Slashdot Mirror
Whither Netscape 5.0?
An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to a Time Digital article (By Nathaniel Wice: Hey man!) about AOL Shelving plans for Netscape 5's release yet this year. So is the browser war really over? Does Mozilla have a chance?
There's a very simple reason people write fud articles like this - they're scared of what might happen if it's true! If Mozilla smashed IE to pieces and toppled the Great Microsoft Empire.. there'd be nothing left to write about. :)
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I've got an even better idea. Why don't they hire some damn developers and get the thing out the door? I would willingly pay for a decent browser for Linux and I bet tons of other people would too...
First of all, hiring more new developers in an ad-hoc attempt to add more bodies to the project, would probably slow development down, not speed it up. This is a large complex project which requires that it's developers be knowedgable about its internal specifics; that is something one cannot buy off the street either from contractors or new employees. Secondly, Microsoft has already proven one cannot sell browsers as they now own our "air supply"... IOW: as long as MS gives away Explorer, there's little money to be had in selling a competing browser -- I certainly don't see Opera gaining significant market share other than in the embedded market.
[snipped previous posters "how to help" comment]
You know I already have a job, I don't need to do free QA for one of the largest companies in the world. I don't know why anyone else would either.
Mozilla is "Free Software" for real. If you're unwilling to even minimally help support free software by simply running a nightly or even a Milestone build, and reporting your success or failure back, then you have nothing to complain about regarding the project pace. I've been pretty damn impressed with the quality of the Mozilla builds under Linux and fully expect a quality beta browser in the next couple of months.
Of course, you could just be trolling for flames...
I wish I knew the answer to this. Apple has been taking a lot of heat in the Mac press for the UI on this product.
Really, it is a fine piece of software. No, it is not yet up to the stability levels we have come to expect. No, it is not on time (hello? W2K?) But it is featurful, standards compliant, and has a lot going for it, and I think anyone who actually runs a nightly binary (as I do 90% of the time) will see that. Furthermore, they are very responsive- I filed a bug report (li tags used by my favorite site were handled not quite correctly) and had it fixed within a week. It is already good, and will continue to get that way with your feedback. Go and grab a copy...
~luge (who is in a rush for class, thus the slight incoherence....)
IAAL,BIANLY
Has AOL actually announced that Mozilla is being discontinued? Is there an official press release somewhere? Did this reporter even bother to check for a source before engaging in what appears to be blind speculation about the future of Mozilla?
I didn't think so. Until we can answer "yes" to these questions, let's not panic.
Meanwhile, I am eagerly awaiting a stable release of the new mozilla...
Is not slapping the "5.0" version number on what was released as Netscape Communicator 4.5.
Think about it. Sure, techies would have derided the numbering a bit, and there would have been some confusion, but nobody would be talking about Netscape being dead/browser wars being over/Mozilla a failure.
So, today, Netscape 5.2 (4.7) would have recently started shipping while IE is still back at version 5.0, and people would be talking about how Mozilla is shaping up to be a major advance in browser technology and development methodology even if it's being delayed for a while.
And it even would have been truer to the original Mozilla roadmap, since the 4.5/4.6/4.7 series is descended from the old codebase like 5.0 was originally intended to be, and Netscape 6.0 was originally going to be the first NGLayout-based version of Netscape.
you dumb shit. Mac OS is dead not the other way around. MacOS 9 is the last MacOS that apple is going to ship. MacOS X is now totally unix
Clueless idiot. Have you seen any of the developer releases for Mac OS X? Let me tell you, the UI is essentially identical to Mac OS 9. In fact Mac OS 9 has the ability to run Carbon apps using the same UI that Mac OS X runs.
Sorry about the strong headline but I'm personally fed up with articles like these. Mozilla was delayed for one reason - they originally tried to base an open source project on their terrible Communicator codebase. They worked for months on that and nearly had a shipping version but they decided to scrap it and rewrite the browser totally. Now although it's nearly a year 'late' at least we're getting a small (5 MB) and standards compliant browser rather than yet another bloated released based on Communicator.
