


Mozilla Project Turns 5 284
GreyWolf3000 writes "As this notice in tinderbox shows, Mozilla turns five years old today. A great testament to the ability of open software models debunking the myth that while the community can hack a kernel or compiler together, we can't build a large scale project designed for everyday folks to use. The trunk is feature frozen for the upcoming alpha release for 1.4. Can't wait to see what's in store next!" Read on for another odometer reading -- Mozilla's 200,000th bug report, perhaps just as auspicious a landmark.
zzxc writes "The 200,000th bug has been filed in Mozilla's bugzilla, MozillaZine reports. It was filed at 5:11pm EDT. (21:11GMT) The bug, which is already 'verified invalid,' is 'MailNews crashes after extremely long 'joke of the day' html spam mail.' This comes on the 5 year anniversery of the release of Netscape's source code, also reported by MozillaZine. Bug 100000 was opened on 9/16/01 after three years of development, while bug 200000 comes in less than 19 months from the previous milestone."
Wow... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
Re:Wow... (Score:2)
Re:Wow... (Score:3, Informative)
So yes, that's 109 bug reports a day, most of which are useless.
Don't forget.... (Score:4, Funny)
Don't forget that Slashdot != reality (Score:4, Informative)
pre-emptive phoenix question (Score:5, Interesting)
0.6 is meant to be released RSN, they're going to announce the new name shortly [mozilla.org], in fact.
Just have some patience, and hopefully it'll be worth it!
*sigh* Do you remember the good old days (Score:2)
then came Phoenix. Much smaller, I think somewhat faster and it works with sites that mozilla (for whatever reason, I don't know) wouldn't work with - First USA online [firstusa.com] was my pers
-1, Sig Reply (Score:4, Interesting)
I couldn't agree more. As a software engineer with ~15 years experience... and a BA in Philosophy.
Indeed, I worked my way through school as a programmer and chose philosophy on purpose because I found that's where the logic courses were.
(I also took a lot of physics and math which no doubt helps, but the degree is philosophy) I feel the study of various logical abstractions helped widen my perspective. Not to mention you are trained to diagram any set of concept/relationships, which is also quite useful. My diagrams have consistent grammer, and I'm sure this is because I was trained how to create a legend that maps directly to real concepts (e.g. an arrow means something, and is only used for truly identical relationships. Of course, the arrow might mean different things in different diagrams, but within a given diagram: consistency). I'm not sure all Philosophy programs are so rigerous about logic... but it is the one thing, the only thing, that philosophers have any agreement over.
Failure? (Score:5, Insightful)
- Open source doesnt necessarily mean "instant development". It took over a year before anything useful came of the project.
- Just because you release something as open source, doesnt mean that thousands will flock and provide free development. Though thousands did flock, as soon as they saw that the code wasnt nearly usable, they gave up immediately. But, now that there is a small core of developers working on it, it is a useful product.
- Now that it has made some progress, it is more difficult for a closed-source company to compete with it. It exists, and will be difficult to eliminate... There is no company to go out of business to cause Mozilla to disappear.
Re:Failure? (Score:2, Insightful)
Success! (Score:2)
What makes you think it ever meant that? GNU C and GNU C++ took years to catch up with the respective standards. Emacs 19 took so long to come out that it was a standing joke. So what? That's not the point. Open source software development is slow, but it's steady, and an open source software package keeps on living as long as it has users.
Just because you release something as open source, doesnt mean that thousands will flock and provide fr
Re:Success! (Score:3, Insightful)
That's exactly what's happened to Netscape servers (former "Fast Track", Later "iPlanet"). Their code is closed and their usages is limited by AOL and Sun. If Netscape would open the source code of servers as well, today it would be much broader used web-server platform with lots of money due to potential demand for support.
Those days Netscape web application server has been beating IIS and othe
Re:Success! (Score:3, Interesting)
Really? Konqueror supports more of the standards and the existing web than Mozilla does and they did it in a shorter period of time? Got measures?
