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Mozilla Developers Invited to Redmond
savio13 writes "Sam Ramji, Microsoft's director of its Open Source Software Lab has invited 4 Mozilla developers to spend 4 days with Microsoft's Vista Readiness ISV team. The invite can be found on mozilla.dev.planning and was posted on Saturday (Aug. 19). Schroepfer replied by indicating that Microsoft and the Moz guys are already in contact via email and will follow up on the offer there. This is interesting because Sam posted the offer in a public forum (and indicated that he'd sent a PM, but was posting in case they had an @microsoft.com email filter). Sam also made a point of stating that the Vista ISV Readiness offer is typically only for commercial ISVs."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/It's_a_trap Seriously, watch out! Pretty soon, we'll have no more coders!
You're all bastards!
It's a trap!
Four Mozilla developers missing, story at eleven.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
"If you go to Z'ha'dum, you will die."
Where were you when the voynix came?
In a couple of weeks, we'll see a /. article about how four Mozilla developers have mysteriously disappeared, followed shortly thereafter by one about how they've been found in the trunk of Ballmer's car.
hang brain.
Watch out for chairs!
"about how they've been found in the trunk of Ballmer's car"
I thought the trunk was one of Ballmer's physical features.
Where were you when the voynix came?
But seriously, I think that Microsoft is trying to get third party OSS browser support for Vista so that they can announce it as a feature. "Look, we have great support for the BEST free browsers out there! We are cool and friendly!" It has become obvious to Microsoft that OSS is not going away and that they need to embrace some of the popular choices in an effort to stem the flow away from Linux, etc. Seems pretty obvious to me.
My humor is probably your flamebait
Beware Mozillans...
The Mozilla developers will be carried along a corridor on a conveyor belt in extreme comfort and past murals depicting Mediterranean scenes, towards the rotating knives. The last twenty feet of the corridor are heavily soundproofed.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
Hopefully this invitation is simply a consequence of that Microsoft has (finally) realized that there is no way they will be able to keep up with OSS in the long run. Maybe they have finally realized that sooner or later, given enough time, every commercial application will have a free counterpart.
It's a trick - get an axe!
Be amazed at the open source research lab, the award winning cafeteria, the empty lot out back where Microsoft employee Vinnie "The Bonecrusher" Vetallini will explain in intricate detail Microsoft's browser strategy.
I'll be honest, we're throwing science against the wall to see what sticks. -Cave Johnson
Now I'm scared for the Mozilla developers. Thanks for making me lose sleep, guys.
Earn a % of cash back from Newegg, Tiger Direct, Walmart.com, and more: http://www.mrrebates.com?refid=458505
"Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer" (c. 6th century BC)
What's with the "in case the had a @microsoft.com filter" comment?
Seriously folks, what if a popular product like FF decided to drag feet on supporting a new MS product. Pretend we're talking a year from now and MS is trying to roll out Vista and the 40% of the population that will be using FF by then balks because FF won't run properly. Extremely unlikely but an interresting though nontheless expecially when you recall the days when MS would break competitors apps running on Windows.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If Vista is written modularly and has a clean, well documented API then why would an application development team need any help from the Vista development team to get their application working on Vista?
--------------------
Steve Stites
It's Bill Gates is gaurded by more than just Orcs. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Great WGA is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland riddled with fire, ash, and Starbucks coffee, the very air you breathe is a poisonous fume. Not with ten thousand could you do this. It is folley.
My Computer Music Tutorial Videos
They are gonna strap these guys down as soon as they get through the doors and feed them "the koolaid", and they will never be the same again. Pity, they were part of an interesting project. Bye bye.
"Thanks for all the money you paid to us. We've used it to buy off ISO among other things" -Microsoft
Opera was invited to MS recently as well.... http://my.opera.com/dstorey/blog/show.dml/419834
it is the kinda trap were they offer to give you butt loads of money to come work for them instead.
actually I am happy to see you, however that is in fact a banana in my pocket.
Embrace? As in kiss-o-death? (see vinnie reference)
Or what?
I love the part about the @microsoft.com email filter. Is someone paranoid or what?
Whatever you do, guys, do not drink the Kool-Aid!
My 2 cents: Even if you guys never get it to work on Vista, I'll probably never stop enjoying Firefox because I'll probably never start using Vista.
Make sure you get free food without selling your soul and enjoy!
