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Netscape The Internet

Mozilla Picks Up Third Party IRC and RT Messaging 186

Posted by Roblimo from the starting-to-realize-the-promise dept.
Floris writes "Mozilla picks up steam - it is actually starting to look like a real OSS project now ;) New third party contributions are IRC andReal Time Messaging clients. Funny to think that Mozilla might actually fulfill the promise the browser once was and integrate all internet protocols into one interface."
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Mozilla Picks Up Third Party IRC and RT Messaging More

Mozilla Picks Up Third Party IRC and RT Messaging

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  • All I want to say was LAYER tag...... It worked in preview. grrr.

  • Re:Way to go (Score:3)

    by jilles ( 20976 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:57AM (#1695825) Homepage
    I agree. Netscape/mozilla is targeting a large group of people. Larger than us slashdotters. Normal users expect their browsers to offer any functionality they'll ever need because they are not skilled enough to select, download and install a custom application (they just install what their provider gives them).

    Also Mozilla is extremely flexible. What I heard about this chat client is that it's all XUL and javascript (i.e. not a single line of c except for some networking code which is soon to be replaced).

    Not only is it nice for mozilla to have a chat client, this also displays the powerful features mozilla has to offer. A full fledged chatclient implented with mozilla's scripting and XUL features.

    If netscape/AOL have any understanding of the market they are operating in, they will make sure that a large number of plugins (flash, vrml, realaudio, java, quicktime, ftp, etc.) is available for netscape the day it is released. If they fail to do so the upgrade won't be compelling enough for most users to dump internet explorer.
  • Netscape on top, OK, IE the lowest, OK. but they have to think about the size of it. i hope they make a "ripped version" BUT WHY DO I CARE, I TRUST ON MOZILLA
  • I didn't assume that peope will be compiling Mozilla. I was replying to a post in which the question was how to compile without unwanted features.

    Well, actually the discussion went something like that: somebody (actually, a lot of somebodies) said that Mozilla is in great danger from bloat and feeping creaturism. It aims to be all things to all people and thus is likely to become huge, unwieldy, ustable etc. etc. Somebody else objected to this saying, basically, that Mozilla is modular so you don't have to use what you don't need. From here the question of how to load / not-load modules came up and somebody else again jumped in with a comment that "you have the source! Just compile what you need!". Here my soul became agitated and I posted, saying essentially that compile-time flags are not a good way to include or not-include modules in a program like Mozilla.

    I understand that one can compile without the unwanted features. But the issue was how to load/unload modules at run-time. Hell, when I boot into Windows, I don't even have a C/C++ compiler there -- I presume that Mozilla will run under Windows, right?

    I agree though, it would be nice to have some sort of application "builder" where I can check what I want and just load/download those modules

    Well, I think it's not only nice, but essential. Again, we are speaking run-time, not compile-time. And a simple config file will suffice.

    One, these are 3rd party projects. That's the power of Open Source.

    So? Look at Winamp. It can hot-load third-party analyzer and display modules while it's running and it's not open source.

    The second is that Mozilla is primarily for those that have no idea how to use "geeky" things. They are computer experts, and don't want to be. All they want to be able to do is to use one application that does everything they need to do

    That's a good argument for MS Office. It's very much debatable whether one-big-app-which-does-it-all is a good thing, even and especially for naive users (aka the unwashed masses). Anyway, the debate is not about this. The question is customizability at run-time and IMAO Mozilla very much needs to have it.



    Kaa
  • HTML is not the best interface for everything. I think many software designers have yet to learn that. Netscape's e-mail and news works very well in the interface it has. I definitely wouldn't want it to look like, say, DejaNews (or just "Deja" as they like to be called now). HTML has limitations, and there's no reason to unnecessarily apply those limitations to other things.
    Anyway, what would a Web-like interface accomplish? Nothing except to confuse the user about how the Internet works. If e-mail clients look like Hotmail, then Microsoft can call Hotmail an e-mail client and get away with it.
    --
  • Exactly... I has to be atleast as easy to configure modules as the tcl config for the linux kernel.

    But preferably it should be like *cough* MS Office, a collection of seperate executables that work together (somewhat) seamlessely. Or prehaps what Office tries to do. No paper clip though :)

    I can do the former, but most people cant.. And putting it in all one binary makes it so you have to download a huge thing. All seperate things that know how to play with each other is what they should be aming for.. DDE/OLE/Cobra type stuff..

  • This is exactly what has been done.

    The IRC-client [ndcico.com] we're talking about here is nothing more than very sophisticated html/js.

    And there's a mail-client with a web-interface [mozilla.org], too.
    See also Aurora [mozilla.org].

    Even the GUI itself (menus, toolbars etc.) is HTML/XUL/JS.

    Check out www.mozilla.org [mozilla.org] and it's projects page [mozilla.org] for more info.

  • Did you try to strip the binary it was probably compiled with debuging information that will make it much larger and probably slower too. Also does mozilla support gtk+, I want it to 'fit in' with my themes, etc.
  • It's NOT one huge binary!
    Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org [berlin-consortium.org]
  • I also think it's a big advantage to include all that fancy extra stuff, but the team can't forgot what a lot of the public excitement was about: a really small and fast browser. (Maybe we'll even get some more people IRC'ing. Whether that's good or bad, I don't know.)
  • Donst anybody get it? its a single point of communication. So that anybody can use any part of the internet.
    I already have that and I'm sitting in front of it. Is there *any* significant advantage from putting all these functions into one huge program over having multiple programs to do them? "Because we can" isn't a good reason :-)

    I like the idea of little handheld computers for simple tasks, but what makes one program that does 500 things better (or even more integrated) than lots of programs doing one thing each?

    Daniel
  • Come ON, do any of you really believe any of it will be non-customizable when their interface will be XML/XUL based, and they use an internal object COM/CORBA-like protocol? It would be incredibly lame for them NOT to use those things to make contributions behave like plugins or loadable modules. Besides, these are OUTSIDE CONTRIBUTIONS - in other words, stuff other people contributed to Mozilla, not feature creap "just because we want the features."
    Oh, and if I'm not mistaken Jabber is mostly GPL.

    Floris.
  • You know I'd settle for them coming out with something that didn't crash and sucessfully rendered pages first, before adding on all these bells and whistles.
  • crit.org [crit.org] has had universal web annotation for a while now... but that didn't stop Third Voice [thirdvoice.com] from claiming they were the first earlier this year. The first proprietary one, perhaps.

    [TMB]
  • I believe it has to do with "reflow" problems. Basically, when it redraws a button, it also has to redraw everything else on the screen. It's much better than it once was, but still needs work.
  • can you say MIME. That's what netscape and internet explorer use to implement what you're suggesting. You basically specify for each MIME type which plugin should take care of it.