How old is Konqueror. I see posts about KHTML from dev newsgroups going back to at least 1998.
--Asa
Re:And some thanks are in order (Score:2)
I don't see many situations where people actually SAY they appreciate all the effort behind the code, but since Mozilla was released with tabbed browsing, it has become probably the one app that I use the most. It's not 100% perfect (nothing really is), but it's a damn fine job. *I* appreciate it. : )
Case in point - that prefs toolbar (Score:2)
It'll also be harder for closed-source to compete on a feature-by-feature basis.
I used 3.01 (!) for years because it was vastly easier (but still required a dropdown) to toggle image loading and Javashit; the options required a dropdown and single-tab menu. Inconvenient, bu
Not failure, but certainly not success yet. (Score:2)
What competition? Netscape and Opera have about the same market share as Mozilla with respect to Internet Explorer, i.e. not much at all.
It exists, and will be difficult to eliminate...
There has to be something to eliminate first. As of right now Mozilla isn't infringing on Internet Explorer's territory in any way that is either worrying Microsoft or causing a sweeping change in the way websites
Re:Not failure, but certainly not success yet. (Score:2)
As of right now Mozilla isn't infringing on Internet Explorer's territory in any way that is either worrying Microsoft or causing a sweeping change in the way websites are designed.
The first point here doesn't bother me so much as it would have some years ago, but the second point is bothering me. Looking at the browser stats of visitors to my two websites, I'm seeing a wider variety of web browsers than ever before. This is a good thing, and is something we wanted five years ago, but better late than ne
Re:Not failure, but certainly not success yet. (Score:2)
What else annoys me, is if you speak to these web developers and their answer is that "people should just use IE". "IE is the standard" they say. They actually seem to get annoyed at their visitors for not using IE, because it makes more work for them.
Rome wasn't built in a day or for free (Score:2)
It took six months to realise what they'd been given was shit and that'd they'd need to start again.
For evidence compare IE 6.0 and OE (whatever) with Mozilla 1.0.ish which is where they were about a year or 18 months ago. Now compare IE 6.0 and OE (whatever) with Mozilla 1.3. Th
Community or company? (Score:5, Insightful)
Not wanting to rain on their parade, as I agree that Mozilla is a great project, but isn't the only reason they have succeeded building a "large scale project" because of the significant backing of one company (Netscape/AOL)? While the community certainly had a very significant contribution, I think we might be giving it a little more credit than it is due.
Re:Community or company? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Community or company? (Score:3, Interesting)
The guys at KDE have written their own browser with no company backing them...
Indeed. When you think about it, they've actually gone the opposite direction of Mozilla in that sense. Mozilla was initiated by a company, and picked up by the open source community. Konqueror was initiated by the open source community, and picked up by a company [apple.com]. :)
Which makes me...uh-oh... (Score:5, Funny)
Ohmigod, where the hell has my life gone?!?!?!?!?!? I'm still even using the same freaking monitor!
Celebrate by converting people (Score:5, Interesting)
My Dad. Hated popups. Instead of giving him a popup blocker for IE I just installed Mozilla for him and switched his Outlook to Mozilla Mail/News. It did a fine job of importing his contact list. He got nimda through an email which infected his machine when he was using Outlook, so I explained to him that with MozMail he'd be ok. After several months use he loves it. No more bad popups for him while browsing, and email has been just fine.
That's my only personal success story, maybe if I got out more often
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
When I first got here there where several websites that people had been having problems with and had been blaming "the network". Well of course on my first day the first thing I did was install Mozilla. After that we where testing with the problem child websites and for whatever reason Mozilla worked *much* better than IE, no one before me had thought of testing with it. With that wedge in the door I started testing with and promoting Mozilla every
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2, Informative)
Nimda is not transmitted thru email. It's a Worm which is solely propigated via unsecured/unpactched IIS installations.
Mayhap you should turn off IIS and/or patch his machine before he gets nimda again.
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
He doesn't run IIS on his machine, it's just a simple desktop he uses to surf the web, do some work on, and do email.
