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