Inquirer Blasts Mozilla for Microsoft-Style Bashing

DoubleWhopper writes "An article over at The Inquirer blasts Mozilla and "lead Firefox engineer" Ben Goodger for resorting to Microsoft-style bashing of Netscape for their recent flawed release. After posting excerpts if scathing comments from readers of Goodger's own blog, the author comments, "I wonder why should companies contribute or fund the Mozilla Foundation, if any derivative work or redistribution of the Foundation's browsers they create is going to raise the FUD mocking and anger of Mozilla's 'lead engineer'". This after Christopher Aillon's (of RedHat) reaction last week."

Comments

Bwuah?

[stlhawkeye]

"I wonder why should companies contribute or fund the Mozilla Foundation, if any derivative work or redistribution of the Foundation's browsers they create is going to raise the FUD mocking and anger of Mozilla's 'lead engineer'."

It's not FUD when it's true.

Re:Bwuah?

[winkydink]

It doesn't have to be false to sow Fear, Uncertainty, or Doubt.

There's another name for it when it's false. It's called Marketing^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^Hlying. :)

Re:Bwuah?

[stlhawkeye]

Re-reading the post, I'm not even sure if the quoted individual was talking about Mozilla spreading FUD about Netscape or if they were mocking the spread of FUD ...

Man!

i wish ppeps wud talk gud inglesh

Re:Bwuah?

[aftk2]

It doesn't matter if it's true, if it's neither relevant or nor politically expedient for him to make the remarks. I'm not sure what it gets the Mozilla project as a whole.

See, this is one of the perils of individual/employee empowerment through blogs: yes, they give you a unique voice (and I do enjoy most blogs at Mozillazine, especially Dave Hyatt's), but, like it or not, there is a point at which what is written in a blog can cross the line, and become detrimental to the company or organization for which the person in question works.

Re:Bwuah?

[Timesprout]

This peril as you put it can also work in the companys favour. An employee can slaughter a competitor in their blog with behind the scenes support from the company, or perhaps at its request. It's a handy way to get shit on your competitors out into the open without looking like blatent anti competitor marketing.

Re:Bwuah?

[molnarcs]

FUD doesn't need to be an outright lie. Quote from the article: As we reported, Goodger said of Netscape's v8.0 browser: ""If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products". He was referring to the fact that Netscape initially made v8.0 available, which was based on Firefox 1.03.

There's one important fact that Mr. Goodger forgets... less than 24 hours after the initial Netscape v8.0 was posted, AOL made available version 8.01 which is based in Firefox 1.04 and hence fixes the three vulnerabilities present in Firefox 1.03. In fact, when I clicked the "download Netscape 8.0" link on early Friday in order to test it and write my review, I already got the fixed version 8.01. That does speak quite well of AOL's reaction time after the initial mishap of shipping their browser based on Firefox 1.03. Now that might qualify as FUD - but at any rate, it is a very close to it. Goodger presents his view in such a way that one gets the impression that only Mozilla Foundation can guarantee the security of (gecko based) browsers. True or not? Well, it is true, but this is not the result of these competitors being lazy or slow, it is partly the result of the lack of cooperation and coordination on the part of the Project. Yeah, I read all the apologies in the previous ./ thread - and I don't agree with them. It seems to me that some think that you can't be both a fan and critical of Mozilla Found. I think you can ... in fact, if you really are a fan, then it is prudent to criticize if you feel your fav. project is heading in the wrong direction.

And it does ... take a step back and read the Inq. article - is it really unreasonable? I think it makes a lot of sense, especially if you read the paragraphs below the ones I quoted, and see where such arrogance might lead. (Yeah, arrogance the same arrogance you could see in their response to the apple/khtml "issue").

Re:Bwuah?

[RootsLINUX]

What's wrong with making personal remarks about it? If I try someone's product out (competitor or otherwise) and I think it sucks, what am I supposed to do? Give them a good old pat on the back, say "good job", and give them a thumbs up? The world isn't that sweet. Should I remain totally silent and keep my opinion to myself? Well, last time I checked negative criticism was still a legal and moral practice. In my opinion this whole bashing accusation is a load of crap.

Re:Bwuah?

[masklinn]

Maybe people should remember that part of what triggered that comment from Goodger was that Netscape put forward it's supposedly ultimate security, stability or whatever.

Re:Bwuah?

[/ASCII]

It's a blog, it's not supposed to be politically expedient. It's not supposed to get the Mozilla project _anything_. The only problem I see with blogs is that people take them far to seriously. Jokes, ideas and brainfarts are taken to be the ultimate truth in sensationalist articles on Slashdot, OSnews and the Register.

Re:Bwuah?

[stu42j]

There's one important fact that Mr. Goodger forgets... less than 24 hours after the initial Netscape v8.0 was posted, AOL made available version 8.01 which is based in Firefox 1.04 and hence fixes the three vulnerabilities present in Firefox 1.03.

He didn't "forget" because it hadn't happened yet! The point is not that AOL took "less than 24 hours" to fix vulnerabilities. They released a product with vulnerabilities that had been known about for over a week, that's the problem. If AOL had known that they would be releasing 8.0.1 why didn't they just delay the release a day?

Frankly, I wonder if they would have released 8.0.1 so quickly if it hadn't been for the bad publicity .

Re:Bwuah?

[jalefkowit]

There's one important fact that Mr. Goodger forgets... less than 24 hours after the initial Netscape v8.0 was posted, AOL made available version 8.01 which is based in Firefox 1.04 and hence fixes the three vulnerabilities present in Firefox 1.03. In fact, when I clicked the "download Netscape 8.0" link on early Friday in order to test it and write my review, I already got the fixed version 8.01.

Would there have been a fixed version 8.01 so quickly if Goodger and co. hadn't blown the whistle?

It's not like Firefox 1.04 wasn't released before Netscape 8 -- and the exploit that 1.04 resolved had been known for at least a week before that. AOL made the choice to launch with a product based on a version of Firefox they knew to be exploitable. Why not hold it until they could get it on the 1.04 level -- especially when the work can be done in a day?

Someone at AOL had to have been presented with the fact that their browser was based on an exploitable version of Firefox -- and that person decided that hitting the ship date was more important than shipping a secure product. Had that decision not been called into the media spotlight, would there have been any particular rush to get that 8.01 patch out? What in AOL/Netscape's storied history of bungled releases makes you think so?

Re:Bwuah?

[KarmaMB84]

He would've probably found some way to bash it no matter what. I doubt that Goodger wants a bastardized derivative of his holy works to gain any market share at all.

Re:Bwuah?

[POWRSURG]

If security is such a concern, how come I keep clicking the "Check now" button for updates on my plain old 8.0 install and it hasn't informed me of an 8.0.1 update?

Re:Bwuah?

[blanks]

" Well, last time I checked negative criticism was still a legal and moral practice"

You would think this is true, so did I until my previous hosting company filed a lawsuit against me for "defaming their company" after I went online and posted my expierences with them. Luckly the company I work for let their lawyer handle the situation.

Re:Bwuah?

[charlieo88]

When it's false, it's libel. When it's true, then it's marketing.

Re:Bwuah?

[FidelCatsro]

Fud can be misquoted or twisted truth , for example .
If a man saves two from a burning building it could be twisted to "Man breaks into house and abducts ocupants"

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ou contraire, my little friend!

Re:Bwuah?

[Trepalium]

No, when it's demonstratably false, it's libel. When it's not demonstratably false, it's marketing.

Re:Bwuah?

[stretch0611]

If I try someone's product out (competitor or otherwise) and I think it sucks, what am I supposed to do? Give them a good old pat on the back, say "good job", and give them a thumbs up?

Personally I would not call Netscape a competitor. Netscape is more like a partner. Criticising their product is also criticising your own product.

It was the old netscape code that started the Mozilla foundation. Even if Netscape is no longer funding the Mozilla foundation it is still helping out by promoting their derivative work. By getting more Mozilla/Firefox based browsers out to the public more and more websites and web developers will be forced used more standards compliant coding. This will cause IE to lose its stranglehold and allow open-source browsers to level the playing field.

Re:Bwuah?

[Knuckles]

Source?

Re:Bwuah?

[Metzli]

Interesting comment. Using that same logic, why was Firefox 1.0.3 available for download when it was "a product with [known] vulnerabilities?" If one is going to attack AOL for releasing Netscape 8.0, then one should also give the same treatment to the Mozilla Foundation for allowing people to download a product with known flaws.

Re:Bwuah?

[ArgieNomad]

Can somebody translate the ^H^H^H^H^H^H thing for me, please?

Is that some "delete" command for WordStar or WordPerfect for DOS?

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Really, I see that all the time. can someone please explain its meaning?

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

If security is such a concern, how come I keep clicking the "Check now" button for updates on my plain old 8.0 install and it hasn't informed me of an 8.0.1 update?

If security is such a concern, how come I keep clicking the "Check Now" button for updates on my Firefox 1.03 install, and that still hasn't told me about 1.04?

Want to know why? Apparently because those idiots at Mozilla have blocked old Firefoxes from accessing updates.mozilla.org. Unfortunately the effect of that is that they can't find the Firefox update either. This does not imply to me that Firefox is more trustworthy than Netscape.

Re:Bwuah?

[Vicegrip]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backspace

Old UNIX shell thing.

Re:Bwuah?

[frodo from middle ea]

On some unix terminals, backspace is mapped to ^? (Ctrl-?) , aka the Delete key, not the backspace key.

If you work on such a terminal and accidently type the backspace key, all you get is a series of ^H , instead of actual text being deleted.

The /. commnets with ^H in them are a elite way of showing two ways of putting things, The first word being not so politically correct followed by ^H and the PC version of the same.

Man I have too much time on my hand...btw to get the backspace key to do what it should do "stty erase "

Re:Bwuah?

[Cochonou]

Don't forget that Netscape as a corporation developping browsers doesn't exist anymore. Netscape is now only a brand. Actually, the development of Netscape 8 has been outsourced to Mercurial Communications.

