Is it just me, or is WaSP entirely composed of people who've never written anything other than HTML (and related standards)? Do they not realize that it takes a while to rewrite a browser from the ground up, when a community has 1/1000th the manpower of the competitor?

Or do they just expect someone to be able to write a bug-free IE killer in 2 weeks?

I better not write too much or else I'll be banned for excessive use of foul language. All I can say is that WSP should shove their little article right where the sun don't shine. not only are the complaining about Mozilla being late, which they caused when they complained about standards compliance, they also want Netscape to forget its current customer base. No company forgets its customer base, thats all they have to live on.

Two years is actually just about average to write a large-scale application. What was the time between linux kernel 1.0 and 2.0? (2 years). Between 2.0 and 2.2? (2-1/2 years). Between NT4 and Windows2000? Between IE3 and IE4? you get my point.

I sent my rant http://lists.projectcool.com/public/standards/2000-July/000347.html to their mailing list :-)

The reason Netscape is lagging is because V4 is a Peice of Shit. Nothing more nothing Less!

90% of all OEM Machines to this day STILL HAVE Netscape 4 Preinstalled on them. And guess what ? IE is MUCH MUCH MUCH Better!

I agree with you that WaSP is going overboard but blaming all of Netscapes pathetic failures on Microsoft is even more absurd. Quit your whining and get back to work.

The WSP has spent a lot of time crushed between Microsoft's "no commitment to standards, but shipping", and Mozilla's "firm commitment to standards, but not shipping".

While I thoroughly support Mozilla, and have incredible hopes for its success, I find it incredibly frustrating that we can't have 'just a browser that works' yet. I'd like to see _something_ ship for real, even if it's just a tiny tiny wrapper around Gecko. Focus on the browser, get it out the door, and then build the application platform to end all application platforms.

Or am I just dreaming?

what's going on??

is the WSP HQ somewhere where the temp is actually above 45°C ????

*still puzzled*

what's going on??

is the WSP HQ somewhere where the temp is actually above 45°C ????

*still puzzled*

Now, I'll be the first to admit that I've advocated that to some degree, shipping a browser should be a priority. I think that spending an extra six months to hash out those last two bugs in DOM1 (arbitrary) for instance has a modicum of diminishing returns. Is it worth those 2 bugs for the possible loss of impact the browser has?

Having said that, I find the WSP argument utter gibberish. All the argument boils down to is impatience. Yes, it's okay to be uneasy about waiting, NO Netscape shouldn't release NOW. The browser will get KILLED in the market if it comes out in its current form. It HAS to go through the proper optimization stages to be worth releasing. Honestly, I think PR1 was almost a mistake. The horrible ZDNET review on it made IDG Books actually pull Netscape 6 For Dummies. It was a forced beta, I think, that AOL needed for the launch at Internet World.

The current schedule should hold, I think, and they should not hold back the browser for a couple of non-important standards bugs (and I mean NON-important, if they are important, hold it).

And the argument that they should "pull Nav4" shows just how stupid this person really is. You don't "pull" a browser. The only way to kill a previous browser is to release a new one and convince people to upgrade. Jesus, who did they get to write this, one of the management's kids for a high-school project?

And of course they haven't taken into account the Internet appliance market, where IE will see no real growth whatsoever, unless WinCE becomes a monopoly over night (it would have to not suck to do that).

Chris, I agree with you completely. I think the WSP served its purpose and is now just trying to find things to bitch about.

I'm struck by the fact that no one has posted in favor of the WSP article. Perhaps if the points were retained and WSP didn't attack Netscape or the Mozilla developers, things would have been different.

The issue here is getting people (both developers and users) to support a standard (any standard). In this case, it's the standard agreed upon by the W3C body. Fine.

Any standard or technology, no matter how good it may be, will only flourish in the business world if enough people adopt it.

Ever wondered why Betamax lost the the VHS format? Or why Windows flourished and other OSes floundered? In both cases, we have competing technologies claimed by a group of our professional peers to be better.

Whether it was the intention of the Mozilla developers or not, a lot of people are frantically awaiting the fruition of Mozilla's promise because they've bet the whole farm on it.

It may not be the Mozilla developers' objective to deliver a product at anyone else's time but their own, but don't be surprised to find even your staunchest supporters gone cause it's a give and take world out there and what people need most and can't afford to give is time.

The reason Netscape is lagging is because V4 is a Peice of Shit. Nothing more nothing Less!

90% of all OEM Machines to this day STILL HAVE Netscape 4 Preinstalled on them. And guess what ? IE is MUCH MUCH MUCH Better!

I agree with you that WaSP is going overboard but blaming all of Netscapes pathetic failures on Microsoft is even more absurd. Quit your whining and get back to work.

After reading the article I have to agree, Standards compliance is important but not if there is no product. By the time Netscape 6 comes out IE will be on version 7 and have nearly 100% of market share. The author is also correct in asking for that piece o' crap netscape 4.x to be stripped of it's browsing rights.

-Mark

After reading the article I have to agree, Standards compliance is important but not if there is no product. By the time Netscape 6 comes out IE will be on version 7 and have nearly 100% of market share. The author is also correct in asking for that piece o' crap netscape 4.x to be stripped of it's browsing rights.

-Mark

Remember, Open Source is not just about licencing, it's a whole development process, and the Mozilla team is on the bleeding edge, here. *No* *one* has ever tried an open project of this magnitude, so trying to "predict" how long anything will take is futile.

