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Mozilla The Internet Netscape

Ars Technica Interviews Scott Collins 320

Posted by michael from the uphill-in-the-snow-both-ways dept.
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.'"
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Ars Technica Interviews Scott Collins More

Ars Technica Interviews Scott Collins

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  • Nice to see (Score:5, Insightful)

    by cbrocious ( 764766 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:22AM (#9441015) Homepage
    It's really nice to see this sort of passion, and such an ambitious goal for an F/OSS project.

    • Re:Nice to see (Score:2, Interesting)

      by The Hobo ( 783784 )
      It's also nice to see a push for another browser that might stand up to IE. After dancing with a very serious CWS infection on someone else's PC I was about ready to rip out IE from XP which is of course not easy to do. Hopefully as new browsers come they will have more protection against these hijacks and will be as compatible as IE is with everything out there on the Internet.

  • Netscape 5 (Score:3, Interesting)

    by pbranes ( 565105 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:22AM (#9441022)
    In the article, he talks about how Netscape wouldn't have died if management had let them release netscape 5. I don't agree - netscape 4 sucked scissors, and IE was already coming in and showing netscape how a web browser was supposed to be done. Netscape 5 would have continued this trend because it was based off of the same crappy code. Today, however, the situation is reversed - IE sux scissors, and Mozilla is showing IE how it should be done.

    • Re:Netscape 5 (Score:5, Funny)

      by FauxPasIII ( 75900 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:35AM (#9441132)
      > netscape 4 sucked scissors

      Thank you for adding this expression to the vernacular, pbranes. I can guarantee you that 'sucks scissors' will be my favorite euphemism for not being any good for quite a while. =)

    • Re:Netscape 5 (Score:3, Insightful)

      by a.ameri ( 665846 )
      Well, you might be right, I mean maybe IE would have won the browser wars even if NS 5 was released, but Scott Collins isn't saying that they would have beaten IE had NS 5 come out. He is saying that not releasing NS 5, just weeks before it was supposed to be released was a big mistake.

      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

  • IE definitely has a soul… (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:23AM (#9441026)
    ...of PURE EVIL! If you look real close you can see a 666 under help/about.
    • Be nice!

      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:IE definitely has a soul… (Score:3, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        In sho[r]t, if ever you wanted an example of an inefficient monopoly stifling innovation, look no further than IE6.

        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

        • I agree with most of your post, but...

          So MS made IE. They used their monopoly to promote it, but it caught on mainly because it _was_ better than Netscape

          This is utter nonsense. Yes, one could probably argue that IE 4.X was better than Netscape 4.X, but that's not why IE caught on. IE caught on because Microsoft integrated it into the operating system. Before they did so, Netscape still had around 65% of the market. People just weren't going to the trouble of downloading IE. Even when Microsoft st

  • What is this guy smoking? (Score:5, Funny)

    by caston ( 711568 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:24AM (#9441038)
    A web browser doesn't have a soul..
    Then again maybe IE sold it's soul to Milhouse for five bucks..

    • A web browser doesn't have a soul.

      No, but it's nice if it does.

      On the other hand, I'd settle for a Linux browser that printed in something other than Times and didn't require all contiguous memory to execute in. Moz is The Right Way To Go[tm] but not until they sort these behavioural and performance problems.

  • if it has "soul" or not. I want something that's better than IE, not because I don't want to use an MS product, but because I know it's mediocre. Why is it mediocre? Because it can be---the general public uses it anyway because it's right there on the desktop. I want IE to be innovative the way Mozilla and Opera have been. Why? because good, innovative products make for better competition.
    • Interesting thought, but I think the two are related. It's reasonable to say that the more passion a developer has for an application, the better it's going to be -- the better the effort, the better the results, and the better the end-user experience.

      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

  • That's good. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Progman3K ( 515744 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:24AM (#9441041)
    I imagine a lot of developers at Microsoft would also like to feel that way, but corporate cutthroat agendas being what they are, they cannot really "do the right thing".

    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.

  • Church of Emacs (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:24AM (#9441045)
    When it comes to "soul" no browser can compare to the "Sacred editor".

