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Mozilla Mulls Dropping Firefox For Win2K, Early XP
CWmike writes "Mozilla is pondering dropping support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP without Service Pack 3 when it ships the follow-up to Firefox 3.5 in 2010, show discussions on the mozilla.dev.planning forum by developers and Mozilla executives, including the company's chief engineer and its director of Firefox. 'Raise the minimum requirements on Gecko 1.9.2 (and any versions of Firefox built on 1.9.2) for Windows builds to require Windows XP Service Pack 3 or higher,' said Michael Conner, one of the company's software engineers, to start the discussion. Mozilla is currently working on Gecko 1.9.1, the engine that powers Firefox 3.5, the still-in-development browser the company hopes to release at some point in the second quarter. Gecko 1.9.2, and the successor to Firefox 3.5 built on it — dubbed 'Firefox.next' and code named 'Namoroka' — are slated to wrap up in 'early-to-mid 2010,' according to Mozilla."
Did Mozilla get taken over by Microsoft or something?
The response was to the outright dismissal of Windows 2000. Having a web browser installed on a server for convenient download and installation of patches, drivers, etc. seems prudent enough. The dismissal of Windows 2000 entirely is the real jackassery.
Sure, some people do... but how many people are actually in this category? And is it worth the Mozilla Foundation's time and money to provide official support for it?
It's a legitimate question, and I'm betting the answer is: "Not enough to worry about." If you don't want to upgrade to XP or Vista because of the typical reasons I hear (don't like activation, too bloated, whatever), then switch to Linux or something. Or just keep using Firefox 3.1. Or fork Firefox to support Win2K, since you've got a vested interest in it. Just because it's your problem doesn't make it Mozilla's problem.
It's not about needing, it's about testing. By dropping support for XP-SP0, you declare that you've never tested your software on XP-SP0. It might work, or it might not. Some code might have recently been written which breaks on SP0 because of a bug that has been fixed since SP3. Or it might not.
Point is, dropping support for older Windows versions decreases the amount of testing needed. That is the biggest value, not about utilizing newer APIs.
the ones who would suffer most from such a move are those least able to afford new hardware -- kid you not -- i was at a school in march 2009 -- with old donated machines that were still running windows 98 (yes 98!!) and the 'new' machine was running windows 2000. i was trying to login to get my .mac webmail - which requires at least safari 3, mozilla 2, or ie7 - fat chance to get my webmail if i'm running on win2k - ugh. but i was able to DL & install (using win98) a copy of mozilla2 for win98 and get access to my webmail -- mozilla was the only link that made it possible to keep that old machine useful for a modern webmail app. cutting support kills old machines and puts them into dumpsters and landfills.
2cents from toronto
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No benefit? Do you have any idea how much effort is wasted testing these platforms? How many opportunity costs there are to supporting old stuff?
You can't say you "support" a platform these days unless your tests pass on it. That means you need it installed somewhere running test software, and someone familiar with the platform needs to be around to help you when things break, which they do. Supporting it also means crippling any software that wants to use APIs that later versions of the platform supports. You either need two versions of the code (one with the feature you want, one without, a serious nightmare) or you have to tell the users of Windows XP from *years* ago "so sorry, we can't use that important performance optimization. Some idiot somewhere is still running Win2k".
Platform support is a huge cost. Dropping it is an easy savings. Any organization that acts without regard to cost has never even seen the way, never mind "lost" it.
You'll still be able to download older versions of Firefox; they might even continue to provide security updates for them.
It's rare that you're presented with a knob whose only two positions are Make History and Flee Your Glorious Destiny.
I was using Windows 2000 last month at work. It is still currently being used by everyone that doesn't see the need to disrupt workflow by upgrading all the old PCs to XP. Yes, all current computers that you could buy in a store "today" can run XP SP3 (and maybe even Vista), but not everyone is buying a new computer every couple of years. Especially not corporations who have to live with a budget and who are smart enough to see that the recession means they have to tighten the belt and make do with capital equipment they already have.
It doesn't matter how much Microsoft whines that we're not upgrading, or how badly developers wish they could dump support for older OSes, or how desparately new hires out of college want to see cutting edge tech waiting for them, older hardware and software will be around for a long time.
Opera is willing to support you guys left out in the cold with a modern browser, going all the way back to Windows 95.
You realise right, Windows 2000 goes out of EXTENDED support next year (i.e. the same support status that XP has just entered into). This means no more updates (including security) for 2000 EVER from the middle of next year onwards.
Mozilla supporting it or in people fact using it from then on simply is not the best idea.
Hey, I *AM* Still using Win2k, and you know what? It's *ON* A new computer. WITH Radeon HD3650, And a Logitech DFP, with a 500 gig SATA hard disk. And y'know what? It runs circles around both Vista and XP, has had no crashes (although it HAS had irrepairable registry corruption! Appears to be either app or driver related but it's hard to track down once the OS is hosed.) Best part is, with the except of games using Windows Live or Developer Studio 2k8 runtime libs I've had no problems installing/running games that are supposed to be XP only. Anyone else out there with me?
It is never necessary to have Windows on a server. Of course, it seems to be on a few...