Re:Bwuah?

[GSloop]

Holy shit, I can't believe you actually wrote this.

Your analogy, simply is inane.

Netscape is based on Mozilla code. The base Mozilla code had a vuln. in it. It had been fixed for some time. Netscape development, at worst, knew of the problem and ignored it. At best, they didn't know - which simply says little about the dev team for Netscape.

I presume that Mozilla didn't know of the vulns in 1.03 until they were found, at which point they fixed them and released 1.04.

It would be more like you making a kit car based on the Pinto, which was prone to burst into flame and kill it's occupants when rear-ended, and then when Ford fixed/discontinued the Pinto line, you go out and commission the factory to make you some since the company doesn't.

Sure, Ford should have avoided the mess in the first place, but it would be nearly unforgivable for you to keep producing such a monstrosity when warned of the problems.

The "quick" fix sounds pretty whacky, if they were already planning to fix it, why not simply delay release 20 hours and never release a version with vulns in the first place?

The conclusion I reach is this:
Either
A) The Netscape devs didn't care about security and shipped a product which had known vulnerabilites and known fixes to those volunerabilities.

OR

B) They are so totally clueless, that they somehow missed the whole notice about problems in 1.03 and cluelessly shipped the product.

A, shows lack of care about security - indifference. B shows pure stupidity and ignorance.

Lets see, would I rather be called "A reckless fool" or "Just plain stuipid?"

Sheesh...

Cheers

Re:Bwuah?

[geoffspear]

umm, that should probably have been "stty erase ^H".

Re:Bwuah?

[shokk]

Sorry, but Netscape's crappy "way behind the times" browser updating can't be called anything but that. They have a responsibility to their users to provide the updates ASAP if they are claiming security as one of the features of their browser. It appears that all the branding and in-browser advertising gets in the way of pushing those updates out in time. Do they have dedicated staff for monitoring Mozilla code daily and coordinating with Firefox rollouts, or is this just something they do for fun?

If someone grabs some open-source, and puts out a shitty version of it with an old unsecure release, are we supposed to coddle them and tell them what a good job they are doing, or are we supposed to push them towards best practices and proper code management/release? I don't see any problem with those remarks unless it's suddenly in fashion to be very thin skinned. Wha wha wha. Grow up folks.

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

"If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products".

And there are browsers that don't have nearly as many security issues that Mozilla releases do because they don't do their interface in XUL.

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

"I doubt that..." the source is "I"
whats your point?

Re:Bwuah?

[Metzli]

Don't forget option C) Netscape management wanted their product out to meet a timeline that they'd set, regardless of any known issues, vulnerabilities, etc.

Let's not assume that the engineers make all the decisions on timelines, etc. That's never been the case in any organization where I've worked. Corporate actions don't have to follow normal-person logic, they follow management logic.

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Usually, if it isn't provably true, it's libel

Re:Bwuah?

[kurzweilfreak]

What was the outcome of the lawsuit? If the hosting company didn't win and their defamation suit was BS, that just proves the OP's point. Any more detail on this?

Re:Bwuah?

[JThundley]

It's not very 1337 since hitting ^W will delete a whole word instead of just one character.

Re:Bwuah?

[poot_rootbeer]

Personally I would not call Netscape a competitor [to Firefox]. Netscape is more like a partner.

Netscape and Firefox are both competitors AND partners. They have a lot in common technologically because of their shared codebase, but they're fighting for the same market. Nobody's going to install both Netscape and Firefox's browsers and switch between them; they're going to pick one OR the other and stick with it.

That is why it makes sense for a Firefox project lead to make public statements that are negative towards Netscape's product -- because if the perception that Netscape is just as good as Firefox were allowed to stand, Firefox's market share could be hurt.

Re:Bwuah?

[quarkscat]

"Personally I would not call Netscape a competitor."

Damn right!
Mozilla Project has gotten out of the fully integrated
browser/email/chat/composer market.
(Much to my chagrin.) Any further attempts at
making a direct comparison between FireFox and
Netscape make no more sense than comparing
apples and oranges (beyond being fruit).

If Mozilla Org. wants to orphan their Mozilla
product in the face of Netscape "competition",
that's their decision to make. But it would be
nice for Mozilla Org. to at least "play fair"
and release working source code for their "red
headed step-child".

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

or they could use the strike-over tag, which is not supported, because?

<strike>Marketing</strike> lying

Re:Bwuah?

[jschrod]

You explain only half of the story.

Very old terminals did the echo themselves sometimes. Typing the backspace key actually deleted the character in front of the cursor. Nevertheless, the mail program (mailx mostly) read a backspace char (0x08). When this char was sent to the recipient (because BS was not the stty erase character, as you explained), it was often represented at the sender side as ^H. It could also be that it did a backspace; this depended on the MUA and the terminal settings.

So, there were senders who did not even realize that one could see their edit actions. Similar to those folks who sent around MS .doc files today.

I remember getting emails with ^H in them. Man, I'm feeling old today. ;-)

Re:Bwuah?

[captainktainer]

What are you smoking? I updated 1.0.3 to 1.0.4 through the "Check Now" button and didn't have any problems.

Doublecheck your internet connection settings.

Re:Bwuah?

[vanka]

Using that same logic, why was Firefox 1.0.3 available for download when it was "a product with [known] vulnerabilities?"

Metzli you're completely missing the point; when Firefox 1.0.3 was shipped, the vulnerabilities were not known! Therefore, when they became known, Firefox 1.0.4 was released. That is why Ben Goodger blasted Netscape; they were using software with known (but corrected in another release) vulnerabilities. The same cannot be said of Firefox. Granted Netscape corrected the vulnerabilities within 24 hours, but only because of all the negative publicity.

Ben Goodger had a very valid point when he wrote that Firefox is able to more quickly and better address its' vulnerabilities. Anytime your product is dependent on someone else's product, there will be lag time between their release and your release. Let's say that some vulnerability is discovered in Firefox, the Firefox developers fix it and have Firefox 1.0.5 out in a week. Since Netscape is based on Firefox 1.0.4, it has the same vulnerability; but it must wait for Firefox 1.0.5 to be released (suppose a week goes by) and then integrate the new version into Netscape (say another week). That leaves the Netscape user vulnerable for two weeks, while Firefox users were vulnerable for only one.

Another example is the drivers made available by hardware manufactures who use other's chips (for example Asus and Nvidia). I ran into this problem when I bought an nForce2 motherboard from Asus. I had installed the chipset drivers that came with the driver CD, and behold my compter only restarts (even if Shutdown and Standby are choosen in Windows). Naturally, I suspected that the driver was at fault, so I went to Asus' website and got their newest driver. Same problem. Finally, I got the latest driver from Nvidia; problem fixed. Asus had not posted the new driver because they either had not tested it, known that it existed, or thought the updates were unimportant. Do you now understand the problem of lag?

What compounds the problem is that the release cycles of Firefox and Netscape are not the same. From what I have seen, Firefox is pretty good about fixing bugs and vulnerabilities quickly; how can I as a user be sure that Netscape will release an update every time Firefox does? What if Netscape releases version 8.02 (based on Firefox 1.0.5) and Firefox releases version 1.0.6 the next day? Will Netscape release version 8.03 within a week or will they wait for Firefox 1.0.7 to be released? These are the questions that I, as a user who is worried about security (which is why I use an alternative browser in the first place), am concerned about.

Re:Bwuah?

[Quantam]

So... wouldn't that make Netscape management (and by association the company, since management ultimately decides what happens) highly untrustworthy? Why would you deal with a company that knowingly puts out flaws just to meet a timeline? I'd think that'd be worse than the first two options. Of course I don't find that possibility very likely, if it is indeed 24 hours we're talking about.

Re:Bwuah?

[Metzli]

No, I don't think you're seeing my point. I understand that there were no known vulnerabilities in 1.0.3 when it was released, much like there are no known vulnerabilities in 1.0.4. My point was that www.mozilla.org still had 1.0.3 available for download while it was known that it had vulnerabilties. I'm not sayint that Netscape didn't do something stupid, I'm just pointing out that the official Mozilla release of Firefox for approximately one week was downloadable while it had a known vulnerability. It had a work-around that they publicized, but it still had that issue.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that version 1.0.3 shouldn't have been available. I'm just trying to point out what (IMHO) is somewhat disingenuous finger-pointing at Netscape while Mozilla still had vulnerable software available.

Re:Bwuah?

[cloudmaster]

Gecko was a rewrite from scratch. The "old netscape code" didn't start the Mozilla Foundation, though some Netscape coders did, and were funded in large part by Netscape/AOL/TimeWarner in the beginning.

I used MS DOS on my first computer. I guess I'm not allowed to say anything bad about Microsoft, ever, because they were helpful in the beginning?

Re:Bwuah?

[number11]

I see that all the time. can someone please explain its meaning?

It's not just "unix terminals". The ASCII code for backspace (BS) is 0x08, which is the same as the code for control-H. Indeed, some serial terminals had no cursor keys, BS was done by pressing ctrl-H, which is how WordStar ended up with that as a convention, as well as ^E^X^S^D for cursor-up,down,left,right. (The concept probably was borrowed from unix, as were a lot of other PC conventions of the day.) Serial terminals usually did display "^H" when you pressed the backspace. My first PC (c. 1982) used a Lear-Siegler ADM31A terminal that did this until I bought a hot-rodded BIOS chip for the terminal. The display and the keyboard were vastly superior to most other PCs of the day (for text, there was no graphics except block characters).

So it quickly became a convention in typed "speech" to show a dig as something rephrased, e.g. "moron^H^H^H^H^Hpolitician".

Re:Bwuah?

[jp10558]

This also comes up in comparisons with Opera. While it may be logical to compare Suites with Suites, it also is not unreasonable to show where a suite may outshine individual products and vice versa.

Personally I've always liked the Suites, but that's just me.

