Personally, I'd like to see NO middleware layer, but a well-defined API that anyone can use, but so well defined that it can't be ABused, letting people write the frontend in anything they like from Motif/C to Tcl/Tk.
What, like this? The doxygen server is down right now, so some links don't work; but we do have an excellent embedding API - used by Galeon, Epiphany, Camino, and many other projects.
the firebird/mozilla integration will undoubtably take place, but with 50 developers and monetary support gone, I doubt it will be to its full potential, and only be a footnote in the history of browsers. But I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong.
People are already raving about, and switching to, Mozilla Firebird, and it's only at 0.6.
Anyway, if you sit there and watch, you are more likely to be right than if you come and give us a hand:-)
Sorry, I still don't get you. Mozilla is now run by an independent foundation, with no interference from AOL, with freedom to choose to do things the right way, and to be supported by other companies who want to see us succeed. AOL has kindly given us $2M to start us off on the independent route, and we've been "poisoned" by that company?
but it seems that other browsers engines have managed this amazing feat without building an entire cross platform application framework from the ground up.
Don't be fooled. I'm pretty sure the form controls in IE are not native Windows form controls. And check Dave Hyatt's blog for details of the contortions he's had to go through to get even some of this stuff working with the Aqua widget set.
Besides which, Gecko + the old Netscape codebase applications
Have you seen the old codebase? I'm told that getting Gecko into it just wasn't possible. It was too much of a mess.
What was the choice to go with XUL instead of a cross-platform toolkit like Qt or Wx?
I wasn't in on that decision, as it was before my time, but I can make a guess. Back in October 1998:
- QT wasn't free - GTK wasn't ready (although we do use bits of it)
And anyway, like I said, you need to have control of the widget set if you want to be able to modify it to allow animated GIFs on buttons, and other stuff you need to support CSS2 styling.
if they had worked on the portable Gecko completely and forgotten (Or at the very least, pushed right back) things like XUL and skined interfaces, they could have written a handful of application shells for their supported platforms and dropped in an excelent browser engine.
So, Mr. Know-It-All Anonymous Coward, pontificating from on high, here's a pop quiz. If you have to implement an entire widget set in your browser to have any hope of supporting styleable form controls etc. (as outlined in CSS2 and above), is it better to:
a) Write one user interface for all platforms using those same controls, and use that UI as another testbed for them b) Write five or more separate user interfaces, and have to keep them all up to date and in sync?
Without XUL, there would have been no Netscape help in doing Mozilla for Linux, Mac, BSD etc. because there would have been no incentive to chase such a small part of the browser market.
Its bloated, slow and ugly! Im glad AOL got rid of that profit drain for good. There are simply better browers out there, Opera, Safari, Firebird, Camino, Galeon, Epiphany, Konqueror, Internet Explorer, Omniweb, Atlantis, lynx and NCSA mosiac!
AOL has not killed Mozilla - it will continue, under the direction of the new Mozilla Foundation.
Of course, four of the browsers you list are based on Gecko, which is Mozilla technology.
There appears to be a lot of confusion about this. "10% of the Netscape workforce" doesn't mean "10% of the people working on Netscape-the-browser."
As I understand it, excepting the "transition team" who are helping to set up the Mozilla Foundation, they've laid off almost everyone who was paid to work on Netscape/Mozilla for AOL.
For a measure of how valuable the trademark and domain name is, consider how much more difficult it would be for mozilla.org to continue if:
- www.mozilla.org started pointing at www.netscape.com/download, or somewhere else - the new XXXXX organisation (whatever it ended up being called) was not allowed to use the word "Mozilla" at any time.
The domain name and trademarks are extremely important and valuable (if not in a $ sense) for the continuity of the project. And it's very kind of AOL to give them to us. They didn't have to, after all.
And when I see BSD builds as part of the default biulds, I'll start sending your non-profit money.
Instead of money, if you donate a build machine (and a small amount of administering time) it could be. That's just about all that's needed - but without it, it's probably not going to happen.
Have to wonder, will netscape in the future have to pay mozilla for the right to produce a closed-source version.
Your question implies that Netscapes 6 and 7 were closed source. This is only partially true - the bits like AIM were closed, but the MPLed bits were open.
In the future, as now, any use of the code by Netscape/AOL will be under the MPL (or another license like the LGPL, if all Mozilla code is available under it, and AOL chooses to use it instead for whatever reason.)
No-one will ever have to pay mozilla.org for the right to use the source. That's what open source means. And no-one will be able to pay anyone for the right to produce a closed-source version - because doing that requires permission from several thousand copyright holders. mozilla.org does not own the copyright to Mozilla.