If anything, an open project will take longer to release a similarly complex piece of software, simply becease of the increased scrutiny that such a project receives. There simply can't be any "ship it by XXX whether it's ready or not" or "ship it now, patch it later" mentality, the process won't allow it.

In fact, the whole concept of a "release" gets fuzzy with open projects. I have been running Mozilla as my primary browser since M15, and Mozilla exclusively since M16. Anybody (and do mean anybody can run the installer builds) who wants a standards compliant browser can get one, and get get it now.

Look, I agree that WSP is whining, and MS has killed the marketplace and all that.

But some of this has been brought on by Mozilla itself. Gecko's been in pretty good shape for a long time now, and I imagine that what's taking so long is getting the whole XUL-based wrapper up to speed.

The real issue is whether the Mozilla folks have just been too ambitious with their feature set. The WSP folks want a standards-compliant browser. Whether the world needs a massively scriptable cross-platform GUI development kit is another question.

Don't get me wrong. I personally believe that's just what the world needs (don't really know about the 'massively scriptable part', though). Still, I'm a great believer in taking a phased approach with polished, workable results at various points along the way.

Rather than lash out at critics, you might want to comment on why it was thought necessary to try to do it all at once.

<p> Here me out. WaSP doesn't seem to be blasting Mozilla or it's developers. They're echoing thoughts I've been having for a few weeks now, and been thinking a LOT about, since the Galeon browser was released. </p> <p> Netscape 4.x is a crap browser. Why can't Netscape take the mozilla 16M `kernel` and use visual C++ 6 to quickly slap together a GUI for it, and call it Netscape 5? It shouldn't take too much code tweaking to port it to MacOS and Linux after that. Then they can still do their Netscape 6, when the bugs are completely gone. A Netscape 5 like this, would put them on the playing field again (as well as be a MAJOR improvement over the 4.x), until Netscape 6 gets released. This would also give time for XUL to be perfected (I remember reading somewhere that XUL is still going through some changes). </p> <p> Do you know what I'm trying to say? Think about it. Any thoughts on this? I'm sure I've overlooked something... but I thought I'd bring my view to the table. </p> <br /> <br /> <p> just so you don't write me off as someone who knows absolutely nothing about what I'm saying (tho, i'm certainly not claiming to be the best). </p> <p> <b>My background:</b> web design (html 2-4, xml 1, js, css 1-2, some DOM), web programming (php, perl, python, js), and some C/C++. I have used some visual editors, but I mainly use notepad or vi. I've been doing this for two years.. </p>

I hate to admit this, as I have always been an ardent Netscape supporter among my friends, who succumbed to using IE several months before I myself finally did.

Netscape 4.x is crap. The standards compliance is pathetic, the load times are frustrating, and the output that is compliant, just doesn't seem to be as smooth as what IE offers. Is IE's domination of the market due to the Microsoft monopoly? Yes and no. Yes, IE 4/5 has a -far- greater distribution network than Netscape, being on every Microsoft OS released since 98. Yes, Microsoft drove Netscape under by giving away the browser. But, no, Microsoft has gained at least my use, by actually working. I haven't had IE crash and take out my whole system in a month or two, the last time I tried to use Netscape 4.73, it hosed half my processes. Was it -definitely- only Netscape's fault, could it have been IE being bitchy? Possibly. End result is the same, IE winds up as a more stable product. And, sadly, a more standards compliant one.

The WSP's complaint isn't simply the fact the browser is late. It is a final gasp, a grasping out for some hold on the promised salvation. Like they wrote, Netscape was the product they touted as the best, the brightest, the purest. It is the releasing of all the tensions, the stress, and the hurt, incurred by what they see as salvation denied. What Netscape has produced so far, is unreliable, bulky, and just plain broken. I want Netscape 6. I want it finished, I want it done -right-. But with IE having an estimated 84 percent of the market now, Netscape is the one playing serious catchup. And I don't think, having seen what I have of Mozilla, that it's capable of doing it.

I agree with everything said, but the mistakes were not made in 2000 or 1998, but in 1996/7, when Netscape Corp. failed to realize that Communicator would need a massive overhaul. Clearly, in order for Netscape to design and implement a program to meet standards and render quickly/efficiently/etc., the project (aka mozilla) needed to be well under developement while Navigator 4.0 was just being published. In Netscape's defense, no one could have imagined that Netscape's browser would be so out of date so quickly, so important to such a large number of people, and put in a head on battle against the Multi Billion dollar warchest/petty cash of Microsoft. Microsoft developed IE 1/2 (blah) 3 (not bad) (4 pretty good) (5 spectacular for the user). Very few companies can go head to head with MS and survive. But far fewer will survive when MS picks the battle. Netscape clearly was not developed with a long term view. Netscape sprinted to get their Communicator OUT OUT OUT! They sprinted, but now, when it suddenly became apparent that we're in a marathon and not the 100 meter dash, Netscape was out of breath and needed a complete overhaul.

Get the browser out folks, but it's been to long already to take the early entry advantage--sorry but we're stuck with getting the best browser possible :).

-Drew

But really we shouldn't have too much fear

Net Users: 400 million World : 6000 million :)

The WSP needs to learn (or remember) something simple that my parents taught me: when you're angry, write a letter. Then, write another draft to make sure you've said everything you want to say. Then, put it in an envelope, seal it, and DON'T SEND IT.

