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MozCorp Announces Firefox 1.5 Extension Competition
vain gloria writes "The Mozilla Corporation has launched a competition to Extend Firefox by developing an innovative new extension for the soon-to-be-released latest version of their popular browser. The competition runs until January 6th and the three big prizes are Foxified Alienware PCs. Keen developers may want to grab a copy of the 1.5 Release Candidate and get a head start. Better check your passports first though, as those outside the US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter."
"Better check your passports first though, as those outside the US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter."
On second thought, if that is necessary for you to remember where you live, then maybe you shouldn't be entering the contest.
are they elegible?
The best test environment is production. - Me
chrome://browser/content/browser.xul
I thought it was the Mozilla Foundation (AKA MoFo)
Stupid of them to leave out Japan and other parts of Asia ... there's lots of good geeks who could build good extensions there.
I wonder how the little guys (ex: SVG Switcher for FF1.5) will compete with the big guys (ex: Web Dev Toolbar).
I just hope that the small guys are judged fairly and those with years of experience don't just take over the whole competition. Or maybe that's okay, because in the end (perhaps) it will be the big serious guys against eachother and all the newcomers pretty much don't have a chance.
Just my opinion, I wonder what others might think.
I though Mozilla and the whole free and open source movement was about, well, openness in the first place... Now they're shutting out 85% of the world! (and possibly a similar proportion of the world's developers if Brazil, India, China, South Africa etc. are taken into account. I'm assuming Russia is being included in Europe)
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
Idiot! Quebec is ALLOWED! But, they ARE singled out, even though they are IN Canada. That is tres stupid!
Now, Quebec IS kinda like Canada's wife... Always threatening leaving for more money and a better suitor...
They were talking about the EU, not Europe, so Russia is out as well.
quidquid latine dictum sit altum videtur.
Without the 30-40 extentions that I make use of on a daily basis I would have properly have moved to Opera by now, but the extentions make firefox great so I continue to use it :)
As well as the excellent extentions like adblock, tabbed browser prefs and sessionsaver its also the little extentions like GMail Delete Button, Wellrounded and MediaPlayerConnectivity that make Firefox a great browser.
Good idea that their running a competition as I'm sure it'll ensure their are even more great extentions in the future, I just hope developers update then as time goes on.
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
It's okay... Quebec's language police probably would confiscate the computer in anyhow, since it's unlikely that "ArticlesÉtrangers" appears in a significantly larger font than "AlienWare"....
Why not buld a bit torrent client into Firefox? See this bug on Bugzilla for a start point; I'm pretty sure you'd have a good chance if you put this together!
Dumb, dumb, dumb. Especially when it comes to extensions - my rough recollection is that most of the best extensions seem to be by Europeans.
They're probably going to claim that they had no choice because it's tricky/expensive to ship electronics outside the States but, c'mon, how hard would it have been to arrange an alternative prize, at least to avoid rubbing the world's nose in it at a time when America isn't exactly the most popular kid in the class. If Mozcorp has a PR, he/she should probably reconsider his/her position.
Yeah. We are part of the Canada. We are important. They don't want us to leave but we can't even participate to Mozilla contests. WTF?
Can someone tell these boneheads that we outside of the US aren't to pleased to allways see that the event horizon of the US citizen ends at the border of the US of A. Ever heard of things like KDE and Linux??? Not invented in the US!!! Suprise, suprise! Go back to the drawingboard and come up with a contest worthy of the Mozilla project!
You realized that you are violating copyright and trademarks by using the word "Ol****cs" without proper authorization?
thinks that Québec isn't in Canada! I knew it! In your face Canada.
The answer IS 42.
Well i'm sorry if I pissed off people from Québec, all i' be sayin is all the nice Extensions are on sisters in Philly. Shaniqua, Jeromes little sis, has a nice set she got from the lady's shack.
After RTFA, I immediately thought that this is some attempt to knock Flock out of the browser landcape before it even gets any traction. I like Flock but I never understood how some could secure the funding for making a customized Firefox.
I'd say the PATRIOT Act is a likely culprit here. By restricting candidacy to "allied" nations, Mozillia become less of a target for investigation and scrutiny than if it allowed candidates from more suspect countries like, Iran, Saudi-Arabia, China, France.....
Oh Wait.
May the Maths Be with you!
it states:
Where? Contest is open to residents of the US, Canada (excluding Quebec), and the European Union. Void where prohibited.
------- In the end there are no begining
It is interesting to see that the Firefox development prize has a big headline about how the Alienware machine run best on windows xp...
