FireFox and Longhorn: Meant For Each Other? 439
News for nerds writes "According to the internetnews.com report, Microsoft's technology evangelist Robert Scoble said in his blog and interview that while he is a user of Firefox it can be improved if Mozilla developers take advantage of Longhorn technologies such as XAML, Avalon and WinFS, instead of making it only within GNOME/Mozilla coalition."
Embrace, extend... (Score:4, Insightful)
... annihilate. (Score:5, Funny)
You forgot the "annihilate" step, before you begin washing your hands.
zRe:... annihilate. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're marketing type questions coming from a clueless droid.
The obvious answer is the same as the answer to the questions "Why is Firefox not taking advantage of features of Mac OSX 10.6" or "Why is Firefox not taking advantage of features of the Linux Kernel 2.8"
COS THEY'RE NOT FUCKING HERE YET!
He's not asking questions. He's sowing seeds.
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:5, Insightful)
How can I and Microsoft help the Mozilla foundation write a patent unencumbered cross platform XAML implementation so the goodness of XAML is available to Firefox users no matter what their platform.
OK, OK you can stop laughing now. I am not saying that anybody that works at MS will actually say such a thing.
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:5, Insightful)
BECAUSE IT'S A CROSS PLATFORM FRICKIN' WEB BROWSER!
If you want platform specific features, you start seperate projects, like Camino (MacOSX).
Thing is, Firefox is already a great browser on all the platforms it's on, so there's really no need for platform specific versions. Cross platform rocks; no matter what machine you're on, there's your familiar app with all your settings easily ported between them.
All hail cross platform code!
-Z
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:5, Interesting)
MS won the browser war... but a new war is brewing, and once again, it will revolve around API's and who controls them. Linking Mozilla closely or completely with MS proprietary API's would be equal to surrender, before this war has even begun. Make no mistake, MS will offer one sweet set of API's, custom written to lure the developers of projects which might threaten MS's control of the market. If successful... those API's will "evolve" to "offer a richer user experience" (i.e. hamstring the competition)
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:5, Insightful)
With Microsoft patenting everything under the sun that relates to Longhorn, how long do you think it would take it would take Microsoft to whip out the lawyer hordes if an open-source project (or any competitor) were to build a XAML implementation?
It's a very smart strategy. Even if Longhorn and associated technologies aren't released until 2007, with current momentum Microsoft will still have a fairly heavy stranglehold on the desktop. Longhorn will fairly quickly be adopted by the masses, pushing their proprietary tech onto the world.
XAML poses to be significantly cool. How long do you think it will take before we start seeing sites that are XAML-only? I mean, today how many MAJOR websites can't even be bothered to do even basic cross-browser compatibility checking (or do outright requirement of IE), let alone spend the resources to implement sites using two very different technologies?
The OSS community says "hey, that's no problem, we'll play catch-up like we always have. We'll just clone your stuff!" Then Microsoft starts slyly waving software patents in Mozilla/KDE/Opera's face.
And chances are that MS will license the technology to Apple, or someone like that, but you can see the danger for OSS browsers and OSS platforms.
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:3, Funny)
What are we going to do with such a keystone of the internet not compatible with FF?
I use FF and the only websites that dont work with it dont work with any other browser either because they are coded by retarded monkeys disguised as humans.
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:3, Interesting)
Any "Special" stuff Microsoft provides for free then must be coded by the mozilla team for the other platforms -OR- there has to be an opensource package that provides the same "special" stuff so that mozilla can be linked to it.
By taking advante of the new API breaks compatibility on all other platforms.
Now, if Microsoft offered a GPL version of those API's that would compile on MacOS, Linux, Solaris, Amiga, AtariST.... then that would be a different story
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:4, Insightful)
Big Chief Billyboy Gates, him say "Embrace and extend your enemies technologies only once they have become successful. If you embrace them before they are successful, you will only aid their success".
Embrace and extend was never the strategy (Score:4, Insightful)
The problem is that Microsoft Embraces a crippled version of the standard then makes its own extentions to provide similar functionality. Sometimes the crippling is in a very fundamental way, so if you want to provide nontrivial functionality, you can't help but use the extentions. That leaves companies with two choices, either write two versions of everything or just standardize on the market leader and hope that everyone else can live with the decision.
Microsoft's basic strategy is "Embrace, Cripple, Extend, Extinguish".
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:3, Funny)
>
> 1. Wet hair
> 2. Apply shampoo
> 3. Lather
> 4. Rinse
> 5. Repeat
I actually noticed on a bottle of shampoo recently that the step 5 you show had been changed to "Repeat if desired"... I guess this is for those who get stuck in the infinite loop....
