open source, and I'm certainly willing to help in any efforts towards this end (and have already made headway towards some patches), but I would need some help and support from the Mozilla project to make this real.
I'm one of the core developers on wxMozilla, and for some time I've been wondering how exactly the GRE / Gecko SDK fits into the overall Mozilla framework and roadmap. I have two questions that center around that issue.
First, the current Mozilla communication issues are especially confusing for embedders, because, for example, the GRE has traditionally used the same numbering scheme as the Mozilla Suite. (i.e. there's not going to be a Mozilla 1.8, but what does that mean for GRE 1.8?) Furthermore, there's no roadmap for the GRE, so it's hard to tell where it's going or what the priorities are. So could you comment on what you see as the future of the GRE and Gecko SDK as Mozilla products?
I have one more related question, because I'm a Mac user.
Thanks for taking some time out to read and respond to these issues!
With Firefox taking a very large market share since it's release and Mozilla suite being cut back, what are you planning to do next?
Mozilla is becoming a name (as well as firefox) people trust, will you be taking advantage of this and exploring other areas of Internet access software?
I like muppets.
Now that seamonkey has being discontinued are there any plans to release a libgecko/libgre type package that the aviary products can link against and that the embedders (e.g. yelp/galeon/epiphany) can link agianst?
My question:
Since when is Mitchell a girl's name?
Thanks,
Mitchell Mebane
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet.
--Aristotle
Mitch,
.focus() in FF
Specific to Web Application development:
Many MS Access and VB developers (specifically) are attempting to move to rich client Web apps.
One of the problems we are encountering in working with FireFox is that we cannot set the focus to any element we want. In my case, I want to set the focus to any valid DIV on the page. In the MS IDEs this is possible and very useful.
Here are a couple of products that are attempting to do grid functions that do not work in Firefox because it appears that FireFox has a more limited Javascript implementation compared to IE:
Active Widgets discussion on
Very functional JS grid. Works in IE, try the demos in FF
I understand that there might be XSS threats, but those of us who REALLY want to get away from MS development tools need to have just such specific functionality that is offered by IE and is obviously being used in the market in both closed and open source projects.
What is the plan to make FF a more development friendly tool for those of us who would like to attempt rich client apps with a cross-browser solution?
Thanks for your time.
Repeatedly, I see that members of the 'community' have
expectations of the Mozilla Foundation that aren't met. MoFo and
the community seem to perceive their respective roles and
responsibilities completely differently. I'm hoping you can
help bring together the two perspectives.
Many members of the 'community' seem to expect management and
development of the various projects to be as open as the code,
and they often complain that MoFo makes decisions without
consulting, warning or even notifying the community.
Examples include the decision to release Firefox 1.0 based on Moz
1.7 instead of 1.8, the decision to stop MoFo development of
Mozilla Application Suite, and the business relationship that
makes Google the home page.
On a smaller scale, in my limited experience I've seen some
community requests and patches ignored or dismissed summarily,
though I've seen some accepted and/or discussed.
I don't know that MoFo's approach toward the community is good or
bad -- I can imagine the limitations of interacting with so many
people -- but at least expectations should be clarified. I've
been participating for over four years and I'm still not sure what
to expect. It's difficult to contribute if you don't know where
help is desired or needed. Finding out in hindsight and seeing
hours of work wasted is frustrating and inefficient. I think
clarifying the roles would improve efficiency and improve retention
of contributors.
What is MoFo's official, internal policy regarding the MoFo's and
the community's roles and how they function? What is the de
facto policy -- how does it really function in your experience?
What resources are dedicated to community interaction? Finally,
what can be done to improve the situation, at least by aligning
expectations with reality.
Or perhaps I haven't described the issue well: Does MoFo see a
foundation and a community? Does it see something more subtly
defined? Something completely different?
Are there any plans to pull Gecko out of Firefox, Thunderbird, etc and making it into a shared library? Currently, the engine is re-implemented in every program that uses it. If a person were to run Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, and Nvu at once, that can end up to be a lot of memory usage.
Extracting Gecko out and making it a shared library that the other applications build on could really help in the long run.
What is the best pie?
