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Mozilla M5 Released
Only minutes ago, the 5th Mozilla milestone (aka M5) was reached. Interested parties
may download it from the mozilla.org ftp site. Mozilla.org
head-honcho Mike Shaver says "Yes [I am pleased with the recent progress on mozilla]. Our memory leak count is
way down due to the efforts of Bruce Mitchener, Scott Collins, and Mike Pinkerton." Go get it.
I believe your supposed to run the mozilla-apprunner.sh program for the main browser interface.. read the release notes before posting!
Just untar anywhere, and then run the run-mozilla.sh file. The window decorations look a little rough, but the rendering is pretty good. The handful of sights I went to all worked, no crashes.
I bet M5 will be a turning point for Mozilla progress.
Milestone 5 (of nine planned until final release) shows that it is time to stop the un/intentional FUD slinged at the Mozilla project by open source supporters. Facts are after the opinion... Then more opinion. Sorry about the length.
:) Thanks for listening.
**************
Major congratulations all who have contributed to the Mozilla project and endless thanks to the Netscape employees ana management who are bending over back-asswards to make this spectacular software happen...
This is the last great hope for humanity to bring open standards, consistency, structure, and freedom to the world wide web. Think that is a grandiose statement? You will support open standards and mozilla and eat your words. Or else we can either suffer at the hands of the Microsoft/Netscape buglists for the next fifty years or much much more.
Let's run this down for the unitiated.
**************
Mozilla is NOT NETSCAPE. Mozilla is Open Source with a very very very liberal license that deserves reading and support (IMHO).
Mozilla is going to consist of two releases. Netscape 5.0 will be built with the mozilla code. This will not be open source, because stuff like a Java machine, SSL, and probably other commercial plugins will come with it. The OTHER RELEASE WHICH YOU WILL BE/ARE ABLE TO HACK ON TO DEATH is the Mozilla.org browser. It will NOT have proprietary crap in it but WILL have JNI (Java Native Interface?) hookups so you can drop THE BEST JAVA MACHINE OF YOUR CHOICE in. Crypto hookups will probably not be in the official codebase for very legitimate legal reasons.
Here's the feature list and a comparison with The Other Browser.
Internet Explorer 5.
*********************
Sort of Javascript.
Sort of Java machine that sucks enormous rocks.
Loads fast. Displays fast. (Pentium only please)
HTML 1,2,3,4 incomplete, majorly buggy in areas.
CSS1 badly incomplete/buggy (mostly unusable).
CSS2 badly incomplete/buggy (unusable).
DHTML badly hacked together with bad bad proprietary behaviors.
MASSIVE BLOAT. Around 30 megs installed for core functionality. 6 meg download minimum.
Exceptionally clean, largely hard-coded UI.
Exceptionally useful mailreader included. (Outlook Express 5)
Brain-damaged XML.
Extraordinarily bad, almost alien DOM.
Mediocre support for XSL, a COMPLETELY INCOMPLETE standard being rammed through the W3C with major assistance by Microsoft. (Perhaps they need features for Office 2000)
Microsoft Windows or certain Macintosh platforms only. (Solaris does NOT COUNT)
Horridly unreliable installation procedure.
Extreme work put into making MS-friendly web-apps, websites, and scripting easy.
Bleeds memory.
PNG broke. But those animated gifs sure are purty. Hyuck.
Integrated with OS to extreme degree.
If not given own process, brings down explorer.exe (MS's "windowing manager" as it were) when it breaks. (every hour or so)
Cost: Free, as long as you write pages to the MS standard please.
Gimmick:feature ratio: 9:3 (channels count for 4, remember those?)
Things done right: User interface and simplicity. Easy to implement interactions with a Windows environment. Usable by many. Quick.
Mozilla + Netscape 5.0 (at release in a few months, most standards complete already)
**********************
COMPLETE REWRITE OF LAYOUT ENGINE AND MOST FUNCTIONALITY.
HTML 1,2,3,4 to-the-spec complete.
CSS1 to-the-spec complete.
CSS2 not promised, but largely functional.
RDF ready to roll.
Dynamic reflow of pages.
To-the-spec Javascript (ECMAscript) complete.
Whichever Java Machine you prefer, or a Netscape licensed one.
Very quick. Lightning quick at most tasks. A vast vast improvement over NS4 and extremely competitive with IE5. A 386 may apply.
Legacy/standard DHTML all ready to roll.
EXTREMELY EFFICIENT. Minimal size. 4 MEGS download for browser and e-mail client prior to optimization.