Re:Bwuah?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, it's his fucking personal blog. Why the fuck can't someone just say what they feel like? If there's a fucking spade lying on the ground, you bet I'm going to tell people about it. If they have a tantrum or get upset because they didn't like what they read in my personal blog, well, fuck 'em. Anyone who can't handle the heat should STFU and go pack it somewhere where they stick daffodils up your ass and blow you to say hello.

Re:Bwuah?

[DrXym]

Except this isn't Netscape anymore. Netscape 8.0 was produced by some 3rd party contracted by AOL to take Firefox and rebrand with the Netscape product.

The reason for this is that there is no Netscape browser engineers anymore. They all got laid off. AOL in their infinite wisdom decided after settling with Microsoft that they didn't need to wield Netscape as a stick any more and got rid of it. That was even after Gecko was proving to be a better and more stable browser than IE even in their client.

Still NS8.0 might hold out some hope that AOL will dump IE. The browser switching technology might convince them that now is finally the right time to move. Hell, for all we know someone might be knocking together an AOL branded version of Firefox to replace their crusty client. Pigs might fly of course.

Re:Bwuah?

[luvirini]

Nobody's going to install both Netscape and Firefox's browsers and switch between them; they're going to pick one OR the other and stick with it.

actually..

I run both Firefox and Mozilla.. So it might well be that I would switch the mozilla to Netscape.. going to test it soon anyway.

The Firefox is configured to bypass filtering by using a secure proxy on outside. I mostly use Mozilla for evertything.. but when I hit forbidden thing I copy the url to Firefox and use it, though it is a slower method.

bah.

[t0ny747]

Firefox may have a few flaws but its still better then IE which never gets fixed.

later in that day

[Anonymous Coward]

he was reported to of said "you called me names you rotter, no fair!" and with that he picked up his ball and went home !

If you look into the abyss

[Anonymous Coward]

afkl;sdjfiospufwer8fail;sdfj s78-fn8-a-sn7f89ZSHd

Comments in a blog

[Anonymous Coward]

Storm, meet tea-cup.

Re:Comments in a blog

[Anonymous Coward]

cornucopia, meet deoxyribonucleic acid

The Inquirer

[Anonymous Coward]

The Inquirer blasts Mozilla and "lead Firefox engineer"

As if the Inquirer hasn't done any blasting themselves?

As if the Inquirier is a reputable media source. How many time have they been sued?

Re:The Inquirer

[0x461FAB0BD7D2]

Whether or not they've blasted others and their reputation don't make their point any less valid.

See the difference between the Inquirer and Ben Goodger is that the former is a tabloid. They're supposed to do things like this.

Ben Goodger is not supposed to flame indirect supporters of the Mozilla Foundation. He's supposed to be encouraging it. His comments that you can get only the best Firefox releases from Mozilla.org itself, while quite possibly true, reeks of vendor lock-in, in a sense.

Re:The Inquirer

[tveidt]

Exactly what I was thinking. The Sun among the IT sites wants to tell others how to behave... And Goodger's comments were justified. Netscape just acted unprofessional. Firefox 1.0.4 was out for days and Netscape released its new version based on Firefox 1.0.3, while they told their visitors at Netscape.com that their current browsers are outdated (even recent Firefox nightlies!) and that they should upgrade to the secure Netscape 8.

Re:The Inquirer

[dtjohnson]

How many times has the The Inquirer been sued? Never, as far as you or anyone here knows. Your comment suggesting that the truth is otherwise, without providing any information to back it up, smells of FUD. Also, I've found their news to be pretty reliable over the years.

Re:The Inquirer

[Juvenall]

As if the Inquirier is a reputable media source. How many time have they been sued? It sounds to me like you're confused between "The Inquirer" and the "National Enquirer".

Re:The Inquirer

[rwven]

sure, they have been sued....but has anyone ever won?

The Inq is right and thats the bottom line. It makes me think twice about using Firefox in the future...

And as far as a reputable media source... Yaknow, everyone with no clue says this. EVERYONE. The bottom line is that the inq largely posts only real news and when they do post their predictions and rumors....99% of the time they come true... So not only are they a good media source, they're almost prophetic in content....not to mention their wit is hilarious. They have my vote.

Yeah

[Yhippa]

Like Microsoft never bashes anybody...

Re:Yeah

[superpulpsicle]

They really don't bash much. They just buy you out. Which seems to be the sad trend in the computing industry in general.

So Inquirer Bashes Mozilla for Bashing Netscape

[Anonymous Coward]

Pot, Kettle, Black

nxymywa

Double standards.kfynzdx

[Anonymous Coward]

Translation: It's OK if we do it. It's not OK if you do it.

Re:Double standards.kfynzdx

[Skye16]

Isn't a "news" source supposed to do the bashing? That's kind of their job. But it IS bad form for a company to rip on their competitors. It gets really old, trite, and pathetic, really fast. If you can't let YOUR product do the speaking for you, then maybe you should shut your mouth and get to work on making it better. And if it is better, then you, as a developer, don't need to say a word. Your actions have spoken much louder than your pie hole ever could.

Re:Double standards.kfynzdx

[stlhawkeye]

sn't a "news" source supposed to do the bashing? That's kind of their job./

I disagree. And this is why people are fleeing traditional news outlets. Where was a time when, when you asked people why they wanted to be journalists, they would recite a line about being interested in the truth. This isn't the case any more. Now they want to change the world and make a difference.

Investigative journalism used to be about fact-finding and ferreting out the truth from a web lies woven by powerful people. Now it's about furthering an agenda (both the Left and Right are guilty of this, so don't think I'm attacking you and your political offiliation).

The fact that you say here that it's the "job" of the news to bash stuff affirms this in my mind. I don't think the news is about criticism, it's about finding truth (yeah, we can wax philosophical here about the nature and unattainability of truth, just play along) and reporting it. Bias is inevitable, but recently our various media outlets have been found to be deliberately reporting lies or omiting specific truths to further an agenda. You've got the White House hiring reporters to write stories as though they were done by independent journalists. You've got the Department of Defense issuing carbon-copy letters for soldiers to "send home" to their newspapers praising the good work of Iraq. You've got NBC blowing up trucks, CBS issuing reports based on false documents, and dozens of reporters around the country being fired for just flat out manufacturing stories, quotes, and events.

These crimes of journalism are committed by people who want to change the world, not discover and report truth. Whenever somebody says they want to "change the world" or "improve the human condition", you can bet that it's codespeak for "recreate society based on my idea of what a sociey should be." And we have a word for such authoritarian views of what people should want and be: fascism.

Re:Double standards.kfynzdx

[Skye16]

I don't necessarily see why bashing someone is against the truth. To me (and I realize this isn't realistic), if you have nothing truthful to say, you shouldn't open your mouth. The fact that people are so intent on putting "spin" on facts sends me into a rage. In my mind, and in my life, I'm not going to open my mouth against someone unless I have something factual to say (with some semblance of proof). But when I do, I will "bash". That doesn't mean I'm going to bash according to "agenda", either. I fucking hate religious conservatives in power (at least, if they're using their religion to try to make laws that determine moral right and wrong for me). We seem to have a lot of those nowadays, so I tend to bitch, and bash, a lot. I think, having stated that I dislike religious conservatives telling me what to do, it's pretty plain I'm against Republicans and for Democrats. With that said, however, when Republicans do something right, that is logically sound, I'm not going to bash them. I'm not going to fabricate some lie just to knock them down, just because they're Republicans. Also, when Democrats do something fucking stupid, I'm not going to give them a free pass on everything. They can be a bunch of cockbiting fucktards, too, and I won't hestitate in the slightest to call them on it (not that they even hear me, but that's not the point).

The point is: bashing is not necessarily bad, if, by bashing, we mean "intense, negative criticism". It's a tool. Misuse of that tool, however - THAT is what's bad.

Re:Double standards.kfynzdx

[stlhawkeye]

I don't necessarily see why bashing someone is against the truth.

Criticism is not, by nature, mutually exclusive with truth. Nor is journalism mutually exclusive with providing criticism.

However, in the modern American media, deliberate obfuscation and masking of truth is being done to support the criticism that wouldn't stand on its own if people knew the truth.

It's not necessary that criticism eschew fact, it's just happening now because journalists no longer want to pursue truth (perhaps in the interest of proving their agenda), they want to push an agenda by manipulating or manufacturing truth.

We seem to have a lot of those nowadays, so I tend to bitch, and bash, a lot.

But are you making shit up about them to further your argument? Or blindly accepting things people say about them because it's convenient to believe that? If you're an intellectual critic, you're not doing that. There's a vacuum of intellectualism in American journalism today.

I think, having stated that I dislike religious conservatives telling me what to do, it's pretty plain I'm against Republicans and for Democrats.

I wouldn't even derive that much. I'd derive that you most likely oppose the religious right. I'm a conservative and I can't stand the Republicans any more. I've completely abandoned the party, it's being taken over by people who can't see the difference between, "This is right for me" and "This is right for everybody." It used to be the Democrats who did that (and a number of them still do), but the Republicans have become an insufferable lot of big-government, big-spending mouthpieces for religious conservatism. And I can't abide it. I see true conservatives abandoning the Republicans in droves. And I see true liberals abandoning the Democrats as well.

With that said, however, when Republicans do something right, that is logically sound, I'm not going to bash them. I'm not going to fabricate some lie just to knock them down, just because they're Republicans.

And that makes you politically honest. The media has no such integrity anymore. On either side.

The point is: bashing is not necessarily bad, if, by bashing, we mean "intense, negative criticism". It's a tool. Misuse of that tool, however - THAT is what's bad.

Again, I don't think criticism is bad or the media shouldn't do it. It's that their motivations for it are based on pushing an agenda and cherry-picking facts (or making them up) to support that agenda. The crime here is that this is then represented to people as objective truth. At least we know what platform Rush Limbaugh is preaching from. At least we know where John Stewart's political idealogy is. And we can digest and think about what they say knowing that their opinions are colored by their political beliefs.