Words written in anger will be around long after the anger is gone, and this editorial was obviously written out of mere frustration and impatience. They will be kicking themselves for it in a month or so.

<p>OK, say what you want, but here I go ...</p> <p>Working browser? Huh? Mozilla WORKS. Really. I should know because I've been forced to use it. Yep, I HAVE to use Mozilla. For some bizarre reason, Netscape 4.x will not run on my laptop. Something is wrong somewhere, but I don't know what. I found it easier to just use Mozilla.</p>

<p>So I install the PSM for Mozilla, and I get a pretty solid browser. Sure, it disappears every once and a while, but for the most part, it runs about 3 or 4 hours before it has any problems. Sure, I can't see java, but that is generally not a problem.</p>

<p>So, compared with Netscape 3 and early 4 stability, Mozilla (as of June) is pretty solid and feature rich. Download and try it. AS for me, I seem to have no choice (and I'm ok with that, since Mozilla is just getting better and better).</p>

In the time that it took them to write that complaint, that contributed exactly zero to anything, they could have been using their 'vast' web standards knowledge to help create test cases for open bugs on the Mozilla project.

<p> Here me out. WaSP doesn't seem to be blasting Mozilla or it's developers. They're echoing thoughts I've been having for a few weeks now, and been thinking a LOT about, since the Galeon browser was released. </p> <p> Netscape 4.x is a crap browser. Why can't Netscape take the mozilla 16M `kernel` and use visual C++ 6 to quickly slap together a GUI for it, and call it Netscape 5? It shouldn't take too much code tweaking to port it to MacOS and Linux after that. Then they can still do their Netscape 6, when the bugs are completely gone. A Netscape 5 like this, would put them on the playing field again (as well as be a MAJOR improvement over the 4.x), until Netscape 6 gets released. This would also give time for XUL to be perfected (I remember reading somewhere that XUL is still going through some changes). </p> <p> Do you know what I'm trying to say? Think about it. Any thoughts on this? I'm sure I've overlooked something... but I thought I'd bring my view to the table. </p> <br /> <br /> <p> just so you don't write me off as someone who knows absolutely nothing about what I'm saying (tho, i'm certainly not claiming to be the best). </p> <p> <b>My background:</b> web design (html 2-4, xml 1, js, css 1-2, some DOM), web programming (php, perl, python, js), and some C/C++. I have used some visual editors, but I mainly use notepad or vi. I've been doing this for two years.. </p>

I believe that this article has a good core, possibly said in the wrong way. I believe that if we do not create get a browser out soon, thier may be no market left to fight for. Remember, web developers are the key, right now, we (web developers) are forced to develop for IE, due to its strong market share. Every page we design for IE makes it harder for Mozilla to get in the door. I believe that Mozilla is a great product, and needs to be released as a 'browser' and nothing more than a 'browser' ASAP. Let the web developers have an excuse to develop stanards compliant pages. My boss literally says 'everyone' uses IE, and I have been advised NOT to develop standard pages. If we can get mozilla out, make it SMALL and FAST, people WILL use it. If you bloat it up, and refuse to release a useable product, it will die. I hope people can read that article and go 'yeah, maybe it has been too long' and attempt to release the 'core' component of mozilla wrapped in a light GUI according to the platform it is running on. But the time is now to release it, not in a year.

I know Netscape Navigator 4.08 is out of date and not compliant, but I run 16 bit apps on WFWG 3.11. SO ditching Netscape 4.08 is NOT AN OPTION, unless of course, someone wants to port Mozilla to 16 bit.

IF ever Mozilla is perfected, I promise to upgrade to WIN 9x. In the meantime, I'll stick to Netscape (standalone) Navigator 4.08 and Pegasus and never worry about Active X or VSB.

Nick

if it wasn't for the WSP, Netscape 5 would've shipped already. Instead Netscape decided to listen to the WSP Petition, scrapped NS5 for NS6 with the gecko engine and they have the nerve to complain? Write some code before complaining

Development by commitee does not work for large projects unless there's no competition on the target platform. Microsoft like it or not delivers (Albeit not perfect) good products relitively quickly. Also, why is IE the best browser for the MAC. ***WHERE IS MS's MONOPOLY/TYING TO OPERATING ANDVANTAGES ON THE MAC PLATFORM.*** Business leaders are starting to wake up to reality. Deliver now or die.

Development by commitee does not work for large projects unless there's no competition on the target platform. Microsoft like it or not delivers (Albeit not perfect) good products relitively quickly. Also, why is IE the best browser for the MAC. ***WHERE IS MS's MONOPOLY/TYING TO OPERATING ANDVANTAGES ON THE MAC PLATFORM.*** Business leaders are starting to wake up to reality. Deliver now or die.

...as someone else mentioned, is XUL. Very interesting technology indeed! - for Netscape 7 maybe. Right now it is bogging down both Mozilla and the Mozilla project as a whole. Almost every major bug I've seen in the last few months in the nightly builds, including the menu display problems of this week, have been XUL related display problems. Not only that, but XUL also seems to be responsible for most of Mozilla's performance woes. Gecko seems reasonably fast and solid to me, but since it must do double duty in laying out both the web page AND toolbars, menus, etc., it has become terribly slow. The article about the Galeon web browser from earlier this week convinced me - at long last - that we a need native interface and GECKO. How long would it take to implement that? I have no idea. But probably not as long as trying to work all of the bugs out of XUL. XUL is good technology, and I'm sure it can be done right, but PLEASE - it's not worth it. For now.