I wouldn't say Mozilla is ready yet and has a few months to go but the progress has been much improved the past few months and external developers are starting to get involved. Look at http://www.mozilla.org/ and check the weekly status updates, check http://www.mozillazine.org/ for more up to date news. There's a lot going on. Open source didn't prove to be the ultimate solution for Netscape, the couldn't release the source and suddenly get a top class browser. They had to improve the code before anyone would go near it and that's what they have done. It's took them longer than expected because they didn't understand that people wouldn't hack on any crap. They've got their act together and are doing well.
There are a number of ways to help.
1) Contribute patches and bug fixes
2) Provide testcases for bugfixes (The Gecko bugathon)
3) Rate bugs in order of importance.
4) Download builds regualrly to test them.
Read the getting involved document on mozilla.org for more ideas.
Mozilla is not dead, it's coming back to life.
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>Our Mac guy told me that part of the deal MS
>conviced Apple to agree to forced IE to be
>included with recent MacOS cd's in exchange for
>the creation of a Macintosh version of MS Office.
>Can anyone verify this?
Yep. This has come out in the anti-trust trial. MS basically said that they had a mostly functional version of Office 98 ready and waiting, and they'd only release it if Apple agreed to drop their lawsuits against them (I believe for the whole Quicktime code stealing thing, maybe some of the UI theft things, etc). As a show of goodwill - heh - Microsoft would also make an investment in Apple (not much) and release O98. I believe Microsoft also wanted Apple to simply GIVE UP on QuickTime and let them have that market. Obviously, Apple didn't give in on that. However, it was only after this deal that Apple started bundling IE as the 'default browser'.
Testimony in the case by Avie Tevanian (head engineer at Apple) and yet another revealing email between MS execs show Microsoft at guilt. I believe the quote from the email was that witholding Office 98 would be 'the perfect club' to use against Apple.
Grr. Luckly, unlike Windows users, we can toss IE into the trash.
- Darchmare
- Axis Mutatis, http://www.axismutatis.net
- Jeff
I'll say one thing, Netscape has really gone down the tubes. The Mac version of 4.7 has serious bugs in it that were known two years ago, and have not been fixed. Mostly Netscape seems to be fixated on adding AIM and Shopping buttons and sending you too Netscape Center. Mac users by nature are anti-Microsoft, but the fact of the matter is that IE is continuing to gain share on the Mac.
This is really important to note because Microsoft doesn't have the same stranglehold on which browser gets installed on the Mac like they do on the PC. Damnit I hate MS and IE, but the fact is that Netscape has really fallen behind technically. I hope Mozilla really does turn into a good competitor to IE. It's crucial in the long run for Linux to be a good desktop machine.
> How about standard compliance? Mozilla is completely standard compliant, easing web developers a real lot on developing applications which works on all browsers. ... ...
> How about XUL?
> How about being built as a library...
> How about XML support?
> How about a more open architecture?
> How about a more open development model?...
How about a browser?
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
So why aren't you predicting the death of Quicktime 4 while you're at it? The interface for it is so bad, it got itself a whole column in the Interface Hall of Shame
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Don't take this at as a troll comment, but telling him to add the features isn't very usefull. I'm sure there are many people that like a particular feature of IE over netscape or mozilla, so they use IE. I for example like the way IE pops up quicker than netscape or mozilla( I know it adds overhead, but my machine can take it). If the features of IE were available in mozilla or netscape I'd use them, but they arent. I dont have the skill to add the feature I'd like, and I don't have the time to learn them.
treke
I'm about as sick of these "Mozilla is a failure", "Netscape is dead" stories as I am of hearing Larry Ellison spouting off about once every six months for the last six or seven years, "The PC is dead. Network computing is the future!"
As long as people continue to use it and work on it, it won't die.
Besides, the reason it's taking so long is because it's a quantum leap over what Netscape 4.x is. Not just adding a few more fancy buttons on the same-old same-old as Netscape and MSIE have been since their versions 1.x.
I am personally very happy using and will continue to use Mozilla.
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My mom's going to kick you in the face!
What good does it do to work in the user experience if the back-end code is shifting out from underneath it?
Ah, a perfect example of the linux mind set. I wrote about this in a post here a while back. It's all about power v. ease-of-use. This statement betrays the underlying theme: "Power/function is everything. You do it first, then do UI."