But the media wants us to think that they are objective people reporting truth. They're not, and that's what's dangerous to a free and informed society. We allow all people to vote regardless of their qualifications to make an informed decision. The media is the only private industry whose role in the governance of a free society is specifically laid out in the constitution, and the media is not honoring their responsibility for a fairly informed populace (and neither, frankly, is the White House, Senate, or Congress, but that's not exactly a recent trend).

Re:Double standards.kfynzdx

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm intrigued by your ideas. When can I subscribe to your newsletter? Seriously. You're the first person I've seen in 10 years mention the "truth" vs. "change the world" aspect of journalism in any discussion of the media

Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[autopr0n]

There's a pretty big difference between bashing somebody for a malicious intent, and bashing someone because they need to get bashed. From the article, it seems like AOL put out a fixed version of the browser a day after he made the comments.

Perhaps if he'd known Netscape was going to put out a new browser, he'd have refrained from making those comments. But he probably didn't. Anyway, he was still correct (by a day)

Security is more important then people's feelings.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[Oldest European]

Security is more important then people's feelings.

Amen.

I wonder why should companies contribute or fund the Mozilla Foundation, if any derivative work or redistribution of the Foundation's browsers they create is going to raise the FUD mocking and anger of Mozilla's 'lead engineer

Because Mozilla is still not proprietary and you don't get locked in like with Microsoft products. And you can always fork if you have the money or manpower. Ever tried to fork IE?

Then of course it is another question if a lead developer should have a loud mouth that might scare people away. (Not saying that this is the case, but guess some people might feel that way.)

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[Irish_Samurai]

There's a pretty big difference between bashing somebody for a malicious intent, and bashing someone because they need to get bashed.

And who preytell gets to make the decision on whether the bashing was malicious or necessary?

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[Anonymous Coward]

A rather trite post considering the MoFo guys think they're fucking rock stars now (c.f. Asa Dotzler).

And the fact that you don't know the difference between then and than is a magic touch.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[benjamindees]

he was still correct (by a day)

No, actually, in this case, he was wrong (by about a week). Somebody who downloaded Netscape 8.0 when it was released, then updated to 8.1 when it was released, would have a day of unpatched vulnerability.

Somebody who downloaded Firefox 1.0.3 on the day the latest exploit was revealed, then updated to 1.0.4 the day it was released, would have at least a week of vulnerability.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[Anonymous Coward]

Security is more important then people's feelings.

Yeah that's why Theo is such a popular guy too.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[MagicHateBall]

Ever tried to fork IE?

I've been saying "fork IE" for years, now that you mention it...

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[Dr.Evil]

Yes, but that week of work by the Firefox team fixing the bugs for 1.0.4 is what made it possible for Netscape to re-package the same fix in a day. And let's not forget that 1.0.4 had been out for a week already before Netscape launched 8.0.

Really, Netscape had no business launching 8.0, and should have waited a day to get the 1.0.4 fixes in. Known exploits with a known solution should be showstoppers - period.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[benjamindees]

1.0.4 had been out for a week already before Netscape launched 8.0.

This is, again, wrong. Netscape 8.0 was released on the 19th, three days before Firefox 1.0.4 on the 22nd.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[DikSeaCup]

Your reliance on the datestamp of the directory for Firefox 1.0.4 is unwise.

The "Modified" stamp on my Windows Install of Firefox 1.0.4 is May 11. Which is, from what I personally recall, when the update was released, and is actually 8 days before the posting about Netscape 8 on the 19th.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[DikSeaCup]

As if further evidence of your error is required (I'm not trying to flame you, just proving my point), you need to look at this Slashdot article about Firefox 1.0.4 from the 12th.

Re:Somebody call a whaaambulance.

[10101001 10101001]

Ah, security through unavailability. So, by your logic it's perfectly okay for MS to release Windows Longhorn with vulnerabilities existent in the original build of Windows XP then release fix patches the next day, pretending that somehow makes this makes MS more responsive to security than they were with XP? Hell, Longhorn is already tons more secure than Linux given it's not available.

If a company releases a product with the same vulnerability as another company when that vulnerability was rather highly publicized (recently or otherwise), I tend to question that company on security. Part of security is being aware when exploits exist and taking preemptive action when possible. Clearly AOL/Netscape failed in this regard.

Can we start linking the original articles?

[stlhawkeye]

We've got a link to two old Slashdot stories, the Inquirer's main page, and the Inquirer article to which this article is alluding. You people need to start including the actual articles that you're talking about so I can bitch at people for not RTFA when they post comments.

Re:Can we start linking the original articles?

[coop0030]

I didn't even know there were links to articles in summaries. Where are these so called articles?

Is that what people keep posting about?!? :)

Re:Can we start linking the original articles?

[TimeForGuinness]

you're new here, aren't you.

Re:Can we start linking the original articles?

[starwed]

But if they'd linked to Chris Ailon's blog, people might have noticed this update:
Update 20050522 19:25:24 -0500: the slashdot article is misleading.

That links to a blog post where he rebuts the slashdot article that supposedly represents his views. ^_^

rational people know

[fishdan]

sometimes you have to seperate the art from the artist. e.e. cummings ended up saying some really nasty things, but his poetry is amazing. We should apply the same license to others we meet -- there *is* a difference between the art and the artist.

Re:rational people know

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, so if Hitler had gotten good at his drawings, you'd have one hanging up in your den, is that what you're saying?

Re:rational people know

[astrashe]

What did ee cummings say? I've never heard that...

Re:rational people know

[Anonymous Coward]

sometimes you have to seperate the art from the artist. e.e. cummings ended up saying some really nasty things, but his poetry is amazing. We should apply the same license to others we meet -- there *is* a difference between the art and the artist.

some guy: You fucking asshole.
ee cummings: Do you know who I am? I'm EE Cummings:
some guy: Great poems... you fucking asshole.

Re:rational people know

[peacefinder]

"Right, so if Hitler had gotten good at his drawings, you'd have one hanging up in your den, is that what you're saying?"

Ever read any Robert E. Howard? His views on race seem to have been pretty similar to Hitler's, yet the Conan tales are still awfully good yarns.

Re:rational people know

[Anonymous Coward]

A drawing is a drawing. It's not a gas chamber. What's the harm?

Re:rational people know

[Anonymous Coward]

That's E.E. Cummings. The thing about him always spelling his name in all lowercase letters is a myth.

Re:rational people know

[earthbound kid]

I really want a Hitler painting:

"You see this painting?"
"Yeah."
"See the brush work? Notice how the hatching here accentuates the light on the foreground? And you see how the painter has created a soft focus here that creates an illusion of three dimensionality?"
"Oh yeah, I guess so."
"... . You racist bastard!"

Re:rational people know

[fishdan]

From the literary encyclopedia:

On March 30, 1950, the Oxford University Press published Xaipe (pronounced Kyereh, almost rhyming with fiery). The publication caused what his biographer calls "the most unpleasant controversy Cummings ever provoked". In it he says that "kike[s]" are "the most dangerous / machine as yet invented". Although he explained that he had no intention to insult Jews, he received criticism from his supporters and enemies alike.

Make of it what you will.

We tried it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Our IT Manager suggested to me that we download Navigator for few offices here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of using it for our employee's day-to-day web browser. So I decided to let him install it into 5 offices to see how the employees got on. Besides, our IT manager had been using Netscape in his office and it seemed to work fine, why not try it on the client offices?

Once he'd got Netscape up and running we let the users try it out. It all seemed fine to start with: Netscape was a pretty good replacement for Firefox and the users could still do their work as normal.

Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints received from users who could not find things they were used to (Live bookmarks?) or tasks they could not perform that they previously could with the Firefox. The final straw came when one employee lost several hours work when Netscape allowed a remote website to install malware on his computer.

Needless to say, the Netscape offered no support whatsoever, and Mozilla told us we were idiots. I made the employee remove Netscape from the offices and lets just say he's not with us anymore.

Re:We tried it...

[petermgreen]

hey is this a deliberate parody of the troll?

Re:We tried it...

[Anonymous Coward]

Yay for cut/paste trolls.

Now if only we could cut/paste this guy's genitals to his forehead.

Re:We tried it...

[Anonymous Coward]

A skript kiddie suggested to me that we troll slashdot on a few machines here as an evaluation. I was skeptical at first but he explained the benefits of trolling it for our employee's day-to-day amusement. So I decided to let him install the script onto 5 machines to see how the slashdotters got on. Besides, our "Open Proxy, Ban Me" script had been running fine up till now, why not try it on a few more threads? Once he'd got the machines up and running with the script we let the slashdotters mod it down. It all seemed fine to start with: Our trolling scripts was a pretty good replacement for the "Open Proxy, Ban Me" script and the slashdotters could still flame each other as normal. Alas it did not stay that way. After a few days, I had lost count of the number of complaints seen from slashdotters who could not complain about things they were used to (Microsoft even!??) or tasks they could not perform that they previously couuld on slashdot. The final straw came when one moderator lost several hours work when the slashcode suddenly had an error reading from our trolling script and modded an entire article off-topic. I made the script kiddie uninstall the trolling script from the machines and lets just say he's not with us anymore.

What Ben Goodger said...

[nigham]

... was hardly wrong. Here it is, verbatim from his blog:

If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products.

Now, if it is true that Netscape is a "redistribution" of Firefox (Netscape says it is), its only fair to comment that if FF is updated, it will be some time before Netscape is. I wouldn't call it Microsoft-style bashing.

Re:What Ben Goodger said...

[caillon]

Netscape decides when to release and when not to, and what fixes to include and what not to. They could have reasonably released a day later to address the fixes, but they had a deadline to meet, and they chose to meet it.

Re:What Ben Goodger said...

