Mozilla Foundation in More Development Trouble

sebFlyte writes "After the reports of problems with Firefox' development earlier this week there are now rumblings about more serious problems with the Mozilla Suite. Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for, and others want to create a Firefox Foundation to deal with the success of the standalone browser."

pointless?

wouldn't it be foolish to create a firefox foundation when so much of the firefox code comes from the mozilla suite (and vice versa to some extent)?

Re:pointless?

Since when has that stopped the open source community from forking code? It happens all the time. Most of the time it IS foolish and useless. Occasionally some good comes from the split. Like evolution, it's all a crapshoot.

Re:pointless?

More to the point, the Mozilla foundation is dealing with a whole bunch of products from the original Mozilla suite (Thunderbird, Firefox, Sunbird, and others). What would be the point of pulling Firefox away from that?

It seems like the Mozilla Foundation made a decision that they preferred the Firefox development model. Firefox, Thunderbird, and Sunbird are set to be the *new* Mozilla suite, and the old one is in maintenance mode. It seems like this is comparable to people complaining that Microsoft isn't putting enough development into Windows 3.1.... Well, yeah, it's the old product that they've discontinued.

Now, it's all open source, so if someone wants to work on it, go ahead. But why people are trying to convince the Mozilla foundation to offload their new, exciting, successful, popular line-up of software and head back to what's become a bit of a dead-end, I don't know.

Re:pointless?

Proving once again that the Open Source community continues to be its own worst enemy. There's alot of pig-headed "If you don't play by ~my~ rules I'm taking my toys and going home!" attitude. I suspect its an artifact of the enterprenurial spirit that leads people to contribute to open source in the first place. And because the code is open, anyone can do this. Its the nature of the environment.

Unfortunately, a serious break with Mozilla at this point will INSTANTLY cripple Firefox adoption across enterprise organisations. Now not only do you have to pick a browser (or browser suite) to standardize upon, now you have to pick the flavour of that suite. IT managers (or CIOs) have to bet twice -- once that Firefox will continue to be an optimum choice down the road, and a second time that you chose the right 'branch'.

Microsoft, IBM, Google win their audience over by representing consistency. Here's a quick example: think of McDonalds -- poor quality food, but consistent in quality. People 99% of the time will go with what they know, rather than gamble on the family-run restaurant across the street, even though the family-run restaurant might represent a great hidden and unknown deal.

Re:pointless?

Lets be clear on the actual discussions taking place here...

1. MoFo doesn't want to have to fully support two differant projects; they don't have the resources to do that. So it's proposed that there won't be a 1.8 final release, as that would take a lot of QA work and entail still more work later on to keep up with security patches.
2. Obviously some people don't like this. Oddly enough most of them are users of the suite.
3. Several [xulplanet.com] developers [glazman.org] have stated [steelgryphon.com] that mofo shouldn't continue suite releases, at least not in the same way. None of them have suggested spinning firefox off into a seperate foundation.
4. Slashdot has posted an inflammatory article about the issue; very few people commenting have bothered to go to the primary sources to see whats going on. (Surprise! :))

The wonders of open source

FOSS is great. They can do any or all of the above. I could fork my own version of Mozilla or Firefox right now if I felt that my development process was superior to that of the existing community. I dont see why there is such a big debate here. Do it, see how many developers flow to each side, work from there.

Re:This is bad because:

...after receiving carte-blanche from the US Bush/Cheney regime...

I'd just like to point out for the record that Microsoft employees contribute more to the Democratic party than any other company in the United States and that the Microsoft itself has made only negligible political contributions to both parties. Bill Gates is certainly no conservative.

The idea that the Bush/Cheney regime as you call it should be determining whether a browser should be embedded into an OS is rediculous. The last thing we want is our elected officials telling us how to package and sell our software. Let's press them on software patents, not bundling issues.

CVS politics

Big projects using CVS somehow all wind up with
with nasty politics. This is because CVS commit
rights give a very visible rank to some people.
It only gets worse if you add "core" membership.

Linus keeps things fuzzy. The innermost circle
of developers is poorly defined. This lets
everyone think they are "in" or "out" as best
suits their personality.

