You've been working too hard, haven't you?

Alex

> We have a perfectly good #qa channel for things like this, no need for a separate #bugweek channel!)

I don't get this? Is the announcement not sufficiently clear? Bug Week has very little to do with QA.

Gerv

Not everyone's going to be there all the time; everyone who's helping should be able to point you at the right person if they aren't it.

Gerv

I suppose I should really give you a link to the full article: http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/20/1841215

Alex

nt

I'm surprised this hasn't generated more response yet.. Anyway, I'll bite. :)

First I'll give some background so we can perhaps avoid all the mud slinging that usually takes place. I'm a software developer myself with relatively long experience. I work for a company in Finland that makes a 3D game engine for handheld devices (PDA's, 3G & 4G mobile phones & dedicated game devices and similar). The game engine is cross platform in very much the same way that Mozilla is - there's an underlaying framework that abstracts the hardware and CPU.

There are many things similar with Mozilla and the product I work on for a living. Both are large scale, cross platform apps where performance is absolutely crucial. The approaches to these are very different however. Mozilla has a large developer base (even in the "internal" Netscape developers) and an even larger "feedback" base. Thousands of people test and report bugs and about as many people have loud voices regarding what they love and hate about Mozilla. The product at work has a developer base of about 20 developers of which some work on tools. It's a very classic closed source development project that adapt the "extreme programming" ideas with strict guidelines for milestones, testing, schedules etc. Mozilla does a lot of this in the same way, but there is one very obvious difference.

The thing Mozilla lacks or has been lacking is a clear target to shoot for. If you're an athlete, you usually set a goal.. "I will run 100 meters in under 10 seconds at the Olympics in XXXX in the year 20XX." With a clear goal, you can then lay out milestones on the route to this goal and measure your performance and compare it to how you should be performing. If you're just going with "I'll just try to run a lot every day and do the best I can.", chances are that you're not going to be that sucessful. Schedules and measurable performance is everything. I'm using the word "performance" here in the meaning of "progress".

I don't think there's anything wrong with open source in itself. I believe that the current problems are more or less because of Mozilla's development process, not open source. I believe that what's missing is the guts to define a bold target (3 years ago) and then go for that and not stray off the target. Now everyone is being a captain and everyone is steering in different directions. While some say "1.0 is needed" and write documents about why it's needed, others say "you're being silly. 1.0 is just a number. let's call it 1.0 now and be over with it". Without a person at the helm (like Linus Torvalds for example), it's very hard to get a coherent strategy and goal for the project. JWZ was that person in many ways. While he hadn't set a public 1.0 goal for one year after the initial release, that was clearly his personal goal and he left as a result of not being able to make that goal. Mozilla today is slowly improving but is very far behind the implicit schedules that people (end users, web developers and fans) expected. That wouldn't be so bad if we weren't also so far behind the performance (speed, size, stabilty, quality, market share etc.) that the same people expected and expect.

The "1.0" document by Brendan Eich is a good start, I think. We need a date and a set of features and performance metrics to shoot for. We need to be aware that all of these may not be met, but we need to list them and write them down and then start working towards them. The date can't be pushed around forever because what happens then is what has been happening in the past couple of years: developers lose hope, the product loses market share (product being "Netscape & Mozilla" - you know what I mean) and the project loses credibility.

If this insults someone, developers in particular, I'm sorry. That's not my intention. I see problems with the project, as I've done for a long time. I want to see those problems fixed. I have absolutely no interest in just plain and simple diss Mozilla. I don't believe anyone on this site has. It's clear that people experience Mozilla in different ways, however, but that can be a strength.

Roblimo certainly gets some details wrong in that article http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=01/10/20/1841215 . his description of volunteer Mozilla contributors as people working `for free' for Netscape is as silly as describing any Linux kernel hacker as someone working `for free' for Red Hat, or any BSD hacker as someone working `for free' for Apple. He understates the impact of the initial Mozilla code release being basically unusable, and of the 1999 decision to rewrite Mozilla from scratch. And he has his dates wrong, implying that Netscape was already an AOL subsidiary by the time the Mozilla code was released. However, his main complaint -- the lack of autonomy of those running the Mozilla Project -- is definitely valid, and I think that lack of independence is the main reason for the failure of the project thus far.

Lest I be accused of trolling, I hurry to note that by `failure' I don't mean the complete death of Mozilla through being unable to forestall Microsoft's hegemony on the Web such that the DOM, CSS, and eventually HTML and HTTP become Microsoft-only closed standards which are prohibitively difficult to keep up with. (That might be true, but it will take another five years or so before we can tell. The most important bugs filed in Bugzilla currently aren't the crasher bugs, or the performance bugs, or the API freeze bugs, or even the user interface bugs; they're the Tech Evangelism bugs.) By `failure' I mean that after three and a half years, the Mozilla browser is roughly equivalent in quality to Microsoft's Internet Explorer 4.0 browser, which was released just over four years ago. (Mozilla is way ahead on standards compliance and number of supported platforms, which most users don't care about; and it's way behind on performance and user interface quality, which most users do care about.) To be sure, Mozilla may be catching up in many respects, but it may not be catching up fast enough to make a difference.

The lack of an independent Mozilla Foundation or similar http://foundation.gnome.org/ , with a basic constitution http://www.debian.org/devel/constitution and a clear goal (e.g. `to build the best and most widely-ported Web browser in the world'), has (directly or indirectly) caused a number of systemic problems in Mozilla development. A few examples.