Of the three OS paradigms that matter today: *nix, WinXX, & MacOS, we see a clear lineage. Unix: Power is everything, UI is secondary. Mac: UI is everything, power is secondary. And WinXX: Try to split the difference (often losing both, sometimes hitting a nice balance).
When I write an app, I usually spend MORE time interviewing users, having them look at possible UI's, etc., then coding the "power." In other words, I do it FIRST.
Just my 2 cents......DO NOT DISTURB THE SE
I'd say that Mozilla represents Netscape's recent development efforts. It is rapidly becoming much more stable, configurable, and small.
If you want a better browser, the tools are there. Work on Mozilla. If you can't or won't, you can test Mozilla, and submit bug reports to the people who are willing to work.
Anyone who won't do any of these things shouldn't be so quick to complain about lack of progress.
I didn't say closed source didn't work I was trying to criticise the validity of the article. The exact same reasons they were using to say that open source didn't work could have been used to say closed source didn't work. Basically saying that the article was totally wrong.
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I wish people would stop blathering about Mozilla/netscape's death, and download it (or cvs) try it, and submit bug reports to the developers. Atleast that way you'll be doing something helpful. I try to make a new build atleast once or twice a week, and for the most part mozilla is running pretty well on my system (Debian Potato)
So just give it a shot, and help the developers out.
And if you're not willing to help, then shut up.
Mike
Tigger's like to read
If for no other reason than to support diversity period. A world with only one browser, that made by Microsoft, is a very sad world indeed. If you think Netscape is bad, then wait 5 years and see what IE devolves into without any competition.
However, I've been very impressed with recent Mozilla builds. It's still not ready for prime time, but then again, Netscape 4.5 and later aren't either. If there's any "last best hope" for standards compliance, diversity, and non Microsoft dominance, it's Mozilla.
"The number of suckers born each minute doubles every 18 months."
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Mozilla will change a lot of things.
I had just checked out one of the Linux nightly builds the other day (which was partially broken), and I was quite impressed. Very nice features, not TOO much bloat. The rendering was VERY fast, the new networking code works MUCH better than NS 4.x, and I was able to use it for quite a while before running into any problems. Very good for Alpha quality code.
This is just part of the latest rash of anti-opensource articles. It will pass, just like all the articles from last year about Linux. When Mozilla is done, it may actually be Open Source's finest hour.....
It seems that with the anti-trust case ond other cases wrapping up that MS has more PR resources available. Its not so much in the info as in the spin. The info in the article is that the release day is slipped. The Slashdot mentions that this means Mozilla is shelved (Slashdot loves creating contraversy). Many have pointed out that win 2k (which was demonstrated to me almost two years ago as NT 5) has slipped also. But Netscape is touted as a failure and win2k is ensuring stability. I beleive this is more evident with Mozilla, even to completely rewriting it to comply better with different standards, as well as all the debugging tools developed and released for it. We have no idea what the hold up is for Microsoft. The article mentions releasing the souce code as a sublstitute for in house qualified staff, while JWZ (among others) mentions that it better serves the purpose of developing in a fishbowl. You get the benifit of many opinions, and bug fixes from other qualified people. The product is better, more stable and faster developed, but a substitute for your own workers I'm not sure it was ever intended to be that. Some might have dreamed that, but I don't think it was intended. Oh well, people who want a good browser will still help develop Mozilla and others. JWZ pointed out on many occationsh that open source means (essentialy) that it will never die unless we ourselves put it on the shelf.^ ~
^~~^~^^~~^~^~^~^^~^^~^~^~~^^^~^^~~^~~~^~~
So the delay of Mozilla has meant Netscape has lost the browser war has it. I think I'd better become a reporter.
Microsft have officialy lost the OS war due to the delay in releasing their closed source operating system called Windows 2000 which was originally due out in the beginning of the year. Microsoft had originally called Windows 2000 NT5 and expected it to be released in 98, then 99, then who knows.
Insiders inside the Microsoft Corporation said this was to make sure they had integrated their messenger with every component of the operating system and also to add new features to control the user interface (e.g. a colour picker to change the colour of the screen of depth). This is one of a series of delays for Microsoft products since their experimentation with closed source in the seventies. This proves that closed source does not work.
Now you don't see many articles saying that, so why do you see that about Mozilla?
