Mark wrote: > I guess it's just frustration getting the better of me. When you > consider how long Mozilla has been in the works, it's pretty sad that > common, every day features and functions still don't work correctly
Yes, we all get this feeling sometimes. We need n.p.m.bad-attitude newsgroup <http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/rbarip.html>. > I don't want to start a war here, but I am seriously of the opinion > that 2 or 3 good programmers could have had this thing released as a > polished application *long* ago. The concept of an open source > development project is a good one, but I have a feeling that it hasn't > added much to the application itself, but instead has probably just > created a nightmare of red-tape and endless "development". The problem is not open-source, but the fact that Mailnews *heavily* builds upon Mozilla technology, from string classes over XPCO, RDF to XUL. If you look at how quickly external (e.g. mozdev.org) Mozilla applications break because of changes in Mozilla, you get an idea of the nightmare of change and instability of underlying technologies the Mailnews team has to face. It was even worse when Mozilla was less mature. "Those who build their houses on sand..." > I'd have been thrilled to get multiple POP account support in Netcape > 4.x and an browser that was "updated". The problem was that the 4.x source could not get "updated" anymore. It had been "updated" once too often. > Has anyone noticed how long it took Opera to bring their browser from > 5.x to 6.02? The changes and improvements are dramatic, and it was > done *very* quickly. I think they had their big rewrite from version 3 to 4. You say that Mozilla Mailnews is not much better than 4.x. The changes between Mozilla Mailnews and 4.x *are* dramatic - it is a completely different application. The new features usually come one release after the big rewrite. First you try to achieve the same level you had before, and then you can take advantage of the better foundation. Ben
