Mozilla's new vision

[Ben Collver]

From JWZ's blog:

Earlier this year, Mozilla laid out their vision for the future of their
organization -- and it did not include Firefox. The focus for the future
of Mozilla -- according to Mozilla -- is primarily based around
Artificial Intelligence services.

In fact, Mozilla leadership stated, quite plainly, that they intend to
take Mozilla "in a different direction."

https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/mark-surman-mozilla-25-years/

When you consider the goals of Mozilla... the decreasing Firefox
marketshare is no longer much of a concern. In fact, moving revenue away
from Firefox, while investing in A.I. systems (and other subscription
services) becomes the primary goal. [...]

[Anton Shepelev]

Ben Collver:

> In fact, moving revenue away from Firefox, while investing
> in A.I. systems (and other subscription services) becomes
> the primary goal.

As one clueless about modern economy, I wonder what kind of
revenue can Mozilla be drawing from a web browser that is
free as in beer.

--
() ascii ribbon campaign -- against html e-mail
/\ www.asciiribbon.org -- against proprietary attachments

[Andy Burns]

Anton Shepelev wrote:

> Ben Collver:

>
>> moving revenue away from Firefox, while investing
>> in A.I. systems (and other subscription services) becomes
>> the primary goal.

Oh dear ...

> As one clueless about modern economy, I wonder what kind of
> revenue can Mozilla be drawing from a web browser that is
> free as in beer.

Until now, they've been quite successful in tapping Google for hundreds
of $millions per year, but who knows for how much longer? I presume the
side-lines such as Pocket or VPNs are pocket change in comparison ...

[Julieta Shem]

Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
the gemini protocol.

The web is not control-resistant because it's difficult to build a
browser. So difficult that you can only compete if you're a big group.
So there is no diversity in the offer. Without diversity, its survival
is greatly threatened.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:

> Anton Shepelev wrote:
>> As one clueless about modern economy, I wonder what kind of
>> revenue can Mozilla be drawing from a web browser that is
>> free as in beer.
>
> Until now, they've been quite successful in tapping Google for hundreds
> of $millions per year, but who knows for how much longer?

Yes, unfortunately it sounds like they're getting prepared to drop
Firefox like a stone as soon as Google stops sending them cheques.

> I presume the side-lines such as Pocket or VPNs are pocket change
> in comparison ...

This more recent Blog post appears to be an example of one of the
new Mozilla projects, an AI website builder:
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/introducing-solo-ai-website-builder/

They're going from offering a product with only one real
competitor, to products where the market is as crowded as could
possibly be. It seems a bit desperate.

For Firefox, this blog post looks ominous too:
"Why we're renaming 'Firefox accounts' to 'Mozilla accounts'"
https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-accounts-transition-mozilla-accounts/

--
__ __
#_ < |\| |< _# | Note: I won't see posts made from Google Groups |

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> wrote:
> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
> the gemini protocol.

I read the blog post in Dillo, and although the developer of that
browser has disappeared, there are forks, and similar projects like
Links and (less active) Netsurf.

Gopher and Gemini don't need to replace the web so that people can
keep using "free software", websites just need to use the features
of HTML that allow them to be compatible with that software. For
the web pages that aren't usable in those alternative browsers,
it's a more reasonable proposition for those website developers to
implement Javascript-free fall-back solutions than have them switch
to Gopher or Gemini. In fact many used to do that once, only they
stopped.

> The web is not control-resistant because it's difficult to build a
> browser. So difficult that you can only compete if you're a big group.
> So there is no diversity in the offer. Without diversity, its survival
> is greatly threatened.

As standard go, the Web still fully supports building websites
compatible with all browsers. There's a ton of extremely
complicated stuff that's been added over the years, but it's
optional. The trouble is that it's not treated as optional from
the client-side by website developers, only as options to pick
from on their side, with the assumption that if an option is
supported in Chrome then it's supported by the one client that
everyone actually uses and therefore alternative methods don't
matter.

Gopher and Gemini could go exactly the same way if people with the
same attitude did adopt them to build a complete Web alternative.
It's not a standards problem, it's a culture problem.

[Ben Collver]

On 2023-12-30, Anton Shepelev <anto...@gmail.moc> wrote:
> Ben Collver:
>> In fact, moving revenue away from Firefox, while investing
>> in A.I. systems (and other subscription services) becomes
>> the primary goal.
>
> As one clueless about modern economy, I wonder what kind of
> revenue can Mozilla be drawing from a web browser that is
> free as in beer.