Starving, illiterate children in the world and people are going to give money to AOL-backed, Netscape-backed Mozilla which competes directly with Microsoft?
It won't help the starving or the illiterate, but having free (as in beer and speech) software available for browsing the web, without having to pay the Microsoft tax, is very important for those a couple of rungs up on the latter - developing countries like China and India.
That's not to say that dollars shouldn't go to the food bank too, of course.:-)
I can't speak about 501(c)(3), as I'm not a US citizen, but in regards to the NPL license:
V.2 no longer gives any benefits, as the time limit ran out a long time ago.
V.3 is the clause under which AOL is licensing all NPLed code to the Foundation under the MPL (and it'll get tri-licensed in the fullness of time), so be glad that it's there:-)
Watch the geeks continue to frequent it for about 23 seconds after the first pop up advertizing appears at mozilla.org.
I can assure the 2 people out there who a) read this deep into this thread, and b) actually think there's some non-zero chance of this happening, that mozilla.org will not have pop-up advertising.
Anyway, who would see it? Everyone uses Mozilla's popup blocker.;-)
Apologies for the less-than-perfect technical nature of the new website - it was done in a bit of a hurry. Still, looks better than the old one, huh?:-)
invalid HTML.
Hopefully fixed in CVS; waiting for the site to sync.
Slashdot Mirror
Personally, I'd like to see NO middleware layer, but a well-defined API that anyone can use, but so well defined that it can't be ABused, letting people write the frontend in anything they like from Motif/C to Tcl/Tk.
:-)
What, like this? The doxygen server is down right now, so some links don't work; but we do have an excellent embedding API - used by Galeon, Epiphany, Camino, and many other projects.
the firebird/mozilla integration will undoubtably take place, but with 50 developers and monetary support gone, I doubt it will be to its full potential, and only be a footnote in the history of browsers. But I may be wrong. I hope I am wrong.
People are already raving about, and switching to, Mozilla Firebird, and it's only at 0.6.
Anyway, if you sit there and watch, you are more likely to be right than if you come and give us a hand
Gerv
Sorry, I still don't get you. Mozilla is now run by an independent foundation, with no interference from AOL, with freedom to choose to do things the right way, and to be supported by other companies who want to see us succeed. AOL has kindly given us $2M to start us off on the independent route, and we've been "poisoned" by that company?
Doesn't seem like it to me.
Gerv
but it seems that other browsers engines have managed this amazing feat without building an entire cross platform application framework from the ground up.
Don't be fooled. I'm pretty sure the form controls in IE are not native Windows form controls. And check Dave Hyatt's blog for details of the contortions he's had to go through to get even some of this stuff working with the Aqua widget set.
Besides which, Gecko + the old Netscape codebase applications
Have you seen the old codebase? I'm told that getting Gecko into it just wasn't possible. It was too much of a mess.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
And which four would that be?
Firebird, Camino (previously known as Chimera), Galeon and Epiphany.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
What was the choice to go with XUL instead of a cross-platform toolkit like Qt or Wx?
I wasn't in on that decision, as it was before my time, but I can make a guess. Back in October 1998:
- QT wasn't free
- GTK wasn't ready (although we do use bits of it)
And anyway, like I said, you need to have control of the widget set if you want to be able to modify it to allow animated GIFs on buttons, and other stuff you need to support CSS2 styling.
Gerv
if they had worked on the portable Gecko completely and forgotten (Or at the very least, pushed right back) things like XUL and skined interfaces, they could have written a handful of application shells for their supported platforms and dropped in an excelent browser engine.
So, Mr. Know-It-All Anonymous Coward, pontificating from on high, here's a pop quiz. If you have to implement an entire widget set in your browser to have any hope of supporting styleable form controls etc. (as outlined in CSS2 and above), is it better to:
a) Write one user interface for all platforms using those same controls, and use that UI as another testbed for them
b) Write five or more separate user interfaces, and have to keep them all up to date and in sync?
Without XUL, there would have been no Netscape help in doing Mozilla for Linux, Mac, BSD etc. because there would have been no incentive to chase such a small part of the browser market.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Its bloated, slow and ugly! Im glad AOL got rid of that profit drain for good. There are simply better browers out there, Opera, Safari, Firebird, Camino, Galeon, Epiphany, Konqueror, Internet Explorer, Omniweb, Atlantis, lynx and NCSA mosiac!
AOL has not killed Mozilla - it will continue, under the direction of the new Mozilla Foundation.