Re:Embrace, extend... (Score:3, Funny)
Please ignore this (Score:3, Interesting)
Portability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Portability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Portability? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Portability? (Score:5, Informative)
No they're not.
Re:Portability? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Portability? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Portability? (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, Wal-Mart is the biggest company in the world. With sales in excess of 200 billion dollars, Wal-Mart tops the Fortune Global 500 list.
Now, if you choose to measure in terms of total company assets, the way Forbes does when they compile their Global 500 list, Citigroup wins. They've got assets worth over $1 trillion.
Personally, I've always been more interested in a company's gross revenue than their assets, so I go with the Fortune list. But that's just me. Others have a different opinion.
Re:Portability? (Score:3, Funny)
Gee, while they're at it, why don't they just dump IE and just integrate MS Firefox?
Re:Portability? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Portability? (Score:4, Informative)
Instead... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Instead... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Instead... (Score:3, Interesting)
How is MS supposed to defeat Linux if it uses a royalty free license??
My other question is why?? There isn't a feature he listed that would be useful to any non-windows platform.
WinFS is just a database ontop of a dumb file system. Avalon, and XAML are going to be patented tech of MS so their use would be prohibited.
Where's the benifit????
Re:Instead... (Score:3, Insightful)
Two words. Open Source.
Thank you for listening.
Re:Instead... (Score:4, Interesting)
I offer my clients who have agreed to Firefox, Thunderbird, disabled IE and no Outlook/Outlook Express, free cleanup of infected machines. Those that don't, I charge them for clean up services. I have been offering this discount since Firefox v
Microsoft fears this and they role the old adage - Why doesn't Firefox use X? I don't want Firefox to be a copy of IE, with all the same problems. A couple of years ago, the same marketing droids said - Why doesn't Netscape use ActiveX? I was happy that the Netscape group didn't fall into that trap. A plugin was eventually created, that has the same security problems that IE has. Therefore it wasn't deployed very much. Firefox is great just the way it is. Today, clients are using FF on Windows. Tommorow, they will be using FF on Linux. FF doesn't need any M$ technology. This would make the transition from Windows to Linux much more difficult. If M$ really wanted Firefox to use the technology, they would offer it to the W3C standards with no patent encomberances. M$ would never do this. They fear Firefox and want to kill it off. The way we kill M$ is to limit the use of their patented technology for anything. FF should only use technology that is open standards with no patent issues - plain and simple.
Use 'em and get screwed (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Use 'em and get screwed (Score:5, Interesting)
The only upside, I guess, is that they're never installed via buffer overrun exploits.
Re:Use 'em and get screwed (Score:5, Informative)
Bug 238684 [mozilla.org]: Onload XPI installs should be blocked by default
Re:Use 'em and get screwed (Score:4, Informative)
The next version of Mozilla (and I assume FireFox) will disallow XPI installers from anywhere but approved sites, with the main download sites being pre-approved. The user will be able to whitelist other sites if they choose.
The problem you refer to was an advertiser running an I-Frame to load a javascript. The javascript triggered an XPI install of a spyware with an onload command. All it did was pop up a dialog, it never installed automatically because extensions aren't allowed to do that by Mozilla.
At worst, it gave what is a best case scenario for MSIE in that the user was given a prompt asking permission to install the thing. That particlar spyware (xxxtoolbar) regularly hijacks MSIE and it's damned hard to remove it.
Re:Use 'em and get screwed (Score:3)
Simple recipe (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Simple recipe (Score:4, Insightful)
So some guy at MS likes FireFox and thinks it should use more Longhorn-specific tech. So what? I prefer Mozilla, and think that development should concentrate on that, instead. My opinion means about as much, when you get right down to it, unless this guy somehow manages to persuade MS to devote a dev team to it.
WinFS? (Score:5, Insightful)
Firefox is meant to be a web browser - and no extras. So why would it need to use the filesystem? It's not like somebody wants to integrate Firefox into Longhorn to such an extent as to make it 'part' of the os. Also is WinFS open, did I miss something?
Re:WinFS? (Score:5, Funny)
Thats just one idea I had.
Re:WinFS? (Score:5, Funny)
But... But I thought the Internet came on CDs from AOL.
Re:WinFS? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:WinFS? (Score:3, Funny)
Microsoft and Mozilla working together (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Microsoft and Mozilla working together (Score:3, Insightful)
If Microsoft was prepared to work together with Mozilla - well, that would probably involve Microsoft engineers comitting code to Firefox to add Avalon and WinFS support themselves.