    Stallman 3:16!

  • A soul? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by mwvdlee ( 775178 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:25AM (#9441049) Homepage
    I don't need a "soul" in my browser; I need a good, standards-compliant and stable rendering engine in my browser.
    • I don't need a "soul" in my browser; I need a good, standards-compliant and stable rendering engine in my browser.

      For a given developer, the "soul" of the project matters. Ditto for people who build on the platform. Mozilla can render stuff, but so can IE. Still, IE will never have the soul, being conceived in the creepy halls of an evil corporation that want's *your* soul :-).

      (Posting from firefox 0.9 running on a soulless platform - chosen by my employer, not me).

      • Re:A soul? (Score:3, Insightful)

        by REBloomfield ( 550182 )
        (Posting from Firebird 0.7, on XP - chosen by me)

        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.

        • Re:A soul? (Score:3, Insightful)

          by Fnkmaster ( 89084 )
          Don't forget about the ActiveX "features". The best reason not to use IE is that ActiveX makes it an excellent vector to infest your computer with spyware. Every time I go away for a few weeks, I come back and discover that my roommate's girlfriend has been browsing the web on my computer using IE. At least 2 or 3 of those times, I've found all sorts of malware on the computer that required several Ad-Aware runs and in some cases manual intervention to fully get rid of. Major PITA.

          The real question is

        • Re:A soul? (Score:3, Informative)

          by Paladine97 ( 467512 )
          Try MyIE2. It's awesome. All the features you want (including tabbed browsing) and then some.

          MyIE2 [myie2.com]

    • Re:A soul? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mmaddox ( 155681 ) <oopfoo AT gmail DOT com> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:36AM (#9441141)
      Just what we need, a browser that screams "Yeeooooooow! Gootgawd! Huh!" on startup.

      The Brownzilla project....
      • I think you'll find it's "Yeeooooooow! Huh! Gootgawd! Huh!, and it was Edwin Star, not James Brown. But maybe you're thinking of something else :)
        • Actually, you're right. I WAS awfully close to Edwin Starr's "War," but I didn't mean to be. I was doing a generic James Brown, I suppose, that sorta turned the corner...
    • Welcome to the reason OSS desktops and applications typically suck. Lack of creative vision and grasping of abstract concepts like the "soul" of an application.

      Soul refers to interface, usability, standards, and all that. Get into a little right-brain thinking here, people.

  • Soul shmoul... (Score:2, Redundant)

    by bjtuna ( 70129 )
    Mozilla can have its soul, I like it for the tabbed browsing.

  • Who is it? (Score:5, Funny)

    by TrentL ( 761772 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:26AM (#9441060) Homepage
    There was a fundamental mistake made by Netscape management, twice, which cost us a release at the most inopportune time. I think we can attribute a great deal of our market share loss to this mistake that was pretty much based completely on lies from one executive, who has since left the company (and left very rich) and who was an impediment to everything that we did. He was an awful person, and it is completely on him that we missed a release. We had a "Netscape 5" that was within weeks of being ready to go, and this person said that we needed to ship something based on Gecko within 6 months instead. Every single engineer in the company told management "No, it will be two years at least before we ship something based on Gecko." Management agreed with the engineers in order to get 5.0 out.a

    Three months later they came back and said "We've changed our mind, this other executive has convinced us, except now instead of six months, you need to do it in three months." Well, you can't put 50 pounds of [crap] in a ten pound bag, it took two years. And we didn't get out a 5.0, and that cost of us everything, it was the biggest mistake ever, and I put it all on the feet of this one individual, whom I will not name.

    Aww, c'mon, who is it? You don't want us to accidentally hire him, do you?
    • Surely there are some current (or former) Netscape employees reading this - please identify this asshat so we can work our magic on him.

    • I think I know (Score:2, Interesting)

      by daviddennis ( 10926 ) *
      Based on some rather public statements I've seen, I have a feeling it was JWZ [jwz.org].

      I don't have time to look up the reference, but I'll bet someone with a bit more time on their hands will.

