2005-02-28 - Summary of mozilla.org staff meeting
Gervase Markham
-------------------------------------------------
Present: blizzard, bienvenu, hecker, gerv, justdave, mscott, chofmann,
deb, myk, cbeard, rafael, chase, asa, jst.
*Mozilla 1.8b1*
- Shipped :-)
- 1.7.6 this week or next
*Mozilla 1.8 final*
- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
*Firefox 1.0.1 feedback*
- Make front page more clear that 1.0.1 _is_ the security update
- mozilla.org/security should also have an announcement
- Going through the security bounty claims; probably 3 or 4 to pay
- Need dveditz, who's away for two days - hope to do it by the weekend
*Firefox 1.1*
- ben, chofmann, scott going to grind out the plan for 1.1 tomorrow
- Try and predict when the work will be done to get a branch date
- Aiming for June 1st, but this may not be realistic
*Thunderbird 1.1*
- Meeting tomorrow
- Confident of being ready by June
*FOSDEM report*
- l10n community is vibrant and active
- Shooting for near 40 localisations for 1.0.1
- Hitting some scaling and management issues
- CVS account creation for localisers - myk or dave to take care of it
*UMO load*
- In good shape; ready for pushing 1.0.1 to RDF file
- That's going to happen today
- We've got the capacity to deal with the "first week" spike
*DevMo*
- Deb started work today
- Putting together a high-level plan for DevMo
*Volunteer Awards*
- In progress; no concrete plan yet
*IDN/punycode domain spoofing*
- Gerv has a lot of email to read!
*Other*
- Boris Zbarsky and Josh Aas hired part-time until they've finished
school
- We didn't hire Kai (confusion caused by last week's notes)
Gerv
Boris 'pi' Piwinger
>*Mozilla 1.8b1*
>
>- Shipped :-)
>- 1.7.6 this week or next
>
>*Mozilla 1.8 final*
>
>- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
What does that mean? Why have a beta if there will not be a
final?
pi
Chris Ilias
> Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>
>>*Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>
>>- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>
> What does that mean?
It means that 2005-02-28, the mozilla.org staff was unsure about whether
or not to release a 1.8 final release; and they planned to discuss it
the following day (March 1).
> Why have a beta if there will not be a final?
Mainly Gecko testing. I haven't read anything on what the outcome of the
discussion was; so if there's still a possibility of a 1.8 final
release, that's another reason to do a beta.
What /was/ the outcome of that discussion anyway?
--
Chris Ilias - Mozilla Champion
Email - 2004...@ilias.ca
Netscape/Mozilla Links <http://ilias.ca>
Mozilla Help <http://ilias.ca/mozilla/>
asa dotzler
> Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>>*Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>
> What does that mean?
It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications, Firefox and Thunderbird,
and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to maintaining the 1.7
branch with security and stability updates.
> Why have a beta if there will not be a final?
Seamonkey is a fine testbed for Gecko improvements that will be a part of any application
releases that come from the 1.8 branch.
--Asa
Peter Lairo
No, it probably means that the MF doesn't care *as much* about the
Mozilla *Seamonkey* users as it cares about the Mozilla Aviary users. ;-)
Did I just defend the MoFo? Jikes! :-)
--
Regards,
Peter Lairo
The browser you can trust: www.GetFirefox.com
Reclaim Your Inbox: www.GetThunderbird.com
Make my day/year/millenium: www.lairo.com/donations.html
HJ
It means that the Mozilla Foundation don't care about Mozilla users!
/HJ
Boris 'pi' Piwinger
>>>*Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>>- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>>
>> What does that mean?
>
>It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications, Firefox and Thunderbird,
>and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to maintaining the 1.7
>branch with security and stability updates.
But that is pretty frozen feature-wise.
>> Why have a beta if there will not be a final?
>
>Seamonkey is a fine testbed for Gecko improvements that will be a part of any application
>releases that come from the 1.8 branch.
I still don't get that. We have this 1.8 branch. But if it
keeps at beta, won't that limit the quality of application
releases coming from it?
pi
asa dotzler
> asa dotzler <a...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>
>
>>>>*Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>>>- To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>>>
>>>What does that mean?
>>
>>It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications, Firefox and Thunderbird,
>>and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to maintaining the 1.7
>>branch with security and stability updates.
>
>
> But that is pretty frozen feature-wise.
>
Yes, it is.
>>>Why have a beta if there will not be a final?
>>
>>Seamonkey is a fine testbed for Gecko improvements that will be a part of any application
>>releases that come from the 1.8 branch.
>
>
> I still don't get that. We have this 1.8 branch. But if it
> keeps at beta, won't that limit the quality of application
> releases coming from it?
Not really. Having beta releases helps to improve quality.
--Asa
asa dotzler
> Boris 'pi' Piwinger wrote:
>
>> What does that mean? Why have a beta if there will not be a
>> final?
>
> It means that the Mozilla Foundation don't care about Mozilla users!
And that's why I'm putting pretty much all my time right now into trying to get a 1.7.6
release out -- because I don't care about Mozilla users?
We most certainly do care about Mozilla (Seamonkey) users and that's why we're devoting
quite a bit of time and effort to making high quality stability and security releases for
1.7.x users.
--Asa
Larry Belan
Boris,
I don't understand the 'attitude' with MoFo, either.
Let's just look at the Seamonkey 'branch' as Asa put it, the testbed for
future Gecko developments that will go into the 'other' apps. (Fx.Tb,
NVu, etc...)
MoFo has no further interest in maintaining Seamonkey, or the "Mozilla
Suite" beyond the 1.7.x releases.
It's been stated in some of the discussions on mozillazine.org, that the
Suite was NEVER a 'user app'...and MoFo is just beginning to stand on
that call. The suite was to be used by commercial folks (Netscape, IBM,
Linspire, etc.) to enhance and support.
The Suite will eventually die, because MoFo has begun to ignore it.
MoFo wants to focus energy in the "Premiere Apps" (gee, wasn't the
'Suite' the ONLY MoFo application to begin with?)
It's my opinion that, Asa's statement above that "Seamonkey will be used
to 'test' Gecko changes" is to AVOID the hassle of testing with Fx
users...what? Is MoFo afraid to put a bug/glitch/security problem into
a "Premier App" for testing? Geesh....Microsoft does it all the time,
and look where they stand as a company.
I'm concerned that MoFo is interested TOO MUCH about PRODUCTS and
MARKETING, rather than technologies. MoFo is NOT Microsoft, but I
believe that they want to be. If that's the case...they need to hand
off the code so they can worry about products and marketing, something
that MoFo still should NOT be involved in.
Of course, the code should stay within MoFo...the current MoFo
'attitude' needs to fork off into a 'marketing firm.'
I fear the worst, because I feel that something's not going in right
direction, and my interest in MoFo and it's projects are fading. That
truly disturbs me.
