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."

Comments

Alternative to the promotion

[patio11]

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.

Re:Alternative to the promotion

[Anonymous Coward]

I just wonder what would happen if my name was

*/ do_virus();

Alternative Method

[jvalenzu]

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.

not a person, but a company.

[lanswitch]

Add Microsoft. They make people switch to firefox.

self-fulfilling prophesy?

[griffjon]

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??

Wow, an explanation I've been waiting for so long.

[A beautiful mind]

you'll both be immortalized in Firefox 2.0's source code

This finally explains the recent bloat in Firefox. :-)

Kids

[Joebert]

Amongst some of the names allready registered,

1) Harry Sachs
2) Hugh G Rection
3) Ivana Tinkle

What's the point?

[Bodero]

What's the point? I'll probably just be commented out.

Re:What's the point?

[vrwarp]

From the FAQ: How will our names be included in Firefox 2? If both you and your friend opt-in to have your names included, we'll add your names to an interactive Firefox friends display that will be accessible from within Firefox 2.

Waste of bandwidth

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:Waste of bandwidth

[FooBarWidget]

Text can be easily compressed by 80-90% by bzip2. Suppose that there are 100.000 names in the code, and the average length of a name is 15 characters. Counting newlines and comment prefixes (in the form of " * [name here]"), the space taken will be 100000 * (15 + 4) = 1900000 bytes, or 1855 KB. If the file is compressed by 85% then it'll become 278 KB. In comparison, the current Firefox 2.0b1 source tar.bz2 is 32 MB. 278 KB is about 0.8% of that. Hardly significant comparing that you as a Slashdotter probably has a broadband connection.

There are many things to worry about but worrying about wasting bandwidth on names is just rediculous.

Besides, marketing is important! You as a geek may not realize it, but crappy products can be more popular than your oh-so-mighty technically correct ones if the former is marketed better than the latter. While you're screaming on forums about the technical superiority of product B, everybody else is using the 'inferior' product A and couldn't care less what you moan about.

Do we need to encourage evangelism?

[gihan_ripper]

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.