I've seen the problem on wikis too, with admin
rights. Giving out explicit rank is dumb.

Meh

Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for, and others want to create a Firefox Foundation to deal with the success of the standalone browser.

Or maybe... they could just leave it where it is? Is the Mozilla Foundation really all THAT bad? While I'm sure that everyone has reasons for their position, this smacks of a variation of "Not Invented Here Syndrome".

Re:Meh

It's not that the Mozilla Foundation is evil - there are a few issues here. First, they aren't saying much. Pretty much everything we [mozilla.org] hear is coming from only Asa Dotzler [slashdot.org], not official statements by MoFo. Second, the Mozilla Foundation does have limited resources - the points people are making about two products being difficult are valid. Marketing is another big issue. It would be in the Mozilla Foundation's best interest to present ONE front: the aviary products (Firefox, Thunderbird).

I don't think NIH is the big problem - the problem is that while Firefox could have been just the browser portion of the suite, it isn't. It looks and feels different. The people who like the suite like the look and feel of it. Switching to Firefox means giving up a mature, stable, familiar user interface for something different that changes a lot with every 0.1 release (for example, Firefox 1.1 will have a completely rewritten preferences panel).

One of the major concerns right now of developers interested in SeaMonkey is the development process currently used for the aviary products: gigantic patches are included without any review, and often with very little testing. Regressions are found by users, and they file bugs which get fixed. However, the lack of review still allows much lower-quality code to enter the source. Between the landing of the patch and fixing of regressions, nightly builds (which developers work from) are often in very bad (unusable) shape.

The SeaMonkey front-end currently requires not one, but TWO reviews of all code. Does this slow the pace of development? Yes. It's extremely difficult to thoroughly review the bigger patches (doubling a patch length probably quadruples the work), but it maintains high code quality, and minimizes the introduction of new bugs. It helps that the SeaMonkey front-end is already mature, because less development needs to happen.

In theory, the Mozilla project was supposed to offer a cross-platform application development toolkit. This toolkit would be maintained, and an application written for it should work properly on future versions of the toolkit. This would offer a way to easily save Mozilla: port it over to this toolkit (which is just a modified version of what it uses right now, minus thorough code review). However, there is doubt among the developers that the Mozilla Foundation will actually keep this toolkit in usable shape - the track record of Firefox developers has been "change what we want when we want to", which would mean any application using this toolkit would need frequent updates. Porting the suite to a toolkit like this would mean we get all of the downsides (less code review), plus extra maintenance work required.

Basically, I think most of the suite developers just want their favorite browser not to die, and not to be based on shoddy code.

Instability

I see this sort of instability as only hurting the cause. It will show the general public and/or typical PHBs that closed source software is better because the companies/foundations making it are more stable. Mozilla really needs to try to keep it together.

Helpful news?

This must be the third article about Firefox/Mozilla development process problems this week.
Aren't these kinds of problems going on with most projects, including proprietry software projects?
I can't help but feel as though people are just trying to run a smear campaign against the Mozilla Corporation.

Mod Parent up

I would if I had mod points. This is healthy open discussion about the future of an open source project. I seem to remember the original developers of what became Firefox started that project because they were unhappy with the direction of the mozilla browser at the time. This is not instability or trouble, it is part of the evolutionary process of open software...

Re:Helpful news?

Of course it is, but slashdot brings drama to those with no lives.

Sheesh...

The article is headlined "Mozilla's future under debate"

How the hell did "under debate" become "More Development Trouble" in the /. headline.

(Answer : someone high up at OSDL clear believes "scandal-mongering = advertising revenue")

Re:Sheesh...

OSDL [osdl.org] doesn't sell advertising, and isn't related to Slashdot or OSTG [ostg.com].

I think it is sad...

In a time when the open source community needs solidarity, one of the largest and most popular organizations is spreading itself too thin to the point of breaking.

I don't get it

I've been using Mozilla, in some capacity or another, for almost six years, and it's been the only browser I've used (on purpose) for at least five years. So I was confused when Firefox showed up on the scene and suddenly attracted attention. What is it that makes Firefox better than Mozilla? Firefox has tabbed browsing, and pop-up blocking, and all that, but Mozilla did it all two years ago.

