That is a somewhat narrow and shortsighted comment, considering a larger
portion of the Mozilla developers are Netscape/AOL (nee AOL-Time Warner, it
just keeps getting bigger and bigger) employees assigned to Mozilla.org.
Without Mozilla, Netscape has no real purpose, and without Netscape, Mozilla
has no financial teeth to drive a concerted effort towards a goal in a
reasonable amount of time. The two are linked, for better, for worse.
Mozilla is meant for end users somewhat indirectly, its architecture has to
be sound to be handed off to end-user projects like Beonix, Netscape,
Galeon, K-Melon, etc. Its also meant for end-users in that if the
technology, which is extendable beyond just a browser, cant be made into a
browser then what chance does it have at being a platform to use for
anything else? And to add to that, what is the point of "milestone"
releases that are some-what anticipated and advertised to the
not-so-tech-savvy public?
I'm not saying Mozilla isn't good, it is, and its getting better as the days
drag into weeks drag into months drag into years. Three years this summer
which in itself seemingly amazes me - 3 years for a browser, Opera's been
around less time hasn't it?
But In the end, if Mozilla doesn't suck it up, take its fair share of
criticism, be adult about it, and move on to develop something Netscape
won't get trashed in the media about, I don't see much of a future. Simple
features that are now in Netscape 4.x like roaming profiles are assigned to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and marked with "help wanted." Yes its an open source
project, but things like this isn't what was intentioned when it was
released for the public to hack on. It was supposed to be Netscape, only
better then itself, and better then IE: more standards compliant, easy,
stable, fast, small memory usage.
Instead, old useful features are left out, deemed not necessary, the public
is ignored (commonly answered with "its not an end product you know, go talk
to Netscape, file a bug, or work on it yourself." Something about that
brashness just rubs me wrong), and passing the buck is common practice
inside the Mozilla community. Case in point, a trivial bug I cannot seem to
find the number of that debated the wording of the top paragraph on
http://www.mozilla.org/mozorg.html . Someone wanted "Mozilla is an
open-source web browser" to delete browser, for "technology" or "platform"
instead, which was merely a matter of semantics. The goal is the browser,
has been since the source code was released, the side effect was the
underlying platformdeveloped after which is extendable. I'm pretty sure
they were planned in that order, and not the reverse.
Sure, work gets done, but its not efficient, lots of bugs slide through the
cracks, daily builds sometimes suffer amazing regression due to the complex
nature of the application to which one small unchecked change can bollox the
works. There also seems to be a general lack of pride to produce something
that they can be proud, or even want the public to use. Shouldn't Mozilla
contributors be doing the best work they can, touting its capabilities, and
working towards a solid release that, by damn, the public, and end-user
value added branding departments (such as Netscape's marketing department
and few Netscape-specific engineers that help the branding effort) can use,
use well, and say it is all of what Netscape 4.x was, what IE 5.5 is, and
more?
If Mozilla won't step up and create a good first application (the browser),
how can they expect anything "built on Mozilla technology" to truly be
publicly accepted and though of as a "class" application? So you see, even
your side-effect of the platform for extendable use depends on the success
of the browser.
These opinions are my own, and just that, opinions, not fact. I sparingly
use Mozilla and contribute to the Mozilla.org community through bug
reporting. I am a well wisher of Mozilla's success, and I hope I soon can
switch my daily browsing activities back to the a Netscape/Mozilla browser I
left long ago. (4.0x)
Composed after nearly 24 hours awake, hopefully I didn't ramble too much.
Sincerely,
Mike J
"Bill Lipa" <nospam@nospam> wrote in message 3A7A64AC.8070308@nospam">news:3A7A64AC.8070308@nospam...
>
>
> Paul Bergsagel wrote:
>
> > I would encourage persons to email CNET and encourage them to have a
> > look at the Mozilla browser and possibly provide a review of the Mozilla
> > browser and report the progress which has been made since the Netscape
> > release.
>
> What difference would that make, since Mozilla is not intended for end
> users?
>
> Bill
>
