Mozilla Foundation in More Development Trouble 348
sebFlyte writes "After the reports of problems with Firefox' development earlier this week there are now rumblings about more serious problems with the Mozilla Suite. Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for, and others want to create a Firefox Foundation to deal with the success of the standalone browser."
pointless? (Score:5, Insightful)
The wonders of open source (Score:5, Insightful)
Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
Or maybe... they could just leave it where it is? Is the Mozilla Foundation really all THAT bad? While I'm sure that everyone has reasons for their position, this smacks of a variation of "Not Invented Here Syndrome".
Helpful news? (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't these kinds of problems going on with most projects, including proprietry software projects?
I can't help but feel as though people are just trying to run a smear campaign against the Mozilla Corporation.
Sheesh... (Score:5, Insightful)
How the hell did "under debate" become "More Development Trouble" in the
(Answer : someone high up at OSDL clear believes "scandal-mongering = advertising revenue")
I think it is sad... (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
I've been using Mozilla, in some capacity or another, for almost six years, and it's been the only browser I've used (on purpose) for at least five years. So I was confused when Firefox showed up on the scene and suddenly attracted attention. What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla? Firefox has tabbed browsing, and pop-up blocking, and all that, but Mozilla did it all two years ago.
Just started doing Firefox/XUL development (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:pointless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Mod Parent up (Score:4, Insightful)
This is bad because: (Score:2, Insightful)
There was an episode of nip/tuck last season that had the partners wanting to split the business up after an altrication, as the "divorce" attorney pointed out, when something like that happens cusomters don't know who to turn to, they get confused and more often than not switch to the competition.
Now, the customers are PHB's thinking about maybe doing an enterprise deployment of firefox. But, they will now be worried that if the foundation that backs it splits up, there will be no further development and it will stagnate.
You and I both that's not true, but PHB's aren't like you or I, they don't possess common sense, they are like scared springboks being chased by an
This is bad because it will slow adoption of Firefox (people who use it at work may actually try it at home, like it and switch). We wan't people to switch to firefox because it's more standards compliant and, at the moment, more secure, which is a good thing(tm), not like this infighting, which is a bad thing(tm).
Maybe... (Score:3, Insightful)
From a marketing perspective they've already put all their eggs in the firefox basket...
Even netscape wants to ride the firefox wave to success with the release of the Netscape 8 browser.
STFU & GBTW (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless there's some creative differences happening that are only now coming to the surface, leave it alone, your organizational model is fine.
Re:I don't get it (Score:2, Insightful)
Mozilla suite is the reference platform. Pure and simple. It was intended for people to spin off thier own projects.
Firefox, Thunderbird and Sunbird are all spinoffs from the mozilla code base. Sunbird was actually the result of a bunch of work done by OEone, IIRC.
Re:Meh (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't think NIH is the big problem - the problem is that while Firefox could have been just the browser portion of the suite, it isn't. It looks and feels different. The people who like the suite like the look and feel of it. Switching to Firefox means giving up a mature, stable, familiar user interface for something different that changes a lot with every 0.1 release (for example, Firefox 1.1 will have a completely rewritten preferences panel).
One of the major concerns right now of developers interested in SeaMonkey is the development process currently used for the aviary products: gigantic patches are included without any review, and often with very little testing. Regressions are found by users, and they file bugs which get fixed. However, the lack of review still allows much lower-quality code to enter the source. Between the landing of the patch and fixing of regressions, nightly builds (which developers work from) are often in very bad (unusable) shape.
The SeaMonkey front-end currently requires not one, but TWO reviews of all code. Does this slow the pace of development? Yes. It's extremely difficult to thoroughly review the bigger patches (doubling a patch length probably quadruples the work), but it maintains high code quality, and minimizes the introduction of new bugs. It helps that the SeaMonkey front-end is already mature, because less development needs to happen.
In theory, the Mozilla project was supposed to offer a cross-platform application development toolkit. This toolkit would be maintained, and an application written for it should work properly on future versions of the toolkit. This would offer a way to easily save Mozilla: port it over to this toolkit (which is just a modified version of what it uses right now, minus thorough code review). However, there is doubt among the developers that the Mozilla Foundation will actually keep this toolkit in usable shape - the track record of Firefox developers has been "change what we want when we want to", which would mean any application using this toolkit would need frequent updates. Porting the suite to a toolkit like this would mean we get all of the downsides (less code review), plus extra maintenance work required.
