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Mozilla The Internet

Happy Birthday, Mozilla! 71

Posted by Hemos from the happy-birthday-mr-president dept.
Deven writes "Happy birthday, Mozilla! The Lizard is two years old today. We may not be there quite yet, but Mozilla has come a long way since March 31, 1998... " Hmmm...Marilyn Manson and Mozilla - that'd be a great birthday shot.
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Happy Birthday, Mozilla! More

Happy Birthday, Mozilla!

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  • Mozialla not typical open source (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Mozilla is not a good example of open source. Sure, the code was opened up but considering the amount of time and the multi-billion dollar resources available to the project from AOL-Netscape, it's a disgrace. Probably Mozilla will end up being the best browser available, and it certainly should be. The point is that while "open-sourcing" had some effect on the upcoming (near final) product, most of the work was done by paid personnel. The incompetency of the management of the project over the years is well documented. There are many more examples of "open source" which better represent the movement - the bulk of GNU utilities and compilers, sendmail, KDE, Gnome and Gtk and Gimp to name just a few. Do you know what? I tried the Windows version of Gimp and I was SHOCKED. It performs beautifully on a machine which is below the recemmended spec. Sure they may be some bugs, but not serious enough to be showstoppers, yet. Did you know that Gimp is now the ONLY full-featured non-commercial paint and image program available for Windows? Please, when Mozilla finally displaces IE in the consumer market, which it surely will, and especially in set-top internet boxes and in embedded apps (AOL is all behind that) so what. The technology behind Mozilla is nothing special. Browers are necessary tools but plenty of other areas of software development are just as interesting - or much more. In summary, Mozilla throws too many parties. Had the Mozilla team been working for a company which is not on life support, the entire team would have been fired. The incompetency is well known and is shameful. Open source can do much better WITHOUT the AOL/Netscape umbilical cord.
  • Did I miss something? Where did the Marilyn Manson reference come from?
  • from the happy-birthday-mr-president dept.
    Perhaps he meant Marilyn Monroe, or extracted the joke from that somehow (?).
  • I submitted the article on March 31, 2000. It wasn't posted until April 1. I probably should have put the date in parens after "today" for this very reason, but it is why I mentioned the March 31, 1998 date explicitly. (Really, I'm surprised nobody submitted it much earlier.)
  • The codebase was taken from Netscape on March 31, 1998. People struggled with the old code for months trying to achieve the desired results. On October 26, 1998, Brendan Eich announced [mozilla.org] that the old code would be mothballed and development would proceed with a completely new architecture. I'm not an expert on the Mozilla codebase, but my impression that most of the code has been replaced, and very little remains of the original Netscape 5.0 codebase.

    The new layout engine [mozilla.org] (Gecko), the cross-platform component system [mozilla.org] (XPCOM), the cross-platform front-end toolkit [mozilla.org] (XPFE), the HTML editor [mozilla.org] (Ender), the new networking library [mozilla.org] (Necko) and the mail/news components [mozilla.org] are all new code that comprises a huge chunk of Mozilla. (And that's not all of the new code!) Calling the new release "Netscape 6.0" was clearly a marketing decision, but it's not totally unreasonable given the extent of changes since the first developer's release of Netscape 5.0...

    I'd say Mozilla has come a long way. In just a year and a half, the browser has been almost completely rewritten to be cross-platform and standards-compliant like no other browser. That's quite an accomplishment, whether or not a final release is imminent.
  • The word Mozilla has been around for a LONG time. I think when Mosaic rolled into Netscape (mosaic -- Mozilla, whatever). But when they started the new browser project, they initially took codebase from netscape and tried upgrading it, then decided that was a Bad Idea, and started from scratch.
  • Blah
    This is a neat IE4 tag that I think should be included in Mozilla as well. I know that most people find it annoying (and so do I) but newbies seem to really like it because it makes pages 'come alive' and makes for some exciting interactive experience.. Let's include it in next W3C standard and make Mozilla support it? What do YOU think?

