All complaining aside, let's look at this sensibly.
Javascript Console - Is that really useful for anyone not doing web/extension/webapp development? I'm the developer of TBP, and even I rarely ever use the JS Console for much else besides checking for dumb JS errors.
Stylesheet switcher - agreed. While View->Page Style was retained, removing that icon didn't seem to be a very sensible thing to do, especially considering that patches were immediately made available to repair the deficiencies uncovered in the feature set.
View Source - they removed that?
Personally, IMO these three examples hardly constitute a major 'betrayal' of Firefox users; at worst I would call them a poor management decision that has since been partially reversed.
The argument about 'expected functionality' in a browser could rage until Duke Nukem Forever is released - everyone has a different expectation of what functionality they expect to see in Fx. Case in point: I get regular requests for features to be added to TBP. The majority of the requests have been implemented in other extensions, and of the remaining few, I often wrestle with whether or not anyone but that one person would actually use such a feature. The extensions mechanism is explicitly designed to permit this type of flexibility, with the unfortunate side effect of resulting in many differing opinions on what functionality belongs where.
I do agree with you somewhat on the theme issue though - those icons are pretty bland compared to the variety of icons in Aaron Spuler's themes.
Next, to address your concerns about Fx becoming a dumbed down browser for Win/IE users, I'd like to remind you that Fx runs on OSX (not very well, FWIH) and Linux. For that reason alone Fx is not likely to be 'dumbed down' for Windows as you say. And TBH I find that the default feature set in a vanilla install of Fx is not really that bad. As for.rpms, _anybody_ can provide.rpms - why does it have to be the MoFo?
Finally, I take issue with your statement that the voice of the user has been trampled in lieu of media attention and that Google 'owns' Firefox. I'd like you to quantify that.
Mozilla, however, is not - SVG-enabled builds have been available for a long time.
Besides, it's not lag - the Foundation simply hasn't had the resources to work on SVG; they chose to spend their time working on more important issues. Personally I don't mind that SVG hasn't been included in Firefox until now.
As many others have repeatedly stated, the Slashdot rendering bug has been repaired already. Until Firefox 1.1, based on Gecko 1.8 (which contains the fix) is released, you can use the Slashfix extension, or alternately force a page reflow by changing the font size.
As for Firefox stability in general, did you follow the installation instructions? There are some pitfalls associated with the installation process, especially if you are upgrading from a previous version. The MozillaZine Knowledge Base is a good place to start.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the mods on The Extensions Mirror, which is now hosted by RoundTwo.
Folks, from what I have read on their site, RoundTwo is not appealing to geeks. They're not trying to force geeks to pay for stuff that they can get themselves, i.e. extensions and support and the like. I get the impression that they are offering extension support and bundling for corporations which want to adopt Firefox but also want a centralized entity that they can moan at when it doesn't work.
Their stance of 'adopting' extensions and providing infrastructure for the developers to leverage for that purpose is genius, IMO - it gives the extension authors the resources to improve and maintain their extensions, and it gives RoundTwo a direct line to the authors, which makes it far easier to get the author's attention if something is broken, which is critical if they really intend on creating Firefox 'distributions' with extensions bundled in, like what bdeonline is doing with Black Diamond Firefox.
Sure, they've got the usual amount of marketing jargon out there right now, but considering that they've been supporting Mozilla software for a while now, I suspect that this is going to be the core of their business model.
Re:If GCC can compile C++, then...
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g++ is a companion program which adds half a dozen magic switches to gcc and does other magical things to provide extra C++ features that are implemented in the system libraries.
Indeed. The perceived barriers to entry are so steep that no one is willing to even try.
In my personal experience, the very first thing to do is to go out and poll the extension developers - people like Cusser, rue, MonkeeSage, Torisugari, Jesse Ruderman, the maintainers of XULPlanet, etc. and immediately empower them to review and check in patches in their respective fields.
The second thing to do is to make somebody sit down and create a Mozilla Janitors group - information on _small_, _simple_ bugs in Mozilla and Firefox that can be fixed with a minimum of effort.
The third thing to do is to allow the folks mentioned above to check in said "janitorial" patches.
After that, the MoFo folks can see if anything has improved.
It's called the GPL, and while IANAL I do know that if MS were to create a new Linux distro with substantial modifications to any GPL-licensed software incorporated into it, MS would be forced to return those modifications to the original authors. ICBWT.
I'll readily admit as soon as the next person that Linux doesn't support all of the latest & greatest hardware. That doesn't mean that it doesn't support last-generation hardware though - as long as you do research and buy the right sort of hardware, you can usually build a system where almost every piece is well-supported by any given Linux distro.
Companies like Intel and ATi are examples of how the hardware manufacturers are realizing that Linux users want to use their hardware too.
The scary thing is that if this technology ever did manage to become widespread, the price of organic offal really would skyrocket - after all, there's only so much organic crap the human race can produce...