I would really love to see a webdav client extension for Firefox. It would give a consistent experience with webdav server accross platforms, and could even end up being more usefull than what microsoft did (which from their side was clever, because it prevented a direct concurrent to their proprietary SMB server to thrive thus denying a world of possibilities outside of their realm).
It is a competition with non-trivial prizes.
There are significant legal restrictions, tax restrictions, etc. It would take a fair amount of work for them to make it legal in more places.
Really the extensions are what make the application. Firefox itself isn't really much more than a platform. I really wish someone would create an application bundle with a collection of most of the frequently-used plugins.
It is one of my pet peeves that I must remember to download a dozen extensions on every new install.
Someone make a Javasript verificater.
I have been programing some javascript programs, but they
don't work when I move to Opera or MSIE.
A plugin that could check if the code is standart complient
whould be great.
Or if the plugin know what code can't run on MSIE.
I've read TFA, and I can't see anywhere where the rules prohibit entries from Japan etc. The only thing in the rules I can see that mentions geography is "These official rules will be void where any provision thereof would be found invalid by a court of competent jurisdiction. If you are a resident of such a jurisdiction, you may not participate in the Contest." and later, "...he/she is a resident of a jurisdiction where these official rules may be enforced in their entirety and without modification."
Nowhere does it specifically limit the contest to USA,CAN,EU that I can find - I'm wondering where the OP got this? Can anyone shed further light on the subject?
Considering that Quebec is NOT in the permitted list, it probably has to do with the legality of awarding a prize. Quebec has wierd laws about that and almost every contest I see in BC has some rider about "not valid in Quebec".
So, they probably verified it was OK in the US, the EU, and non-Quebec Canada, but either couldn't or didn't verify it was legal elsewhere and thus don't allow entrants from nonvalidated places.
(Sorry if that makes no sense, I'm just ending a nightshift here)
I am sure there is a reason that they didn't include them. Geeze.. It's not like they said 'I hate those guys!! Exclude those bastards!'
theres alot of talent in antarctica, why should they be excluded?
"Better check your passports first though, as those outside the US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter."
:-(
I thing that european developers are as good as american, don't you think? I didn't know that Internet (Mozilla) playes on state borders...
Well, I've got to get back to work. When I stop rowing, the slave ship just goes in circles.
"US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter."
Since when did québec separate from Canada?
Well it was the EU not Europe after all. Sorry. So Russia's out too. As for the legal complications, they could've come up with a cash prize or something else... This is very bad PR for the Mozilla Foundation and Firefox. They're not in a position where they can simply shun most of the world, especially considering that the places they excluded are the most likely to use Mozilla products! Very sad for them. As a Brazilian, I think I'll switch to Opera or start using Konqueror for the time being.
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
I may be wrong, but aren't there export restrictions on high-end computing systems, which Alienware may arguably fall into that category?
Open-source world's biggest memory-leech, meet ... the second-biggest memory leech! (Which of you guys is which again?)
Together at last! And we all lived happily ever after with 2GB of DDR3 and no desire to run any other apps at the same time.
Strange, the published rules don't make any mention of the location of the participatns (or I read them too fast).
#include "coucou.h"
So MozCorp is worried that those crafty Quebecois will use the first prize to build weapons of mass destruction?
I have written a truly remarkable program which this sig is too small to contain.
As for legal reasons, well... Isn't that lame they couldn't bother to check those before deciding on an international contest? I'm pretty sure there are customs duties to be paid in the EU and Canada if the PC is shipping from the U.S. So that's not a good reason. These guys need a new PR team fast! Hehehehe
Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes.
Who cares what new crap's being added to Firefox.
When is its plugin mangler going to stop trying to force me to install fucking flash etc. ?
Slow Down Cowboy!
Slashdot requires you to wait between each successful posting of a comment to allow everyone a fair chance at posting a comment.