Acute Chair Deceleration to the Head syndrome.
Pretend we're talking a year from now and MS is trying to roll out Vista and the 40% of the population that will be using FF by then balks because FF won't run properly.
Wow - food must taste better where you live too!
...keep your enemies closer.
Guess what will be on the private plane that flies them to Redmond.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Move Sig. For great justice.
Resistance is futile, your browser will be assimilated
Not to get too serious here, but this is a perfect example of a situation where MS can't win. Invite the folks up? "It's a trap! They'll steal your code, kill you, etc." Don't invite them up? "When is MS going to treat OSS developers like any one else, Firefox has many users, they should get the same respect as any other org."
Ah slashdot... can't live with it, pass the beer nuts.
Now I'm going to have Admiral Ackbar's quote in my head all day.
What if they're thinking anbout replacing the IE render engine with Geko + ActiveX extensions?
It's not an insane idea, a browser it's not a key factor for desktop dominance anymore... and MS could use the resources allocated for IE on another projects.
And also, they eliminate the "Firefox" treat... Firefox is avaliable for MacOSX, Linux, BSD, and others. If someone uses it under Windows, they can feel more confortable to swich to another OS since their applications are there too.
---- You know how some doctors have the Messiah complex - they need to save the world? You've got the "Rubik's" complex
I wonder if this is a sign of things to come after the management shake up of sorts at Microsoft?
Mozilla has a enough hype around it that it would be a benefit to Microsoft to say vista supports it. Helping OSS also takes a little of the anti-trust preasure off of them around the world.
Think Deeply.
The coders that went there have very likely seen some code that is currently "open" but will eventually be closed. And it's very likely it will influence the way they code on Firefox and Seamonkey. So I expect that a few years from now MS legal will come-a-callin' and do what SCO did only they will succeed because they have more money. Smart move there Einteins. This is why it is absolutely imperatif that no one in the FOSS camp ever agrees to look at code that is proprietary. As soon as you do, you're damaged goods.
-"...bad old ideas look confusingly fresh when they are packaged as technology" - Jaron Lanier (Digital Maoism on Edge.o
I don't understand what the point is. Firefox installs on Vista beta so even without this visit and program tweaks it works.
http://virtualize.wordpress.com/
After the meeting, check for a chip in the back of their necks.
http://www.quasarcr.com/
...takes a Hattori Hanzo sword, and has mastered Pai Mei's five-point exploding heart technique.
...and is cast as a hot blonde for the 'documentary'.
Find environmentally and socially responsible products on http://buy-right.net
What I never understood is the whole browser wars thing, how does MS make money off IE? It's free to download. I guess this signals the end of the browser wars, with both sides sitting down to work together(interesting indeed).
Maybe they realize that Firefox is a good product and IE isn't actually making them any money so why not support Firefox.
Or maybe it's just a PR stunt in light of all the recent Vista scare stuff. They wanted us to see it; I'm sure they could have contacted mozilla somehow without the public knowing. The fact is they want us to see this for some reason.
Just like the opening scene in braveheart.
james
(this is offended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
Ballmer paraphrase...
"I'm going to fucking bury those guys, I have done it before, and I will do it again, I'm going to fucking kill Mozilla."
Mozilla is a large project maintained by a number of smart guys, job offers and trying to understand what they're thinking and where they're going is useful to MS.
Also if there are problem with Mozilla applications running properly on Vista, it is a problem for MS. Not that MS should care about Mozilla specifically, but if it doesn't work, a lot of other software won't either.
So, I clicked on this stupid tickle ad on a site for IT people, so I figured it was safe. Now I have a bunch of badware on my computer.
/. obviously have no ethics.
Oh, wait, that's right, I'm not that stupid. But the people running
No, and no. Four questions left.
I only asked five questions.
Is it a trick? Is it a ploy to start a war. Those are separate questions.
I find it strange that Microsoft would invite these folks over. What, suddenly they want to interoperate with everything?
Watch what you SIGN and SAY because there's little proof anything good will come of this. And I doubt Microsoft is wanting to help the stepchild of the company(Netscape) whom Steve Balmer said, "kill the baby" to.
Nothing good can come of this so send the lawyers instead.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
This is sad. This comment is not a troll, not a flamebait, just an observation.
