Trunk Freezes for Mozilla 1.7 Beta at Midnight Pacific Standard Time TonightTuesday March 9th, 2004In a newsgroup message about the Mozilla 1.7 Beta freeze, Asa Dotzler writes: "Yep, we're there again. The Mozilla 1.7 Beta freeze happens this Tuesday night at midnight. Beta is last-chance for changes that impact localizations so get those string changing fixes and features landed ASAP or let drivers@mozilla.org know if you're going to have trouble getting them in before Beta. "For more scheduling information, check out the roadmap and release status pages." I heard FTP upload GUI is making it in, maybe? Please? From what I see in http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24867 it looks like no major changes have been made to implement FTP upload for 1.7a. However, comment #128 clearly says that someone is going to try to get it (the GUI interface for FTP upload) in by 1.7b. Don't hold your breath, though. P.S. Comment #118 introduces a JavaScript page that proports to allow rudimentary upload capability with the current browser. I've never tried it, though. After reading that bug, it certainly sounds like the uploading UI will make the cut for beta. mkaply already started checking in some of the basic stuff, and I assume the rest will be coming in the next few days. Also, choffman is one of the drivers and he's nominated the bug as blocking the beta, so there is clearly real interest in getting this landed. <http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=40873> In my opinion, important features are being left unattended in the rush to meet an arbitrary roadmap. Much effort is being expended creating fixes to minor problems that are popping up with the changes going on as a result of other minor changes...e.g. Mozilla nightly would not download Mozilla nightly builds (or download from a number of other web sites) due to some changes that crept into Moz, but not the Fox or Camino fortunately. Today's build will now download today's build at last. I am concerned that things are being left undone simply to "get it out the door". A lot of work is happening on core architecture at the moment. I wouldn't call those "minor changes". Yeah, you, as a user, probably see no obvious effect from the changes, except that the browser gets smaller, faster, easier to add features to. And frankly, the definition of important feature varies _very_ widely. One person's important feature is another's worst nightmare, often enough. The roadmap is not arbitrary. All of the other app's milestones depend on the Mozilla milestones. It's important to get 1.7 out on time because Firefox 1.0 will be based on Mozilla 1.7. So if 1.7 is late that complicates thing for Firefox. The devs are more concerned with 1.7 being a solid milestone rather than a feature rich milestone. From the firefox roadmap: "We need to focus on superior stability which means we can't really afford to wait until the dust settles on 1.8 mid year to see whether or not we have stable bits. By 1.0 time mid-year any critical issues with 1.7 should have been identified and we believe it will be a safer platform on which to release software." Thank you for proving my point. They are in a rush to get it out the door for the reasons you stated. It would be much, much better to get it right than to simply get it out the door. This is, after all, Moz 1.7, not 0.7! I still would not say they are rushing. I'd say they are limiting the scope of what they can add and/or fix to get it out on time. But the drawback to that is what Boris said about bugs being pushed back to 1.8 that should be done in 1.7. Rushing would imply they are fixing things and not checking their fixes for bugs or fixing things half-assed. The work they are doing will still be of the same quality they are cutting quantity to fit the timeframe. I would guess that maybe something things from 1.8 may get pushed to the firefox 1.0 branch after 1.7 is released and before firefox 1.0 is released. Sort of like when Firefox 0.8 was delayed and some of the fixes to the trunk also went to the 0.8 branch. So then firefox 1.0 maybe considered to be using 1.7.1. You just keep digging a deeper and deeper hole for yourself. The are rushing things and putting out a half-assed, untested product, to use your expression. Just use some of the recent builds that were pretty awful. If they are leaving things out that were supposed to be in 1.7 that, more or less by definition, is rushing things to meet a deadline. What is the big deal if the arbitrary, and it is arbitrary, roadmap/deadline is not met? Although some things in the Fox are OK, it is, as yet, a crude implementation of Moz. The Fox team is a very long way from generating a browser that is the equal of Moz. A slip in their rush to 1.0 is no big deal. If they hang a 1.0 on anything even remotely like the present builds it will be something of a joke calling it 1.0. > If they are leaving things out that were supposed to be in 1.7 Not "supposed" to be. "Would be nice if they were", rather. And I would have felt more like "supposed" about it if I had known that FF was planning to ship 1.0 off that branch. That said, they will _not_ be basing 1.0 on 1.7_beta_ but on 1.7. Keep in mind that the next several weeks are devoted precisely to ironing out whatever issues may exist in current builds as a result of the major changes that happened in alpha and beta. I am not going to quible with you about "should be" versus what you now say is "would be nice" as it is not going to happen in either event. I remain concerned about the management of the Moz et al project as it seems, to me, to be without focus or clear objectives. The "bug" I referenced (in my view it is not actually a "bug", but a missing feature/capability) has been dragging on for a very long time. The voting system seems an unlikely management tool for things that need to be done. While I like Moz in many ways, it