It's been 2 minutes since A COWORKER WHO USES THE SAME PROXY last successfully posted a comment
Better pop-up extentions? 1. A popup blocker that works %100 of the time. Even with Firefox 1.5 Beta2 build, I still get a popup by clicking this link http://www.activewin.com/awin/default.asp and then clicking anywhere on the page at all. Appearently they have a javascript that knows when you're 'touching' a webpage? I have to highlight text to read better so I don't know why this is going on. I do have my settings set at opening pages or user clicked popups in the same window as the current tab. Don't know if that's causing it or not. Is there a nicer Windows news website than Activewin? I'm really starting to hate that pop-up infested site. 2. Flash pop-up detector. Go here. http://www.cleveland.com/ a flash ad flys across the page. I like using Flashblock that blocks all flash (yeah, right) until I allow it to. Happens sometimes on yahoo.com news pages too. I guess I'm asking for a noscript type extension, but is dormant until I ask it to block scripts for a webpage since it's only these websites driving me nuts right now. A blacklist if you will. I spent more time messing with NoScript extension then going to my daily 45 websites. Plus I like installing a new clean install of firefox and updated extensions meaning I don't have time redoing this crap all the time. Disabling SOME scripts for websites would be cool too. Spellcheck as you type for Firefox would be a killer extension too. :)
It probably has something to do with the actual giving out of prizes. There's many lotteries in Canada that are open to everyone except quebec residents. Not because we don't like quebec, but because there's lots of other rules to follow. I'm sure you could get someone in the US to submit your entry if you think it was good enough. They could claim the prize, and then ship it to you. They maybe could just have a contest for the people who can't enter, and just give them the recognition of winning, instead of a real prize. I'm sure just putting that on your resume would be a big enough prize.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I want an extension that lets me run linux within windows. Seriously, better extensions are always good, it's partly what makes firefox the great thing it is.
There is nothing interesting going on at my blog
I wonder what they're going to do to prevent extensions that preform phishing attacks or keylogstuff. I can see it happening allready: you type in your creditcard number and that oh-so-cool extension that draws christmas lights under the menu bar sends the number to those l33t h4x0r d00dzzzz.
I know you can always view the code of the extension (XULstuff IIRC) but is there anyone that checks the code?
Maybe I should just use a not-so-tricked-out browser (not IE ofcourse) and put my tinfoil hat on whenever I need to do something "dangerous".
(maybe FF should implement a way to completely turn of extensions)
An Extensions competition for Firefox will only make things better for us. Firefox/Mozilla just reached the 10% marketshare mark recently. Woot!
FF is superior to IE in every way. I have nothing but problems with it everytime I use it, and the only time it does seem to work without a hitch is when I visit Windows Update. What's up with that!?
Compared to FF my copy of IE is slow and lumbering. I have several installed Extensions and it doesn't slow me down at all. I use FastFox one of the best Extensions ever and it really does work, I use FlashGet which I just love, and it would be cool if an Extension could be made to integrate Azureus (open-source BitTorrent Client) into FF. I'd also like to see a WinAmp Compatibility Extension as well as one that adds a true FTP client to FF with the ability to pause and resume downloads and even queue up downloads so you can do them one at a time instead of all at once if you're on dialup. A very useful Extension would also be one that allows parents to restrict access to certain websites by requiring a passcode to browse to them. It would have a list of known site that aren't safe that it can download and parents can add their own. Now that would really boost FF usership ten-fold. I'd like to see IE try to beat that.
Michael "TheZorch" Haney
thezorch@gmail.com
http://thezorch.googlepages.com/home
"...those outside the US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter."
Québec is part of Canada, eh. Caulisse!
Québec is IN Canada.... Why the parentheses?
Do a search for an extension called "mass installer".
I may fit the bill for what you want to do.
Visit an ASP or Cold fusion site, click on the extension, and it automatically uses SQL injection to place appropriate artwork onto the site...
because 49% of them want to separate, so some of us pretend they don't exist.
This is weird. You might think it was intentional...
For this problem I have made use of the MRTech Local Install plugin:
Download all the exensions you like into one folder; install the Local Install plugin; then use it to select all the extensions you have downloaded for installation. It installs all at once.
So archive that directory with the downloaded plugins and keep it with you for future Firefox installs, and so long as the extension .xpi's are compatible with the latest version of Firefox, you just have to install them and let Firefox update them to the newest version.
It isn't as good as what Firefox COULD do, like something where you carry a list of extensions around (a la the Info Lister plugin) whereby Firefox actually re-installs that list automatically, on-demand, and with the newest version of the plugin. Now THAT would be a useful feature of Firefox.
Oh yeah, and I agree it is a HUGE pain in the ass to do the extension download from their site. Really crude interface considering there are so many plugins already; it can take a long time to go through the entire list, the search feature is poor, and installation requires too many clicks.
I'd like to see a plugin that lets me override annoying javascript that prevents resizing windows. It's my window damnit, I should be able to resize it if I want to. Or a plugin which lets me add the standard menu bar to a window that doesn't have it if I want the window to have a freaking menu bar.
Ok, probably not bedazzling enough to win the competition, but it would still be a great plugin to have.