  • <ElectroShockTesticles>Blah</ElectroShockTesticl es>
    This is a neat IE4 tag that I think should be included in Mozilla as well. I know that most people find it annoying (and so do I) but newbies seem to really like it because it makes pages 'come alive' and makes for some exciting interactive experience.. Let's include it in next W3C standard and make Mozilla support it? What do YOU think?
  • <ElectroShockTesticles>Blah</ElectroShockTesticles > This is a neat IE4 tag that I think should be included in Mozilla as well. I know that most people find it annoying (and so do I) but newbies seem to really like it because it makes pages 'come alive' and makes for some exciting interactive experience.. Let's include it in next W3C standard and make Mozilla support it? What do YOU think?
  • My day job is programming. I started this job in early November and I already have the entire 250 MB source tree ported to Linux. We go to beta 1 this week. That was done all by myself with zero documentation and only one other engineer who knew even the basics of the code.

    I'm not saying I'm a genius: the program mostly worked on the existing platform so it was just a matter of finding incompatibilities. My point is that each modification teaches you something and the next mod becomes even easier.

    Sure it may take you a week (or more) to fix that first bug--but the 10th one will take you an hour.

    But "how long it takes to learn the source code" isn't the real complaint here. If it were, people would be complaining about the bugs/missing features in the Linux kernel--this project is even harder to get up to speed on yet people do it all the time. I don't actually know why people are so down on Mozilla, but frankly it's getting a little boring.
    --
  • but I hope it isn't loading every time I start mozilla

    Don't "hope". Download the source and check. If it's doing something you don't like, create a patch and submit it. Or for that matter create a patch, use it yourself and don't submit it.

    Not a programmer? Submit a feature request. Create a bugreport about your claimed security flaws.

    Bug reports exist but aren't being worked on? Create a sourceXchange (or similar) project request to do the bug fix.

    In other words, IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND HELP.
    --
  • Actually, I'd like to see Mozilla and IE hanging out. Embedded Mozilla: finally something useful from ActiveX.
  • What makes it hard. Here is a quick list.

    1. 5 million and 3 graphic\multimedia formats.
    2. Idiot users
    3. The bazzilon bad html web pages out there.
    4. Trying to support multiple platforms.
    5. Making it an integral part of the opterting system. (Only applies if your Microsoft)
    6. Security
    7. Many many more things.

  • Of course, you'd think Mozilla would have a good chance of emulating Netscape because most of its developers worked on Netscape.

    I think that's the reason it's taking so long right there - judging by the poor speed, stability, and standards compliance of NS 4.x, I think that "emulating Netscape" is the last thing Mozilla wants to do.

  • Ummmm... is this finally a for-real post?

    ----
  • dangit, I got logged out before this comment posted.. I wrote that.. sorry guys.. (grr.. *mumble under breath* )
  • I thaught Mozilla existed way before Netscape, and those IE crap. It must be > 2 years!
  • he didn't say anything about kde. Personnally I think they both use up too much ram. I think he was making referance to the macOs.

    The macos is the most bloated thing there is. I am writing this on a 32MB ibook running linux. This thing runs great under linux. (icewm + dfm) But it runs like crap under macos. I can't browse the internet without the hard disk scrolling. Linux runs great and its fast.
  • Not a programmer? Submit a feature request. Create a bugreport about your claimed security flaws.

    I used slashdot for these issues (MathML maybe loading when it shouldn't, possible attack using multiple plugins) because I don't know what mozilla currently does. I figured someone around here would know what mozilla's current behavior is, and either tell me about it or submit a bug report themselves.

    BTW, I am a programmer. I just don't want to spend weeks trying to figure out how the mozilla code works in order to submit patches for a small number of bugs, especially since I doubt many of my patches would be applied to the tree.

    IF YOU DON'T LIKE IT, GET OFF YOUR ASS AND HELP.

    I've already submitted 93 [mozilla.org] bugs, but thanks for your suggestion. I also help a little to maintain bugzilla, which theoretically helps the netscape enginerrs and other code contributors to concentrate on fixing bugs and not duplicate each others' work.

    --

  • I think that most of the memory hogging features in Mozilla are pretty relevant and needed. For example, enabling MathML. I wish all the current webbrowsers were MathML enabled, but we have a long way to go.

    I don't know much about MathML, but I hope it isn't loading every time I start mozilla, because I want my browser to load quickly.

