mozilla.org Status Update #225 (March 16, 2004)Tuesday March 16th, 2004The mozilla.org Status Update #225 (March 16, 2004) is now online. It includes news on a Windows installer for Mozilla Thunderbird, Mozilla Firefox profile migration, the Mozilla Firefox Roadmap, branding, JavaScript controls, the IMAP IDLE command, cookies, spoiler protection, Extensible Tag Framework (XTF) and more. s/XFT/XTF I fixed that (hope Alex doesn't mind...) Can anybody tell me what 'OUT for 1.0' in the Firefox roadmap means? I got a bit distressed because I assumed those are things to be removed in the 1.0 release, and I think Page Info is one of the most gloriously amazing things about Firefox, and that some people will discover it and be totally hooked. But then I noticed the list also includes the Bookmarks Manager UI, which (at least it seems to me) the browser obviously couldn't be released without. So can anyone shed any light on what that part of the Roadmap means? I think it means the additional features originally planned for firefox could not make it into 1.0 release. The readily available ones will stay. I think it means that part won't be looked over for the 1.0 as previously planned. Instead they will focus on installer and integration issues if I've understood things correctly. What I don't get is how basically one person from Mozilla staff is working on Firefox and one person on Thunderbird, when Firefox and Thunderbird have been decided 'the way ahead' for Mozilla. Anyone from the foundation who could cast some light on this? Oopps. You wrote it while I wrote it... :-) > What I don't get is how basically one person from Mozilla staff is working on Firefox and one person on Thunderbird, when Firefox and Thunderbird have been decided 'the way ahead' for Mozilla As far as I know, there is no one at the foundtation working on the Seamonkey front-end. Most of the people employed by the foundation are working on the core technology. I'm not sure it's true that "most" are working on the core technology either. We're only talking about 8 or 9 full-time staff, and that includes the "overheads" of running the organisation and all the various build and code management stuff. Firebird, for example, may be mostly one person, but if you include all the "overheads" that are necessary for that one person to be able to spend all their time on the Firebird front-end, we could be talking about 25% of the resources of the organisation. If you look at the credit box in Firebird, you will see that it lists a lot more than just one name. It would be good if the Mozilla folks updated the staff list, so that it reflected who is actually doing what now. It means doing work on those things is "out" of the schedule - i.e. the page info and bookmarks manager, both of which need some work, won't have any significant work done before 1.0. I don't imagine they have any intention of removing those things without a replacement. Aha, thanks for all the speedy answers guys. I really hope they don't remove those things - even as they are some of them are the best parts of Firefox (et Mozilla). On a few occasions I've hit a bit of a brick wall with crappily written websites, like ones that insist on embedding videos really tiny in a bright flashy page, and the Page Info media page has allowed me to grab the actual url to the media. Lovely jubbly! 0.7.1 - Three Kings 0.8 - Royal Oak 0.9 - One Tree Hill Sounds like Ben is home sick :) |