Quebec does have special rules and regulations, but mainly the problem with contests is that there is a FEE to be paid to the province in order to have a contest. Yes that's right, if you want to include Quebec in a contest, you must first pay up, something about a fee to make sure the contest is not bogus... to protect the consumer or something like that I seem to recall.
It's not political or anything, Quebec just has REALLY strict contest laws that require the contest promoters to jump through a lot of hoops. Most contests here in Canada are usually advertized as being "contest void in Quebec" or whatever to that effect.
Here's a bit more info
US, EU and Canada (or in Québec)
The poster must be Quebecois. Because if you ask anyone else, Quebec is actually PART of Canada, not a separate country.
those outside the US, EU and Canada (or in Québec) are ineligible to enter
Qu'est que c'est?
"Stupid of them to leave out Japan and other parts of Asia ... there's lots of good geeks who could build good extensions there."
The world doesn't need more tentacle extensions.
It's your laws...I think.
I see many contests advertized that exclude Quebec.
I don't even know if McDonald's Monopoly game is valid in Quebec. If it is, you probably can't use game pieces from quebec for the game outside of quebec and vice-versa.
My guess is that there probably is a law in Quebec that wants to have a chunk of the prize winnings reserved for the public in Quebec. Such a law would skew the contest towards Quebec, hench the exclusion.
IOW: It's not you. It's your laws and politicians that are screwing Quebec'ers from participating in many contests.
BTW: If you think Quebec is "La belle province" now, wait till you separate. Those elitist politicians will finally be able to have their "Cuba of the North" and all you'll be able to say about the good'ol days is: "Je me souviens".
Obama's legacy: (N)othing (S)ecure (A)nywhere and (T)error (S)imulation (A)dministration
I love Firefox and everything, but when I upgraded to one of the 1.5 betas (because everyone told me about all the new things that were going to be in it, which were admittedly small stuff like being able to reorganize my tabs) half of my extensions went bye-bye. Some came back when they were fixed, but others... not so much. A little while after the second beta came out I decided to get that too, thinking that I was over the extensions I could no longer use and that enough time had passed so that the ones I used (and surely every other person using Firefox) must have been updated as well. Not the case.
Needless to say, I went with reckless abandon into RC1 and will probably go to the official version as soon as it's out, just to get there. My hope is that the developers of most of the extensions I used were waiting for a more stable build and so in the future I should just wait until those come out instead of jumping into the newest upgrade for a few random features.
Now, there's going to be a dozen people telling me "Quit complaining, start programming" but I hope this comes off more as "constructive criticism" than anything else because of the web-browser user base (all 87% percent of the US or whatever number it is), a good 75 have never, can never and will never program (unless it becomes simplified to the point of telling your computer in plain language what you want it to do and it cobbles together something... "I want something to remember my recipes and generates a shopping list and gets approximate prices from the internet" and 30 seconds later a fully functional database comes out.)
Although the percentage of coders to non-coders may be higher with Firefox, the high priests of Firefox are desperate for a piece of that mainstream market. If I show Firefox and all that I can make it do to a friend who wants it installed, I don't want to tell that friend "now, never, EVER install an update because you'll lose half of the functions you've become accustomed too, at least for a little while but possibly forever" because they'll say screw it and stick with IE.
I loved Aardvark (it was so handy in cleaning up Mapquest stuff, news articles...) but it's become increasingly broke and in RC1 it's apparently fully dead until I hunt for the website (it didn't play well with the updater) to see if it's got an update. Stop-or-reload... same thing. Grease Monkey? Gone. Try searching for a torrent using the new Firefox. Now, these middle-adapters, the ones you have to prove the value of software to, aren't known for being upgrade happy (think your mom, still running IE 5 how many years after 6.0?) or else they may have tried Firefox earlier, but when they do upgrade, they don't want to switch to a different, competing extension becuase there's is broken, nor do they want to lose functionality they've become used to.
The extensions are awesome, best part of the browser but I think down the road the breakability of extensions is going to throttle the number of new-users. Think of old Netscape where slowly it became a nerd-only alternative, depsite their protests that it was more secure/more capable/better browser but IE kept winning people over because it (a) kept adapting to enable new features (I can't think of any, but that's because I haven't used Netscape since 2000), and (b) retained most of it's features.
IMO, people would rather use something that lacks features but has all the ones they're attached to than use something that introduces them to new features, and then takes them away.
Not every extension is going to be the next big thing... that extension so useful that the browser gods themselves reach down to integrate it into their next version, but if there's a user base at all for it, they're not going to like being told they can't use it with the newest toys because the developer didn't think there was enough of a user base to continue his support. Yeah, it's his or her decision to not update, but the user isn't going to care... they're going to blame Firefox.
