John Welch wrote:
> On 11/30/00 4:18 AM, "Simon P. Lucy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
>
>> At 21:33 29/11/2000 -0500, John Welch wrote:
>>
>>
>>> Well, maybe someone who isn't so busy dissing customers as unknowing morons
>>> will realize that's a *bad* thing.
>>
>> This has gone on long enough. You are ranting at the wrong people, though
>> given your methods you're unlikely to get any different mileage from
>> ranting at the right people. LDAP will or won't happen regardless pretty
>> much of anything you have said, since nothing you've contributed so far
>> would encourage anyone that LDAP would be a good thing for them (in their
>> own terms) to do.
>
>
> <sigh> Let me ask you something here. Because only about two of you have
> gotten it. What do you think is going to happen, rant-wise, if Mozilla 1.0
> comes out, is heralded as the one of the crowning glories of the open source
> movement, and no LDAP, slow IMAP,etc?
Mozilla 1.0 will come out when the needs of it's contributors have been
met to a sufficient level. Entities (comapnies or individuals) who need
something from Mozilla have stepped up and put resources on the line to
make that happen. If Mozilla is something you depend on (sounds like it
isn't) and LDAP is something you can't do without then make it happen.
Your marching orders aren't going to accomplish anything.
>
> Do you really think that anyone is going to say, "Oh it's open source, they
> don't understand what customers are, much less need, so we'll let them
> off.'?
I think that you are missing something fundamental here. Mozilla
doesn't have customers like say RedHat or Netscape or Microsoft has
customers. If you try to nail down our customers it's something like
nailing down the customers of the linux kernel. Our customers are
comapnies like Active State who are building a perl and python IDE using
Mozilla technologies. Our customers are folks like AOL and Gateway who
are embedding the Mozilla rendering engine in their internet appliance
or Nokia and Intel with their set top box. Our customers are companies
like Netscape who are distributing a consumer browser suite or Beonix
who have said they're working on an enterprise browser suite. When you
start to look at it like this then John Welch ceases to be a customer.
Mozilla is not a distribution like RedHat is. If you need a Mozilla
distribution with specific requirements that don't exist in the core
Mozilla technologies then you look for a distribution that meets your
needs. If that distribution does not exist then you have a couple of
choices. You can build that requirement yourself and share it with the
community (even release a distribution yourself) or you can wait on
someone else to build it and get it from them.
-Asa
>
> Nope. Only it's going to be much worse.
>
> Secondly, the level of my *rant* is related to the response I get. When I
> get a reasonable response, I can be amazingly calm. Tell me to shut up and
> go away, and pull back a bloody stump.
>
>
>> Patience seems the easiest course, the world hasn't fallen apart in the
>> past two weeks and its unlikely it will in the next few months. If you
>> don't want to hear claims of Real Soon Now (and no one has actually said
>> that, just that its likely to be developed), then don't get involved until
>> there is an LDAP client.
>
>
> Real Soon Now would be a better response. I don't have a choice. I can
> explain to my users that, "no, right now Mozilla *and* Netscape 6 are
> nothing more than interesting experiments in incorrectly managed projects,
> and if you blow out your NS 4.7.5 install for it, you won't be able to get
> work done." But that's not going to stop them. I also have a real problem
> with the "DON'T TOUCH" school of IT management, so I don't have a real
> problem with the users installing software.
>
> But when I am, regularly spending a great deal of time dealing with fixing
> the damage that Mozilla and NS6 cause to windows installations, (Thank GOD
> that 70% of our desktops are Solaris), then it becomes my problems. When I
> get emails that should be tear-stained from readers who ignored my warnings,
> and have had Netscape or Mozilla take down their machines, it becomes my
> problem.
>
> And If I am catching crap based on a product, then it's going to get shared.
> Open Source is no longer the isolated geek lab it once was. The common folk
> have heard of you, and are starting to use your work. Get over it. I for one
> cannot *wait* for the day when the Stallman gets *reamed* by an 80 year-old
> granny...hee.
>
>
>> I think those that have responded here have shown patience with you, you
>> might at least reciprocate.
>
>
> When I get responses that are better than "shut up and go away" in more
> words, then I respond to those.
>
> You guys are classic open source. You can't understand that standards
> compliance doesn't matter to the *vast* majority of people. They expect
> that. It's like AC power support in a toaster. It had *better* be there.
> They also could honestly care less about XPFE/XUL/etc. They want a browser
> that browses, email that emails, and a fast, pleasant experience. You've got
> a fantastic rendering engine, but the package it's wrapped up in is just
> awful. It's *been* awful. People have been trying to tell you calmly and
> reasonably it's awful. Well now Netscape has released an awful product, and
> in the eyes of the world, Netscape *is* Mozilla *is* Netscape. And y'all are
> reacting like a deer in the headlights.
>
> There are a LOT more problems than LDAP, but that one is so astoundingly bad
> that none of my peers and associates can comprehend how it got the low
> priority it did.
>
> I got news for you...I'm the nice one...
>
> john