Re:I don't get it

As far as I know...

• Firefox is faster- I haven't tried it in a while, but at least a couple years ago, when I made the switch, Firefox loaded faster, and seemed generally more lightweight
• Firefox is prettier- totally a matter of opinion, but it seems to be the majority opinion that Firefox has a better interface all around
• Firefox's Extensions- I'm not a developer, but people seem to think that Firefox's extension system is easier, more flexible, and generally better than any means to alter/add-on to the Mozilla suite. (don't know much about it though)
• the Mozilla suite seemed stagnant- this is an issue of perception, but I've talked to a number of people that thought the Mozilla suite has a clunky interface from 10-15 years ago (it still looked like Netscape 4). The mere appearance of 'newness' was enough to get some people excited. Along these lines, the Firefox people have done a better job of making Firefox look native on various operating systems
• breaking Mozilla suit up made sense for development- eh, it's arguable, but many people seem to believe that breaking the suite up into its components (browser, e-mail, calendar, chat, composer, etc.) would make it possible for each individual component to progress faster. Besides giving people the ability to pick and choose the components they wanted, and increasing the efficiency of the resources used by not including components that people weren't going to use, there's the idea that breaking some of the interdependencies between components will allow developers to do, for each component, what is best and will make the most sense, without needing to worry as much about the effect on other components. The rapid progress of both Firefox and Thunderbird seems to indicate that there's something to it.

So that's what I can think of off hand. Personally, I'm not sure why a web browser ever had a e-mail program and HTML editor and chat all built into it anyway. Sure, make a suite, distribute them all together, but why make them all part of the same program?

Re:I don't get it

Here's the differences:

Firefox starts up slightly faster.

The Firefox UI has a lot of features removed. The idea was to make the core browser "simple" and allow it to be customized via extensions.

Firefox generally used IE's UI as its model, whereas Mozilla used Netscape 4.x as its model.

Once the browser is loaded, rendering and speed wise they're the same. Benchmarks recently posted on Slashdot showed that the 1.8 versions of the suite were significantly faster than Firefox (based on 1.7). The next Firefox release should gain those improvements.

If you use FireFox and Thunderbird, you end up with higher memory usage as you get two copies of the Mozilla core loaded, whereas with the Suite you only have one copy loaded. This problem gets worse if you also use the standalone Composer or Calendar.

The biggest difference is to get a change done in the Mozilla UI, you have to get a large group of people to agree. Firefox has about 2 people who decide on the UI, so its easier to get changes done there.

Really, the biggest difference in Firefox is it shuts up the people who want to be able to download just a browser without the other stuff, but who also refuse to use the Mozilla net installer. If you used the Suite's net installer, you've always been able to tell it not to download the extra junk, but there's a large portion of people that liked to ignore the net installer and then bitch about being forced to download and install the parts they don't want.

Google to the "rescue"

If GBrowser is for real, why couldn't Google essentially take over by forking eithe Mozilla or firefox (or both)? They could become the effective owners of the software. Would that be considered good or evil?

Re:Google to the "rescue"

Neither, they aren't doing it. Google is a SEARCH company. Every single one of their ventures have been search related. I believe they hired Ben from Mozilla because he was the UI nazi that made Firefox the success that it is, not because they want to fork a browser.

Just started doing Firefox/XUL development

Well I hope they don't lose any momentum because I just started doing Firefox development for some financial services companies. However, my perception is that development is much more difficult than it needs to be. In order to do anything significant, you have to get the entire tree and program in C++ with many different layers in between. I just think that the development doesn't feel like it's a "platform" you're developing on. The development SDK should be more like a development "kit". I know it hasn't stopped thousands of extensions from being written, but perhaps there could be more significant applications written otherwise.

Maybe...

Maybe they should shit-can the Mozilla suite and concentrate all efforts on their most successful products... Firefox, and Thunderbird. Considering the huge success of Firefox as a stand alone browser and thunderbird as an email client. I see no point in keeping the mozilla suite around any longer.

From a marketing perspective they've already put all their eggs in the firefox basket...