has yet to improve upon the capabilities/features of IE (yes, I know that there are many technical problems with IE) which is a shame as I would have hoped that the purpose of the entire project would have been to make a browser that is, simply put, better. IE remains my "default" browser because of these shortcomings although I normally browse in Moz. Cheers > it is not actually a "bug", but a missing feature/capability Well spotted. Would you say that it's more or less important than an actual bug; say something that screws up rendering of sites, causes the browser to crash or leads to dataloss? Since your argument appears to be "this bug is old and so should have been fixed", I assume you will be happy for people to stop working on new issues like those described to ensure that all bugs with numbers < 100000 get fixed? You do realise that there are only a limited number of people working on the browser with a finite amount of time to spend on coding? In this particular case, I would expect that from a random selection of 10 confirmed bugs from the Browser component of bugzilla, I personally would consider ~7 of those bugs more important than the bug you linked to. What you consider important is very much a matter of perspective. > it has yet to improve upon the capabilities/features of IE Did you really mean "It lacks one feature in IE that I use"? I'm sure other people wiill quite happily list dozens of features that Mozilla has but IE lacks. Whether you consider those to be more or less important than the features that IE has but Mozilla lacks is really a matter of perpsective. > The voting system seems an unlikely management tool for things that need to be done The voting system is no such thing. In fact I consider the voting system irrelevant; I don't recall any bug being fixed specifically because it had votes. I guess drivers might look at votes occasionally, but as far as I know there haven't been many bugs fixed simply because lots of people voted for them. In fact, some bugs that lots of people voted were requests for non-standard behaviour or features that would be detrimental to the browser in some other way. > I remain concerned about the management of the Moz et al project Well tell drivers@mozilla.org, since they're the ones doing the managing. Bear in mind, however that many of the people working on Mozilla (bz, for example) are doing so in their free time and, as such are entitled to work on whatever they please. I suppose that you could raise concerns about the stuff that Mozilla Foundation employees are working on, but if your complaint amounts to "there are bugs I want fixed, and no one's working on them! Waah", I wouldn't expect it to get far. Of course it would have helped if the firefox people had bothered to COMMUNICATE any of this to the people not working on Firefox. Perhaps some of that solidity would have been focused on a little more, then. As it is, I know that there are several bugs I pushed off to 1.8 that I would have aimed to fix in 1.7 instead had I known Firefox was planning to realease 1.0 off the 1.7 branch... Really? Wow, it seems like Ben posted this info just about everywhere, I guess you were waiting for a private e-mail? Anyway, sorry that didn't happen. Does Ben know about these "several bugs" you "pushed off to 1.8"? If not, how hard would an e-mail be? ( ben@bengoodger.com ) I don't mean to gripe. But I see devs always complaining about communication problems, and yet have never seen nor heard of any one from EITHER side do anything in that respect. Maybe a polite e-mail to Ben saying your interested in the future of Firfox in relation to mozilla suite hacking, would clear up this whole issue!? ============= Fx Roadmap: ( http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap.html ) Once feature complete is reached with 0.9, which will be based on 1.7, it is likely that we will create a FIREFOX_1_0_BRANCH and not return to the trunk before 1.0. We need to focus on superior stability which means we can't really afford to wait until the dust settles on 1.8 mid year to see whether or not we have stable bits. By 1.0 time mid-year any critical issues with 1.7 should have been identified and we believe it will be a safer platform on which to release software. He didn't post it everywhere - it was posted on the Firefox web pages (the bit you quoted was only added a couple of weeks ago) and in the Firefox forums. My impression is that developers on the core/seamonkey side don't generally see a need to be looking up stuff about Firefox. And Ben isn't too bothered about what happens on the core side, as long as it works well enough for him to release Firefox on top of. I don't see this is a huge issue - I guess the plan is for Firefox to return to the trunk some time after 1.0, and at that point it will pick up the improvements that have happened in the mean time. The only question I'd have is over the timing of Firefox. Using 1.7 and not 1.8 assumes that the Firefox bits will actually be ready before 1.8 is. If we see a 1.7-based Firefox 1.0 shipping a month after Mozilla 1.8 final, that won't be so great. > Wow, it seems like Ben posted this info just about everywhere I didn't see any posts to any gecko-related newsgroups. I didn't see any posts to any of the module owner or reviewer lists. I saw no announcements on mozilla.org. I see nothing on Ben's blog. I see no announcement in the mozilla.org weekly updates. Where _was_ this posted other than firefox-specific forums and the firefox roadmap? (By the way, the roadmap was only updated _very_ recently to have this info -- on Feb 23. That would have been far too late to actually attempt to get the relevant changes into 1.7 even if I happened to find out that the roadmap had gotten updated. Which was ALSO not really announced, now was it?) > I guess you were waiting for a private e-mail I'm hardly the only person working on gecko. So