[Anonymous Coward]

According to this article, Netscape was not aware of any security problems and had to release the update when German computer magazine c't pointed them to the "browser security check" webpage demonstrating the vulnerability. It is also interesting to know that Netscape 8.0 is based on Firefox 1.0.3 and was released when 1.0.4 was already available.

Re:What Ben Goodger said...

[acebone]

If Netscape had said on the DL page

'Because of a recently discovered (and fixed) security vulnerability in the underlying engine of Netscape, we regret to inform you that release has been delayed one day - we hope you will try again tomorrow'

or summat like that, would that have garnered /anything/ but respect, sympathy and understanding ?

They have a point...

[SkankinMonkey]

Even if you agree with the guy, Mozilla relies on donations from people and corporations to stay afloat. Most of that, I'm willing to bet, comes from corporations. If you disagree with the way a release is going you have a right to say something, but make it private instead of scathingly public, especially if it's against the person that pays your bills.

Re:They have a point...

[linuxci]

But that's the beauty of weblogs of open source developers, they can say what they feel, unlike the IE blog where everything appears to have been vetted by marketing first.

Re:They have a point...

[SkankinMonkey]

It's true that they can say anything they want, uncensored, but at the same time they still have to maintain a standard of living so it's kinda important not to piss off the donators. I'm not saying he was right or wrong, I'm just saying tread carefully when you're biting the hand that feeds you. Anything more than a nibble might make it slap you silly.

Re:They have a point...

[NDPTAL85]

Their freedom of expression isn't the issue. Its the sensibility of it. If Netscape pulls the financial plug then it will be a loss for the Mozilla Foundation, not a win.

The Inquirer?

[truthsearch]

The Inquirer? The same Inquirer that blasts Brittany when she's caught not wearing make-up is complaining about Mozilla's bashing?

Oh, wait, wrong tabloid...

Re:The Inquirer?

[daeley]

An easy mistake to make. One is a parasitic, bloodsucking leech that would die if it weren't for the subjects of its sensationalistic titillation...

...and the other one is spelled with an E. ;)

Just say no to graphical browsers.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hmm, I have no problems with pop-ups and other crap using Lynx.... What ever happened to Gopher, that was a sweet text based internet.

Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[wyldeone]

"Mozilla Foundation to ban Firefox derivative browsers?" is the headline for the second article. First of all, Mozilla Foundation can't, because of the license of their code (and if they were to relicense it, they likely would face an XFree86-like split). Secondly, they're not: this is just one developer (albeit a prominent one) making a comment on his blog about the security of Netscape's. I fail to see the big deal here.

Re:Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[Arctic Dragon]

It doesn't seem like a big deal, but his comments can be taken out of context, which can lead to an ugly situation. Just look at the recent KDE VS. Apple bullshit. What started as a minor criticism exploded into a bash fest. The last thing the open-source community needs is a war between its developers.

Re:Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[maxpublic]

The last thing the open-source community needs is a war between its developers.

No, the last thing the open source 'community' needs is a borg-like avoidance of conflict. Conflict is *good*; it spurs change, reveals flaws, and pushes people to either put up or shut up.

People who clamor for an end to conflict with the tired 'let's just all get along' line are, in fact, poison to any endeavor which wants to remain vibrant and strong. It's unfortunate that anyone pays any attention at all to these losers, whose only real goal is to shut down any and all opposition to their own pet views of How The World Should Be(TM).

No, let's NOT just all get along. Let's argue, fight, criticize, disagree and struggle whenever we feel that it's appropriate to do so. And if anyone comes along and whines about this state of affairs, let's bitch-slap the wannabe tin-potters into next week without so much as giving them the time of day.

Max

Re:Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[mmurphy000]

and if they were to relicense it, they likely would face an XFree86-like split

Extremely unlikely. Last I knew, they were still trying to get all the individual contributors to allow GPL and LGPL licensing to go along with the MPL. Unlike projects like OpenOffice.org, Mozilla traditionally did not require any form of joint copyright assignment, so Mozilla itself can't relicense the code, only the individual developers can.

The Register's headline was sensationalistic and misleading. But, that's their style for headlines (and, sometimes, for articles).

Re:Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[Quantam]

While we're talking about sensationalist headlines, how about "Inquirer Blasts Mozilla for Microsoft-Style Bashing"? This is not "Microsoft-style" bashing; this is Slashdot-style Microsoft bashing. What's the difference? Well, I can think of two things:

1. Slashdot is much more savage when Microsoft screws up (thus implying that there's some truth in the what's said against it)
2. The Netscape-bashing that Inquirer is responding to is true. Can you say the same for Microsoft's anti-Linux campaigns?

That headline is intentional flamebait (or at least it would be, if any serious MS fans came here).

Re:Talk about sensationlist headlines...

[Omega Blue]

Conflict is *good*; it spurs change, reveals flaws, and pushes people to either put up or shut up.

Not necessarily. Not all conflicts are like that. Even for this subset, they are only good to the extent that conflicts are revolved quickly, without spilling over, creating bad blood, sapping energy from people, and causing other sorts of damage.

What's the problem?

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't everyone using internet explorer these days?

Can't beat the proprietary!

Listen guys I'll tell you what's happening

[Anonymous Coward]

Hi, I'm Blake Ross. You might know me as gorgeous teen leader of world class browser Firefox. Hey my buddies on the team like Ben Goodger call me "El Spicko" cause I'm a greasy spick mother. I even got a pass to say 'nigger', sometimes I call my spick brothers and homies, I say "hey my nigger".

When I drive around town with the hood down and the system cranking, I say to the ladies "how you doing girls?" and they say "Hey El Spicko we love you" and I just say "Hey". I used to work in kebab shop for my cousin but now I work on my browser Firefox which I invented.

All you fags who keep saying Firefox is shit, you don't know shit. Kiss my spick nigger butt is what i say. Hey. We do what the fuck I want, it's my business I run. hey.

Hey have you seen my photo on wired magazine ? Nice. My friend Ben, you see it's like this..he's a bit of a fat faggot and he likes all the geek stuff, me I'm more a ladies' man, i got plenty of pussy to choose from. hey.

Listen I got to go, my cousin was busted for dealing crack, and mother was a whore but I tell you something truthfull, the way I did it, the way i became the boss of Firefox and changed the world, well you see it's a gift, not everyone has it like I do, but maybe you too can make something of your lives like me one day

later, here is some more free photos for my fans...

peace

http://www.bibi.org/box/2005/janeiro/the_firefox_e xplosion.jpg

http://images.usatoday.com/tech/_photos/2005/01/24 /ross-main.jpg

Totally Justified

[linuxci]

He was totally justified with what he said. Netscape released their version based on a release of Firefox with security holes when a patched version of Firefox already existed.

It can create a bad impression on Mozilla applications if other apps that proudly boast that they're based on such apps don't release updates in a timely manner.

On another note, it's quite possible that Netscape are breaking the Mozilla trademark guidelines. The application should have said something like based on Gecko rather than based on Firefox because after all the Netscape bloat adding it looks nothing like Firefox.

Still nothing is as innovative as IE ;)

Re:Totally Justified

[molnarcs]

Now that is nitpicking at its worst - they don't sell their product under the brand Firefox. They merely state that their product is based on Firefox - is there anything wrong with that? At least it is more informative than saying that it is based on gecko - which can be the gecko present in Mozilla, Firefox, or any other derivative.

The irony is, that this is exactly what the INQ. article is about. Furthermore:

It can create a bad impression on Mozilla applications if other apps that proudly boast that they're based on such apps don't release updates in a timely manner.

Have you read the article actually? It is exactly about the unneded mockery of Goodger, who fails to note that Netscape released an update as fast as humanly possible - less than a day after release. I think that qualifies as "timely manner".

Re:Totally Justified

[justins]

It can create a bad impression on Mozilla applications if other apps that proudly boast that they're based on such apps don't release updates in a timely manner.

Yeah, it took them a day to bring out the 8.01 update. That's just not quick enough!

Re:Totally Justified

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

OK, before I get flamed by FF fans this is just a devils advocate stance!

He said that redistrbutions (like Netscape) will never be as secure as the official Mozilla version.

How many "days at risk" was FF from these issues?
Three days I believe (I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong).

How many "days at risk" was Netscape 8.0 from these issues?
Less than one.

Just saying the arguement COULD be made, thats all.

Re:Totally Justified

[linuxci]

Fixing the bugs within a day is not good when the bugs had already been fixed in Firefox and were known about for a while.

The responsible thing would have been to delay the release by one day. This would also have meant that they didn't force all their early adopters to update so soon.

Yes, it would have been good to see something patched that quickly if the defects had been found after the release, however when the holes are known about then it makes sense to delay the release particularly if it's only by a day.

As for the Firefox trademark issues, the reason was to stop a poor quality derivative from giving Firefox a bad name.

Very strictly speaking Firefox(TM) is not open source, everything is open source except the branding though.

See for yourself, if you check out the firefox source code from the CVS and build it you'll get an app that is firefox in every way but the branding (the icon doesn't have the fox). You can add a flag to configure to enable the official branding, but you should not call modified versions firefox. But you're free to release it under your own name

Re:Totally Justified

[linuxci]

BTW for the Mozilla(TM) Trademark Policy I'd just like to say I'm just giving my views on why the trademark policy is the way it is and based on the blog post I linked to previously I do think that Netscape is violating them if they've not got permission.

I'm not saying I agree or disagree on the policy, a lot of things I think are a bit too restrictive IMO, but it doesn't bother me because the underlying software is free even if the branding isn't.

Re:Totally Justified

[lordpixel]

Yes. But why did they release the buggy version at all. Why risk people's computers needlessly with a known exploit? Why not just wait a day and release the right thing the first time?

Re:Totally Justified

[caillon]

> Netscape released their version based on a release of Firefox with security holes when a patched version of Firefox already existed.

It's not as cut and dry as that. There is an extensive QA process that companies such as Netscape go through. They probably had builds in testing for a few days before the Firefox vulnerability was announced publically.