Then again, this whole theory only applies to the semi-casual users who know enough to find and love extensions and not to the people who don't know anything about extensions or will just be using the browser as is.
Just what kind of asshole are you anyway? For your information, Québecois nationnalists don't want to go to a butt-mouthed France, they just want a free Québec from Canada. That's not hard to understand: Québec pays more than it's share of nationnal taxes to compensate for some of the other provinces and while Canada is mostly english, Quében is mostly French. And, sorry to dissapoint you, but our 'mongrel dialect' has been proven to be a purer french than the one spoke in France. You'd think 'putain de bordel de merde' would get old no? Lastly, did you never concider that in que Québecois's mind, France' frenchs are total high-nosed jerks wads with a weird way of talking? Vincent P.S.: Yes, i know, I just shallowed it bait, hook, sinker and line.
Bah.
Last I heard, Australia was supposed to be a favoured ally. I know we are a third world country maskerading as a first world power but sheeesh excluding us for that should knock out most of the EU too.
Well, this is a good tactic to get people to update their extensions to the newer FF versions. I know that it would make it just a little more worth updating my extensions because of this. (I was going to do it anyway, but I am content using the older FF version and updating to the new one is not on my priority list.)
You can't handle the truth.
That's the whole reason they have pre-release software; so extension writers have a chance to update their code before final release.
If you want everything to work right away, don't use beta software!
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
The reason why Quebec is excluded is because here in Quebec the lottery is regulated by the RACJ, a goverment agency. The lottery have is own laws, and therefore if the Mozilla Fundation do not accept to fill the papers that loto Quebec ask for they cannot participate.
S ection=4&noGrappe=5
See : http://www.racj.gouv.qc.ca/section.asp?lang=en&no
Also, I would be great if the slashdot community would stop bashing Quebec about the "language police". THERE IS NOT LANGUAGE POLICE IN QUEBEC, this is bullshit!. There are only laws that make in sort that everything must be written in french on commercial products, and that the french must occupate the same space than the english. That's all! So if a consummer see a poorly written french on a products or an ad, it can make a complaint to the Quebec french language office that will HELP the seller to translate is products to french. You heard it right! They will HELP without any fees!
Why this? Hey we are 6 millions french (and 1 million english) in Quebec. There's 330 millions english speaker around US! How you would expect US to keep our language without laws? If you were 6 millions english speaker with 330 millions spanish what would you do if you were actualy enjoying your cultural heritage? You would not stand up to protect your liberty of speaking whatever language you want?
That's why the law is there.
See Wikipedia if you want to lean a bit more about Quebec. Very good description IMHO. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quebec
(Oh and sorry I know my english isn't that good..)
You could backup the extentions installation files, then reinstalling them is a lot quickier. Once done. Hit the check for extention update option.
My Canada INCLUDES Quebec!
You gotta wonder though, how exactly would other country's laws matter? Someone from Tuvalu creates a cool plug-in, so Gerv and co. ship him a neat gadget. How would any country's cops ever get involved?
Or, if the Moz folks said "we're going to send neat gadgets to the coolest extensions introduced before 1.5 is released", would that avoid the contest issues? That's a declaration of action, not a contest per se.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Anyone have any great ideas for an extension they can give me? :D:D
--
Get your Free MacMini's here
Just look at any US game show. Anybody who wins any prize has to pay the taxes on that prize before they get it. Even if they don't live in the country, and they will never reap the benefits of the taxes. Happens to Canadians all the time who go on US game shows. Canadians don't pay taxes on prize winning. Oprah audience members also had to pay taxes on cars that she gave to all the audience members when there wasn't even a contest. Everyone in the audience got a car.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
I'll front your extensions for you (I'm in the US). If I win, I'll let you come over and play on my new alienware machine.
I had a great idea for a Firefox plugin. It is like a form manager on steriods.
Basically, what it does is record every bit of information that you enter via the web browser, be it posts on forums such as this one, or passwords, or personal data in online forms, or bank details. This plugin remebers everything (or coarse, the data is protected by the master password).
You can search the data stored - nothing that you enter will ever be lost - so for instance you can find that slashdot post that you wrote back in 1998.
It automatically fills in data when you visit an online form in an intellegent manner (for instance if you filled in you address on one form in a field called "addr." and then you go to different website that has a form field called "address" it will make a guess that the two fields are the same thing and fill it in automatically)
And lastly, it will work on 100% of all web sites. (This is important, because the current Firefox password manager only works for about 60% of websites.)
