Ars Technica Interviews Scott Collins 320
SnoopTodd writes "Ars Technica has an interview with Scott Collins of Mozilla. 'That's the thing I learned to lust after as a programmer. It's not my ability to solve one problem, to plow this field, but the ability to build a plow that every farmer uses. The ability to make something that touches not ten people, not a hundred people, not a thousand people but a hundred million people. I want Mozilla to be there again. IE is a browser with no soul. I want it to be Mozilla because I think that people who care deserve a browser with a soul.'"
Nice to see (Score:5, Insightful)
I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or... (Score:5, Insightful)
That's good. (Score:5, Insightful)
Whereas in open-source, free (as in speech) software, it's encouraged.
It's hard to see where it will end, this development-with-social-consciousness, but considering we've had the soulless variety for so long, I say we give it a shot.
A soul? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not to flamebait, but... (Score:0, Insightful)
I don't think that means what you think it means (Score:5, Insightful)
I correlate that... (Score:5, Insightful)
History repeating itself. (Score:5, Insightful)
"The only thing a liberal has to do to become a conservative is to not change views for twenty years"
Or something similar. The point is, Netscape was crap by 4.7, and Internet Explorer was fresh, new, fast and hade the exact same pricetag.
But now, Internet Explorer is, well, you know how it is
I think this time, with Mozilla being in the hands of the OSS community, and not a corporation, it will stay on top of Internet Explorer for a long time to come (well at least I hope so).
Re:Jeez.......IE isn't that bad (Score:5, Insightful)
You must be new here or have never even tried Mozilla. All you are basing your opinion off of is reviews, comments, and maybe a couple pretty pictures.
You also do not have to reinstall a browser. In fact, good luck uninstalling IE. The point is that you can use both. Hell, with the ZIP file Mozilla release, you don't even have to install the browser. You can run it right from the directory!
My overwhelming point is to try something before you make opinions on it. I can read reviews until my eyes bleed, but I usually like to try it out myself before making the final decision. The would encourage the same to you... ITS FREE!
Re:A soul? (Score:3, Insightful)
If IE had tabbed browsing, I'd use it. Stuff the themes, it's a productivity tool, not a sodding ornament. Now XPSP2 has a pop-up blocker, my 2nd reason for using Mozzy has gone. I'm still on 0.7 because I had stability problems with 0.8, and I've yet to try 0.9. But I've got a perfectly good browser on my desktop, and I couldn't give a damn if it has 'soul' or not, just whether I can get my work done faster, and better.
Mozilla has a soul? (Score:1, Insightful)
If you criticize IE, then you're also criticizing Mozilla. Really, the big difference is that IE is a large and known target, so virus and spyware writers can have a field day. IE is a highly usable browser otherwise. Okay, popup blocking would be nice, but you can already get that as an ad on (and it will be official in the next version anyway).
Really, we're looking at two almost identical pieces of software. It's not like comparing Visual Basic and Perl, for example.
People care? (Score:2, Insightful)
You hit the nail on the head, I agree. But, in contrast to most Slashdotters, most people simply don't care. What they want is to never have to download and install anything. That sounds scary to them.
Re:IE definitely has a soul… (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember the days when IE was innovative and new. When they added all that javascript and activeX stuff, before all the malware came out. Remember back then? Do yah?
Me neither, but I feel IE could be a lot better if microsoft would ever update it sometime this century. When was the last release again? IE 6 was 2000 right. I think the last service pack was 2001. It's 2004 now people!!! Whatever love MS had for IE before now they've just neglected it. Leaving the poor browser alone at nights to raise the brat malware children, while MicroSoft parties the night away with floosies like Longhorn and XAML! IE should divorce, dump the kids with bill and start a new life!!
ehem.
In shot, if ever you wanted an example of an inefficient monopoly stifling innovation, look no further than IE6.
Re:People care? (Score:3, Insightful)
However, I think that it's more because they take the path of least resistance -- look at all the crapware that gets downloaded and installed onto the average PC. It doesn't look like they're afraid of downloading and installing to me...
-ch
Re:Mozilla has a soul? (Score:5, Insightful)
better bookmarks
themes
find as you type
works identically on all 3 platforms
secure (and you never have to be paranoid about clicking on dodgy links)
popup-blocking
ad-blocking
a zillion extensions, some of which are extremely useful
nobody's denying that ie also lets you browse the internet
I've seen some sites... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mozilla has a soul? (Score:5, Insightful)
As for being identical pieces of software, well that is to be expected. Two hammers made by different manufactures are both hammers when you get down to it.