--
Larry
HJ
> HJ said on 05.03.2005 20:17:
>
>> Boris 'pi' Piwinger wrote:
>>
>>> Gervase Markham <ge...@mozilla.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>
>>>> *Mozilla 1.8b1*
>>>>
>>>> - Shipped :-)
>>>> - 1.7.6 this week or next
>>>>
>>>> *Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>>>
>>>> - To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>>>
>>>
>>> What does that mean? Why have a beta if there will not be a
>>> final?
>>
>>
>> It means that the Mozilla Foundation don't care about Mozilla users!
>
>
> No, it probably means that the MF doesn't care *as much* about the
> Mozilla *Seamonkey* users as it cares about the Mozilla Aviary users. ;-)
Yeah, we all knew that this was going to happen one day, but my only
hope is that this move isn't going to be the next bad decision from
former AOL/Time Warner employees.
Simon Paquet
>*Other*
>
>- Boris Zbarsky and Josh Aas hired part-time until they've finished
> school
Great news that you hired Boris. IMO he is one of our greatest hackers if
not the greatest and he often doesn't get nearly enough credit for all
his work.
Simon
--
Default QA Contact Firefox - Menus/Toolbars/Installer
My Mozilla blog: http://www.babylonsounds.com/blog.html
Join us on Bugday: Every Tuesday from 10 AM - 6 PM PST in the
#mozillazine channel on irc.mozilla.org
Rickkins
wrote:
>And that's why I'm putting pretty much all my time right now into trying to get a 1.7.6
>release out -- because I don't care about Mozilla users?
>
>We most certainly do care about Mozilla (Seamonkey) users and that's why we're devoting
>quite a bit of time and effort to making high quality stability and security releases for
>1.7.x users.
>
>--Asa
Well, there's little I can add at this point that I haven't already
spewed forth. One can only hope that the millions of folks that
use the suite worldwide aren't foresaken.
Perhaps, perhaps a new direction is called for.
You firefox boys start a seperate 'foundation', "The Firefox
Foundation".
Pass mozilla on to someone who wants to continue the legacy of
Netscape.
Frankly, the suite may best be served by getting it into the hands of
people who actually want it to be the 'main' product...which you guys
by your own admission, don't.
Chris Ilias
> It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications, Firefox and Thunderbird,
> and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to maintaining the 1.7
> branch with security and stability updates.
Asa, I think almost everyone knows where seamonkey stands in terms of
priority, but I think the question of "will there be a 1.8 final
release" needs to be answered in a very direct and simply way:
"yes", "no", or "we haven't decided yet"?
Michael Lefevre
> _asa dotzler_ spoke thusly:
>> It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications, Firefox and Thunderbird,
>> and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to maintaining the 1.7
>> branch with security and stability updates.
>
> Asa, I think almost everyone knows where seamonkey stands in terms of
> priority, but I think the question of "will there be a 1.8 final
> release" needs to be answered in a very direct and simply way:
> "yes", "no", or "we haven't decided yet"?
This would be less of an issue if the roadmap document wasn't 2 years out
of date (with a "temporary" note promising an update which is 5 months out
of date).
Having said that, the roadmap document was updated (in November, prior to
Asa's original blog comment) to say that 1.7 would be the "final stable
branch". As I said elsewhere in this thread, if 1.7 is to be the final
stable branch, it would make a 1.8 release a bit of an orphan, with no
1.9 or 1.8.1 to move up to in the event of security issues.
--
Michael
Serge GAUTHERIE
> As I said elsewhere in this thread, if 1.7 is to be the final
> stable branch, it would make a 1.8 release a bit of an orphan, with no
> 1.9 or 1.8.1 to move up to in the event of security issues.
As I read "stable" as meaning "long lived", being MAS v1.0.x, v1.4.x,
v1.7.x,
I understand easyly that the following "stable" release(s) is FF+TB
v1.0.x, and so on.
Yet, releasing new MAS "end-user(developer/tester, I know !) oriented,
but not intended to be long lived", like v1.8b2, _v1.8f_, v1.9a, v1.9b,
would still be appreciated...
Adam Hauner
> *Firefox 1.1*
> - ben, chofmann, scott going to grind out the plan for 1.1 tomorrow
> - Try and predict when the work will be done to get a branch date
Will be there new QA team for this release? Or could we hope for any
improvement in comparsion with 1.0.1 release problems and 1.7.5 released
regressions?
> - Aiming for June 1st, but this may not be realistic
Define realistic plan, then term and finish work in time. I personally
won't see again tragicomedy of last year, when date of Firefox final
release was running away nearly as fast as time. MF already started to
push term of Firefox 1.1, actually from March to June. Users are asking
on this term and will be bad to lie them again in good faith, that MF
has already experience with terms.
--
Adam Hauner
Michael Lefevre
I don't really see how they can do that... if they release a 1.8 final,
1.7 users will move to it. If it's going to be for developers and testers
only, those people could just grab a nightly build from the 1.8 branch.
--
Michael
Boris Zbarsky
> Frankly, the suite may best be served by getting it into the hands of
> people who actually want it to be the 'main' product...
Absolutely. Do you have people in mind who have time to do this? If so, I'd
love to know who they are. They are sorely needed.
-Boris
Justin Wood (Callek)
Without me knowing well what is involved in "pushing out a release" I
cannot comit myself, though Suite is my, "main product" ;-) And if I am
needed to get a 1.8final for others, I would help best I can.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Simon Paquet
>Frankly, the suite may best be served by getting it into the hands of
>people who actually want it to be the 'main' product...which you guys
>by your own admission, don't.
Why don't you and others, who are not satisfied with the road that the
MoFo has taken, get your act together and *DO* something.
See also http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32
I always hear you guys clamoring how bad the MoFo is and so on, but
nobody actually does something. This will have to change if the Suite
should have a future.
Daniel Herrera
1.7.x, but we still had 1.2.x, 1.3.x, 1.5.x, 1.6.x, official releases.
Adam Hauner
> Why don't you and others, who are not satisfied with the road that the
> MoFo has taken, get your act together and *DO* something.
> See also http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32
> I always hear you guys clamoring how bad the MoFo is and so on, but
> nobody actually does something. This will have to change if the Suite
> should have a future.
Simon, any tip for non-developers? Should I sold house, car etc. and pay
some developer? =) I do sometimes bug triage and I'm active in Czech
Mozilla project. I believe, that my involvement is small help to Mozilla
world, but it doesn't help to save Seamonkey, my most used application.
For others, note comment by Bernd bellow Mike's spot.
--
Adam Hauner
Projekt CZilla
http://www.czilla.cz/
http://firefox.czilla.cz/
Boris Zbarsky
> Without me knowing well what is involved in "pushing out a release"
At least:
1) Tagging the trunk at some point when it's stable (coordinating this with
other trunk Gecko/etc consumers, one hopes).
2) Lots of organized and thorough testing of the branch you created.
3) Filing bugs based on the results of that testing.
4) Getting said bugs fixed on that branch.
5) Writing release notes.
6) Creating builds from the branch.
7) Pushing those builds to the FTP server.
