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Mozilla's First Birthday
The Prognosticator writes "Here's a Wired article about Netscape's Mozilla project at it's first birthday today, 1.Apr.1999. It covers where Mozilla's been and where it's going in a short interview with a Mozilla PR guy and a Communicator Project Manager.
"
Competing with so much fake news, must be difficult.
The download is only 1.6 megs. Expanded on the hard disk it is quite a bit bigger. Ram usage in my experience has been larger than 4.5. Also remember the 4.5 download included a lot of "fluff" ( Java, real player, other plugins,help, ) which made up a large portion of the download. Throw in the fact that this layout engine doesn't have mail news or security ( both large chunks of code ) and is missing many features and UI elements, expecting the next navigator to be smaller than the last is a result of marketing's delusion desire and is classic piece of FUD.
Netscape release their browser source? Not bloody likely! Plus it's April Fool's day. As if they would travel back in time to release their source. Yeah right. Time to get back to posting real news, Rob.
Lets face it. After a year, Mozilla's progress compared to other free software projects has been very disappointing. Considering the hacking talent Netscape devoted to Mozilla the lack of progress is puzzling. What are the reasons for this? I think the main reason is alluded to in the interview. The Mozilla code has very little reach interest beyond the AOL (chortle) developers. People are not interested in working on it. It is inconvenient. The code huge bloody mess, and it is very difficult to make any headway without a total rewrite. Furthermore, most interested developers are reluctant to work hard on code that is obsolete. I laude the effort being put forth in the Gekko project. I think it is the right way to go. But are independent developers contributing at this point? I don't think so, and they need to be.
Kids, just remember that over a year ago, Rob started it all with his feature Should Netscape release their source code or something like that... /.
At the time, we were all anonymous cowards, but nobody cared... first posts were funny too, as the SNR was usually so high on
Ohhhh well, things certainly change, and not always for the worst!
So far all we got is the promising M3 build. It renders many sites quite well, doesn't crash much, but there is a long-long way to go. Even Mozilla.org developers expect to see something final by the end of this year.
I hate to say that, but in my view the huge browser-wars hype has shifted towards Linux vs Windows now. Whenever Gecko or whatever the new name will be get finally released, it won't change much of the current situation. Even when it fits a disk or two, how many of you carry with you a floppy with a browser??? Those who really need that (tiny fraction) can use Opera.
After a year in development we don't have a single usable version (not to test-out few sites with the M3). Mozilla team effectively admits that their project failed to attract open source developers (no wonder). According to the interview at the techweb we can even see that they've got little idea about each other:
EM: The layoff news is very fresh. I honestly
have no idea -- the truth is, I don't even know
about the people sitting next to me.
After almost 2 years (counting from June, 1997, release of the Netscape4) we still don't have a child. What's this selebration is about? That Netscape is still alive? Oh yes, it is indeed. Slowly being digested inside AOL.
p.s. I always use Netscape browsers, these are just realistic considerations.
The Mozilla 2.0 Party is more of a retirement party than an anniversary. Jamie Zawinski plans to announce he is quitting Mozilla.org.
Maybe he's frustrated by Mozilla's total lack of sucess?
Check the dates! Mozilla was released on April 1st, 1998, Mozilla celebrates its first anniversary on April 1st, 1999. Coincidence? I think not. This was all an elaborate April Fool's joke over a year in the making. Mozilla was never really released, it's just an elaborate ruse
Wake up people! Wake up! It's important that...oh never mind.
;)
It's time we did something about the price
of gasoline in America! We are all sick and
tired of high prices when there are literally
millions of gallons in storage.
Know what I found out? If there was just
ONE day when no one purchased any
gasoline, prices would drop drastically.
The so-called oil cartel has decided to
slow production by some 2 million barrels
per day to drive up the price. I have decided
to see how many Americans we can get
to NOT BUY ANY GASOLINE on one
particular day!
Let's have a GAS OUT! Do not buy any
gasoline on APRIL 30, 1999!!!!!
Buy on Thursday before, or Saturday after.
Do not buy any gasoline on FRIDAY,
APRIL 30, 1999.
Wanna help? Send this message to
everyone you know. Ask them to do the same.
All we need is a few million to participate in
order to make a difference.
Let me know how many you will send out.
We CAN make a difference.