Besides, if two pieces of software are going to take the same document and render it the "same" way to the user, then exactly how do you expect them to be worlds apart in difference?
One innovation that Firefox has on IE that I don't expect to change any time soon--open source.
Wow - great quotes (Score:3, Insightful)
But if IE has no soul, then the net doesn't have any soul either, and yes, it would be great to see this browser get some real market share again. Not only because IE sucks and has no soul, but also to prove there can be justice in the world.
Re:IE definitely has a soul… (Score:3, Insightful)
Inefficient? No, it's fairly established that Microsoft's lack of progress in IE is working very effectively to achieve its precise goal.
The reason MS wanted to dominate the browser market, in case you didn't know, is widely believed to be the threat of web applications. Netscape was touting Navigator as a Windows-killer. You were going to move all your apps onto the web, and run them in Netscape, and it wouldn't matter what platform you were on - they'd work everywhere.
So MS made IE. They used their monopoly to promote it, but it caught on mainly because it _was_ better than Netscape. ActiveX was a better platform for web applications than Netscape could provide, for example. And so Netscape died and IE became ubiquitous, and the few web applications that exist (mostly virus scanners and the like) - oh! They require WINDOWS, don't they!
But we can't have standards compliance in IE, because once IE conforms to standards, suddenly the platform becomes irrelevant again - you can use whatever standards-compliant browser you like. So they aren't working on it.
Stifling innovation, yes. Inefficient, no.
Re:And... (Score:3, Insightful)
My parents are since they got an express mail by post from their ISP to immediately run an antivirus tool on their computer, written in a fairly agressive manner.
No, neither Mozilla nor Firefox have any major features that's a reason to switch from IE if you use Windows, but the features add up for me so the choice was simple. That's all *I* care for, not if my mom and dad should or shouldn't switch to Firefox. It's up to them... Often people do though, when I just tell them for their information aboute e.g. tabbed browsing and how much simpler it gets to browse when the pages aren't put among the other applications in the task bar.
Re:A soul? (Score:3, Insightful)
The real question is what on earth could the reason be to switch back to IE if you're already using Firebird/fox? There are still a couple of annoying bugs that crop up occasionally, but for me, a crash or memory leak that springs every three or four days and requires a browser restart doesn't get in the way of basic usability. Furthermore, I've found that IE has at least as many crasher conditions on my XP box, if not substantially more - it would seem to crash at least once or twice a day when I use it more frequently.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:2, Insightful)
IE is, for what 98% of the world, the best browser out there.
Good Lord, a browser with a support of a 1998 standard (CSS2) that could be described with the phrase "sucks bigtime" is not, and could never be, defined as "the best browser out there". Not even for the 2% of the world.
Have you ever tried doing a page that rendered correctly on each browser without having to use techniques of the pre-2000 age? The fact that most sites renders acceptably on IE is due to the fact that there are many monkeys behind them; monkeys who do not know better than using tables for layout control.
And this should be the main reason why that pathetic excuse for a browser which is IE should be wiped out with acid from user's disk drives; the other reasons being its pathological lack of security and its shortcomings in user interface.
Re:History repeating itself. (Score:2, Insightful)
come on, you know that one better. Mozilla is not fast. Everything except deeply nested tables is much faster in netscape 4.x. (Yes, I know, 4.x isn't standard compliant by any stretch of the definition and crashes a lot, but it's still way faster than Mozilla).
Mozilla isn't very clean as well. Gecko may be, and maybe Firesomething as well, but Mozilla isn't. It has some very annoying UI bugs since at least 1.2 (i.e. keyboard input gets processed by the wrong window, e.g. closing tabs in some window on a different desktop when pressing Ctrl+w, or even going into some other URL-bar when you hit Ctrl+L. the worst one however is that Mozilla even manages to load bookmarks you selected in different windows than the one where you opened the menu. Before you ask, this is independant of OS and window manager). And what was that multithreading thing that's supposed to be better than in Netscape 4.x? Mozilla still blocks all instances when rendering certain complex pages.
Yes, Mozilla definitively has soul, it does far too often what it wants, instead of what I want. Sadly, there's nothing better in sight, except perhaps Firebird. And Mozilla is definitively better than IE, which doesn't even pretend to allow me to do what I want, but it still isn't good.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I correlate that... (Score:0, Insightful)
enough?