8) Announcing the release.
Asa, please chime in if I missed something through ignorance?
I suspect step #2 is somewhat time-consuming, as are step #4 and step #5.
-Boris
Serge GAUTHERIE
> Michael Lefevre wrote:
>
>> I don't really see how they can do that... if they release a 1.8 final,
>> 1.7 users will move to it. If it's going to be for developers and
>> testers
>> only, those people could just grab a nightly build from the 1.8 branch.
>>
> I also thought "stable" as meaning "long lived" like 1.0.x, 1.4.x,
> 1.7.x, but we still had 1.2.x, 1.3.x, 1.5.x, 1.6.x, official releases.
Exactly !
There are two main issues about a (alpha/beta/final) release versus a
nightly:
1) advertising: which could be very reduced (as it is already), and bear
a clear statement about MAS v1.7.x and FF+TB v1.0.x status toward
"end-users".
2) freezing the tree, testing and fixing it: which is what those of us
who still prefer to stick to MAS for the time being are looking for.
Marco Haefliger
Larry, I'm totally agree with you!
Simon Paquet
>> Why don't you and others, who are not satisfied with the road
>> that the MoFo has taken, get your act together and *DO* something.
>> See also http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32
>> I always hear you guys clamoring how bad the MoFo is and so on, but
>> nobody actually does something. This will have to change if the Suite
>> should have a future.
>
> Simon, any tip for non-developers? Should I sold house, car etc. and
> pay some developer? =)
- Setup a home page to coordinate Seamonkey efforts.
- Write a set of requirements for future releases and find people who
are willing to commit themselves to complete these requirements
- Find someone to be the Seamonkey App Czar or do it yourself
- Ask Asa what would be necessary to bring out a stable Seamonkey
release
and release 1.8 when the time is right
> For others, note comment by Bernd bellow Mike's spot.
I'm sorry for saying this, but Bernd's comment is just the same old
whining that I hear from Seamonkey supporters all the time. Instead
of committing themselves they find reasons why something is not
possible.
Take a look back at how Phoenix was created. It was born, because
some hackers where not satisfied with the course the Suite was taking
and it happened because a few guys did some work in their _free time_.
--
Simon Paquet
HJ
<snip/>
> Take a look back at how Phoenix was created. It was born, because
> some hackers where not satisfied with the course the Suite was taking
> and it happened because a few guys did some work in their _free time_.
This is how I look at it:
1) Phoenix was made out of frustration over Netscape (AOL/Time Warner)
by David Hyatt, later joined by Blake and others.
2) Most of the current Mozilla Firefox developers didn't like this new
concept at start (IRC logs as proof).
3) The Seamonkey frustration could have been avoided IMHO with a working
installer and work that has been done over the last two years.
Yeah, you can (easily) glue Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird and NVU and have
a Seamonkey 2.0 if you like. Just look at the code, open the JAR files,
it is all there and there's still tons of overlapping code...so it is
not impossible, but most likely just *unwanted* by the Mozilla
Foundation, for whatever reason...
/HJ
Larry Belan
The word "UNWANTED" above is the scary one here.
WHY is MoFo NOT interested in using all this code? MoFo should support
ALL the code, not the 'bits & peices' that appeal to the public. That
again is more 'marketing' rather than OSS development and support.
I really have issues with MoFo 'homing in' on a product. They need to
support it all. Let some other 'foundation' do the marketing.
IF I were a coder (which I haven't done in ten years) and had more free
personal time to invest, I would. I could contribute to working on
test cases and triage, but I'd need a bit of help from the younger folks
out there. ;)
--
Larry
Boris Zbarsky
> Simon Paquet wrote:
>> I'm sorry for saying this, but Bernd's comment is just the same old
>> whining that I hear from Seamonkey supporters all the time. Instead
>> of committing themselves they find reasons why something is not
>> possible.
I seem to have misunderstood what comment this was referring to.... It's
referring to Bernd's comment on
<http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32>, apparently.
Simon, my apologies.
That said, I would like to point out that Firefox didn't get to a point where it
was actually shippable until it _did_ have someone working on it full-time and
being paid to do so. Even then, several other Mozilla Foundation employees (jst
and dbaron come to mind) helped out with getting the code into shape to ship.
And now that we're not seeing that level of (paid) involvement, we're in the
situation addressed by Mike's recent blog post at
<http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=37>.
Draw from this what conclusions you will.
-Boris
James Graham
> 2005-02-28 - Summary of mozilla.org staff meeting
> -------------------------------------------------
>
> *Mozilla 1.8 final*
>
> - To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>
I'm not sure that I understand this point. Does "Mozilla" in this
context mean "Seamonkey" or "Gecko"? Presumably there will be a Gecko
1.8 final at some point for FF + TB + other embeddors to base products
on? If so does "not doing" a 1.8 final just mean that Gecko 1.8 won't be
blocked by Seamonkey-only issues, meaning that, subject to a willing and
capable group of volunteers, Seamonkey 1.8 can be finished up after the
Gecko 1.8 release, just like any other Gecko-based product. Or am I
missing something?
Boris Zbarsky
> Yeah, you can (easily) glue Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird and NVU and have
> a Seamonkey 2.0 if you like.
You can't glue Firefox/Thunderbird to NVU as things stand. You'd need to ship
two Geckos....
Perhaps onve NVU lands back on trunk (and the Gecko changes get reviewed,
accepted by the relevant module owners, and merged into the trunk Gecko).
-Boris
Boris Zbarsky
> Adam Hauner wrote on 06.03.2005:
>> For others, note comment by Bernd bellow Mike's spot.
>
> I'm sorry for saying this, but Bernd's comment is just the same old
> whining that I hear from Seamonkey supporters all the time. Instead
> of committing themselves they find reasons why something is not
> possible.
Excuse me for the language, but this is complete and utter bullshit. Mike's
comments were to the effect that there is insufficient developer involvement and
very little involvement at the level needed to be able to review code. Bernd
pointed out (correctly) that the latter was an explicit stated goal of the
Firefox project since its inception, so it's not exactly surprising that it was
achieved.
None of this has anything whatsoever to do with SeaMonkey.
It's not clear to me what you think Bernd is not committing himself to here.
Care to clarify? I look forward most eagerly to your explanation (or apology to
Bernd, as you deem fit).
> Take a look back at how Phoenix was created. It was born, because
> some hackers where not satisfied with the course the Suite was taking
> and it happened because a few guys did some work in their _free time_.
Unlike Bernd, who must be getting paid to have taken on ownership of all the
table layout code, right? Or Mike Connor, who must be getting paid to be the
only Firefox peer who actually reads his bugmail?
-Boris
Robert Kaiser
> for Seamonkey during the 1.8 phase. Especially since the announcement
> that there might only be betas but no final came as an offhand remark in
> someones blog and after some 6 (or 7?) months of 1.8 development.
There will be a final if there's a community willing to do the release.
Help wanted!