Microsoft has seemingly attempted to quash web standards by making early and strong support for CSS1 and CSS2 (thus making it a better renderer than Netscape 4), and then all but abandoning web standards in favor of Avalon. Does Mozilla have any plans to push web design technologies forward again, through more complete CSS2 support and CSS3? (and also widespread deployment of CSV?)
// I will show you fear in a handful of jellybeans.
But what we REALLY should be asking is why IE Bloatware sucks less memory than Firefox. Needs a fix, guys.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
I'm wondering whether there are any plans to integrate the existing stand-alone applications, and whether this will even be possible now that the Mozilla Foundation is not doing development on all of them.
For example, it might be useful to see integration between two or more of Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Nvu, the address book, and a chat component. But since the Mozilla Foundation does not develop Nvu or Chatzilla any longer (is anyone working on Chatzilla or any XUL chat app any longer?), this won't necessarily be easy.
Is there any plans to work with Linspire and other application developers to integrate their work with Firefox and Thunderbird? Will the Mozilla Foundation be doing official extensions that bring some of the suite functionality to the stand-alone products?
What's up with DevMo? Devedge has been down for awhile now. I'm really missing stuff like the MultiBar for Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox, and the Core Javascript Reference 1.5.
(Tell Deb to get crackin')
THERE IS NO DATA. THERE IS O
It appears that Mozilla needs volunteers, more volunteers across the board for development work, QA, and user support. Does the employment of Mozilla staff or Google hiring Mozilla (and/or Firefox) developers help or hinder the process of recruiting more active volunteers?
What I am wondering do the unpaid contributors feel that they are working for free while other people are being paid to do similar work?
What are the Mozilla Foundation's plans regarding the future of XUL as a development platform, especially as it regards competing with IE/XAML/Avalon? Will you push Firefox as a platform in itself like Netscape tried to do with their browser, or will the browser project and the XUL platform be handled seperately?
I ask because it seems like many of the Mozilla 2.0 goals would apply to all XUL applications and the platform itself, not just Firefox. I could see two approaches to the development of Mozilla 2.0 - one being that Firefox becomes the testbed that the Suite used to be, the other being that the FireFox team only worries about producing a browser and another group develops the "platform" as a whole. But how would this platform be developed and tested going forward, and will it be capable of competing with Avalon/XAML?
I hold software distributed by the Mozilla foundation in high esteem and use two of its products daily (Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla Thunderbird, to be precise). Despite the quality, ease-of-use and practicality of these programs, I must speak out as far as one issue is concerned, and that is the initiation of one instance of the somewhat memory hungry Gecko rendering engine per program requiring it.
Indeed, when I launch Thunderbird and then Firefox in what is a rather typical day of computer use, both programs initiate an instance of the Gecko rendering engine instead of using a common instance used as a control, and this is often the cause of slowdown varying in the level of severity. So please could you reveal when you beleive a single instance of the Gecko rendering engine will be used by software requiring it, such as Mozilla foundation's own?
Are you a guy, or a hairy broad with a deep voice?
Are there any plans to make the Mozilla Apps corp. friendlier?
i'm too lazy to dig up the Bug #'s, but i'm talking about Exchange Support (not via IMAP) for TB/SB, possibility to switch to MSHTML for specified pages (most intranets i've seen use at least some ActiveX stuff, that requires IE and i doubt that they'll recode their Apps just to be Mozilla friendly) for FF (as some kind of plugin)
With the community release of the Suite will Mozilla be creating an bundled Browser/Mail/Calendar solution based off of the XUL/GRE framework, or will the Aviary branch programs stay separate?
When will there be a real effort to support SVG and have it turned on in the builds by default?
Well, I requested a poster, and I've never seen it. What's the deal with that? Have you not sent any out, or is it because I live in another country, that you have not sent it to me because it costs to much to ship?
Anyway, I didn't put up a fuss, because I assumed that the whole thing got dropped.. So what heppend?
Treat me like a marketing stat, and I'll treat your movie like a series of ones and zeros
Recently I learned of a bug in Windows Firefox versions prior to 1.01 which was fixed in this version. This bug wipes user's hard disks. I've located 15 users who've suffered from this bug.
,MBX Eudora mail files"
Why did it take over *one year* to fix this serious bug?
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=2257 31
The bug only occurs when a user uninstalls Firefox. A user who uninstalls version 1.0 to prepare for installing version 1.01 is vulnerable. Why has the Firefox homepage not been updated to warn all users about this fact, and to offer a safe remedy?