Re:Totally Justified

[SirTalon42]

Except wasn't Netscape 8.0 released with a known exploit?

Re:Totally Justified

[CaymanIslandCarpedie]

Yes, they both had the same exploits, but since Netscapte shipped later it wasn't "at risk" as long. Of course they should have fixed it before shipping, but the point that FF was at risk longer remains.

In general his comment about "the official Mozilla release will always be more secure" seems to make sense, but I you have to be careful about absolute statements like that. Perhaps there will be a redistrubtion which will say always wait for a month or two after an offical Mozilla release in hopes of having any new bugs caught. In this case you may not always have the latest bells and whistles, but in theory might be more secure (of course you could just stick with the older version of Mozilla for a month or two as well).

In general I'm just a bit wary of absolute statements like that.

Re:Totally Justified

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah, it took them a day to bring out the 8.01 update. That's just not quick enough!

A day from where? Release of previous software? With your logic, as long as I release updates to a software every 6 hours, it won't never take more than 6 hours for me to fix security bugs. No matter if they are known for a week or something before I actually fix them. I used a week as an example because the bug in question had been known by the public for a week.

Re:Totally Justified

[justins]

I used a week as an example because the bug in question had been known by the public for a week.

Ooooh a whole week. You're so right, Netscape is really asleep at the switch here!

(by some completely unusual and unrealistic standard which cannot reasonably be applied to any other software)

Re:Totally Justified

[molnarcs]

I'm just giving my views ...

Oh, I was referring to ebrahim's blog :))) Sorry if it wasn't clear :) - it was a bit annoying to see how mockery is not enough, they have to talk about possible trademark violations, which is such a nonsense in this case! So my comment was directed against the blog entry, not your post :)

Bashing?

[Anonymous Coward]

Doesn't look like Mr. aillon was bashing them based on his response

Bashful

[Doc Ruby]

Why does "bashing" get such a bad rap these days? Is it because small groups pumping worthless products monopolize both their industries and access to the media? So powerful attacks - especially the most powerful, simple truth - are merely branded "bashing", and dismissed precisely for their power and accuracy. Competition is a bashing affair. We don't want competitors backing each other up, ignoring one another's shortcomings. That's known as a "cartel". Bash on, for the greater good!

Re:Bashful

[slizz]

(except when microsoft bashes, then its evil)

Re:Bashful

[pohl]

(except when microsoft bashes, then its evil)

Subtle distinction here: bashing that uses truth, and bashing that distorts it.

Honesty is the best policy...

[PenguinBoyDave]

Calling a spade a spade isn't necessarily a bad thing. Especially when you're right.

Re:Honesty is the best policy...

[CoderBob]

I dunno, I prefer to call them "Shovels".

A developer says something regrettable? Shocking!

[peacefinder]

He said something impolitic, or maybe unwise. Possibly even wrong. So what? Engineers have been known to do that occasionally. (Theo de Raadt says impolitic things fairly often, yet OpenBSD is still a great product.)

This is a tempest in a teapot. Nothing to see here.

Why....

[millahtime]

Why can't we all just get along!?!?!?!?!

Nothing to see here, move along...

[__aaitqo8496]

The FA is basically a flame on Ben Goodger's comments. It's much akin to a puerile 16 year old making comments to piss everyone off (oh shit - I must have just insulted a large demographic of OSDN!)

The article goes on to basically "right" Ben's "wrongs" and eventually concludes with an update taht Mozilla Foundation contacted The Inquirer to inform them that Ben Gooder is not a MoFo employee.

And to think, I will never get the time added back on to my life for wasting time reading that article.

Re:Nothing to see here, move along...

[tehwebguy]

i can't believe they called him a mofo employee!

Power Corrupts..

[quark007]

Always!

FUDged

[Shanoyu]

As in, creating FUD about FUD. The Inquirer is right to take Goodger's post to task for, no two ways about it, bashing someone else's product simply and specifically because it's a derivative work, which is the epitome of absurd for any project like Firefox.

At the same time the article is itself a FUD and sort of repulsive for the same reasons of the first, only more so because Goodger can at least make a claim to having the users best interests at heart while the Inquirer would pour gasoline on a blazing inferno if it'd sell, in this case taking it to almost epically stupid proportions:

Sadly, somewhere among the transition from Mozilla.org to MoFo, Firefox radicals embarked on a "Firefox the product is the best thing on the planet" holy war.

You dumbass. You just quoted all of the people in his freaking blog that thought Goodger's post was crap. Read your own stupid story.

Learning English with the Inquirer

[Anonymous Coward]

A new usage of the word "with":

"remember I got Netscape 8.01 with is based on the latest Firefox 1.04"

Flamebait

[EdMcMan]

Come on. Is MoFo the best abbreviation for firefox? What about FF? I got to the summary line, something like MoFo Ben blah blah and stopped. Obviously whoever wrote this was not in a clear state of mind. At the least, it's flamebait. At the most, it's troll.

Sadly enough, from the summary on /. I think it's something that does need to be discussed, but not in that manner.

Re:Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

I hardly think whoever wrote the article was the first person to refer to the Mozilla Foundation as "MoFo".

See?

Re:Flamebait

[Evil Adrian]

Firefox. Seven letters. Doesn't need an abbreviation. If someone's too lazy to type seven letters, their fingers should be smashed.

Re:Flamebait

[linuxci]

MoFo has become the defacto abbreviation for the Mozilla Foundation.

The first time I seen it used was in a blog post that was critical of the running of the Foundation (non 404'd), but it was linked to in Asa's blog and the name just stuck.

Re:Flamebait

[EdMcMan]

Inquirer using mofo

Inquirer using firefox

I know it's a real abbreviation, but I think it was chosen (for this article) in poor taste.

Re:Flamebait

[Anonymous Coward]

FF stands for Fantastic Four you insensitive clod!

Re:Flamebait

[johansalk]

A former boss used to be hugely annoyed when people used abbreviations in writing, especially, I recall, those that seemed to need more "writing" than the words they stood for. One that annoyed him the most was when "at" was abbreviated to "@" - not in emails, but in regular paragraphs; he used to throw a comical fit that 1)"at" does not need abbreviation 2) "@" seemed to take longer to write than "at"

Re:Flamebait

[jisatsusha]

Nonsense, everyone knows FF is Final Fantasy.

Inq - out of context again

[kbrosnan]

This was taken out of context.

Ben was likely annoyed about Netscape.com's alert about Firefox 1.0.4 being out of date. The alert told users to install 8.0 which was based on Firefox 1.0.3 which had securtiy issues.

Netcape.com has resolved the issue of telling Firefox users to update their browser.

Asa's post about the alert with screen shot.
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/008178 .html

update

[nuffle]

From TFA:
The Mozilla Foundation got in touch with me to let me know that Ben Goodger currently is not an employee of this organization, something I've heard before. [...] It shouldnt be surprising then that due to Goodgers past at the Foundation and his involvement in leading the Firefox browser development, his words are often misinterpreted as representing the project.

When an open-source project grows popular (and therefore its community gains some power) the press will begin to pay some attention and publicizing quotes and statements. Unfortunately, the press usually represents any community as monolithic entity. Often, it's not such a big problem, but here Mozilla is competing with giant corporations and so the press tends to equate the mozilla community with a corporation.

Goodger make a perfectly valid statement which reflects his viewpoint of the Mozilla project. However, Goodger isn't a paid employee of the Mozilla Foundation. He is basically a highly involved community member. If the Register wants to report on his opinions, that's fine, but please don't presume that he is speaking for the community or the Mozilla Foundation.

Re:update

[hkmwbz]

"However, Goodger isn't a paid employee of the Mozilla Foundation. He is basically a highly involved community member."

Like it or not, but he calls himself "lead Firefox engineer", and his job at Google is working on Firefox.

There's no talking one's way out of this. He should get his feet back on the ground and stop bashing other browsers. He did well, and Firefox is a success, but he needs more PR training. When the whole world knows that you are the lead Firefox engineer that's what the media will report. He's accountable for his own actions and words, just like everyone else.

He should focus on talking up Firefox instead of talking down others. Maybe his blog post was blown (slightly) out of proportions, but maybe it's a lesson to learn. My guess is that he'll be a bit more careful in the future to avoid this kind of attention.

Netscape v. Firefox

[d-e-w]

Well, he spoke the truth. If you want to be the most safe and secure, use Firefox and upgrade when security fixes are released. Netscape will always being running behind.

Now, if I could only I could convince our IT managers that Netscape is a redistribution of Firefox, I'd be set. Getting yelled at for using Firefox and being told to use Netscape instead makes my head hurt.

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[Arctic Dragon]

Reminds me when I emailed my bank thanking them for supporting Firefox on their online banking Website. They replied saying "We don't support Firefox, and we recommend that you use IE6 or Netscape 6+ instead."

*sigh*

Whoever replied to me apparently never saw "Gecko" in Netscape's UA string.

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[Dave2 Wickham]

Hah. I recently went to use my bank's online services with Opera, and got the following nice message:

Unsupported Browser
You cannot access this application form using your Internet Browser. Please use a recent version of Internet Explorer, Netscape, Mozilla or AOL (PC only).

Nice that they explicitly support Mozilla though. IIRC I tried to use it a while back with Firefox/Firebird/Phoenix/Mozilla (I really cannot remember when) and it blocked it. I ended up using Konq and spoofing the UA.

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[Decameron81]

Well, he spoke the truth. If you want to be the most safe and secure, use Firefox and upgrade when security fixes are released. Netscape will always being running behind.

Technically speaking it was the truth indeed. But bashing Netscape as inferior just because it takes a few more hours to put their updates out is really nothing more than spreading FUD. FUD is not only about lies... it is also about making things bigger than they really are.

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[Dave2 Wickham]

And digging slightly deeper, it looks like there are actually technical problems with Opera. And they also explicitly support Firefox. Yay.