Additionally, if you want SeaMonkey to see even further releases, please
help our effort outlined a bit in
http://wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/SeaMonkey:Home_Page
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Adam Hauner wrote on 06.03.2005:
>
>>> Why don't you and others, who are not satisfied with the road that
>>> the MoFo has taken, get your act together and *DO* something.
>>> See also http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32
>>> I always hear you guys clamoring how bad the MoFo is and so on, but
>>> nobody actually does something. This will have to change if the Suite
>>> should have a future.
>>
>>
>> Simon, any tip for non-developers? Should I sold house, car etc. and
>> pay some developer? =)
Basically, we all would love that ;-)
You can also contribute in doing QA for the release, I guess that's one
of the efforts we need. And, of course, you can get into being a
developer - "learning by doing" is the phrase here...
What we badly need is an active core developer group an an "app czar" or
project leader or whatever you call it.
> - Setup a home page to coordinate Seamonkey efforts.
http://wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/SeaMonkey:Home_Page should work well for
coordinating developers. When development is working again, we can look
into other issues.
> - Write a set of requirements for future releases and find people who
> are willing to commit themselves to complete these requirements
The most important requirements are there. We lack people working on
them though (most important seems to be the port to toolkit/xulrunner).
> - Find someone to be the Seamonkey App Czar or do it yourself
That's another big point, correct.
> - Ask Asa what would be necessary to bring out a stable Seamonkey release
> and release 1.8 when the time is right
I think we're basically on a good way (that is, after beta2 and branch
stabilization of Gecko and core stuff) from the stability standpoint and
such things (UI is pretty little changed and therefore quite stable),
but we still need to do good QA and get it out the door, right.
I think I'll create a 1.8 release page on the wiki for planning it.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> At least:
> [...]
Created http://wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/SeaMonkey:1.8_release out of that
post, I think we can use that wiki page to get internal planning for
that release on the way...
Robert Kaiser
Boris Zbarsky
> The most important requirements are there. We lack people working on
> them though (most important seems to be the port to toolkit/xulrunner).
This is currently somewhat blocked by the limbo regarding review rules in
toolkit, as far as I can tell. Specifically, Neil had strong reservations about
moving SeaMonkey to toolkit while it's not clear that toolkit code won't
suddenly get whacked with no review and little testing.
Ccing staff because I recall the issue of "we shouln't need to formally
announce/enforce review as long as module owners do it" being raised. THIS is
the reason we need a formal announcement, if the policy has actually been changed.
Frankly, if Neil and I are not sure what the review rules for toolkit are, that
doesn't say good things to me about general communication issues.... ;)
-Boris
Karsten Düsterloh
> It means that we're focused on shipping our premier applications,
> Firefox and Thunderbird,
Do you /really/ believe that any company/institution that up to now
rolled out Mozilla-the-nearly-complete-and-fully-featured-Web-Suite in
their IT would now happily jump upon the train of having twice the
rollout work for much less features?
> and any efforts we're spending on Seamonkey right now are devoted to
> maintaining the 1.7 branch with security and stability updates.
I still don't understand what's making Seamonkey the Dodo you want us to
believe... And I don't see much structural differences between making a
1.8a/b release and a 1.8f.
>> Why have a beta if there will not be a final?
>
> Seamonkey is a fine testbed for Gecko improvements that will be a
> part of any application releases that come from the 1.8 branch.
<polemic>
Why do you /fear/ that 1.7.x users would be moving to 1.8 instead of
FF/TB, if this couple is oh so magnifiecient?
</polemic>
If people would move to 1.8 that surely is a sign that there's a future
in Seamonkey!
Karsten
--
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Rickkins
wrote:
>There will be a final if there's a community willing to do the release.
>Help wanted!
>
>Additionally, if you want SeaMonkey to see even further releases, please
>help our effort outlined a bit in
>http://wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/SeaMonkey:Home_Page
>
>Robert Kaiser
I'd be more than willing to help...only thing is I don't really have
any coding skills. Not sure what I could do, but if there's something
I can do...count me in.
Simon Paquet
>>> I'm sorry for saying this, but Bernd's comment is just the same
>>> old whining that I hear from Seamonkey supporters all the time.
>>> Instead of committing themselves they find reasons why something
>>> is not possible.
>
> I seem to have misunderstood what comment this was referring to....
> It's referring to Bernd's comment on
> <http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=32>, apparently.
Yep.
> Simon, my apologies.
Granted.
> That said, I would like to point out that Firefox didn't get to
> a point where it was actually shippable until it _did_ have someone
> working on it full-time and being paid to do so. Even then,
> several other Mozilla Foundation employees (jst and dbaron come to
> mind) helped out with getting the code into shape to ship.
I'm not saying that it will be easy to ship the suite, but it should
also be remembered that the suite in its current state is in a much
better fashion than Phoenix was at that time.
> And now that we're not seeing that level of (paid) involvement,
> we're in the situation addressed by Mike's recent blog post at
> <http://www.steelgryphon.com/blog/index.php?p=37>.
Not everything is well in Firefox land. I sent a mail to drivers@m.o
to talk about the issues Mike raises in his blog post.
> Draw from this what conclusions you will.
I focus my attention on Sunbird at the moment ;-) Much more gratifying
for me personally.
--
Simon Paquet
Boris Zbarsky
> Yes, I agree that we need Daniels approval, but most of the code, if not
> all, was already MPL'ed before he even started to work on Nvu, so I
> don't expect it to be an issue.
Sure.
> Also, didn't he had plans to port it to the trunk already?
He did, yes.
Are you volunteering to merge in the style system, parser, etc changes?
Or are you volunteering someone else?
-Boris
Leonidas Jones
Hear Hear!!
Lee
Justin Wood (Callek)
> Karsten Düsterloh wrote:
>
[[[snip]]]
>>
>>
>> Karsten
>
>
> Hear Hear!!
>
> Lee
To try and keep this thread condensed, and with relevant material, I
(not being anyone "important") would suggest and ask, that unless you
have something to add to the conversation, not to reply.
(I am sorry for single-ing you out Lee, but you were the last post here
that I seen)
Again, I am not anyone who would have any real [official] reason to
request this, but I feel it would help everyone who is trying to follow
this in any means.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
P.S. Replies to this post solely, can be directed to me at
Cal...@gmail.com if anyone needs to, to keep this thread clean as well.
Ognyan Kulev
> WHY is MoFo NOT interested in using all this code? MoFo should support
> ALL the code, not the 'bits & peices' that appeal to the public. That
> again is more 'marketing' rather than OSS development and support.
>
> I really have issues with MoFo 'homing in' on a product. They need to
> support it all. Let some other 'foundation' do the marketing.
>
> IF I were a coder (which I haven't done in ten years) and had more free
> personal time to invest, I would. I could contribute to working on
> test cases and triage, but I'd need a bit of help from the younger folks
> out there. ;)
I would advice anyone that hasn't done project management to shut up
and not talk about things that (s)he doesn't understand. Limited
resources require a few things to focus on and leaving other things.