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A lot of people have mentioned Lynx as an alternative browser to Netscape. I agree with this, Lynx is small, fast, stable, and efficient at what it does. The problem with it isn't necessarily that it can't display images(most images on the web serve no purpose, important ones can be viewed with another application), but that it is not good when it comes to laying out tables and frames(doesn't do it). There's another browser called W3M, which can be configured with a lynx-like interface. In fact, I'm using W3M right now!
I tried it several months ago and it worked really crappy. But recently(with the last release, in fact) the table layout engine was revised and I am amazed at how well it can render text. The Slashdot homepage looks fairly decent, and right now it is very navigable.
Of course there are problems with it: I don't think cookies are implemented properly, you have to wait for the whole page to load before you view it, and theres a lot of minor glitches. But for those geeks who want an alternative to Netscape, want to browse for text (but are fed up with Lynx), grab a copy of W3M and try it yourself(do a search on Freshmeat). I think you'll agree with me that this puppy has a lot of potential. (Similar goal to the Opera text browser, but this is GPLed!) It's getting better with each release.
Also, on the GUI side, I like Konqueror(the kde browser). Sure it's not perfect, but especially with the upcoming KDE 2.0, we'll have a great package that will be usable for anyone. So yes, there are good alternatives to Netscape! Don't worry about whether 5.0 is released or not! We'll defeat them with our own browser.
Linux: Long live the source code.
"I have read The Mythical Man-Month myself and I agree with you to a certain point. However, I must be missing something here, if adding paid contractors or employees will only slow the project down, doesn't allowing anyone to see the source and contribute do the same thing? Whether the person is paid or not, donesn't adding additonal developers in any form do the same thing?"
This is an important point I think. A major thrust of ESR's CatB essay is that Linux violated Brooke's Law (from MMM), surprising a lot of people who thought they understood large software project management. This is what lead to the concept of a bazaar model. I believe the trick is that *when* the code is well organized and well written, new developers organize themselves and just start chipping in on corners of the code that interest them. The O(N**2) communication problem doesn't arise because not much communication is needed after some initial organizing and at patch submission times.
Netscape, unfortunately, had just suffered rapid expansion in a browser war and from what I hear was not in a sufficiently organized state to support bazaar development well. Hence rewriting was undertaken, and this does involve problems with communication scaling that could easily be predicted to take a while. I am hopeful for the results though. Often being written again after having made mistakes with a first version is the best thing that can happen to software.
I've seen too many software projects, including my own, take longer than expected. I'm not going to harass Mozilla over delays. When they release a stable beta I'll start forming an opinion and help as much as I can with feedback. Until then, I'm going to assume they know what they're about. If they don't, there's little I could say that would do much good in any case.
Quote:
"Netscape's parent, America Online, has quietly put off the release of Netscape Communicator 5.0."
This means delay, not kill.
Also, the article is a mirror of a recent, possibly inaccurate, C|NET, anti-Mozilla article. The author claimed the 'e-mail/instant messenger' feature, which is NOT part of Mozilla. Mozilla will have a IM component, but not integrated with the e-mail. Netscape may have other plans, but AS WE ALL KNOW!!!! Netscape != Mozilla, especially recently.
Development on Mozilla is continuing on, and while it has been delayed by about 1 month, things are still looking very good, especially on the Linux end.
jf
Once upon a time, Netscape was good. Back in the days of 2.0 and 3.0. It was fast, and it worked. I think 4.0x did too many bad things to netscape, which made it much slower than anything else. However, IE was useless in the beginning. (1.x was non-functional, 2.0 was barely functional. 3.0 was somewhat usable. [On the side: What's up with M$ not making a usable thing until v3.x? I.e. in both the case of Win3.1 and NT 3.5]) But I've never liked IE's setup, and I really *hate* the idea of a browser being integrated into the OS. Sure, it pops up almost instantaneously in Win98, but that means it's lurking around eating up memory or swap space. Plus, how do I know it's not doing something evil in the background?
Netscape has always annoyed me with the lack of advanced settings, since they considered it "advanced" to change the cache size. I want to be able to tweak it and say what I want it to and not want it to use(More than just picking to block javascript and such)..
Something I would like to see, I haven't checked out mozilla source, or any other browser, but wouldn't it be nice to just compile the options you really want? So that you can shring memory requirements and loading time? That would certianly make me happy...