At least 15 people reported the bug. Assuming that 5% of victims would post publicly about it, this would leave around 300 actual victims. Even 5% is probably too high; a 1% estimate would leave around 1,500 total victims. Since the bug only occurs when Firefox is uninstalled, many hundreds or perhaps even thousands of potential future victims exist.
The bug was reported in bugzilla and discussed without fixing for over *one year*. At one point a developer didn't remove the dangerous code because he said "This is not an acceptable solution to force on all users because some people make bad assumptions and then don't read dialogs." Is Firefox truly ready for "the masses" when developers maintain this sort of attitude towards users?
(copy, remove spaces, and paste bugzilla links since they won't work from Slashdot)
Original bugzilla bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =23362 5
Firefox advocate ivanii attempts to raise concern about this bug (10/07/2004)
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/2808
Here's links to a few people who suffered from this bug:
1.http://computercops.biz/postp82180.html
Thu Feb 12, 2004
"Using the Firefox uninstaller has deleted almost everything in the Program Files directory..."
2.http://www.terryfrazier.com/1391
10/5/2004
"What idiot writes an uninstall routine that wipes out everything in the parent folder?!"
"This is not some minor issue. This is a show stopper. I mean, damn!"
"..every last vestige of that vile firefox has been eradicated from my registry. "
3.http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4062 6
04 Aug, 2004
"After un install Firefox lost all
4.http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic. php?t=64 871&sid=2d93836acbfea243769078b48c3eff90
2004-03-28
Also posted on Bugzilla as user "Cy"
"This is not a minor inconvience. This is CARNAGE!!! Uninstalling a browser and ending up wiping out almost your entire hard drive."
"This is ruining mozilla's reputation. I now have a distrust of any win installer release by mozilla"
5.rajarajan.sampath final bugzilla victim to post.
2005-02-04
"The uninstaller wiped off, 2/3rd of my programs. This shouldnt be the case, no matter what."
6. Thomas Passin (original buzilla poster)
2004-02-09
"This is DANGEROUS."
7.https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2 42 118
2004-04-29
"...I uninstaled the whole directory "E:/Program Files"!! It wasn't very nice for me..."
8. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26969 9
2004-11-13
"All my backups and irreplaceble files are now lost.....Thank you for making a shitty uninstaller....i fucking hate you now"
9.https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2 71 805
2004-11-25
"Firefox will deleted all my other program in c:\program files. very unlucky,I did it!!"
10. https://bugzil
Yep I agree with you a hundred percent. We are less than a year away from google getting the major smack down when they incorporate msn search into windows
and the browser. The only way out of this problem is for google to push firefox hard and hope for some huge uptake. The firefox team needs to concentrate really hard on making it easy to build, use , deploy
xul apps. The platform must be leveraged if not firefox and google are gonna go down in flames just as those before them have.
Got Code?
1. Flash blocker
2. Put URL in address bar when you open a link in a new tab. The URL is blank if the new tab fails to load the web page. This is a must have for anyone behind a caching dns server since you must request the web page two times to get it in the DNS cache.
Will the 1.8, 1.9, et cetera releases of Mozilla still be maintained with security updates and be safe to run as a browser even if there is no official final release made of them? Also, how long will these releases go on for?
The Mozilla project is possibly the oldest "Open-source" (in terms of ESR's bazaar model etc) project apart from the Linux kernel itself, and as such was one of the major success stories in the movement's early period. How do you see ending the timeline for the core suite affecting the visibility and reputation of open-source projects in general? And what do you consider to be the likelihood that, without any sort of "direction" from the core suite, the projects with factionalize and fork due to political or other contentions?
How are you going to maintain XUL ? I mean, will SeaMonkey's xul evolve differently than firefox's, if not, who will be in charge of maintaining compatibility between seamonkey & firefox ?
Given that there seems to have been quite a bit of community grumbling over MoFo decisions[1], are there any concrete plans to improve communicating with the community at large (not marketing, but rather to distribute organizational-level decisions)? This role currently seems to be handled by people like Asa, who is also busy with other things such as release management.
[1] Including cease of Seamonkey as a mozilla.org product, the Firefox naming thing, U.M.O. limboness &c.
