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Problems With the Firefox Development Process
Posted by
Zonk
on Mon Mar 07, 2005 01:39 AM
from the eyes-on-the-prize dept.
from the eyes-on-the-prize dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Mike
Connor, one of the core Firefox
developers, is raising a flag concerning the Mozilla Firefox
methodology of development. From his blog: "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think were in
trouble. Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews." In an earlier
entry, he raised concrete concerns about the community involvement. Asa Dotzler
recently elaborated
on the process, as previously covered on Slashdot."
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Problems With the Firefox Development Process
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Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:2, Insightful)
Mike Connor has a point, but we aren't talking imminent disaster. Yet.
Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:5, Funny)
(http://lug.wsu.edu/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 16 2007, @03:54AM)
Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:5, Funny)
(http://marshallbrain.com/manna1.htm)
Reminds one of this anecdote [langston.com].
Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:5, Funny)
Respectfully, Albert Gore
Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://www.mangaschool.com/ | Last Journal: Tuesday January 03 2006, @07:51AM)
Re:Firefox is mostly a cute interface (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.elranzer.com/)
RSS? PNG support? Popup blocker without a service pack? Proper CSS support? Integrated Sherlock? Tabbed browsing?
Oh wait, those are all features Firefox has that IE doesn't. About the only thing IE has that Firefox doesn't is ActiveX support, and the only good thing that has come from that is keeping me in business (people pay me to clean their computers of spyware/malware).
It's the Branding (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Informative)
This is probably a harder thing to do in the open source world, and also much more important to establish a trustworthy brand and indentity.
Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Informative)
RMS wants to rebrand Firefox. [mozillazine.org]
This thing will surely appear soon as another sensationalist Slashdot headline.
Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://iabervon.org/~barkalow/ | Last Journal: Saturday May 31 2003, @02:01AM)
Mozilla is trying to establish a trustworthy brand and identity, as you say; however, having an identity excludes potential participants, who are being identified as not part of the project. And their fear that other people's versions would reflect badly on them excludes those other people from feeling welcome.
One of the key strengths of the Linux brand is that people you trust for other reasons have a stake in it. Sure, there are people out there who release terrible versions of Linux, but you don't get it from them. There are also people out there who release versions of Linux with special features for just your problem, and that's part of what Linux is about (e.g., Intrinsyc ships a Linux version with special support for the hardware on their embedded devices; the Linux Audio Development project has a version which avoids skips when recording audio; these projects couldn't call themselves Linux if Linus managed the trademark the way Mozilla manages theirs, and it would reduce the recognition of Linux as something that can solve any problem you happen to have).
Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of spyware vendors for example would be tempted to ship their own special 'enhanced' version of Firefox with the same branding and call it Firefox+ or something, with built in weather, clock, terrorist headcount, free desktop pictures, plus of course key logging, pop-ups and god knows what else. Just enough fluff to make it seem useful to a non-expert user, and just enough spyware to keep them happy. Then when it all comes out that it is spyware, Firefox will be tarred with the same brush.
That kind of thing is one good reason not to allow just anyone to use the brand.
How else to topple IE? Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Sunday October 14, @08:03AM)
I think it's important to realize some people synonymize "The Internet" with Internet Explorer, because of IE auto-dialing, and auto connecting, as well as broad-band connections always being on and using it as default browser with windows.
Anything you do mainstream (particularly in the US) is already being done branding first and content second. Just take a look at TV.
We're dealing here with the WWW, possibly the most impressive achievement to date in terms of communication and information sharing. It's going to take some power to muddle through the masses, and you're not going to do it by sticking exclusively to principles at the expense of reaching the clueless.
The infrastructure, particularly the end-user "filter" of that information, is of critical importance. Idealism about open-source initiatives has to play tug-of-war with practical ways to get a broad following.
Re:It's the Branding (Score:5, Interesting)
People have been conditioned to think that software is unstable and buggy. This means that a primary requirement in choosing a software vendor is stability and support. People want to know that the company they're getting their software from is stable, and will continue to support the product. If Firefox, or any other open source project, wants to enter the mainstream of the consumer market, they must have an answer to these concerns. This means building a strong brand, part of which is constant trademark defense.
Like it or not, if you want to break into the consumer market, you must let people know that you are going to be there for them, and the average open source project cannot do that. Firefox is doing the best they can to do this, even though it flies in the face of the traditional open source ethos.