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:3, Interesting)
I run a network of 300 workstations and 10 Linux servers. IIS is a dirty word, and no installations are allowed to exist. Indeed, it has NEVER been installed or activated.
I spent most of last week cleaning Nimda A and E off the network after my dipshit users double clicked on an attachment that spread through the network like a disease, over the file sharing system.
Oh no. It's not spread through email. It's spread through stupidity. (And network shares.)
(On a side note, I
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:3, Informative)
Really, everybody knows Mcafee and Norton/Symantec, but F-prot blows these out of the water.
It's current.
It's fast (you can run on a P-200 and still have a usable computer!)
It's cheap. ($2/workstation, $300/server)
It runs on Windows, Linux, BSD, AIX, DOS, etc.
We use it on our Linux mail servers with excellent results as a free service to our clients.
-Ben
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2, Informative)
Symantec [symantec.com] seems to think differently than you as to how nimda spreads itself.
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:3, Interesting)
Two Opera features I wish Moz had (if anyone can point out add-ons, I'd be thrilled):
Saving windows - if Opera crashes or is closed accidentally, it can save all the windows you had open and re-open them all. This is great when you have twenty windows open, and accidentally cl
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
IE does the same thing what's the big deal? The only difference is that you have no choice with IE. You have to load it up with win
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
About 300 people in our department
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
Between blocking popups, and making the web not look like any other window, it seems to be a lot easier for older folks to use. Most of her clients are loaded and call her after being completely stumped by XP, so performance is rarely an issue.
Re:Celebrate by converting people (Score:2)
Happy here. (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact is, I needed a browser and email client that is *more* than spartan to replace what I was using, and for mail that was an OS/2 program. With all that Mozilla Mail has, the OS/2 program still has a feature or two I'd like to see added to Mozilla.
But the bigger thing is that for Microsoft to be displaced to any degree, the software that does it *has* to be blessed with good features. I has to be more than spartan. And like IE, which really isn't free, Mozilla not only gives the impression of free, but *is* free. And 'free' is also required for sucess.
5 years, and no crash free browser? (Score:2)
Don't get me wrong, I really like Mozilla since it's finally become 1.0, and having switched from IE I wouldn't go back. But (and here's the catch) it still crashes on me a few times a week. After 5 years you'd think they could make a program that's actually stable.
I keep hoping the bugs wi
Re:5 years, and no crash free browser? (Score:2)
While Netscape made many great contributions to the world of software, JavaScript was not one of them.
Mozilla has the burden of having to be backward compatible to alot of cruft I'd just as soon see go away. I'm pretty sure this contributes to the crash rate you experience here.
Re:5 years, and no crash free browser? (Score:2)
Remember when? (Score:2)
Slow progress (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Slow progress (Score:3, Funny)
Also Al Gores B-Day (Score:3, Funny)
Mozilla is a development model failure (Score:5, Interesting)
Mozilla's successes have almost all been side effects. An open bug database is one of the most revolutionary development practices that I have ever seen. Because of Bugzilla, Mozilla has far more useful features than it otherwise would have. If users hadn't been able to get through to developers I doubt that Mozilla would have popup and image blocking.
Mozilla's release schedule with nightly builds has also been a huge sucess. Mozilla has more people testing very recent versions than any other peice of software I know. Mozilla is now the most stable browser I have ever used, and I don't doubt that the nightly builds (and some talented developers) are the reason.
Hopefully now that Mozilla is very popular it will attract enough outside developers so that Netscape's original dream of no cost development to win the browser war. There are still some hurdles for developers though. Mozilla is a complicated project with a significant learning curve. It relies on some specific technologies such as XUL and XCOM which don't yet have large numbers of developers.