There's the busking model: annoy users into giving you money, like
public radio and Wikipedia habitually do.

[Scott Dorsey]

On 2023-12-30, Anton Shepelev <anto...@gmail.moc> wrote:
>
> As one clueless about modern economy, I wonder what kind of
> revenue can Mozilla be drawing from a web browser that is
> free as in beer.

Sure, they lose money on the product but they make it up in volume!
It worked for Crazy Eddie!
--scott

--
"C'est un Nagra. C'est suisse, et tres, tres precis."

[yeti]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
> the gemini protocol.

Why?

If you can self-host gemini or gopher, you can do that with http too.
Noone forces you to use QIC, CSS or JS. A reasonable subset of today's
overfeatured http/html still can and will play a role.

The problem is not what to use when writing for friends and reading that
with lynx, w3m, netsurf, dillo, emacs/eww, elinks, ...

The problem is that some things in daily life force us to use browsers
we would like not to touch at all for some services we cannot avoid.
That's the part that needs a massive revolt and there neither gopher nor
gemini will be the solution.

--
"Wir Europäer sind dafür bekannt, dass wir gerne Dinge verbieten. Das
Prinzip der Datensparsamkeit, wie wir es vor vielen Jahren hatten, kann
heute nicht die generelle Leitschnur sein für die Entwicklung neuer
Produkte." - Angela Merkel beim nationalen IT-Gipfel 2016 in Saarbrücken

[yeti]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
> the gemini protocol.

Why?

If you can self-host gemini or gopher, you can do that with http too.

Noone forces you to use QUIC, CSS or JS. A reasonable subset of today's

[Julieta Shem]

yeti <ye...@tilde.institute> writes:

> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>
>> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
>> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
>> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
>> the gemini protocol.
>
> Why?

I don't know, but it's what happens right now. All browser vendors are
major players, unlike NNTP servers, which are so simple that a single
person can implement in a weekend, so you find lots of alternatives.
Not so with browsers.

> If you can self-host gemini or gopher, you can do that with http too.

Of course.

> Noone forces you to use QUIC, CSS or JS. A reasonable subset of
> today's overfeatured http/html still can and will play a role.

When we talk about browsers, we are not necessarily talking about the
protocols they speak.

> The problem is that some things in daily life force us to use browsers
> we would like not to touch at all for some services we cannot avoid.

Precisely.

You can always walk in other people's land, but as soon as you upset the
owners they kick you out. It's like having freedom until your boss says
you don't.

> That's the part that needs a massive revolt and there neither gopher
> nor gemini will be the solution.

The solution is a web that's simple. The protocol seems to be doing
well enough, but the browser is a total disaster. If only a handful of
people can build it, it's a total disaster. Without diversity, there's
no resilience.

[Andy Burns]

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> For the web pages that aren't usable in those alternative browsers,
> it's a more reasonable proposition for those website developers to
> implement Javascript-free fall-back solutions than have them switch
> to Gopher or Gemini. In fact many used to do that once, only they
> stopped.

They stopped because they didn't like effectively having to develop the
site twice, and maintain both modes

Seems a *lot* of effort has gone into competing client-side frameworks
to make websites interact like fat-client programs used to, maybe the
effort should have been server-side that generates client-side that
works reliably with/without javascript?

I must admit, because there are *so* many of these frameworks being
produced, I don't have time to look at them, to see if any are doing
that, but based on how gracelessly websites fail without javascript now,
I'm guessing not ...

[Andy Burns]

Computer Nerd Kev wrote:

> For Firefox, this blog post looks ominous too:
> "Why we're renaming 'Firefox accounts' to 'Mozilla accounts'"
> https://blog.mozilla.org/en/mozilla/firefox-accounts-transition-mozilla-accounts/

I don't see a thunderbird icon in that list (yes, I know MZLA is at
least arms-length from moz://a)

[Marco Moock]

Am 30.12.2023 um 17:48:43 Uhr schrieb Julieta Shem:

> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated
> by corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives.

Pale Moon exists.

[Theo]

And so does Firefox in 2023. But suppose Mozilla decides to give up
maintaining it. What happens when Firefox or Pale Moon are 5+ years behind
the state of the web?

