Slashdot Mirror
An Open Source Pitfall? Mozilla Labs Closed, Quietly
mikejuk writes with this excerpt: When Google Labs closed there was an outcry. How could an organization just pull the rug from under so many projects? At least Google announced what it was doing. Mozilla, it seems since there is no official record, just quietly tiptoes away — leaving the lights on since the Mozilla Labs Website is still accessible. It is accessible but when you start to explore the website you notice it is moribund with the last blog post being December 2013 with the penultimate one being September 2013. The fact that it is gone is confirmed by recent blog posts and by the redeployment of the people who used to run it. The projects that survived have been moved to their own websites. It isn't clear what has happened to the Hatchery -the incubator that invited new ideas from all and sundry. One of the big advantages of open source is the ease with which a project can be started. One of the big disadvantages of open source is the ease with which projects can be allowed to die — often without any clear cut time of death. It seems Mozilla applies this to groups and initiatives as much as projects. This isn't good. The same is true at companies that aren't open source centric, though, too, isn't it?
How can open source software die? the source is there! Anyone interested in the software has had ample time to get the source. All mozilla or google or any other service is doing is providing some hosting for the git repository. clone it and save it if you care that much about the software. Wringing your hands that and crying all is lost just says you are doing open source wrong.
There was an outcry when Google Labs closed because people actually used stuff that came from there. Mozilla Labs, on the other hand...
#DeleteChrome
Seems to be the way things work with the Mozilla crew. Look at the "progress" of the Thunderbird project. For over a decade people have been complaining about its inability to accurately render html, yet that problem still exists in the software today. No one wants to work on the un-sexy nuts and bolts stuff; everybody wants to be the guy who wrote the flashy new UI. Kinda difficult to do anything about it when you can't fire someone and hire a decent replacement.
And here I was expecting an Open Source http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pitfall!. How disappointing.
In my professional career, several projects I have worked on have been canceled despite a good state - not behind schedule nor over budget, or even ahead of schedule and/or under budget. The reasons were usually variations from "marketing has decided to change direction" to "after management re-org, the new managers decided the risks were too high". The latter happened to one project despite us having 5 fully and correctly operating prototypes, and having invested 3 person-years of effort and over half a million US dollars in development tools and licensing of third party libraries. Another project was canceled because the primary stakeholder lost interest despite the first two phases being highly successful.
Don't try to out wierd me, three-eyes. I get stranger things than you, free with my breakfast cereal. --Zaphod Beeblebr
They announced that they killed Thunderbird too several months after the fact. It was months and months after the latest update, suddenly they're like "Oh yeah, that? We're done with that." Outlook sucks, Windows Live mail sucks, Incredemail is a disease, and Eudora is dead as well. There are a grand total of zero good e-mail programs out there now. What were they thinking?
Actually, they announced what they were thinking. They're focusing on making new versions of Firefox every single month for no reason and causing massive crash glitches, incompatibilities with webpages, and an all out war with Flash player as well as a go-nowhere phone OS project. Great choice! But what would you expect from a company that gets over 90% of its money from Google, who makes a competing product.