Microsoft has taken some serious steps to clean itself up over the last year or so. As a Linux/Apache/PHP/Python/Perl/MySQL/Postgres evangelist, I always root for open source, but I respect Microsoft's omnipresence in the tech world.
That said, it's really sad to see that 98% of the comments here are based on distrust, hatred, and bad jokes. This is a huge move: Microsoft, for once, finally understanding that open source has a place and that NOT working with them spells trouble for them.
So, please people, retire the lame wisecracks. This is one of many times you'll see Microsoft bent by the immense power and will of open source!
init 11 - for when you need that edge.
If you open IE7, type 'firefox sucks' into the address bar - then press the Windows key 4 times, followed by ctrl-alt-tab, the following message appears:
"Help us - we've been kidnapped by Ballmer! They're making us write insecure code and not giving us enough caffeine!"
Then you get to play a flight simulator game...
[To anyone who tries this and complains about it not working - "you are an idiot"].
Genesis 1:32 And God typed
If you can't beat them, join them?
Aren't there already plenty of Firefox users who are using the latest Vista betas? If Firefox didn't work in Vista, there'd be lots of bug reports about it already.
What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
Your biological and technological distinctiveness will be added to our own.
I guess today is a passable day to die.
I liked the fact that the first followup is repeated twice in the google archive. Maybe at MS they are still using OE to follow newsgroups...
it's obvious MS needs help. we all know it. they have been in denial.
so, invite some people who have experience making a web browser that isn't utter and complete garbage to find out some tips.
like it's gonna matter, IE is destined to continue being what it has been. a boat anchor on a ship already laying on the bottom.
Open source developers were warned to not even look at leaked win2k code as it'd lead to accusations of contamination of FOSS with Microsoft source.
I wonder.......
Now gentlemen if you'll just look at the wall sized plasma screen over there you'll see "IE7 SOURCE CODE!!!!! That's right, IE7 source code! You have been contaminated and must now cease development of your precious Firefox product! MUHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
Bah. Microsoft just wants a chance to look at the Mozilla source code so they can steal all the good parts.
"The cost of freedom is eternal vigilance." -Thomas Jefferson
Well, May be it is real may be it is a trap. We will know which by the kind of "non disclosure" agreements they have to sign to get accepted. Further, will these developers be allowed to post the bugs/ porting issues they find openly in Bugzilla?
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
The Mozilla guys go to Redmond, manage to get FF up and running on the "final" release candidate for Vista. IE 7 is still only 55% compliant with CSS 2 and has all sorts of other breakages at this juncture and FF looks infinitely better.
Two weeks later Vista is released and when you start FF it immediately crashes. Suddenly invites to Redmond are in short supply...
Gee, what could Microsoft possibly have done to piss off so many people?
http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006 /8/21/5065
Don't go!! It's a trick!!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
and they emerged from the building, a listless expression upon their faces...
So perhaps MS is simply recognising this, and acting to support it ?
In InfoWorld that's where
An Offer They Cannot Refuse
Quote from the same: In an even more stunning reversal, Microsoft has invited the open source community for a sit-down to drink grappa and mangiare some cannoli. You know that scene in mob films where the godfather invites all his rivals for a meeting, excuses himself to go to the loo, and guys with submachine guns show up? My advice to open sourcers: If Ballmer leaves the room, get ready to dive under the table.
Help a man when he is in trouble and he will remember you when he is in trouble again.
Absolultly correct.
In my opinion, I think that Microsoft seriously does see the hand-writing on the wall and they do want to do more to ensure that their OS supports the programs that people want to use. Microsoft is going to trumpet their low support costs and ease of managability (think SMS, Group Policy, etc). They are going to trumpet the fact that they are the standard, and they are going to portray any group who doesn't want to work with the standard as being back-asswards and wasting time unnecessarily reinventing the wheel.