Basically, I think most of the suite developers just want their favorite browser not to die, and not to be based on shoddy code.
Re:I don't get it (Score:5, Insightful)
"problems" inaccurate (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
"Google is in trouble - some employee want to bring Google News out of Beta, while others do not."
Re:pointless? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like the Mozilla Foundation made a decision that they preferred the Firefox development model. Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird are set to be the *new* Mozilla suite, and the old one is in maintenance mode. It seems like this is comparable to people complaining that Microsoft isn't putting enough development into Windows 3.1.... Well, yeah, it's the old product that they've discontinued.
Now, it's all open source, so if someone wants to work on it, go ahead. But why people are trying to convince the Mozilla foundation to offload their new, exciting, successful, popular line-up of software and head back to what's become a bit of a dead-end, I don't know.
Re:pointless? (Score:5, Insightful)
Unfortunately, a serious break with Mozilla at this point will INSTANTLY cripple Firefox adoption across enterprise organisations. Now not only do you have to pick a browser (or browser suite) to standardize upon, now you have to pick the flavour of that suite. IT managers (or CIOs) have to bet twice -- once that Firefox will continue to be an optimum choice down the road, and a second time that you chose the right 'branch'.
Microsoft, IBM, Google win their audience over by representing consistency. Here's a quick example: think of McDonalds -- poor quality food, but consistent in quality. People 99% of the time will go with what they know, rather than gamble on the family-run restaurant across the street, even though the family-run restaurant might represent a great hidden and unknown deal.
Re:Maybe... (Score:5, Insightful)
WTF is the big fat hairy deal? (Score:4, Insightful)
It's open source people, this is how it works when heavy problems show up:
1) Gee cool project. I like the tool
2) Gosh, I miss foo in this. But I guess someone would need to implement bar before that could work.
3)
- "Hey folks, I've done this patch. Could you check it out, merge it in and may I join the devteam?"
- "No. You stink. We don't want you. You know to much, and besides: I'm the big guru around here. Go away."
- "Ok. Sorry for wasting your time."
4) sf.net/my/.makeNewProject( my tool );
Or did I miss something here?
Re:Sheesh... (Score:3, Insightful)
And they probably got 8 ad impressions from you on the way to this comment.
Why Firefox? (Score:5, Insightful)
I see it as brand-name dilution. I was an early Mozilla evangelist. Now all the people I converted from the dark side are terribly confused and groaning "Do I have to change again?" You mean I have to replace Mozilla browser/mail by 2 different programs? "It's almost the same only better - I'll help you convert" doesn't play very well as an answer.
I have no ready solution, now that Firefox has established a beach head (IMO, due to surrendipity and marketing rather than inherent superiority). I suppose I'll have to try my best to convince the disciples that they should change horses yet again.
I still use Mozilla (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't know about the rest of you people but I still use Mozilla as my 3rd browser behind konqueror and firefox.
I'm sure other people have found similar things. It remains the only browser that opens most of those silly Javascript sub-windows. I can only imagine the other browsers don't do this because the javascript is some broken hack - but whether it is or isn't, sometimes you just need to open these things.
Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products (Score:5, Insightful)
That's the question every business will ask before adopting any other Moz app, if Mozilla Foundation abandons the Mozilla Suite. In fact, some will ask it about any FOSS product. That particular FUD already exists; this move would reinforce it.
It might seem unlikely that Firefox would be abandoned, but what happens to 1.0 when FF 2.0 comes out? Support and maintenance for old products is essential for any business customer; upgrading can be very expensive (deploying across thousands of computers, modifying any integrated software, etc) and often doesn't help the business' bottom line. IBM supports products forever, it seems; Microsoft supported Windows 98 until (last year?). The Linux 2.4 kernal is certainly maintaned; what about 2.2? IBM's name is behind Linux, anyway.
MoFo would look like an unreliable vendor with a good product. I posted in Slashdot previously that they aren't really community driven, which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's just different. It appears they may not be customer driven, either. What's driving MoFo?