This message is priced at $0.02. Thank you.
http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-808813.html
Paul Festa, writer of the above CNet piece, is not known for his kind words to Netscape.
Had either Paul or the writer of the TIME article actually did *any* research whatsoever, they would have found that Mozilla is chugging right along, and gaining more and more "third-party" support as time goes on.
It astounds me that /. readers are not only _not_ reading the contents of the TIME article before posting their opinions here, they aren't even reading Taco's piece correctly (and somehow coming to the conclusion that Communicator has been shelved completely). I would suggest checking out Mozilla.org, or mozillazine.org, or a nightly mozilla build before making comments about its demise. Ignorant badmouthing does the Open Source community no good. Even Linus T. made unqualified comments about Mozilla the other day. Seems like y'all *want* Mozilla to fail.
Have _you_ ever looked at the code? mozilla dropped the classic code base almost entirely.
No they guy said they need to kick out the releases. You have to be able to read his defunct grammer, which is almost as bad as mine. But I think the guy meant kick out = release. So lets translate and review shall we.
However, to be realistic, the only way that AOL/Netscape can succeed with 5.0 is if they release the Linux and Mac versions REAL SOON. Without the non-MS OS (linux) crowd, they're doomed.
I tried it for BeOS, and it looked pretty good.
:-)
I know nobody wants to pay for a browser, but you did just tell me you might.
In any event, the Mozilla people will keep on trudging towards release, and it certainly looks like they'll eventually come up with a nice product, whether Netscape offically releases it or not.
Of course the browser wars are never lost as long as people use platforms other than Windows(tm) and MacOS(tm).
D
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> I'll be patiently waiting for a decent browser for Linux. I'd even pay for it
Hopefully Mozilla will meet your needs it's a bit quicker than Netscape (hopefully that'll be much quicker once the debug code is removed) at starting up and definitely quicker than rendering.
Personally I've had very little problem with Netscape on Linux apart from it's a bit slow, it rarely crashes. The same goes for Mozilla but it may crash regularly on your machine so I advise you to test mozilla on your machine so that all the bugs are ironed out and we have a really stable browser when it is released.
If Mozilla doesn't meet your needs hopefully we'll have opera along for Linux soon but Mozilla is shaping up nicely as far as I'm concerned.
I'd like to see IE for Linux just to keep competition healthy. They couldn't kill off Netscape (although they nearly did) so they can't kill Mozilla as it's open source. If Microsoft entered the Linux world with IE we'd see peoples motives even higher to produce a better web browser.
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I saw your brilliant observation regarding bookmarks and decided to give IE a try. I must be dumb, though, 'cuz I can't get it to work. You are obviously a genius, so I figure you can help me make IE work. The error I get is:
./iexplore.exe: cannot execute binary file
bash:
Have you seen that before? How do I make IE work? Please help, I don't want to go on another day without the great and wonderful IE.
You'll often read reviews lambasting a Mac program because the "Preferences" menu choice isn't in the expected place (Edit menu), or copy has the wrong keyboard chortcut (Command-C), or because it uses a Windows bring-over (tooltips), or even because the application's menus are using an old WDEF so they appear in black and white instead of MacOS 8-style grayscale (Netscape).
We're picky, and we value our user experience.
This is why Mozilla will fail on the Mac. A completely reinvented set of controls? Not a single button that looks like a Mac user would expect? I came across some windows in Mozilla 5 that didn't even use the standard MacOS-style *scrollbars* or resize gadgets! Everything looked all Windows-y. Every single nuance of Mozilla, from top to bottom, is completely un-Mac; to those of us whom love the Mac for the UI, it's about the biggest slap in the face a software company can give. Mozilla will be discarded as "shovelware", a bad port that's mainly Unix and Windows-centric.
Internet Explorer, on the other hand, seems to understand the Mac user. They're adopting MacOS technologies left and right (Sherlock, translucent drag images, consistent drag and drop). They're extremely careful to adapt MacOS Appearance controls (nice shaded list views, buttons that look how they're supposed to look.) The whole thing feels and woks like Mac program should.