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if someone created a worm which did this, to screw up Windows Update - now the worm can keep users from downloading and installing patches to fix the bugs the worm used!
schneider: ha ha ha ha... RIAA flunky: chairman! RIAA chairman: take off every lawsuit! RIAA chairman: you know what you are doing. RIAA chairman: move lawsuit. RIAA chairman: for great mis-justice.
How easy is it to write C++ programs that use the MS API?
If a comparison were made between the bugfixes applied to the various Linux userspace libraries and the bugfixes applied to the various MS API libraries, which one would have had a better bugfix/API replacement ratio?
While backwards compatibility is a Good Thing, retaining an API past its sell-by date only leads to problems when the underlying code needs to be modified.
If you are referring to Gecko (which I believe you are), AFAIK it most certainly does _not_ break the DOM; rather, it is the stupid and poorly written JS and CSS tricks you describe which use proprietary DOM features available from a certain rendering engine...
Somebody else probably agrees with you. Check the Thunderbird Extensions section of The Extensions Mirror and see if there's anything in there you might be able to use.
The figures are still somewhat surprising on their own, however - if a proper clinical trial is made with a non-trivial number of participants and the same steep drop in viral levels is noted, then perhaps this vaccine is a winner.
I am shocked at the things which are trotted out as measures designed to "protect the children." I'm all for protecting children and keeping them from experiencing unlawful or disgusting things, but sometimes it seems as if people take it to an extreme.
The original issue is the non-valid HTML 3.2 Final code that is generated by the Slashdot templates. This is compounded by a bug in the Gecko engine which hiccups when reading this invalid code and causes various elements to be placed on the page improperly.
The workaround is to reflow the page by changing the font size. There are various extensions available which can force a reflow when Slashdot is loaded.
And for everyone curious as to why the fix is not available in Firefox 1.0: the fix is too invasive and too dangerous for Aviary builds, so it was deliberately left out. Firefox 1.1, however, will be cut from the current trunk and will thus not experience the bug.
Slashdot Mirror
That's a Firefox trunk build - much different than Firefox 1.5 beta 1, which is a Firefox branch build.
All complaining aside, let's look at this sensibly.
.rpms, _anybody_ can provide .rpms - why does it have to be the MoFo?
Javascript Console - Is that really useful for anyone not doing web/extension/webapp development? I'm the developer of TBP, and even I rarely ever use the JS Console for much else besides checking for dumb JS errors.
Stylesheet switcher - agreed. While View->Page Style was retained, removing that icon didn't seem to be a very sensible thing to do, especially considering that patches were immediately made available to repair the deficiencies uncovered in the feature set.
View Source - they removed that?
Personally, IMO these three examples hardly constitute a major 'betrayal' of Firefox users; at worst I would call them a poor management decision that has since been partially reversed.
The argument about 'expected functionality' in a browser could rage until Duke Nukem Forever is released - everyone has a different expectation of what functionality they expect to see in Fx. Case in point: I get regular requests for features to be added to TBP. The majority of the requests have been implemented in other extensions, and of the remaining few, I often wrestle with whether or not anyone but that one person would actually use such a feature. The extensions mechanism is explicitly designed to permit this type of flexibility, with the unfortunate side effect of resulting in many differing opinions on what functionality belongs where.
I do agree with you somewhat on the theme issue though - those icons are pretty bland compared to the variety of icons in Aaron Spuler's themes.
Next, to address your concerns about Fx becoming a dumbed down browser for Win/IE users, I'd like to remind you that Fx runs on OSX (not very well, FWIH) and Linux. For that reason alone Fx is not likely to be 'dumbed down' for Windows as you say. And TBH I find that the default feature set in a vanilla install of Fx is not really that bad. As for
Finally, I take issue with your statement that the voice of the user has been trampled in lieu of media attention and that Google 'owns' Firefox. I'd like you to quantify that.
Mozilla, however, is not - SVG-enabled builds have been available for a long time.
Besides, it's not lag - the Foundation simply hasn't had the resources to work on SVG; they chose to spend their time working on more important issues. Personally I don't mind that SVG hasn't been included in Firefox until now.
As many others have repeatedly stated, the Slashdot rendering bug has been repaired already. Until Firefox 1.1, based on Gecko 1.8 (which contains the fix) is released, you can use the Slashfix extension, or alternately force a page reflow by changing the font size.
As for Firefox stability in general, did you follow the installation instructions? There are some pitfalls associated with the installation process, especially if you are upgrading from a previous version. The MozillaZine Knowledge Base is a good place to start.
Indeed. Perhaps they want to emulate bdeonline's work with Black Diamond Firefox.
Disclaimer: I'm one of the mods on The Extensions Mirror, which is now hosted by RoundTwo.
Folks, from what I have read on their site, RoundTwo is not appealing to geeks. They're not trying to force geeks to pay for stuff that they can get themselves, i.e. extensions and support and the like. I get the impression that they are offering extension support and bundling for corporations which want to adopt Firefox but also want a centralized entity that they can moan at when it doesn't work.