As everybody around here is wont to say: You're new here aren't you.
What you should have said is: any.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:5, Insightful)
If only IE didn't let my machine (and 'mom & pop's') get infected with spyware/adware/malware/hostageware by JUST CLICKING ON A LINK.
Remember, ~60% of spam comes from infected windows machines, and IE helps this problem along.
Re:People care? (Score:3, Insightful)
I must add that these people are so used to IE being wrapped around Windows that installing a new browser seems like a major effort. I feel comfortable using Windows, installing apps, etc, and yet I, too, was in this category for a while. But now I use Firefox and tell everyone I can; I even bought a shirt [mozillastore.com] (very nice).
Again, I think Mozilla needs to stress the fact that users can try it without FUD and, should they wish, go back. For this reason it is imperative that the next release have "upgrading" built-in for Windows users, which Mozilla says is coming "Upgrading will be fixed in a future release" (source [mozilla.org]), to ease the switch. It must be as easy as possible.
Re:What is this guy smoking? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Puh - lease. (Score:2, Insightful)
Screw the soul, how about important features? (Score:5, Insightful)
Calendar.
Netscape 4.x had a nice calendar that worked great with Netscape Calendar Server.
Mozilla Calendar (sunbird/whatever) just doesn't cut it. It fails to send calendar invites properly. When a user receives one, it opens it in a browser window, displaying the raw
We don't even use Exchange at all - and people still want to cling to Outlook because of its Calendaring features.
I cannot stress how important this actually is! We're not the only company that has users sticking to Outlook because of the calendar... I've dealt with quite a few others.
Users like to have their email & organizer functions in one.
None of them use Palm Desktop because it's still a seperate app.
The users that I *have* moved to Mozilla really like it. But the rest? They won't budge unless there's a fully functional calendar - one that lets you accept calendar invites, add them to the calendar, and send them with a few clicks.
Mozilla Calendar just isn't doing this right now and I don't understand why the team doesn't direct effort towards 'enterprise features' rather than Chatzilla.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:3, Insightful)
To be nitpicky, I'm pretty sure it's next to impossible for a bunch of 0's and 1's to have emotions. But one can argue that a Firebird (the car, not the browser) or a Mustang is just steel and glass... but it is the designers the put the life into it. And you can tell -- those cars stand out from the crowd, just as Firefox does now.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:4, Insightful)
Browser Religion? (Score:3, Insightful)
A browser without a soul? Software does not have a soul! This is just silly talk. Look at how Sun and other companies keep spinning their wheels trying to out do Microsoft while great small companies like Panic Software [panic.com] can produce great software. And how do they do it? They find a need they can fill and they make a great product. They do not look at what Microsoft is offering and try to replicate and destroy their marketshare. There is so much software that could be written for so many other purposes which goes well beyond what Microsoft offers. Be creative and start building it.
Soul? (Score:0, Insightful)
Define soul. Now, give me an example of how that "soul" solves a business problem for me.
You can't? Why not? What good is "soul" in a browser if it doesn't do anything for me or my business? How does "soul" in a browser make me more efficient in what I do with a browser?
What a crock.
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't care how many people Mozilla touches or (Score:3, Insightful)
Let me put this in context: ten years ago cell phones weren't "necessary". They aren't really "necessary" today either, but i'm not going back to my land-line only existence.
I think easy configuration, BEST configuration out of the box, and 100% perfect rendering on ALL pages being most important.
1) You had to install the Google toolbar to get pop up blocking and toolbar access to Google, two features that Firefox has "out of the box" (the google toolbar also includes form management, btw). You're comparing IE + Google toolbar with Firefox, which isn't a fair comparison (Firefox has a great number of extensions, shall we start comparing those?)
2) IE doesn't have "100% perfect rendering on ALL pages" - there even used to be pages that would cause IE to crash. Having said that, more web designers will make the effort to code around IE's problems (that's what 95%-plus market share does for you), so i guess the point is moot...
3) In terms of "BEST configuration out of the box", i trust that you have at least changed your browser's default security settings? Or are you surfing from behind a firewall? I trust that you have at least applied the security patches for IE (do you Windows Update?)
All of this is quickly heading for some stupid religious "my browser can beat up your browser" flamewar, so let's just leave it at this: whether or not you use Firefox, just the fact that it's out there testing new ideas in browsing ergonomy is good for all of us (yes yes, you included) because at least the discussion is moving forwards.