I understand the reasons behind the Mozilla interface. Totally configurable! Totall customizable! To me, it sounds like a nightmare in waiting. A parable: with MacOS 8.5, Apple engineers devised a way to swap out practically any interface element with another to create colorful and unique "themes". Zany windows, hi-tech windows, unique shapes. At the last minute, this feature was pulled, and has never been seen since. While Mac users were upset, the reason was simple: consistency in an experience is important. Just because I can have a "hilarious" South Park browser, doesn't mean that's a good thing for most users.
To conclude, I offer a bit of sadness: Mozilla 5 is the first release of Mozilla I don't care about. I remember the glory days of constantly checking the netscape FTP servers for a new version of Netscape (back in the 1.x 2.x days). I remember voraciously pouring through release notes, excitied about what I can make my web pages do. But now? It doesn't matter. A program designed by engineers, with features only an engineer could love, not a user.
It's dead.
Full screen browsing has never worried me (I can get rid of all the buttons and just have the title bar showing which is good enough for me).
But if you want the feature (which you seem to do) then please put an enhancement request in at Mozilla.org. First of all please check bugzilla to see if such a request has already been made (it probably has) and if it hasn't then submit a 'bug' report but categorize it as an 'Enhancement' so they know it's not really a bug it's a feature (request). More info on how to do this is at mozilla.org, just make sure you mark the bug report as an enhancement request rather than an actual bug.
You may then want to report the 'bugs' id number so people here who also want the feature can vote for it.
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XUL which is used by Mozilla to customise every aspect of the user interface is responsible for the look and feel of the Netscape browser and allows the user to apply skins to cusomise the look of their browser and this INCLUDES all the widgets (buttons, etc) as they're using their own XP toolkit.
This means that Netscape can release a Mac skin as the default with their Mac version and a Windwos skin with their win version and whatever with their UNIX version (we linke many skins!!).
At the moment it's just easier to ship one skin.
I seriously doubt the Netscape branded Mozilla will look like what you've got now.
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...why did Apple release QuickTime 4.0?
In it's current state, I mean.
It violates a lot of the so-called interface rules of a mac. Not a single button that a Mac user would expect seems to be the case for QuickTime 4.
But maybe I'm wrong, since I don't have access to a Mac. The PC version is stupidly designed and lacks sane control structure.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it" - F. Voltaire.
Sorry for the rant, but I'm fed up with all the disinformation on mozilla. Even our key advocates have been quoted as trashing it recently, which really bothers me.
slashdot broke my sig
Top 15 Possible Reasons Netscape Communicator 5 is Delayed
(Of course, I'm not saying I 100% believe it has been delayed. I don't recall seeing a source on that article. But anyway....)
15. But they aren't done adding One... More... Feature! (IRC? WTF? Just gimme a browser that doesn't crash all the time under X.)
14. The Netscape campus has been invaded by communist squirrels.
13. The remaining bugs are on strike for better health benefits.
12. It is in accordance with prophecy.
11. It has been proven by scientists that the web causes cancer (what doesn't?), and the browser will not be released until further knowledge on the matter has been obtained.
10. Mozilla is caught in a subspace neutrino field distortion.
9. They're trying to put down a peasant revolt against AOL.
8. The developers are too busy playing Quake.
7. Communicator 5 was actually released in May. Everyone else has happily been using it for months now. We just didn't know how else to tell you that we don't like you.
6. They're arranging the code so that delays will be easier to conduct in the future.
5. Future looks cloudy, ask again.
4. Browser? What browser?
3. They're all drunk.
2. Too busy making smartass excuses instead of coding.
1. It's all your fault. Now get out there and beta test!
We want endless gardens of data, where the bits can flower, flourish and reproduce. -- Andy Mueller-Maguhn
You don't understand the reasons behind Mozilla's interface. The interface was implemented the way it was so that they could maintain one codebase with very little native code. In addition, the CSS2 and later specs essentially require that things like buttons, form-fields, drop-down menus, etc. be implemented by non-native controls, because the specs require them to do things that non-native controls can't do (change opacity, for example).
Please attempt to inform yourself about Mozilla before making such disparaging comments. You've used a pre-beta build that has had little or no work done on the user experience, because they've been focusing on getting the back-end code running properly. What good does it do to work in the user experience if the back-end code is shifting out from underneath it?