    Side note: is mozilla safe against an attack where a malicious page asks the browser to 15 plugins at once? This is one of many possible attacks that might make mozilla and perhaps the rest of a Windows system unresponsive [mozilla.org] without crashing the browser.

    --

  • Actually, they are all security related. Many aren't stated as security problems, but it's clear that each of them can at least disable the user's browser. The one you referred to as talking about porn does so because porn sites are the sites most likely to exploit the hole.

    --

  • Mozilla is still vulnerable to a lot of the same old security holes that Netscape and Internet Explorer are (see my sig). Instead of adding memory-hogging features [mozilla.org], guys, why don't you make mozilla the one browser that is secure from all types of attacks?

    --

  • Geeknews.net and Wonko.com are both one year today
  • Our lil Mozilla is growing up fast. It seems like just yesterday it was born (well, as open-source).

    Just make sure he doesn't hang out with Microsoft's lil kid, that trouble maker IE.

    And maybe explain to him what is meant by 'open-source', cause we don't want him being the talk of the town. ;)

    Rock on, Mozilla!

  • 8. A cross-platform skinning engine.

  • I don't think it is wise to hold Mozilla 1.0 up as a shining achievement of the Open Source community.

    Basically because it has taken too long. Regardless of the reasons, they are valid and unfortunate, people might be tempted to look at this and say "Two years after being HANDED the code to one of the most popular browsers, the entire community manages to push out a revision."

    Whoever says this will most likely be considered a complete and utter prick by Open Source folks, but the reality of it is, there WILL be a element of the computing world that will take this position. This could end up harming the Open Source movement more than it helps. When it comes time to decide whether or not to support/contribute to the OS community, some might be tempted to say "Why bother?"

    Who could blame them?

    They aren't interested in ideology or a new (software) world order. Even if the eventual cost to them is negligable, it might seem pointless to give away what cost them money to produce if there isn't going to be any timely result.

    Bisuness thrives on results. Failure to perform is not looked well upon, nor forgotten.

    However small, there is a good chance this group will be people of considerable influence who will take a dim view of the whole concept of Open Source based on this one instance.

    It will not matter if it is great or if it is shit.

    Mozilla should be lauded, but quietly.

  • FYI, most of the Free Software products I've used are a lot better than their closed equivalents. They generally have less bugs, are less bloated, have an interface I like, and nicer features. However, I do agree with you that there are more ways to contribute than writing code. You can give money (always nice!), write documentation, find bugs (also nice!), give feedback (nicer still!), or any one of a bunch of things. Anyone who says that the only way to contribute is to code needs to have their horizons widened by a metal bar.


    -RickHunter
  • I thought Mozila was dead, I saw the submarine blow him up with those two torpedoes =)
  • You have a good point. I kinda jumped the gun by implying that your security holes were bugs in the software.

    I didn't think anyone else was implying that the only way to contribute to the open source movement was to write code. I certainly didn't say that.

    As far as the user interfaces go, open source software tends to lag behind commercial code because it doesn't need to be sold. The GUI is what basically sells one company's program over a competitor's. 90% of the computing population only notice differences in the user interface between competing software. This is why gnome/enlightenment and KDE may be good for Linux in the long run.

    -
  • Instead of adding memory-hogging features, guys, why don't you make mozilla the one browser that is secure from all types of attacks?
    It sounds like someone needs to volunteer a little effort towards the Mozilla Project! That's a benefit of open source.

    I think that most of the memory hogging features in Mozilla are pretty relevant and needed. For example, enabling MathML. I wish all the current webbrowsers were MathML enabled, but we have a long way to go.

    -
  • Remember grasshopper, it is now XHTML 1.0, so don't forget the trailing / in one liner tags (meta, link, br, hr
  • I guess I need to install Mozilla and play with it. Patch it and stuff, so it doesn't do anything irritating like some other browsers do. Cool.

    --
  • We need to keep browser in user space because sooner or later it will crash and if it's part of OS it will take whole system down. Haven't you ever crashed windows with IE. I have. Much less often with netscape though.