    The fact that you have to go through 'obscure procedures' to get them to use your applications only means that your applications are not smart enough that to figure out they should register themself for the mime type they handle.

    BTW. I don't think this system is perfect. I think registering MIME types should be done on the OS level so that all applications can profit from it. A browser could of course still use its own list to override the default OS settings.

    What most linux users who don't like this automatic launching of plugins seem to suggest to dump all registering all together and let the user figure out which pogram to use whenever a MIME type piece of data is encountered. I don't think that would be very satisfying for most users.
  • If this is truly open source, AOL cannot ruin the project. If they shut down the project, we just start elsewhere.

  • Integrating protocols into a single Web browser (Score:4)

    by rcade ( 4482 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @01:12AM (#1695843) Homepage

    Some people seem to be forgetting that the World Wide Web was designed to be a medium that transparently handled other protocols. Users could familiarize themselves with one interface -- the Web browser -- and exchange information via HTTP, FTP, Usenet and gopher.

    I'd like to see more protocols adopted as part of a Web browser, but not in the "office suite" style that Netscape seems to have adopted. The e-mail and Usenet clients should look and act like Web pages if they are part of the browser, the same way that FTP directories do. You should be able to use them without feeling like you've left the Web. Posting to Usenet from a browser should look like posting to any other form. Reading and writing e-mail using your ISP's SMTP and POP3 servers should look like a free-mail site.

    Spawning separate programs with their own unique interfaces is not an improvement. For instance, there's no compelling reason to go with Netscape's e-mail client instead of a third-party's program, because the learning curve is the same -- and both are much harder to learn than a free-mail site like Hotmail or Prontomail.

    If Mozilla can assimilate IRC and other messaging standards as part of the Web interface -- rather than a separately spawned interface -- I think it's a great reason to start using the browser again. If it's just being used to bundle and deliver separate apps together a la Microsoft Office 2000, the benefit to users is negligible.

  • This kind of messaging will be useful in Office Enviorment also. Here we use Outlook E-mail is being use as IM. No one bother to use AIM here. They'll use it if it on a browser i'm sure.
  • Weather or not they all look the same and have spiffy integration with each other or not isn't exactly the issue.

    I think what people keep attempting to say is
    that it should be a couple of things,

    1 - it should be stable.
    2 - it should have a small memory footprint.

    The second one is optional if you want the features but the first one is not. It's more condusive this way, to have multiple binaries, that way if one crashes it doesn't take everything else down with it (like current netscape). If you accomplish this with a loadable module type bit fine, whatever. What i think people are worried about is that it's not being accomplished at all. And that worries me too.

  • Does this mean they'll have to rm -rf their entire existing code? Yes.

    Uh, no. They've already done just that a long time ago -- that's where we got Gecko. The current Mozilla is pretty much just a bunch of shared library files, so you can add and remove the modules you want by adding and deleting files to the directory. It is HEAVILY componentized. XPCOM/CORBA and all that. No mucking with source at all to add and remove features. If you don't want the editor, delete the editor files. I'm certain when Mozilla reaches beta someone will make a "distribution" of it with everything but the browser stuff stripped out. If not, you can just delete the files yourself.

    For a more complete explanation, see the indicated Anonymous Comment [slashdot.org]. (not by me)

    Oh, and by the way... the current footprint is ~2.5MB with the editor and browser and everything; memory usage is also decreasing nicely now that they've started paying attention to optimisation.

    Grrr... I'm tired of people spreading FUD about Mozilla when all of their information is plainly hearsay. Try reading the status page [mozilla.org] regularly. Or maybe you'd find MozillaZine [mozillazine.org] more palatable.


    Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org [berlin-consortium.org]
  • I sure hope so. I'd like to see Mozilla back on top. Hopefully the AOL influence won't ruin this great project.

  • Hah! (Score:2)

    by rde ( 17364 )
    Third party contributions... I like that. It seems only a couple of months ago that naysayers were muttering about the death of Mozilla because no-one outside Netscape was contributing.
    And real-time messaging that's fully open; does that mean they're giving up that silly fight with microsoft?
  • When attempting to follow the links from this article to mozillazine.org, I get the unceremonious result:

    Unable to connect to SQL server

    Didn't even bother with a {HTML} or anything. Maybe Netscape aren't really all that anti-Microsoft after all ;)

  • RT in Mozilla (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Quoting: "The Jabber team has been designing and developing an architecture for real-time messaging that is fully open, utilizes an XML based protocol, will support the IETF/IMPP developments, and can bridge transparently to 3rd party messaging services such as IRC, ICQ, and AIM." I won't even say a word about waste of development time to implement yet another RT messaging client, when there are lods of them now. What I really question is who is going to be on full-time to patch bugs and changes in protocols intentionally done by Mirabilis and possible AOL (although they own Netscape). With all due respect to Mozilla's team, which makes a fairly good progress towards a _browser_, all such things (though developed in parallel by seems independent people) are (not nessesary) evil.
  • I love Netscape. But my major concern is that the more useful apps that they load into the product, the more put-out I'm going to be when the application (well, all the applications) crash at once. ARRrrgggghhh... I don't want to replace the headache of Microsoft's OS crash with a Netscape mega-app crash.
  • I was not aware that one of the goals of the mozilla project was to integrate all protocols under one interface... IMHO that is a BAD thing... A web browser should be a web browser... there's a good argument to be made for it to be a minimalist FTP client and it's even conceivable for it to be an email and news reader as well , although all three would work better as optional plugins, that way I could hand off the URLs to pine, tin, and ncftp if I want.

    EVERYTHING else should be an optional plugin. I already have 2 perfectly good instant messaging clients right now, and I don't want Mo usurping them...

    What's next, will Mo play mp3s ? Why not, Winamp parses HTML... pheh...

    Oh well, I didn't want NFS and HTTP to be parts of the kernel either. Nobody ever listens to me.
    ;)

  • Anyway, what would a Web-like interface accomplish? Nothing except to confuse the user about how the Internet works.

    A Web-like interface accomplishes a lot: It enables people who can surf a Web site to send and receive e-mail and use other services without a learning curve.

    That isn't important to most of Slashdot's readership, but it's extremely important to the masses. The Web interface, for all its faults, is popular because of its simplicity and ubiquity. Do you think dozens of people would be discussing this article today if we had to run a Usenet client and load up alt.slashdot.discussion just to read and write messages?

    One of the reason services like Hotmail have taken off is that most people don't want to learn 16 programs to use 16 Internet protocols.

    Besides, users don't need to know how the Internet works any more than they need to know the protocols involved in making a long-distance phone call. They pay good money to other people (namely, geeks like us) so they can be shielded from this kind of technical arcana.