Their stance of 'adopting' extensions and providing infrastructure for the developers to leverage for that purpose is genius, IMO - it gives the extension authors the resources to improve and maintain their extensions, and it gives RoundTwo a direct line to the authors, which makes it far easier to get the author's attention if something is broken, which is critical if they really intend on creating Firefox 'distributions' with extensions bundled in, like what bdeonline is doing with Black Diamond Firefox.
Sure, they've got the usual amount of marketing jargon out there right now, but considering that they've been supporting Mozilla software for a while now, I suspect that this is going to be the core of their business model.
g++ is a companion program which adds half a dozen magic switches to gcc and does other magical things to provide extra C++ features that are implemented in the system libraries.
Indeed. The perceived barriers to entry are so steep that no one is willing to even try.
In my personal experience, the very first thing to do is to go out and poll the extension developers - people like Cusser, rue, MonkeeSage, Torisugari, Jesse Ruderman, the maintainers of XULPlanet, etc. and immediately empower them to review and check in patches in their respective fields.
The second thing to do is to make somebody sit down and create a Mozilla Janitors group - information on _small_, _simple_ bugs in Mozilla and Firefox that can be fixed with a minimum of effort.
The third thing to do is to allow the folks mentioned above to check in said "janitorial" patches.
After that, the MoFo folks can see if anything has improved.
Actually, there is.
It's called the GPL, and while IANAL I do know that if MS were to create a new Linux distro with substantial modifications to any GPL-licensed software incorporated into it, MS would be forced to return those modifications to the original authors. ICBWT.
I'll readily admit as soon as the next person that Linux doesn't support all of the latest & greatest hardware. That doesn't mean that it doesn't support last-generation hardware though - as long as you do research and buy the right sort of hardware, you can usually build a system where almost every piece is well-supported by any given Linux distro.
Companies like Intel and ATi are examples of how the hardware manufacturers are realizing that Linux users want to use their hardware too.
The scary thing is that if this technology ever did manage to become widespread, the price of organic offal really would skyrocket - after all, there's only so much organic crap the human race can produce...
I wouldn't be surprised in the slightest if someone created a worm which did this, to screw up Windows Update - now the worm can keep users from downloading and installing patches to fix the bugs the worm used!
Wonderful...
schneider: ha ha ha ha...
RIAA flunky: chairman!
RIAA chairman: take off every lawsuit!
RIAA chairman: you know what you are doing.
RIAA chairman: move lawsuit.
RIAA chairman: for great mis-justice.
All right, let's put the shoe on the other foot.
How easy is it to write C++ programs that use the MS API?
If a comparison were made between the bugfixes applied to the various Linux userspace libraries and the bugfixes applied to the various MS API libraries, which one would have had a better bugfix/API replacement ratio?
While backwards compatibility is a Good Thing, retaining an API past its sell-by date only leads to problems when the underlying code needs to be modified.
Never heard of Nvu, then? It's the spinoff of Mozilla Composer.
*AHEM*?
If you are referring to Gecko (which I believe you are), AFAIK it most certainly does _not_ break the DOM; rather, it is the stupid and poorly written JS and CSS tricks you describe which use proprietary DOM features available from a certain rendering engine...
Does anyone know if there are similar projects in scope and concept to this one?
Have you heard of Nvu? Being part of the coding-HTML-in-sleep brigade, I haven't actually tried it yet ;-)
Not iptables, iproute2. Traffic shaping is done using the tools inside the iproute2 package.
Somebody else probably agrees with you. Check the Thunderbird Extensions section of The Extensions Mirror and see if there's anything in there you might be able to use.
The figures are still somewhat surprising on their own, however - if a proper clinical trial is made with a non-trivial number of participants and the same steep drop in viral levels is noted, then perhaps this vaccine is a winner.
Precisely!
I am shocked at the things which are trotted out as measures designed to "protect the children." I'm all for protecting children and keeping them from experiencing unlawful or disgusting things, but sometimes it seems as if people take it to an extreme.
There is supposed to be a site floating around which gives instructions on how to make Firefox look like IE. What does Fx look like at your school?
Exactly.
The original issue is the non-valid HTML 3.2 Final code that is generated by the Slashdot templates. This is compounded by a bug in the Gecko engine which hiccups when reading this invalid code and causes various elements to be placed on the page improperly.
The workaround is to reflow the page by changing the font size. There are various extensions available which can force a reflow when Slashdot is loaded.
And for everyone curious as to why the fix is not available in Firefox 1.0: the fix is too invasive and too dangerous for Aviary builds, so it was deliberately left out. Firefox 1.1, however, will be cut from the current trunk and will thus not experience the bug.
How about being able to run down an e-mail with multiple hyperlinks and click each one, having it open into a new tab in a single window?