Re:shame on slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Tricky Business (Score:2, Insightful)
If any browser is ever going to overthrow IE, it's going to need the support of a large number of people. Firefox has made a quick shoe-in, and this hasn't happened since the Iron Curtain went down with the Windows 95 IE tie-in. I think as geeks we need to get over our petty differences, and support Firefox even if it isn't our favorite. If Firefox is wildly successful, that doesn't mean you can't still use Mozilla yourself.
What we need to do is allow Windows users to experience a change in web-browser, the last time this happened was 10 years ago by now. If Firefox captures a 25% 'market share', and we realise that it may eventually need to be replaced... so what? At least these 25% of the people would be more open to change after experiencing the difference between IE and Firefox than if they had just kept using IE for another 2-3 years.
The longer IE stays the de facto standard, the longer it will dominate the Windows browser market. And thus, the longer it will remain a tool of Microsoft's monopoly. Support and promote Windows users switching to Firefox, even if you think you have a better alternative. Why? Because it's good for your alternative. Your alternative will never have a chance until someone sinks IE.
TroubleFUD (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:This is bad because: (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh right. Open Source projects never die. I forgot. Hell, the Netscape browser died on the vine just a few years ago. Management is going to be (rightly) thinking, "Is this going to be another Netscape dud, if it splits? Shouldn't I just be safe and stick with something that definitely will be supportable a few years down the road, like IE?"
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
But why would I want an IRC client built in to my browser anyhow? I mean sure, I could also build an office suite, photo-management software, an MP3 player, a DVD player, scanner software, a Pac-man game, and everything other app I could possibly want into the same executable, and if I ran all of them at once, it might be a more efficient use of memory resources (though. Still, it seems to me that it's a better approach to only put things together in the same application if they're related tasks.
Really, the biggest difference in Firefox is it shuts up the people who want to be able to download just a browser without the other stuff, but who also refuse to use the Mozilla net installer. If you used the Suite's net installer, you've always been able to tell it not to download the extra junk, but there's a large portion of people that liked to ignore the net installer and then bitch about being forced to download and install the parts they don't want.
Now where on the Mozilla website is the net installer for OSX? I've looked around a bit, and if it's there, they sure are putting it in a non-obvious place.
From Redmond: (Score:1, Insightful)
See! I told you so!
Sincerely yours,
Bill Gates
Re:pointless? (Score:2, Insightful)
Because the slashdot article distorts the actual situation? ^_^ If you read the linked article, it mentions that "one user commented" with the firefox foundation suggestion; and that suggestion was really to rename the mozilla foundation to reflect its primary product.
What is being suggested is to spin off the suite into a community driven project rather than one handled by the MoFo.
Re:pointless? (Score:2, Insightful)
Wouldn't it destroy the goals of the project in itself?
Serious problem? (Score:2, Insightful)
What they have missed is to make the Composer a separate product but it now exists as NVU mostly supported by Linspire. NVU seems to become a very good product and needs more support.
I think it will only become good out of this!
The consequences of forking... (Score:3, Insightful)
If the future is to have the suite split up, then at least there should be uniform hooks that will allow any conforming app to interface with the others, as the suite allows now. If not, we have lost something.
Community (Score:3, Insightful)
Mozilla and Firefox are not two separate entities, they are just two flavors of the same brand ice-cream. One can live without the other, but they are stronger together. If they separate, only the competition will benefit.
I'm fairly confident that many in the Mozilla/Firefox community know this and are not going to let some whiney volunteers cause a rift. Its natural for there to be problems in the community and for people to voice their discontent, but that doesn't mean the project is in jeopardy. It just forces people to look at what their doing and decide if there really is a problem that needs to be addressed. This is what helps community/volunteer-based development thrive after all, the constant reflection and criticism of the project that drives developers to do their utmost.
Re:I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, someone invented the concept of shared libraries. Just about every popular operating system supports this concept readily today. Are you really telling me that Firefox and Thunderbird don't share the same core code in memory and each load their own copy? No wonder they're worried about the development processes! (And start-up times, and bloat, and...)
Mozilla for the enterprise (Score:2, Insightful)
The Mozilla suite, on the other hand, contains at least vestigial code support for a CCK and MCD. These would be crucial tools for enterprise rollout and day-to-day active management of Mozilla suite components. Like its ancestor, Netscape Communicator, the Mozilla suite is clearly targeted at enterprise users. Its demise would be an unspeakable loss to all sizes of corporate and government enterprises.