Mozilla M10 Released

pangloss writes "On the heels of the "Whither Netscape 5.0?" story comes M10. Proxies are working. Check out the release notes or the brief blurb at MozillaZine, which cites the new beta release date (12/15/99). Cheers to the Mozilla Team!"

Comments

Mosaic 0.9 to Mozilla M10...a look back.

[Money__]

What have they accomplished? How for have they gotten? What have they contributed to the comunity? Lets step back for a second and look at the big picture.

This is he original press release of Mosiac 0.9 in 1994, just 5 short years ago. Mosiac featured , among other things, "Native support for the JPEG image format"(which was a big deal at the time!)

One of the more interesting quotes in a Wired article is one of the First Review of Mosiac 0.9 (a fantastic,sometimes funny, look back in time) features some quotes from then VP of technology Marc Anreesen. "If the company does well, I do pretty well," says Andreessen. "If the company doesn't do well" - his voice takes on a note of mock despair - "I work at Microsoft."

In just 5 years, Netscape has helped redefine the IT landscape, and has forced a lot of people to look again at the multi-platform delevopment model. As they rewrite the code base for the 21st centrury, Lets not be so hard on the team that has given so much.

What Mozilla is (for those who don't know)

[robinjo]

Less than 50 posts and I can already read how Mozilla is buggy, how it's late and how IE is better. Maybe some of you haven't been following the Mozilla development? I'd like to clarify a few things for you.

Mozilla is still very much alpha. It means that there's a lot of bugs. M10 is definitely not for daily use. These milestones are released so that we can try them, report bugs and take part in the development process. If you don't want to do it, then you're better off with an old Netscape or MSIE.

Those of us who do know programming understand really well why Mozilla is special. That's because programmers usually know to pay attention to basics. In Mozilla I see a really small browser which supports standards really well and has a really fast renderer. It's way more important at this point than having a beautiful screen or flawless scrolling.

I'd like to talk more about programming big projects. I've been working on a big project for a year now and customers are amazed as I can't show anything yet. That's because I've been concentrating on building tools - a compact database, fast and versatile search engine and lot's of controls. When these are working well, it's really fast to build the application and it will be fast, reliable and small. This is exactly what these guys at Netscape have been doing too.

Many say that the browser war is over. It's not as the internet is a moving target. We'll get new complicated technologies and browsers have to support them well. As the renderer in Mozilla is done well, it's easy to make Mozilla support these technologies. It wouldn't have been possible with Netscape4 or the code that the Mozilla team dumped when they decided to start from scratch. And as MSIE is a huge program, it probably also hides a lot of bad code which makes developing it worse.

As I see it: Mozilla will probably be ready in the first quarter. It will still be small and fast and I'll definitely love to use it.

Re:What Mozilla is (for those who don't know)

[Analog]

Keep in mind as well that many 'portal' sites and isps like to have their own customized browsers available. Mozilla has this functionality built into its very core, and it seems they have at least tried to make it easy to use. Couple this with the lack of licensing fees, and I think that this may be one of the biggest markets for Mozilla.

Re:What Mozilla is (for those who don't know)

[jflynn]

You're probably right that people aren't going to switch from IE on Windows in droves. The whole concept of downloading and installing software is foreign to much of the user base. And about one in ten times you try it, Windows stops working from DLL incompatibilities and you need to uninstall, or worse, re-install Windows. People learn to leave well enough alone. While IE is not perfect, it certainly works well enough. The best hope in that market is being able to convince system vendors to put a Mozilla icon on the desktop.

However, the situation for Linux and some other OSes isn't like that. I can easily see Mozilla rapidly capturing nearly all of that market. Then Mozilla gains market share as Linux does. This is enough of a presence to restrain incompatible web standards I hope.

Don't winge, download mozilla first...

[stewart.hector]

I've just tried M10, and have to say, i'm impressed.

I've now tried M7,8,9 and now 10, and each version just gets better and better. Its not release quality yet, but, the differences between each milestone is a leap forward.

I hope AOL doesn't stop mozilla, because it would be an absolute shame. This has got the potential to be the best browser around, certinely better than the 90megs+ of the full internet explorer download.

I'll look forward to using it regularly - I couldn't use it yet, too many bugs in it - remember, its not even a beta release yet. But, they will be fixed.

Finally, I was reading a previous post, where it said it was 6meg. I'd forgotten about that: the point is 6megs for everything that netscape currently does.. and more. It will be the most compatible browser around for html, javascript and xml standards...

Compare Mozilla size to IE5... ah! makes you laugh - microsoft, big and bloated.

Mozzilla is shaping up very nicely.

If your one of the ones moaning about how long its taken, its only 6meg, doesn't take long to download, bare in mind its not even beta release, and think about its potential.

Mozilla is a toolbox

[Per Abrahamsen]

>In other words, give me the toolbox to build my
>own browser, instead of a complete browser.

But that is what you have got! There are already several projects out there using only parts of the Mozilla toolbox, in particular the layout engine is popular.

