Slashdot Mirror
IBM to Hire Firefox Developers
ta bu shi da yu writes "According to news.com, IBM has placed an employment ad for a developer who would be responsible for 'enhancing the Mozilla Firefox Web browser with new features complimentary to IBM's On Demand middleware stack.' IBM might possibly be interested in FireFox integration with their Workplace software. The job is not for just anyone, however, as those who wish to apply for the job should have some cred with the Mozilla development community."
Years ago many of us would cringe at the thought, but these days Big Blue has taken on a certain cachet with their cozying up with Tux, sharing the wealth (IP, source and application contributions) and profit(!!!)ing (which many of us don't mind, because it helps promote the cause.) Sounds like a dream job, I just hope between Google and IBM they don't deplete the Mozilla development team. Maybe IBM would be friendly to the development and effectively underwrite some of it in this manner.
The job is not for just anyone, however, as those who wish to apply for the job should have some cred with the Mozilla development community."
For sure. Don't expect a successful interview to go like this:
just a heads-up, ya know
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
...if Firefox starts making it into those IBM On Demand commercials!
Sam Ruby, IBM employee, Apache/PHP/Atom hacker, is questioning the need for middleware completely.
One must realize that the fact that IBM is showing the desire to produce technology using Firefox is incredible. When BIG corporations decide to make Firefox specific technologies, we can finally say "Goodbye IE and Hello Firefox." I'm not saying IE is bad, do not get me wrong. However, this will make competition in the browser wars improve SUBSTANTIALLY, as now IE really does have competition. No matter what you said before, 9 times out of 10 a computer you go to will, no doubt, have Microsoft Internet Explorer installed and used as the default web browser. However, with IBM throwing itself to Firefox, this may improve Firefox's race in the browser wars - leading to more competition - leading to both IE _AND_ Firefox improvement. Who knows - we may even see IE for loonix soon, after all, everyone knows Microsoft is the king of business. Maybe not software/whatnot. But, they are the kings of business. They will make sure they have a share in every part of the market. Why do you think they g0t a huge part in APPLE/Mac? =P =P =P
Uh, yeah, thanks... Just in case C|Net gets slashdotted...
Microsoft followed suite by placing the following ad:
"Wanted, anyone who is currently or is wishing to be part of the firefox team for immediate interrogation and death. Email names, addresses, daily schedules, to Not.Microsoft@gmail.com.
It struck me reading this headline that the Firefox dev team is under tremendous recruitment pressure, and it makes me wonder how all this cherrypicking of developers from the Firefox team, by the likes of Google and Big Blue, will impact the project's future development cycle.
Is this brain drain going to cripple the project eventually or contribute to the problems we've read in March about the Firefox development review process?
A little refresher....
The Mozilla Release Process
Posted by CmdrTaco on Tuesday January 18, @06:25AM
from the every-time-you-ask-we-delay-it-one-hour dept.
David Gerard writes "Asa Dotzler from the Mozilla Foundation invited questions on his blog on the Mozilla release process. The answers are up."
Firefox Lead Now Working For Google
Posted by michael on Monday January 24, @03:50PM
from the speculate-all-you-want-we'll-make-more dept.
zmarties writes "In a very low key announcement on his blog, Ben Goodger, lead developer for Firefox, has announce that effective from a couple of weeks ago, he has become a Google employee. In practice his day to day job won't change that much, in that he will still lead Firefox through its forthcoming releases, but with Google paying his wages, we can be sure that new and interesting overlap between the Mozilla Foundation's browsers and Google's services are sure to develop."
Firefox Developer on Recruitment Policy
Posted by michael on Monday January 31, @03:05AM
from the cathedral-or-bazaar dept.
wikinerd writes "A Firefox developer talks about the project's controversial invitation-only developer recruitment policy and explains why Firefox will never grow up."
Problems With the Firefox Development Process
Posted by Zonk on Sunday March 06, @11:39PM
from the eyes-on-the-prize dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mike Connor, one of the core Firefox developers, is raising a flag concerning the Mozilla Firefox methodology of development. From his blog: "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think were in trouble. Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews." In an earlier entry, he raised concrete concerns about the community involvement. Asa Dotzler recently elaborated on the process, as previously covered on Slashdot."
Mozilla Foundation in More Development Trouble
Posted by samzenpus on Thursday March 10, @07:44AM
from the who-will-get-the-kids dept.
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."
It was intended as a rhetorical question. I was told to think "radical" after all. ;-)
- Sam Ruby
I'm not sure how this got so hyped up, but this is not IBM waking up looking for a Firefox Dev, they already had one. Darin Fisher.
He moved on to bigger and better things at Google, so really all this Hype is over a simple position replacement ad.
Blah... the media sucks.