Maybe the real problem is that the standards committees are too greedy. All they have to do is dictate how things should work ideally. Maybe they should make an effort to stipulate standards more incrementally, with some care as to how much of a burden they are laying on the people who have to comply with these standards.

Browsers like Mozilla give WSP their relevency. They must feel pretty much ignored to write a letter like that.

W

I just wanted to say, since this article is fairly depressing, that the i386-Linux daily build that I grabbed this morning is rock-freakin'-solid. I've been surfing and using its NNTP newsreader all day long with zero crashing or wierdness. I can even ALT-L to open a new location and the location textfield has focus automagically. Somebody lemme hear ya say 'Woo-HOO!'

It's true.. people need a new, fast, compliant to standards, non-crashing browser. Gecko can do it! Instead the moz community, our community, is trying to devlop the ultimate Internet tool, which is a great idea! But people on the web don't need that now, they just want a replacement for IE (or maybe not)

I hope someone will listen and start taking out the right pieces for it, and, btw, I thing that the WSP critique was more directed to Netscape (as AOL) as opposed to Netscape (the open-source Mozilla project)

G

"Even according to your piece, the masses don't know standards compliance from a hole in the ground."

But they do know a working browser from a broken one. If both browsers worked on the same HTML, the effect would be transparent. We could all write standards based code and no one would be the wiser. But when we do now, and NS 4 chokes beyond belief, then you have a problem. Not only with the average user, but with companies, agencies, their clients, and anyone else trying to make sites that work in all browsers. So when IE 5 does more things while breaking less then developing sites becomes an issue of making a "crippled" site for Navigator and an "enhanced" one of Explorer -- the same thing that causes a user base to shift in the first place. Which is what the WSP letter was about in the first place: The longer without Mozilla, the more the split increases, and if Mozilla fails in the end, it becomes an example of how web standards DON'T work, and that'll screw up the industry for years to come...

OK, some of the things that the WSP says are silly. Taking Netscape 4.x off the market isn't a possibility, for several obvious reasons.

But many of their points make sense -- much more sense than the response here, at least. Can you honestly believe that IE's dominance over Netscape is a result of monopoly control exterminating an inferior product? Netscape 4 sucks, pure and simple. Its rendering engine is hopelessly buggy; its support for basic standards is awful; it uses proprietary and equally awful things (like LAYER) wherever possible. It's slow, the interface is clunky, and it crashes often. I use IE exclusively, and standards are in fact a main reason for my doing so.

Two years IS forever in computer terms. There's no argument there. And Microsoft has certainly not "coasted" after releasing version 4. (Are you saying, seriously, that the difference between IE 5.5 and 4.0 is the same as that between Netscape 4.72 and Netscape 4.0? The timeframe between the two is about the same.) IE 5.5's standards support is much better than 4's. Much. Sure, it isn't great, but if we're comparing it to Netscape, it's wonderful.

The area where you're not understanding the WSP is summed up here: "The WSP underestimated what it would take to produce a browser that could run on any of the major platforms, with a limited number of developers." It's the "limited numner of developers" that's the issue. The WSP is taking issue with the fact that AOL just ain't trying hard enough to get Mozilla out. AOL is not a struggling, cash-strapped startup. If getting a good browser out quickly was a priority, there would not be a limited number of developers.

Some other points: - Microsoft did not turn the browser into a revenue-less commodity. Yes, Netscape used to be shareware, but the evaluation versions were evaluation versions in name only: 99% of Netscape users never paid for it. Many didn't even know that they were supposed to. - A browser integrated into the shell is a useful feature. Yes, if Microsoft was motivated by kindness and altruism, they'd have designed it so that the rendering engine was a replaceable component. Hopefully the antitrust suit will force this to happen. But for evidence that integrated browsers are not monopolistic and useless but useful and essential, just look at the primary Linux desktops, built without a thought to monopoly: KDE and Gnome (2.0, admittedly).

The WSP is supporting standards-compliance. They've been supporting it for ages. They're angry at the fact that, after all these ages, Netscape has still not produced a usable, standards-compliant browser. (During the same time, Microsoft HAS done this with IE5/Mac, and Opera has come quite close.) Sure, the anger is a little extreme, but it's very much justified.

I'm guessing the WaSP's community has started to like IE's proprietary features and would like Netscape to give up so they'll only have to code for IE and not have to worry about anything else.

...

Yes Netscape needs to ship a product.

But, if Netscape and Mozilla had chosen to ignore the WSP, it would have shipped a browser of competence comparable to Internet Explorer 5.0 last year.

I understand that IE comes prebundled with all Win98 systems. But it isn't fair to say that all of its market share came from preinstalled systems. I've switched from NS4.5 to IE5 simply because I grew sick & tired of NS crashing on regular basis, not displaying the pages properly, etc...

In addition, Netscape 4.x still comes with many systems - just take a look at the PCs at your local Circuit City.

As far as WSP insistense on removing NS4.x off the market, I understand that it is impractical for AOL. However, for me as a software developer and a web developer, it is a gigantic pain to write a page for IE and NS, just to find out that neither one works in Mozilla.

Anyways, what should have been done is this: the entire team should have worked on the layout engine (Gecko) and finished it. Then they could deal with issues like mail client, XUL, Chat Client, Cookie Manager and other stuff. This would allow 3rd party developers to write custom browsers based on Gecko. In fact, I did produce a small browser (based on Adam Locke's ActiveX control) that I used for a while. Unfortunately, the underlying engine was too buggy to be used. On top of it all, Mozilla team misled everyone when it placed engine completion to be at M9.