If this philosophy flies in the face of the average open source hacker's philosophy, then that's really too bad. The goal of Firefox is to replace IE, not only in the minds of other open source hackers, but in the minds of the general public. It is not simply to prove that open source programming can produce an equal or superior product, but that open source can produce a more economically viable product, a product that can beat the competition not only technically, but also in the market. This idea puts it at odds with much of the traditional open source philosophy, which seeks merely to produce technically superior products.
M$ Conspiracy? (Score:2, Funny)
That's strange... (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.smerity.com/)
That's strange...
From what I read on the last Slashdot Mozilla/Firefox article, people thought that there were too many coders in Firefox, thus creating bloated code...
I guess that's a myth, eh? Community misconception?
Re:That's strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:That's strange... (Score:4, Interesting)
http://www.i-am-bored.com/bored_link.cfm?link_id=
Without the fix - leaving FireFox open for > 24 hours will bring most Windows systems to a halt.
I believe that there may be other issues - especially for people that leave > 20 tabs open for > 24 hours. I've switched back to Opera after being a bit of a FireFox evangelist for a while because Opera handles leaving a large number of tabs open for a protracted amount of time without eating all my memory.
I'm guessing that some of the memory issues are significant and difficult problems to fix - otherwise they would have been fixed by now.
Re:That's strange... (Score:5, Interesting)
(Last Journal: Tuesday September 06 2005, @12:39PM)
Compare the feature sets of FireFox and Opera. Now compare their relative footprints when installed (or even the size of the downloads). Pound for pound, Opera is faster, lighter and does more (it even includes mail and IRC clients in it's small size).
Also, almost without exception, those features that are common to both (a great many of which were browser innovations by Opera itself) are far better implemented in Opera than they are in FireFox.
So, Opera seems to be proof that you can have your cake and eat it too. It's small, fast, powerful and bloat-free. If the guys at Opera can do it, then other people can do it too, can't they?
Re:That's strange... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:That's strange... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:That's strange... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.demolicious.org/)
Conversely, FF's main aim was to develop a leaner browser than the Moz suite whilst still maintaining a Moz/Opera-like level of functionality. Now that the browser is more-or-less set in stone, expect to see alot of work being done in the smaller/faster areas. Especially with the up-and-coming Gecko-powered embedded browser that's being worked on.
Coders != Maintainers (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://slashdot.org/ | Last Journal: Saturday November 03, @04:58AM)
One maintainer for Firefox would be fine, if it were a little more modular. The problem is the same one Linus had, fairly early on. People don't scale as easily as lines of code. Basically, the Firefox code needs to be ripped into managable parcels, such that the maintenance that is done can concentrate on one parcel, rather than ALL interactions in ALL parts of the code.
Monolithic code is problematic, because for N lines of code, there are potentially !N interactions that can occur. !N gets big, very very quickly. When you use procedures wisely, then N is the number of procedures, rather than the number of lines, but it is still a VERY big number, far too big for ANY finite number of maintainers to handle sensibly.
Bah, what's the big deal? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bah, what's the big deal? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.slashdot.org/~lukewarmfusion/journal/ | Last Journal: Tuesday August 02 2005, @02:49PM)
Don't set your standards low just because the competition does. Set 'em high because you can and should.
(I've just been in the mood to slap someone lately. Nothing personal.)
Re:Bah, what's the big deal? (Score:5, Interesting)
Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews. And I'm on the verge of just walking away indefinitely, since it feels like I'm the only person who cares enough to make it an issue.
What good is people submitting patches if no one is there to review the code prior to commit? Indeed, I submitted a very trivial usability enhancement to Firefox [mozilla.org], and it was quickly swept under the rug. Perhaps it should simply be made into a plug-in, I don't know. Just thought I would share it as first-hand experience.
- shadowmatter
Firefox (Score:4, Funny)
(http://onticfusion.sytes.net/)
Firefox is also Mozilla (Score:5, Informative)
That said, I wish there were more devs working on Firefox-specific issues.
Engineering documents? (Score:5, Insightful)
If it is a problem of documentation, then those two remaining programmers had better work on documenting it... and quickly. If they want the architecture to be preserved when new programmers who don't understand it come along.
Re:Engineering documents? (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://booktextmark.mozdev.org/)
ok (Score:5, Informative)
How to write Firefox extensions [roachfiend.com]
Perhaps (Score:1, Interesting)
yes, ther is port for many platformes but it
targeting IE replacement for windows users.
Replacing microsoft sh!t code probaly dont apprear
very exciting.