    If e-mail clients look like Hotmail, then Microsoft can call Hotmail an e-mail client and get away with it.

    Hotmail is an e-mail client that delivers most of the functionality John Q. User would want or need. It's a security nightmare, obviously, but the adoption of Web-based e-mail by millions of people shows the service is valued.

  • Clear Goals please. (Score:5)

    by adnan ( 87173 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:20AM (#1695857)

    I think it's very important for Netscape (or is this really going to AOL ? If so i might as well give up now.) to have clear goals for mozilla. Adding to the already totally rewritten codebase, third party products of dubious quality or usability seems a littly pointless.

    From the start as i understood it, the goals for mozilla was to have a very fast layout engine (NGLayout is brilliant) and a thin footprint. That is exactly what most serious users want out of this client. A stable and speedy browser, not bloatware.

    Though i do understand that the target market includes many users who do not spend over 5 hours a day on the internet or hacking their 1980's tape kernel drivers for linux. Any such addons such as an instant messager should be a seperate entity that can be downloaded if required.

    All the hard work has nearly been done, do not wreck it with bloatware or a by diluting the original worthy goals.

  • It's not Netscape. It's Mozilla. They are different things. But I see your point. As long as we only need to load the programs/modules we want to use it should be okay.
  • I just can't agree with you. This kind of outside contribution is purely counterproductive at this point in the project. What the Mozilla team *should* have done was put all their effort into getting a bare bones browser beta release out as soon as possible - no mail, no news, no IRC, etc. What a cruel joke this project has become. It's been a year and a half and the GUI code (menus, dialogs, etc.) is still so buggy that nobody can use it. But we do have a full set of bloatware plug-in modules written. Talk about misguided effort!

    I think you (and others) have a hell of a lot of nerve complaining about Mozilla not being released considering the loudest complainers are the ones who have NOT contributed a single line of code or anything else to the Mozilla project. With that said you don't have any right to bitch at all about features in Mozilla, the lack there-of or anything else about Mozilla. Maybe if you shut up and started writing some code and submit it to the Mozilla team it may be released sooner.

  • Uggh! Just get the damn thing released (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Feature-freeze this thing and get it out. At the current rate its going to be another year before Mozilla is in wide release.

  • I realise this. Though i was commenting on what they should not do in the future. Not what is being done right now. Though the chance of capturing even a little market share of the huge IM and to a lesser extent the IRC market maybe a little to much potential profit to pass up for AOL.

  • Well, I hear you, I don't like gadgets in my programs either.

    But this is open source, meaning those that contribute determine which itch to scratch. It also means that even should these functions not be removable (doubtful), someone can rapidly create a version in which they are, and redistribute it.

    And as to cries for bloatware from the Linux community, maybe not. But Mozilla isn't for the Linux community alone, it has Windows, Mac, BeOs and other platform developers as well. Some of these may want an integrated platform even though many of us prefer tools for specific jobs. Integrated platforms can even be nice if the interfaces are suited to many different plug-ins for each function, especially when open source.

    You can find a gazillion threads on whether mail, news, and other clients should be included with a browser in their netscape.public.mozilla.general newsgroup if you are curious as to their reasoning. You can even give them feedback if you think it that important.

    This is not directed at you Synn, but let's quit kicking Mozilla, the media will do that for us. Either people should get involved and control the direction from within, or they might at least wait to see the gift before complaining about it.

  • I'd add to this another point: the addition of these things is a good sign for the overall Mozilla design. There's a saying about portable software, "There is no such thing as portable software, only software which has been ported.". I think the same thing applies to software intended to have relatively arbitrary plug-in functionality added. You can't design for it and get it right without actually doing it at some point. That it's being done indicates that the glitches are worked out enough to make things work, so maybe we'll have an easier time adding protocols in the future.

  • One big bloated monster... So what?

    Get the source.
    Go through the directories with perl/grep to recognize what needs to be changed and what doesn't.
    Release the thing in modules.

    By the way if you bothered to read the mozilla site you'd know that all the stuff is developed in modules. Therefore all that need to be changed is a few includes/file. Nothing else, NOT EVEN THE SOURCE.

    Then release the tiny imps instead of the great monster. I might just do it myself for cryin out loud.

  • On the subject of loadable modules and bloat. (Score:3)

    by Daniel ( 1678 ) <dburrows&debian,org> on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @01:33AM (#1695868)
    Many people trash Emacs for being 'bloated'. Emacs users reply that Emacs isn't bloated, it just has 50000 elisp modules that you can load.
    Many people trash Mozilla for being 'bloated'. Mozilla developers reply that Mozilla isn't bloated, it just has 50000 loadable modules that you can add.

    I like Emacs' "bloat". Despite the similarity, however, I am disturbed by Mozilla's bloat. Why? Let me explain...
    In Emacs, virtually every module I've seen, except for w3 and a few cute things like the Tower of Hanoi, is somehow related to text editing and viewing. This makes sense since Emacs' primary function for most people is as a text editor. Even the news/mailreader falls into this category, since you have to edit text to read mail and news anyway. Even these 'leverage' the abilities of Emacs to perform their operations.
    Mozilla, on the other hand, is a Web browser. Loadable modules that would make sense would be things like movie-playing plugins, Java VMs, interface touchups, and so on. What doesn't make sense is adding completely new functionality under the pretense of 'integration'. How is it more 'integrated' if my IRC client and Web browser are the same program? IRC clients don't need complex HTML layout; in fact, virtually the only piece of code that the two functions share is the code to transmit bytes over a network and maybe configuration infrastructure. Mail and news clients as well have *no reason* to be 'integrated' into a Web browser unless they are using HTML to send and receive messages -- and as anyone who has unexpectedly gotten one of these HTML messages can tell you, HTML email is Evil. (even with mutt, which parses mailcap and starts lynx..) FTP, on the other hand, makes some sense -- you're generally viewing structured information and retrieving files.
    I suspect that most of these will end up being like Emacs' w3: "My Web browser can read mail! How cute!" However, the fact that several of these projects (the mail and news clients at least) appear to be part of Mozilla's "core" distribution makes me wonder about the goals and attitudes of the project.
    When I heard that Mozilla was going to create a fast, clean implementation of the browser, I was ecstatic. Finally something that would just let me read Web pages! How wrong I was. I wish I had time to make my own browser, but I've already got plenty of other projects to work on. Hopefully one of the other groups working on a free browser will avoid the pitfall of overgeneralization..

    Daniel
  • For how many more times, it is not called X Windows!

  • crit.org's nice ... but we need a more client side solution. For currently this is really heavy on the crit.org server, hence slow, does'nt work with layered, etc ...
  • KDE and Gnome have file and web browsing integrated, and it would be a waste of resources IMO if they were still being developed. Does anyone see the benefit of replacing those browsers with PARTS (i.e. JUST the browser which seems faster) of Mozilla?