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[gcauthon]

You're still treating this like a black & white issue though. It's not like you're comparing a completely insecure product against a totally secured product. It's firefox 1.0.3 vs firefox 1.0.4. Saying if you want "safe and secure" then use this other product is kind of misleading. How much safer is 1.0.4 over 1.0.3? Were we all crazy for every using 1.0 or possibly even the release candidates? The underlying issue is, who cares if Netscape 8 had this particular vulnerability for a day? Firefox had it for a week. The same workaround applied for Netscape (disable javascript). No known exploits were ever found. Netscape 8.0 is still way more secure than IE 6 or probably even 7. Telling people not to use it is insane (and FUD).

Re:Netscape v. Firefox

[Anonymous Coward]

The Firefox hackers shipped a release, then found a security bug. Netscape already knew (or damn well should have) their release was going to contain the same bug and shipped anyway.

RTFA

[Anonymous Coward]

Goodger doesn't work for Mozilla. From TFA:

"Update: the Mozilla Foundation got in touch with me to let me know that Ben Goodger currently is not an employee of this organization, something I've heard before. However, there's a fine line between "doing contributed work for" and "working for" (as in "being an employee of") in the OSS field. Goodger describes himself as the 'lead Firefox engineer', and is currently working for Google as well as part-time on Mozilla.org. In a blog back in January, Mr. Goodger said that after the change of employers, he'd "work out of the Mozilla Foundation offices regularly as needed," which lead myself to believe that he was still associated with the Foundation on an official level -even if not for profit. It shouldnt be surprising then that due to Goodgers past at the Foundation and his involvement in leading the Firefox browser development, his words are often misinterpreted as representing the project.

Nice little embarrassed damnce the original TFAuthor does in his update. I guess he took Journalism from Dan Rather University.

Branch vs trunk

[jbeaupre]

I've wondered about that myself. How often is the branch going to be out of date? Applies to more than just NS vs FF. There's only 3 scenarios. Branch updates before trunk. Branch and trunk update simultaneously Branch updates after trunk. The first two happen from time to time, but the 3rd is the norm. The good news is that security updates discourage forking since the 1st and 3rd encourage whoever is lagging to keep up or fold. Me, I'm sticking with FF over NS for just these sorts of update troubles.

It's worse than that

[Anonymous Coward]

I just looked at Mozilla's license. It's NOT GPL! Mozilla is not even open source!

The Mozilla license looks like it was written by someone at Sun! In fact, it looks like a simple copy of Sun's non-open source CDDL license!

And even worse, Mozilla is not really an open source project. It is just a closed source project thrown over the fence using a non-open source license, probably to kill Konqueror, just like Sun is releasing Solaris using a similar license to try to kill Linux.

We should not be surprised at how Mozilla is acting. They are full of BS just like Sun.

None

[Groo Wanderer]

Well, as a writer for the Inq, I can say that as far as I have seen, the answer is zero. We get nasty letters all the time, but nothing ever went to court, at least that I can recall.

Then again, what does suits have to do with anything? Does getting sued make a company bad? That would mean car companies must be evil because they get sued all the time, same with IBM. Now, the flip side of that arguement is that people suing must be right and viruous, so that would make SCO a champion of the truth, eh?

-Charlie

Re:None

[Anonymous Coward]

"That would mean car companies must be evil because they get sued all the time"

Well, yeah. I mean, how else do you describe a company that does a cost/benefit analysis on the number of people they expect their car to kill each year?

Re:None

[Groo Wanderer]

"Well, yeah. I mean, how else do you describe a company that does a cost/benefit analysis on the number of people they expect their car to kill each year?"

Prudent? (ducks). :)

Seriously, I agree, but I was just pointing out that suits do not correleate with evil, they can, but they do not have to.

A good example of this is a friend of my father's who was a neurosurgeon. He had a few specialties that meant he was doing some ticky operations that had a 20% chance of success, and he got sued a lot when they failed, even though the people knew that there was only a 1 in 5 chance it would work. He had a segment on 60 minutes or something about the 19 (I think) lawsuits running against him at the time, and I am pretty sure he won every one. Not that it stopped people from trying.

On the other hand, if you are a doctor that specializes in diseases like burning warts off toes, you could be very bad at what you do, cause unnecessary discomfort and have recovery times 3x as long as the next guy, but how many times do you think he will get sued?

So, good guy in high risk position gets sued a lot for false pretenses. Bad guy in low risk position never gets sued even though he is bad at what he does.

The conclusion you draw is wrong, but you are right about the companies being evil.

-Charlie

The real question...

[Espectr0]

Why did AOL release a browser, based on a version of firefox that had security vulnerabilities, while a fixed version was available? Don't tell me it was because they developed especifically against 1.03, because they released a patch the next day.

Why couldn't they simply wait a day? Instead of commenting back and forth about what the developer said, everyone should have asked that question.

Basically, AOL did something stupid, a developer responded to it, and now this gets taken out of context.

The Patch for Firefox 1.04 was already out...

[Anonymous Coward]

If they had waited a day to release 8.0, the 1 day patch to 8.01 would have been unnecessary.

Inquirer v. Enquirer

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't you confusing the one with the supermarket tabloid? Or, did I miss you attempt at humor?

Re:Inquirer v. Enquirer

[Groo Wanderer]

No, I write for the web site, and we have not been sued that I am aware of.

The tabloid, spelled with an E, and prefaced with the word 'National', unless you mean the one from Philladelphia, has been sued a lot, and I think sucessfully a few times.

As for humor, what is this concept you speak of?

-Charlie

Yes, it is, and here's why.

[deft]

MoFo is obviously has a established meaning for mother f!!cker, as is, "that guy is a f'ing mofo".

I would never get tired of saying in a meeting "we need to get that mofo distro out!"

I shall spend a good portion of the day coming up with clever ways to say mofo so that there is a double meaning attached. The louder, the better.

My beef with Netscape

[Glamdrlng]

They disabled search prefixes / quick searches. In firefox, you can put prefixes in your bookmarks so typing "g monkeys" will do a google search for monkeys, or typing "sd m$" will do a search on slashdot for the string "m$" and make their poor indexing server do a shit-ton of work. Netscape 8 has those disabled, and anything typed into the URL bar is treated as a search on Netscape.com. I reported this as a bug when it was in Beta and they never did anything with it. I rely on search prefixes way too much to give them up, so I'm sticking with Firefox.

Part of the reason people like Open Source...

[Infonaut]

... is that it's not controlled by any monolithic corporate entity telling you what to say and how to say it. The "free as in speech" part of Stallman's philosophical underpinnings for Open Source are ultimately more important than the "free as in beer" part. The moment you start mandating a "company line" in an Open Source project is the moment it becomes something other than truly Open Source.

Right != smart.

[Mr. Underbridge]

Should I remain totally silent and keep my opinion to myself? Well, last time I checked negative criticism was still a legal and moral practice. In my opinion this whole bashing accusation is a load of crap.

Something can be legal and moral and STUPID. Stating a truth isn't always smart or even necessary. For example, I don't go up to handicapped people and say "Pardon me, but you have no legs." Mainly because it accomplishes nothing.

When one feels compelled to make criticisms about something, one might question what the motivation is. Self-aggrandizement generally isn't be best one. In this case, no one using Firefox or Mozilla did so after seriously questioning Netscape. Netscape mainly sucks. Anyone reading his article would almost certainly 1) know this, and 2) agree. So what did he accomplish? No one was educated. No one was swayed. Not only that, his comments have been revealed as rather disingenious, being that the bugs are Firefox/Mozilla's to begin with.

Bottom line, he made himself look like a complete ass without accomplishing anything. Yes, as we all know and you really don't need to remind us, the 1st amendment protects his rights, but doesn't protect him from being an ass.

Re:Right != smart.

[knodi]

For example, I don't go up to handicapped people and say "Pardon me, but you have no legs." Mainly because it accomplishes nothing.

Yes, and also because the overwhelming majority of handicapped people have legs (you insensitive clod).

However, none of the leggy blind slashdotters will be able to defend themselves to you, thanks to this new craptcha thing.

Re:Right != smart.

[twifosp]

Informing a handicapped person of their lack of legs is completely different, because odds are they can't do anything about it. A better analogy would be if you were in school and you kept getting wrong answers. Should the teacher correct you, or just ignore what you've said?

However, the parents point was more a long the lines of: "If it sucks, we're going to tell you, so maybe you'll do something about it".

Whether he looks like a complete ass, or if he accomplished anything is up to debate. For instance, I bet the netscape development team is taking a long hard look at their next release now.

Re:Right != smart.

[hkmwbz]

"So what did he accomplish?"

I'm not sure exactly how to explain this... But he accomplished "proving" to the Firefox fans reading his blog that "Firefox is still the best, so continue spreading the word. Don't accept cheap ripoffs", sort of. Heck, on his personal blog, he has this annoying message to people not using Gecko. What's this all about? I thought we were supposed to get a choice between browsers! (Even more interesting is the way Google, Ben's employer, always supports IE and Firefox, but seem to ignore Safari and Opera, at least in the first version of new services.)

Now, I don't want to be too nasty about this, but I have noticed that Asa From the Mozilla Foundation seems to be "preaching to the choir about how Firefox is leading the way and that others are just following, and always implying that you shouldn't accept anything less, and Firefox always leads the way, etc.

I wish some of the Mozilla people would stop trash talking other browsers, and focus on their own browser instead. You can talk about how excellent your product is without putting the rest down.

The Inq article is a bit over the top in one way, but there are some good points, and this kind of attitude is incredibly damaging. I hope various Mozilla representatives will be more careful in the future.

Re:Right != smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

However, none of the leggy blind slashdotters will be able to defend themselves to you, thanks to this new craptcha thing.

I have yet to see any of those...

Re:Right != smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

just remember tho, firefox is a fork of mozilla, and mozilla is a fork of netscape... not the other way around.

Re:Right != smart.

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't worry. The captcha thing is about to die.

Re:Right != smart.

