This wasn't just a simple mistake. I emailed Paul Festa yesterday, long before the article was published, and told him that MozOffice was pure vapour in the heads of a few people, because I was afraid he'd publish just this story. He ignored me and ran the story he wanted to run.
Mozilla has a defining deliverable: ship functionality equivalent to Netscape Communicator, but with support for a certain (fixed) basket of modern Web standards. Maybe that's too ambitious, but that's what it is.
"MozOffice", such as it is, is not part of that, which is why I don't expect any resources to be devoted to it in the forseeable future.
Actually, Festa emailed me for quotes and I told him that "MozOffice" was pure vapor and that this spin (which I suspected was what he was going to write) was just plain wrong. I told him that yesterday, long before this story showed up. They ran the story anyway. See my other comment for details.
As far as I know the Mozilla developers, and I am one in a small way, their attitudes are: -- Mozilla needs to ship solid code ASAP? CHECK -- Mozilla needs to be able to browse the modern Web? CHECK -- Mozilla needs to not be so far behind IE when it ships that people write it off? CHECK -- Mozilla needs to have a mail/news client so that the millions of Communicator users aren't driven away? CHECK -- Did I mention ship solid code ASAP? CHECK
Yesterday, he emailed me for more quotes. I told him a few of the quotes and then basically told him that "MozOffice" was just an idea and was not newsworthy. Here's exactly what I said in my email to him yesterday (LONG before this article went up):
> I do think the ideas in my post have merit, but > please don't convey the impression that this is > something Mozilla will or might do. Mozilla is > open source, and probably every day someone > comes up with some half-baked idea for something > cool they could do with it. I don't think that's > news.
So this CNET story didn't go up out of plain ignorance. At best, it's negligence, at worst, it's naked deception.
A lot of people download and use Mozilla. However, it is not ready to ship and should not be advertised as such. If they followed your advice, they'd be mercilessly flamed for misrepresenting the product, and rightly so.
> There are already other cross-platform widget > sets. Spending six months reinventing the wheel > is foolish and bloats the code.
Actually, using some existing XP widget set would have bloated the code a lot more, since Mozilla XUL uses the same layout and rendering engine that's used to render Web pages.
Mozilla has an XSLT project, done by outside developers. It's very close to working. Scripted XSLT transformations already work, XSLT processing instructions do not quite work yet...
Also, the hard part of CSS is the layout and rendering model, not the details of how CSS attributes are applied to elements. Most of the work that's been done on CSS will carry over to XSL-FO (if and when that becomes a standard).
> Concentrate on one platform (either OS or > hardware).
If the Mozilla developers took your advice, Mozilla would only run on Windows, and Linux would have no hope of getting a modern CSS/XML/DOM browser. And without that, the dream of Linux on the desktop would die.
The developers, inside Netscape and outside, are already working flat out to ship Mozilla. To suggest otherwise is insulting.
Rather than "lighting a fire under the developers", repeated bashing and pronouncements of doom are more likely to discourage them and induce them to quit.
You can get MathML-enabled builds on most platforms already.
MathML may not make it into the official Netscape 6.0 just because their people are worried about the exact same slippage concerns that everyone in this forum is ranting about, but I'm sure it'll get into the next Netscape point release. Other people's releases will probably include it too: it's stable, cool and not large.
This must be a troll. Surely everyone is aware by now that Mozilla's source code IS available and the Mozilla builds (as opposed to the Netscape builds) do NOT contain AOL or Netscape gimmicks.
Not all nightly builds are good. Some are, some suck. Check out http://www.mozillazine.org; they have comments about the quality of recent builds that should guide you to a good build.
Slashdot Mirror
This wasn't just a simple mistake. I emailed Paul Festa yesterday, long before the article was published, and told him that MozOffice was pure vapour in the heads of a few people, because I was afraid he'd publish just this story. He ignored me and ran the story he wanted to run.
Mozilla has a defining deliverable: ship functionality equivalent to Netscape Communicator, but with support for a certain (fixed) basket of modern Web standards. Maybe that's too ambitious, but that's what it is.
"MozOffice", such as it is, is not part of that, which is why I don't expect any resources to be devoted to it in the forseeable future.
Actually, Festa emailed me for quotes and I told him that "MozOffice" was pure vapor and that this spin (which I suspected was what he was going to write) was just plain wrong. I told him that yesterday, long before this story showed up. They ran the story anyway. See my other comment for details.