Even he isn't crazy enough to ask for that one.
Jedidiah.
Some things are just meant for each other. (Score:4, Funny)
Tv and remote.
Geek and computer.
Arsenic and old lace.
Re:Some things are just meant for each other. (Score:4, Funny)
Aren't they re-inventing the wheel? (Score:5, Interesting)
Can anyone explain to me why a web browser would care about filesystems?
When will I be able to run Avalon on my Red Hat 9 [redhat.com] machine?
Perhaps these guys would be better served by using Free systems for the functionality provided by XAML and Avalon. I happen to like the Mozilla system and Gnome works great for me.
Re:Aren't they re-inventing the wheel? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Aren't they re-inventing the wheel? (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft have spent the last thirty odd years re-inventing thousands of wheels that weren't theirs. Everything they have ever made has been a re-invention of someone else's wheel. It doesn't matter. Most people will use XAML just because it's Microsoft's, and it quite frankly has no relevance that others have done the same thing before, regardless of which one is technologically better too. Thus some or other XAML compatible extension to Firefox that allowed people to use it for XAML applications might be useful for Mozilla? And if enough people used Firefox for XAML, MS would have less power to pull 'embrace and extend' (hmm .. on their own spec? sounds a bit odd but the idea is that if enough customers used open implementations of MS standards, MS would have less power to modify the standards to enhance lock-in - breaking the standards in later versions might actually push corps away from MS and towards Firefox for those who are using, um, "Open XAML"). Basically the idea is to pull the inverse of MS's usual "embrace and extend" strategy. Instead of MS taking an open standard and introducing proprietary extensions, you take an MS standard like XML, create an "Open XML" (open version of XAML), convince enough people to use the *OPEN* XAML instead of the MS one (via marketing/strategy etc), and then MS "lose" their control over the standard because the market forces the standard to be and remain open.
I don't know why a web browser would care about specific filesystems.
Wheels that ain't ours (Score:4, Insightful)
The power of all the volunteers in the world, and what do we do? We make a UNIX clone. Then we make a Windows clone on top of it. Nice.
A couple of years after Longhorn comes out, and GNOME/KDE decide to implement their
Great Idea! (Score:5, Funny)
I will applaud any effort to add new, worthless, features into Firefox. This is what makes Open Source great, and could one day make Firefox a match for Internet Explorer.
hmmm (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, does it mean they're willing to work with third-parties to provide some software like web browsers? It doesn't have to be from the Free world, they could just arrive to a settlement with Opera, for instance.
Sure, Linux is better, and I use it myself. But quite a lot of Windows problems would be solved if Microsoft would just stop shipping their own mail client and browser.
Huh? (Score:5, Insightful)
If you read the comments he spends a lot of time saying how wonderful Avalon and WinFS are. If anyone asks why he says "because they're revolutionary". So what sort of features are they actually going to have in the release version? He spends pretty much the entire thread dodging that.
Microsoft has no clue exactly what is going to make it into Longhorn, nor exactly what sort of feature set these "revolutionary" technologies will posses. Why on earth would start trying to code against them now?!
And in the end, if he really thinks it will be that wonderful to have Firefox using Avalon and WinFS... well, he can always write the code himself can't he. It is open source, so he can fork and do what he likes.
My impression (after reading through the comments to the blog): All hype and bluster and no content. I don't think Mozilla should be the least bit concerned.
Jedidiah.
Huh?? (Score:3, Insightful)
Have you been living under a rock? Longhorn betas come out all the time. The WinHEC build is used by major development companies like Adobe and Macromedia to test-run the new technologies with their apps.
I've never seen so much whining and bitching over some guy at Microsoft daring suggest Firefox, an OSS app that 99% of you haven't even contributed code to yourself, support
Implementing future technologies? (Score:4, Insightful)
It sounds like he is wanting them to use these technologies just for the sake of using them, not because there are some great ways they could be used. Besides, doesn't Mozilla already have an XML specification of its GUI?
Descibing how Mozilla could use these to provide truly inovative features would be interesting. THe developers aren't going to use the technologies if they increase OS tie in without providing something truly new.
You'd seriously expect.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh yeah, Bredan, et. al - you're nuts! (Score:3, Interesting)
Jeeezzz, these FOSS guys just keep shooting them selves in the foot!!