Anyhow, what's done is done. The team should now focus on squashing the remaining Gecko bugs as their highest priority and then deal with Netscape 6 Beta 2 issues (it is not a Netscape project, after all).

I understand that IE comes prebundled with all Win98 systems. But it isn't fair to say that all of its market share came from preinstalled systems. I've switched from NS4.5 to IE5 simply because I grew sick & tired of NS crashing on regular basis, not displaying the pages properly, etc...

In addition, Netscape 4.x still comes with many systems - just take a look at the PCs at your local Circuit City.

As far as WSP insistense on removing NS4.x off the market, I understand that it is impractical for AOL. However, for me as a software developer and a web developer, it is a gigantic pain to write a page for IE and NS, just to find out that neither one works in Mozilla.

Anyways, what should have been done is this: the entire team should have worked on the layout engine (Gecko) and finished it. Then they could deal with issues like mail client, XUL, Chat Client, Cookie Manager and other stuff. This would allow 3rd party developers to write custom browsers based on Gecko. In fact, I did produce a small browser (based on Adam Locke's ActiveX control) that I used for a while. Unfortunately, the underlying engine was too buggy to be used. On top of it all, Mozilla team misled everyone when it placed engine completion to be at M9.

Anyhow, what's done is done. The team should now focus on squashing the remaining Gecko bugs as their highest priority and then deal with Netscape 6 Beta 2 issues (it is not a Netscape project, after all).

Mozilla is doing to work of 8+ years in two years. Once it is out I think a large part of the market share will come back, these are the days of 1+ GB mp3 collections if it turns out better than IE in the end people will download an 8 MB browser. The comment about 'if we had know it would take 2 years...' if you had known what would you have done switched to IE start another browser, what absoutly nuts. If you don't like how long it is taking use the thing and help. It is 8 years work in 2, and the parent company is not intested in useing it in AOL until the Antitrust action is done hence the lack of "effort" plus who the #*$& said this is Netscapes browser it is Open source if anyone wants to help they can.

I would really like people's comments about my opinion. So here goes:

Netscape should release Mozilla not when they feel it is good enough, but simply the moment when it is a better browser than 4.x is now.

Oh wait, that would be about now, huh? ;)

NOTE: I'm not an influencial WaSP person at all. The problem I see with the WSP's aproach is that there will never be a commercial browser that can support W3C specs. Microsoft is too concerned about its clients that use proprietary intranet apps, and Netscape has its problems, too. The only way a browser which truly reflects the spirit of the web could ever be produced is if either the Mozilla project continued, or another project spun off from Mozilla, and released under the GPL. Don't be discouraged, hackers of the Mozilla project! Keep fighting the good fight! :)

Unfortunatly, Mr. Nelson's response only serves as an amazing demonstration of why people are so frustrated with Netscape. A brief sample:

"The reason for Netscape's declining share is nothing more than Microsoft's monopoly control over the browser marketplace. "

Horsefeathers. No, it didn't help matters that Microsoft was able to bundle IE with Windows, but that was merely the icing on the cake. Microsoft Money gets bundled with basically every OEM system out there, and you don't see Quicken hurting for sales. IE beat Navigator because IE was by FAR the superior product. Not based on its compliance with a suite of empty (ie: referenceless) "standards", but on the simple grounds that it was faster, easier to use and crashed a hell of a lot less often.

As long as Netscape pretends that what happened to Navigator was anything other than a massive engineering and management failure on their part, they will have no chance of ever making up the difference, no matter what happens in any antitrust trial.

"I would venture that half of the "86%" of users who are using IE now have never even seen Netscape's browser."

We can only hope so. Because that may be Netscape's only prayer for a comeback at this point, as it's for damn sure that anybody who has seen the current product is never in a million years going to think it's worth their time to evaluate version 6.

I've been waiting a long time for Mozilla too. As non-compliant browsers dominate the market, web standards become less relevant. Microsoft knows this very well and web standards organizations are feeling very threatened.

The WSP should not have released this particular article. It's almost comical how ignorant they are, and of so many things. The article also demostrates how poorly they stick to their vision under pressure.

But, I've been waiting for a while to hear someone say what they said. I agree in principle with some of their points.

On the other hand, Mozilla promises to be a powerful platform for both end users and developers. The project has broken a lot of good ground and will deliver on some lofty promises. It should continue along it's current path to fruition.

But, a mistake has been made. End users have wanted a fast, compliant browser to compete with IE on Windows for a long time and end users drive the browser market. Netscape needed to deliver a gecko-based Netscape 5 to meet the demand and didn't. Why not? Only they can answer that question, but it needs to be asked and answered. And everyone needs to learn from the answer.

The bottom line is that the longer it takes for Mozilla to reach prime-time, the harder it's going to be for it to attract end user attention and succeed in promoting the standards it implements. Microsoft's market share has steadily been creeping up. The reasons (though foul) are irrelevant. Netscape, the Mozilla developers and the OpenSource community at large should all learn from this incident rather than simply dismiss it.

Dave Muse mused@firstworks.com

I supported Mozilla and then (as a mac user) I started to use IE5 for the mac, which is very nice and very standards compliant. I am amazed with it and the fact that I Netscape had a couple major failings I could not longer use it.