    Oh wait... the MPL or NPL or whatever it's called right? Or am I mistaken?

    My other comment/question:

    To me one of the big plusses of open sourced software is choice... I don't worry about some big company cramming a suite of products down my throat when I want just 1 application.

    I've used Mozilla SOME. I'd like to use JUST the browser, and conserve loading time and memory by discarding the built-in bookmarking, history, instant-messaging and IRC stuff I don't want.

    Are these add-ons being integrated in such a way that I could easily unload them to save RAM? Doesthis work like a "default IRC client" which I could repoint to say BitchX or will it be hard-coded (yes, I know I am 'free to hack the code'... then bitch for an hour when it won't compile :)

    I'm grateful to the mozilla folks for what they are doing. I think people tend to become a bit jaded online and make comments they wouldn't make in person.... "hey I just added some stuff to the free browser I wrote for you" - "oh great you couldn't resist the Kitchen Sink". Nice...

    If I can plug in my own apps or disable the linking alltogether that sounds perfect for everyone - why complain?

  • Question: what does the browser have to do with the stability of the window manager or the X server? Netscape crashes on occasion for me, but the window manager (desktop actually, I run Gnome) and X server keep running just fine (barring blockage of the X event queue, which telnet and kill deals with just fine).

  • dave whiner...heh heh

  • GNOME, BASH, GPG are open source projects. Mozilla has just recently (& i mean recently started recieving help from the open source community). The lacklustre support that they attained during the initial development stages of the project was due to Netscape having open sourced the project in theory only though in actuality 80% of the developers were inhouse. This plainly goes to show that Mozilla has not been the most widely accepted open source project.

    Though why you accept the fact unconditionally that open source automatically means an excellent project i do not quite comprehend. Though i am in total support of mozilla development as it is one of the fundemental tools required in the coming expansion of the Information age. Also i have total respect for open source devlopment strategies, but i do not suffer from the illusions that all open source code is by its very definition perfect.

    Also my worry is that most of the decisions about marketing (& considering the power of the marketing department of the the techies in most companies) that AOL will suddenly decide before initial realease to integrate their IM with Mozilla to increase market share. Who is going to say no and achieve a no from them ? The 30 developers who commited hours upon hours of free time on it ? Trust me... AOL wont care.

  • Mozillazine has nothing to do with Netscape. It is driven by an enthusiast, just like Slashdot started out.

    And why are you referring to Microsoft? Slashdot also uses a SQL server, which have had problems from time to time.

  • I somehow doubt a windows user is going to start passing compilation options to their GCC.

  • We need to see more projects like this (Score:3)

    by benmg ( 69572 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @08:56AM (#1695880) Homepage
    This is an exciting demonstration of the componentised Mozilla architecture. Write a core routines in some compilable language if need be, and then build a UI layer on top using JavaScript, XUL and CSS.

    Not only is Mozilla a browser, its also a widget toolkit and development platform! We need more apps like this to show the power and extensibility of the tools being developed.

  • what's the latest version you have? Earlier versions have retarded box drawing code which made responsiveness from the UI really really bad.

    I find that the button bar elements of the UI now to be as instantaneous as native compiled code. The XPMenus still lag a bit though, but that's being worked on.
  • I haven't seen the RT Message client, but the IRC client is a bunch of javascript. When running, it just looks like a web page. This does not add any signifigant code the mozilla browser itself. Even if the IM client adds hundreds of thousands of lines of code to mozilla, *YOU* have the source, and *YOU* can recompile it with whatever you want in there. I'm sure after mozilla gets released people will rpm or deb slimmed down browser only mozillas.
  • Actually in BeOS the mime types are handled by the OS and application register their services/supported filetypes there...
  • Well I've been keeping up with the Milestone releases, and this puppy has a long way to go. 3rd party add ons are wonderful, of course, but the Mozilla team needs to be very focused on what matters to them. Namely, Mozilla. The application is slow to respond on my 550MHz machine with 256 Megs of RAM. Even a bloated program will respond fast on that sort of machine, so they must be doing something wrong. We don't need another Netscape - We need a decent browser.
  • Right after M11 there is a feature freeze. They're working on M10 right now, but there won't be a M10 release. They're going straight into M11.
  • ...is for people to learn the correct acronyms. It's CORBA. Common Object Request Broker Architecture. And you're right - it won't be on your wristwatch anytime soon. Then again, it was designed to be a solution to a problem much more complex than this one.
  • Sure, it's not the greatest platform, but Windows has been doing this since 95. I really like the way Windows handles data types. There are a few things I would change, but otherwise it creates a very standard way to change data types throughout the whole platform.
  • Most of these new additions won't be included in the normal release of Mozilla and probably won't make it into Netscape.

    The IRC client is written totally in javascript and xul, which means its small. The new necko "network" library allows this.
  • Wellp, I just tried GZilla. It works, now, but only marginally. It certainly isn't at the point where you can use it to peruse Slashdot (in fact, it gets completely hosed). There's also no keyboard navigation controls (gotta use that damned "mouse" thing people keep talking about), and the interface is beyond spartan. It's definitely making progress, but that's about all I can say for it at this point.
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.

  • URI (Score:1)

    by badben ( 45336 )
    Mozilla is working with that kind of URIs. I've seen mail box:/, newsgroups:/ [mozilla.org], pop 3:/ [mozilla.org] etc.
  • but we DO want your input. We want your bug reports!

    We especially like specific examples of problems (e.g. "the Open Location menu item causes a crash on Win32").

    These comments and bug reports help get broken stuff fixed, and a better product made faster!
  • Todays browser is trying to be a Jack of all Trades but ends up as Master of None. Now, apart from being a (poor) web browser, it does mail (poorly), news (poorly), web-page design (poorly), and also is a (poor) Instant Messenger and (poor) IRC client as well? Yuk! Just about the only thing these monstrocities do well is bloat up your HD.

    Please call me back when it can control the spin-cycle on my dryer and microwave me a cheese sandwich as well.
  • Why stop there? Why not just put everything into the operating system. MozillaOS if you will?

    It's all matter of boundries. A system can be comprised of many seperate things or be comprised of one thing with many functions. Either way it has the same resulting functionality, just put into different boundries.

    It's all how you look at it.