As far as I know the Mozilla developers, and I am one in a small way, their attitudes are:
-- Mozilla needs to ship solid code ASAP? CHECK
-- Mozilla needs to be able to browse the modern Web? CHECK
-- Mozilla needs to not be so far behind IE when it ships that people write it off? CHECK
-- Mozilla needs to have a mail/news client so that the millions of Communicator users aren't driven away? CHECK
-- Did I mention ship solid code ASAP? CHECK
Doesn't feel like denial to me.
I'm one of the guys he quotes in the article.
Yesterday, he emailed me for more quotes. I told him a few of the quotes and then basically told him that "MozOffice" was just an idea and was not newsworthy. Here's exactly what I said in my email to him yesterday (LONG before this article went up):
> I do think the ideas in my post have merit, but
> please don't convey the impression that this is
> something Mozilla will or might do. Mozilla is
> open source, and probably every day someone
> comes up with some half-baked idea for something
> cool they could do with it. I don't think that's
> news.
So this CNET story didn't go up out of plain ignorance. At best, it's negligence, at worst, it's naked deception.
Rob
A lot of "outsiders" are involved.
:-).
Some of those outsiders got hired by Netscape, but that's not necessarily a bad thing
> At the very least, it should be broken down into
> logical pieces that can be built and distributed
> seperately
They can be.
Guess what: IE has its own widgets too. So does Excel. So does Word. Does anyone care or even notice? No.
Once Konqueror becomes fully compliant, Mozilla will have been shipping for two years.
Stuff like DOM and XML support isn't something you slap on overnight. It's something you build in from the ground up.
> Galeon is going to rise up and bite Mozilla in
> the ass, if they're not careful.
This is like saying "Red Hat is going to rise up and bite Linux in the ass, if they're not careful."
> Seems to me someone should rip out the good,
> core browser parts and build a fast, compliant
> bare-bones browser.
Guess what --- they're doing that.
A lot of people download and use Mozilla. However, it is not ready to ship and should not be advertised as such. If they followed your advice, they'd be mercilessly flamed for misrepresenting the product, and rightly so.
> Has Mozilla been tested on SMP machines at all?
A bit. Not enough.
We're just trying to get it out the door.
Mozilla's been pronounced dead enough times that I don't think many people actually take notice anymore.
> There are already other cross-platform widget
> sets. Spending six months reinventing the wheel
> is foolish and bloats the code.
Actually, using some existing XP widget set would have bloated the code a lot more, since Mozilla XUL uses the same layout and rendering engine that's used to render Web pages.
Mozilla has an XSLT project, done by outside developers. It's very close to working. Scripted XSLT transformations already work, XSLT processing instructions do not quite work yet...
Also, the hard part of CSS is the layout and rendering model, not the details of how CSS attributes are applied to elements. Most of the work that's been done on CSS will carry over to XSL-FO (if and when that becomes a standard).
IE can handle XML...
> Concentrate on one platform (either OS or
> hardware).
If the Mozilla developers took your advice, Mozilla would only run on Windows, and Linux would have no hope of getting a modern CSS/XML/DOM browser. And without that, the dream of Linux on the desktop would die.
Galeon is Mozilla-based. If Galeon is successful, so will Mozilla be. Saying "Galeon will kill Mozilla" is like saying "Red Hat will kill Linux".
Look again. I often see the press saying "it's only a matter of time before WinCE wins".
The developers, inside Netscape and outside, are already working flat out to ship Mozilla. To suggest otherwise is insulting.
Rather than "lighting a fire under the developers", repeated bashing and pronouncements of doom are more likely to discourage them and induce them to quit.
You can get MathML-enabled builds on most platforms already.
MathML may not make it into the official Netscape 6.0 just because their people are worried about the exact same slippage concerns that everyone in this forum is ranting about, but I'm sure it'll get into the next Netscape point release. Other people's releases will probably include it too: it's stable, cool and not large.
Do you have any particular complaints about Mozilla's CSS2 support? It's better than anything else out there for Linux, that's for sure.
This must be a troll. Surely everyone is aware by now that Mozilla's source code IS available and the Mozilla builds (as opposed to the Netscape builds) do NOT contain AOL or Netscape gimmicks.
Not all nightly builds are good. Some are, some suck. Check out http://www.mozillazine.org; they have comments about the quality of recent builds that should guide you to a good build.