I wish I could use a completed Gecko based browser, but month after month I can only hope and that hope has run thin. Opera has a better chance than Mozilla. At least that have a product out there. Jamie Zawinski was right. Release something now!!!

You said, "Why would Netscape produce just a Web browser and hope to compete? I'd love it if someone explained that logic to me."

I have been _dying_ for the past two years to have a solid standards based browser. I have never used any of the suite stuff for IE or Communicator. _Everyone_ I know is in the same boat. I've worked at three internet companies in those two years and the majority of people used a text editor to create pages, pine or hotmail for mail, and Netscape or IE for browsing.

Sure, an all-encompassing suite is nice for some users but it is not a pre-requisite for releasing a good browser. End of story.

I'm surprised at the way in which both the WaSP and a number of posters here treat Mozilla as though it's a totally different thing from a product made by any other business in any industry. What gives them the right to dictate to Netscape when they should release theri browsers? Netscape have been doing them a favour by creating Mozilla as a totally standards compliant browser. Yet they have the nerve to act like a spoilt little child because they can't have what they want when they want it (i.e. right now or else).

You don't release a product out onto the market when it's unfinished, much less when you're aware that there's still faults which need addressing (see Bugzilla..). What kind of crack are these guys smoking to suggest that kind of a business plan for a company? One would take it that they're obviously not anywhere in management, because they haven't the slightest clue about conducting business. Would you demand that an automotive manufacturer release a car when the brakes were periodically known to stop working? Or Sony release a stereo system that occassionally went haywire? Of course not. These kind of practices would drive a company into the ground if practiced repeatedly. So what exactly are you proposing to achieve by demanding that Netscape release their browser 'now or else'? Are the WaSP seeking to kill Netscape so all they really have to care about is IE? Who knows..

This whole thing reminds me a bit of the recent ado with the Ford Falcon out here in Australia.. In 1998 the "AU" model was released, with a radical change in body shape and appearance to previous models. It was largely unpopular, but the company couldn't just abandon the design when it had nothing complete to replace it. The next model Falcon isn't due out until around 2002/2003 I think, and so as an interim measure, they released the "AU2" this year which addresses some of the biggest criticisms of the early model. Similarly, Netscape brought out their 4.x browser which wasn't quite as well favoured as the IE counterparts (later on, at any length), and so there have been a few releases to fix the most common 'criticisms' that could be fixed without too much expense or effort (mainly security fixes I would suspect) until such time as their new browser is released. A car and a browser mightn't be exactly the same thing, but there's similarities in these circumstances (from my point of view at least ;)..

Other tidbits:

OPERA: "Opera has a better chance than Mozilla" - does it? In this day and age, where users expect browsers to be something which ship free of charge, how many people are honestly going to pay for a browser?

IE5.5: I'm not sure quite what was going on here. The only significant differences I've noticed is the new Print Preview feature, and the fact that it crashes about 5 times as often as IE5.0 did. Maybe that's what the ".5" is supposed to reflect...

NATIVE UI: And then every time someone wants to port Mozilla to a different platform, they have to re-write the UI for that platform. Just to make life even more difficult and make the code base harder to maintain..

And with that I think I've ranted and raved to make 5am a nice bed time..

Standards (or recommended specifications as the case may be) were never meant to be a weapon used to bludeon companies until they gave in.

I've worked with (and written about) the differences in IE's and Netscape's implementations of "standards" since JavaScript 1.1. I've been more than frustrated at times with having to deal with cross-browser and cross-version differences.

However, I've respected the amount of work that's gone into making the very complex applications that we now call "browsers".

Mozilla is more than just a browser (as much as this ticks off some folks). The application development effort has demonstrated new paradigms in project management, as well as new and innovative (in a good sense) uses of XML, user interface design, and other technologies.

I'm anxious for Mozilla's release, but not at the cost of dealing with bugs that need fixing. Hopefully, the architecture of the product is stablizing, and most effort now is spent on creating a robust, usable product.

In the meantime, perhaps the folks at WSP should consider more constructive ways of showing support for standards.

For the past 3 years I have been a tech coordinator for a school district. During that time I have promoted the use of Netscape in my district, encouraged our teaching staff to use it, and taught all of my Internet-based classes using it. I have watched and waited, tracking the process of mozilla and hoping that Netscape would release a superior product soon. But let's be realistic here-At what point does this loyalty do a disservice to the teachers and students? At what point does their teaching and learning experience suffer, because Netscape cannot handle the content that they need? I admire what they are doing. But someone earlier brought up a good point: With all of the resources available to AOL/Netscape, why must it take so long? And another point: Why not release a browser-only version and a full suite? Do they really have anything to lose by doing that? People in my position have a responsibility to provide the best services to our users. When Netscape 6 finally does arrive (and works!) I'll promote it until I'm blue in the face. But IE5 is the better choice at the moment. The WSP's impatience is understandable; their mistake is in how they chose to express that impatience. They are lashing out as if Netscape is their last hope, lest their message (and standards) be buried under the weight of Microsoft. The WSP should be worried. The typical home user, far from caring about standards, mostly cares about the program working when need it to work. Until they get burned by IE's security issues or they can't do what they want to do, Netscape will not be an option. And unless Netscape has something better to offer them, they'll stick with the devil they know. If Netscape can produce a browser that doesn't detract from the learning and teaching experience in my district, I'll go back to it, but to do so now would be an act of nostalgia rather than common sense.