  • Gecko rocks my world (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Alright, it's time to clear up some misconceptions. First, Mozilla is actually a collection of really cool technologies. The first is Gecko, which is a small, very fast standards compliant renderer that can handle XML, HTML 4, the Document Object Model, and Cascading Style Sheets. Gecko is _not_ a browser, just a renderer. Next is XUL, which stands for Xross-platform User-interface Language. XUL allows one to build their entire program's user interface using a collection of XML tags, like this: >toolbar id="Command Toolbar"< >html:button<Button One>/html:button< >/toolbar< This would create a toolbar. Now here's the cool part: Gecko _renders_ the XUL components. The XUL components are controlled and scripted by Javascript, while the look and feel of the XUL components are specified in Cascading Style Sheets. Now, HTML 4 can be intermixed into the XUL, as in the above example where I place an html:button into the XUL toolbar. Notice that I haven't yet even specified a browser yet! Gecko+XUL is NOT the browser. All Mozilla really is is a collection of XUL files that builds the browser chrome _around_ Gecko! So, one could use the Gecko core for entirely seperate applications, such as the IRC application, and just use it as a rendering engine. For example, someone is working on creating an editor that uses Gecko and XUL that has nothing to do with the Mozilla browser. It doesn't have to be integrated in! The collection of technologies within the Mozilla project is truly amazing, and they are really the basis for a web operating system. Other technologies make this possible. C++ components are written using a cross-platform implementation of COM called XPCOM. Groups are working on making it possible to write XPCOM components with both Java and JavaScript; they could even be Python if you so desired. Now, there is something called XPIDL while allows one to describe in a non-language specific way the methods and attributes of the XPCOM component. What this means is that other languages, like javascript, can call the XPCOM component. Mozilla has a collection of XPCOM components, such as one that handles RDF, another that handles the user's history, and another that handles the user's bookmarks. These XPCOM components can be called from javascript, so that you can use pre-defined XPCOM services from your Gecko chrome. So it should be possible to wrap some parts of the KDE services as XPCOM components, script them from JavaScript, and use XUL+Gecko to build a DOM-based rendering engine on top of KDE! Cool beano. Thanks, Brad Neuberg brad@basesystem.com
  • Hotmail is an email client. It just happens to be an online one.
  • This is all being done third-party, so your objection is moot.
  • But can it edit text?
  • The main point is the Mozilla team are not developing these addons it is basically people outside of Netscape who are making them, this means that if they want to write an IRC/IM client for Mozilla they can do, whether the Mozilla team include it in their distribution is up to the Mozilla team and whether Netscape include it in the official Netscape distribution is their own decision.

    Basically this just proves that outside developers are interested in working with Mozilla.
    --
  • This is all third-party work, so your argument is moot.
  • If any of the moaning posters bothered to read the source and compile it themselves, they might realise that passing options to configure would reduce the size and components built.

    I downloaded and compiled M9 this weekend, and managed to get it working. However I need to compile it again without the debug code in place, as by default it compiles with debug in everything. I ran out of time (need a faster processor!).

    This weekend I'll try again.

    I did receive a number of sig 11 faults during the build; more importantly I found the cause of them and ways of working around them. AFAIK, neither of the causes of the sig 11's were in sig 11 FAQ. One cause was a lack of conventional memory when ld was processing a large link. In this case exiting X appeared to resolve the problem. The other cause was a lack of disk space, seen during the building of a 50MB library. I had around 100MB free, but there was not enough disk space for the scratch-files and a core dump. Running 'make clean' and building the components in a different order fixed this, but I ran out of disk space completly.

    Finally got it compiled by blowing away my 800+MB Win95 partition. When finished there was only 1% free.
  • heh i agree. i dont even use any of the crap that comes with netscape beyond the web browser, pine for email and bitchx for irc. what else do you need? heh. we dont need any more bloatware in this great day and age.
    I think the netscape guys should be working on making my browser not crash every hour or so. that'd be a lot more useful.

    Tyler

  • Check out XML-RPC (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    URI's are great but they're nowhere near as flexible as what Dave Whiner(of scripting.com fame) has come up with. Check out xml-rpc's website [xmlrpc.com] to see how you could do everything you've described and more without having to resort to arcane madness such as CORBA ;) Xml-rpc is quite simple to understand and use. It should have a stellar future. Zope has just integrated it and people have already come up with interfaces for Perl, PHP, ASP, etc.
  • www.gzilla.com - it's a GPL'd browser. The current dynamically linked executable is about 500k. I need to check it out when I get home... has anyone else used it?

  • How Mozilla ACTUALLY works, and why this is GOOD! (Score:5)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @02:42AM (#1695913)
    Having seen many posters express concern about Mozilla becoming bloated or
    trying to integrate too many things, such as IRC, into the browser, I
    wanted to correct these wrong attitudes:

    First off, the code for the client was written by rginda, who does not
    work for netscape. So, it is totally "third party" and serves as a great
    example of what can be done with Mozilla. The Mozilla team itself is
    focused on delivering the browser that everyone is screaming for.


    THE SIMPLE PICTURE of how Mozilla works: (At least how it appears to me!)

    The Common Perception:

    [ M O Z I L L A ] = One unit with everything inside it.

    The Reality:

    [ [[core][core][core][core]] [optional] [optional] [optional] ]

    There is a set of core components which make a usable, basic, web browser
    which supports the standards defined at http://www.w3.org.

    Beyond that core, everything else is just an optional component, like a
    plug-in. That's it. The IRC Client is in no way part of the core, (and if
    you read below you'll realize its a javascript which utilizes the core
    functionality)

    Blah blah wait there's more if you want to be able to make an informed
    criticism next time:

    To summarize the technical documents linked below, Mozilla is built using
    components which are for the most part self-contained. A certain number of
    these components are necessary to form a working web browser capable of
    rendering HTML, CSS, XML, XUL, JPEG, GIF, PNG, and other common web
    formats and standards. You can read about these core functionalities and
    how they are built in a component-based way at:
    http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/overview.html

    Beyond those core functionalities, other components may be created which
    are also self-contained and do not in any way interfere with the core
    browser components. The IRC client works like this. In fact, it only uses
    a small component that is loaded when a Javascript file explicitly asks
    for the component. The rest of the client uses Javascript and html and XUL
    (XML Based User-interface Language: http://www.mozilla.org/xpfe). So,
    basically the IRC client is a javascript! What makes it function like
    other clients is that is that it _completely_ leverages and relies upon
    the flexibility of those core components listed above. In short, it
    introduces no bloat.

    Some technical documentation on the subject:
    http://www.mozilla.org/roadmap.html http://www.mozilla.org/newlayout/
    http://www.mozilla.org/projects/xpcom/
    http://lxr.mozilla.org/mozilla/source/extensions /irc/js/lib/irc.js
  • If a patch is *needed* or *wanted* someone will do
    it. If noone needs or wants the patch then it
    won't get done (and noone will care because noone
    needs or wants the patch). This is how (and why)
    Open Source works. Get it?