As for the marketing point, the "you promised SeaMonkey to live
forever" is marketing too. Sometimes promises just can't be kept.
Where are the thousands that want SeaMonkey when it's time for
development and dirty work?
Regards,
ogi
Phil Hühn
> I fear the worst, because I feel that something's not going in right
> direction, and my interest in MoFo and it's projects are fading. That
> truly disturbs me.
>
> Larry
I also agree with you Larry. There are a lot of people out there who
prefer the suite. (Personally one thing that bothers me with FF/TB is
when I've tried to find some feature, only to find it was left out...
yes I realise it's meant to be 'slimmed down'.)
Must say, I'm uneasy at repeated statements implying the suite will
slowly die (or get nothing other than essential attention)... while I'd
like to think that contributors will not let this happen, the negative
environment does not offer much encouragement.
Phil Hühn
> Rickkins wrote:
>
>> Frankly, the suite may best be served by getting it into the hands of
>> people who actually want it to be the 'main' product...
>
>
> Absolutely. Do you have people in mind who have time to do this? If
> so, I'd love to know who they are. They are sorely needed.
>
> -Boris
Count me in... just once I get an end to my 16-hour days ;-)
Nomax
> Where are the thousands that want SeaMonkey when it's time for
> development and dirty work?
Dop you think that if Firefox developement, you would find thousand
people to do the dirty work? No! Only the guy who are paid to work on it
and a few others.
I love SeaMonkey and I use it. At the company I work for, Mozilla is
installed on each PC but we couldn't help in any other way than continue
to use it. :-(
--
Arcade Belgium - http://www.arcadebelgium.be/
Nomax
Ognyan Kulev wrote :
> Where are the thousands that want SeaMonkey when it's time for
> development and dirty work?
Do you think that if Firefox development is halted, you would find
thousands
of people to do the dirty work? No! Only the guys who are paid to work
Gervase Markham
>> - Aiming for June 1st, but this may not be realistic
>
> Define realistic plan, then term and finish work in time.
To clarify: the point here is that we were aiming at June 1st, but now
realise that may not be realistic, so drivers are going through a
replanning process.
We certainly don't plan on just saying "oh, it's June 1st" even when we
know we won't hit it.
Gerv
Gervase Markham
>> *Mozilla 1.8 final*
>>
>> - To be discussed tomorrow whether we do one
>
> I'm not sure that I understand this point. Does "Mozilla" in this
> context mean "Seamonkey" or "Gecko"?
Seamonkey.
Gerv
Gervase Markham
> WHY is MoFo NOT interested in using all this code? MoFo should support
> ALL the code, not the 'bits & peices' that appeal to the public. That
> again is more 'marketing' rather than OSS development and support.
Why are you assuming that HJ speaks for the MoFo?
> I really have issues with MoFo 'homing in' on a product. They need to
> support it all. Let some other 'foundation' do the marketing.
Having said the above, I should point out that maintaining the 1.7.x
branch, the Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.x branches, and the trunk is a
lot of work, particularly when you have to do releases from all of them
near-simultaneously if there's a security issue.
Gerv
Karsten Düsterloh
Mmh, well, instead of calling it "1.8 final" or simply "1.8"
- how about "1.8 gamma"? *g*
Nomax
> Do you /really/ believe that any company/institution that up to now
> rolled out Mozilla-the-nearly-complete-and-fully-featured-Web-Suite in
> their IT would now happily jump upon the train of having twice the
> rollout work for much less features?
Of course not. At the company I work for, Mozilla is installed on each
PC. Company's internal mail is entirely configured for Mozilla.
If Mozilla's development is stopped. Our company will still use the
current version since it perfectly fits our needs. So it won't bring
more people to Firefox.
Nomax
To clear things up:
Mozilla (for Mosaic-killer Godzilla) was the project name of Netscape.
When Mozilla came out under this name, a new project name was found for
it: Seamonkey.
Graham
> To try and keep this thread condensed, and with relevant material, I
> (not being anyone "important") would suggest and ask, that unless you
> have something to add to the conversation, not to reply.
Don't agree. Part of the issue is that suite users are being relegated
to the back burner because there aren't many of us. If we keep quiet,
that only increases that perception.
For my part I feel particularly aggravated that having spent several
years using Mozilla in various states of (mal)function and reporting
bugs now and again, I'm effectively now being told I'm a nuisance.
It wouldn't be so bad if Firefox was actually better than Mozilla, but
it isn't, it's a stripped out version: it feels like a browser with
training wheels which can't be removed.
Graham.
--
*-* Please remove spam free prefix before replying *-*
Chris Ilias
> Justin Wood (Callek) wrote:
>
>>To try and keep this thread condensed, and with relevant material, I
>>(not being anyone "important") would suggest and ask, that unless you
>>have something to add to the conversation, not to reply.
>
> Don't agree. Part of the issue is that suite users are being relegated
> to the back burner because there aren't many of us. If we keep quiet,
> that only increases that perception.
ie. spam.
Please don't saturate this newsgroup, to the point where it isn't
useful. You want to show your numbers? Do a petition. If there aren't
many of you, don't try to change the perception to manipulate others.
Mozilla.org announced the change of development focus to the stand-alone
apps, *before* MoFo decided to market toward end-users. Seamonkey users
should have known this was coming, when they started using it.
> It wouldn't be so bad if Firefox was actually better than Mozilla, but
> it isn't, it's a stripped out version: it feels like a browser with
> training wheels which can't be removed.
You can't use that as an argument, because it's a matter of opinion.
--
Chris Ilias - Mozilla Champion
Email - 2004...@ilias.ca
Netscape/Mozilla Links <http://ilias.ca>
Mozilla Help <http://ilias.ca/mozilla/>
Boris Zbarsky
> Mozilla.org announced the change of development focus to the stand-alone
> apps, *before* MoFo decided to market toward end-users. Seamonkey users
> should have known this was coming, when they started using it.
I'm sorry, but this statement conveniently ignores the fact that SeaMonkey was
already being used at the time, both by end users and corporations. Just
because MoFo wasn't marketing it that way, doesn't mean it wasn't being used
that way.
-Boris
Chris Ilias
> I'm sorry, but this statement conveniently ignores the fact that SeaMonkey was
> already being used at the time, both by end users and corporations. Just
> because MoFo wasn't marketing it that way, doesn't mean it wasn't being used
> that way.
I was hoping someone would bring that up, because I find it ironical
that people who ignored "for testing purposes only" on www.mozilla.org
would complain that they are being ignored by Mozilla.org. :-)
Alex Vincent
> To clarify: the point here is that we were aiming at June 1st, but now
> realise that may not be realistic, so drivers are going through a
> replanning process.
>
> We certainly don't plan on just saying "oh, it's June 1st" even when we
> know we won't hit it.
>
> Gerv
Replanning is much more palatable than abandoning -- and the very
ambiguity of the issue is what has so many of us alarmed.
