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Ask Mozilla Foundation Chief Mitchell Baker
Posted by
Roblimo
on Tue Mar 15, 2005 12:30 PM
from the open-source-means-open-debate dept.
from the open-source-means-open-debate dept.
There have been several recent reports of squabbles and problems involving Mozilla and Firefox development. In an attempt to clear the air about what's going on inside the Mozilla Project and the Mozilla Foundation, Mitchell Baker has agreed to answer 10 - 12 Slashdot questions. Please look at some recent interviews with Ms. Baker and check her blog before posting in order to avoid duplication. We'll publish her answers within the next week.
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Two questions spring to mind: (Score:4, Interesting)
What is the volume of complaints you have received when the Mozilla suite was cancelled - more or less than you expected?
Re:Two questions spring to mind: (Score:4, Insightful)
Why do you think it is that so many people continue to claim that the Mozilla suit was "cancelled" when the Mozilla foundation has just spent several years upgrading the suite to a new code-base which breaks the suite from a single executable into stand-alone applications?
Why do you think this caught people so off-guard, given that the Mozilla Foundation announced its intention to do so several years ago, and it has been clearly stated on the development roadmap for 2 or 3 years? What could you have done to be more clear?
Parent
Re:Two questions spring to mind: (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was stated on the roadmap 2 or 3 years ago that there would be no Mozilla 1.8, then why was it a discussion issue just a month or so back? It certainly seems like someone in the Mozilla dev crew didn't know as an absolute fact that there'd be no Mozilla 1.8, and if their own developers didn't know, how can you fault average users for not realizing it?
Yeah, people knew it would stop being supported, but I think they just thought they'd get a little warning beforehand. After all, what were all those people testing, then? The "backend" of Mozilla? Was this made clear to them? Did they realize they were testing software that would never be officially released? If they DID realize it, would they have still spent time testing it? I read about one poor guy who actually went through and updated language translations for Mozilla 1.8, only to find it was pointless of him to do so. A little communication earlier on in the process would have avoided all this.
Criticize all you want, but big organizations would be eaten alive by their customers if they pulled something like this. Microsoft has trouble discontinuing Win98 support YEARS in advance. Mozilla is growing, and open source is a give and take strategy. If the project wants the support of the community, they've got to be willing to accomodate the needs and concerns of the community as well. I don't think it's fair to simply bash Mozilla for their mistakes, but I believe they could have dealt with the situation better than they did, and it would benefit the project if they learned how to handle these situations better, especially now that they're getting the attention of the public in general.
Parent
Re:Two questions spring to mind: (Score:3, Insightful)
...
Because, somehow, I was aware of this without being a Mozilla developer, by only reading publ
What will be the testbed? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:What will be the testbed? (Score:3, Informative)
I suspect it will be called something like "the Mozilla browser testbed" or something similarly unfriendly to end users but it will essentially be Firefox.
This is in the comments to this blog posting entitled "mozilla product futures". [mozillazine.org]
Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Funding (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Waiting for the dust to settle (Score:4, Interesting)
--
suso.org website/email hosting [suso.org], no disk space quotas and personalized support.
Re:Waiting for the dust to settle (Score:3, Interesting)
applications will not inspire corporations to
look favorably upon any F/OSS project that doesn't
respect stability. The rapid-fire changes made
to FF/TB, including mind-numbing UI changes can't
instill confidence in the product, especially
when bug-fixes are abandoned in favor of glitzy
UI changes.
It would be very nice to have a browser suite
that incorporated the following feature set:
(1) stability, including timely bug fixes
(2) patches and/or module updates, rat
Names (Score:5, Funny)
And if so, what 1970's muscle cars will they be renamed for?
Consider affect on large corp customers? (Score:5, Interesting)
Does this decision to drop Suite 1.8 in mid-stream as it were affect the credibility of Mozilla Foundation in the long run?
sPh
Re:Consider affect on large corp customers? (Score:3, Informative)
IMO the roadmap doesn't make it clear enough that the 1.8 and 1.9 releases shown are platform releases and not suite releases. Unless you follow moz development religiously (I don't) it's not very clear from the roadmap.