    In addition we want to keep OS simple - we don't need display, mouse or keyboard to run it - but browser without GUI is pretty useless. [I admit that I use lynx sometimes but reading /. with it is a pain in ass.]
    _________________________

  • BTW, I am a programmer. I just don't want to spend weeks trying to figure out how the mozilla code works in order to submit patches for a small number of bugs, especially since I doubt many of my patches would be applied to the tree.

    Thank you, someone on slashdot who actually realizes and knows that playing with source code is not as simple as reading a magazine article!

    It takes a lot to figure out how even small programs work when someone else wrote it, especially if the source comments suck. Mozilla is, well, on the larger side.

    Fixing/debugging source code is not that simple as so many people seem to think.

    -- Mike DeMaria
    Programmer/Network Administrator

  • Man, this was by far the funniest thread today. To any of you who believe that the communist (just look at the logo) lizard is only two years old, I have but one word: SUCKER! It's just so obvious that he's an adult lizard. Look at the lines on his neck. Lizards get a new line on their neck only every year, so he's got to be at least 10 or so from the picture. Boy oh boy, the slashdot admins have gone out of their way with this one. A big round of applause for this hillarious thread!
  • This is not a happy birthday at all. Damn you Microsoft, :(Damn you AOL
  • Why dont you complete the support for CSS 2.0 in Mozilla for us?

    Personally I can't wait for Mozilla to be the browser of choice for all platforms (info appliances too!)
  • When will they release BeOS binaries? From what I've seen, BeOS has no decent browser. Even M14 would look brilliant compared to Opera 3.6 Beta. And NetPositive?? Gimme a break! NetPositive can't seem to even handle ColdFusion pages. Opera gets to them, but returns a blank screen. I have run ColdFusion pages under Mozilla though, under Linux and Windows. So therefore, Mozilla is actually a better browser than NetPositive and Opera. Sorry. I know that sounds harsh. But it's true. It's an absolutely essential part of a Web Browser in this era. And Mozilla can do it. Oh yes, it can. That's brilliant. NetPositive on the other hand...I mean...what's WRONG with these people ?? And Opera - it got the "Best alternative Browser" award on ZD a while back...but WHY? M14 was about 14 times better than Opera 3.6 Beta. IMO. Netscape hasn't even ported to BeOS. So basically, at the moment, you have 2 choices: NetPositive, which can handle about 20% of the sites online, and about 10% correctly, and Opera, which can handle about 60%, and 50% correctly, and all slowly. Sorry if this sounds like a rave, but it is the truth - a web browser is a key utility, lack of a decent one could bring BeOS to its knees.

  • That I'm not really contributing to mozilla by finding and reporting "bugs": security holes that have existed for several browser versions but are taken for granted, minor user-interface quirks, and requests for the interface to be more customizable and more friendly. At the same time, the slashdot community is frustrated by the lack of good user interfaces in open source software.

    I don't know what the open-source community thinks, but speaking for myself as far as I can tell there is no shortage of good programmers there, yet there is a substantial shortage of good UI design (something that LUIGUI just started addressing). Moreover a lot of UI improvements are grunt work, that hackers are unlikely to tackle. So it is good to remind them about what needs to be done. Now, if on top of that you can yourself improve the interface, all the better.

    But this is not as easy as it is made sound, particularly in issues relating to UI.

    Say, for example, try to modify VIM (Vi IMproved) source code so that it understand by default that :W and :Q are the same as :w and :q, and you'll see how hard it is.

    Rant: what *#&* # else could :W and :Q mean? and this is a likely typo as : requires you to press Shift.

  • Of course, the best (but very often repeated) joke about Microsoft is that billg named it after his privates.
  • i just ran it on my iMac and it crashed.
    Hmmmmm, I think this one pretty much speaks for itself. ;)
  • Two years and it hasn't even learned to walk?