These issues will be addressed, but you can express your concern in the Mozilla newsgroups, and let the developers know how you feel. That's much more constructive criticism than what you attempted here.
Mozilla.org isn't 'saddled' with anything from AOL (referring to Instant Messenger). I think AOL IM is GREAT and the relatively minor task of integrating that support into the browser is real easy thanks to our open modular architecure. In fact, it's already been hacked on by third parties, who have, incidentally, also gotten IRC to work in the same framework.
Anti-mozilla articles have plagued the project since the beginning. That's why it's important to only release the Beta when it's ready, and not before. Its important to make a good impression with the first beta. After the beta is released, who will remember all the nay-sayers like Mr Wood who wrote their crap?
Here's how you can help make the first beta great:
Signed
Netscape Engineer
As far as I'm concerned, Mozilla is doing the right thing - standards complaince. Yeah its late as hell, and by the time it comes out, there might be an IE 6 release (or shall we say...bloat?). Mozilla is focused on releasing a small modular browser that follows standards.
The largest problem with the web is poor support for w3 standards. After you look over webpages created with CSS2/CSS and HTML 4, you'll wonder why its taken so long for somebody to actually implement the standards. While technology has been so important for the first few releases, the standards are more important in the development of the web now.
If there is one thing that Linux and the Internet has taught us, it is that open standards are good for the consumer and for the developer. If nobody follows standards, even browsers, then what happens is fragmentation. In other words, Mozilla is the right way instead of moving towards poor compliance.
Finally, lets remember that Mozilla is a very ambitious project and does have a chance to dominate the browser wars once stable and released. Lets look at it this way - Mozilla is designed to be modular and cross platform. Necko, XUL, Jabber, so much good and hardly any bad.
I know that when N5 does finally come out, developers will jump on it because it does support standards. Websites will be more attractive, easier to design, easier to read, and what else?
...and N4's CSS implentation is the worst...
simon
We should dump this whole net concept, which will be eventually be owned by M$, and go back to the good old days of archie, gopher, vernoica, nntp. Who needs these blinking advertisements brainwashing us 24 hrs a day. Give the net back to the people, specifically back to the super-spaz's, who created it in the first place. They mall and the boob-tube are still there for the idiotic rest of them
ZZZ
IE hasn't won the war. They won a huge battle and have a lot of marketshare, but Mozilla has a better chance in the long term:
1/ Non MS platforms are going to become more important. Linux, Mac, Pamltops, Set-tops. Mozilla/Netscape 5.0 will dominate these markets. Windows may never go away, but it's days of 90% market share are numbered.
2/ AOL will push Netscape on it's user base. They can't afford to let MS embrace and extend the Internet, so you can bet that 20M or so AOL users will be using Netscape by the end of 2001.
3/ Mozilla will be technically superior to IE. That's why it's taken so long. Try the browser - it's fast, standards complient, and Open Source. It might have taken a while to get rolling, but individuals and companies outside of Netscape are starting to add features and use components for their own projects.
I don't know if Netscape will ever get back their dominent position, but that doesn't really matter. What does matter is that there will be a robust, cross-platform, standards complient alternative to IE with considerable market share (at least 35%). That's all that we need to keep MS honest and be able to surf effectively from our favourite OS.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
So what? As has been stated before, netscape is delayed, not dead.
Remember the days when IE was the underdog? IE 2.0 was a seriously junior league bit of code. Then bam! out of the blue comes ie 3 (or 4?) and suddenly netscape begins to lose market share.
My point is, there is still plenty of room for netscape to manuver and come out on top. There is still plenty of time for another browser to appear out of nowhere and take over.
It's just a matter of a group of people sitting down to write a good software architecture. Maybe Netscape has done this with their code rewrite. Maybe Opera did this from the start. I dunno.
Think of the "browser war" as a soccer tournament. Netscape's losing at halftime during the first game of a tournament. Opera and the K browser got bye's through the first round.
So, are you the guy watching from the sidelines, or are you going to grab a bucket of water for the tired players? YOu can whine, or you can jump on mozilla, or the k browser, or any number of browser projects.
"You want to kiss the sky? Better learn how to kneel." - U2
"It was like trying to herd cats..." - Robert A. Heinlein
Sig:
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