One of the most damaging aspects of not releasing Mozilla is the lack of real-world user feedback. MS has reaped the benefits of millions of hours of user experience with IE. They've been learning what works, what doesn't, what people want and what they don't.
IE has been inching toward standards compliance at a rate that makes sense for most users. Ironically, because of Mozilla's glacial development schedule IE is considerably more compliant that the competition.
I share much of the griping over the Mozilla project. I was at a conference in Chicago when Netscape 1.0 was released and almost instantly made everyone forget about Mosaic. It has been sad to watch Netscape go downhill ever since.
I'm just finishing a public Kiosk-style browser using the IE "WebBrowser" ActiveX -- IE reusable rendering engine. If you look at Windows shareware/freeware browser directories, you'll see dozens of these.
Our version of IE stores top navigation button definitions on a central server and retrieves them when the browser is launched. We will likely deploy custom browsers to different subnets based on these definitions.
I can spawn and control external applications, prevent pop-ups and force users to authenticate against a central user database before they can browse outside of our domain. I'm using XML-RPC client code to pass authentication info to a central server.
The browser automatically unauthenicates, clears the cache and history after a set time of inactivity.
It works well on any Pentium-class machine, but works and will also be deployed on a pile of old 16MB 486's.
Amazingly -- MS's reusable browser technology has been around since IE 4 was first released. Before NS ever publicly announced Gecko.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Gecko will ever be released in a form where I can customize it this this extent.
I still have the NGT Developer Preview Release (aka Gecko) diskette that Netscape was handing out 2 years ago. A browser on a disk they said! What a concept! Now Mozilla is almost as bloated as IE. They just need to add a couple more MB and it will be as stable as IE:-)
FWIW -- though I use IE. I've made it a point to never build web apps that use IE's data binding features -- and I only do XML parsing on the server so that my apps work with NS also.
Big companies like IBM and Sun "give" stuff away because they expect it will help them sell more stuff in the run.
* We GIVE you the software and you BUY the hardware * We GIVE you the hardware and you BUY the software * We GIVE you some hardware and software and you BUY some support
Who ever gives away the least and gets the most wins. End of story.
It has NOTHING to do with Linux / Open Source philosophy, so don't whine when the Financial Times does not appear to "get it right".
IMHO Microsoft has been wooing developers for years. In addition to the stuff they sell, they provide free SDK's for all sorts of technologies:
These APIs may be closed, but they drove a few million developers into the Windows camp.
A few development/porting centers is NOT going to make up for this. Sun used to do the same thing 10 years ago. It didn't work and they are still trying to figure out what they can give away for free to convince people to give them money.
I see lots of argument still over windowing managers, distros and packages -- how about common things like DDKs to encourage hardware vendors to support Linux.
When I'm not using Pine, I do use Outlook on NT Systems. Amazingly, I've never had a problem with Outlook. One precaution I take is to configue Outlook so only headers are displayed -- an extra mouse click is needed to display the email body.
As I've been saying for a few years, when *nix owns as many desktops as MS, there will probably be justas many security problems -- maybe more.
"Together, the proprietary innovation and the purported faults in standards compliance mean that Web pages created to work for IE--widely considered to be the dominant browser--won't work with browsers from Netscape, Opera Software and other providers."
Really? Seems to me that since IE 4, _most_ of the web has been equally accessible to Netscape and IE. Even the latest version of Opera works well with DHTML pages I've made. With 5.5, you would have to go out of your way to use the new Flash integration features so they would not work with Netscape. Some may use it in Intranet environments, some may continue to offer multiple views of their site. Some may decide that 86% of the potential audience is enough.
No matter how you slice your GIFs, it seems to me that most of the extra work web developers have had to cope with since IE 4 is because of Netscape 4's proprietary almost-a-real-DOM.
And after all that work, I wonder how many Netscape 4-compatible pages will break when Mozilla finally ships?
As for CSS1 support: while MS is far from perfect, IE 5 is wayyyyy more stable then any version of Netscape I've ever seen. I keep downloading Mozilla builds. It's getting better, but, we have been waiting a looooooong time!