Re:Mozilla is a development model failure (Score:3, Interesting)
They didn't assume, they hoped, big difference. They also weren't looking to _win_ the browser war, they were looking to keep from being completely flushed away. It was an act of desperation. In certain ways it has succeeded as someone else mentioned, it is at least in a position of it's existence not being totally tied to a single company (i.e. now th
Re:Mozilla is a development model failure (Score:2)
For better
Re:Mozilla is a development model failure (Score:2)
No but it's stil better then burying your product forever. This way you can at least throw it into OSS and hope that one it becomes a thorn in your competitors (read MS) side. In other words it's the final finger before MS kills you and eats you.
Re:Mozilla is a development model failure (Score:2)
But one of the reasons that failing companies DON'T go this route is that usually one of the few assets they have that might be attractive to a suitor is their code. To open source it at that late a stage usually will guarantee that no one will buy you out (just try gettin
Reasons Why 200,000 Bug Reports != 200,000 Bugs (Score:5, Insightful)
I just reported a real humdinger of a bug... (Score:2)
I'm using Windows ME, and the latest version of Mozilla (1.3).
Does this happen to anyone else?
Here is a link to the World section you can try (SAVE YOUR WORK BEFORE IN CASE!):
http://news.google.com/news/gnworldleftnav.html [google.com]
Re:I just reported a real humdinger of a bug... (Score:2)
Re:I just reported a real humdinger of a bug... (Score:2, Informative)
However, if you can consistantly reproduce this, report it to Bugzilla, where it has a far better chance of getting fixed than on Slashdot.
It's been great! (Score:2)
However, with 1.3, I've found one problem. It seems that the "Open Unrequested Windows" option for javascript (used to block popups) is missing now. I haven't been able to find it on new installations to turn it off.
If anyone knows where it moved to (or if I'm just hallucinating), please let me know.
Re:It's been great! (Score:2, Informative)
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:It's been great! (Score:2)
You can whitelist/blacksite specific sites now, which is nice.
Sweepstake Winner (Score:5, Informative)
A few minutes ago, at 13:11 PST on 2003-03-31, the 200,000th bug was filed in http://bugzilla.mozilla.org:
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=200
Rather fittingly, it was filed by Chris Hofmann, head honcho of Netscape's embedding team and staunch Mozilla supporter, and is titled "joke of the day spam mail crash". (Note: please don't mess with the bug.)
Consulting my records, I see that the closest guess to the actual date and time was made by:
1st: 2003-04-01 00:00:01 bradangelcyk@hotmail.com (10 hrs, 50 mins)
a mere 10 hours and 50 minutes out. Congratulations to him; he wins a Mozilla 1.0 CD if he sends me his address.
Runners-up:
2nd: 2003-04-02 10:15:36 coch@myrealbox.com (45 hrs, 05 mins)
3rd: 2003-04-02 16:12:44 crisscott@netzero.net (51 hrs, 02 mins)
coch@myrealbox.com wins the I-have-a-Bugzilla-account-and-so-am-not-a-random-
Not every entry had an equal chance of winning the prize. Nine people submitted dates which were before the contest started (clue: this year is 2003, chaps, not 2002), and several people thought we were going to file 20,000 bugs in a matter of about a week. One person thought that he'd get away from the crowd by guessing a date in the 13th month of 2003 (what does he know that we don't?), and the furthest out two guesses had us still struggling towards the mark this time next year.
Thanks to all who took part
Gerv
Re:Sweepstake Winner (Score:3, Funny)
Woohoo! I won, but *sigh* how much spam am I going to get now?
Re:Sweepstake Winner (Score:2)
Error in story (Score:2)
While a minor mistake, the Mozilla is in feature freeze for the 1.4 BETA release, it's already in "alpha".
Re:Error in story (Score:2)
Speaking of that page, I'd like to know why they keep old 1.1, 1.2, and 1.3 alpha and beta releases around. Shouldn't they take those down after the final releases? I mean, who in tarnation is going to download 1.1a? Even if you want to keep them on an FTP server somewhere, at least take them off the Releases page.
Too bad we can't count Windows bug reports... (Score:2)
It's the real reason 64-bit windows is out (Score:2)
One thing I hate.. but I can't all it a bug (Score:3, Insightful)
This way I can't refresh because I lost the URL.
