eWeek Reports on New Mozilla RoadmapWednesday April 30th, 2003Peter Lairo wrote in to tell us that eWeek has a report about the new Mozilla Development Roadmap. The article, which is mostly accurate, outlines the changes proposed in the new plan and evaluates their likely effects. eWeek describes the new strategy as "overwhelmingly positive" but does express concern that the stronger module ownership model could slow down innovation. Jim Rapoza , in this article also mentions the old source becoming a competitor. Now this is an interesting prospect. What does this statement mean ? I dont think the old code would be worked on as a "everything but a kitchen-sink" browser. Though that approach is good enuff, the individual projects will help to make moz a lean and mean browser But what's to prevent further work on the Mozilla Application Suite? As Jim Rapoza points out, it's open source, and developers can work on it if they want. Even if nearly no work is done on it, it will live on in the 1.4 branch, so users might use it instead of Firebird or Thunderbird. The old Mozilla Application Suite will compete to some degree with Firebird/Thunderbird. Got it? The old suite would compete ineffectively, if at all. What was obvious even 5 years ago was that the suite approach is a very, very bad idea. It's impossible to overstate the importance of focus. Now that Mozilla may finally be increasing focus back on the browser, the browser will leave the current browser-as-suite-somponent in the dust. I think there will be less focus on all the individual components, at least in the short term, as focus will shift towards bringing the Firebird XUL code into the trunk, removing the #ifdefs from the C++ code, simplifying the Gecko code, and doing lots of other reorganization and cleaning of code http://www.mozillazine.org/weblogs/jkeiser/archives/2003_04.html . There will likely be few features added and possibly significant regression in functionality until this work stabilizes. Meanwhile, the 1.4 branch will be stable code that is becoming more stable all the time. Mozilla 1.4.x will probably also be the recommended download for new Mozilla users... Mozilla 1.0.2 is still the recommended download for "timid" users, even a year after that code branched. So it's less an issue of browser vs. suite as much it is an issue of stable vs. relatively experiemental code. Hmm, you make good points, athough I can't imagine 1.4 being the recommended build for new Mozilla Users. I would be MUCH more confident in directing them to the latest FireBird release (0.6, 0.7), that way they won't get screwed when they have to jump from 1.4 to the new 1.5. Just my 2 cents. Seeing how the "Mozilla Firebird" community has grown, I think it will leave Mozilla 1.4 in the dust (although for embeders, application makers, etc. 1.4 will be the only option) I'm not sure that I'd be willing to recommend very development versions of a browser to _really_ new users (think "my parents" here). Once Mozilla Firebird reaches 1.0, perhaps. But Seamonkey 1.4 is very much a mature piece of software, while Mozilla Firebird is not (yet). Each hath its advantages, of course, for different audiences.... But maybe people want an application suite? Companies are moving to Web Applications, and Seamonkey is very good for that. Plus it have a usefull Help section :) I think people are overestimating Firebird. "But maybe people want an application suite?" If multiple applications make up a suite (such as, say, Microsoft Office), it can still be a suite in the users' eyes. I use Mozilla as a browser and for mail, and I'd still prefer separate apps. pbreit, you said: "The browser that has 100% focus from its development team will always beat the browser that has 20% (or 50% or 75% or even 95%)." The same group of people who worked on Mozilla browser will work on Firebird browser. Those who worked on Mozilla Mail will work on Mozilla mail. In the Mozilla suite developers focused on conponents such as Mail or browser. The Mozilla browser has always recieved 100% attention from its developemnt team. It is very likely that most of those who worked on Mozilla browser will work on Firebird while those who worked on Mozilla mail will work on Thunderbird. The browser has always recieved 100% from its development team. I do not see more developers working on the browser with the new roadmap since there are developers who work on mail and with continue there. You are wrong if you believe with the new roadmp that suddenly all of the developers who were working on the Mozilla suite will suddenly work only on the browser, i.e. Firebird. You may be correct with your statement if you restate it to say"now 100% of Mozilla browser development resources will focus on one browser, Firebird, as opposed to dividing the resources between the Mozilla browser and Phoenix (now Firebird). I can not see how there will be more development team resources for the browser in the new roadmap, unless the roadmap is changed so that all the other apps (mail, chat, composer, etc) are dropped and only the browser developed. (This is not happening and I hope it never does.) Don't tell him that. He's quite happy in his little fantasy world, and hopefully it will stop him hijaking every other topic here with posts about Mozilla 'failing' because they didn't just concentrate on the browser. Logic might consider the realities of browser distribution which say Microsoft has 80% of the market and the rest is a fight between Gecko, Opera and lately KHTML based products. Reason might also invoke the observation that Gecko browsers are more widely used then Opera's browsers despite that fact that they are a browser-only company. But ignoring any of that, I can quite safely say that switching all the Mozilla-browser developers to Mozilla Browser will make all the difference, and we can expect 95% market share within two weeks of 1.5 being released. Splitting the a product into several products does not remove the suite. Still it is possible to bundle them in one installation with options to select. Yeah to echo what vgendler said, I had heard that Firebird would be distributed individually at first and would eventually replace the Mozilla browser in a "suite" style bundle with Thunderbird and some other (optional) addon components. So there will still be a "suite" version past 1.4, and it sounded like Firebird will also be available as an individual download too, which IMHO is a good way to do things. They don't. Never have, never will. The browser that has 100% focus from its development team will always beat the browser that has 20% (or 50% or 75% or even 95%). Mozilla Firebird will not be getting "100% of the focus from its development team" if by "its development team" you mean "everyone who checks in to cvs.mozilla.org". But why d I bother trying to explain the situation to you? You clearly either don't want to listen, or don't want to hear. he/she is saying that the browser that has more developement time will beat the browser with less developement time and that in the post-1.4 future firebird will have more developement time and it will be better and so there will be little competition. > he/she is saying that the browser that has more developement time will beat the > browser with less developement time That's most certainly not what "phreit" is saying. In fact, I do not see anyone saying it.... As for the post-1.4 future, we shall see. I certainly hope that Mozilla Firebird gets some development time -- it's sorely needed. we use moz browser, mail/news, and addressbook; working on getting composer some action; and will use calendar once it matures. IOW, yeah, we use it like a suite. but as long as it's possible to d/l and install all the components in a single operation, and they still ineract well, i'm not sure it matters if they're physically joined at the hip or not. It's nice to see an article not focusing on the roadmap and not about the name controversy. I just read the article and am still kind-of worried about my favorite part of mozilla, composer. It didn't mention this handy little tool, does anyone have any insight into the fate of composer? From what I have read Composer will become a stand-alone application that runs off of the GRE, just like Mozilla Firebird and Mozilla Thunderbird. I'm sure there will be more news on this as Mozilla moves to version 1.5 (which is when this big change is going to start to happen). and it definitely has to be called Stravinsky. there is no need for a name thread on this. Actually, I think Mozart may be a better option. Of course that could just be the "Moz" similarity. Nothing against Mozart, but Igor Stravinsky composed the music to the Russian ballet The Firebird, go check it out at your local record store. I seems that he is trying to tie the Firebird Browser and Stravinsky Composer names together, along with the soviet communist propaganda theme. They all fit together nicely. Umm, I'm sure he meant the first two, but Soviet imagery and Stravinsky would be entirely unrelated, as Stravinsky left Russia permanently before the Bolsheviks took power; he never supported them and only visited Russia once more in his life, in 1961. How else are you supposed to compose an email? On the other hand, it's nice to be able to edit a web page from the browser with ctrl+e. This whole new roadmap is stupid waste of time and effort > How else are you supposed to compose an email? By having the basic editing code living in the GRE, since it's needed for browser too (textareas, midas). > On the other hand, it's nice to be able to edit a web page from the browser with > ctrl+e. Which could now run your system default HTML editor; if you set that to be Composer, it will be composer. How else are you supposed to compose an email? On the other hand, it's nice to be able to edit a web page from the browser with ctrl+e. This whole new roadmap is stupid waste of time and effort How else are you supposed to compose an email? On the other hand, it's nice to be able to edit a web page from the browser with ctrl+e. This whole new roadmap is stupid waste of time and effort How else are you supposed to compose an email? On the other hand, it's nice to be able to edit a web page from the browser with ctrl+e. This whole new roadmap is stupid waste of time and effort Sorry about all those repeated posts, not sure what happened there You should be more sorry for your ignorant statements about the roadmap. If you answer politely. Obviously Mozilla Thunderbird will still be able to compose html email, and there will probably be a way to pass off a document to whatever composer turns into (I recall the roadmap being pretty vauge about composer, although that might be my faliure to read it correctly). I know that, you know that, so why not just say 'composing html email in Mozilla Thunderbird will still be possible'. It's painful to watch Mozilla-Firebird fanatics flame people who express a use for the integrated suite features and moreover, it doesn't help anyone. Thumperaward did the same thing when Johann_P suggested that integrated 'communhication centre' type applications will become increasingly common - it was totally unnecessary and gives the impression that a lot of the Mozilla Firebird users are petty children who can't see anyone else's point of view or at best rabid Mozilla haters. > and gives the impression that a lot of the Mozilla Firebird users are petty > children who can't see anyone else's point of view or at best rabid Mozilla > haters. That impression is true, actually. Of course the same is true of a lot of Mozilla users (except the "Mozilla haters" part, maybe). The number of users of either that are somewhat reasonable people is vanishingly small. Umm... you *do* realize that Composer and Mail have *never* been related components, right? Composer = HTML editor. Mail = mail. That's not actually true, at least as far as I know. The front end of composer is basically a tiny piece of code that does composer-oly stuff, whilst the backend of composer is shared between everything else (mail for composition, browser for text areas, particually Midas stuff, and so on). That's why you can't install the browser without composer. Somewhere there's a bug in bugzilla that suggests making composer an optional install, but it's never happened because the composer stuff doesn't really have an existence of it's own. Of course, someone might correct me on this. |