Thanks.
you should have taken your lame ass to www.mozilla.org and download M3 build.
(Reuters)-Bill Gates goes to jail for pirating software! He has reported to have been running a Warez site on EFNet's #warezguild (now #warezguild2) with a dedicated OC-48 connection and Sun UltraEnterprise 10000 server and 50 NT Servers. Reporters speculate that he was just "fed up" with his company, so he just started IRCing and running a warez site with only Microsoft software.
With "successes" like these, I'd retire, too! Mozilla was started way too late. If they had thought this through several years ago, it might have made sense but now ... nah. Ain't happenin' ... nobody really gives a crap--particularly now that Netscape is part of that beast AOL.
Has anyone seen this one news.com? Has any one
heard the reasons why? Jamie, say it's not so!
Hey! My post was a JOKE it was HUMOR!
... you weenies!
Why the heck did you moderate it down to
-1 ? I worked hard to write this!
And I'm evening being POLITE in my follow-up
post
Don't call us geeks.
Would you please stop with the lame April Fools Jokes already? I mean, who here honestly believes that Netscape could load in 1.6 megs. Hmmm? Opera, maybe...
Leapfrog, the overly sarcastic
Amen and hallelujah! Not only that, but
it's good and interesting news!
Go, Mozilla, Go!
-Augie, sick of April Fool's Day
Anyone else notice there is nothing on everything today?
?
We aren't. This isn't real news. It's just an elaborate setup by Rob and Wired to trick us into thinking that subsequent posts are true.
It's all one big AFJ.
... that says basically the same things (I know, I wrote it):
http://cgi.pathfi nder.com/time/digital/daily/0,2822,22429,00.html
less talk, more synthohol
Why not?
less talk, more synthohol
Who's going to the party?
--
Jake
Mozilla is a hoax!!! It's all an elaborate April Fools joke!!! Post some REAL NEWS!!!
-Eric
I dunno, this whole "Mozilla" thing they keep talking about in the article sounds a little suspicious. I mean, c'mon, just look at the date. I'm serious. Inspect the date with all of your might. Datey datey look look. I'm not kidding when I urge you to observe the date.
:-)
This article seems like a good time to remind people that the Mozilla party that was reported on about a month ago is tonight. Wish I could go but I have to catch a plane in the wee hours tomorrow morn. Oh well, there's always next year.
Wow! At long last... real news!
No april fools!
Hoorrraaayyy!!!
--
it's not the price of the gas itself, it's the $.64 or more taxes on it!!!
I think this shows something else about opensource development, that isn't talked about as much: you don't want to be embarrased by bad source. When they opened up the source, thy tried to build on that, till the developers said, "Forget that, we're starting over" (which is the reason it's taken so long and it's so much better). Opensource development does not like cruft, and that's why it's taken so long.
look again--the HTML rendering engine is only a small piece of the overall code
how big was Mosaic?---why would the HTML part need to be big?
Slackware: old school feel, new school gear.
I didn't know we were allowed to have real news today.
--FroBugg
Lots of independent developers are contributing: if not coding, then by bugfixing. Adam Lock, for example, has created the ActiveX Mozilla control. pavlov@pavlov.net (Sorry, not sure of his real name ;) has also helped a lot with the gtk conversion. And there are plenty of people submitting bugreports, be it with crashes or misrenderings or unsupported stuff; check out bugzilla to see proof.
Well, I guess I'll post a real reply to this column, this is something I've been following closely, and I am tangentally involved in the sister project Jazilla.
Open source really made a breakthrough with Mozilla. For one point he makes is very true, and only parenthetically referred to: Gecko's engine is only 1.6 Meg. Wow! Forget bloatware, this engine is powerful. If you don't believe me, go to the site and download a nightly build.
It does things that even impress me, in an incredibly small, fast package.
But despite the obvious shuckstering, I'm getting to the point. We are seeing an upcoming big release that turns its back on the Microsoft worldview and say, "We don't need everything in this engine... Let's slim down and get some great features."
And yes, it's taken awhile to get out. But they're trying to make this as *gasp* bug free as possible.
Hooray for Mozilla, and may more developers emulate them.
"Responsibility for my career? I'm just a freakin' phone monkey!"
It's a thankless job, but I've got a lot of Karma to burn off