Re:Agreed (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.mants-lair.org.uk/)
Maybe they aren't doing the project "for free and open source software" but for users who want a decent browser on any platform? Mozilla aren't fighting any war for the desktop, because they make browsers, not desktops.
That seems to be their goal, so quite obviously windows is included, and the Mac. I notice you don't comment on the Mac, but that is also a closed source OS, even if it has Darwin underneath.
Your right that offering FireFox for Windows isn't going to get people to move off Windows. I've seen some people make the argument, but never seen it as being listed as a goal of the Moz and FF people. You can't call it failure if it wasn't their goal.
In fact, you seem to be against cross platform development altogether. It is hardly the only OSS software to do this (Open Office anyone?), and it is usually touted
Open source isn't some huge, unified movement dedicated to destroying Microsoft (although some individuals are). There isn't a "true open source" community, maybe you mean the free software community, which is based on the ideals of free software, rather than the more pragmatic open source community? (not that the two are mutually exclusive). Even then I'd think the point of open source is freedom, and that includes the freedom to delevop in MS Windows. The GPL and other licenses don't say you can't develop on a closed source OS.
Like freedom of speech lets people say things you don't like, including ideas that are against freedom of speech. Freedom to code lets you code for closed source systems, even if the people that came up with the idea don't like what you are coding for.
It isn't any half way measure, they are doing exactly what they want to do (and other major OSS projects do), and they are doing very well. It just isn't what you want, but you are free to go make a *nix only fork if you think it will get more support by loosing all the Windows people.
Why can Microsoft et. al get good people... (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://slashdot.org/)
I think some things need to be funded, and if Mofo needs the cash, then Cashdot should be able to help out (maybe do a sidebar-fundraiser or something)... I'd pitch in a couple of bits for my fave browser! Hell make it a contest so people can win firefox/mozilla SWAG [mozilla.org]!
Re:Why can Microsoft et. al get good people... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Well, why don't you then? Or did you not notice that "Donate" button on your first link?
Same ol', same ol' (Score:4, Insightful)
Mozilla has for years made a constant and ongoing argument that they're open to all comers and want all the help they can get, only to turn people away without consideration. I don't know what it's all about, and I'm not sure I care anymore.
It's a shame, because while (for example) Ben Goodger is obviously a talented programmer, his belief that he is the only person capable of doing what he does is just crippling the effort. Allowing a few people to prove they're as good as he is (hmmm... maybe he's afraid to find that out) could move things along tremendously.
Huh? (Score:2, Interesting)
Lack of community involvement (Score:3, Insightful)
His blog... (Score:5, Funny)
(http://dchky.com/)
Community, Induviduals and Fun (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://t3.dotgnu.info/ | Last Journal: Monday September 26 2005, @06:32AM)
Mmm... "Just for Fun !!"
If you look at very successful FOSS projects, you'll see a comitted 3-5 member team which does pretty much everything for that project (projects like KDE or gnome don't classify as projects, they are meta-projects).
A project needs lots of users and around 3-4 x times the core team contributing bits and peices to keep it alive. Once that is reached, the project is pretty much self sustaining.
I feel that firefox has got a bit of elitism in their top level. Maybe those developers should take a look back into where THEY came from.
Re:Community, Induviduals and Fun (Score:4, Informative)
Basically, if you document what you're doing, it's fairly easy to turn your project over to more people. If you don't document, then you're cementing your position as 'the coder' and making it that much harder for others to join in.
The number one problem with Firefox? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://deadhobosociety.com/)
In order to help out the FireFox team, here are my suggestions for new, catchier names:
Fox Fire
Brush Fire
Brush Fox
Foxy Britches
Fancy Pants
Panda Britches
Moz Illa Than You
Moz Def
Linky Clicky
Clicky Linky
Spider Webby
The Amazing Spider Webby
Ultra Browser
Supa Browsa
Supa Browsa II: Supa Browsa Remix
and finally,
Internet Explorer II: Electric Bugaloo
Re:The number one problem with Firefox? (Score:5, Funny)
(http://slashdot.org/)
Quick Clarification (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://sbutler.typepad.com/)
What I gather this means is that Firefox 1.1 will get some cool new backend features but that its front end stuff will remain mostly the same (excepting the preferences dialog). Is this really a bad thing?
Reading code... (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.zip.com.au/~dtucker/)
Brian Kernighan is widely quoted as saying: "Debugging is twice as hard as writing code in the first place. Therefore, if you write the code as cleverly as possible, you are, by definition, not smart enough to debug it."
When you're debugging, it involves rereading code you're already familiar with, so I suggest a corollary: reviewing someone else's code can be harder than writing it in the first place too.