Old browsers can hang on for a long time if you don't care about security
updates, but it gets increasingly difficult when sites refuse to work with
them.

It is possible to use Dillo or NetSurf as your daily driver, but good luck
doing your banking with it.

Theo

[Blue-Maned_Hawk]

Julieta Shem wrote:

> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
> the gemini protocol.

Frankly, i don't see why we should bother with specialised hypertext
protocols when FTP already exists.



--
Blue-Maned_Hawk│shortens to Hawk│/blu.mɛin.dʰak/
│he/him/his/himself/Mr.
blue-maned_hawk.srht.site
I am only behind if you measure by who is currently winning!

[Andy Burns]

Blue-Maned_Hawk wrote:

> Blue-Maned_Hawk│shortens to Hawk│blu.mɛin.dʰak
> │he/him/his/himself/Mr.

Is that what you intended?

[Scott Dorsey]

Blue-Maned_Hawk <bluema...@invalid.invalid> wrote:
>Julieta Shem wrote:
>
>> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
>> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
>> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
>> the gemini protocol.
>
>Frankly, i don't see why we should bother with specialised hypertext
>protocols when FTP already exists.

Those specialized hypertext protocols sit ON TOP OF ftp. Or http, or https,
or carrier pigeon or what have you.

They do not replace ftp, but supplant it.

[Blue-Maned_Hawk]

No, my newsreader by a bug mojibakes nonascii. Since it's not my fault
that it happened, it's not my responsibility to fix it.

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> Computer Nerd Kev wrote:
>> For the web pages that aren't usable in those alternative browsers,
>> it's a more reasonable proposition for those website developers to
>> implement Javascript-free fall-back solutions than have them switch
>> to Gopher or Gemini. In fact many used to do that once, only they
>> stopped.
> They stopped because they didn't like effectively having to develop the
> site twice, and maintain both modes
>
> Seems a *lot* of effort has gone into competing client-side frameworks
> to make websites interact like fat-client programs used to, maybe the
> effort should have been server-side that generates client-side that
> works reliably with/without javascript?

There might be some technical advantage for the website operator
that can come from doing more data processing at the client side
to reduce server load, although it would often come at the expense
of sending more data to the client and more exposure to security
vulnerabilities. But I suspect it's mainly about making things look
like someone's idea of pretty, in which case a Javascript-optional
framework might be used. I don't know what would cause such a thing
to be written and adopted now though, wonderful as it would be.

[Marco Moock]

Am 31.12.2023 um 10:55:59 Uhr schrieb Theo:

> Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> > Am 30.12.2023 um 17:48:43 Uhr schrieb Julieta Shem:
> >
> > > Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely
> > > dominated by corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and
> > > look for alternatives.
> >
> > Pale Moon exists.
>
> And so does Firefox in 2023. But suppose Mozilla decides to give up
> maintaining it. What happens when Firefox or Pale Moon are 5+ years
> behind the state of the web?

I think for Firefox enough volunteers exist to create a fork, like Pale
Moon did, to continue development.

[cr0c0d1le]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> writes:
>
> The web is not control-resistant because it's difficult to build a
> browser. So difficult that you can only compete if you're a big group.
> So there is no diversity in the offer. Without diversity, its survival
> is greatly threatened.

To be honest, I don't think web browsers will still be a thing a
decade from now. It will all be 'apps' consuming some kind of
standardised API.

Just my two cents.

[Mike Spencer]

Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> writes:

> I think for Firefox enough volunteers exist to create a fork, like Pale
> Moon did, to continue development.

How does that relate to the future of Seamonkey? (My preferred browser.)

Seamonkey, despite best efforts of developers/maintainers seems to
have some trouble keeping up with the latest complexities of
javascript -- the only aspect that ever causes me trouble. Can
Seamonkey become a viable fork of FF?

--
Mike Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada

[immibis]

On 12/30/23 21:48, Julieta Shem wrote:

> Ben Collver <benco...@tilde.pink> writes:
>
> Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely dominated by
> corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave and look for
> alternatives. We could go back to gopher-like services. In fact, see
> the gemini protocol.

The death of Mozilla wouldn't mean the death of Firefox, any more than
Blender, MariaDB and Libreoffice are dead.