      He did leave rich, and he's doing something quite different now [dnalounge.com], so I don't think this disclosure will hurt him any.

      Of course I have no way to know who's right in this debate, since I'm sure the old codebase was genuinely a problem, but he's definitely the guy on the other side.

      D

    • Re:Who is it? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      You guys are very much on the wrong track. JWZ was not an executive. Although he can be polarizing (people love him or hate him), and opinionated, he wouldn't have been that stupid.

      No, the likely candidate is Mike Homer. He was VERY influential in the old Netscape organization, and from everything I've heard he was a major asshole.

      • Re:Who is it? (Score:3, Informative)

        by Brendan Eich ( 663436 )
        > No, the likely candidate is Mike Homer.

        Nope. Next guess?

        Ok, I composed plain text but posted as HTML by accident, and this is a repost. Here's a hint to make up for that goof: the VP that I believe scc meant was not around for Netscape's IPO, but was acquired later. Hint 2: the acquisition had nothing to do with anything in Netscape 4.

        /be

  • Collins is correct that whereas some people prefer the Konqueror-based Safari, others will prefer the Mozilla-based Firefox or Camino.
    Of course, there are further options, such as Netscape 7.1 (Mozilla), Opera, etc.

    Personally, I love Safari, other than the problem with a handful of sites, such as Citibank's online banking, that only work with Camino.

    • Re:Three OS X options... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ford Prefect ( 8777 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:34AM (#9441675) Homepage
      Personally, I love Safari, other than the problem with a handful of sites, such as Citibank's online banking, that only work with Camino.

      Have you tried faking the user agent string to make Safari identify itself as Internet Explorer? You can do it by enabling the 'Debug' menu [macosxhints.com].

      My father uses the European Citibank's online banking with Konqueror itself - it needed the user agent thing doing, and (I think) popup windows enabling, but I don't think he's had any problems with it since.

  • Soul (Score:3, Interesting)

    by anonicon ( 215837 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:28AM (#9441074)
    YMMV, but besides tabbed browsing, built-in address-line search, and pop-up blockers, the reason I've used Mozilla since 1.1 is because it does have soul and *isn't* wielded as a weapon by a repeated federal felon.

    For all you cynics, yes, MS was completely justified in doing anything they wanted to compete, but that doesn't mean I have to agree with them.
  • I think he means that the people working on the program have soul, which could yield a great product.
  • When using Windows, I use Mozilla because it blocks popups and has a bookmark file that's easy to parse. In all other ways that are meaningful to me, it is identical to IE.

    Does a car have a soul? Does my refrigerator have soul? They're important to me, but they're just tools.
    • Perhaps it is not one you would care to acknowledge (if you treat them that way and deny them). Many say the human is just a machine of circumstances without a soul, as well. My computer has a soul, and Mozilla clearly has a soul as well.

      Since what is meaningful to you is such a tiny subset of the important differences that exist between Mozilla and IE, perhaps your declaration that it lacks a soul also overlooks something.

      And I have seen Scott Collins' car, and it clearly has a beautiful soul.

    • Re:Puh - lease. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by roror ( 767312 )
      i don't know about you man. my motor cycle had a soul, and I felt like selling my soul when i sold it.

  • SOUL? (Score:5, Funny)

    by surreal-maitland ( 711954 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:32AM (#9441106) Journal
    i think he is confused. by soul he means tabs.

  • History repeating itself. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SinaSa ( 709393 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:34AM (#9441125) Homepage
    There is a guy here on slashdot, and his sig is

    "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 :P and Mozilla is coming back in a big way. Fast, clean, lots of new features (I'm not going to call it fresh), and lots of choice.

    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).
    • Mozilla is coming back in a big way. Fast, clean, lots of new features (I'm not going to call it fresh), and lots of choice.

      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 annoy
    • Actually Netscape was not free when IE came out, it was one of IE's selling points. Netscape was free for non-commercial users, but there it required a license for commercial use. It was basically honorware, anyone could download it for free.