100% CUSTOMIZABLE CROSS PLATFORM USER INTERFACE. YOU CAN WRITE ONE YOURSELF IN 15 MINUTES! I am an idiot at computers and I have done this myself. Don't want a button or menu? DELETE IT IN MOMENTS. Want something clean? Busy? Animated? Obnoxious? THEMED? Do it in MOMENTS. The technology is completely open, called eXtensible User interface Language (XUL) or something like that. NO BINARIES, JUST TEXT. You will soon be able to ROLL YOUR OWN on the web.
GTK widgetry when used in *nix. NOT ONE SHRED OF MOTIF.
Exceptionally useful Open Source mailreader included.
Precise, to the letter XML.
Precise, to the letter DOM.
Incomplete standards will be included when they are user tested, reliable, and DONE.
Install with whatever method/packaging you prefer. Like the mozilla.org browser? Pull the tarball and COMPILE IT YOURSELF.
Probable ICQ and AOL AIM attached with the NS5 downloads. Highly integrated if installed probably.
As bug-free as YOU WANT IT TO BE. I am a dillweed who couldn't code my way out of a wet paper bag and yet bugzilla.mozilla.org let me report and get fixed a bug in the image layout.
Drop in any image format you want thanks to a standardized image processing interface.
Bug-emulation mode for the horrendously shitty IE and NS browsers.
Extremely modular.
It supports a few platforms... Obscure shit, nothing you'd use, like, oh say...
Linux 2.x
Windows 95/98/OSRx/SPx/Mystery Upgrade X
Windows NT
Solaris Whatever Version
IRIX Whatever Version
Amiga Whatever Ya'll Use
OS/2
MacOS
BeOS
*BSD(?) (linux binary hosting?)
These are not promised, they are either complete or in progress.
Oh and if you've got a few buds and a few weeks you can port the mofo to whatever platform your little heart desires. The GRUNT WORK HAS BEEN DONE. Just give XPCOM a place to set it's feet, hook up some shit, and you're done.
Cost: Free. As in beer, freedom, and bug-free.
Things done right: Technically, almost everything. As GOOD AS IT GETS. Light on memory. Light on cycles. Complete from head to toe. Free. Hackable. Yours. Forever.
****************
Okay, let's clear up a few remaining issues some people still have with this WONDER PROJECT.
"But ironhead, JWZ said it sucked and was dead!"
JWZ unnecessarily badmouthed a project that is about as dead as the sun. He's a great guy I suppose, but taking a leak on a technically excellent project sucked and was in bad form. He will use Mozilla and so will you.
"But ironhead, it's a dead project because no-one is hacking it! It's AOL's project!"
Gee, guess OPEN SOURCE is a code word for AOL DevTeam now. It's an INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT PROJECT TO DO RIGHT and NS/AOL has oh-so-graciously spent a small fortune on giving us the great developers who are intelligently crafting greatest software tool you will get to use this decade. So what if only 30 people are actively involved in the code from the outside. A few tens of thousands are helping in every other way. Millions will use it. NeoPlanet is donating developers now. So are other companies soon. THIS IS A GOOD THING.
"But ironhead, it's slow on my Linux box!"
Well gee, guess we should abort it at pre-alpha stage and live with NS4.. It's called debug code, and NOT OPTIMIZED YET.
"But ironhead, lynx is better!"
It's a tool. So is Mozilla. They do not fight. You can install both and they will never do battle. And grandma doesn't use lynx, does she? We've GOT ROOM FOR BOTH, FOLKS. Actually, we've got room for both four times over after we delete NS4.
"But ironhead, it'll come out too late! Microsoft won!"
JESUS CHRIST! Why do I hear this daily? WHERE IS THE INTERNET GOING FOLKS? Is there an expiration date on HTML? XML? SGML? Linux took 9 years, Windows took 9 years, computers took 40 years... This is only taking a year and it's nearing completion. CHRIST! The only thing that the spread of Internet Explorer is doing is lengthening the amount of time it'll take to phase out RETARDED WEB DESIGN.
"But ironhead, CSS1 is dead!"
PLEASE. PLEASE. Get a clue, look at the source of many sites, and look up a word called INTRANET in the dictionary. Why this one is brought up mystifies me.
"But ironhead, Netscape's browsers suck!"
PLEASE. 80% NEW CODE. OPEN SOURCE. YOURS TO HACK. YOURS TO MODIFY. NOT NETSCAPE, YOU. If Mozilla sucks it's because you have NO SKILLS at programming/hacking and are to be LAUGHED AT and you're happy to crash every 5 minutes with Netscape 4.x.