Sometimes I open several tabs and I need to know which links correspond to the failed windows so that I can reopen.
I think IE tries to connect twice before failing.
Re:One thing I hate.. but I can't all it a bug (Score:2)
This bug has already been reported [mozilla.org] .
Note that you'll have to cut-and-paste the URL; Mozilla doesn't allow links into Bugzilla from Slashdot.
Re:One thing I hate.. but I can't all it a bug (Score:2, Interesting)
A: Display the blank page
B: Blank page with your URL set as a link
C: No connection page but still has your URL in the location bar.
D: Some fancy page you would like; in particular a search engin with the URL in the search field. This should be customized so you can say the web form variable X will contain the URL or better yet be able break it down to some componets as well.
just a thought
Netscape (Score:2)
Re:Netscape (Score:5, Informative)
Netscape doesn't "own the rights to the Mozilla code". They are the copyright holder to some of it. But so are scores of people not employed by Netscape. Mozilla is available under the terms of the MPL, the GPL or the LGPL and that means that anyone can use and modify the code and the kind of ownership you're suggesting just doesn't exist or doesn't matter.
--Asa
A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:5, Insightful)
It took nearly 5 years to get to version 1. At that rate, a few monkeys accessorized with keyboards could have accomplished that.
Don't get me wrong, Mozilla's a wonderful tool for the interent. I'm glad to see IE getting a run for its money. I just don't feel that any myths were shattered here.
1.) It took aaaaaaaaages.
2.) For the most part, the hard work was done and the tough decisions were made. Mozilla wasn't exactly paving the way for the internet as we see it today.
3.) It was necessary. Linux needed a AAA browser. If a good browser for Linux wasn't in demand, how far would it have gone?
I guess what I'm saying is that it's a logical evolution, not necessarily a challenge for the community. Get the community to put together an ambitious game, then we'll shatter a few myths.
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2, Troll)
So what? It was usable way before it got to 1.0. Why do you care so much about version numbers?
Is windows 2000 1996.5 times better then nt 3.5?
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2)
Because it wasn't at a state that they were comfortable with yet, that's why.
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2)
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2)
Faulty logic. Just because it was usable to you doesn't mean it was ready to ship. They obviously care or they wouldn't have waited so long for v1 to ship.
Why do you care about a single detail that doesn't nullify my point?
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2)
It is not a product. It is not for sale. It never shipped. It's an open source product. You use it if it's useful to you. To me mozilla was useful two years ago and it got better and faster with every release including the latest 1.3 version.
It is you who has faulty logic. This is not a product it's a project.
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:2)
So what? It was usable already. If they were Microsoft, they would have just slapped a "version 5" label on it, and then a "version 5.5" label on it, at equivalent stages of development. In fact, thats exactly what Microsoft did. If you really think that a "Version 5.5" from MS means more than a "version 0.9.3 pre-release" from the Mozilla team, then you place way too much stock in version numbers... version numbers are just for marketing in this industry, don't place so much importance on them.
Re:A little whack from the perspective stick... (Score:4, Insightful)
It took nearly 5 years to get to version 1. At that rate, a few monkeys accessorized with keyboards could have accomplished that.
Version numbers don't mean much. Look at it in this light: even though Mozilla is "version 1", it is functionally / feature-wise pretty much on par with Internet Explorer "version 6". And the stability of the one or two years worth of betas leading up to version 1 was also not all that different to the stability of IE version 5 and 5.5.
Personally I think they should have just called Mozilla 1 "Mozilla 6". At least it would provide a more accurate representation of the level of quality of the product as compared to other similar products, to all those people out there who seem to think a version number means anything ("What? They're only at version 1 now? Ha, IE is at version 6").
Darn it... (Score:2)
Anyway, kudos to the Mozilla team. Long live Mozilla! Cross platform browsers rock!