Even netscape wants to ride the firefox wave to success with the release of the Netscape 8 browser.

Re:Maybe...

It's trickier than that. A lot of developers like the suite much more than Firefox. Some core devs have suggested they might stop working on Gecko if the suite dies. The Mozilla suite is basically in the opposite situation of Firefox: Firefox has LOTS of users and apparently way too few developers; Mozilla has LOTS of developers and not as many users. Killing the suite doesn't mean all of those developers would jump ship to Firefox. I personally don't like Firefox, so I write code for Mozilla. If it comes down to "Firefox or else", there's a good chance I'd find something else to do with my time.

Re:Maybe...

Many of your changes could wind up in firefox anyway...
No, they CAN'T! Firefox people are very strict about not adding things for transitioning Mozilla users - for example, they rejected a patch I wrote that allows ctrl and alt to be un-reversed based on a hidden preference (basically, ctrl+enter and alt+enter are backwards in Firefox - an unnecessary annoyance). There are many other things they don't accept - my definition of "better" is just not the same as theirs.

If a developer only wishes to develop for the moz suite but no on is there to use it, are you making a difference?
So what, am I wasting my time working on Mozilla? No, it's a hobby which happens to benefit me (since I get a better browser). Besides, there is a difference between not having 25 million users and not having ANY users. If a Mozilla 1.8 is released, I'm sure there will still be many thousands of downloads.

If you abandon mozilla for dropping the suite you were never a true open source developer to begin with.
I liked Mozilla, but wanted it to do something it didn't support (play a sound when a download finishes). I found this bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=16498 and with a lot of help from existing developers, fixed it. As time went on, I found other things I didn't like, and worked on them. Since then, I've fixed quite a few bugs: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/buglist.cgi?query_for mat=advanced&emailassigned_to1=1&emailtype1=exact& email1=cst%40andrew.cmu.edu&chfieldto=Now

Does the fact that I do this work for free, in my free time make me a "fake" open source developer? Am I supposed to continue to contribute if the project moves in a direction I don't like? If that's what's required to fit someone's definition of "true open source developer", then fine, I'm not one.

It really boils down to this: I don't like the same things Firefox devs like, and as such, making Firefox "better" in my opinion would require that I fork it. Instead, I choose to contribute to Mozilla, whose developers I see eye-to-eye with much better. Unlike a personal Firefox fork, Mozilla at least has some users.

Redesign Mozilla?

Why not make Mozilla a container app for firefox and thunderbird? FF and TB would basically be plugins for Mozilla. That way you have a single code base for the browser and mail app. Adding the calendar to Mozilla would then be easy, you just load the plugin.

Imagine being able to open your email on new tab in the mozilla window?

STFU & GBTW

I know they're trying to tweak every possible thing to grow as fast as possible, but this is just pointless. Nothing is ostensibly broken at this point, so why fix it when it may not be there?

Unless there's some creative differences happening that are only now coming to the surface, leave it alone, your organizational model is fine.

Weird...

Some developers want to spin the suite out as a community project that the foundation has no responsibility for

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the Mozilla Foundation formed because Netscape/AOL wanted Mozilla to become a community project that the corporation has no responsibility for?

If the Mozilla Foundation has no responsibility for the Mozilla codebase, just what is the point of their existence?

I say desolve the foundation permanently. Give project leaders direct control over their codebases. Fear will keep the users in line! Fear of this battlesta-- . . . no, wait, I mean Microsoft, fear of Microsoft.

Seriously though, if the Mozilla Foundation doesn't want control/responsibility of the Mozilla codebase they should just simply disband and give the code back to the community. Someone will pick it up.

"problems" inaccurate

Sounds like a debate, which is what organizations do. They debate strategic moves. Saying they are having "problems" implies something else entirely.

Huh?

People in a team having differeent ideas for the future of a project != "in trouble".

"Google is in trouble - some employee want to bring Google News out of Beta, while others do not."

WTF is the big fat hairy deal?

Is the Licence so restricted? Can't anyone who would like to just fork the project?

It's open source people, this is how it works when heavy problems show up:

1) Gee cool project. I like the tool .