"I like IEx"
Me too, when in windows. Why dontcha write up a XUL interface in about 5 minutes and make a precise clone of it? That doesn't suck? And won't crash?
"But the build I downloaded broke on my favorite page! Mozilla sucks!"
Well let's see here, why would we have a problem with a PRE ALPHA? HMMMMMMM.... It's either a bug in the largely un-hooked-up javascript, bug elsewhere that you need to report to bugzilla.mozilla.org, non-standards-compliant website coding, or something that just ISN'T FINISHED YET. Perhaps we could read the fscking RELEASE NOTES? The layout engine is almost complete and is a work of art. Plus it has compatibility mode to work around Netscape's and Microsoft's horrible bugs.
***************
A few other things: it is NOT DONE YET. NOT DONE YET. IT WILL NEVER BE DONE AS IT IS OPEN SOURCE.
You may spend as much time as you like writing your own 31337 browser, but if you care to save yourself a few years you may use any COMPONENT OF THE COMPONETIZED, OPEN SOURCE mozilla code.
That's all there is folks. Mozilla.org will be great without your support and extraordinary with it. Please keep turning in bugs, please keep testing out the builds, please keep your MOUTH SHUT if you have opinions like "its dead because microsoft killed it and ie5 is better and mozilla sux cuz it loads up slow the first time.", please keep working towards an internet that has solid technology, open standards, and universal accessibility by all. It's time for javascript trix to step. It's time for crashes to step. It's time for Out Of The Spec HTML and CSSx to work PRECISELY. It's time for no more embarassing layout. It's time for NO MORE BROWSER-VALIDATION. (Does it work in ie3, nope, rewrite!) It's time for open source tools that get the job done right. It's time to stop dicking around with pathetic pseudo-standards. It's time for rock-solid internet browsing services on any platform we choose. It's time for cross compatibility, n-th degree customization, easy extensibility, and incremental debugging.
We have been given a great chance by some visionaries at Netscape to do the internet the Right Way and it doesn't matter how many installs of IEx that MS makes up, OPEN STANDARDS WILL WIN! Please download and start exploring/testing, or wait until a final release is made so you can get hacking.
http://www.mozilla.org
http://www.mozillazine.org
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/m5/
Sheesh, chapter 2 in the morning.
Bugs like "www.pornwithlotsajavascript.com broke" are really lame and sucky. You have not discovered a bug if a site with a lot of graphical/JS doohickery doesn't work. You have discovered a tacky site that needs features that are yet to be hooked up in Mozilla.
e lines.html
Example: "It's slow loading this page" is weak. "It's slow while rendering a png image inside of a box element, as shown in this test file" is submission worthy.
Please read this and the release notes before some poor gal gets assigned a million bajillion "the toolbar hidey buttons don't work" reports.
http://www.mozilla.org/quality/bug-writing-guid
Please also note that posting complaints, or half formed bug reports do virtually no good in the Slashdot forum besides inflaming troll like feelings or pointing developers in directions that they should not be headed in.
More informed users would be better served by checking out the well written bug reporting documentation located here!
I want to die peacefully in my sleep as my grandfather did...
The release notes say you can't add to or edit your bookmarks. This alone would keep me from trying it out. Can anyone verify this, or is it just old data? I would figure bookmarks would be trivial to implement.
In the course of your in-depth investigation, you no doubt discovered that the page in question was authored by Adam Lock, an external contributor.
Speaking for mozilla.org, we really don't mind people using whatever tools they want to write documentation for their contributions. Rumour has it that mozilla needs MS VC++ to compile on Win32, too!
The shame!
Posted by shaver@netscape.com:
You are quite right. My apologies.
Sorry, but well-formedness != valid. Yes, of course expat does well formedness checks - if it didn't it wouldn't be an XML parser. And yes, it does internal entity expansion. That's not the same as external entity expansion, which is really a requirement for more complex DTD's.
:)
,hacker Perl another Just)'
PEntities are parameter entities, another requirement for complex DTD's. I know that expat found well formedness errors in your XUL files, because I was the one logging the bugs about it...
Note though that expat _does_ return enough information to be expandable to support all the above (with the possible exception of validation) - that's how you do it using Perl's XML::Parser.
Matt.
perl -e 'print scalar reverse q(\)-:
Matt. Want XML + Apache + Stylesheets? Get AxKit.
Have a look in the README file in the directory you have to download M5 from:E ADME
ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla/releases/m5/R
It states clearly:
This directory contains precompiled binaries of Mozilla.