On a serious note, I was particularly amused by the idea of Opera (of all companies) being a possible user of MS technologies! Erm, is this Scobleizer guy the cleaner at Microsoft or something? I mean, he really doesn't seem to understand *The Way Things Are*(TM) vis-a-vis Opera being particularly relgious about standards and the way Opera and Mozilla don't consider themselves enemies -- at least I've not noticed them taking pot shots at each other!
Scared (Score:4, Insightful)
If Mozilla comes up with an alternative to XAML that works well across all platforms it has the potential to not just thwart Microsoft's new lock-in plans but also drastically increase the ability of cross platform web-based applications and further reduce the differentiation Windows enjoys. Mozilla + Gnome sounds like something we should all be paying attention to.
Re:Scared (Score:3, Insightful)
If Mozilla comes up with an alternative to XAML that works well across all platforms it has the potential to not just thwart Microsoft's new lock-in plans
Wrong. Mozilla has come up with an "alternative" and has been using it for at least the past five years. What, did you think Microsoft is innovating with XAML? They're just reinventing XUL because they don't like its license!
The stuff Microsoft promises with XAML -- rich user interfaces over the web -- already works fine with XUL. However, since Mozill
Yeah right (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Yeah right (Score:3, Interesting)
You might be interested in KaXUL [staikos.net], a KDE version of XUL (and yes, it is a horrible name).
Mozilla's Reply (Score:5, Informative)
Where are your patches, Robert? (Score:4, Insightful)
Great! He knows what he wants. (Score:5, Interesting)
If he does, then the ball is in the court of the Mozilla team, and they can decide whether or not they're interested. If he doesn't, then perhaps he can interest someone else in doing so. If he can't, that's the way the ball bounces.
N.B.: I don't think much of his chances for acceptance, but anyone who want's a Mozilla extension has the same choices. Perhaps he could create a Mozilla fork, if the Mozilla team doesn't like his shiney new software. That's perfectly legit. I doubt, however, that he'd get many FOSS coders supporting his fork, so it might be a rather large job.
What is this really about ? (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyhow
While its good that Microsoft are encouraging open source developers to build for their OS, dont you think its a bit lame that they are so against open source software? They need to make their minds up. And if they are going to encourage it how about supplying the tools and documentation to the community in order to enable good interoperability with other programs and operating systems?
Its in Microsoft best interests that software works with Longhorn if it is to be a success. Having said that you can bet your bottom dollar that "certain applications" Office perhaps ? will offer a reduced experience on longhorn requiring you to purchase a newer longhorn version. I dont think its unwise to be cynical about this given the pages of the history books.
Longhorn is a way off now, there are going to be several new generations of OSX and Linux between now and when it is released. A lot can happen in this time frame. If the linux take-up continues at the pace it is at the moment Longhorn is going to have to take interoperability more seriously whether Microsoft or Open Source developers like it or not.
nick
Re:What is this really about ? (Score:3, Funny)
You're making a false dichotomy. Who says that in this fantastic world of software you can't build something that works with *gasp* both platforms at the same time?
Having said that you can bet your bottom dollar that "certain applications" Office perhaps ? will offer a reduced experience on longhorn requiring you to purchase a newer longhorn version.
I don't really get what you
Meta Data (Score:5, Informative)
Nice quote (Score:3, Interesting)
- I think we should start a new marketing campaign: "who can make up the most outrageous thing about Longhorn and get it printed in an industry magazine or pointed to by Slashdot?"
I don't know if he's clearly stating his intentions there or not.- Personally I think this whole Mozilla vs. Longhorn thing is nuts anyway.
Eh? I hadn't heard anything about the coming browser-vs-OS armageddon until it popped into Scoble's head.Clueless newbie . . . (Score:5, Insightful)
If MS wants Mozilla to support Longhorn, why the hell does not MS submit some code! It is open source for godsakes! That is far more cooperation than MS EVER gives outside developers wanting to support MS software!!! It is amazing how clueless these people are . . . "why want you code for free for us, we are just a poor, multi-billion dollar, monopoly that has been convicted of criminal behavior on both sides of the Atlantic."
If MS has an itch with Mozilla, why not stop BITCHING, shut the hell up, and code! If MS were to code half as much as it bitched, I am sure worms written by 18 year olds wouldn't be ripping new ones out of corporations stupid enough to trust MS.
(This rant has been brought to you by my intolerance of stupidity masquerading as arrogance)
Re:Clueless newbie . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
Not true. If MS donated, say, a million dollars to the Mozilla Foundation, I'm sure they'd be more than willing to create an Avalon, XAML, or
Microsoft Offers a Poison Pill (Score:5, Informative)
IBM and WordPerfect trusted Microsoft's promise of support for OS/2, and look what happened to them.