On another level, Microsoft is trying to avoid what happened to Novell in the 1990s. Netware was a great operating system but it got to the point where they barely had any third party support. The same thing could happen to Microsoft if enough developers decide that using Microsoft dev tools is a PITA and if enough developers decide that coding to the Microsoft OS is a PITA. The one incentive that Microsoft has left is their market penetration. They can still play the economic card, and that card is, "If you develop for the MS platform, you will have a market share of XX. And by the way, that market is already used to paying out the nose for software, so you stand to make money. Now do you want that, or do you want to go to the OSS world where everyone is doing it on the cheap with razor thin margins?" And if you think about it, that's a very strong position to come from. If you're trying to make money, do you want to go with the company that has already made itself (and numerous third parties) griploads of cash, or do you want to go with the other guys who are trying to redo what Microsoft has already done, but do it "less expensively and better"? I'm of the opinion that unless the OSS world comes out with some killer functionality that operates EXCLUSIVELY outside of Windows, they're never going to win. Given how much Microsoft has been investing in intellectual property, and given how much they have already developed (OS, Office, Exchange, accounting packages, CRM packages... basically all the tools that a business needs to function), it's going to be hard to end-run around the monopoly.
The one ray of hope is "standards" but as we've all seen, Microsoft will just ignore a standard until enough people want to use it. Then they'll offer support for it. You're seeing it now with IE7. For the longest time, MS didn't give two shits. Now enough web devs have complained loudly enough and they're finally getting what they want. IE7 might not nail it, but I'm willing to be IE7 SP3, or IE8 will. The problem with using a standard to fight Microsoft is that standards are very rarely proprietary. And as we've seen with the W3C, even "standards" are often times still works in progress.
And in other news the next version of Firefox will require the latest Internet Explorer to be installed to operate and the Linux and Mac versions will be discontinued.
They already got to Netscape.
One of the 4 Mozilla developers is leading a tour for them, talking causually:
"It's always been a danger, but it looms like a shadow over every-thing we've built here. But things have developed that will ensure security. I've just made a deal that will keep Microsoft out of here forever."
Suddenly, a door in hallway slides open... Horror! ...Bill Gates rises from his seat at the far end of long dining table...
They did that to Netscape devs back in the day, too, albeit in a slightly less obvious way. They'd camp out in the nearest cafes and restaurants around lunch hour and "talk" to Netscape developers, sometimes making them offers they couldn't refuse. Many of those devs were at that point more interested in Ferraris and mansions than in writing code, but MSFT hired them anyway (only to fire when Netscape kicks the bucket).
Expect some folks getting offers in Redmond. Higher ups in IE team are downright stupid if they don't try to hire people away from Mozilla. You kill two birds with one stone - strangle Mozilla and get a good, security minded dev (who will be forced to think a lot less about security at MSFT by an arbitrary, managemen imposed deadline).
This story act like a collectively recognized cue for making MS vs. Mozilla jokes, same with other topics that appeare at regular intervals.
Here's a way to make every Slashdot discussion seem smarter and more interesting (assuming you are a registered and signed-in Slashdot user):
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- Click Comments (between "Homepage" and "Messages".)
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Voila!The Big News Page
The Land's End has just announced an enormous order for several tens of billions of parkas and other winter clothing from a Mr. Bill ze Bub. Film at eleven. :)
But seriously, this sounds like it's on the level and as a result represents an tremendous validation for the impact of open-source software. I'm all for it, and just hope that other open-source projects get invited to discuss Vista's changes and features besides Firefox. Just to name one: Samba.
They weren't so much "invited" as 9 fell riders were dispatched from Redmond crying "Mountain View..." and "Goodger..."
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
"A fire axe - surely the weapon of a madman.
Who else would attack fire with an axe?!"
1) On the way into the room check for plastic sheeting on the floor
2) Look for obvious signs of a trap door
3) Don't eat or drink anything
4) Don't sign anything
5) Arrange to be deprogrammed after leaving Redmond.
Microsoft also invited Opera devs for the same reason that they've invited FF devs (to make sure the browser runs well in Vista, and possibly makes use of some new Vista apis (e.g. Vista's Common RSS api)). Opera accepted the invitation and Opera devs paid their visit to MS last week.
;-)
http://annevankesteren.nl/2006/08/opera-vista
http://my.opera.com/olli/blog/show.dml/417961
The Opera devs returned unharmed.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
This is what happens when you say the mods are on crack ;)
Nobody else has this sig.
when did slashdot become an unofficial apple forum? i had to block the apple section!
Why has Slashdot always been a Linux forum? Nerd use Linux. Slashdot started carrying a lot of Apple content when Apple released an OS that nerds started using in large numbers. The fact that a lot of the most innovative features to be added to computing in the last handful of years kind of seals the deal. Even nerds who don't use OS X are usually interested in an improved replacement for "chron" or a soon to be widely deployed video chat client that can filter out your background and replace it with another in realtime. It is most certainly, news for nerds.