2) Gosh, I miss foo in this. But I guess someone would need to implement bar before that could work.

3)
- "Hey folks, I've done this patch. Could you check it out, merge it in and may I join the devteam?"
- "No. You stink. We don't want you. You know to much, and besides: I'm the big guru around here. Go away."
- "Ok. Sorry for wasting your time."

4) sf.net/my/.makeNewProject( my tool );

Or did I miss something here?

Why Firefox?

I'm a Luddite when it comes to Firefox. I don't really understand why it was created, notwithstanding that I've been told several times that if I had any savvy at all I would find the reasons apparent, as everybody else does.

I see it as brand-name dilution. I was an early Mozilla evangelist. Now all the people I converted from the dark side are terribly confused and groaning "Do I have to change again?" You mean I have to replace Mozilla browser/mail by 2 different programs? "It's almost the same only better - I'll help you convert" doesn't play very well as an answer.

I have no ready solution, now that Firefox has established a beach head (IMO, due to surrendipity and marketing rather than inherent superiority). I suppose I'll have to try my best to convince the disciples that they should change horses yet again.

I still use Mozilla

I don't know about the rest of you people but I still use Mozilla as my 3rd browser behind konqueror and firefox.

I'm sure other people have found similar things. It remains the only browser that opens most of those silly Javascript sub-windows. I can only imagine the other browsers don't do this because the javascript is some broken hack - but whether it is or isn't, sometimes you just need to open these things.

Abandoning Moz Suite undermines all products

If they abandoned Mozilla Suite and its users, how do I know they won't abandon the current Firefox or Thunderbird apps?

That's the question every business will ask before adopting any other Moz app, if Mozilla Foundation abandons the Mozilla Suite. In fact, some will ask it about any FOSS product. That particular FUD already exists; this move would reinforce it.

It might seem unlikely that Firefox would be abandoned, but what happens to 1.0 when FF 2.0 comes out? Support and maintenance for old products is essential for any business customer; upgrading can be very expensive (deploying across thousands of computers, modifying any integrated software, etc) and often doesn't help the business' bottom line. IBM supports products forever, it seems; Microsoft supported Windows 98 until (last year?). The Linux 2.4 kernal is certainly maintaned; what about 2.2? IBM's name is behind Linux, anyway.

MoFo would look like an unreliable vendor with a good product. I posted in Slashdot previously that they aren't really community driven, which isn't necessarily a bad thing -- it's just different. It appears they may not be customer driven, either. What's driving MoFo?

This is starting to sound familiar

I remember reading JWZ's blog back in the Netscape days. I remember one entry in particular where he noted that Netscape had changed. It used to be full of people who wanted to help create a great company. It turned into a place full of people who just wanted to work for a great company. The people who live to help create get replaced by those who want to ride on their coat-tails. This happens when businesses become successful. Everything changes. Like the band that was good friends and partied together every night. They get signed, shit gets serious, and suddenly they're fighting and arguing about things till they break up and go their separate ways.

From an old post in his blog:
What is most amazing about this is not the event itself, but rather, what it indicates: Netscape has gone from ``hot young world-changing startup'' to Apple levels of unadulterated uselessness in fewer than four years, and with fewer than 3,000 employees.

But I guess Netscape has always done everything faster and bigger. Including burning out.

It's too bad it had to end with a whimper instead of a bang. Netscape used to be something wonderful.

The thing that hurts about this is that I was here when Netscape was just a bunch of creative people working together to make something great. Now it's a faceless corporation like all other faceless corporations, terrified that it might accidentally offend someone. But yes, all big corporations are like that: it's just that I was here to watch this one fall.

Perhaps the same fate awaits Mozilla. Hopefully not, but when your product becomes as successful as Mozilla and Firefox have, things do change and change is inevitable. It all comes down to how the people involved with the projects handle the change.

Mozilla did rise from the ashes of Netscape though. Hopefully some of the original Netscape people are still around to help lead Mozilla in the right direction, using their experience from the crashing and burning of Netscape in the late 90's.

JWZ's rantings can be found at http://www.jwz.org/gruntle/ [jwz.org]