Please keep us posted on the discussions, Gerv! :)
Justin Wood (Callek)
I think you are confused the June 1'st statement, and this sub-thread
itself was about Firefox 1.1's release date.
~Justin Wood (Callek)
Graham
> _Boris Zbarsky_ spoke thusly:
>
>>I'm sorry, but this statement conveniently ignores the fact that SeaMonkey was
>>already being used at the time, both by end users and corporations. Just
>>because MoFo wasn't marketing it that way, doesn't mean it wasn't being used
>>that way.
>
> I was hoping someone would bring that up, because I find it ironical
> that people who ignored "for testing purposes only" on www.mozilla.org
> would complain that they are being ignored by Mozilla.org. :-)
This has been a convenient cop-out for a long time. If they didn't want
anyone using it, why make it available? And how is anyone supposed to
*test* it without *using* it? It's also rather offensive to have this
thrown back in the faces of people who've been supporting Mozilla's
efforts for years. Where the heck would Firefox be without the large
numbers of people actually *using* Mozilla and shaking the bugs out of
it for years?
Boris Zbarsky
> I was hoping someone would bring that up, because I find it ironical
> that people who ignored "for testing purposes only" on www.mozilla.org
> would complain that they are being ignored by Mozilla.org. :-)
Given that there was no product that offered equivalent functionality (Netscape
releases were feature-crippled toward the end there, e.g. in terms of the popup
blocker), you find this surprising?
-Boris
Chris Ilias
That's not the point. It's about understanding the intentions of
Mozilla.org.
Chris Ilias
> Chris Ilias wrote:
>
>>I was hoping someone would bring that up, because I find it ironical
>>that people who ignored "for testing purposes only" on www.mozilla.org
>>would complain that they are being ignored by Mozilla.org. :-)
>
> This has been a convenient cop-out for a long time. If they didn't want
> anyone using it, why make it available?
Testing.
> And how is anyone supposed to *test* it without *using* it?
I was not referring to testers. I was referring to those who used it as
an end-user product. Those are the ones that ignored "for testing
purposes only."
> Where the heck would Firefox be without the large
> numbers of people actually *using* Mozilla and shaking the bugs out of
> it for years?
Speaking of cop-outs...
Why don't you just bring up the Communicator code, or Mosaic?
Boris Zbarsky
> Speaking of cop-outs...
> Why don't you just bring up the Communicator code, or Mosaic?
Frankly, because the amount of Communicator code in Firefox is close to zero,
while the amount of Mozilla code is highly non-negligible (in fact is most of
the Firefox code)... ;)
-Boris
Boris Zbarsky
> That's not the point. It's about understanding the intentions of
> Mozilla.org.
The intentions were clearly that people use SeaMonkey at the time; they were
asking people to do just that on the front page (use it, test it, contribute to
it, etc.).
All this is going rather far afield from the real issues here, though. Those are:
1) Are there people who want to maintain SeaMonkey?
2) Can they do so?
(Note that item #2 involves not only ability but also Mozilla.org permission, at
least if said people want to apply the Mozilla name to whatever they maintain.)
At the moment the answers are, clearly:
1) Yes.
2) Maybe.
-Boris
Chris Ilias
> Frankly, because the amount of Communicator code in Firefox is close to zero,
> while the amount of Mozilla code is highly non-negligible (in fact is most of
> the Firefox code)... ;)
You know what the funny thing is:
From what I've seen, most of the changes on the Seamonkey trunk are due
to people contributing code for Firefox and Thunderbird, especially the
mailnews code. :-)
Boris Zbarsky
> You know what the funny thing is:
> From what I've seen, most of the changes on the Seamonkey trunk are due
> to people contributing code for Firefox and Thunderbird, especially the
> mailnews code. :-)
Er... Are we looking at the same trunk here? I'd love to see where you saw
this, and what your definition of "Seamonkey trunk" is.
-Boris
Chris Ilias
Seamonkey trunk = Mozilla 1.8 alpha and beta releases
* UI for multiple identities
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44863>
* News supports displaying the size column in KB or in Lines
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=33045>
* Server wide news filters
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=19403>
* Global Inbox
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=243837>
* Retrieve headers only on POP mail
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=185184>
* Message Grouping
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=267845>
* Saved Search Folders
<https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=11051>
Markus Egartner
[...]
> Larry
I completely agree with you Larry
-- Markus
Markus Egartner
same to me .... app. 300 clients
- Markus
Markus Egartner
> 2005-02-28 - Summary of mozilla.org staff meeting
> -------------------------------------------------
[...]
someone suggest me to look into this group...... but what I see is
....... to spend a lot of time AND energy about things that won't solve
the problem for continuing the SM .....
So I suggest to come back to the roots and do something for the next
release of SM .....
Thousand (sorry --> millions) of user will be very *thankfull* ;-) of
that (including me)
-- Markus
Michael Lefevre
> _Boris Zbarsky_ spoke thusly:
>> Chris Ilias wrote:
>>
>>>You know what the funny thing is:
>>>From what I've seen, most of the changes on the Seamonkey trunk are due
>>>to people contributing code for Firefox and Thunderbird, especially the
>>>mailnews code. :-)
>>
>> Er... Are we looking at the same trunk here? I'd love to see where you saw
>> this, and what your definition of "Seamonkey trunk" is.
>
> Seamonkey trunk = Mozilla 1.8 alpha and beta releases
[snip selection of Seamonkey front end bugs]
You've picked out 6 changes out of hundreds that were made - that's not
"most" by any stretch. The majority of them are in the back-end code
which is shared between Seamonkey and Firefox.
Looking at the Seamonkey-only code (the front end), you're correct - most
of the recent changes are in Seamonkey code that is similar to (or the
same as) Thunderbird code.
--
Michael
HJ
> Larry Belan wrote:
>
>> WHY is MoFo NOT interested in using all this code? MoFo should
>> support ALL the code, not the 'bits & peices' that appeal to the
>> public. That again is more 'marketing' rather than OSS development
>> and support.
>
> Why are you assuming that HJ speaks for the MoFo?
First of all, I never said that I speak for the Mozilla Foundation and
nobody here is assuming that!
>> I really have issues with MoFo 'homing in' on a product. They need to
>> support it all. Let some other 'foundation' do the marketing.
>
>
> Having said the above, I should point out that maintaining the 1.7.x
> branch, the Firefox and Thunderbird 1.0.x branches, and the trunk is a
> lot of work, particularly when you have to do releases from all of them
> near-simultaneously if there's a security issue.
>
> Gerv
Please don't forget, or ignore the fact, that some security issues were
first fixed in Seamonkey (I r+ at least one of them recently), not in
Mozilla Firefox, so that's completely the opposite way of what you are
assuming here.
/HJ
HJ
...because there's (almost) non work done on the front-end code for
Seamonkey.
I still remember that Brendan blocked my first port, being the Toolbar
code of Phoenix, simply by saying "It won't be fair to them" and that's
when I decided to stop wasting my time on Seamonkey front-end code.