* The Mozilla Organization is funded largely by a single Mozilla distributor, one which currently does not add very much closed-source value to Mozilla, with the result that the Mozilla Organization has to tread lightly to avoid the appearance of competition with that distributor. Instead of being honest about this, Mozilla staff have created a `Mozilla is not for end users' meme, backed up by incorrect claims that an open-source user community is incapable of providing its own marketing http://linux.com/ or technical support http://www.debian.org/support . By itself, I wouldn't mind any of that -- *except* that `Mozilla is not for end users' has become an excuse to have a Heath-Robinson-style user interface, something which no Mozilla distributors have the skills and resources to fix in their own versions. So Mozilla distributions languish for lack of usability.

* For the same reason of avoiding competition, the mission of the Mozilla Organization is not to `coordinate the development of a great Web browser', but (rather hand-wavingly) to `act as the virtual meeting place for the Mozilla code' http://mozilla.org/mission.html . This provides leeway for the Mozilla CVS trunk to host distractions such as IRC clients and Web page editors -- and yes, I *do* think that if those weren't in the Mozilla trunk then the other parts of Mozilla would develop more quickly.

* Mozilla's bug database system is modelled on the previous Netscape bug database, so it was inadvertently designed with closed-source development assumptions built in. The idea of default assignees and QA contacts for components, for example, makes sense when one person is paid to fix/verify all the bugs in a given component --- but it is harmful if trying to attract volunteer contributors. http://groups.google.com/groups?selm=39E31EC3.85CE0AF5%40student.canterbury.ac.nz In addition, many new contributors are under the impression that all they have to do is attach a patch to the bug report, when the Mozilla Project actually puts much greater demands on them than that; again, this would be much less of a problem if Mozilla was closed-source and programmers were being paid to get their patches checked in.

I'm sure this situation will get better over time, that these problems are just the growing pains of a community struggling towards independence. But currently, the Mozilla Project is of most use for an example of how not to run an open-source project, secondly for its bug database software, and thirdly for its Web browser.

-- mpt

Why not discuss it on Newsforge's boards? That would seem more appropriate, seeing as it's their content.

Gerv

n/t

"And, if "some PHB" at Netscape is really questioning the need for mozilla.org and and open development model, maybe now is the time for mozilla.org to put out a call for more developers. To me that sounds hard, since anyone who is interested in Mozilla would already be contributing. Maybe there should be a more concerted effort to lower the bar for new developers, that means better documentation, etc. etc., so a solution is not easy."

The Patchmaker is a start. I've even downloaded Activestate Perl and Cygwin because of it. (Though actual contribution requires a surfeit of CFT ;-)

Here's a question: What does the mozilla.org infrastructure cost? What does Netscape pay? (Estimates would be reasonable answers, since those who know almost certainly can't say.) What would it cost to set up sufficient infrastructure outside Netscape?

Well, then, show of hands... who *would* write Mozilla code if only there were some landmark, some way in, some documentation? If enough people indicate that their help is blocked only by lack of documentation, if the Netscape engineers had some guarrentee of help if they only documented, made it eay for people to help, then they might do just that.

If Mozilla baked pies then that would fix some of those bugs about food not being available.

IIRC they've been doing BiDi support.

Just because some or even most people don't pay attention to something doesn't mean it isn't important. I happen to pay attention to voting. Voting is one way to get a bug on my radar and having your pet bug on my radar is probably a good thing.

--Asa

Oops, so you can read it

http : // www.msn.com / I_wont_buy_Windows_XP_until_you_give_Mozilla_access_to_MSN

Speaking of which.. I have changed Mozilla's UserAgent (UA) to spoof as IE5.5 and 6 for windows, and it looks terrible, then for IE5 for Mac, and it loads very similar to ie6 (minus bg and text changes do to MS crappy coding), also have tried as ns6.1 you can also get in, and it looks good.. about the same as the spoof for IE5 Mac.. wierd...

I did this quite easily with a "useragent toolbar" made for Mozilla, that allows you to change your UA.. It's pretty cool.. once you change your UA, just open a new window (CTRL-N) and it works.. PLEASE don't permanatly change your UA.. as we need people to see we are using mozilla... but it is good for getting into sites that are ie only (www.msn.com), to prove they work fine on Mozilla.

UserAgent ToolBar (LINK)

Please USE WISELY!!

Cheers --Jedbro

http://news.cnet.com/news/0-1005-200-7660935.html

Here is a summary:

open Chatzilla:

/attach moznet /join bugweek /nick <your nickname>

other IRC client:

/server irc.mozilla.org:6667

To Leave/remove channel

/delete /Leave

type away, Cheers :)

-dennis

My Fault for not reading every link about Chatzilla,

New people see page: http://www.mozillaquest.com/stories/ChatZiilla02_Story01-03.html

Next for your ChatZilla demo, please type /attach moznet in the edit (input) box. That will connect your ChatZilla client to the Mozilla Organization IRC network. Likely a box will pop up when you do that and it will ask you to type in and enter a nickname that you want for your name on IRC. Once you are connected to moznet, a view button labeled "moznet" will appear on the view bar next to the "client" view button.

Next link of story:

http://www.mozillaquest.com/stories/ChatZiilla02_Story01-05.html

"You can join several channels. Try typing /join #chatzilla to join the #chatzilla channel on moznet. After you join #chatzilla you should notice a "chatzilla" view button added to the View bar with a yellow light."

instead of /join #chatzilla use: /join #bugweek

-Cheers

Dennis

Well, you don't seem to be interested in responding to what I'm actually saying, which is that volunteer-based opens ource projects have never achieved a level of user friendliness which people have come to expect from commercial software. Programs which have come close to current usability standards, such as Nautilus, Mozilla and StarOffice, have all been heavily subsidized by commercial developers, rather than being largely volunteer-developed. I didn't see a single word in your message that spoke to this issue.