I'm not afraid to be offtopic, at least the moderation is valid.
It riles me when I see idiotic mods though.
liqbase
DON'T GO!!! It's just like when king Edward the Longshanks invited every nobleman who had a will to fight to talks of a truce. Even the boys, oh god, the innocent little boys were hung.
Oooompah looompah doomple dee dee!
Please won't you listen to me!
Oooompah looompah doomple dee whee!
I've got something to say you see!
Oooompah looompah doomple dee crap!
I have feeling that this is a trap!
Oooompah looompah doomple dee dap!
Ballamer will come up with a chair and *WHAP*!
Oooompah looompah doomple dee kind!
So be sure and watch your behind!
Oooompah looompah doomple dee mind!
Or else big trouble you'll find!
It's a cookbook!
...Developers, Developers, Developers, Developers!"
One does not simply become invited to Mordo--...Microsoft?!
Warning: Could be fatal if taken seriously
It's a cookbook!
I just wrote this up a few days ago, it would be nice if these guys thought it was a good idea and we figured out how to make it happen:
A not-so-modest proposal.
by Andrew Theken (andrewtheken.com)
Ok, some of you Open Source folks aren't going to like me for this one, but here goes. Normally, I wouldn't suggest such a huge step but we need to take it. You folks over at the Mozilla Foundation need to make this happen. Things are easy to implement/design deploy with web standards, when they are adhered to. Firefox's (and KHTML's) compliance is very high compared to Internet Explorer. We need to find a way to get Microsoft to use Gecko or KHTML in Internet Explorer. I realize I might be spinning my wheels here.
I know this may sound like blasphemy, but always look to the comments made in regards to the LGPL (I think the following has been stated by Richard Stallman - if anybody can source the following, email me, it's probably on the gnu.org site). Let me paraphrase: The LGPL is designed to allow a developer that wants to add commonly available functionality to do so without opening the entire application, so long as that functionality is not materially the core portion of the application. Basically, making it so that a commercial developer would choose an Open Source library for some small, non-critical feature instead of a commercial counterpart. Basically, something like a HTTP server, which is, at this point, a commonplace set of code. LGPL is designed to have you adopt Open Source instead of paying for a closed source trivial portion of code. Essentially, the proliferation of the Open implementation is more important than getting additional code to go "Open."
Now, Gecko is not LGPL'd (to my knowledge), but there's a reason why I brought it up. Untold good would come from giving away Gecko to Microsoft for IE. they have a rendering engine, they could buy and integrate any one that they wished, we need them to adopt one that complies to W3C and the rest. Give 'em the engine, have them integrate it, code contributions be damned.
Firefox would still have it's place as a more secure browser, extensions, etc. We'd just have less implementation work to do to get websites up and looking good. Something I am sure we can all appreciate.
Let them add in all their Microsoft-y glory. Code change submissions would be optional. Require that the Gecko engine generally render in much the same way as it does in other browsers, no more, no less. We need the web standards for end users and web designers more than we need Microsoft's code.
Now, let's not think about how perverse it would be to run Internet Explorer with a Netscape-derived rendering engine. Would Microsoft do it? Seems like their codebase for IE is so bad that they'll take any help they can get (seriously folks, I think they had 51% standards compliance in the 5.x series which jumps to 54% for IE7, I think Firefox's is about 94% -if anybody can source this, email me.).
PLEASE Mozilla & Microsoft, share your love.
First thing that came to mind...
if(!toilet_paper) roll.replace(new roll);
"My ... what large nails you have ..... "
Vista seems to be a enormous project, which maybe even has outgrown the enormous resources at hand at Redmond campus.
But as usual Microsoft gets lucky. Steve Jobs donates the x86 source code part of the OSX kernel to the community. And now Redmond developers need some input to get the Mozilla firefox code ported to Vista. I think Microsoft is putting the means to fit the purpose. Vista has already costed them an extra mortgage on the farm, but still ain't getting sold. They even have started to raise a small download fee for beta's of Vista. So if you want to see Vista deployed soon in real life action, you as a open source developer can help out. The problem however is that Microsoft's track record in relationships with other software companies doesn't shine brightly. If you wanna know what Vista is all about, you as a Open Source developer now get a chance, but be warned for pitfalls.
Robert
The dork lord is insidious.