[immibis]

On 12/31/23 04:37, Julieta Shem wrote:
>
> I don't know, but it's what happens right now. All browser vendors are
> major players, unlike NNTP servers, which are so simple that a single
> person can implement in a weekend, so you find lots of alternatives.
> Not so with browsers.
>

Anyone can write a web *server* or mail *server* or news *server* in a
weekend, but there's a lot of complexity that passes through web and
mail servers from end-to-end, which the server doesn't have to process.

I wrote a Minecraft server from scratch once; I had to pass messages
from one player to another saying "this player broke this block", but I
never had to check whether the player could actually reach the block,
because I trusted the client for that. (The real Minecraft server
includes a lot more game-logic code and doesn't trust clients as much.)

But if I wanted to write a Minecraft *client*, I'd have to have all the
game logic. I'd have to know the exact shape of every block, so I could
know at which coordinates players could stand, and I could know which
parts of which blocks they could reach through and see through without
cheating, and I'd have to know exactly how long each block took to mine
and how to calculate it according to the player's equipped mining tool.

The same problem applies to browsers and email readers. Conveying bytes
from A to B is a solved problem. Making sure those bytes mean what the
sender intended is much more difficult.

News sidesteps the problem for now by only being plaintext, which it can
afford because nobody (to within experimental error) uses it. As soon as
users demand more from news, or a commercial vendor offers extended
features (EEE-style), it will suffer from the same problems the web and
email did. I'm not sure if binary news already suffers the problem; I
don't use it.

>
>> That's the part that needs a massive revolt and there neither gopher
>> nor gemini will be the solution.
>
> The solution is a web that's simple. The protocol seems to be doing
> well enough, but the browser is a total disaster. If only a handful of
> people can build it, it's a total disaster. Without diversity, there's
> no resilience.
>

Agreed, but you can't get from here to there because of game theory - a
force as fundamental as entropy.

[Julieta Shem]

Good point.

[Julieta Shem]

immibis <ne...@immibis.com> writes:

> On 12/31/23 04:37, Julieta Shem wrote:
>> I don't know, but it's what happens right now. All browser vendors
>> are major players, unlike NNTP servers, which are so simple that a
>> single person can implement in a weekend, so you find lots of
>> alternatives. Not so with browsers.

[...]

> News sidesteps the problem for now by only being plaintext, which it
> can afford because nobody (to within experimental error) uses it. As
> soon as users demand more from news, or a commercial vendor offers
> extended features (EEE-style), it will suffer from the same problems
> the web and email did. I'm not sure if binary news already suffers the
> problem; I don't use it.

Even being plain text, writing a client is much harder than writing the
NNTP server. The web made it exceptionally hard to build the client.
There are various usable clients for NNTP, e-mail; not so with browsers.

You got a point.

Perhaps we need to decentralize applications. Maybe Google can build
the best /window/ for a browser and someone else builds the /bookmark/
and someone builds the be HTTP client itself. You see what am I saying?
A computer system is made of various parts. When I'm using a program
such as Firefox, why can't I have some kind of GNU EMACS for me to type
the address in the address bar? When I'm using Gmail, why must I be a
hostage of that text editor they provide me with?

I would think that the future is like that. I have my text editor and
any application that asks me anything loads that text editor so I can
type something.

For instance, learning is very expensive. Each new program requires you
to even learn how to type. If you give lay users the ability to find
their favorite editor wherever they go, they will begin to care about
that too --- not just programmers.

[Marco Moock]

Am 01.01.2024 um 17:11:51 Uhr schrieb Mike Spencer:

> Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> writes:
>
> > I think for Firefox enough volunteers exist to create a fork, like
> > Pale Moon did, to continue development.
>
> How does that relate to the future of Seamonkey? (My preferred
> browser.)

Mozilla doesn't like SM anymore - for years.

FF development is entirely different for years and IIRC they also
refused to move to UXP (the platform Pale Moon is based on).

> Seamonkey, despite best efforts of developers/maintainers seems to
> have some trouble keeping up with the latest complexities of
> javascript -- the only aspect that ever causes me trouble.

Same applies to PM, but I like it anyway because it is user-oriented
and customizable.

> Can Seamonkey become a viable fork of FF?

I don't think, too different.
If it is possible to use only its engine, then yes, but that is rather
unlikely.

[Marco Moock]

Worse. It will be an app for each individual service that will only run
on the devices the operator wants them.

[Marco Moock]

Although development will be much harder then because the then missing
money from Mozilla.