That said, don't let it stop you from trying! Pick a patch from your favourite project and review it. Try to understand it. Look for places where it could be wrong.
Reviewing is a related but distinct skill from developing, and it can be improved with practice. A good reviewer is worth their weight in gold but it's often a thankless task (so let me take this chance to say a big thank you to markus and djm for putting up with my diffs :-).
Case in point: vcards (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.eruvia.org/)
I downloaded the code, posted up onto the relevant bugzilla entry, and waited for a response.
And waited.
And waited.
Still no response.
Seven months later, the bug flickers into life again and people start asking why this isn't here. Again, I post up reminding people that I offered to write the code, and still would. Again, utter silence. Tumbleweed drifts across the face of the bugzilla page...
Have a look, entry 79709 if you're interested (Mozilla's bugzilla set-up disallows direct linking from Slashdot). My main motivation for writing this has now gone, as I bought an OS X-based desktop too and can synchronise contacts fine now. I might still have a crack at it just for interest's sake though, but I wouldn't count on getting any contact from Mozilla people.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Case in point: vcards (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.eruvia.org/)
Duplication. Check the bug report I mentioned - it seems to me as if vCard handling is actually pretty much there in Thunderbird but simply has no UI, so I wanted to re-use the existing code rather than create my own vCard library which would be out of sync with the rest of the code and probably would be rejected as duplicated work anyway.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Case in point: vcards (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.daishar.com/blog)
Yeah, and? The point of the question was, "Why didn't you go ahead and do what you wanted to do, rather than file a bug and wait for permission?" In cases like this (and in many things in life), it's easier to ask forgiveness than permission. If you are willing to write the code it takes to do what you want, there's a much higher chance of your bug getting noticed if it's accompanied by a patch. The patch doesn't have to be perfect code. It could be as simple as a proof of concept (though if you're going to do it, you may as well do it right). But a bug saying, "Hey, Project X needs feature Y. I'm willing to write the code. What say you?" is easily ignorable, while a bug saying, "Hey, Project X needs feature Y. Here's a patch with an implementation. Please give me feedback, and if you feel the feature is appropriate for Project X, check it into the tree," is hard to ignore. You've suggested a feature and provided an implementation all at once. The implementation may need tweaking, but the work is pretty much done, making it an easy feature request to approve.
From the bug, it seems that you got stuck on a few points and need some clarification. That's fine, but I wonder if asking that type of question within a bug is the right place to do it? Doesn't Mozilla have an IRC channel for development questions, or mailing lists for the various components? In short, that you didn't try to find the information you need elsewhere (assuming you didn't, from your posts here and in the bug) makes one question whether your commmitment to code the feature was genuine.
Re:Case in point: vcards (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://www.eruvia.org/)
Fundamentally misunderstood. I'm not asking for permission, I'm trying to do the work within the existing framework. Saves everyone time, guarantees consistency in vCard import.
As for the remainder, yes - the defect tracking system is absolutely the correct place to keep discussions about the defect. IRC? Who logs that, and what if I'm hit by a bus and someone wants to finish what I'd stared? Nope, that's the entire point of bugzilla and similar systems - to keep information most local to where it's needed. A fine programming principle...
In short, that you didn't try to find the information you need elsewhere (assuming you didn't, from your posts here and in the bug) makes one question whether your commmitment to code the feature was genuine.
Well, I wasn't about to buy it an engagement ring that's for sure. How 'genuine' would be enough for you? A tattoo on my forearm? A declaration of undying commitment before a gathering of my peers? A nice romantic dinner, just me and the bug?
Or perhaps I should stick to talking about code enhancements in the enhancement/defect tracking system.
Enjoy the remainder of your aggression. Remember the point of this Slashdot thread? About how Mozilla was failing to build a community...?
Cheers,
Ian
Re:Case in point: vcards (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.daishar.com/blog)
As I read the comments in the bug, you were looking for technical information (ie, "do I have to create a stream, or is it provided to me by the dialog?" (not a direct quote)), not design. The design should be kept close to the problem, and definitely in the bug. The technical implementation details, and especially minor questions about how you do this or that, don't need to be logged in the bug. Again, as I read it, what you really needed was a comprehensive architecture document of Thunderbird, or failing that at least someone familiar with similar code that could point you in the right direction. That's a task for IRC channels (because the discussion is ephemeral, and doesn't need to be logged for anything but your development purposes) or mailing lists.