However, we still need Mozilla as a flagship and showcase for the wonderful components of the toolbox.

GPL vs. NPL and MPL

[Per Abrahamsen]

MPL is mostly similar to the LGPL, i.e. you can link it with closed source projects, but changes to the MPL files themselves must be open.

NPL gives some extra rights to Netscape. They had to use this because of contracts with third parties, who were allowed to use future versions of Netscape Navigator source in total closed source products. But even if this hadn't been the case, I'd find it a fair reward for the work and money they have put into Mozilla.

Netscape is quite cooperative, for example they have released their Javascript implementation under a dual MPL/GPL license, presumably because some GPL'ed project needed it.

There are plenty of GPL'ed browser projects, but I think they are mostly a waste of time. Mozilla is both open source and free software by the RMS/BP/ESR definitions of the terms.

M10... but out of 19..

[t--f-c]

I can agree that the mozilla project is making progress but you have to ask yourself, how much longer? The milestone map only goes to february 2000 for milestone 13, but for some reason I want to say a previous milestone map was more optomistic than that, anyone know?

toufic

Missing the point.

[peterb]

I'd just like to point out that if Microsoft had spent this long releasing a long-awaited product (like, say....Windows 2000?) the release of a new beta would be an opportunity to mock them rather than celebrate them.

Look, I like the Mozilla guys as much as anyone, but as far as the release of an integrated browser goes, "everybody knows the war is over, everybody knows that the good guys lost."[1]. There are already free (as in free beer) browsers available for every platform. In terms of importance to the open source community, a project to release small, documented, interchangable browser components freely (as in free speech) would be of much greater value.

In other words, give me the toolbox to build my own browser, instead of a complete browser.

[1] Leonard Cohen, "Everybody Knows"

Re:Missing the point.

[Guy Harris]

Mozilla is a bunch of guys who write code in their spare time for the general good of the community.

Umm, that's not true of all of them. To quote the "Who We Are" page on the mozilla.org Web site:

The members of mozilla.org are employees of Netscape Communications Corporation. We are some of the people who wrote Netscape Communicator. We are the people who know the code best, since (until March 31st) we were among the very small set of people who have ever seen it.

As time goes by, it will no longer be the case that the people who know the code best are necessarily people who are also employed by Netscape Communications Corporation; we intend to delegate authority over the various modules to the people most qualified to make decisions about them. We intend to operate as a meritocracy: the more good code you contribute, the more responsibility you will be given. We believe that to be the only way to continue to remain relevant, and to do the greatest good for the greatest number.

...

Netscape is paying our salaries, and providing hardware and bandwidth in the hope of making mozilla.org a success.

Other than that, Netscape's role is the same as yours: Netscape writes code, and makes use of code written by others. Netscape will contribute new code back to the public just as others will.

(emphasis mine). Has the situation changed since that was written, such that the folks on Mozilla with e-mail addresses ending with "@netscape.com" aren't being paid by Netscape^H^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAOL to work on Mozilla?

That page also says that

Netscape will also continue to provide an executable-only release of Mozilla that bears the "Netscape" brand (e.g., the name "Netscape Communicator."

which, if still true, may mean that there's at least some extent to which a development project by a commercial entity depends on Mozilla, and might put some pressure on Mozilla to have schedules, etc..

However

They are not looking for a profit.

is, to some extent, presumably true, as AOL will probably be giving Netscape {Navigator,Communicator} 5.0 away, just as they're giving 4.x away. However, that's also true of Internet Explorer, if you treat it as a separate program rather than a pile of OS/GUI COM objects to provide HTML display and Internet access, plus a browser wrapper around those objects (if you treat it as the latter - which is true only in Windows - then you could view its developers as part of the Windows OT and Windows NT development teams, I guess).

Mozilla (and M10) is a really, really big deal

[neilv]

Netscape once had 100% of the market. Now they don't. They still are the browser of choice for over one third of the internet population, which is what now, 100M?

Now, if you look at your server logs, you'll notice something pretty interesting - users of MIE form a "normal" bell curve - they're distributed from 2.0 to 5.0, with the biggest bump at 4.x. But all the netscape users cluster around the latest distrubition, and virtually all of them are using 4.x. OK, to be fair, "you're" server logs means across the board (I imagine slashdot's server logs break every curve).

So what? So, when Netscape 5.0 is done, and it works great, people will upgrade. 30 million people. This is a major milestone (to my mind) for the open source community - linux is in the purview of a very (dare I say select) few, but Netscape is centered squarely in midstream.

Now, you can argue that Mozilla isn't true open source, but you'd be needling semantics, and missing the big picture: A major company which makes a mainstream product is using public and volunteer help to develop a product that a major percentage of the internet, and indeed the US population are currently using, to say nothing of the rest of the planet....

Linus may have been the prime mover, but Netscape is taking the concept (and the result) to the streets.

I think that's worth crowing about.

neil

What happened to the BeOS port?