[Andy Burns]

Marco Moock wrote:

> schrieb immibis:

>
>> The death of Mozilla wouldn't mean the death of Firefox, any more
>> than Blender, MariaDB and Libreoffice are dead.

Go back and install firefox v1.0.x

OK you'll have to limit yourself to visiting http:// sites
or sites that are trailing-edge regarding their https:// requirements

And you'll be catapulted back to a time when quirks-mode mattered and
css support was pretty poor.

But as a browser, how far forward has firefox actually come in nearly 20
years? It had a lot right back then.

> Although development will be much harder then because the then missing
> money from Mozilla.

How to slow down or pause the "progress" of html/css/js/webp/etc
standards, so that browsers need ongoing maintenance rather than
continuous re-development?

What's pushing the development apart from demands of marketing wank
websites?

Yes it sounds like "stop the world, I want to get off" ... I'm getting old.

[immibis]

The development is pushed by... browsers having too many developers with
too much time and too much incentive to add pointless new features to
browsers.

[immibis]

On 1/2/24 05:07, Julieta Shem wrote:
> Perhaps we need to decentralize applications. Maybe Google can build
> the best /window/ for a browser and someone else builds the /bookmark/
> and someone builds the be HTTP client itself. You see what am I saying?
> A computer system is made of various parts. When I'm using a program
> such as Firefox, why can't I have some kind of GNU EMACS for me to type
> the address in the address bar? When I'm using Gmail, why must I be a
> hostage of that text editor they provide me with?

We can go a step deeper. Why should HttpClientLibCorp get to send the
whole HTTP request? Why don't we have one component send the status
line, and another send the Accept header? We could even break up the
status line component, so that one component sends the G, and another
component sends the E, and another component sends the T.

> I would think that the future is like that. I have my text editor and
> any application that asks me anything loads that text editor so I can
> type something.

I remember OLE too! And every web browser pane is Internet Explorer!

> For instance, learning is very expensive. Each new program requires you
> to even learn how to type. If you give lay users the ability to find
> their favorite editor wherever they go, they will begin to care about
> that too --- not just programmers.

facetious?

[Computer Nerd Kev]

Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk> wrote:
> Marco Moock wrote:
>> schrieb immibis:
>>
>>> The death of Mozilla wouldn't mean the death of Firefox, any more
>>> than Blender, MariaDB and Libreoffice are dead.
>
> Go back and install firefox v1.0.x
>
> OK you'll have to limit yourself to visiting http:// sites
> or sites that are trailing-edge regarding their https:// requirements
>
> And you'll be catapulted back to a time when quirks-mode mattered and
> css support was pretty poor.
>
> But as a browser, how far forward has firefox actually come in nearly 20
> years? It had a lot right back then.

Looking at FF v2, I'd say it had a lot of the user interface and
configurability _more_ right than the current versions. But it was
already slow and clunky compared to Dillo, Links, etc., and I'd
guess already vastly more complex.

It's with the browser engine where development money matters
though, which now boils down to keeping up with whatever features
Google adds to Chrome.

[candycanearter07]

And heavily locking down everything so that you "cant steal anything" or
make your own client..
--
user <candycane> is generated from /dev/urandom

[Andreas Kempe]

Den 2024-01-02 skrev Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk>:
>
> What's pushing the development apart from demands of marketing wank
> websites?
>

I'm speculating a bit, but I think the main drive has been the change
in how we consume software. Software is now a service that we
subscribe to, either by the user being the product or by actually
paying for them. For example Youtube and Facebook being two services
where you are the product, while online cloud storage is a service one
might pay for.

With everyone having browsers already and them being made with the
purpose of delivering flexible content from the Internet to the
end-user, I think it just became the natural vehicle for delivering
software as a service. When we started reinventing our common desktop
programs, like WYSIWYG document processing, to now be delivered
through the browser, that drove the need for added complexity.

The browser eventually becoming its own mini OS with scores of
developers that are experts on developing for it eventually lead to
that tech migrating back to more traditional programs. Here I'm
thinking of things like Electron apps, Android apps and iPhone apps
that are often nothing but packaged websites. Hell, even games run on
web technologies like WebGL and using REST APIs over HTTP for
communication these days.

I don't see this era of web dominance ending anytime soon unless we
get another tech paradigm shift.

[Mike Spencer]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> For instance, learning is very expensive. Each new program requires you
> to even learn how to type. If you give lay users the ability to find
> their favorite editor wherever they go, they will begin to care about
> that too --- not just programmers.