Forgive me if I don't think of the W3C members as Olympian gods dispensing truth from the mountain-top. These people also have their own corporate, political and personal biases. Headbutting is what it is! So calm down! If MS follows through on their "software rental" plans, the entire Windows platform will probably self-destruct: MS Software Rental plans
Hey, what's that sound? 500-million CDs spinning up to install Linux! (they would have downloaded it but Mozilla kept crashing;)
Just SUPPOSE -- they have written a great piece of software that does not require many ENHANCEMENTS, needs little SUPPORT and less CONSULTING. Suppose they down have the time or resources to GOUGE customers with related hardware and books. And they certainly don't want to waste users time with banner ads! Or confuse and screw users by dangling closed releases in front of their eyes and letting them have older "free sample" releases.
Taken together ALL of these "solutions" sound like a lot of work and seem very odious to me. Why not let them just write great software and sell it! Honestly! -- hopefully for a fair price.
Here are some rather obvious observations, though I seldom see much reference to them during the time I've been reading/.
Seems to me that most OS code has been developed by coders who have been supported in whole or in part by universities, benevolent corporations (large enough that they can't keep track of what some of their employees are doing, perhaps;) -- and of course programmers who still live at home and are supported by their parents.
Because circumstances allow this code to be developed for "free" -- it seems right that it should be released (with source) for free.
Code developed in the marketplace -- where the software developer assumes all of the risks and costs of development should have some rewards. Developers should not have to ask for remuneration by dangling support, upgrades or plain old begging. Whether or not the source can or should be released to the end user depends on the application/cost etc.
In any case, why should programmers feel guilty about selling a good piece of code?
What about the "millions of eyes" benefit of Open Source? No question that a large number of programmers have helped turn Linux into a viable server platform (I think the jury is still out for widespread desktop use).
I submit that for some applications, software is best improved by setting up a feedback loop with millions of CUSTOMER eyes -- not PROGRAMMER eyes.
So, if your company can muster the resouces to sustain the development of its software, then setting up a feedback loop with customers to further development seems like a good strategy. Let your customers "direct" the development by providing feedback on the features and functionality they desire.
Depending on the product, opening up APIs or code (with some reasonable restrictions) may turn out to be a requested "feature" -- or not.
Slashdot Mirror
One of the most damaging aspects of not releasing Mozilla is the lack of real-world user feedback. MS has reaped the benefits of millions of hours of user experience with IE. They've been learning what works, what doesn't, what people want and what they don't.
IE has been inching toward standards compliance at a rate that makes sense for most users. Ironically, because of Mozilla's glacial development schedule IE is considerably more compliant that the competition.
I share much of the griping over the Mozilla project. I was at a conference in Chicago when Netscape 1.0 was released and almost instantly made everyone forget about Mosaic. It has been sad to watch Netscape go downhill ever since.
:-)
I'm just finishing a public Kiosk-style browser using the IE "WebBrowser" ActiveX -- IE reusable rendering engine. If you look at Windows shareware/freeware browser directories, you'll see dozens of these.
Our version of IE stores top navigation button definitions on a central server and retrieves them when the browser is launched. We will likely deploy custom browsers to different subnets based on these definitions.
I can spawn and control external applications, prevent pop-ups and force users to authenticate against a central user database before they can browse outside of our domain. I'm using XML-RPC client code to pass authentication info to a central server.
The browser automatically unauthenicates, clears the cache and history after a set time of inactivity.
It works well on any Pentium-class machine, but works and will also be deployed on a pile of old 16MB 486's.
Amazingly -- MS's reusable browser technology has been around since IE 4 was first released. Before NS ever publicly announced Gecko.
Unfortunately, I doubt that Gecko will ever be released in a form where I can customize it this this extent.
I still have the NGT Developer Preview Release (aka Gecko) diskette that Netscape was handing out 2 years ago. A browser on a disk they said! What a concept! Now Mozilla is almost as bloated as IE. They just need to add a couple more MB and it will be as stable as IE
FWIW -- though I use IE. I've made it a point to never build web apps that use IE's data binding features -- and I only do XML parsing on the server so that my apps work with NS also.
Big companies like IBM and Sun "give" stuff away because they expect it will help them sell more stuff in the run.
* We GIVE you the software and you BUY the hardware
* We GIVE you the hardware and you BUY the software
* We GIVE you some hardware and software and you BUY some support
Who ever gives away the least and gets the most wins. End of story.
It has NOTHING to do with Linux / Open Source philosophy, so don't whine when the Financial Times does not appear to "get it right".