WordPerfect trusted Microsoft again when they moved to Windows, only to discover that Microsoft had kept the good API calls hidden, while the API calls provided to WordPerfect were slow and unreliable.
Go (the company) trusted Microsoft with their Pen Computing technology. Go is now suing Microsoft for having stolen that technology. Stacker also successfully sued Microsoft for having stolen Stacker's disk compression technology.
Sun trusted Microsoft, when Microsoft contracted to provide Java support on Windows. But, Microsoft had no intention of living up to their promises, as later shown by Microsoft's internal memos [sun.com]:
> When I met with you last, you had a lot of pretty pointed questions about Java, so I want to make sure I understand your issues/concerns....
> 1. What is our business model for Java?
> 2. How do we wrest control of Java away from Sun?
> 3. How do we turn Java into just the latest, best way to write Windows applications?
Or, as a Microsoft marketing presentation put it:
> Kill cross-platform Java by grow[ing] the polluted Java market.
Of course, Java developers also trusted Microsoft, and here's another memo showing what Microsoft thought of that trust:
> At this point its [sic] not good to create MORE noise around our win32 java classes. Instead we should just quietly grow j++ share and assume that people will take advantage of our classes without ever realizing they are building win32-only java apps.
But none of this should surprise us. We've known exactly what Microsoft was planning, ever since the publishing of the Halloween Document [opensource.org]:
> OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized, simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the market.
XAML is just Microsoft's decommoditized copy of Mozilla's XUL, or XML User Interface Language. If Microsoft had been honest about sharing standards, then Microsoft would have simply used XUL, which has become a published standard.
I think what Microsoft is really afraid of is that, by the time Longhorn and XAML come out (plus the two more releases to get them to work acceptably), Mozilla and XUL (and Gnome, and Mono) will have already filled the Internet-based application development niche. Thus, these Open Source technologies could end up doing to Longhorn what Apache did to IIS, and then it's bye bye Microsoft monopoly.
As a result, Microsoft is borrowing another page from their anti-Java strategy:
> We decided rather than trying to outrun sun at their game to change the rules.
Or, as Microsoft VP John Ludwig put it:
> Subversion has always been our best tactic... subversion is almost invariably a better tactic than a frontal assault... it leaves the competition confused, they don't know what to shoot at anymore...
Re:Microsoft Offers a Poison Pill (Score:5, Informative)
For example, there's Bristol Technologies [theregister.co.uk]:
> The judge was also critical of a speech by Bill Gates in which he made "an affirmatively false statement and not merely an omission of material fact" at the Unix expo in New York (attended by some 20,000 people) in October 1996. Gates said: "... we work together with [Bristol and Mainsoft] to make sure they've got the very latest Windows API technology. Bristol and Mainsoft also provide source and binary compatibility, and again that's a close relationship where it's not just some old version of Windows, it's the very latest." It's the bit about the Microsoft claiming to offer the latest version of Windows that particularly caught the court's eye, because in fact Microsoft had refused to give Bristol access to the latest version of Windows.
>
> The judge also said that Microsoft and was playing a bait-and-switch game in which it "baited" Bristol into continually devoting substantial resources to developing and selling WISE software, and "switched" on these converted Microsoft customers (and Bristol).
And let's not forget Apple and customers who use MS Office on the Mac. Little did they know that they were just pawns, to be sacrificed if Microsoft's edicts were not obeyed [usdoj.gov]:
> Gates informed those Microsoft executives most closely involved in the negotiations with Apple that the discussions "have not been going well at all." One of the several reasons for this, Gates wrote, was that "Apple let us down on the browser by making Netscape the standard install." Gates then reported that he had already called Apple's CEO (who at the time was Gil Amelio) to ask "how we should announce the cancellation of Mac Office...."
As long as the same people are running the company, and as long as the law keeps looking the other way, there is no reason to expect Microsoft to change.
Microsoft is dishonest; Microsoft will break any promise; And, Microsoft treats Linux, not as a competitor, but as an enemy in a war.
Thus, compromise with Microsoft is not an option.
Look at the message just *above* it, (Score:5, Interesting)
And he thinks Mozilla would benefit from better integration with Longhorn? Integrating browsers and the OS has proven such a win for Microsoft.