The slogan, "Life-long learning" was supposed to be about learning
*new* stuff after you left school, as you grew older, not about
learning the same stuff over and over again.

I'm almost 82 and a long-time devotee of life-long learning. But for
the last decade or two, as the net gradually became a tool of commerce
and finance, I have to espend effort to avoid having to learn the same
stuff over and over again. Just an example: I'm still using the same
version of Emacs I compiled in 1999 for my first Linux box. With
every upgrade of my Linux system, I get a new Emacs with which I
struggle for a few hours before reverting to the old version.

[Julieta Shem]

immibis <ne...@immibis.com> writes:

> On 1/2/24 05:07, Julieta Shem wrote:
>> Perhaps we need to decentralize applications. Maybe Google can build
>> the best /window/ for a browser and someone else builds the /bookmark/
>> and someone builds the be HTTP client itself. You see what am I saying?
>> A computer system is made of various parts. When I'm using a program
>> such as Firefox, why can't I have some kind of GNU EMACS for me to type
>> the address in the address bar? When I'm using Gmail, why must I be a
>> hostage of that text editor they provide me with?
>
> We can go a step deeper. Why should HttpClientLibCorp get to send the
> whole HTTP request? Why don't we have one component send the status
> line, and another send the Accept header? We could even break up the
> status line component, so that one component sends the G, and another
> component sends the E, and another component sends the T.

If it would be so desired. Taking me as a particular example, all I
care about is the interface. It seems it would be very useful if we
could reuse more interfaces. I don't even care if my text editor is the
GNU EMACS or not, as long as it behaves just like it. Why should I have
to type on a different software? Text editor is text editor. Why do we
need so many of them everywhere on the same computer system for the same
user?

>> I would think that the future is like that. I have my text editor and
>> any application that asks me anything loads that text editor so I can
>> type something.
>
> I remember OLE too! And every web browser pane is Internet Explorer!
>
>> For instance, learning is very expensive. Each new program requires you
>> to even learn how to type. If you give lay users the ability to find
>> their favorite editor wherever they go, they will begin to care about
>> that too --- not just programmers.
>
> facetious?

I beg your pardon?

[Julieta Shem]

Andreas Kempe <ke...@lysator.liu.se> writes:

> Den 2024-01-02 skrev Andy Burns <use...@andyburns.uk>:
>>
>> What's pushing the development apart from demands of marketing wank
>> websites?
>
> I'm speculating a bit,

We're all speculating a bit or a lot.

> but I think the main drive has been the change in how we consume
> software. Software is now a service that we subscribe to, either by
> the user being the product or by actually paying for them. For example
> Youtube and Facebook being two services where you are the product,
> while online cloud storage is a service one might pay for.
>
> With everyone having browsers already and them being made with the
> purpose of delivering flexible content from the Internet to the
> end-user, I think it just became the natural vehicle for delivering
> software as a service. When we started reinventing our common desktop
> programs, like WYSIWYG document processing, to now be delivered
> through the browser, that drove the need for added complexity.
>
> The browser eventually becoming its own mini OS with scores of
> developers that are experts on developing for it eventually lead to
> that tech migrating back to more traditional programs. Here I'm
> thinking of things like Electron apps, Android apps and iPhone apps
> that are often nothing but packaged websites. Hell, even games run on
> web technologies like WebGL and using REST APIs over HTTP for
> communication these days.
>
> I don't see this era of web dominance ending anytime soon unless we
> get another tech paradigm shift.

Yes, I don't know when it will end, but it has to end eventually. As
usual, someone comes up with a great idea some day and the whole thing
changes. As I said before in this thread somewhere, I think the design
of the technology is bad --- too much complexity leads to little
diversity, which leads to concentration, which leads to fatal flaws.

Someone will come up with something new some day and it will suplant the
web. Nobody is really gonna look back because the web really is so
ugly. I believe we should have the right to fetch information without
the ugliness. For instance, can I fetch the videos from YouTube without
looking at the website? Why shouldn't I? Oh, because the vendor wants
to show me ads --- but someone is gonna solve this problem and vendors
will have to find new means of income. We don't pay them because we
want to. We pay them because we have no alternative.

TV companies must be having an uncertain future because so much of TV
watching has moved to the Internet. (A good idea changes everything.)