Hello Mitchell, Good idea to leverage /. for community input. My main question, as you may guess with my interest in the webclient project, is: what is the future of the embedding api an the Gecko Runtime Environment? Lots of people are embedding Gecko (and a few of them are doing so with webclient). Can we count on these APIs being supported going forward?
Ed
Is it true that you are developing a bootable browser?
And if not. Why not?
Hi Mitchell,
Would you agree that if only slashdot editors followed their own advice and checked their own site, we too might avoid duplication?
Thanks
Does MF have any plans to produce a Custom Configuration Kit and Mission Control Desktop capability for Firefox, Thunderbird, and the other now independent parts of what was the Mozilla suite? These new components are being marketed toward end users with no apparent regard for the needs of universities, corporations, government agencies, or other large enterprises for CCK/MCD support.
While most web developers already love Mozilla because of its better adherence to web standards, how much will the Mozilla Foundation actively promote, support, and mature the XUL standard for web applications in the future?
-Rob
Marriage doesn't have to suck!
market share, what are you doing to make mozilla safe against spyware and other malware that will inevitably be targeted for it? The lack of malware is why many are switching to Firefox, so there must be pre-emptive measures taken against malware.
I've heard of some of your programmers having disputes over certain aspects of the design process. Could you clarify this?
"Instant gratification takes too long." - Carrie Fisher
I am personally very disappointed that the Mozilla Foundation is dropping the Mozilla Suite because I love the integration the Suite provides. I also do not like the interface of Firefox.
However.. my main concern is with branding.
Granted you have only 1+ million or so users of the Mozilla Suite compared to 20+ million for Firefox, that's still a lot of people. I'd wager a lot of those people are not tech heads who read slashdot or mozillazine. These users learn that "Mozilla" means "Internet" and don't like these things to change once they get used to them.
Now in the transition plan it has been stated that the Mozilla name cannot be carried forward with any community based Mozilla Suite releases. This will dilute the name. It will sour the image of Mozilla in many users. Having to explain to my non-tech friends, family and most importantly clients that their new browser is now "Firefox" (or if I choose to keep them with the suite "Seamonkey" or whatever the name will be instead of "Mozilla") but "oh it's the same thing, don't worry", is bad for the product and the acceptance of this over the Microsoft Way. With the impending release of IE 7 brand and product stability should be your concern as well as making sure you are ahead of the IE curve (read: updating both Firefox/Thunderbird and the Mozilla Suite with innovation and stability)
Also of interest is if there is community support for maintaining and releasing Mozilla Suite. Why not integrate this Community into the Foundation and let the Suite go on?
--- tracer.ca
Why don't you update the extensions on Mozilla's extension site? I would like to use tools -> extensions -> update - tool to update the versions for my extensions, but after the release of Firefox 1.0, there has bee perhaps 1 update for my 5 extensions.
I checked the homepages for extensions and they have released tens to updates after that. Some of the updates have added some really usefull features also, so they are not just minor bug fixes. So why am I not getting them with the Update-tool? Who desides when the extensions are updated there?
Your're on the money there pal!
She is a dyke!
Given the route that MS is taking with .NET, Longhorn, and Avalon, do you think that it is important to push more focus onto using the Mozilla technologies as a rich client application platform. Specifically, can we expect to see functionality such as an XPI sandbox security model, cross-language integration, or a virtual machine implementation for more complex applications? I realize that has been proposed before and some of it exists with MonoConnect and other efforts, but is their a roadmap for this as a Mozilla Foundation sanctioned effort? If so, when should we expect to see it and in what form?
The editing behavour in Mozilla is extremly buggy. I've noticed dozens of small, but irritating bugs, for example:
* the behavour of CTRL right arrow is wrong: it should move one word and one space to the right (this is the way all other editors work), however you must press it twice once to move past the word and once to move past the space (note: CTRL left works correctly!)
* The font changes when you don't want it to change. Open a new mail make the font bigger, then type a letter, delete it and type a new letter. The new letter appears in small font. There are many other cases like this where the font reverts back when you dont want it to.
* Empty lines are not shown highlighted with selection, making it impossible to tell where the selection begins and ends
And there are many, many more.