The only catch is that I don't live in US or Canada.
At least under U.S. law, I can give you a gift of somewhat more than $10,000 without tax issues. Granted, the IRS would look askance if there was anything that looked like an employer/employee relationship, but I don't think they could see that here.
Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
What the hell about those who have the wont to download nightly builds, such as Deer Park A1, 1.6, which is compatible with NO 1.5 plugins?!
Hey we are 6 millions french (and 1 million english) in Quebec
That is BS, also many of the french speakers can also speak english. Most of the movies, music, video games, and computer software, simply isn't available in French or is not produced in French, yet French-only media remains less popular and has less shelf space in Quebec. Quebeckers are capable of speaking English, they have to communicate with the rest of Canada as well! Likewise, English speakers in Quebec speak French as well.
There are only laws that make in sort that everything must be written in french on commercial products, and that the french must occupate the same space than the english.
Yet it does not even happen anyway... Check out "Future Shop," "Radio Shack," "Blockbuster," "Micro Bytes," etc... There are also many video games and movies that have no french at all.
In the company where I work, everything is in English and french speakers MUST know English to be able to work here as it is a company owned by another country, produces products for another country, and their regulations are all in English and French regulations cannot be provided as they do not even produce them in that country.
Why raise a bar on what language a citizen must communicate in? Look at the US which has a thriving Spanish population. They have no mandates or regulations on language, and there is Spanish nearly on every product!
We could have the same situation we have in Quebec right now without the language laws. It could even be better as we would not be constantly denied products from other countries because of the requirements. It would be more important to be bilingual, which reflects Quebec's culture as a multicultural and multilingual society. It's not even all about English and French here, we have many from India, Italy, Greece, China, etc.
If you were 6 millions english speaker with 330 millions spanish what would you do if you were actualy enjoying your cultural heritage?
There is a difference between enjoying your cultural heritage and DICTATING what it should be. That is CONTRIVING a culture. There is a very big difference. One is natural, the other is fabricated. Quebec should join the world and not try and dictate how everyone should act.
Maybe a bit late to ask but can anyone indicate a good tutorial for writing Firefox extensions?
(Obligatory disclaimer: I love visiting Québec and do so regularly, but...)
I believe you're wrong about the signage law, which requires French sized twice the English, and Google turns up numerous references to this:
And earlier attempts banned English altogether:This prizes are kind of lame. A new iPOD or PC isn't much motivation to put a lot of time into creating an extension.
There's no place like ~/
That's complete BS. Most if not all contests I've ever seen that include Canada don't do any special case about Quebec. Loto-Quebec has laws restricting lottery in QUEBEC ONLY. It can't restrict contests from abroad or on the Internet.
That is BS, also many of the french speakers can also speak english. Most of the movies, music, video games, and computer software, simply isn't available in French or is not produced in French, yet French-only media remains less popular and has less shelf space in Quebec. Quebeckers are capable of speaking English, they have to communicate with the rest of Canada as well! Likewise, English speakers in Quebec speak French as well.
That is completly false. Nearly all movies are available in french in Quebec. Concerning the games, the law stipulate that they must include instructions in french. And the french media are extremely powerful in Quebec... See Quebecor who has TVA, Journal de Montreal, and many radio stations.
Yet it does not even happen anyway... Check out "Future Shop," "Radio Shack," "Blockbuster," "Micro Bytes," etc... There are also many video games and movies that have no french at all.
Brands and names are not subjet to the law.
In the company where I work, everything is in English and french speakers MUST know English to be able to work here as it is a company owned by another country, produces products for another country, and their regulations are all in English and French regulations cannot be provided as they do not even produce them in that country.
That's completly normal, english IS the business language, and (this is a educationnal issue) everybody in Quebec should be able to speak a perfect english.
Why raise a bar on what language a citizen must communicate in? Look at the US which has a thriving Spanish population. They have no mandates or regulations on language, and there is Spanish nearly on every product!
Because the spanish population in USA is way more than 6 millions.
We could have the same situation we have in Quebec right now without the language laws. It could even be better as we would not be constantly denied products from other countries because of the requirements. It would be more important to be bilingual, which reflects Quebec's culture as a multicultural and multilingual society. It's not even all about English and French here, we have many from India, Italy, Greece, China, etc.
You seem to be a Quebecer, but I think you should got outside montreal sometimes. It is extremely rare that a product is denied because of the language laws, and that happen only when the seller dont want to translate is product. But I'm agree with you, it is important for Quebec to be a multicultural society. But I don't think this is a raison to lost our main culture. (Even if I know that most Quebecer dont see what is their own culture)...