Consider sci-hub. I remember I felt so grateful for having access to a
university library because it always felt so hard to find and read
papers. With sci-hub, it's easier than even having a personal account
with the journal. (AIOE.org was the easiest NNTP server to use because
you didn't even need an account.) These journals are likely living on
government money and rich private corporations.

Now, of course, we can always stay away from the mess if we can: it
depends on what kind of work you do. I know a lot of people who use
WhatsApp. So many of them say --- I can't get rid of it even if I
wanted. I use it for work, or I have kids and so on. It's difficult.
If you work most independently from the world --- an academic perhaps
---, chances are you don't even need a Google account. You don't have
to run Chrome, Firefox, Gmail, anything. You can fetch documentation
with dillo, host your mail somewhere and enjoy a quiet life.

YouTube does host a lot of good programs, though. Here's a great
channel:

https://www.youtube.com/@webofstories

But surely all these videos could easily go somewhere else.

[yeti]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> I don't even care if my text editor is the GNU EMACS or not, as long
> as it behaves just like it.

Phase 1 - denial:

+ "There is no Emacs locked in syndrome!"

+ "I can use every editor as long as it behaves like Emacs."

+ ...


Welcome to the anonymous Emacsers! Take a seat, grab a cookie...

--
I do not bite, I just want to play.

[Theo]

There are about 5 developers of Pale Moon, with one doing 90% of the commits:
https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon/commits/branch/master
- a handful of updates every month, mostly tweaks to keep it working with
various websites (by lying about the User-Agent).

There were hundreds of reported vulnerabilities in Chromium in 2023 alone:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=chromium
and similar for Firefox:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=firefox

There's no chance of those volunteers being able to maintain a secure
browser with that level of effort.

Theo

[Marco Moock]

Am 03.01.2024 um 12:00:29 Uhr schrieb Theo:

> Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> > Am 31.12.2023 um 10:55:59 Uhr schrieb Theo:
> >
> > > Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> > > > Am 30.12.2023 um 17:48:43 Uhr schrieb Julieta Shem:
> > > >
> > > > > Without a Free Software browser, the web will be completely
> > > > > dominated by corporate actors. Intelligent people will leave
> > > > > and look for alternatives.
> > > >
> > > > Pale Moon exists.
> > >
> > > And so does Firefox in 2023. But suppose Mozilla decides to give
> > > up maintaining it. What happens when Firefox or Pale Moon are 5+
> > > years behind the state of the web?
> >
> > I think for Firefox enough volunteers exist to create a fork, like
> > Pale Moon did, to continue development.
>
> There are about 5 developers of Pale Moon, with one doing 90% of the
> commits:
> https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon/commits/branch/master
> - a handful of updates every month, mostly tweaks to keep it working
> with various websites (by lying about the User-Agent).

Because many crappy websites use the UA to exclude other browsers.

> There were hundreds of reported vulnerabilities in Chromium in 2023
> alone: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=chromium
> and similar for Firefox:
> https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=firefox

PM is a fork of it and FF changed a lot.
In the release notes you can find the stuff about fixed
security-relevant bugs also fixed in FF.

> There's no chance of those volunteers being able to maintain a secure
> browser with that level of effort.

Can you confirm that those bugs also exist in PM?

[Theo]

Marco Moock <mm+use...@dorfdsl.de> wrote:
> Am 03.01.2024 um 12:00:29 Uhr schrieb Theo:
> > There are about 5 developers of Pale Moon, with one doing 90% of the
> > commits:
> > https://repo.palemoon.org/MoonchildProductions/Pale-Moon/commits/branch/master
> > - a handful of updates every month, mostly tweaks to keep it working
> > with various websites (by lying about the User-Agent).
>
> Because many crappy websites use the UA to exclude other browsers.

ie not actually 'development', merely tweaking the per-site settings.

> > There were hundreds of reported vulnerabilities in Chromium in 2023
> > alone: https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=chromium
> > and similar for Firefox:
> > https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvekey.cgi?keyword=firefox
>
> PM is a fork of it and FF changed a lot.
> In the release notes you can find the stuff about fixed
> security-relevant bugs also fixed in FF.

That's something. The release cadence seems more frequent than I expected.

> > There's no chance of those volunteers being able to maintain a secure
> > browser with that level of effort.
>
> Can you confirm that those bugs also exist in PM?

