On 11/27/00 11:59 AM, in article [EMAIL PROTECTED], "Daniel
Veditz" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> John Welch wrote:
>>
>> And since Netscape is, from AOL's own statements
>> and all the info I cann find, nothing more than an inferior version of a
>> Mozilla build, then both catch some of the blame here.
>
> That's not anything Netscape or AOL would say--links please. We think
> Netscape 6 is *better* than the Mozilla version it is based on: we have
> added features and spent considerable time fixing stability bugs. But of
> course a Netscape release is frozen in time while you can get
> up-to-the-minute Mozilla releases which have additional features and bug
> fixes (and additional bugs, too).
I wouldn't say this, were I you....NS6 took about an hour to download 1500
IMAP headers, Mozilla did it in 7 minutes...on a cable modem to an IMAP
server on a t-1. Of course, NS 4.7.5 took about 45 seconds. And that was an
M18 build that was about a week old when NS6 final was released. It's gotten
better since.
>
>> From a corporate POV [...]
>
> I believe Netscape is still recommending the 4.x series to its enterprise
> customers, as several key features needed in that environment (e.g. LDAP)
> are not yet in the Netscape 6 series.
You're kidding me.
>
>> The LDAP bug reports show that Netscape/Mozilla stands to literally lose
>> *millions* of users, and yet the best response from Netscape seems to be one
>> of "Well, when Mozilla gets around to it."
>
> Official Netscape is still mired in the closed-source secretive mindset. The
> marketing folks do their best to obscure our future plans and generally will
> say for certain only things which mozilla.org has already promised, even
> going so far as to set up a closed parallel bug system to contain things
> Netscape programmers should work on that they aren't ready to reveal in
> public.
Ahhh...then that explains where much of this comes from then, (go beat your
marketing people, right away).
Let me tell you what the corporate community is seeing then.
If you put all the Netscape info together, you get this: "We aren't
implementing anything that isn't in Mozilla as far as unless it's AOL
branding" Take a look at the marketing speak, and read it as an IS admin.
This is major league dumb.
So as far as I can tell as an IT admin, I go to bugzilla, for the LDAP
issue, and here is what I see: That the QA contact is a netscape engineer,
not a Mozilla person. That the QA contact is saying that there are other
bugs on this, and another netscape engineer has assigned this to
[EMAIL PROTECTED], with a help wanted keyword. The comment here is :"We
understand that LDAP is a feature that many people will miss but it is not
currently on our schedule for this release."
So far, nobody from Mozilla, all of this from Netscape, and it's just been
dumped on Mozilla, *by* netscape, and they want someone to help. No
indication that Netscape is going to do bit one of work on this unless
someone from Mozilla helps out. The only responses from Mozilla are,
(correct, albeit snippy), "If you can't help out, quityerbitchin". Crappy
'tude, but they aren't getting paid, so who cares, right?
>From the NS6 FAQ:
[How is Netscape 6 related to the open source development at mozilla.org?
Netscape 6 is based on the Mozilla browser, and takes advantage of the
talents and achievements of a worldwide group of open source developers.]
Now, I don't know how you *meant* for this to look, but to the corporate
world, this says "It's repackaged Mozilla, nothing more, nothing less"
The Netscape Feedback center is write-only, so if you want to *see* where
the bugs are, you go to....Bugzilla! What is this telling corporate? "If you
want to get any real status, Netscape is doing not much besides parasiting
Mozilla."
If the only feedback on bugs comes from Mozilla, and Netscape is saying that
NS6 is Mozilla with some AOL-ish features, and the only useful bug info
comes from Mozilla, and Netscape's attitude is, we'll foist it off on
Mozilla, guess what you are telling corporate America?
Netscape will do nothing that doesn't come from Mozilla, ergo, any problems
are Mozilla's fault, because Netscape isn't taking any responsibility for
their own product other than Branding.
(and before you argue semantics, one of the first lessons of communication
is that the content, and meaning of any message is determined by the
receiver, (listener, reader, user), and not the sender, (speaker, writer,
programmer.).
And the message that Netscape is sending corporate is not the one they want
to be sending. Y'all need to get on the stick and hit the marketers with it.
This secret squirrel game is going to hurt you (Netscape) very badly.
Mozilla may have bugs and problems as well, but at least I can email the
folks dealing with it, and see status. That allows me to say..."Netscape may
be a bunch of insensitive clods, but them Mozilla folks seem to be doing a
lot of work to fix things."
Think really hard about the message Netscape is sending. Read the pages from
a corporate IS POV, and see that you are not sending the one you want to.
john
--
"Again, in basic training we had been forbidden to say please or thank you,
as such words implied the existence of kindness, benevolence, or charity."
- Mouthful of Rocks, by Christian Jennings, about Foreign Legion boot camp.
