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Why Mozilla is Alive and Well
primetyme writes "There's been a lot of press recently stating that the Mozilla project is a failure, a waste of time, and a failed open source endeavour.
I recently had the chance to talk with Chris Hoffman, one of the lead engineers from Netscape working on the Mozilla project, about why Mozilla is in fact a monumental success for the open source community, Web developers, and end users in general. "
Because that's the naive approach?
That would have been like trying to plug holes in the rotting hull of a ship one at a time, rather than scrapping the whole thing and building a new one. It might take longer, but in the long run, it's the best solution.
Under Windows (at work) I use IE5 because it is a really really good browser and, moreover, it is available now at the same price as Mozilla.
Don't get me wrong; I love Open Source. But I won't sacrifice my ability to use my computer productively at the alter of free software. I need something I can work with. I've got a great OS, I just need a browser to go with it.
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"You can't shake the Devil's hand and say you're only kidding."
Why does this matter? Because Mozilla is going to fully standards compliant. To wit:
What that means to us is that the days of having to code for 16 different browsers, while not over, are numbered. And the ability for one browser to try to lock out other browsers with little "Netscape Now" icons will be sharply limited. Yes, there will probably be proprietary add-ons, but developers have already been burned by these in the 4.x browsers: I don't think they will use them again.So we come to Mozilla. Yes its buggy. But speaking as a professional developer, that's OK at this stage of development. What's more important is that it is well-crafted.
Instead of a hodge-podge of shoddy code (like the old Netscape source base) it is well crafted, well designed code that is going to be extremely maintainable.
This is kind of like early versions of the Linux kernel (I ran 0.95, FTR): they weren't feature complete, weren't anywhere /near/ bug-free. But they were designed well and had a dedicated team of competent coders working on them. It didn't take long at all for Linux to become something to be reckoned with.
What we need to do is the same thing that early Linux adopters did: focus on the technology and give it time to mature. Marketing is /nothing/, technology is /everything/. Oh yeah: have a little loyalty, because its going to be a cold day in hell when Microsoft ports IE to Linux.
-- Slashdot sucks.
But isn't publicity often like this? The Mozilla process is new (at least for most mainstream readers) and the result highly anticipated. The news outlets will be back and forth on this topic until they see a product that is at least equal to Internet Explorer 5 (which Nescape 4.7 definitely isn't). They're bashing Mozilla right now, but when it's ready they'll move on to "Ït kicks butt, but is it too late?" just as millions of us are quietly dumping IE.
When I'm singing a ballad and a pair of underwear lands on my head, I hate that. It really kills the mood.
-Tom Jones
Because nobody, and I mean nobody wants that. Why? You ask? Easy enough. Ever hear that Microsoft requires a compile at the end of the day, no matter how they get it? We have a similar policy where I work, and it really pisses me off. Here we're encouraged to do a slapdash job to meet deadlines.
Here are the disadvantages to such an approach:
I could probably come up with more, but I think you get the idea. It's like either building a pinto or a lamborghini. Sure a pinto is easier to fix (just duct tape and bailing wire, right?) but nobody wants to own one. Why does the software industry continuously ignore the fact that nobody wants a pinto - so why force people to buy them? I'm frankly glad that Mozilla has gotten it into their heads to do it right the first time. God knows we could use more of it.
Read: Rabbit Rue - Free serial nove
"...talk with Chris Hoffman, one of the lead engineers from Netscape working on the Mozilla project, about why Mozilla is in fact a monumental success for the open source community, web developers, and end users in general."
Now, don't get me wrong. I love Mozilla AND I don't think it is dead (yet). BUT, isn't this a little like asking Bill Gates if Windows 2000 is dead? For crying out loud, what ELSE is the lead developer going to say? "Yeah, it's dead. I'm just playing Solitaire and reading Slashdot all day."
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Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
Have you looked at the mozilla source? Your argument would some weight if you could cite specific problems with the source--but then, people would only say "Good job, you've found some problems; you're obviously smart enough, so go fix them." If you can't code, then use the nightly builds and report any bugs you find. There are all kinds of ways to help with the development effort. In the Open Source culture, there are complainers and there are contributors (a constructive criticism can be considered a contribution, by the way). Contributors are people who would rather make something happen than just sit back and carp about the state of the project.
Why do you think the mozpeople were so keen on re-designing from the ground up? Ease of maintenance. This means, making it less difficult for developers to dive in and work on the project, among other things like easier cross-platform implementation, i18n, etc. Unless the mozilla team have gone braindead, reasonably skilled developers should be able to break off small, digestible chunks of the code and work on them without having to grok the whole enchilada.
slashdot broke my sig
This is typical 3-year-old talk. By proper upbringing, a child learns that it can't always have what it wants. We are all living in the same world, and we're sharing the same problems. Be reassured that whatever pains you feel, there are millions who share it with you.
Mozilla is an Open Source project, and was created from the start to be one. Which means the main part of the fun, is actually participating in the team. In some extreme cases, the final product is just a biproduct of the efforts. This means that people uses more time to design, code, redesign, recode and test. Just because they feel like making the best they can - to top their own and others' records. Just like in sports.
To read hundreds of comments about Mozilla being too unstable and we-need-a-workable-system-NOW!-mentality, STRONGLY reminds me of childishness. Good qualities in humans that relates to other human beings:
1) be respectful, patient, understanding and forgiving
2) don't take anything for granted
3) don't be disappointed
4) be thankful for what you get, both the good and the bad lessons
Of course you can rant and shout out your rage and frustration. But please don't do it at people actually working towards a solution.