I'm not wading through the hundreds of them to confirm individually, but
since PM is a fork of FF it's likely that many of them do.

Theo

[Julieta Shem]

``A man after my own heart.'' I'm roughly half your age, but I noticed
that very quickly too --- unless we protect ourselves, we'll spend our
entire lives relearning the same things. I did choose the GNU EMACS are
my life-long editor, but I also had to freeze it in my own package.
This is also why I chose Windows as a desktop, even though I use it as a
POSIX syste. (I have a ZIP package of the tools I need and all it takes
for me to recover from a crash is to download it and unpackage it. Life
is more difficult on UNIX systems because libraries evolve very quickly
without sufficient backward compatibility, an insane objective given the
sheer number of different libraries out there.)

[Julieta Shem]

yeti <ye...@tilde.institute> writes:

> Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:
>
>> I don't even care if my text editor is the GNU EMACS or not, as long
>> as it behaves just like it.
>
> Phase 1 - denial:
>
> + "There is no Emacs locked in syndrome!"
>
> + "I can use every editor as long as it behaves like Emacs."
>
> + ...
>
>
> Welcome to the anonymous Emacsers! Take a seat, grab a cookie...

:-)

I like it because of the Lisp language. The Lisp language seems to help
it to be what it is, self-documented et cetera. It is important even
for the pleasure we derive from it while using it. Technical people
seem to like software that gives them a sense of control, which requires
a precise understanding of the software. So a self-documented
interactively-modify-it software helps us to understand precisely how it
works, which then turns into a enjoyable-to-use system.

``The details of the interaction matter, ease of use matters, but I
want more than correct details, more than a system that is easy to
learn or to use: I want a system that is enjoyable to use. This is
an important, dominating design philosophy, easier to say than to
do. It implies developing systems that provide a strong sense of
understanding and control. This means tools that reveal their
underlying conceptual model and allow for interaction, tools that
emphasize comfort, ease, and pleasure of use [...]. A major factor
in this debate is the feeling of control that the user has over the
operations that are being performed. A `powerful,' `intelligent'
system can lead to the well documented problems of `overautomation,'
causing the user to be a passive observer of operations, no longer
in control of either what operations take place, or of how they are
done. On the other hand, systems that are not sufficiently powerful
or intelligent can leave too large a gap in the mappings from
intention to action execution and from system state to psychological
interpretation. The result is that operation and interpretation are
complex and difficult, and the user again feels out of control,
distanced from the system.'' -- ``User Centered System Design'',
capítulo 3, ``cognitive engineering'', ``on the quality of
human-computer interaction'', pages 48--49, Donald A. Norman, CRC
Press, 1986, ISBN 0-89859-872-9.

[Marco Moock]

Am 03.01.2024 um 17:48:31 Uhr schrieb Theo:

> I'm not wading through the hundreds of them to confirm individually,
> but since PM is a fork of FF it's likely that many of them do.

They forked years ago and FF changes a lot with Quantum and newer
releases, I don't know how much of the old FF code that PM is/was based
on still exists in current FF.

Many of the CVEs found in Firefox aren't applicable to PM according to
the release notes.

[yeti]

Julieta Shem <js...@yaxenu.org> writes:

> yeti <ye...@tilde.institute> writes:
>>
>> Welcome to the anonymous Emacsers! Take a seat, grab a cookie...
>
> :-)

Btw.: We meet at/in(?) emacs.ch and the door is always open.

Grab mastodon.el if the WebUI is too much blingbling.

[immibis]

Apps are easier to modify than the operators of these services like to
acknowledge. ReVanced proves that.

Google has SafetyNet, which can be bypassed as long as you don't pretend
to be a type of device that has a TPM that supports SafetyNet. Apple is
just totalitarian. Don't buy Apple products.

[immibis]

On 1/3/24 20:22, Julieta Shem wrote:
>
> I like it because of the Lisp language.
>

I'd bet a large number of Lisp functions are inherently irrelevant in or
not compatible with a browser's text editor context. For example, saving
a file.

[immibis]

On 1/3/24 02:19, Andreas Kempe wrote:
> I don't see this era of web dominance ending anytime soon unless we
> get another tech paradigm shift.

We just got one. Everything's a large language model now.

[Julieta Shem]

What I had mostly in mind was text navigation, syntax coloring et
cetera. I run the GNU EMACS, but with a font designed by someone else.

[Julieta Shem]

Lol. That's true.