Because these bugs exist in a core module they effect all products, Firefox, Thunderbird and Nvu.
What's worse is that there is no one to fix them, even though most of them would be relatively simple to fix. (Comment from bug 192308 "From Kai Engert 2003-08-12 17:48 PST [reply] -------
It's not likely that I will work on editor/selection bugs in the near future.
Mass assining my bugs to nobody."
There used to be talks of a Mozilla-GNOME alliance, perhaps even a merger, to stand united against .NET/XAML/etc. Any news on this?
You know, Microsoft's street address also says a lot about their mentality.
Will MoFo bless a true fork and be willing to totally give up the name Mozilla Suite? There's still a lot of interest in an integrated suite, starting with functionality (it has it) and with resource conservation (it's there). On the face of it it makes no sense to have to run two apps (browser & mail) with two engines running to get both active, when one engine will do it for both, and has been doing this job just swell all this time.
I was wondering if there are any plans to change the way the "Mozilla Update" site is handled. Right now the new site looks good enough, but so far extension updates are very slow to appear, and many commonly used extensions do not appear at all. I was wondering if there were any plans underway to provide more frequent updates and a broader range of extensions to Mozilla Firefox users.
Okay, those links don't crash Firefox 1.0.1 for you. But they do for some people, even those who have deleted the directory. Does that mean the problem should be ignored? Does that mean that all the other reports linked in the grandparent post should be ignored?
You said, "The Firefox crew handles crash reports pretty quickly in my experience." That's the opposite of what the linked comments say. If you only open one window and a few tabs, Firefox works well. For heavier use, it is very crashy. What does that mean? As one link in the grandparent post explained, it means that eventually Firefox always crashes, if you use it long enough.
Why did it take so darned long to bury Seamonkey and switch to small independent apps, considering everybody was yelling for them for years?
Well, you don't need to answer that. It's pretty clear: the inmates^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hprogrammers were running things.
Mozilla has done a pretty good job of getting HTML/CSS geeks, C++ and Javascript programmers, translators, and even graphic artists on board (those are some pretty swanky icons, if I may say so).
What is Mozilla.org doing to get some interaction designers on board?
(From out here, it's the one deficiency Mozilla hasn't managed to fill in 7 years.)
Why is it that the developers like to break traditions when it comes to the interface, when mozilla prides itself on standard compliance? The upcoming prefs window for Firefox 1.1 is a case in point. A perfectly good config has been used for years. Now if you want to change to Windows-type tabs, that'd be better for novices and I wouldn't mind. But why use Apple's? It's not even obvious how the categories are sorted (vertical, then horizontal, apparently). Why can't each platform get its own style, or at least use one that most people understand? Why do things like password managers, download managers, and now options window have to be constantly reworked when standards already exist, and when far more important bugs and fixes require attention?
Would you consider putting your blessing on a Firefox Classic suite that integrates Firefox, Thunderbird, and other Mozilla projects with the advanced keyboard functionality of the Mozilla Suite?
rd
By killing the mozilla suite, you have removed the best vector for internet application distribution.
Instead of a single supported and tested Internet Suite, I now have to choose and download a different program for:
Web, Mail, Chat, Page Composition.
Beside the stress of additional choice (which app should i choose ?) the added bloat, added burden of tracking versions, troubles of getting all those apps collaborating together, different UIs, and added risk of having one of those cancelled again, I think that the mozilla foundation had killed the channel they could have used to deliver additional applications.
If some new important app appear (like bittorrent, chat, media, or anything), it could have been bundled with the suite and ended up on every mozilla install. Mozilla would have been the internet platform of choice.
What is happening today, is like if Microsoft decided to split windows into separate independantly released pieces. A kernel, the explorer, the navigator, the administration tools, etc, etc. It would obviously be good for their competitioon, but not for them.
So the question is:
"How can you believe to have the slighest chance of beating microsoft on internet explorer, when they can leverage their OS and Office monopoly, while you explicitely corner yourself by restricting to a commodity application already shipped with windows ?"
Or:
"Microsoft put *1000* developers on internet explorer to beat netscape. By competing only on marginal improvments to the browser, they can beat firefox with only a fraction of this workforce and without compromising their other revenue streams (exchange/groupware applications,...). Please, explain me how this can be a valid strategy"
As the Mozilla Foundation shifts its focus to stand-alone applications, how will this affect Thunderbird, an application that is less popular and less competetive in the market. By this I mean that Firefox, has managed to successfully compete with Internet Explorer, it provides a viable alterative and is robust enough to gain popular use.