The reason that Microsoft defeated Netscape in the browser war has nothing to do with Microsoft's monopoly. The reason is that Internet Explorer is a reasonably good product, while Navigator 4.x is a steaming pile of shit. Perhaps Mozilla will change that...

As Badrozd said earlier, the WSP article is a genuine display of impatience in a blustered vessel.

But heres the bind. In many, many quarters IE is the de facto standard and the WSP I suppose are fearful that the W3C standards are in danger of being marginalised as the ever growing band of "IE Developers" start to splurge out page after page after page of document.all.bullshit.

we all know how Micrsoft work. If they get 90+% of the browser share, they could easily turn around and tell the W3C to piss off and justify this by pointing at their market share. I tell you now what the reaction would be. -> Standards advocates who go into a rage and flame the net to buggery -> Half the worlds developer's would publicly cry foul play and privately breath a sigh of relief as they no longer have to figure out how the fuck to get Netscape to do half the things possible in IE5.X. -> The other half of the world's developers would publicly applaud and then get back to working spewing more ActiveX shite into the world. ->Mr and Mrs Joe Average user would stumble on blindly clicking those naughty attachments in Outlook, oblivious to the death of standards of which they are totally ignorant. -> The rest of use will wionder where it all went wrong.

Personnaly I totally share WSP's frustration with the lack of Netscape 6. I understand a lot of the reasons but that don't stop me from being miserable waiting. I want a Gecko based browser so the net will once again be a cool place instead of another puerile, boring, regimented Microsoft product. Microsoft.Net tm says it all...

The guy from WSP who wrote the original article, must have been on crack. The last I checked Mozilla and the WSP should be on the same side. Also there are myriad of OS's that Microsoft will never support because it might chip away at their OS dominance. I say down with IE with or without WSP's support. It's there reasoning and thinking that started this. That guy was not thinking logically.

It just seems to me that the WSP is just an arrogant and hypocrite bunch. How much of *anything* have they produced that's actually useful? All they do is whine about others to do this, or do that, and once they do it, it's still not good enough. Yet instead of helping anyone reach the goals they're preaching about, they do nothing but whine about their efforts not being good enough. And then, to make matters worse, instead of nicely telling others know what's bothering them, their letters are the exact incarnation of what would be called 'flamebait' everywhere else. And rightly so, because that is exactly what it is; much like any Windows vs. Linux flamewar would start. Instead of polluting the web with this garbage they should make themselves useful and help develop Mozilla, or any other standards complain browser, even.

Who cares? Who actually listens to these freaks? Let's just shut up and get a damn fine Mozilla out the door :)

At work, I use a nightly as my main browser. We use Exchange as our mail, so I can't use it for company mail, but Moz is set to check my personal POP account. Moz Mail rocks as much as the browser :)

Haven't touched News or Composer yet, though.

If Mozilla had shipped 6 months ago it might have still had a chance. Not now baby. No one is going to bother switching over from IE now. What for? Not because it's faster. Because it ain't. Not because it supports standards. Because the public doesn't give a rats about those. And certainly not because it's prettier. Because the interface is butt ugly.

Well, I just downloaded the latest nightly, and it seems to be running ok, aside from a few weird 'refused connection' messages. ;) The reaction I get about the UI is "it's kinda weird, but cool..." of course, this is from other high school kids who can hardly remember life without the internet. ::grin:: It really isn't that hard to figure out if you have much experience with the net, and I doubt that a ton of people without that experience would be downloading a new browser anyway. Also, I still use navigator 4.6, and it rarely crashes, and I use ie5 for some stuff, and it also rarely crashes. I use netscape because I like the logical layout and easy access to bookmarks, etc. mozilla also has these features, but I don't use it too much because of those little quirks it still has. (I'm using the latest 7/23/00 build now) Anyway, as far as these things go, I'd say that it's all a matter of personal preference. Oh, and I'm using WIN 95, and I can remove IE... is the integration a win98 thing? I know it's used instead of windows explorer to find files and stuff in 98... oh well. Well, ya'll have a great day!

Tanaaln/Scott

What is wrong with the WSP? Do they just not want a standards compliant browser? Is microsoft paying them off?

While it has and is taking a long time for Mozilla to get to market it is the ONLY project even attempting to achieve standards compliance. Unless, of course, there is some secret project going on that none of us know about. People should stop complaining about the amount of time it is taking to get this thing off the ground and start coding / bug fixing / what ever too speed thing up. Complaining only make people mad at you!

I hope that whatever idiot wrote this beautiful article finds his office belongings in the back alley and a new guy sitting in his chair on Monday morning!

Ok,

I use Linux 95% of the time, so I really have no choice of using netscape or mozilla builds. If it weren't for lack of Java (as far as I know) and astounding mail/news bloat, I'd have ditched netscape a while ago and went the mozilla way.

Just to give you an idea of where I am now. Under windows, I have erased netscape and all its subfolders a loong time ago and that wasn't because Microsoft included IE, but because IE5 is so much better at just about anything. Resizing is a breeze, and you can view just about anything out there on the web.

That's what we should keep in mind. Most users won't switch back to Mozilla/Netscape whatever Mozilla does! The reason is simple: why would anyone want to do it. And it will get worse with time, whether I like it or not.

Anyway, as a Linux user I can feel my impatience and as a 5% Windows user I don't give a damn.

To conclude. As much as I believe developing following one's own schedule is great, I also happen to think some pressure is good. And I hope this will felt as pressure and not taken lightly.

