Slashdot Mirror
World Firefox Day
kbrosnan writes "Are you a fan of Firefox? Want to spread the word to a friend who hasn't heard of it yet? If you can convince just one person to switch to Firefox before September 15th, you'll both be immortalized in Firefox 2.0's source code."
If you want to be known for all eternity as someone who did not spam your friends and family, post here and be immortalized on Slashdot and the will-someday-be-omniscient Google Cache.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
How about fixing some bugs, or shrinking that memory footprint. Then you can be immortalized in the code *and* you don't have to be a nuisance to your friends.
...is a good idea, it gets people like us who like firefox, and would secretly like to have their names in the code, to go out and really try to get other prople to use Firefox in a way that costs nothing for them (well, almost nothing). So everyone wins... I'm going to do it now.
*''I can't believe it's not a hyperlink.''
Add Microsoft. They make people switch to firefox.
So, we all know that as the user-base increases in size and diversifies, the code tends towards bloat, but really, do you have to make it a 1:1 ratio??
Returned Peace Corps IT Volunteer
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
Because we know how many people will read through that to find your name... one... you! Anyhow, I think I'll refer tons of people just to get a really large font mention in the source, maybe I can get every other line even. Of course, I'd prefer to have all the variables named after me, carmen electra, and awesome. Awesome = me * carmen electra. That would be sweet!
stuff |
Amongst some of the names allready registered,
1) Harry Sachs
2) Hugh G Rection
3) Ivana Tinkle
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
What's the point? I'll probably just be commented out.
...all the people that I know have already switched to Firefox. The people that refused to switch, I now pretend not to know.
Lets say I download firefox 2 source to compile on my linux boxen. I am also forced to download kilobytes (megabytes?) of useless information embedded in comments. What is the point in this? I would like a dollar amount for what this campaign is costing in bandwidth and man hours. Would this be funds donated to the Mozilla Foundation in order for them to improve their browser? This wastage annoys me.
Furthermore we now run the risk of "that fox-fire thing" being associated with unwanted, unsolicited email advertising.
One step forward, two steps back.
This is just bragging rights... right? I guess at the very least you convince someone to switch to Firefox. I mean... so they put umptybillion names into Firefox Code, that would be accessible from Firefox 2? Isn't that unecessary (and frivolous) bloat? Unless they plan on having you access it online - which means I guess you won't be able to view it offline... hmm...
And how do they verify that my "friend" has Firefox? I can just send off an invitation to some fake email I create and then accept it. Or send it someone that I know already uses firefox and wants their name on the list too... Seems like there's no real way to verify it.
Then what happens when Firefox 3.0 comes along? Hmm? Do the names get carried over?
I'll go try it anyways...
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Firefox has reached sufficient popularity and code maturity that it doesn't need to encourage evangelism. Sure, I use Firefox and I'd recommend it to most Explorer users, and I've already converted those close to me. However, I'm not going to go on a Firefox Crusade as that would stink of zealotry and probably hurt the cause. As other posters have said, Mozilla should put their efforts into bug fixes and usability issues. Yes, I know this isn't a zero-sum game, but we'd all be more likely to recommend Firefox if they could clear up the excessive memory usage 'feature' and the odd keyboard scrolling problem that took me ages to figure out.
Phoenix, Boston, Little Rock, see a pattern?
...as if firefox wasn't already bloated enough! :D
One thing that makes me uncomfortable is being asked to proselytize. If someone wants FF, great. but it is not my job to convince them. I learned a meditation technique and was turned off when the class teachers asked to get my friends to do it. World FF day makes me feel the same way. People can make their own decisions.
San Francisco Photographers
How is that insightful?
Funny perhaps, but not insightful.
The names will be commented out, therefore will not be complied in any binary that sees the light of day.
*** For a better tommorow, change your life today ***
I have no idea how the parent post got modded as "interesting". Or perhaps since it's posted anonymously the person modded his or herself.
This quote is funny because it's retarded: "I am also forced to download kilobytes (megabytes?) of useless information embedded in comments." News flash, this is slashdot. You download useless information embedded in comments every day. And this is one of them!
There's no mention at all on the world Firefox day website that the names will be listed in the source. From what I can see this'll just be a link to a site that lists the names (probably accessible from the 'about' box). So there'll be no bloat to the source, not even as a comment.
I gotta hand it to the Firefox team though... They do a good job marketing Firefox. In this day and age, it no longer is enough to have a superior product or have a better mousetrap especially if the competion has the desktop monopolized... every opportunity to spread the word helps.
It's called Marketing. They probably hired an individual or an agency with marketing experience. One ultimate goal of this type of marketing is to get people to use your product and/or "make the switch" over.
Don't worry about the man-hours...this was not a hugely difficult thing to code, and if they didn't outsource it, the programmer involved might even have been glad to break away from his/her normal routine, and perhaps increase the popularity of the project.
Don't worry about the "bloat"...we're talking about plain-text, and while it's potentially a lot, it isn't going to kill RAM usage, create incredible download sizes, or introduce more vulnerabilities into the Firefox suite.
And don't worry about your name being in there, because if you think it's a dumb idea, you're not going to go over and fill it out, and you might even have told friends and family about it already via email (complete with a handy link to the Windows self-extracting installation binary).
But for the world's non-nerdy Internet users, this might catch a few in the "net" (no pun intended). The target audience (of the IE persuasion) may take a "recommendation from a trusted computer-knowing friend" + the attractive-yet-gimmicky-to-nerds chance to be written into "source code" and say "why not, I'll try it!"
There's good (switch to Firefox) and bad (marketing has your email) implications to this. But if you consider the minimal effort this will take to give it a try...this really isn't a bad idea folks.
"I want a secure, fast, technically elegant, standards supporting browser with a flexible extension system."
.0005% market segment and say:
Stand up, load and proud with the rest of your
"I'm statistically irrelevant! Listen to meeeeeeeeeeeee!"
Remember how IE is tied directly into the Windows core? "iexplore.exe" says it's using 32MB, but remember that any memory used by SHDOCVW is being handily rolled into another process like "explorer.exe" or "System." Firefox doesn't live by those shady tactics, and shows you its actual memory usage all in one process.