  • I was just as excited as everyone else when Mozilla was open sourced, but now, two years later, it's been a spectacular failure. I've attempted many times over the course of development to use one of the nightly builds or milestone releases, and every single one has been slow, memory-hogging, and has quickly crashed. Why bother guys?? At the risk of setting myself up here, I've been using IE for those two years and it has been quick, stable, and full-featured.
  • Myself, I downloaded Mozilla a few days ago, to try it out, not having heard about it until then. I found that it took a lot of system resources, was slow to start up, and very frequently crashed (grantedly, I am using WinNT, not Linux, since I am at school computers, but still). Thus for me the product is not very potent yet - however the reason why I became aware of it at all, was the fact that there exists an Esperanto language file for the browser, translated by the Uruguay Esperanto League... and this shows you the idea - now, I don't know whether this project really is "free" or hijacked by Netscape or whatever, but I still think this illustrates nicely how free projects make people come to contribute and create things which just wouldn't have happened otherwise.
  • There is no doubt in my mind that the Gecko engine shall be the best, and perhaps the most widely used, especially in embedded systems, if only for its efficiency. Sad fact is, Microsoft has rendered that almost pointless, as we all know. I guess I'm just re-stating what we all know, but the key to the next Mozilla browser release should honor the market Microsoft has created, because the main necessity, as I see it, is to win the Browser War. I still believe this is possible in the short term, because of the way even "newbies" transitionned to IE. I would suggest, while knowing full well the suggestion runs contrary to many of the main tenets of open source, that the Mozilla team release the next Browser no more stable nor efficient than IE, but faster, and with more relatively useless features that the same newbies will grow accustommed to. Perhaps the Gecko engine is mature enough to allow for this sudden portability...we have to hope so because this battle will define so many aspects of the public's view towards Open Source, and as a result Linux. The public is driven by the Market, which for better or worse plays itself out on NASDAQ and the like. Market share is what we need now, not the best browser - a rather unfortunate, unromantic position, but one that could prove helpful. Sorry for subjecting you to my novelette.
  • Consider the effort necessary to completely support HTML 4, CSS1/2, ECMAScript 1.5 and the W3 DOM. None of these are simple standards, particularly not when you consider all of the possible variations and the interactions between the various standards. (There's a reason you need a gigabyte of free disk space to build Mozilla)

    The original Netscape codebase was built by continuously hacking in the minimal functionality necessary to claim support for a given feature and it shows.

    Doing it the right way, and making it fast and robust and portable and building the application framework is a huge task. I'm just glad someone decided to bankroll it.

    Finally, don't forget that Mozilla also includes mail and news clients. (Not that I think this is a particularly good thing)

  • I know the MARQUEE tag isn't part of any HTML spec and has never been approved by the IETF.

    It has been derided as part of Microsoft's embrace and extend strategy for HTML in fact. However I ask the question; Can it be implemented in other browsers ? Specifically Mozilla and KFM2 ?

    I would guess that's a qualified "yes". So I ask my second question. Why not suggest adding that tag alone to the standard ? Release html-4.1 with the Marquee tag defined and explained.

    The reason I pick it out is that unlike most other E&E code it actually adds something of value to the web experience. Sure I find them annoying and so do most of you. However it's a way to help novices make a new web page "look alive". They like it and will continue to use it.

    BTW : The alternative to a marquee is an animated gif. Which one do *you* want people to use ?
  • Actually, I think that an older way to help novices make a new web page "look alive" is the <BLINK> tag. It adds movement, it adds whiz bang flash boom, and it catches the eye. But for some reason, people don't seem to like it. I wonder why that is...

    The probelm with the <BLINK> and <MARQUEE> tags is that there is rarely a good use for them. <BLINK> is supposed to catch the eye, and it does, but in a painful manner. Plus, if you're trying to read something, it is more time consuming because of the time the text is spent "off."

    Similarly, the <MARQUEE> tag distracts in a painful manner. Most of the time I see it being used, the font is set so high that the text flickers. But my real peeve with the <MARQUEE> tag is that it slows down my reading considerably.

    Instead of reading and scrolling at my own pace, the <MARQUEE> tag makes me wait for the information to come up. And it's like a watched pot, the longer you stare at it, the longer each second feels. It only slows down my information absorbtion, and that tends to tick me off a lot.

    Personally, I hope that the <MARQUEE> tag never becomes standard and people who use it get their Geocities account revoked.
    --

  • Why dont you complete the support for CSS 2.0 in Mozilla for us?

    Because it takes a special kind of sucker to work for free to build a browser for the multi-billion-dollar corporation that is Netscape-AOL-Time Warner? If I'm gonna work for The Man, it sure as hell ain't gonna be pro bono.