Oh, and btw: my browser CAN beat up your browser
Thank Them In Public (Score:3, Insightful)
but the ability to build a plow that every farmer uses.
This attitude is really a hallmark of doing development for free and open source software.
Just as in openly-published science, there's a motivating fame that drives programmers to produce what they think is really the best and what they appreciate most is the acknowledgement of their capable peers.
Note to self and to world:
Public commendation for FOSS developers encourages talented developers to persevere. that is important if they aren't getting any money for what they do and because they will inevitably put up with that omnipresent segment of consumers that expects their every whim and expectation to be met with much bowing and scraping and solutions to be delivered on a silver platter.
Testify, brother! (Score:5, Insightful)
Calendaring is also the feature that time-crunched execs with multiple assistants cannot live without, and about which they will not compromise. They aren't welded to Outlook as an email client. Email is a highly standardized medium. They're equally comfortable using Yahoo! mail as Outlook for their mail.
But the calendaring server landscape is populated by standards-oblivious applications that don't talk to each other. Some times the same vendor's own servers and clients don't get along well. MS Entourage is the equivalent of "POP calendaring," whereas Outlook is "IMAP calendaring." Entourage works fine if you always, only do your calendaring from one machine. Doesn't work AT ALL as soon as you walk to another machine. God help you if your laptop crashes, or is stolen, and you didn't have a recent back up of your monolithic, 2GB binary database that Entourage uses to store your mail.
At my company more than one exec is sick and tired of the daily regimen necessary to protect their Windows machines against viruses, worms, and security vulnerabilities. Calendaring via Outlook+Exchange is the single largest obstacle to those execs abandoning Windows entirely.
Re:Netscape 5 (Score:3, Insightful)
I see it as kinda like Linux in this respect. That is, I don't care if it overtakes microsoft's
offering, so long as it remains vital and healthy and keeps on improving so -I- can keep using and
enjoying it. I don't care what anybody else does until it starts affecting me. The catch, though, is
that an open source project needs to have some minimal critical mass to stay vital.
I dont want software with a soul (Score:2, Insightful)
YMMV.
Congratulations and welcome to suck (Score:3, Insightful)
Soul refers to interface, usability, standards, and all that. Get into a little right-brain thinking here, people.
Re:Netscape 5 (Score:3, Insightful)
And what kind of a manager really decides to change the underlying engine of a software just weeks before it was supposed to be released, and when the product is nearly ready? The point is, Netscape would have lost nothing, if they had released NS 5 (even closed source) and after that, Open Source their browser and use Gecko as the engine for the next release. That was what they were supposed to do (and this strategy might have helped them in the browser wars) but someone just convinced the executives that they should change the engine in 3 months, and when all the engineers disagreed with the idea, they said" OK, we will Open Source it, and when every single programmer on this planet helps us, we will release it in 3 months". Stupid executives thought OSS is some kind of a magic potion, that can double the development speed.
There are many lessons to be learned from the story of Netscape and Mozilla. Every Civil Engeineer knows that you have to hire a certain amount of workers to build a house. After that certain number, each worker that you add will give you in diminitive (sp??) returns. Ask any Architect or Civil Engineer and they will swear that you can't build a house in one week, no matter how many workers you put on it.Same goes for software development, unfortunately software development is still a rather young industry, and many managers and executives still don't get these fundamental points. Developing software takes time, no matter how many developers you put on the project. You can't half your release time, by doubling the number of developers (it might actually increase your release time). It took Mozilla 4 years to get it right, and that was enough time to lose the borwer war. Maybe it could have been done in less than 4 years, but it certainly couldn't have been done in 3 or 6 months.
Only if some managers could put this into their head...
Re:Reminder... (Score:1, Insightful)
Since the Mozilla project started, Netscape-based browsers have gone from 40% marketshare to 2%.
Mozilla has been out in a workable form for 3 years now, and there's very little adoption outside of the Linux community. Windows and Mac users have tried it and they almost universially don't like it.
Mozilla was rejected as a base for AOL's next gen software, which was their main reason for existing in the first place.
Now it may be true that Mozilla has mostly met their technical goals, but in terms of "saving the web", they certainly haven't been successful.
Re:Testify, brother! (Score:3, Insightful)
Try Evolution. I hear it's great, but haven't tried it myself. I believe they do not have a windows version though. Novell Groupwise has calendar and is available for both Windows and Linux these days - and I use it at work. I don't use the calendar enough to make a good assesment, but I do see how some people could use it a LOT.