Or, as I wrote on the site:
I'll put up with Apple downplaying a buffer overflow better than I'll put up with Microsoft deliberately building an architecture that's almost impossible to secure when they integrated IE (a component that has to be designed to deal with untrusted data) with the desktop (a component that has to assume that data is trusted).
I banned IE, Outlook, and any other programs I could identify that used the MS HTML control almost ten years ago now, and the result was that our Windows systems had few virus problems, and they were minor... and could often be traced down to people who used Outlook or IE against our policy.
Before throwing stones at Apple and talking about how Microsoft is "getting it", how about undoing ten years of virus promotion by allowing people to run a secure Windows desktop, with no browser integration, no Active Desktop or ActiveX, no flakey HTML-ised control panel components.
I'd be MUCH happier about the Windows box on my desk if Microsoft would back out a lot of their "innovations". I know it might cause some loss of face to admit that integrating the browser was a mistake, but over the longer term it would produce a significant benefit to both users and to Microsoft's public image as the system became safer, more reliable, more secure, and faster.
consider the source (Score:5, Funny)
just wonderin'
Luke, I am your father... (Score:5, Funny)
Firefox: Never.
MS: I am your father.
Firefox: Noooooooooooooo...........
WinFS could be interesting for Firefox (Score:3, Interesting)
Other than that, I can't see a reason to use XAML etc. since it would probably break the GUI look & feel and annoy people using Firefox on multiple operating systems. But I'm sure someone will do an own branch for better Longhorn integration, just like there's the Camino browser for MacOS X. And that's the beauty of open source.
Microsoft silliness (Score:5, Interesting)
It already does. It's called XUL. There is no reason to replace that with a Microsoft-proprietary technology. If it's going to be replaced with anything, it's going to be replaced with a general-purpose XUL-based toolkit (XUL itself isn't quite there yet).
OSS will offer XAML interoperability probably only if it looks likely that Microsoft won't be able to sue over it. Given Microsoft's rash of patents and intellectual property claims over the last couple of years, that doesn't look likely to me. But the ball there is in Microsoft's court: if they want interoperability, they need to make ironclad legal guarantees to the OSS community that their standards are open.
WinFS
WinFS is just a marketing construct, not new technology. It is some combination of user-mode indexing technologies and databases with some kernel support. Guess what, other systems have had that for years, including Linux.
Microsoft is trying to shove their particular combination and APIs down the throats of developers, but there are reasons people haven't settled on a single standard for this sort of thing: it doesn't make sense for anybody other than the OS vendor.
In the case of mailers, the standard database formats needed are mbox, maildir, and/or mh. The database format Thunderbird has chosen for mail is mbox, which is perfectly reasonable, and it's open and non-proprietary. (Maildir and MH support would be nice, too; I don't think it has that yet.)
instead of making it only within GNOME/Mozilla coalition.
Thunderbird works fine on Windows (arguably, better than on Linux) and MacOS, in addition to Linux. It just happens not to incorporate every single poorly thought out API that Microsoft keeps coming up with. And that's just fine, as far as I'm concerned. Anybody who wants that sort of thing can use Outlook.
However, I'm sure that Thunderbird will eventually incorporate some platform-specific code to make its messages indexable by WinFS, just like it does some platform-specific things on each platform.
Forget it. (Score:3, Interesting)
I want a web browser, if I wanted some kind of megalomaniac "application development platform" I will use Python, thank you very much.
And as long as they don't give me access to the source under an open source license I wont touch it. I have been burned once(Windows), twice(Java), I'm not going to get burned a third time, if you want me to rely on your software you better give me the source and let me fix it(or let others fix it).
As Al Viro, one of the very few reasonable Linux kernel developers, said:
All software sucks, be it open-source [or] proprietary. The only question is
what can be done with particular instance of suckage, and that's where having
the source matters.
-- viro [http://www.ussg.iu.edu/hypermail/linux/kernel/04
It's sad that we have to get to this, but in the current software industry having access to the source under a open source license is the only warranty that you are not going to be royally screwed, I don't want to be at the mercy of the economic targets of some random company, I already have enough trouble taking care of _my_ business.
Life is too short to run proprietary software.
-- Bdale Garbee
And as for Gnome, I will quote viro wise words again:
Yeah... "Infinitely extendable API" and all such. Roughly translated
as "we can't live without API bloat". Frankly, judging by the GNOME
codebase people who designed the thing[GNOME] are culturally incompatible
with UNIX.
And yea, that is you, my dear Miguel, you have as little clue as RMS of what Unix is all about, I advice you that when you get tired of all that
uriel
Re:Forget it. (Score:3, Informative)
> "application development platform" I will use
> Python, thank you very much.