It's very much like shooting yourself in the foot.
- Steeltoe
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Mozilla milestone M11 is coming out any minute. Here's the open bug list. Obviously, the team is on the green and just about to sink the putt.
This is the one, guys. This is the first mozilla named "mozilla" instead of "apprunner". This is a fully functional browser, with all the trimmings (plus more), and it just could be good enough to browse with. If not, we can make it that way. The source code is only 20~ something meg - it's a reasonable sized project. It's ours. This is the time to jump in and help.
Guys, this is our last chance to claw back the client side of the net from Microsoft.
Life's a bitch but somebody's gotta do it.
If anyone is interested in what exactly the developers are doing on mozilla please see this page. It's supposed to be updated once a week http://www.mozilla.org/status/
-- "The evil stops here" -Petr
CmdrTaco, please note. Netscape aren't the only people who could benefit from more eyes. Almost certainly everyone on Slashdot would be -more- than happy to help clean tarballs, debug code, and tweak capabilities in the Slash code, but we really can't, unless you put even a rough-cut tarball up. I am very grateful for the code that -is- there, and I wish there was some way of repaying you for your efforts in creating and maintaining the Slashdot code and site. Donating bug-fixes, speed-ups or possible refinements might be one way to do exactly that. All I need, to do so, is fresh code.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Architecture is best done by a small number of people designing with as many components as possible (Cathedral style) whereas refinement and implementation is best done by a large body of developers (Bazaar style).
Mozilla is one of the best examples of mixing the two styles successfully, but they definitely need more developers helping in the Bazaar.
I use IE5 because it is a really really good browser ... available now at the same price as Mozilla.
You mean you pay the same amount of money for both products.
Price? What price is giving a single company (any single company) control of the future of the information age? A lot more then money, I would say.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
What other open source project would you expect Netscape Communications Corp (or AOL) to be involved with?
The fact that it has taken a whopping long time for the (marginally usable) M10 release to arrive is not a clear example of failure; the project has had to labour under several significant constraints:
This left gaping holes in the source code tree, things that had to be reimplemented.
What with the above gaping holes, and other things that had grown into being ill-designed, it made huge sense to rebuild a whole lot of the functionality from scratch.
If a version that is of "production quality" is released in the next 4 months, which is not inconceivable, that essentially means that Mozilla has been recreated in two years, which is certainly not a monumental failure.
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
I just wish they'd have focused on the browser portion only rather than trying to make it do mail and news and instant messaging. They probably could have cut a couple of months off the dev cycle.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Very few Bazaar projects start as Bazaars - usually a rudimentary but working product is gotten out the door in "Cathedral" style, after which outside contributors join up because there's something useful that they can contribute to. In contrast, at the start Mozilla was not anything that even developers could use, and thus the project didn't have much outside participation at that point. It's well beyond that now, and reports of its demise are greatly exaggerated.
Thanks
Bruce
Bruce Perens.
http://browsers.evolt.org/mozilla.html
The box that got
Thanks for all the comments so far. Hopefully this gets moderated up so some people can actually read it
.djc.
I think we need to focus on the word standard here. From my point of view there are two standards:
- the stuff that w3c poors out: the formal standard
- that what people actually use: the practical standard.
Right now the practical standard is a mixture of HTML 3.0 and HTML 4.0 with lots of propietary extensions. Mozilla will be fully HTML 4.0 compliant, that's different from the current practical standard. So that means more work for web developers. If it's backward compatible with some extensions, that means even less motivation to abandon them.
I think the HTML spec is fundamentally flawed and should be abandoned as soon as possible. For me that would be when I could use XML, XSL and stylesheets. Then I could use XSL to provide backwards compatibility. Unfortunately MS is doing everything to let XML, XSL and stylesheets go the same way as HTML: they are providing propietary extensions. So again the practical standard will deviate from the formal standard. The only hope for preventing this is a quick (within months) acceptation of mozilla by a large share of the web community (I'm thinking 40% or more of the web users here). Just looking at the figures of usage of the latest generation of browsers will show you that that is not going to happen (sorry don't have those figures readily available so please post them if you have them).
I hope I'm not right but fear that I am.
Jilles
Like many of us, I had myself convinced at one point earlier this year that Mozilla would fail. All the rumors, from AOL killing it to it just killing itself have come to me through this site, and I'm glad for it, because I want to know the rumors. But I got caught up, and it wasn't until I downloaded M10 that I realized my mistake.
People, never could I have expressed this more strongly... try it out! I tried it out, and the bugs were quite obvious for the large part. However, the engine is quite nice, it loaded Slashdot very fast on my connection. But the real nifty part was when I was designing a web site... I kept trying to use CSS and transparent PNG images, but Netscape won't view them right. Interestingly enough though, Mozilla parsed it all perfectly! Even the transparent PNG, it all looked great!
Right off, I realized that the people who are making Mozilla aren't screwing around. These people are serious, and they are making a serious browser, one that seems to have its standards straight for once! If I could code, I would be doing all I could to help these guys, as they are working on an application that will be a cornerstone of Linux in the future! Please, people, just give the damn thing a chance, it might crash but it won't bite, and you just might be surprised!
Know ye not that ye are Gods???