  • Netscape 5 (Score:5, Informative)

    by gUmbi ( 95629 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:38AM (#9441160)
    Joel Spolsky on joelonsoftware.com (he provides some excellent insights for programmers - highly recommended) wrote a great article titled 'Things You Should Never Do, Part 1' - using Netscape 5 as the case study.

    http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog000000 00 69.html
  • I think that people who care deserve a browser with a soul

    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:People care? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Chief Typist ( 110285 )
      I agree that the average person doesn't care about a browser "with a soul."

      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:People care? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by slashd'oh ( 234025 )

      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" bu

  • No wonder! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Froze ( 398171 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:45AM (#9441232)
    Now I know why al my programs failed to reach sentience.

    #include

  • I use Mozilla (Score:3, Interesting)

    by br00tus ( 528477 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:59AM (#9441366)
    I hate Microsoft for many reasons, one being the way in which their products suck. For a long time Netscape was better than IE. Then IE hit a version where it did not suck as much, but I still used Netscape. IE also came prepackaged with Windows, and you did not have to download a few megs of Netscape at 56Kbps (or was it 28.8KBps back then?). By the time AOL bought Netscape, usage of Netscape had plummeted, IE had risen, and I finally threw in the towel and started using IE when I got a new computer. I had gone to thge trouble of downloading Netscape more out of spite for about a year or so before that

    When Mozilla came out, I switched back to it. I *like* Mozilla more than IE. With Mozilla I can right click and do a view image. I can open tabs on my browser. I can easily manage cookies and forms. I can block images from certain sites.

  • Wow - great quotes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rixstep ( 611236 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @09:59AM (#9441375) Homepage
    This guy puts it nice. 'IE has no soul.' Which of course is true. Others say maybe Netscape wouldn't have died if... Ladies and gentlemen, Redmond put the full weight of the Vole up against Netscape. IE was never more in their eyes than a 'reasonable alternative'. The campaign was fought with the ISPs and the OEMs and looking back, could anyone have withstood that? Maybe Netscape did screw up, but would it have made any difference back then?

    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.

  • Reminder... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by pubjames ( 468013 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:02AM (#9441392)

    I think it is time to remind everyone how things once were...

    Do you remember some years ago, that the Mozilla project was held up as an example of an OSS failure? By the majority of people, even here on Slashdot?

    It was taking too long to develop, was too bloated, Microsoft would always be one step ahead...

    These days Mozilla is now one of the trophy projects of the OSS community. But it was that same community that derided it not so long ago. We should be thankful for the persistence and long term vision of the Mozilla team.
    • Well, he does say that Mozilla development took too long to produce a good result. Going to the new codebase when they did was wrong; doing XUL first was wrong; making a monolithic browser was wrong.

      Mozilla was, in that period, a failure as an OSS project. They got where they are today based on being funded by AOL through the period where the project's output was not sufficiently interesting to attract development on its merits. We should be thankful for the flexibility of the Mozilla team and the investme
    • >We should be thankful for the persistence and long term vision of the Mozilla team.

      Is it a sucess because or inspite of the criticism that Mozilla is a success?

      With your view, you get teams with attitude like "I am right, you are wrong" and things like Nautical spacial navigation.

  • IE standards, PNG and stuff (Score:3, Interesting)

    by terrox ( 555131 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:19AM (#9441545) Journal
    I really hate it when people go on about how IE is the only browser that renders all sites properly. More like it is the only browser that webdesigners work their butts off tying to design webpages that render properly on it.

    I get sick of trying to hack around the IE bugs and non-standards.

    Sometimes on websites I like to put in a white PNG with stuff written in the alpha channel, so that only the BROKEN SUPPORT OF PNG IN INTERNET EXPLORER actually shows the message to all the IE users. It is about how their browser does not support the latest PNG technology. Because IE sux d00d! upgrade to firefox now!

    what's that? oh wow IE doesn't support translucency in CSS backgrounds, oh too bad for you then. IE SUX d00d

  • You're not paranoid enough (Score:5, Funny)

    by ewe2 ( 47163 ) <ewetoo@gmail . c om> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:22AM (#9441579) Homepage Journal

    <matrix>MS Longhorn: "What's the use of a browser with soul...if you can't even surf? [informit.com]" </matrix>

  • Ahh.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by lukewarmfusion ( 726141 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @10:30AM (#9441649) Homepage Journal
    Good ol' Slashdot. Where mentions of a "soul" bring countless references to the Simpsons and the episode where Bart sells his soul, but none (that I saw) referring to Faust (sold his soul), South Korea (Captial: Seoul), Dr. Scholl's (in-soles), New Orleans (soul food) or Marvin Gaye (soul music).
  • It's a sick twisted thing.