Consider it from the approver's point of view. You offered to help, ran into a technical snag, asked a question in an inappropriate forum, and disappeared for 7 months. I get that it's open source, and work is done by individuals in their spare time, but that doesn't sound to me like you were really committed to fixing the bug. If you were, you would've tracked down the information you needed (it wasn't a design question requiring a committee vote), and continued with the work. That's how I define "genuine".
That wasn't aggression, and I'm not affiliated with Firefox in any way (in fact, aside from having it installed but never using it, I have no association with the project at all). To turn it around on you, perhaps Mozilla is failing to build a community because people don't follow through on commitments? Of course, it's more likely that they're failing to build a community because they've failed to build a community. (no, really -- the fact that your technical question went unanswered can be seen as a sign of a lack of community, and short of some group of people stepping up and actively trying to build that community, the community will continue to not grow ...)
Solution (Score:3, Funny)
Bill Gates says "i told ya so"
They don't need no stinking development process (Score:1, Funny)
GPL It? (Score:3, Interesting)
(http://mboffin.com/)
this is what happens when v hype anything too much (Score:4, Insightful)
Dude? (Score:2, Funny)
They often act out their anger. (Score:5, Informative)
(http://www.futurepower.net/)
I've posted bugs to Firefox Bugzilla. All I know about the Firefox "community" comes from that.
One of the bug posts, about a serious memory leak that causes a complete crash, was handled in an angry way, even though I had spent hours documenting it on two computers and two operating systems.
This is an extremely common phenomenon among Open Source authors. They often use their position as a way of acting out their anger. I was criticized because I use Firefox in a more intense way than other users! When I posted a carefully written response to the criticism, I got criticism for posting a long response.
I offered to re-write the manual for another Open Source project, and got a negative response that was encouraging and discouraging at the same time.
On another project, I entered a minor bug. The program was crashing if it saw a DOS end-of-text-file character in its text file input. I got back a long, philosophical discussion about why they were not willing to fix the bug because it was a problem that came from DOS.
One person with an anger problem can literally control the development of an Open Source project by scaring away potential helpers.
In my experience, the anger is often not expressed in a way that is obviously angry. It comes as opposition, sometimes very subtle opposition, even to good ideas or to useful help. The opposition vastly increases the amount of time required to contribute to a project.
The serious Firefox crash I reported in October 2003 was still there in February 2005 in version 1.0, even though it was verified by others in a careful way.
The background for all this is that Firefox is apparently the best browser, and an important window to the world for millions of people.
This is an important subject, and there is a lot more to say, but I don't have time now.
Re:They often act out their anger. (Score:5, Insightful)
This is NOT a problem with Open Source development but with programmers as a whole, myself included but I try and suppress it. You have to 'give up' code that you have too much ownership in.
Re:They often act out their anger. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://coderjournal.com/)
There are probably not many and personally I think this is what drives some of the negativity.
A couple times I have posted a bug to the FireFox Bugzilla, both times they have been duplicates. Both times I have been critisized by the person managing the bug to look before submitting. Both times the title of the bug has been totally different than anything I would have thought of.
Most of the problems come from the lack of dealing with other people. Many of these developers shouldn't be doing the customer interaction. That is why even in small companies 1st level tech support is not the developer who created/developed the project.
The Firefox people are great compared to Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.futurepower.net/)
An additional remark:
The problems with reporting bugs in Firefox are trivial compared to reporting bugs to Microsoft, in my experience.
A top-level Microsoft support technician got interested in a very well-documented bug in Windows XP that I reported. He decided, partly as an experiment to teach himself about Microsoft, to work with several Microsoft groups. Result: An entire waste of time of many, many hours, over a period of months.
I've been reporting several bugs in Windows XP for literally years, and they haven't been fixed. If you work with both Linux and Windows XP, do you notice that Linux has a powerful, bug-free Command Line Interface, and the CLI in Windows XP is weak and buggy? (Yes, I know they are working on replacing it.)
Re:They often act out their anger. (Score:5, Insightful)
Like any development model, OSS has its good points and its bad points, and that is certainly a bad one.
Re:They often act out their anger. (Score:4, Insightful)
(http://dattaway.us/)
This happens in every profession at every employer from anyone who has to do work. Its human nature to take the gravy from the plate and give others the left over bones. Of course, this doesn't help when there are no other people to enjoy the left over scraps so they get discarded.
Next time you have a problem, bring lots of gravy. The dogs might attack the problem next time without going after YOU!