    You are parroting one of the most common myths
    used in attempts to debunk OSS ("There is no
    corporate entity supporting it therefore
    you will eventually be left unsupported.").
    Methinks you've started believing the FUD.
  • There's really only one thing I'd add to that.

    It seems to me that a scaled down browser-only browser would benefit greatly if it supported plugins.

    That way, if you want to just browse, you can go for it. If, however, you want audio, animation, email or any of the other stuff that's been thrown into the bag, you have the options of downloading and installing them easily.

    I agree, though. Maybe a Mozilla Lite would be a good idea for many of us.
  • It's a legitimate complaint. Hell, that's one of the reasons Jamie Zawinski left Mozilla; after a year there still wasn't a public beta. Here's his complete writeup for a reminder: http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/nomo.html That doesn't mean I don't respect or appreciate the efforts of those who are volunteering their time to Mozilla, but while Netscape is looking older and older, IE starts looking more appealing in a lot of ways. Just my two scents... :-)
  • Sorry I am dyslexic and my spell checker has no idea what acronyms even are!

  • "Mozilla Project" Releases Version 1.0 (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward
    BOSTON(AP) - The Mozilla Project released version 1.0 of their storied "Open Source" project at a small ceremony at the Computer Museum in Boston's Museum of Science. It will now reside in a display case along-side such other historical artifacts as the Altair, Java, and Windows.

    The project began in the late twentieth century as a beseiged company engaged the use of "Fence Painters", a reference to a Mark Twains classic Tom Sawyer, to combat the rising fortune of Microsoft's "Internet Explorer."

    The project itself has taken a number of turns along the path to the 1.0 release. Along the way, the team implemented such features as non-linear digital editing, sound processing, and even theater lighting systems. At one time the project also included code to control small robots used in the construction of homes for Habitat for Humanity.

    The teams current leader, Zipznak Zawinski, the great grandson of one of the projects first programmers, gave a brief speech lauding the original intent of the project and the relief that it is now done.

  • Arg! Bloat! It has an integrated editor, mail/news reader, and web browser, now it's getting IRC and IM... Next thing you know they are going to rewrite gecko and the entire UI in lisp, call it mozlisp, and make you memorize hundreds of obscure commands like META-b-x-add-bookmark.

    I can see it now, in three years Mozilla will be a HUGE creature weighing in a 60 megs and carrying so much functionality users will never have to leave it... and then AOL will start requiring that you call it Mozilla/Linux and RMS will have a fit. Aint life grand?

    Don't hurt me, I'm kidding.

  • The application is slow to respond on my 550MHz machine with 256 Megs of RAM. Even a bloated program will respond fast on that sort of machine, so they must be doing something wrong.

    Mozilla is doing nothing wrong. Keep in mind that commercial products you only see the final, optimised, cleaned up, perfected app. If you get to see a "beta", it has been "polished". The mozilla code is the development code. It's full of debugging information. It's not been optimised. It's "in progress".

    So yes, as anyone who develops code knows, code doesn't just "happen". I don't start a project that is automatically feature-full, and production ready. It's a long process to get there.

    That seems to be the drawback of a highly-visible open source project. People who don't understand software development download the latest milestone, find out it's not finished, and then proclaim that the project is a "failure".

    It's not. Even Internet Explorer had a time when the browser was at the point Mozilla is now. Don't forget that. Even though you you can only see the "beta" or final product, don't think that it started out that way. It was a long project, just like Mozilla is.

    The project is progressing, and as all projects do, soon reach that finish line. At that point it'll be time to see if it's "fast" enough. For now, it's not. For those wanting to help, find out what's being worked on right now, and what bugs are being looked for. Find bugs and missing features that already in the road map. It does no good to complain that feature "xyz" is not there, when the roadmap already shows that feature "xzy" is planned to be implemented in Milestone 12.

    -Brent
    --
  • Actually both Windows and MacOS have this type of functionality. Windows registers MIME types in its registry database, but because OLE (ActiveX) was not designed with browser plug-in capability in mind, plug-in authors have to put their components directly into the Netscape/MSIE plug-ins folder anyway. MacOS has the most user-friendly method of registering applications and if you move an app to a different folder or different hard drive, the "shortcuts" continue to work. However, the OS knows nothing of MIME types.

    IMHO all operating systems would benefit by having some form of a centralized registry. (On a side note, if anyone is sufferring from repeated "Windows Registry" errors, I have written a utility that can fix that problem in certain circumstances under Win95/98. Open source. Will release to public soon. E-mail me.)
  • I've tried it on numerous occasions. For me, it usually crashes upon startup or doesn't have needed functionality (such as the ability to submit forms). I don't care about its lack of layout engine (from what I've seen it's basically Lynx with support for IMG and fonts), but thus far it's not at a usable state. Maybe it's been updated since last time I checked, though... I think the latest version I've used is the one included in Debian 2.1. I'd might as well try it again when I get home, since the topic's been brought up...
    ---
    "'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
  • Mozilla with a IRC/Chat program internal?
    Hmm, wonder how M$ likes a taste of their own medicine.

    But seriously, this is a GOOD THING. Do you know how many modules exist for EMACS? No, you don't, that's the whole point, OSS means never having to say, "Thats ALL I can do with this program", (and by extension, it means never being able to say "I understand it completely") but we want the damn bazar, because it works. Don't say it's bad because YOU dont want a particular feature, OSS software almost always allows to disable any thing you want, and the specs on how Mozilla folds modules in are beautiful. IE will never be able to compete with this, precisely because they limit it to what THEY think most people want.
    -Crutcher
  • Posted by shaver@netscape.com:

    I can't find any bugs in bugzilla [mozilla.org] reported by "rombuu", so I'm not sure which rendering flaws or crashes you're talking about.

    Could you point me to bugs you've filed to report these deficiencies in Mozilla? Are you maybe using a different email address?

  • ALL of the Mozilla components are optional and replacable, dependencies aside.
    Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org [berlin-consortium.org]

  • What users want? (Score:3)

    by GoRK ( 10018 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:32AM (#1695961) Homepage Journal
    Hey, hold on a second. I don't want all my protocols stuck behind one interface! Is that what the browser is supposed to do? I don't even like the fact that browsers handle FTP and E-Mail links unless you go through an obscure procedure to direct them to other clients.

    I sugggest that it is time for universal Internet applications messaging standards (between a user's set of apps, not between computers). It should be simpler than browser Plug-In's. It should be universal unlike ActiveX, OLE, and even COBRA. I don't want to hear it about how you can compile COBRA components on any platform. My wristwatch just won't do COBRA any time soon. It should probably be TCP/IP only so that you can do distributed applications and cool stuff like that.