Thunderbird it seems lacks this same ability to compete, much of this lack of ability seems to come from inability to perform in the corporate environment that utilizes Microsoft Exchange. Now that the foundation is focusing on the stand alone applications will we see Thunderbird gain the ability to connect to Exchange Servers and utilize integrated calendaring so that it might be a viable replacement to Microsoft Outlook.
It appears that the Mozilla suite is most popular among corporations and developers. If that's so, it's conceivable that the suite could eventually attract greater support than the aviary branch of products. If this happened, can you assure us that those benefits/resources will be allowed to accrue to the suite, even if the suite's success threatened the aviary products?
Please say how you will fix these organizational problems:
(From http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=37)
58. Josh Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 12:31 pm
Honestly, I'm skeptical too of the whole 1.5 release. As good as the MoFo has done on the current release of Mozilla, Firefox is clinging by a thread. I got so fed up with the crashing bullshit that I reverted to Mozilla. I'd rather use an older, insecure version in place of a buggy, crash-every-5-minutes-for-no-fucking-reason version. Really, I don't think you know how upset I get when I'm staring BugZilla in the face AND it too crashes! How do you document BugZilla crashing??? MoFo needs to rethink their approach to dominating the browser market, the road ahead is a bumpy one, people will be tossed and turned, but selling out is NOT the way.
58. # M2Ys4U Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Well, I think the problem is you need more people telling other what to do. As it is at the moment, nobody knows what to do.
I tried building firefox 4 or 5 times, each time I had to struggle through tonnes of useless google results to find out how to build it, and even then I had to use my noggin to work out what'd gone wrong when the errors happened.
Better docs, and more bossy people; this is what you need.
59: # Anonymous Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 12:52 pm
I was PAID to work on Mozilla a few years back and would never do it again. Can't see why a volunteer would either. What's the fun of programming if you can never wade through the social heirarchy of unresponsive powers-that-be to get anything checked off?
I understand, of course. How many people outside of Mozilla have even HEARD of C++, let alone have a PhD in it? Can't be more than twenty, right? Then, on top of that, it helps if you'd enjoy tweaking Microsoft. You're only left with three people who are qualified to help you. (Those numbers are off, you say? Then there must be another reason you're not attracting help...)
Twenty-two years of programming in the Valley and I have never seen such a glacial project.
You twelve-year bottlenecks can keep it all to yourselves. I'm busy getting stuff done, making things other than Mozilla work. And I'm enjoying myself.
60. Peter van der Woude Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 1:13 pm
Am I wrong to think that the ONLY problem is proper guidance ? We need someone at the top telling/asking us individuals what to do and when to do it.
74. M2Ys4U Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 6:47 pm
Well, I think the problem is you need more people telling other what to do. As it is at the moment, nobody knows what to do.
I tried building firefox 4 or 5 times, each time I had to struggle through tonnes of useless google results to find out how to build it, and even then I had to use my noggin to work out what'd gone wrong when the errors happened.
Better docs, and more bossy people; this is what you need.
76. Cusser Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 7:20 pm
I think the problem stems from the lack of guidance and help with respect to getting started. There are many, many talented programmers out there who should be working themselves up the ranks.
I am not one of them, at least not yet, but I have submitted basic patches which get bitrotten and die over and over again. A no hand-holding policy is all well and good, but when you need extras, you should be extending that proverbial hand outwards.
As a final note, hang in there. You may feel like you're the only one that cares, but it's people like you who get things changed in the world.
77. # Gerry Says:
March 7th, 2005 at 7:33 pm
> David Lynch:
> I'd argue that better tools reduce the cost-of-entry for new people, making it more likely that talented people (who already have other obligations, and thus not all that much time to donat
There are few women in OSS, fewer even than in the s/w business as a whole. Even if most coders and s/w engineers are male, OSS could benefit from women from fields such as document writing, Human i/f design, test case librarians etc. where women are not in such a minority.
What could the OSS communitie(s) do to make themselves more appealing to women?
what is your favorite color?
what is your favorite colour?