Of course, four of the browsers you list are based on Gecko, which is Mozilla technology.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
450 (down 10% from 500) working on Netscape
There appears to be a lot of confusion about this. "10% of the Netscape workforce" doesn't mean "10% of the people working on Netscape-the-browser."
As I understand it, excepting the "transition team" who are helping to set up the Mozilla Foundation, they've laid off almost everyone who was paid to work on Netscape/Mozilla for AOL.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
I might be able to get a fairly lightweight mail app that I can tolerate
Thunderbird should be right up your street.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
slow poison to Mozilla
;-)
Not at all. Mozilla will continue, overseen by the new Mozilla Foundation.
And if a gift of $2M is "slow poison", then perhaps we should get them really annoyed - they might shower us with even more money.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
He was hosting the mockup of the new front page :-)
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
I thought this was already how they operated. I'm guessing this is just a formality?
Very much not. Up to this point, mozilla.org was not a legal entity.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
For a measure of how valuable the trademark and domain name is, consider how much more difficult it would be for mozilla.org to continue if:
- www.mozilla.org started pointing at www.netscape.com/download, or somewhere else
- the new XXXXX organisation (whatever it ended up being called) was not allowed to use the word "Mozilla" at any time.
The domain name and trademarks are extremely important and valuable (if not in a $ sense) for the continuity of the project. And it's very kind of AOL to give them to us. They didn't have to, after all.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
And when I see BSD builds as part of the default biulds, I'll start sending your non-profit money.
Instead of money, if you donate a build machine (and a small amount of administering time) it could be. That's just about all that's needed - but without it, it's probably not going to happen.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Have to wonder, will netscape in the future have to pay mozilla for the right to produce a closed-source version.
Your question implies that Netscapes 6 and 7 were closed source. This is only partially true - the bits like AIM were closed, but the MPLed bits were open.
In the future, as now, any use of the code by Netscape/AOL will be under the MPL (or another license like the LGPL, if all Mozilla code is available under it, and AOL chooses to use it instead for whatever reason.)
No-one will ever have to pay mozilla.org for the right to use the source. That's what open source means. And no-one will be able to pay anyone for the right to produce a closed-source version - because doing that requires permission from several thousand copyright holders. mozilla.org does not own the copyright to Mozilla.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Marketing through mail-list? Are you serious?
:-)
I think you have the wrong end of the stick. It's a mailing list for discussing and co-ordinating marketing, not one for marketing on
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Someone has some nice tastes in cars at Mozilla.
That's be Ben Goodger.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
People don't know the difference between Internet Explorer and Mozilla because at this point the differences are minor.
Minor? Tabs, popup blocking, ad blocking, decent privacy, cookie management, accessibility, type-ahead find, really useful addons coming out of your ears...
When I use IE, press Ctrl-T and nothing happens, it makes me appreciate how lucky I am to have Mozilla.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Starving, illiterate children in the world and people are going to give money to AOL-backed, Netscape-backed Mozilla which competes directly with Microsoft?
:-)
It won't help the starving or the illiterate, but having free (as in beer and speech) software available for browsing the web, without having to pay the Microsoft tax, is very important for those a couple of rungs up on the latter - developing countries like China and India.
That's not to say that dollars shouldn't go to the food bank too, of course.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
I can't speak about 501(c)(3), as I'm not a US citizen, but in regards to the NPL license:
:-)
V.2 no longer gives any benefits, as the time limit ran out a long time ago.
V.3 is the clause under which AOL is licensing all NPLed code to the Foundation under the MPL (and it'll get tri-licensed in the fullness of time), so be glad that it's there
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Not enough to employ fulltime developers, but probably enough for bandwidth costs.
:-)
The problem is, we need fulltime developers
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Watch the geeks continue to frequent it for about 23 seconds after the first pop up advertizing appears at mozilla.org.
;-)
I can assure the 2 people out there who a) read this deep into this thread, and b) actually think there's some non-zero chance of this happening, that mozilla.org will not have pop-up advertising.
Anyway, who would see it? Everyone uses Mozilla's popup blocker.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Looks as though they are 2 virtual hosts almost mirroring* each other.
(Currently) it's exactly the same website. Any URL on one will work on the other.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
And why did Mozilla get rid of the dino/dragon splash screen?
Because we didn't have image rights to the green dino.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)
Apologies for the less-than-perfect technical nature of the new website - it was done in a bit of a hurry. Still, looks better than the old one, huh? :-)
invalid HTML.
Hopefully fixed in CVS; waiting for the site to sync.
Gerv
(gerv@mozilla.org)