These are pre-alpha. They are not thoroughly tested.
If that is advertising their product as a beta then they need a new advertising department.
If you want to comment on this release get your facts straight first.
--
Trying not to troll but...
The original poster goes on to state that "he's just repeating what he's heard" - he makes claims about code quality when he states twice he can't code, he makes claims for compatibility or lack thereof and then admits he doesn't know what he's talking about, and he launches personal attacks on anyone criticising his rambling logic.
Someone moderate it down to -1, please. I don't doubt it's well intentioned, but MS mis-information is bad enough, I'd hope we can not lower ourselves to that level round here.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
>> I really can't understand why anyone would like to punish themselves by not using a GC.
Because memory leaks are only one instance (and are the trivial instance) of a generalised problem, and GC does nothing to solve the more general problem.
The real problem is (I'm going to say objects, but this applies equally to non-OO code, just terminology) when two objects disagree over state. A memory leak is just a single case (one thinks it's free, the other doesn't), but the real serious problems occur when objects aren't initialised, they're initialised twice, they're not saved, they have poorly designed "flux states", they don't notify changes properly, they blindly propogate changes throughout the object-space, etc.
GC does absolutely nothing for this, and, more importantly, no GC "Band-Aid" techniques help with these problems, so I try to write code (and debug) to fix the general problem: the memory leaks are the trivial case - easiest to detect and simplest to fix.
Find me any production program where memory leaks are "the biggest code problem", and I'll show you a project which doesn't even realise where they've really got problems.
I spent a lot of money on booze, birds and fast cars. The rest I just squandered. - George Best
I really hope that this moves the web browser arena forward. There are no adequate web browsers for Linux at this point; Communicator 4.xx is some of the most unstable software I have ever run on a Linux box. Konqueror dosen't support CSS. Gnome MC just plain sucks. I'm left with Lynx. At least it dosen't crash and renders CSS correctly.
It sure would be nice to be able to run that QNX web browser on Linux...
Blah, 40 minutes left. Gotta get me a DSL...
Lynx is one of the best web browsers there is. It supports SSL, so it's better for e-commerce than most commercial browsers available (internationally).
I ate something that disagreed with me. Maybe I should have cooked him first.
No, not ironic...
That page is designed for the Mozilla Active X control, showing mozilla running as a control under IE (yes... its true!!! it does that)
since IE is the only browser that supports Active X, and there FPE allows web designers to insert them easily.... thats all it is..
More likely, that page has been "Cut and Pasted" from another "public" page as a template
Check under Project Sea Monkey. You probably want to see the milestone plan.
There are release notes, too.
Given the ubiquity of memory leaks, why don't more programs use garbage collection? The idea being not to rely on garbage collection, but to let it clean up after your mistakes, because you can't find them ALL. The Boehm-Demers-Weiser conservative garbage collector is such a package for C/C++. (And before everyone jumps all over GC, please read this portion of the GC faq)
"If you need a little chuckle, or just need to see something strange, then read this. In order to see this you will need to download the new Mozilla M5. Go into the directory you unzipped it to, and follow this path:
\x86rel\res\MozillaControl.html
This should open up your browser. Right click the middle of the page and click View Source or whatever you need to click to see the source code of the page. The generator tag said the page was made with Microsoft Frontpage Express 2.0. Even amidst all of the browser wars, Netscape developers must still prefer IE and its components to their own Netscape. Strange, isn't it?"
Note: Stolen from betanews.com
Shortly after I emailed the link to d/l M5 to some friends, one replied with a link to JWZ's resignation. I guess he thought that JWZ leaving meant the death of Mozilla. Tell me if I'm off-base, but here's how I replied:
Losing Zawinski was a great punch in the stomach for Mozilla, but I think by no means is it dead. I think after Mozilla gets over this rocky stage, it will flourish. Here's why:
1. The code is just now becoming something presentable. Too much code done internally made it hard to follow in early releases.
2. People won't contribute until there is something there. I think that the nearer and nearer that Mozilla gets to their target, the more and more people will jump on board. The organization will probably explode when they release the final product, and the general public sees how good it is.
3. Milestone 5 was reached and released yesterday, without Zawinski. Life will go on.
I just thought I would also share my insight with all of you. Let me know your opinion, and thank you for your time. BTW, I am running M5 from my office on Windows NT, and it is pretty cool.
-NG
+--
Given infinite time, 100 monkeys could type out the complete works of Shakespeare.
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
I don't want my browser to crash AND TAKE MY SHELL WITH IT. That alone is reason enough to avoid messing with 'Doze and IE.