Hey...I know this is probably a bad venue for a bug report but the new Junk mail filtering doesn't seem to work if you're using movemail. Can you guys take a look at this please
dropped ball (Score:2)
Re:dropped ball (Score:3, Insightful)
- Gef
Bugzilla must be 32-bit (Score:4, Funny)
Yep, to the surprise and dismay of many, we overflowed at bug# 65537
Doom and Gloom (Score:2)
Mozilla isn't perfect, but we're all better off living in world with a valid browser alternative.
product for end users? Think again... (Score:2)
Mozilla is a lot of things, including my primary browser across three platforms.
However whenever I point out the lack of "completeness" especially with regards to documentation and formalisation of a product, I'm reminded (usually quite gently, bless the developers) that mozilla isn't and never was intended to be a complete browser. I'm told it's intended as a code base, a core for others to use, but it's not supposed to be a feature-and-docum
Re:Yeah, it only took 5 years ... (Score:2)
I should have asked that question before I repsonded, or better, waited for the answer...
Re:So, um, yeah (Score:2)
I think that's exactly what Phoenix [mozilla.org] is. Everyone I've introduced to Phoenix has adopted it, including a few non-techies in their late-40s. Pop-up blocking/whitelisting and tabbed browsing are "killer" features, and IE will eventually adopt them or face a serious reduction in usage.
The Mozilla suite is great and all, but, IMO, the primary benefit of the project is as a codebase for other projects, such as Phoenix, Camino, Minotaur/Thunderbird, etc.
Re:So, um, yeah (Score:2)
http://www.konqueror.org http://www.apple.com/safari Seriously. Do you work for Opera Software or something? Your other post was also a plug for Opera. Opera is proprietary software, which I'll never use since I value my freedom. Even the "free" (as in beer) version comes with a huge frickin' banner ad built into it, which is a true sign of scumware. It also isn't the fastest browser anymore, and has never been the most capable. And Mozilla is an IE killer in my opinion. It has some great features
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:So, um, yeah (Score:2)
It is not them making proprietary software that infringes on my freedom. It is me using proprietary software that infringes on my freedom. I don't have the freedom to understand what it is doing. I don't have the freedom to bug fix or modify it. And with most EULA's, I lose even more freedoms.
Also, in the event that it crashes, it can re-open all the tabs you had open previously (I believe o
Re:Wishing Mozilla well... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Birthday Cake (Score:2)
It wouldn't want a cake, it'd want a cookie of course
Re:But no "common people" use Mozilla (Score:2)
Sorry, but very few "normal" people use Mozilla. It's the geek world (including windoze geeks) at this point...
But it is gaining more widespread acceptance. I've converted a couple people in the past few weeks. And I'm sure more will follow. Pop-up blocking is the major selling point so far.
neurostarRe:But no "common people" use Mozilla (Score:2, Interesting)
Every costomer I visit gets an introduction to Mozilla and OpenOffice.org.
Every support call I get about an "email" virus gets the "it's not an email virus is't an outlook virus" lecture. try Mozilla.
About 1/3 of the people I talk to blow me off for one reason or another. Ya know familar with IE+LookOut. Don't like change. Hit a website/use software that needs IE+LookOut.
But the next
Re:But no "common people" use Mozilla (Score:2)
Agreed. I exclusively use OpenOffice and Mozilla. I'd also be using exclusively linux, but I've got some issues with programs necessary for school (Matlab, Mathematica, etc...) as well as a printer that only does Windows. :-/
neurostarMatlab for Linux (Score:2)
Well, I just found out that there is Matlab for linux... I guess I've just got to get this printer working...
neurostarRe:5 years and version 1.3 (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, it's like a race to see who can have the highest version number sometimes. That doesn't impress me. This is almost as bad as the MHz myth. Internet Explorer is still at version 6, and people like it.
Re:Bloat bloat bloat bloat bloat.... (Score:2)
Only problems I have now, is I want to use Mozilla 1.2.x for email, and also run 1.4 to support and bugcheck. Pain in the ASS. Trying to switch back and forth is a headache. And I dont want to move my data from 2 different versions.
Onto my work machine. (laptop w/doc
Re:/me Steps into the Abestos Suit (Score:2)