Braden McDaniel wrote:
>
> In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "John Bandhauer"
> <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
>
> > Brendan Eich wrote:
> >>
> >> > This is quite an opportunity. It's a select few projects that see
> >> > that level of ubiquity. And yet mozilla.org seems indifferent, if not
> >> > altogether dismissive of this situation.
> >>
> >> Who @mozilla.org has been dismissive? Or indifferent, for that matter?
> >
> > I'm not '@mozilla.org'. I'm not dismissive or indifferent. I'm
> > 'anti'.
> >
> >>
> >> I'm rattling cages by email, and drivers are following the API freeze
> >> work that valeski is leading (see mozilla.porkjockeys). mozilla1.0
> >> needs stability, performance, and frozen APIs to existing
> >> implementations -- not any particular new feature (as the roadmap
> >> says).
> >>
> >> I don't speak for netscape.com, but I'll say what all staff and drivers
> >> @mozilla.org know: being a system library on many distros is a victory
> >> condition, and it requires API freezes and a decent versioning story.
> >> We're working on the API freeze part, and still limping along on COM's
> >> versioning story. Suggestions?
> >
> > I'm not a 'driver' and I'm not in on mozilla.org decision making. I *do*
> > know that it would help if you got your story straight on exactly what
> > mozilla.org thinks the codebase is for. From
> > <http://mozilla.org/mozorg.html>:
> >
> > "Our Mission
> > We coordinate the open source Mozilla browser project. Mozilla is an
> > open-source web browser, designed for standards-compliance, performance
> > and portability."
> >
> > Following the link there to <http://mozilla.org/mission.html> we find
> > that the *revised* mission statement is pretty light on the use of the
> > term
> > 'browser' (and has unbalanced parens):
> >
> > "So, Mozilla is a set of technologies, but not a specific (in
> > biologic terms, Mozilla is a genus; a particular product is a species.
> > And mozilla.org (pronounced Mozilla Dot Org or The Mozilla Organization)
> > is the group of people who coordinate the project."
>
> John, the perception that these statements are conflicting reflects
> closed-source thinking in terms of monolithic application development.
>
> > FWIW, my opinion is that mozilla should focus on producing a browser and
> > only contemplate going beyond that when those with other plans for the
> > code can show that their plans are coherent, not in conflict with the
> > browser goals and will not unduly burden those working toward browser
> > goals.
>
> Such a plan is doomed to failure, because a "browser" is different things
> to different people. Conflicting visions of the unified product are
> inevitable. And if an attempt is made to deliver a unified product, those
> conflicting visions will lead to something that no one is happy with.
> (Heh... I'm speaking in the future tense here, but sad to say I could
> easily be speaking in the past tense.)
>
> So instead you partition the product into an array of services. Services
> each have a dedicated task, but retain the broadest applicability
> feasible within their problem domain. That guarantees the services the
> greatest possible pool of clients, and thus the greatest possible pool of
> developer talent.
>
> > I'd argue that any freezing of xpcom code is based more on a lack of
> > ownership or coherent plan and schedule for xpcom's evolution and not
> > any
> > 'doneness' of the system.
>
> That is quite unfortunate ...
>
> > Again, I think that people wanting *someone* to make mozilla DLLs into
> > system libraries are dreaming. There is significant work necessary to
> > make that happen. That work is not on anyone's schedule (AFAIK) and it
> > impacts those trying to deliver browsers
>
> ... But the resistence Netscape has had to being "impacted" in such
> fashions is the real problem, and tragedy, of Mozilla. Most troublesome
> is that (from the outside looking in, at least) mozilla.org seems to have
> coddled this desire at the expense of being the advocate it should be
> for reusable solutions.
>
> > - the support of which, I think, *should* be the unambiguous
> > stated goal of mozilla.org.
>
> Tell me: why should mozilla.org even *exist* in that case? Can't
> AOL/Netscape look out for its own priorities?
>
> C'mon, John. The vision of mozilla.org you describe amounts to nothing
> more than a recruitment agency for free labor for AOL.
>
> Hm. That's all too clear of a vision.
>
> Braden
No, I am *not* making an argument about producing the one true
browser to be shipped only by Netscape. Please don't try to cast
my argument as some sort of "inside/outside Netscape" thing. That
is not what I said, and it's not what I mean. I'm simply saying
that *I* believe that the reason the components exist is to
enable us to build browsers. If we get too caught up in all the
other cool stuff you can do with these components or with the
component framework itself then we risk injury to our pursuit of
the goal of producing and proliferating standard browsers. The
mozilla license sets out guidelines about what people can do with
mozilla code. Fine. I don't care what comes out of the tree, I
care what goes in. It happens to be my opinion that the truly
important thing about the mozilla project is the open evolution
and construction of a standard browser platform. I think that the
browser *is* the platform that matters. I care about building
that platform for others to build applications upon. I have no
problem with *lots* of people and companies shipping
mozilla-based browsers. Great, flood the market with good
standard browsers. What I do care about is that browsers - as
seen from the point of view of the code and content - do not
diverge greatly. I want to see us succeed in heading off all
efforts to hijack the web into proprietary rat holes. I want us
to stay focused on working toward a time when people can write
rich content and applications and reasonably expect the fruit of
their labor to work as expected on anyone's computer or net
device without regard to the machine's OS or the user's browser
of choice. *I* believe that mozilla should stay focused on that
goal too.
John.