/HJ
Robert Kaiser
> Robert Kaiser wrote:
>
>> The most important requirements are there. We lack people working on
>> them though (most important seems to be the port to toolkit/xulrunner).
>
> This is currently somewhat blocked by the limbo regarding review rules
> in toolkit, as far as I can tell. Specifically, Neil had strong
> reservations about moving SeaMonkey to toolkit while it's not clear that
> toolkit code won't suddenly get whacked with no review and little testing.
Add biesi to that list (and me, as far as I'm able to contribute there).
> Ccing staff because I recall the issue of "we shouln't need to formally
> announce/enforce review as long as module owners do it" being raised.
> THIS is the reason we need a formal announcement, if the policy has
> actually been changed.
Probably it would be good to split formalities between browser and
toolkit now at last. I (and probably we all) don't care what review
rules and stuff are required for browser/ - we (and perhaps even people
doing other projects/products built on it) _do_ care about tookit/ rules
though.
And it will make it (hypothetically) possible for people perhaps being
peers or something for toolkit/ but not for browser/ and vice versa.
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> Seamonkey.
...because there's no team leading the project, and IMO we would need
that to do real work again on the front end. And with the currently
starting movement, I see a chance that we will have that coming up again.
/me is about to dig out and modernize his proposal(s) for improving
SeaMonkey UI ;-)
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> development and dirty work?
Well, Firefox consists of two developers apparently (at least a recent
blog post of mconnor gives that impression), so a handful of people
should be able to do SeaMonkey :p
(Note that the vast part of contributions to mozilla.org codebase
currently goes into core/Gecko which is not specific to any of those
projects but shared equally.)
Robert Kaiser
Adrian (Adrianer) Kalla
> _Graham_ spoke thusly:
>
>>Chris Ilias wrote:
>>This has been a convenient cop-out for a long time. If they didn't want
>>anyone using it, why make it available?
>
>
> Testing.
>
>
>>And how is anyone supposed to *test* it without *using* it?
>
>
> I was not referring to testers. I was referring to those who used it as
> an end-user product. Those are the ones that ignored "for testing
> purposes only."
Since MoFo existed, begin with Mozilla Suite 1.5 it was promoted as an
END USER product! Since 1.5 you coudn't find on mozilla.org that this is
for testing puroses only!!!
The same was with pre-1.0 Firefox - you couldn't find information on the
homepage that this is technology preview.
So don't say bulshit.
Between Mozilla 1.5 and 1.7 it was promoted as an end-user product. And
now you leave milions (!!!) of Suite users alone.
In Poland Firefox has 8%, Suite 2% - this are ca. 900.000 and 250.000 users.
On the most technical-sites Suite has much more users then Firefox ->
Firefox is simply an "idioten-browser" - not much better than IE, so it
is normally that Suite users deosn't change to Firefox.
Robert Kaiser
> I'd be more than willing to help...only thing is I don't really have
> any coding skills. Not sure what I could do, but if there's something
> I can do...count me in.
If you have time (and we have some transition issues solved), you're
always welcome to help and do some "learning by doing". Actually, that's
how we all came into knowing the stuff we do ;-)
Robert Kaiser
Robert Kaiser
> HJ wrote:
>
>> Ok, so we need to get this Gecko port going, or we won't get nowhere.
>
> Who is this "we"?
>
> Note that explicit action from Daniel is rather required here. We can't
> just have random other people taking his code (which is copyrighted by
> him, effectively) and checking it into the tree.
from #developers on irc.mozilla.org:
<KaiRo> glazou: you (and Nvu) came into dicussion recently with all that
SeaMonkey stuff... are there any real plans of getting your Gecko and
core changes into mozilla.org code?
<glazou> KaiRo: absolutely
<glazou> but 1.0 is sucking all my time and more
* glazou is not Tristan Nitot, the ubiquitous evangelist
<KaiRo> glazou: yes, I can believe that... If someone would step up and
say "I want to take your changes and try to push them into mozilla.org
CVS", would you support/allow that? (just hypothetically because it came
into discussion)
<glazou> of course!!!!
So if someone wants to step up and do it (or help on it), just do so ;-)
Robert Kaiser
Daniel Glazman
> Note that explicit action from Daniel is rather required here. We can't
> just have random other people taking his code (which is copyrighted by
> him, effectively) and checking it into the tree.
Euuuuh. Why? I don't think there is any legal obstacle here since
all the the code is MPL/GPL/LGPL anyway, right? As soon as the
license blocks and contributors information are preserved, you're free to store
the sources and changes to existing files in a cvs repository. Right ?
Human politeness makes people usually ask :-) But that's unrelated to legal
facts, of course :-)
I will work on that. I just drastically under-estimated the amount of
work needed to make a 1.0 happen. I am burried under work and the backport
to the tree got a lower priority. I hope it's understandable...
</Daniel>
Boris Zbarsky
>>Er... Are we looking at the same trunk here? I'd love to see where you saw
>>this, and what your definition of "Seamonkey trunk" is.
>
> Seamonkey trunk = Mozilla 1.8 alpha and beta releases
[mail bugs]
Perhaps I should rephrase this as a question. How are you defining "Seamonkey
Trunk"?
-Boris
Marco Haefliger
same to me, nearly 100 clients
asa dotzler
> I still remember that Brendan blocked my first port, being the Toolbar
> code of Phoenix, simply by saying "It won't be fair to them" and that's
> when I decided to stop wasting my time on Seamonkey front-end code.
>
> /HJ
HJ, that seems hard to believe. Please cite the relevant email, bug comment or newsgroup
posting.
--Asa
HJ
Asa, it might be hard to believe, but I'm not lying, and that's exactly
what Brendan said on IRC so I stopped working on it.
Note that this was during the early Phoenix days and I was one of the
people on IRC, every single day, but check your log files and note that
I've never been back, just because of this!
/HJ
Zbigniew Braniecki
> So don't say bulshit.
So try to be more polite, hmm?
We're discussing the way to solve this problem, f-words will not help here.
> Between Mozilla 1.5 and 1.7 it was promoted as an end-user product. And
> now you leave milions (!!!) of Suite users alone.
To focus on serving better product for billions other. You're trying to
say that MoFo is considering resignation from Suite shipping without a
strong reason while they have to do this in order to work on toolkit
apps more. You can't blame them for this.
All we can do to save Suite is to organize and create our own
structures to work on Suite. Our group has to be enough high-quality
organized so Mozilla Foundation can trust us and work with us in order
to ship Suite in the future.
It's a real pity that you have enough motivation to scream about
"leaving alone users" and I can't find your name on
http://wiki.mozilla.org/wiki/SeaMonkey:Supporters .
> In Poland Firefox has 8%, Suite 2% - this are ca. 900.000 and 250.000
> users.
Suite did not make any progress in last year on Polish market. It was
1.6% in June 2004, it is 1.6% today.
> On the most technical-sites Suite has much more users then Firefox
I doubt it.