    Malicious and cruel, it seeks to devour the web, and just cause mayhem.

    In my minds eye, it looks something like a gremlin.

    To Firebird's mogwai

    *grin*

  • Screw the soul, how about important features? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilStein ( 414640 ) <.ten.pbp. .ta. .maps.> on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:07AM (#9442065)
    Yes, Mozilla has a lot of nice features. But you know what's keeping people from switching (at least in our organization)?

    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 .ics file. Not friendly for users.
    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.

    • Testify, brother! (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mikemcc ( 4795 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @12:27PM (#9443004)
      Calendaring is the biggest organizational problem that I have to deal with at work.

      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:Testify, brother! (Score:3, Insightful)

        by gr8_phk ( 621180 )
        "Calendaring via Outlook+Exchange is the single largest obstacle to those execs abandoning Windows entirely."

        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.

  • Browser Religion? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Offwhite98 ( 101400 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:14AM (#9442156) Homepage
    I wish people would just get away from using Microsoft as the enemy to overcome. It is possible to just produce and release great software and be successful without paying any attention to Microsoft.

    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.

  • the real reason... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:28AM (#9442346)
    Firefox is better is that IE may well have a soul, but it often has ghosts (popups) and sometimes gets possesed (hijacked, "LET BILL GATES F*CK YOU!!!, YOUR OS SUCKS COCKS IN HELL!!!") where as firefox has a TABBED SOULS open and has a protection from evil 10'radius cast by a 7th level cleric of the church of stallman. That will give you at least +1 more on your save vs. a gnna shocksite.

    Sure at first it was some bloated multi-class character under second edition rules and owned by AOL. But now they only level in one class at a time. Like einstein says, god doesn't play dice.... therefore we must make every effort to min-max firefox so that it can level up faster.

    The bottom line is you'd never hear a D&D analogy praising IE, you'd only hear it for an OSS browser: THAT my freinds, is a soul. The soul isn't IN the browser you hobgoblins, it's in the community. And whether you are shaking you fist at corporate capitalism, or having a good time no other browser has a soul like firefox.

    Three cheers for one of the best examples of OSS. Be damned all you karma-whoring-by-anti-slashdot-groupthinking bastards the groupthink is right on this one. There is a soul in OSS and IE is a frigid disgrace and the most shining example of (three years without update) monopoly stagnation.

    Firefox and Jesus save, the rest of you take full damage from the fireball!

  • Driving with SCC (Score:3, Interesting)

    by jlnance ( 4756 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:34AM (#9442407)
    Once when I was visiting San Jose I invited myself to go out to dinner with the mozilla developers. I ended up riding to dinner with Scott. It was a memorable experience. I had never taken a corner at 60 MPH in a parking lot before :-) It made me want to go and buy a Saab.

    I had a great time that night. There were some realy nice people working at Netscape.

  • Thank Them In Public (Score:3, Insightful)

    by 4of12 ( 97621 ) on Wednesday June 16, 2004 @11:51AM (#9442601) Homepage Journal

    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:

    Don't hesitate to thank someone publicly for a good job they've done, particularly if they've done it for the public.

    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.

  • Well, I'm pretty late to the discussion but in case anyone is still browsing new posts...

    Does anyone know if 0.9 has a setting to open a new TAB instead of a new window when you click an "off-site link" (target="_new" and so on)?

    I love Firefox to death but that's the one feature I really wish for every day.

    Once you get used to tabbed browsing the worst thing in the world is getting a new window launched when you didn't explicitly desire it. I've gotten in the habit of right-clicking links but sometimes

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