See http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/webservices
Seriously, see http://mab.mozdev.org/ for the sort of things that can be done with an "application development platform" and compare it to the HTML Amazon search stuff...
Re:Forget it. (Score:3, Insightful)
And for the record I have been developing web applications for over 5 years, and I can tell you, it's a _bad_ idea.
And the use of XML over HTTP as some kind of RPC is just stupid, wasn't CORBA already bad enough? "Hey, yea, but if we use HTTP we can bypass firewalls!" Marvelous! You could as well dump the firewall into the trash can.
The essence of XML is this: the problem it solves is not hard, and it does not
A Great Quote from the interview (Score:5, Insightful)
Here's another quote I remember:
"Windows isn't done until Lotus won't run".
"You guys"? How about MS? (Score:5, Insightful)
"These are not a threat to you" (Score:3, Insightful)
This is clearly a cheap attempt by Microsoft to Embrace and Extend Mozilla's cross-platform capabilities, with the end goal being, of course, "Extinguish".
Had to say it... (Score:3, Funny)
I welcome MS coding being added to the OSS... (Score:3, Insightful)
They own it, legally or not, and they wield a mighty financial hammer to prevent any use of it that they do not want. They control it. Unless they release it under the GNU or some such similar and appropriate license, I would not use it, and I doubt any OSS coder of worth would either (coding for OSS). Of course, there may be some exceptions, but they always come at a price.
So, to the MS evangelist, tell MS how great a product this is and how important it is to place MS code in the public domain. Tell MS how important it is to participate in the OSS community as an active, honest, open member. If you can convince MS that these are all good things, and MS starts doing these things, then maybe it might be a good idea to include MS technology in core OSS technologies.
InnerWeb
XUL/Gecko Longhorn Implementation (Score:5, Insightful)
Gloat Gloat Gloat (Score:5, Interesting)
It can be used as a platform for other browser technologies, but they should be renamed, and firefox vanilla should always be as simple portable and small as reasonable possible for general browsing.
Theres nothing wrong with Someone with a lousy sparcstation 5 running NetBSD and using Firefox. With Mozilla, you couldnt work with an Ultra 60.
looks likes struts or.. (Score:3, Insightful)
This looks pretty cool, but I wonder if there is any security built in to this kind of stuff. Does this mean that someone could send an XAML document in an email and its the new adware instelled virus that downloads your data in 50 lines of XAML? While I think it is cool technology, don't get me wrong. I am concerned that if it is that easy to write code, it then becomes that easy to exploit Longhorn. I hope MS builds security into their Outlook client in Longhorn that will match that of the new firewall tools that I have heard they are coming out with in their new OS.
On an off NOTE, I think that the Linux competition as small as it may seem ( market share wise ) and the number of viruses that are coming out, are actually prompting MS to step up its product and make it much better. New firewalling capabilities that are improved about as good as iptables, but easier to use. I hope they fix some of the bugs in IE, in particular IE 5&6 window.open() should not forget the cookies in the opening window. Yes this is a bug, go search their web site.
I guess now that they are in every market they have only one thing left to do and that is make their product really better.
would be a HUGE step-back (Score:5, Interesting)
XAML is windows-only and is a lame attempt at reinventing a wheel that the Mozilla working group has so nicely invented: The Mozilla cross-platform application framework. XAML would restrict apps to windows.
furthermore, i consider XAML to be a very dangerous technology as far as security is concerned. It looks to me like it attempts to further blur the line between web "pages" and full-blown applications running on the client-side with no permissions restrictions.
lemme put it this way: it is okay for "web pages" to embrace some technologies that enable various compelling user-interface paradigms to further enrich the browsing experience: DOM/CSS/JavaScript (DHTML), Flash and whatnot. As long as they cleanly operate within the browser sandbox.
It is okay for applications and application frameworks to embrace and build-upon web-based technologies to further enrich user interfaces that should inherit from web-browsing user-interface paradigms: Mozilla Application Framework, KHTML/WebKit. Such applications are real applications which users must go thru the conscious steps of installing, with the inherent knowledge that an application could actually hurt their computer system. Any application that works within this model is standalone, and was installed within the constraints of the operating system.
What microsoft appears to be doing with XAML is to push ActiveX one step further, and instead of blurring the line between a web-based document and a full-blown computer application, simply COMPLETELY REMOVING THIS SEPARATION. You'd be looking at running applications simply by pointing your application to a web-based URL: http://widgets.com/evilApp.xaml. Security implications of this are HUGE and horrific when considering microsoft's past track record.