    Here's an idea. Let's see a core component that processes URI's and coordinates Internet information between clients that know how to handle HTTP, FTP, SMTP, IRC, Real Time Messaging, Telnet, SSH, ad infinitum.

    The URI is the most powerful identifier, and I am very dissapointed that more applications do not use it. I.e. the notion of

    protocol://user:password@host:port/identifier?para m=value

    is the most powerful tool anybody has to locate information or services. It works for every applicaiton and every protocol. Imagine if the following links all worked:

    http://www.slashdot.org/index.pl [slashdot.org]
    ftp://ftp.freshmeat.net/pub/ [freshmeat.net]
    irc://JoeSchmoe@irc.slashnet.org/#blah [irc]
    pop3://JoeSchmoe@mail.myhost.com/Inbox /20323 [pop3]
    You get the idea....

    Maybe it's just me, but I don't think that Mozilla will ever become my IRC or messaging client of choice. Not that I have anything against these projects. I like to see them. I just think it would be more useful if someone did something like I have just described. If I could code, I would do it.

    ~GoRK
  • There are *optional* features. Because of the fact that you have the source code for Mozilla, you can disable these features with little difficulty

    Oh-oh. You mean I'll actually have to go into source and #undef stuff, then recompile? That's not good at all. My definiton of 'optional' does not include this way of disabling features. What I want is a config file (with or without a pretty GUI front end) where I can specify what modules to load and what to leave behind. Hot-loading or unloading will be nice as well. But if you really expect people to mess with header files in order to switch off features, that's not going to happen.

    Kaa

  • Hey, all you complainers! (Score:2)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Repeat after me... Mozilla is not Netscape Mozilla is not Netscape etc. etc. BUT! Netscape is the major developer of Mozilla. Their goal is to create a browser which can compete with Internet Explorer. In order to do that, they need these features which can compete with Internet Explorer including all this 'feature bloat' as some of you call it. Netscape wants their primary target audience (in terms of numbers) to use Netscape's mail client, IM client, etc. So the first official release of Mozilla (which should be nearly identical to Netscape 5) will include this stuff. Yet the beauty of the Open Source model will allow a stripped down super-fast and small Mozilla browser to be available about the same time. So all I have to say is, PATIENCE! Wait until there is a finished product before you start complaining. Mozilla is coming!

  • OK lets clear things up (Score:3)

    by linuxci ( 3530 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @02:27AM (#1695967)
    Either there's a lot of flamebait going around or people don't understand Open Source / Mozilla, etc.

    1) These add-ins have been written by people who have no connection to Netscape and are not part of the main Mozilla team.
    Therefore this will not slow down development on the layout engine as the people who are working on that (mainly Netscape employees) are still working on it.
    2) Anyone can contribute to Mozilla a nd if they do this is a good thing. It's good that these extensions exist but I don't think they'll make it into the official Netscape Communicator distribution. There has been NO word from Netscape saying that they would be included and there's not even a mention of these projects yet on Mozilla.org.

    Netscape said they'd produce a small standards compliant browser and I think they'll stick to that as that's the best way to regain market share from IE. Just get it into your heads that just because someone writes it doesn't mean Netscape is going to include it.

    I hope that Netscape will offer a selection of download options at least one where it's just browser only, then perhaps mail, news, then perhaps an editor and a pack with everything in it for those who want it. Also remember that most of these extensions are written in XUL/Javascript so that they don't contribute as much to the bloat as traditional addons.

    ...and if Netscape doesn't release a browser only version and neither does Mozilla.org you can bet that someone definitely will, that's the beauty of open source.
    --
  • The entire thing is basically modular. There's a directory with all the .sos for the different components.
    Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org [berlin-consortium.org]
  • Posted by shaver@netscape.com:

    The IRC client consists of a pile of XUL/JS for UI and protocol implementation and a thin library to provide raw socket access. (The library will be replaced by use of the necko raw-socket API in the nearish future as well, and then there'll be no ``native'' code involved at all.)

    You can take pretty much anything you want out of Mozilla, either at compile- or run-time. Including, of course, the much maligned mailnews stuff: just delete the components you don't want and get on with your life. (Note: some components are required for the browser to work, if that's the Mozilla app you're interested in, and there are some bugs in the form of compile- and run-time entanglements, but if you care at all they'd not be hard to fix.)

    There are still lots of things left to fix in Mozilla (performance isn't yet anywhere near its potential and there are lots of big and small memory leaks to kill before beta, for example), but nobody here is talking about the real issues. It's just kneejerk responses to ``new thing available'' and wildly ignorant assumptions about the architecture of the software. Do people complain about bloat when someone releases a new GNOME app on slashdot, too?

    People can trash Mozilla for bloat or hostility to left-handers or an extreme bias towards windowing systems if they want; there's no way to stop them, and I'm not sure it's really worth the bother anymore anyway. People who care will discover the facts of the matter, and try to help fix what they don't like. And who has time for the posers?

  • I help work on the Jabber development and a lot of what is being said on here is either a) untrue, or b) misinterpreted. If you all would take the time to read the Jabber site you would see why it is such a great project. It's 100% open source and bridges the gap of all the other RT IM programs out there. It truly is an amazing project deserving of a little more respect then immediately getting FUD and other ideas about it thrown about. Join us in #jabber on the openprojects IRC network and we'll straigthen out any questions that you may have.

  • Um, not that hard at all... (Score:3)

    by MenTaLguY ( 5483 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @03:44AM (#1695974) Homepage
    There's a directory with all the .sos for the various modules; just add and delete them at your leisure. I believe they're demand-loaded, too.

    Berlin-- http://www.berlin-consortium.org [berlin-consortium.org]
  • (sigh) To compile in the IRC module, you'll use --enable-extension=irc. Make is your friend. Or, the instructions describe how to just compile the IRC module. At any rate, it will have nothing to do with #defines.

    Why do you assume that people will be compiling Mozilla? The great majority will download the precompiled binaries. And that's where the problem arises. Say, I download the binaries from Debian. I'll probably download the kitchen-sink version because I like to check out new stuff -- maybe Mozilla's IRC rocks, maybe it sucks rocks. Let's say I played around with it and decided that news support sucks, but IRC rocks. So what now? Do I have to go back to Debian site and download a precompiled version which has news disabled but IRC enabled? Do I download all the source and recompile myself (sure, doable, but this should not be necessary). What I would like to have is a config file that tells Mozilla which parts of itself to load at startup, and which to not to load (and maybe hot-load later). I don't want to recompile each time I use or not use something.

    Kaa

  • Re:Hah! (Score:3)

    by angelo ( 21182 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:40AM (#1695986) Homepage
    And real-time messaging that's fully open; does that mean they're giving up that silly fight with microsoft?