Also the roadmap reads much like the king james e
Re:Consider affect on large corp customers? (Score:3, Interesting)
Composer (Score:3, Interesting)
I can answer that one for you (Score:5, Informative)
Parent
Re:I can answer that one for you (Score:3, Interesting)
Browser of choice? (Score:4, Interesting)
Calendar (Score:5, Interesting)
I know that Sunbird exists and there's now Lightning [mozilla.org] but the project details are quite vague. The Mozilla Suite could benefit greatly from a fully functional calendar, especially in the small business realm.
Security Updates (Score:4, Interesting)
Obligatory (Score:4, Funny)
Future / Challeneges (Score:4, Interesting)
What types of new projects are the Foundation considering?
Why should the average consumer use Mozilla software over Microsoft's offerings?
What is Mozilla's greatest challenge in getting the average PC user to utilize their software?
Corporate-scale Firefox usage (Score:5, Interesting)
Raising the bar (Score:5, Interesting)
Now that MS has put people back on their IE development team, it seems inevitable that IE will soon have the same features that Firefox does: tabbed browsing, pop-up blocking, 24-bit PNG support, etc. What is the Mozilla Foundation's move to keep people excited about installing Firefox over being content with IE? Many of my friends who are less than computer savvy are more than content staying with what Windows already has unless there are some compelling reasons to switch. Firefox at the moment has those reasons in spades, but a quick tune-up to IE would undermine Firefox's natural advances.
In short: how are you planning to keep Firefox ahead of the curve?
Re:Raising the bar (Score:3, Informative)
Simply by not supporting Active-(e)X(ploits)?
By leaving in the "dom.disable_window_open_feature.blah" options, one of the single best reasons to use Moz/FF? (hijack the context menu? I think not! Resize or move my window to appear how you think it should look on your sad little 800x600 (or worse, your envy-inducing 1920x1200) display, when most of us use a 1280x1024 or 1024x786 resolution? Nope!).
By continuing to offer and improve p
Competing with IE7 (Score:3, Interesting)
Does Mozilla have a plan of any form for weathering IE7's release? With the practice of bundling the browser with the OS, how on earth can Mozilla compete (assuming IE7 holds the major feature enhancements that it needs so badly)?
Humor (Score:4, Interesting)
Can we continue to increase usage (Score:5, Interesting)
1) The increased usage of Mozilla/Firefox browsers has seemed to be flattening recently, although still growing.
2) It is rumored that Internet Explorer 7 Beta will be released this summer. This would appear to steal some thunder from Mozilla & Firefox browsers.
What can be done to make sure that Mozilla and Firefox browsers will continue to reach and surpass the 10% usage point? How can the community deal with the probable hype that would be generated around the release of a Internet Explorer 7 Beta?
Re:Can we continue to increase usage (Score:3, Insightful)
Embedding (and Mac!) Support (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm one of the core developers on wxMozilla, and for some time I've been wondering how exactly the GRE / Gecko SDK fits into the overall Mozilla framework and roadmap. I have two questions that center around that issue.
First, the current Mozilla communication issues are especially confusing for embedders, because, for example, the GRE has traditionally used the same numbering scheme as the Mozilla Suite. (i.e. there's not going to be a Mozilla 1.8, but what does that mean for GRE 1.8?) Furthermore, there's no roadmap for the GRE, so it's hard to tell where it's going or what the priorities are. So could you comment on what you see as the future of the GRE and Gecko SDK as Mozilla products?
I have one more related question, because I'm a Mac user.
Thanks for taking some time out to read and respond to these issues!
libgecko? (Score:5, Insightful)
How does MoFo see the Community's role? (Score:4, Interesting)
expectations of the Mozilla Foundation that aren't met. MoFo and
the community seem to perceive their respective roles and
responsibilities completely differently. I'm hoping you can
help bring together the two perspectives.