There is a difference between enjoying your cultural heritage and DICTATING what it should be. That is CONTRIVING a culture. There is a very big difference. One is natural, the other is fabricated. Quebec should join the world and not try and dictate how everyone should act.
It's not dictation, it's protection because from a purely efficient point of view, everybody in the world should speak english.
You see, fabrication of the culture is what you get with Star Academy (or let's says Survivor for USA). They take part of our culture and market is has a commercial production. But it is not our true culture.
I suggest you to see a great movie on this subjet : C.R.A.Z.Y
Very interesting if you want to learn why the Quebecer culture is mainly a derivation of the american culture with a tablespoon of european culture. After all, what most Quebecer want is to protect what make them proud for 400 years, french, and be PART of america. If you read about Quebec history, you'll find that is mostly because of USA that there is french in Quebec. Without them, we would all speak english. I'm very thankfull to american for this, and I want to protect the luck that we have to be able to speak french in america. I know that the french don't have a good reputation, but sometimes people should learn to make difference between an french of France and a french of Quebec. Our culture is completly different, and we much more like french american.
Yes there are restrictions on high-end computing stuff. I am not sure if it is still the case but for a long time PGP encryption would land you jail time if you copied it to a disc and left the US with it.
There is obviously a difference in definitions here. If the USA founded a GOVERNMENT task force that:
1. proactively sought billboards, web sites(!), business cards and newspaper ads that did not predominanty feature English
2. Assessed first time violators fines of upward of 2,000 dollars for non-compliance
They would be called far worse than "language police" here on Slashdot. That said, as far as I'm concerned, every you have the right to protect your cultural heritage in this way. I wish that we could get the same thing here in the USA on a state by state basis.
I know what extension I would like to see - make the 'view source' feature in FF editable. 'View source' in FF produces very nice tabbed and color coded html. But it is currently uneditable.
I'm too lazy / busy to learn programming my self right now.
This is far too late. Everything has already been invented and worked into an extension.
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Tabbrowser Preferences? *spits at TBP*
Seriously, other than that it's integrated into the Options window, TBP has nothing over Tab Mix Plus. The only reason it's so 'popular' despite its 3-star rating is because it happens to have a cozy spot on the main extensions page where it gets the most exposure to those who haven't experienced better.
Even simpler is associating the xpi filetype with Firefox (IIRC you can load Thunderbird extentions directly from the extention dialog box), and opening the extention. In my experience, it only works if FF isn't running when you load the extention. But once FF loads, the extention will install (after that annoying wait that I disabled on my personal machine with another MRTech extention). That's how I installed the extentions on the work machine I'm currently typing from.
Free MacMini
Create an extension that makes it unbelievably effortless to collect/browse high quality porn without ever having to visit any porn sites.
You'll have that Alienware hands down.
Although realistically it wouldn't win due to ethical controversy--but don't let that stop you!
(actually, if you made it a "general" image browser, but applicable to porn, it could slide with the judges..)
I'm in the US. If someone outside the legal borders wins or wants to win, I'd be glad to accept the gift on their behalf and then ship it to them. I think the restriction is crazy too, but I'm willing to work around it....
Ah, but MRTech Local Install, you can select 25 extensions AT ONCE, and install them all, at once. That's the simplicity, the beauty of it.
Twice in two days!
The contest DOES NOT EXCLUDE Asia, South America, Europe, Australia etc. TFA and TF Contest Rules only mention that the contest rules have been VERIFIED TO BE LEGAL in US and Canada.
They are just trying to cover their asses againt lawsuits one continent at a time...
As incredible as it may seem, the shipping of a lame PC overseas IS possible with current technology.
255 comments and no one bothered to RTFA.
Only on Slashdot.
Does it support plugins and, if it does, can it use the FireFox/ThunderBird ones?
Hello, I am the original poster and as such, I can assure you that I did not expect everything to work (hell, it pops up with a screen telling me which add-ons it's going to disable.) Every update breaks a few extensions. I'm not blaming the core team for the extensions, I'm just griping that there's not some way of having the best of both worlds (longer lasting compatability with the benefits of third party extensions) and I also realize that it's not possible. Sometimes we complain about things that can't be changed.
Personally, I think a pay-per-extension scheme might be a great option for the problem of broken extensions. Establish some revenue model for extension makers... like ads on their Mozilla Update page so people with the most popular/most useful extensions get some scratch for their efforts while even the smaller extensions can see some kind of reward. Hell, give users a way to transfer some cash to Mozilla and then divy it up to extension makers they like. If 5% of the downloaders for any given extension gave up 25 cents they'd have more incentive to keep their extensions current.