    Well, the protocols are open to use and implement yourself. The servers which AOL owns are not open, unless you can reach a deal with them. You can download the Slash source, but you can't exactly use it to attach to the /. backend.

    Mozilla will be able to use AIM and ICQ due to the fact that AOL owns Netscape. Would they deny their own browser?

  • Re:Uggh! Just get the damn thing released (Score:3)

    by Dave Fiddes ( 832 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:40AM (#1695987)
    One minute people are bitching about not enough non-Netscape contributors.... then when a couple start contributing code they bitch about how long it's taking. Sheesh! You guy's are the pits.

    The IRC and instant messaging stuff is being written by external to Netscape contributors building on the basic Mozilla foundations. What they are doing does not impact the release schedule in the slightest.

    Another thing to note is that I doubt whether you will see either of these things in a Netscape/AOL branded product (i.e. what Netscape make from Mozilla with added crypto, etc). They will want to add their own clients for obvious reasons.

    I just wish that folk would get off Mozilla's back for a minute. As a Mozilla contributor myself(MathML) I get sick of seeing people taking side swipes at the project. Either help out or shut up, please!

  • Missing the point (Score:5)

    by DaKrushr ( 16560 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:42AM (#1695989)
    A lot of the posters here are missing the point. There are *optional* features. Because of the fact that you have the source code for Mozilla, you can disable these features with little difficulty - or add new ones, if you so desire.

    This is what Open Source / Free(d) Software is all about. It's about choice. Nobody is forcing you to use these addons, but you have the option to use them.

    A few months ago (maybe even a few weeks ago) many people were saying Mozilla is a failure. Try out the latest builds - it's getting better and faster all the time. I would use it as my main browser except for the fact that it uses more memory than I'd like (I only have 32MB because my motherboard has a bad SIMM slot). It looks better than netscape and very soon will be faster.

    It think it's great that people are able to add things to Mozilla if they choose - don't you agree?
  • > Mozilla will be able to use AIM and ICQ due to
    > the fact that AOL owns Netscape. Would they
    > deny their own browser?

    Maybe they will only be able in the "branded" Netscape browser. Remember, the MPL does not (by design) prevent anyone from releasing extended proprietary versions of the software.

  • What Jabber Is (and Isn't) (Score:5)

    by [-ET-] ( 9993 ) on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @05:01AM (#1695999) Homepage
    Hey all you /. folks! :)

    I am actively helping in the Jabber [jabber.org] project, and I am sad to see so many hastily posted comments here on /.! To make some corrections to the posts that I've seen floating around, allow me to submit the following comments:

    1) Jabber is not a rip-off of anything. Jabber is completely different than other IM systems. The first thing that sets it apart is that it is open source and GPLed. But what is more interesting than that is the fact that Jabber has the ability to speak to any type of communication protocol that ANYONE would care to develop a module for. The thing that makes this even cooler is that the modules just need to be installed on the Jabber servers. That way a Jabber client (like the one that is going to work WITH Mozilla) can instantly have access to other protocols as soon as the server has been updated - no updating of the clients is necessary.

    2) I have to PARTIALLY agree with the posts about Mozilla getting bloated. But I say partially because I don't believe that most of the posters (especially the AC's) realize that what makes Mozilla bloated is the MODULES (not sure what the "official" term is for modules in Mozilla). The Mozilla Jabber client just works WITH Mozilla and may not necessarily be included in the binaries and so forth and I can't imagine it being required in source packages. DaKrushr already wrote a good post [slashdot.org] covering this.

    3) Jabber has hardly anything to do with Mozilla. Yes, we will be developing a CLIENT to use with Mozilla, but that is just one client. We have clients for almost anything you can think of - Java, Windows, X Window using GTK+, a JavaScript one for browsers, MacOS, Linux command line and more! Please realize that the Jabber client that will be working with Mozilla is just a tiny part of what the Jabber project is all about.

    Thank you for your time, and I hope that you will look more indepth into Jabber before writing it off in a heartbeat.

    If you'd like to ask some questions, feel free (as temas already posted [slashdot.org]) to pop into #jabber on the Open Projects IRC Network (try carter.openprojects.net).

    Eliot Landrum
    Leader of Jabber Documentation Team [jabber.org]
    eliot@landrum.NOSPAM.cx

  • Mozilla == AOL? (Score:4)

    by chialea ( 8009 ) <chialea@@@gmail...com> on Wednesday September 08, 1999 @12:43AM (#1696002) Homepage
    my guess is that Mozilla, although "Netscape," is not AOL. I've seen Jabber before -- it's supposed to be an implementation of EVERY IM protocol -- but they're not going from the official AOL docs. (assuming there are some somewhere) AOL might still end up locking it out and/or putting pressure on Mozilla to have it removed. personally, I think this technique would backfire (check me on this here -- I haven't read the NPL all that carefully) if someone is allowed to fork the source tree. of course, AOL could end up blocking it anyways (if they still have anything up their sleeve) but it's horrible public relations (although mostly with people not likely to use AOL) and I don't see them risking it. They might say "well, Microsoft is a company and so we have a problem with them, but this is a "community project" and so we're ok with it." kind of a cop-out, but there you are. then their only recourse to blocking Microsoft would be legal and not technological.

    offtopic amusement: when I went to MozillaZine, there was a banner for MSN Instant Messager. Hmm...


    Lea
  • I have to agree with the comments stating that Mozilla seems to become larger and larger, adding support for protocols that shouldn't be in a web browser. when I heard that IE5 came with radio-controls I started to wonder what on earth people were thinking. is it really necessary to include everything imaginable in a web browser?

    I'm starting to wonder whether the future "war" between browsers on the Linux platform will be between Opera and Mozilla. that is, provided Mozilla becomes a bloated gargantuan download. then people will maybe have the same options they have on Win32 now. you can pay for Opera to get a browser that fits on a floppy, has tiny footprint, renders fast, but has no mail or news support to speak of. or you can choose the Swiss Army Knife of browsers, Mozilla, which gives you all you ever did (and did not) want.

    since I've hated the size of IE5 since it came out, regardless of its quality, and will pay for software I find worthy of payment, my choice is clear. even though earlier milestones of Mozilla gave hope for the future.

  • Before you go out screaming bloody murder about Mozilla adding all these features and and wasting their time with "side projects" instead of focusing on making a good browser, allow me to interject. Now, unless my eyes decieve me, I seem to recall seeing these things noted as third-party developments. Would that not mean that someone other than the Mozilla team is wasting their time on these bloat-infesting side projects? Also, as afore mentioned, if ya don't like it, take some scissors to the source code.

    That's my two pesos.

    --Ricky

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There is no opinion so absurd that some philosopher will not express it. -- Marcus Tullius Cicero, "Ad familiares"

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