I would have expected some attempt to contact most of the people doing such work and let them know what the situation is. > Does Ben know about these "several bugs" you "pushed off to 1.8"? I've certainly cced him on the ones he may be able to do something about. In fact I did so back when they were filed. In any case, at this point it simply doesn't matter. Those bugs are not getting fixed till 1.8a -- the changes required are too risky to go into the trunk at this point. > Maybe a polite e-mail to Ben saying your interested in the future of Firfox I'm sort of assuming that the numerous mails I've sent him on various issues of file handling sort of make that interest clear... bz, Thanks for the response. I really appreciate how quick you are to responding. I guess since I am a frequent forum visitor (thought you were too) and that I had seen that "all around" it seems, you would have to. Bad assumption on my part. sorry. True, I also agree that BEN and co should be in better contact with the core moz devs. I guess my only point was I tend to see this come from both sides, and this not being a one-sided issue. Do you personally have any insight on what needs to be done to get this communication going? Has anyone confronted Ben and co on the issues? >>I'm sort of assuming that the numerous mails I've sent him on various issues of file handling sort of make that interest clear... Glad to know, thanks. Now I know the ball is running in his court for these issues then. Thanks again for the response, and congrats on the: "Boris Zbarsky is our top bug resolver having personally put to rest over 7,700 bugs..." That is extremely impressive! I am most greatfull for all your mozilla related work (as an end user). Cheers -Jed > Do you personally have any insight on what needs to be done to get this communication going? Just a matter of making it a priority to have some communication.... I tend to cc ben on bugs I think he should be aware of; it'd be nice to get some sense of what firebird's needs are in return. > Now I know the ball is running in his court for these issues then. Actually, those issues have been resolved. Ben's quite responsive if someone takes the initiative and mails him. The problem in this case is that there _was_ no way to take the initiative on something that was simply not known to exist.... > "Boris Zbarsky is our top bug resolver having personally put to rest over 7,700 bugs..." Eh? Where's that from? That's an overestimate by 71 bugs or so.... ;) #29 Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: How about this "bug"??by mlefevre Thursday March 11th, 2004 5:05 PM That's from Asa's blog - http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/005028.html this RFE you link too, while it will be real nice to have, is really not a show stopped. mozaill current does save whole webpages, maube not in one file, but its definitely good enough. i'd rather they work on stability/speed/extensibility issues so the 1.0's of the standalone programs are excellent quality. > Much effort is being expended creating fixes to minor problems http://axolotl.mozilla.org/graph/graph.cgi?tbox=btek&testname=pageload&autoscale=1&size=&days=0&units=<ype=&points=&showpoint=2004:03:06:05:57:05,866&avg=1 - you know what this means? And you know that darin's recent string changes reduced Mozilla's size by several hundred kilobytes? And you know that all of this is the effect of lots of work in lots of bug reports you most probably never have looked at? (once again giving examples for a comment by bz) You can't imagine how useless I consider the feature requested in bug 40873. Where do you need such a single file, where having several files doesn't work and zipping them up doesn't work either?? I have been taking a great interest in the progress of the FTP Upload GUI from the bug mails in the last few days. I'm keeping my finger crossed. But I am also having another great interest to the bug #117532 (UI Pref to prevent sites from taking over context menu), it is going to be check in shortly but who know how long because of the bickering over the wording. Both of these are a great news for us all. Zook I have been taking a great interest in the progress of the FTP Upload GUI from the bug mails in the last few days. I'm keeping my finger crossed. But I am also having another great interest to the bug #117532 (UI Pref to prevent sites from taking over context menu), it is going to be check in shortly but who know how long because of the bickering over the wording. Both of these are a great news for us all. Zook I have been taking a great interest in the progress of the FTP Upload GUI from the bug mails in the last few days. I'm keeping my finger crossed. But I am also having another great interest to the bug #117532 (UI Pref to prevent sites from taking over context menu), it is going to be check in shortly but who know how long because of the bickering over the wording. Both of these are a great news for us all. Zook I see so many comments that people feel that the developers are rushing things just to get things out there. But, like every development project, this project has deadlines. And some features or fixed just might not land before the deadlines. It's as simple as that. The Mozilla releases have been majorly delayed in the past, and they just want to stick to the roadmap and the planning now. All of those who are involved with Mozilla (planning, developing, bugreporting, everything) are doing their job and I'm sure they're are doing their best too. I agree! Beside Mozilla is for development purpose, not for the end user which Firefox is intended for. Zook P.S. Sorry for the duplicate posting... That doesn't make a lot of sense - Firefox is based on Mozilla. If there's a bug that takes a lot of fixing in the back-end, then the chances are if it doesn't get fixed in the next few days, it won't get fixed before Firefox 1.0. |