[hairyfeet]

PLEASE get rid of the stupid thing already!It should be obvious it does NOTHING to crapflooders and trolls and irritates the HELL out of everybody else.And why do people with a positive rating have to jump through the stupid hoop?I was hoping to subscribe when my student loan came in but now it looks to me like it's time to be moving on. As far as mozilla goes,I think they've jumped the shark and are heading downhill fast.I switched a LOT of folks off of internet exploiter and outlook excrement thanks to the all in one ease of the suite.NO ONE whom I have shown both to in a business setting likes the design of firefox.Now I just switch them over to k-meleon or moz 1.7.I've found the later versions of the suite to be buggy at best and unusable at worst. I'll probably miss /.,the trolls were pretty funny.Oh well,I guess nowdays evrybody has to jump the shark and fade away.

Re:Right != smart.

[Frizzle Fry]

A better analogy would be if you were in school and you kept getting wrong answers. Should the teacher correct you, or just ignore what you've said?

Yes, the teacher should talk to you and make sure you know that you are making mistakes. He should not set up a web page or run ads in newspapers to announce to the whole world that you are stupid and get lots of wrong answers, as was done here.

Re:Right != smart.

[sirshannon]

I think it is more like "should the teacher correct you or should the teacher tell the rest of the class how stupid you are and make fun of you?" I am a big Firefox fan, have been using it as my default browser since some late version of Firebird, and I read a ton of blogs. I had to unsubscribe from Ben's long ago because of his tone and venom. If it was from someone else, I might not have minded it, but it was from someone so closely connected to the browser I love and was so exaggerated and sometimes uninformed (to be kind), that I just couldn't stand it anymore. The post in question here is typical. He uses a fault in a percieved competitor as a doorway to a leap of logic that is unfounded. Take his premise (Netscape released a flawed product) and his bottom line ("If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products"). It just isn't that simple. What it should show the reader is that Netscape (AOL?) made a pretty big mistake. To stretch the implication as far as Ben did is something that we have seen too many times from the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, politicians, and others who blindly fight for their team, sparing no white lie or leap of logic. Which is why I unsubscribed from Ben's blog long ago: I don't want to see the man behind the current if I'm going to end up sing "Won't Get Fooled Again": "meet the new boss, same as the old boss".

Re:Right != smart.

[dmaxwell]

Actually, he seems to only have it set to complain about IE. I hit his site with Konqueror and his server sent it with no funny business. It's still a dumb thing to do though.

Re:Right != smart.

[jschrod]

I just went there with Mozilla 1.7 on Linux, and the page greets me with

The browser you are using is not providing you the most efficient online experience. Upgrade to Firefox today and see why Forbes Magazine said, "Microsoft should be worried."

(Bold as on the page, not inserted by me.)

Ben Goodger is ignorant, without doubt. People like him make me stay with my working Mozila...

Re:Right != smart.

[dmaxwell]

If he had a (non-offensive) blurb that was stuck on the page somewhere based on the browser detection, that would be decent advertising. As it is, he is making the rest of the Firefox devs look like ax grinders.

Re:Right != smart.

[jp10558]

Shows up with Opera 8 also. Now, of course this is a matter of opinion, but maybe I think Opera is a better Internet experience than firefox.

Regardless, WTF is up with the "The browser you are using may encounter difficulties rendering this web page"?? Really, 1997 called and wants their FUD back. I can't believe he's not writing standards compliant code by now, that works cross browser. If not, how is he any better than the IE only sites out there?

Shame on him, and shame on any community that supports these sorts of actions!

Re:Right != smart.

[VON-MAN]

"I thought we were supposed to get a choice between browsers!"

Yes, but it is supposed to be your own choice based on your own criteria. You are allowed to be swayed by somebody else's opinions, but we all expect you to still use your brain.

So, if i tell you Gecko is crap, i'm not pushing for less browsers, but i am explaining to you why you should not use Gecko. And i am explaining to you the reason to make the choice for a different browser.

And if you are swayed by me, good for you. If not, i probably wasn't clear enough, or you just didn't understand me.

FUD?

[Sheepdot]

From his blog:
If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products.

The above statement is: True.

From the 10 immutable laws of security:
Law #3: If a bad guy has unrestricted physical access to your computer, it's not your computer anymore.

The above statement is: True.

Either of these could be viewed as FUD, because it requires the reader have a level of paranoia or fear. It is whether or not someone chooses to believe them that makes the FUD different.

IMHO, this shouldn't even be newsworthy enough for Slashdot to cover. As stated by others, this guy isn't even part of the Mozilla Foundation and this is more an attack on one person's comments than the foundation as a whole.

They make a very good point, Firefox contains the latest code and the latest security updates. AOL and Netscape can use their code, but ultimately, if a user's top priority is security, they should probably be using the browser first to be updated.

The only reason why someone should use Netscape or the AOL browser is if they *have* to, or if those browsers offer some feature that Firefox doesn't currently have.

There's a lot of FUD slung from both commercial and open source developers, I don't see why this term has become *the* definition of "evil" on /. For example, let me ask you this: Are global warming activists spreading FUD? The history of some would seem to indicate so. Does it make it any less of an argument for them to make it?

Re:FUD?

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't want to launch a debate on the issue, but I would like to point out that the website (gravito) does not site where this "Easily obtainable information" comes from. "Here" is not an adequate source.

Re:FUD?

[eclectechie]

From his blog:

If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products.

The above statement is: True.

Ummmm... have you considered the possibility that the Netscape developers have fixed stuff in Mozilla code that the Mozilla foundation is (so far) unaware of?

I believe AOL has committed to returning their base Mozilla code fixes back to the Mozilla Foundation (sorry, no link).

What's a little FUD between friends?

[WillAffleckUW]

After all, so long as the open source code is released back to the community, it's not like they're criticizing without people being able to change the code or at least inspect it to decide for themselves, is it?

There Is No Leader. Take The Red Hat Pill.

.

Microsoft-style?

[Mike Markley]

You mean he funded an "independent" study that just happened to find that Mozilla has a lower TCO?

Where have all the good trolls gone?

[Anonymous Coward]

I say trolls these day are too lazy, and their quality has really gone downhill.

One took the "music store owner" rant, just replaced CD with DVD, and made a few other changes. The output still read like the person was just a music store owner, not DVD store owner.

If you are going to do a cut/copy/re-place troll, at least read through it. Plus try adding some new content and put some effort in it, these C&P trolls get really boring for us if all you do is replace the word "X" with Linux/OSX/Open Source/FireFox/etc or never update your complaint lists issues.

And why he may one day eat those words...

[Anonymous Brave Guy]

If security is important to you, this demonstration should show that browsers that are redistributions of the official Mozilla releases are never going to give you security updates as quickly as Mozilla will itself for its supported products.

Unless, of course, the team developing the derivative find the security flaw (or get the notification from someone who did) first, and can fix it locally faster than the patching process can get it into a new official Moz/FF release.

This could cut both ways, and in any case coming across as arrogant and/or egotistical isn't exactly a good way to promote co-operation between sides that should be able to provide mutual benefits.

FUD? Shut the fuck up

[Anonymous Coward]

sit down and shut the fuck up. next time you utter some idiotic acryonym, you get 6 bananas up your ass

Word of the day: blasts

[dtfinch]

It's no longer enough to refer to it as simple criticism. Now whenever someone complains about someone else, it spreads to all the major news sites under the title "x blasts y".

Re:Word of the day: blasts

[Tedium Unleased]

Why must you destructo-mega-eviscerate people who simply like to use the word 'blast'?

Most annoying thing about Netscape..

[Digz]

..so far is that it goes to the top of a page when you hit Back. Ugh. They must have an anti-Slashdot-comments bias. ;)

Netscape???

[DoctorPepper]

Does anyone still use Nut^H^Hetscape?

Title

[Razzak]

the title of the blog entry is "Netscape 8 Is Unsafe". Sounds pretty FUDish to me.

Re:Internal/External Conflicts

[vertinox]

However, one must remember that those who are indecisive and are arguing internally are often defeated by groups who put aside their differences to kill a common enemy.

Re:FUD? Shut the fuck up

[Anonymous Coward]

What happens then when you misspell "acronym"? 7 bananas?

Oblig. Monty Python

[UnknowingFool]

Inquirer Blasts Mozilla for Microsoft-Style Bashing

We apologize. Those that have been in charge of the blasting the blasted have been blasted.

netscape should be bashing mozilla

[farble1670]

isn't it a little more serious that 1.0.3 had the flaw in the first place? who's fault is that? it seems a lot more reasonable that we should be reading how netscape / aol bashed mozilla for crappy coding.

Re:netscape should be bashing mozilla

[Anonymous Coward]

All software has bugs. So, bashing them for having a bug equals bashing them for writing software. But once bugs are found, they need to be fixed. Especially security bugs. It was fixed in firefox a couple of hours after it was found. But it wasn't found in Netscape until a week (no, not a day) after the bug was found. And not only that, but when Netscape 8 was released, it was already six days ago that the bug was found and fixed.

Funny

[Anonymous Coward]

The press lately has been picking up and running with any disharmony it can find in any open source project as proof of how "unprofessional" open source software is. Normally when so many people all suddenly start behaving the same way there is a common group behind it all.

I see this as yet another FUD campaign by MS and Sun.

You have more mainstream articles pointing out how unprofessionaly the open source squabbles are... even though there as many squabbles in closed source development. It's just that in closed source they don't publish everything the organization is doing onto 1000 websites and mailing lists.

I'm trying to settle this

[part_of_you]

...but no-one will give me a straight answer why I cannot get a patent on 1's and 0's!

He _IS_ guilty of Microsoft-style bashing...

[Anonymous Coward]

because he works for Microsoft!

Somedays...

[Hosiah]

I don't know whether to watch "Days of our Lives", study "Weekly World News", or read "Slashdot first.

troll

[kwoff]

That article is blatantly a troll.