IMHO Microsoft has been wooing developers for years. In addition to the stuff they sell, they provide free SDK's for all sorts of technologies:
Winsock, TAPI, DirectX, Agent, Win32, OLEDB, MAPI, Plug & Play, etc.
These APIs may be closed, but they drove a few million developers into the Windows camp.
A few development/porting centers is NOT going to make up for this. Sun used to do the same thing 10 years ago. It didn't work and they are still trying to figure out what they can give away for free to convince people to give them money.
I see lots of argument still over windowing managers, distros and packages -- how about common things like DDKs to encourage hardware vendors to support Linux.
"I thought by now, we'd be rid of buffer overflow bugs."
s ory1
You'd think wouldn't ya. L-Soft (Listserv) just released a patch for a similar buffer overrun problem here:
http://www.lsoft.com/news/default.asp?item=Advi
When I'm not using Pine, I do use Outlook on NT Systems. Amazingly, I've never had a problem with Outlook. One precaution I take is to configue Outlook so only headers are displayed -- an extra mouse click is needed to display the email body.
As I've been saying for a few years, when *nix owns as many desktops as MS, there will probably be justas many security problems -- maybe more.
"Together, the proprietary innovation and the purported faults in standards compliance mean that Web pages created to work for IE--widely considered to be the dominant browser--won't work with browsers from Netscape, Opera Software and other providers."
Really? Seems to me that since IE 4, _most_ of the web has been equally accessible to Netscape and IE. Even the latest version of Opera works well with DHTML pages I've made. With 5.5, you would have to go out of your way to use the new Flash integration features so they would not work with Netscape. Some may use it in Intranet environments, some may continue to offer multiple views of their site. Some may decide that 86% of the potential audience is enough.
No matter how you slice your GIFs, it seems to me that most of the extra work web developers have had to cope with since IE 4 is because of Netscape 4's proprietary almost-a-real-DOM.
And after all that work, I wonder how many Netscape 4-compatible pages will break when Mozilla finally ships?
As for CSS1 support: while MS is far from perfect, IE 5 is wayyyyy more stable then any version of Netscape I've ever seen. I keep downloading Mozilla builds. It's getting better, but, we have been waiting a looooooong time!
Forgive me if I don't think of the W3C members as Olympian gods dispensing truth from the mountain-top. These people also have their own corporate, political and personal biases. Headbutting is what it is! So calm down! If MS follows through on their "software rental" plans, the entire Windows platform will probably self-destruct: MS Software Rental plans
Hey, what's that sound? 500-million CDs spinning up to install Linux! (they would have downloaded it but Mozilla kept crashing ;)
Just SUPPOSE -- they have written a great piece of software that does not require many ENHANCEMENTS, needs little SUPPORT and less CONSULTING. Suppose they down have the time or resources to GOUGE customers with related hardware and books. And they certainly don't want to waste users time with banner ads! Or confuse and screw users by dangling closed releases in front of their eyes and letting them have older "free sample" releases.
Taken together ALL of these "solutions" sound like a lot of work and seem very odious to me. Why not let them just write great software and sell it! Honestly! -- hopefully for a fair price.
Just my $0.02
Here are some rather obvious observations, though I seldom see much reference to them during the time I've been reading /.
;) -- and of course programmers who still live at home and are supported by their parents.
Seems to me that most OS code has been developed by coders who have been supported in whole or in part by universities, benevolent corporations (large enough that they can't keep track of what some of their employees are doing, perhaps
Because circumstances allow this code to be developed for "free" -- it seems right that it should be released (with source) for free.
Code developed in the marketplace -- where the software developer assumes all of the risks and costs of development should have some rewards. Developers should not have to ask for remuneration by dangling support, upgrades or plain old begging. Whether or not the source can or should be released to the end user depends on the application/cost etc.
In any case, why should programmers feel guilty about selling a good piece of code?
What about the "millions of eyes" benefit of Open Source? No question that a large number of programmers have helped turn Linux into a viable server platform (I think the jury is still out for widespread desktop use).
I submit that for some applications, software is best improved by setting up a feedback loop with millions of CUSTOMER eyes -- not PROGRAMMER eyes.
So, if your company can muster the resouces to sustain the development of its software, then setting up a feedback loop with customers to further development seems like a good strategy. Let your customers "direct" the development by providing feedback on the features and functionality they desire.
Depending on the product, opening up APIs or code (with some reasonable restrictions) may turn out to be a requested "feature" -- or not.