Many members of the 'community' seem to expect management and
development of the various projects to be as open as the code,
and they often complain that MoFo makes decisions without
consulting, warning or even notifying the community.
Examples include the decision to release Firefox 1.0 based on Moz
1.7 instead of 1.8, the decision to stop MoFo development of
Mozilla Application Suite, and the business relationship that
makes Google the home page.
On a smaller scale, in my limited experience I've seen some
community requests and patches ignored or dismissed summarily,
though I've seen some accepted and/or discussed.
I don't know that MoFo's approach toward the community is good or
bad -- I can imagine the limitations of interacting with so many
people -- but at least expectations should be clarified. I've
been participating for over four years and I'm still not sure what
to expect. It's difficult to contribute if you don't know where
help is desired or needed. Finding out in hindsight and seeing
hours of work wasted is frustrating and inefficient. I think
clarifying the roles would improve efficiency and improve retention
of contributors.
What is MoFo's official, internal policy regarding the MoFo's and
the community's roles and how they function? What is the de
facto policy -- how does it really function in your experience?
What resources are dedicated to community interaction? Finally,
what can be done to improve the situation, at least by aligning
expectations with reality.
Or perhaps I haven't described the issue well: Does MoFo see a
foundation and a community? Does it see something more subtly
defined? Something completely different?
Gecko engine (Score:4, Interesting)
Extracting Gecko out and making it a shared library that the other applications build on could really help in the long run.
Re:Gecko engine (Score:3, Interesting)
CSS2 & CSS3 (Score:4, Interesting)
integration and lost features (Score:5, Interesting)
For example, it might be useful to see integration between two or more of Firefox, Thunderbird, Sunbird, Nvu, the address book, and a chat component. But since the Mozilla Foundation does not develop Nvu or Chatzilla any longer (is anyone working on Chatzilla or any XUL chat app any longer?), this won't necessarily be easy.
Is there any plans to work with Linspire and other application developers to integrate their work with Firefox and Thunderbird? Will the Mozilla Foundation be doing official extensions that bring some of the suite functionality to the stand-alone products?
DevMo? (Score:3)
(Tell Deb to get crackin')
XUL as a development platform (Score:5, Interesting)
I ask because it seems like many of the Mozilla 2.0 goals would apply to all XUL applications and the platform itself, not just Firefox. I could see two approaches to the development of Mozilla 2.0 - one being that Firefox becomes the testbed that the Suite used to be, the other being that the FireFox team only worries about producing a browser and another group develops the "platform" as a whole. But how would this platform be developed and tested going forward, and will it be capable of competing with Avalon/XAML?
Do you plan corporate Features in FF/TB? (Score:3, Interesting)
i'm too lazy to dig up the Bug #'s, but i'm talking about Exchange Support (not via IMAP) for TB/SB, possibility to switch to MSHTML for specified pages (most intranets i've seen use at least some ActiveX stuff, that requires IE and i doubt that they'll recode their Apps just to be Mozilla friendly) for FF (as some kind of plugin)
SVG graphics? (Score:5, Interesting)
New York Times Ad Poster (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, I requested a poster, and I've never seen it. What's the deal with that? Have you not sent any out, or is it because I live in another country, that you have not sent it to me because it costs to much to ship?
Anyway, I didn't put up a fuss, because I assumed that the whole thing got dropped.. So what heppend?
Firefox drive wiping bug took one year to fix? (Score:5, Informative)
Why did it take over *one year* to fix this serious bug?
http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic.php?t=2257 31 [mozillazine.org]
The bug only occurs when a user uninstalls Firefox. A user who uninstalls version 1.0 to prepare for installing version 1.01 is vulnerable. Why has the Firefox homepage not been updated to warn all users about this fact, and to offer a safe remedy?
At least 15 people reported the bug. Assuming that 5% of victims would post publicly about it, this would leave around 300 actual victims. Even 5% is probably too high; a 1% estimate would leave around 1,500 total victims. Since the bug only occurs when Firefox is uninstalled, many hundreds or perhaps even thousands of potential future victims exist.
