Trade Union Website Promotes Mozilla FirebirdFriday November 28th, 2003Eric Lee writes: "The international trade union news service LabourStart has begun promoting Mozilla Firebird as the best browser for trade unionists. LabourStart's website has more than 125,000 unique visitors per month, and the site's news is syndicated to nearly 520 other trade union websites. LabourStart is published in 11 languages and is maintained by a network of over 220 volunteer correspondents. "Mozilla Firebird is being promoted both as a better alternative to Microsoft Internet Explorer and also to encourage the adoption of the Mycroft plug-in which allows searching of LabourStart's database. This is the first time that a major trade union website has suggested the use of Mozilla Firebird to its readers but LabourStart has often pioneered this kind of thing in the past, including a very successful promotion two years ago of a customized version of Opera. Next week, Mozilla Firebird will receive an additional boost when LabourStart's 16,200 email subscribers are invited to download the software." Has labourstart been mozillazined? What does it mean for a browser to be better for trade unionists? I mean, if I'm a carpenter but not in a union, does that mean the browser isn't very good for me? While I support the spread of Mozilla.org products, the spin in this one seems a bit ludicrous. I guess it's just the fact that Firebird is a better browser and unions are supposed to do what's best for their members so why not promote it? Are you really that blind? Do you believe m$ is good for the working man? Does m$ share the same goals as a labor union??? And finally, which organization more closely fits the utopian socialist model employed by the labor movement- mozilla or m$? Please think just a little before you make silly posts. Considering the huge number of people Microsoft employs worldwide, and the sizeable benefits and job quality most of them receive, I don't think that's exactly a fair assessment. And do you know any company that "shares the same goals as a labor union"? Dealing with unions is seen as a necessary evil by most. I've always been a bit suspect whenever people try to equate open-source with socialism; they're not necessarily mutually related. Not that I have anything against most socialist idealism, mind you. I guess that's why a couple of years ago M$ lost a class action lawsuit in which M$ had employed numerous individuals as "temporary" or "part-time", some only 1 hour below full-time, all to get out of paying any kind of benefits to these individuals. Are you really that blind? Do you believe m$ is good for the working man? Does m$ share the same goals as a labor union??? And finally, which organization more closely fits the utopian socialist model employed by the labor movement- mozilla or m$? Please think just a little before you make silly posts. I think you misunderstood the intention of his post. I don't think he meant anything like that, he was just saying that he doesn't see how Firebird is any better for a trade unionist than it is for a regular user so it seems odd that they're saying it would be excellent for trade unionists. I hope they use the unofficial installer so there aren't 50039404 posts to MZ about how Flash doesn't work... "I hope they use the unofficial installer so there aren't 50039404 posts to MZ about how Flash doesn't work..." Unfortunately, they aren't pointing to the installer which I'm sure is going to confuse a lot of people who don't understand that you have to unzip the package to a new folder to use it. If Firebird is intended to be an end-user product the installer option has to be added to the download page NOW. Not to be a party-pooper, but after a few minutes of using FB 0.7, I prompted deleted it and got back to 0.6.1+ (the unofficial patched version) and hasn't seen any reason to get a new nightly since. There've been far too many bugs lately that seem destined to remain open for months to come. It'd be far better for sites to host 0.6.1+. I'm surprised by this. Although I'm an avid Firebird user myself, and have been for over a year now, I don't think that Firebird is ready for primetime. With the number of bugs that are present, and the lack of a working installer (the current installer is very buggy), I don't feel good about recommending it to anyone who isn't already technically competent with computers. Although I personally prefer Firebird over Seamonkey, on one of the sites I manage (http://www.munuc.org) I point to Mozilla (Seamonkey), not to Firebird because its a far more polished product. Once Firebird has a good Win32 installer (hopefully the installer will be mostly bug free by 0.8), with proper uninstall support, I'll feel a lot better about recommending it to friends. Even then, that may not be enough. It depends largely on how well the code is cleaned up (read: not too many bugs) for milestone releases. Do labor unions promote socialist utopianism? That is a risky claim at best. If M$ pays good wages (which I hear that they do), they do support the goals of the working man -- to get rich. Quality will win the day, gents. M$ products are inferior because they are annoying, buggy, not standards compliant, not because they are produced by a company interested in making money. |