[grappler]

There is an M8 release for Bezilla, but there is not a single build on the site after that. No M9 build, no M10 build, no nightly builds. Is Bezilla still chugging along? I am really looking forward to it...

--
grappler

Re:Does it even work on SuSE?

[httptech]

It did the same for me on Mandrake 6.0

I got around it by doing:
export MOZILLA_FIVE_HOME=/path/to/package
export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=/path/to/package
then run it with:
/path/to/package/apprunner

where /path/to/ is the directory where you untarred the release.

Also make sure you don't have an old
~/.mozilla directory hanging around, it seems
to cause problems too.

YMMV as always.

But of course..

[Kitsune Sushi]

The last time I checked NPL gave way too much control over to Netscape/AOL to be a seriously considered as a non-profit, volunteer based effort (and I sure wouldn't contribute to any other kind,) now I see that they have an MPL in response to the criticism they received.

Yes, the NPL is indeed another one of those sneaky bastard "open source" licenses.. However, it was finalized sometime in 1998, and I don't believe AOL bought Netscape until 1999, IIRC (I don't know, do I? =P). I'm not too excited about the MPL either, however, although it is better than the NPL.. Being somewhat of a die-hard GPL'er, I'm annoyed with the MPL's incompatibility with it..

Could anyone more proficient in legalese comment on MPL, and the differences between it and L/GPL?

You may want to read On the Netscape Public License by Richard Stallman. It covers the differences between the NPL, MPL, and GPL. The GNU Project Web site is also an excellent source of information with regards to free software in general, the GNU philosophy, and the history of the movement. ;) Ok, so, enough shameless plugs..

And whatever the answer, could someone just please start a GPL browser project? Or is that being worked on already?

There are a couple well-known ones.. And a few others that I can't think of right now.. The first, and most obvious, would be Lynx, but I rather doubt that is what you are looking for.. On the other hand, there is Emacs/W3, which you may find to be of a little more interest.

So go vote

[FascDot Killed My Pr]

Bugzilla now has a "vote for the bugs you want fixed" feature. Personally I voted for "option to disallow window.open" and "gtk refreshes everything when resizing".
---

Nightly Builds

[muhri]

I haven't downloaded the M10 release yet but I have one thing to share with you guys. The nightly builds from the same mozilla ftp site are doing pretty good. If you have the time to give one a try I recommend yesterday's Build. It is much more stable than M9 and I bet more than M10 since it includes the work progressed beyond the M10 tree. I have been downloading nightly builds right after the M9 release and I am very impressed by the performance of Mozilla. It is going to be one heck of a browser when it is done. Try out a nightly build and see for your self. PS I am refering to Linux nightly builds !

This thing is "HOT"

[Roundeye]

Yes, it's pre-alpha and it crashes occasionally (only about 30% more often than my Netscape 4.08/4.61/4.7 installs over the past few months).

There is an argument about possible "bloat" -- you got a problem, don't load the components you don't want (this is the first browser in which you will *ever* have the opportunity to do that) so "can it" (maybe there's a market for making "Mozillas distros" with various configurations... hmm....).

Every once in a while there comes along something so cool in a product that that one feature alone justifies everything else. There are arguably a number of them, but I just came across this one for the first time and almost pissed myself. Under "View". there's a "Translate" menu. Go to your favorite website and select a translation. This is not some "cut-and-paste babelfish" hack -- this thing (using a 3rd party service) re-renders the entire page (properly even), with the text translated. It's like you hit the official German/Spanish/Japanese site of wherever you were located, but you didn't...

HOT

Re:How much of the current code is from Netscape?

[linuxci]

Not very much of the code is from the original Netscape.

The last major piece of original Netscape code was the network library (netlib) which was replaced by necko (new faster modular networking library) in the M9 release.

The layout engine has been totally rewritten (that's why it's took so long to get this far) as well as the widgets and other front end code. A lot more code in Mozilla is designed to be cross platform to make porting easier.

So it's a hard task to find any major bits of original Netscape code in Mozilla.
--

Things are looking good for Mozilla

[SurfsUp]

...Mozilla gains market share as Linux does. This is enough of a presence to restrain incompatible web standards I hope

Don't forget that AOL will also be pushing Mozilla heavily, in its netscape 5 incarnation. Also, many teens will get Mozilla just to get Jabber - never discount that factor, it worked for ICQ. Then there is the fact that Microsoft won't be able to engage in much of it's usual strongarming with OEM's and ISP's, with the Justice department on it's tail...

I'm sure there are other factors also, like Mozilla just plain being a better, more stable product, with development that will never stop. The bottom line is that things are looking pretty good for Mozilla at this time.

M$ Screenshot...

[drwiii]

Here's a PNG screen-grab of the Windows version. Looking good...

m10.png - 66k PNG (1024x768)

--

Try this

[mozillaZineAdmin]

Hmm... Try deleting mozregistry.dat in your c:\windows directory. Also, if you still have problems, try finding an deleting old profiles in the user50 directory that Mozilla had installed, and see if that helps.