The bug was reported in bugzilla and discussed without fixing for over *one year*. At one point a developer didn't remove the dangerous code because he said "This is not an acceptable solution to force on all users because some people make bad assumptions and then don't read dialogs." Is Firefox truly ready for "the masses" when developers maintain this sort of attitude towards users?
(copy, remove spaces, and paste bugzilla links since they won't work from Slashdot)
Original bugzilla bug:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id =23362 5
Firefox advocate ivanii attempts to raise concern about this bug (10/07/2004)
http://www.spreadfirefox.com/?q=node/view/2808 [spreadfirefox.com]
Here's links to a few people who suffered from this bug:
1.http://computercops.biz/postp82180.html [computercops.biz]
Thu Feb 12, 2004
"Using the Firefox uninstaller has deleted almost everything in the Program Files directory..."
2.http://www.terryfrazier.com/1391 [terryfrazier.com]
10/5/2004
"What idiot writes an uninstall routine that wipes out everything in the parent folder?!"
"This is not some minor issue. This is a show stopper. I mean, damn!"
"..every last vestige of that vile firefox has been eradicated from my registry. "
3.http://sillydog.org/forum/viewtopic.php?p=4062 6 [sillydog.org]
04 Aug, 2004
"After un install Firefox lost all
4.http://forums.mozillazine.org/viewtopic. php?t=64 871&sid=2d93836acbfea243769078b48c3eff90 [mozillazine.org]
2004-03-28
Also posted on Bugzilla as user "Cy"
"This is not a minor inconvience. This is CARNAGE!!! Uninstalling a browser and ending up wiping out almost your entire hard drive."
"This is ruining mozilla's reputation. I now have a distrust of any win installer release by mozilla"
5.rajarajan.sampath final bugzilla victim to post.
2005-02-04
"The uninstaller wiped off, 2/3rd of my programs. This shouldnt be the case, no matter what."
6. Thomas Passin (original buzilla poster)
2004-02-09
"This is DANGEROUS."
7.https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2 42 118
2004-04-29
"...I uninstaled the whole directory "E:/Program Files"!! It wasn't very nice for me..."
8. https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=26969 9
2004-11-13
"All my backups and irreplaceble files are now lost.....Thank you for making a shitty uninstaller....i fucking hate you now"
9.https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2 71 805
2004-11-25
"Firefox will deleted all my other program in c:\program files. very unlucky,I did it!!"
10. https://bugzil
Re:Firefox drive wiping bug took one year to fix? (Score:3, Interesting)
The uninstall program did exactly as it should, which is to remove the installation. The problem would not manifest itself if the installer had not been less than intuitive in the first place.
So while there is (was) an issue, people were barking up the wrong tree it seems to me. It looks like a communication disconnect.
Absolutely, users should be protec
Cooperation with GNOME (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Duplication? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Will you allow the Seamonkey project (Score:4, Informative)
And the answer is no.
Parent
Re:Will you allow the Seamonkey project (Score:3)
I am sure you realize this, but one of the purposes of a Slashdot interview is to start (or terminate) a "dialogue" with a community when that community feels alienated or ill-informed. Many of us have read that blog and similar statements from MozFo insiders, but would like a bit more in the way of explanation.
Or as WR put it [slashdot.org]:
Re:Will you allow the Seamonkey project (Score:3, Insightful)
Sorry for the tone of my previous post.
Re:ABC News stories crash Firefox 1.01. (Score:5, Informative)
I was having problems with ESPN.com crashing when 1.0.1 first came out, and posted a bug report on it. Turns out completely deleting the directory and reinstalling fixed the problem, which was originally caused by a bad Flash app on the page.
The Firefox crew handles crash reports pretty quickly in my experience. Perhaps someone just needs to tweak the installer to completely remove all the old files instead of just copying the new ones.
Parent
Re:Several Questions (Score:3, Insightful)
If you can point to one roadmap that says one consistent thing I would be obliged! The roadmaps I have seen over the last 3 years have said 29 contradictory things, often within the same document.
sPh