> Firefox is simply an "idioten-browser" - not much better than IE
Are you trying to use Bill Gates words here? Are you not familiar with
technologies that are in Firefox (comparing to IE) or just blinded by
your anger?
>, so it is normally that Suite users deosn't change to Firefox.
I doubt it.
Greetings
Zbigniew Braniecki
--
MLP (http://www.mozilla.org)
AviaryPL (http://www.firefox.pl , http://www.thunderbird.pl)
MozillaPL (http://www.mozillapl.org)
Akkana
> (Note that the vast part of contributions to mozilla.org codebase
> currently goes into core/Gecko which is not specific to any of those
> projects but shared equally.)
That's misleading, though. Starting with the aviary landing, most
gecko changes are tested on firefox, not on the suite. Anything
that happens to break seamonkey might very well stay broken.
So anyone interested in maintaining seamonkey needs to be first and
foremost a regression fixer, cleaning up after firefox-specific gecko
changes, on top of any seamonkey UI enhancements they might want to do.
This may explain the difficulty getting developers to sign up for the
seamonkey program. Even if a developer cares a lot about using
seamonkey, who wants to sign up for a neverending job of cleaning up
someone else's regressions?
...Akkana (been there, done that, got the t-shirt)
Boris Zbarsky
> That's misleading, though. Starting with the aviary landing, most
> gecko changes are tested on firefox, not on the suite.
Actually, given that at the moment the layout regression tests only run in
suite, not in Firefox, that's not quite true....
> Anything that happens to break seamonkey might very well stay broken.
This is somewhat of a problem, yes.
> So anyone interested in maintaining seamonkey needs to be first and
> foremost a regression fixer, cleaning up after firefox-specific gecko
> changes
If this happens, we have a serious problem with Gecko and toolkit development.
If we're at all serious about this XULRunner thing, it needs to not happen. If
a toolkit-based application needs changes to toolkit, the changes need to be
considered in light of breaking API compatibility. We need to freeze APIs
(including the basic syntax of XUL!), and stick by them. Anything else makes
XULRunner a joke.
All this is a basic premise of continuing SeaMonkey development -- that there
will actually be this reasonably API-stable toolkit to develop on top of, and
that the past practice of application developers tweaking the core apis to suit
their needs whenever they feel like it will not continue.
-Boris
Brendan Eich
> asa dotzler wrote:
>
>> HJ wrote:
>>
>>> I still remember that Brendan blocked my first port, being the
>>> Toolbar code of Phoenix, simply by saying "It won't be fair to them"
>>> and that's when I decided to stop wasting my time on Seamonkey
>>> front-end code.
>>>
>>> /HJ
>>
>>
>>
>> HJ, that seems hard to believe. Please cite the relevant email, bug
>> comment or newsgroup posting.
>>
>> --Asa
>
>
> Asa, it might be hard to believe, but I'm not lying, and that's exactly
> what Brendan said on IRC so I stopped working on it.
I said "It won't be fair to them [phoenix developers]"? Produce the
logs. I'll ask pavlov to dig any he has up.
> Note that this was during the early Phoenix days and I was one of the
> people on IRC, every single day, but check your log files and note that
> I've never been back, just because of this!
First I've heard of this.
I don't say things like "It won't [wouldn't] be fair to X" in the
context you claim. I think you're misremembering. Anyway, this is
water way under the bridge, and if I said something then that hurt your
feelings, sorry -- but get over it! It's 2005.
/be
Brendan Eich
> All this is a basic premise of continuing SeaMonkey development -- that
> there will actually be this reasonably API-stable toolkit to develop on
> top of, and that the past practice of application developers tweaking
> the core apis to suit their needs whenever they feel like it will not
> continue.
We'll get there, but not overnight. Having bsmedberg involved actively
fills me with hope. But having Seamonkey as another app-mouth to feed
for toolkit does not.
/be
Rickkins
wrote:
Well alrighty then...I've added my name.
I do renovations, by contract...so when I work, time is scarce.
But when I don't(like this winter), I've nothing at all to do, so to
speak.....
Darin Fisher
There is middle ground. As you may or may not know, XULRunner has a
versioning system that is very similar to the versioning system in use
by the Extension Manager. That is, an application can restrict its use
to a XULRunner version (i.e., a Gecko + XUL Toolkit) that is within a
certain version range (using Gecko version numbers here). I envision a
user possibly having multiple versions of XULRunner installed on their
system as applications may demand different versions of the runtime.
We'll probably make the xulrunner app delegate to the appropriate
instance by leveraging the same mechanism that we use with the GRE.
Namely, you look in the win32 registry for a compatible version or look
in /etc/gre.{d,conf} or ~/.gre.{d,conf} and so on. I think this gives
us the ability to innovate the XUL API without rushing to freeze
something just for compatibility sake. I know that API stability is
important since people don't want to have to rewrite their app just to
benefit from a new Gecko, but at least this gives us a bit of flexibility.
I'm very interested personally in porting the layout debugger to
XULRunner. I think it would make an excellent sample XUL application.
I'm also interested in other apps like chatzilla and xulmine. The more
samples the better.
-Darin
Adrian (Adrianer) Kalla
> The last real Suite version cames in June 2004 - all the 1.7.x were
> small bugs and security updates. The product simply was discontinued for
> a too long time period...
If we :
-ported in summer 2004 the Suite to the toolkit,
-we don't discontinud the MozillaPL project,
we have had today much more than 1,6% in Poland.
Chris Ilias
The entire code that is compiled to create the builds in
/mozilla/nightly/latest-trunk/, including that which is shared.
--
Chris Ilias - Mozilla Champion
Email - 2004...@ilias.ca
Netscape/Mozilla Links <http://ilias.ca>
Mozilla Help <http://ilias.ca/mozilla/>
Justin Wood (Callek)
If a user is forced to install MULTIPLE versions of XULRunner to run
their app, I do not see the benefit of a "core app" like XULRunner, core
interfaces should be in-place, and once used, considered their
rammifications and frozen.
DirectX does this, the new versions have the same old hooks, so old
versioned programs only need to invoke the new version to run...the
actual internal architetchure can change, such that nsIFoo.bar could be
slower than nsIFoo.bar2 for example, due to changes, and those changes
could easily have nsIFoo.bar call nsIFoo.bar2 to make consistant and
condensed use of API's, but to actually rewrite functionality, and
deprecate/obsolete stuff, completely seems horrendous to me as a "base
app engine".
Forward and backward compatability needs to be considered, or we are
back to square one... I have not personally heard of much [read any]
real use of GRE versioning for multiple app's GRE's installed in a
certain directory, I'd be glad to find material for that, but that is an
issue for another day (feel free to send me such reading at
Cal...@gmail.com). What I am concerned with is if for some reason I
have a nightly Suite running on top of a XULRunner Nightly, that I dont
need to invoke a new version of XULRunner for FF "stable" or TB "stable-1".
If I must load all of the api's that XULRunner provides over again,
please tell me why do we even have XULRunner?
~Justin Wood (Callek)