Of course then there'd be people upset when extensions they've "paid for" break, so it's not a perfect situation, but there's always room for improvement.
I want a firefox extension that searches through personals and finds all the hotties.. then sends them a cool email detailing why they want me... and then if that doesn't work it goes out on the town and introduces me to hot chicks at nightclubs.. uhm.. well.. that's what I want..
once more into the breach
How about we just drop English and French all together and try Newspeak? And have the government enforce "everything must be written in Newspeak on commercial products". Tell me that's just a law and not language police?
If there are 330 millions of spanish speakers... learning spanish would just be much more attractive wouldn't it? Having products in french should be voluntary, not enforced. You can put up your great wall of China all you want around Quebec to protect your "cultural heritage", globalization will eventually crush it through economic means.
Now if you had written that comment in French... your ideas wouldn't have gotten through to most english speakers on slashdot.
NOOOOOOOOO!
Okay, that long, drawn-out negative was aimed at one specific suggestion: turning Mozilla into Adware. Having Pay-Pal donation buttons on the extension makers' home pages is a good idea. Or possibly having a central Pay-Pal donation button on the Firefox extensions page that would let you choose which extension writer you want to donate to. And depending on how the MPL differs from the GPL, extension writers may already be able to create comercial extensions (haven't RTFMPL).
But putting advertising on the Firefox UI is a Bad Idea(TM). It alone would take Firefox from the growing shadow in IE's rearview mirror to the forgotten depths of browser obscurity.
And you're right; I didn't read your entire original post (skimmed until the page break). There's only so much /. I can get away with reading at work. ;)
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Well I think we're finally hammering each other into agreement! I also don't think adware would be good. In fact, it would be damn near impossible to work with if banner ads or something similar popped up when we used some extensions. I was talking about the actual download sites. Let Mozilla worry about getting advertisers/screening out the crap and then they can divy up the few cents they earn click/hundred-click amongst the people who get the most downloads. The paypal donation buttons would be a bitch, if only because many of the extensions that people use aren't all that useful. If X is paying a token sum of $100 for a paint program, he won't see the benefit of paypalling 2 bucks to the developer of the paint-selector tool because he knows he can keep using it for free and that 2 bucks is a little much for a short-cut for something he can already do, just with 2 or 3 extra clicks. Anything less than $2.00 and the loss to paypal takes away from the spirit of all the sharing. Besides, paypal is such a bitch. I'd rather give it right to some kind of Mozilla Fiduciary Fund and have them assign it. Then again, you run the risk of profit-based programming (which isn't all that bad... it gives us some of our best stuff) where they're not making the extension for the sake of making it and then being rewarded, they're making it for the sake of being rewarded, even just a little, and when they're not rewarded, they stop making it. Every system has problems.
There's no need to do file associations - if you are in a situation where you need to save the file to the disk, just drag it onto one of the Mozilla windows. The XPI will install as expected.
At first it would probably be enough to just look at the html source sent out by the pop up, but eventually you would need to investigate at least part of the constructed dom tree after the page has loaded to keep people from using javascript to unpack their ad.
Slashdot: Where anecdotes and generalizations can be freely substituted for facts, logic, or intelligence
Even simpler! Thanks! I'll keep that in mind next time I'm installing a saved extention
Free MacMini
If there were 6 million English speakers with 330 million Spanish, I would learn Spanish (incidentally that's why I'm learning Chinese).
"Cultural heritage" is a sort of reactionary bullshit that people like to pull out so they can talk about how bad things are now. Culture constantly changes, merging or reacting with other cultures it meets. While you might say that some pieces of culture are "lost" in this process, they are usually just replaced by new pieces of culture that better fit the needs of the current society.
Of course these laws aren't about protecting culture anymore than they are about protecting freedom of speech.
As you said, it requires you to speak both French and English equally. If you want to speak Spanish or Japanese, that's just too bad -- only French is sacred. And that's only on commercial signs and products. If you decide to have a conversation in your own home you can speak whatever language you want (preserve your cultural heritage at home if you choose).
In short these laws are the cry of the buggy whip makers, the Intelligent Designers and many other groups finding that upon finding their power is fading they try to inact a law which inconveniences a lot of people, just to make them feel important again.
I would think that you actually were French, but you put the whole horrible English thing way over the top. You're not for real, you're just trying to get people to pay attention to you on slashdot.