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • Was Open Sourcing Mozilla the only way Netscape could stay alive?

    Of course not. Netscape alternately could've made a browser that had nice features and actually worked well. I think everyone knows which path they chose.

    This post is surely headed to "Troll" or "Flamebait" Hell, but you know it's true. You don't see iCab and Opera crying instead of coding, do you?

    Cheers,
    ZicoKnows@hotmail.com

  • that the week Mozilla goes Beta will be the same week Penfield Jackson wields the legal axe on Microsoft? I gotta say, looks like the Beginning of the End for old Borgie-Bill....

    Not that it really makes a rodent's rear end in the long run; the ascendancy of Linux (particularly with the new functionality in Red Hat 6.2 and Kernel 2.4) and the BSD's and the resurgence of the Mac and the return of commercial Unix, the 800-pound gorilla's clay feet are getting very wet. And IBM, of course, is holding the hose pipe....

    Me, I'd get me some hearing protectors and safety goggles and find a place that isn't downwind... the show is going to be fun.

    --
    Timberrrrrrrrrr!

  • Here is a link to the page: http://www.mozillazine.org/sc reenshots/alookback.html [mozillazine.org]

    As mentioned, it is at the bottom of the page.
  • MathML isnt even compiled by default. The master plan is to have MathML and other features as options.

    Side note someone checked in a ver good foundation for SVG yesterday.
  • Why dont you complete the support for CSS 2.0 in Mozilla for us?

    Some people aren't intamately familiar with the CSS 2.0 [w3.org] specs. Some people have the time and starting knowledge to find bugs [mozilla.org], but not to become familiar with the mozilla source code [mozilla.org]. Asking them why they don't program it themselves is counter-productive because it discourages them from contributing to the project.

    --

  • Somebody reply to this and tell me -- where can I get Windows port of the GIMP?
  • A browser is really like an operating system and more: it has to enfore a security policy, provide an object model to running programs (e.g. javascript), it has to run multiple pages (analogous to processes) at a time, crashes in one page should not crash another, one page should not be able to read the contents of another,etc. etc.

    Browsers really have to be written with the same rigorous approach taken towards Operating System design; unfortunately, there isn't much, if any, theory on how to write a browser -- browsers are written in a very ad hoc manner.
  • Does anybody else think it was less than a coincidence that the source code to the _old_ Mozilla was released on April Fool's?

    Thank God the Mozilla group finally ditched it and started from scratch. My only pet peeve-- incomplete support for Cascading Style Sheets 2.0!
  • The article says it's birth date was March 31, 1998. That would make today not it's birthday.


  • I've never even looked at the Mozilla source, but from my limited experience writing browser-like SW, the #1 problem is that you've got eighteen different producer-consumer problems going at the same time, all fighting for very limited resources... should you be rendering off-screen HTML so you can get spacing information, or should you be decompressing a JPEG that's on-screen when you already know its position & dimensions? When should you allow input? These kinds of decisions make process scheduling look trivial. Building a functionally correct browser is no joke (because of all the different standards), but writing one that's smart about task scheduling (i.e. one that looks & feels fast & crisp) is a straight-up bitch, because it's a UI problem.

    Example: at one point in the aforementioned semi-browser, I had to disable a piece of background-fetching code, because (click) (1/2 second pause) (response) looks slower than (click) (1/2 second pause with wait-cursor up, input disabled) (response), and at the time no one had thought of having a throbber.

  • What is so hard about writing a browser? (Score:3)

    by Scott McGuire ( 4080 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @02:18PM (#1157172)
    I ask this seriously. What is so hard about writing a browser? I see how long it takes, how many people it takes and how few browser projects survive. Its obviously hard, but why?

  • Five good ways to make money with OSS. (Score:3)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:55PM (#1157173)
    There are a lot of ways to make money by giving software (not just the binaries, but code) availiable for free - here's a few I can think of:

    1) Give away free software, then charge for custom modifications/support. This is the easiest to understand - if you help to write something really good then you'll be set for life through as many support contracts as you want to take on.

    2) Give away free software that utilizes some resource you sell. For instance, a telecom company might develop and give away some really cool custom videoconferencing software in order to encourage customers to use more bandwith.