Good luck to everybody and I hope I can see any working Linux browser soon.

just took the chance to put up an article to get more hits:

http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/MontyManley/MontyManley11.html

I'm wondering if Mozilla fails to gather enough users, can all this "bad press" be blamed?

I doubt that AOL cares much about shipping NN6 right now. It is obligated to use IE5 and it works fine for AOL users. When their contract expires they will need a replace that works about as well as IE5.

They also need XUL as a replacement for their current GUI-definition format. Their current format is similar but not XML based like XUL.

In the end, the AOL 7.0 client and the NN6.x browser are likely to be the same product. People download NN6, and if they want to sign up to use AOL, they just type in their credit card number and it works. Downloading AOL is easier than ever because you already have it.

Hey Thought I would add that Netscape 4.74 is a lot faster then 4.73. Crappyiness notwithstanding.

1st I'm no expert but i sometimes use the nightly builds which are getting better and better. I wonder if all these people complaining about moz use them?

2nd Anyhow I'd rather wait a bit than get an uncompliant, unstable, unsecure browser. IE doesn't even support the https protocaol at some points. I'm forced to use IE at work and it crashes every time it attempts to enter a secure site

Finally the WSP should rather encourage mozilla than dismiss it. Why can't they encourage filling bugs related for standards support for instance. That would be far more useful than writing flaming comments

3r

You know, I look at Mozilla and I realize that it doesn't matter whether Netscape 4.x lost the market share. It doesn't matter that 86% are using IE5, because when Netscape 6 is finally released, it is not going to be just an upgrade.

All the revolutionary technology in Netscape 6 (and all other Mozilla distributions), combined with standard compliance, cross-platform outreach, and open source will make Mozilla look like a new kid on the block--and a bad-ass one.

It seems to me that Netscape 6 won't be an old browser trying to regain its market share. Mozilla has awesome technology that screams: "I'm a new product."

And I think that this new product, Netscape 6 and other Mozilla distributions, will have a great impact and will regain plenty of market share.

We must not forget that the percentage of Windows users is steadily decreasing. Other operating systems, including Linux and BeOS are slowly growing, and they desperately need a good browser.

What would happen if Microsoft decided to become fully standards compliant?? Is the mozilla community living on the belief that this will never happen and that Bill and his friends will continue to frustrate developers with partial compliancy. I was once a 'Netscape only' user but I like many others have had to make the switch, (except in linux). I just hope that Netscape 6 is released before Microsoft decides to become compliant.

http://www.osopinion.com/Opinions/ErikSeveringhaus/ErikSeveringhaus1.html

http://linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2000-07-25-001-07-OP-SM

I'm sorry but I think that the WSP has it exactly right. Netscape 6 is going to be standards-compliant, but noone is going to use it because Internet Explorer has taken 90% of the market and therefore is the de facto standard. There's not much that Netscape/Mozilla can do about this now - they obviously can't release the product yet. They just took too long to ship a new browser. Sorry guys, you lost. Noone is going to download Netscape when Internet Explorer is good enough and all sites are designed to work with it (not to mention the fact that Netscape takes about 25M of RAM). I wish it were otherwise, I really do.

I posted to 2 mozilla newsgroups regarding the feasability of making a gecko only release (some sort of gecko 1.0) before doing a full mozilla release. It was yesterday and I have not seen a response yet. If it's possible I think it would do a whole lot of good. This would allow programmers and other companies to already start integrating the rendering engine instead of waiting for the whole mozilla release.

In the past neoplanet had shown interest in using gecko. Getting a stable rendering engine out there would be a benefit.

What are the realities of development in mozilla that would hold back such a release?

narbey

See, guys, this is the deal, as I see it, and as I see it, the WSP was mostly right. The frustration was evident, but really, if anyone here knows anything about business, it is obvious that Netscape has entirely forsaken its customer for the sake of an as of yet unrealized vision that may now explode in their face. Cause you know, here is the deal. As someone else has pointed out, average Joe Browser User doesn't care if his browser is one hundred percet standards compliant. All he cares about is going into the net, and being able to browse his pornography without having the computer crash. Now, if you will be perfectly honest with yourself, you will agree that IE is leaps and bounds better than Communicator. It's true. And it may be for all sorts of evil handed Microsoft sucks reasons. But once again, noone gives a shit.

Personally, I think a standards compliant browser would be great. But in browsers, like in everything else, timing is everything. Netscape has tarnished its name beyond belief, and its gonna take a miracle to save them.

i think Mr. Zeldman (et. al.) has/ve done much to support the fostering and creation of the community that we now know of as the Internet. He just recently celebrated the fifth anniversary of his site on the net. As someone who works daily with the hassles and workarounds to get pages/sites to as wide a community as possible, he is, I believe, simply expressing his frustrations with this seemingly endless and labyrinthine crusade. Especially when across platform and OS. Not that I would speak for him. As someone *trying* myself to master the desperate act of learning the peculiarities of all varieties of generations of browsers, dhtml, css, script, w3, etc., I can commiserate. It seems to me that a very effective method that many "bleeding edge" publishers have taken to get their message across in a uniform and unproblemmatic way is to employ something like Flash to design their entire site, largely bypassing and ignoring many of the promised browser multimedia & interactivity features. This may become more telling a direction in the future; when common bandwidth & cpu increases truly allow a realtime media experience, astonishments such as text style or mouseover animations will be passe. A browser is to, uh, browse.