More proof that the difference between us and other animals in the kingdom is that we have opposable thumbs. The advantage is we get to meet a lot of monkeys. And an infinite number of them are proficient at typing on a typewriter typing the Complete Works of William Shakespeare while ignoring your very simple question.
Re:They often act out their anger. (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://hanna.pyxidis.org/ | Last Journal: Friday March 31 2006, @02:12AM)
One thing the FOSS paradigm has done is made it possible that people with no experience in the social aspects of software development to write code that is potentially used by millions of people. It can open up a "cowboy culture" where everyone is at odds with everyone else and where, if I may borrow a line from a certain movie, "we're all our own countries with temporary allies and enemies".
I say this with the benefit of hindsight, to be sure: I was a once a pimply, antisocial code-contributor and inlooking back on my own exchanges I see that I was as bad as it gets: if someone found a bug in what I did, instead of fixing it I would spend all my energy in combating the person who reported it because surely this person was out to get me. It wasn't until a few years later when I got a "professional" job that my boss pulled me asside one day and gave me a half-hour verbal bitch-slap that I realized that a bug report is usually someone who _wants_to_help_me_. Basically, I was too arrogant to see that, and now that I'm "old and wise" I see that same thing on others.
Of course, I'm not saying you should let them off the hook because thay don't know any better.. in fact, I'd hazard the sentement that more bitch-slapping needs to be done in the open-source world!
I don't know were I'm going with this, but that's my two cents.
Firefox's Exclusive Developer Policy. (Score:5, Insightful)
It was elaborated on slashdot [slashdot.org] once before.
extensions? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://dhracer.co.uk/)
my $0.02
Typical? (Score:5, Insightful)
(http://www.shopping-cart-reviews.com/)
[dons flame retardant suit]
Time to fork Firefox (Score:1, Funny)
misconceptions (Score:5, Insightful)
- Most of Firefox's changes come from Gecko, which is done by Mozilla coders (I guess you could call them Gecko coders, although I've never heard anyone say that). There are currently about 70 reviewers, and 20 super-reviewers for mozilla. There's about 84 coders a month (down from the 150+ haydays of the Netscape area)
Process (part 2) (Score:3, Insightful)
I really don't think fancy new features should (can) be a top priority right now anymore but instead the core problem of getting new developers needs to be solved not just for now but also for the future. While I agree that changing things like the versioning system won't change much I believe splitting up the codebase into more handy chunks and giving "outsiders" more power (eg regular contributers should need no code review) should be the goal. I think it's this sharp devision between core (Foundation) and outside (everybody else) developers that is the main problem here.
Managers (Score:2, Insightful)
Documentation (Score:3, Insightful)
(http://www.popmonkey.com/ | Last Journal: Sunday December 12 2004, @04:26AM)
Documentation would also help in the review process.
The four AWOL people (Score:3, Funny)
(Last Journal: Wednesday November 17 2004, @05:03PM)
Community Involvement??? (Score:4, Interesting)
(http://threeseas.net/ | Last Journal: Friday January 18 2002, @01:44PM)
Oh, you mean about software improvements?
Here's a serious one:
when downloading and the isp drops your dialup connection, firefox still thinks it is DL'ing, even hours later.
On a 90meg file (over 9 hours of dl'ing with earthlinks advertised 56k, 28.8 at the very best) gettng a dropped carrier at 60% reall sucks, having no resume, especially considering there is existing wget -c that simply should be called to handle such large files.
But here is the kicker:
after resuming the DL via wget -c and getting it, I then needed to dl an unrar program, upon which I found firefox still acting like it was dl'ing teh file, so I canceled it and guess what? The 90meg file vanished.
Icing on this issue:
firefox was dling a file with
IS this what is ment by community support?
Slashdot Firefox (Score:1)
Don't tell me how to fix it, just fix it.
Thanks.
Surprising? (Score:5, Informative)
(http://plato.stanford.edu/ | Last Journal: Tuesday March 15 2005, @10:46AM)
March 2005: "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think were in trouble." [slashdot.org]
I tried (Score:4, Insightful)
(Last Journal: Tuesday November 16 2004, @01:29AM)
Several Reasons Why (Score:2)
(http://www.mozilla.org/)
Honestly, it's not very conducive to hack on it. (At least in my opinion)
Compared to the Mozilla Suite? (Score:2)
(http://ctho.ath.cx/)
Re:Good! (Score:2)
Re:Good! (Score:5, Interesting)
(http://www.pornforthemind.com/)
Re:AWOL? (Score:2, Informative)
(http://zenith.homelinux.net/)