I believe microsoft sees Mozilla as a threat. XAML is their answer to that threat. That blog is attempting to seed brains in that direction.
consider the fact that today, to upgrade windows, you are trained to go to http://www.windowsupdate.com/ and watch your whole upgrade happen INSIDE of your web browser. Forget downloading an executable and running it or having a separate application that is dedicated to software updates. NAH. let's just teach users that running software from your browser is ... OKAY. So next time they see an ActiveX prompt about allowing some code from Gator/Claria, Inc. to run, they'll think that's OKAY too. Let's really remove all layers of security and further open ourselves to stupid worm-spawning trojans.
i'll stop here. windows appalls me. if it doesn't appall you then you've never had to support armies of newbies running windoz, starting with your own family.
Re:bwahahahha (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Mozilla developers feel that cross platform is most important (which I feel is most important), they should just consider what these suggestions mean and maybe make them design objectives if they are at all possible.
Re:bwahahahha (Score:5, Insightful)
Sales 101 Rule #1: Tell the other guy what he wants to hear.
How would a relational database filesystem layer, a bloated 3D interface graphics framework, and a new UI markup language (which Mozilla already has) help a web browser in the slightest?
Re:bwahahahha (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:bwahahahha (Score:3, Interesting)
Clearly you haven't met any 'softies, either in person or online.
The corporate culture at Microsoft is downright scary. The influence of their megalomaniacal chairman permeates through every level of the company. These people really do believe that they're saving the world with their technology -- and that they're the only ones capable of doing so.
If I were a tinfoil-hatter I might even
Sigh (Score:3, Insightful)
Clearly, neither have you.
The level of vitriol toward Microsoft on this site has gotten ridiculous--it's almost sunk to the level of discrimination, like racism but toward employees of a company. "Oh, they're all evil. They're all sheep."
This coming from someone who is posting a reply in a Slashdot discussion--the Internet king of groupthink and propaganda.
I guess I'm just one of the few left in the world who believes that people are pe
Re:bwahahahha (Score:5, Insightful)
When I was there (December 1999), the talk around the campus was the anti-trust suit. Most of the employees felt wronged, they just didn't understand why charges were being brought against the company. When I'd mention things like breaking competing applications and hidden APIs, they just stared at me blankly.
They're smart people, certainly, but I really do think that they are somewhat brainwashed, when it comes to the company, and what it does. They're not knowingly against other companies or Open Source software, they just see a Microsoft solution as the only solution.
-- Joe
Uhmm, no? (Score:3, Insightful)
The Mozilla programmers got where they are on the project because they have talent in programming and want to surrond themselves with such talent. What talent does this guy have? In this community, talk is cheap. He
Re:this guy is clueless (Score:4, Informative)
The only OS X 'specific' browser I'm aware of that uses Gecko is Camino, although the rest of the Moz browsers run just fine.
- GNU/Anonymous Coward
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
No need - there's already [w3.org] an organisation dedicated to making the web a more friendly place. The problem is, some [microsoft.com], browsers don't follow the standards too well, choosing to implement proprietary extensions to published standards, and implementing standard extensions slowly at best.
<voice type="Blackadder-Wise-Woman">There are three solutions to this:
- Persuade certain browser vendors to comply with modern standards;
- Persuade the entire online community to switch browsers to modern, standards-compliant browsers;
- Kill everybody!
</voice>Re:Protecting free software... (Score:4, Interesting)
How about just "rich enough", "easy enough", and cheaper. Examples: Mozilla. OpenOffice.org. See TheOpenCD.org.
I'm also perplexed at how many people on slashdot worship open source/free software but hate outsourcing... when you do work and generate value then give it away for free how can you turn around and argue that your time is worth more $$$ than some indian developer?
1. You create something of value.
2. Then give it away as a gift.
How does this somehow make your time of less value? You just assert this without backing it up. But in item (1) the something that was created was of value? So how does (2) take the value away? You make a connection that does not exist. Outsourcing is one thing. Creating gifts of software is another thing. The two are not related.
So if someone spends their valuable time creating a work of art, a musical composition, or a software application, and then gives it away, it suddenly means their time has no value.
People don't like outsourcing because they have jobs and a life. Working on open source software is just something people like to do on their own. What is your problem with that?
Re:KEEP YOUR FRIENDS CLOSE, AND ENEMIES CLOSER (Score:3, Insightful)
BTW, I'm a Mozilla user - most people may use IE, but that doesn't make them right.