    3) Give away free software to prove how amazing you are. Under this model, one could use free software to build a portfolio of demonstrable talent to use when seeking consulting contracts. Wouldn't you like to be able to see some code a consultant has worked on before you hire them? Wouldn't you pay a bit extra for that priviledge?

    4) Give away free software to build up demand for skills in an area you have expertise in. Similar to, but quite different than #1 - in the case of #1 you are trying to build a wonderful boat in the hope you'll be hired on as part of the crew (terrible analogy, sorry). In this case though, you are trying to add water to the ocean to raise the area everyone gets to sail in. A lot of OSS people profit in this way, in that demand for knowledge of OSS type things (like Linux/BSD skils or the ability to integrate various OSS software into a company) has greatly increased. Even if that was not the goal (and I don't think it was) it's still a benefit.

    5) Give away free software, that contains subliminal suggestions to wire money to a certain swiss bank account. This has been unsuccessful so far only because most people have unwittingly chosen a refresh rate of 50-60Hz (at those rates, Hurtz is really a descriptive term!) not offering enough frames to effectivley deliver the message. Those running at 90Hz+ drink enough Mtn. Dew that they end up blinking fast enough to pretty much block the messages. Plus of course with the software being open source the account number is constanly being altered, so at most you end up with $10. Oh well, who said there's no such thing as a free lunch?

  • Re:Market shares or...? (Score:3)

    by haledon ( 43675 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @05:18PM (#1157174)
    i'm a "soft-techie". i'm basically a geek turned suit; i'm also an economist and practical techno-business person. i am not an open source zealot, but i can tell you that the reason i do think that open source is the way of the future is b/c ours is a service-based economy. a few years ago, the US economy was product based. today, we are 60% product based and growing. don't believe me? who do you think makes a bigger profit margin? dell or anderson consulting? if products were so profitable, when why do we see more and more companies giving away products (computers, cell phones, etc...) for free, but charging for service?

    open sourcing a software product allows people who ultimately sell services (like red hat's support) to make a bigger profit on their services by sharing the costs of a product, and ultimately offering a better product.

    today, products are pretty much commodity items. seriously, what is the BIG difference between dell computers and gateway2000 computers. it's all about the marketing and customer support. did you knokw that car dealerships no longer compete based on price, but based on customer support? it's true.

    that's why open source works, why it's the way of the future, and why people WILL make money giving something away for free.

    it's just that it's software, and thus something different. when you get down to it, there is nothing too different from giving away software for free and charging for service (like support) and giving away cell phones for free and charging for the connection fees. just as a cell phone is USELESS without service, to a large corporation, linux isn't all that useful without massive support as well. (i'm not talking about a few developers using linux as their private operating system; i'm talking about a large coprotation clustering 40 - 50 servers all running linux and serving out web-based, custom-built applications.)

    questions? comments? email me!

  • Re:What is so hard about writing a browser? (Score:3)

    by divec ( 48748 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @03:07PM (#1157175) Homepage
    What is so hard about writing a browser?

    Well, one thing is that there's no standard for the documents you have to process. Well there's the W3C standard. But if your browser only reads W3C-compliant HTML then 90% of sites out there won't work. People tend to write for Netscape / IE even if their HTML is "wrong". So you have to second-guess both these products and also try to follow the W3C standard.


    Of course, you'd think Mozilla would have a good chance of emulating Netscape because most of its developers worked on Netscape.

  • They have a GIF of the new throbber (Score:3)

    by Pike ( 52876 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @02:30PM (#1157176) Journal
    If you want to see the new "throbber" for the netscape-branded version of the browser, go to that mozillazine article with the screenshots. The GIF is at the very bottom. Looks pretty cool, eh?

    -JD
    Geeky.org [geeky.org] || All Things Geek

  • Happy Birthday!!! Wow.... how its grown! (Score:3)

    by ndfa ( 71139 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @01:20PM (#1157177)
    I have been using Mozilla since way back in the day. I remember when it could not render the front page of Nvidia.com.... then it was close.. and now its on the money!

    There has been a whole lot of good things happen! In the past few months i get nightly builds for my linux system and it runs awesome! IN the time I was using XFree 3.9.17 it was the only browser i could use.. NetScape for some reason would not work!!! And i got to like it a lot!! I really think that they have done a lot better than I think most ppl. would have thought!!

    Great going Mozilla.... and may Netscape 6 be renamed in your honor!! I mean it really makes no sense to have Netscape 6 be the new name!!! call it Mozilla MileStone 2000.

    Hmm So where is party going to be ? ?

  • Re:Security (Score:3)

    by jesser ( 77961 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @06:52PM (#1157178) Homepage Journal
    It sounds like someone needs to volunteer a little effort towards the Mozilla Project! That's a benefit of open source.

    I don't get it. Lots of slashdot users have replied to my comments on this article, telling me that the only way to "contribute" to open source is to write code. That I'm not really contributing to mozilla by finding and reporting "bugs": security holes that have existed for several browser versions but are taken for granted, minor user-interface quirks, and requests for the interface to be more customizable and more friendly. At the same time, the slashdot community is frustrated by the lack of good user interfaces in open source software.

    Is there any chance that this attitude about "contribution" is a part of the reason why interfaces of open-source programs often suck?

    --

  • Re:Mozilla is far more "mature"... (Score:3)

    by kevin805 ( 84623 ) on Sunday April 02, 2000 @10:41PM (#1157179) Homepage
    I believe Mozilla is a pun on the name Mosaic. Mosaic was the first widely used graphical browser. It was written largely by Mark Andresson, who went on to work on Netscape. So, take Mosaic, and combine it with Godzilla (for big, and powerful, and general ass-kicking) and you get Mozilla, which was the name sent in the user agent string for Netscape, and, I would assume, the internal name for the browser.

    Mosaic got modified by Spyglass, and Spyglass Mosaic was the starting point for IE, so the two major browsers started with Mark Andreesson. IE was never "Mozilla", but it sent Mozilla as it's user-agent string because it was pretty much compatible.

    --Kevin

  • Re: Happy birthday (Score:3)

    by OmegaDave ( 127270 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @03:22PM (#1157180) Homepage
    Have you even used Gnome or Mozilla recently? I don't understand how you come off saying Gnome is bloated and useless. It makes KDE look like shit (IMO) and is not slow or full of useless features. Mozilla is also wonderful. I personally have had it crash on me less often than Navigator 4.7 or IE5. It's size is tiny compared to the others. I suggest you download Mozilla M14 and the latest Gnome and use them both for a while before you open your mouth again.

  • Market shares or...? (Score:3)

    by Jepk ( 167253 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @02:19PM (#1157181) Homepage
    I'm aware that I'm walking in a minefield here, but:

    Has it ever occurred to you how Netscape was rubbed in the dirt by Microsoft (of course it has) and how they (and the people cuurently working at the Mozilla project) are trying to gain the lost grounds? When topic = The Mozilla project, then the debate should be open for a few relevant questions. Problem is, the ideals behind Mozilla are so high that any posed question will inevidently sound like I'm brewing up a conspiracy theory. Anyway, here goes:

    - Why is the Open Source phenomenon booming the way is? Could it have anything to do with the fact that the hours spent on designing it are relatively free of charge (of course it has)? Does this have anything at all to do with a general tendency towards glorifying anything Open Source? In other words, why is it a cool thing to participate in anything that's Open Source? And does this again have anything to do with the fact that the term 'Open Source' has been commercialized (you must agree it is, really - remember the Save Iridium [saveiridium.com] project a few days ago). - ? Was Open Sourcing Mozilla the only way Netscape could stay alive? (think about how much publicity it has brought about).

    I'm not being offensive, just trying to dig to the core of things. And of course the one question which dismisses all the above as a load of crap is this: What does it all matter as long as the users are in control?

    Still, please think about it. I'm puzzled, as I'm not exactly a techie myself... does it make sense?

  • Re: PARTY ! (Score:4)

    by Money__ ( 87045 ) on Saturday April 01, 2000 @01:27PM (#1157182)
    Hmm So where is party going to be ? ?

    http://www.mozilla.org/party/2000/flyer.html [mozilla.org] has details about the party celebrating the N6B1.

    To all the hard working programers that have helped to build the lizard over the years: Thank You and have fun!
    _______________

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