MOZILLA: R.I.P

[Alex]

linky

summary
the mozilla foundation has anounced today that they will stop developing the Mozilla Suite (no version 1.8 released, despite betas)
they will focus on firefox and thunderbird and will hand over the mozilla suite project to the community and whoever else cares to continue it.

its sad but at the same time its about friggin time!

long live firefox!

 

[VirtualLarry]

That is sad. How many online press outlets will confuse this issue, and loudly proclaim "Mozilla is dead", without making it clear what is really going on, so non-clued readers may think that the entire foundation is folding, etc.? I'm waiting to see if any of them do that.

I think it's a slap in the face, personally. It's not like they are discontinuing it totally, either, but refusing to release "final", "stable" builds, from what I could understand. IOW, there is going to be a Moz 1.9alpha after the 1.8beta series finishes up, but just skipping a 1.8final release.

At least they can't use the excuse that "this isn't a bug in Firefox - this is a bug in (some core code bit)", and imply that the Moz devs have to fix it rather than the Firefox devs.

 

[CTho9305]

Mozilla is far from dead. It has a HUGE number of people interested in doing development and QA - we're in the process of setting up goals and organizing now. The foundation has offered to provide us with infrastructure, just not manpower (besides some initial help with getting started - and that list shows how much manpower we have). We should have a lot more figured out in a couple weeks.

http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview...atid=33&threadid=1540707&enterthread=y <- another thread

 

[Alex]

i guess my thread title is a little misleading... but really, why use the mozilla suite when you can use firefox and thunderbird? the only drawback is the integration, that shouldn't be too hard to implement, and the lack of an HTML editor, but cmon how good was the mozilla composer in the first place... frontpage is a better basic WYSIWYG editor IMO...

 

[Nothinman]

The development procedures a lot different between the two. The mozilla devs seem more concerned with making a good stable product, but the FF devs seem more concerned with making something flashy and cool.

 

[sparkyclarky]

as long as camino continues development, I'll be happy

so far it's been the most stable browswer I've used (1 crash in over a month)

 

[ndee]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
The development procedures a lot different between the two. The mozilla devs seem more concerned with making a good stable product, but the FF devs seem more concerned with making something flashy and cool.

you're basing that assumption on what exactly?

 

[Nothinman]

The fact that the development is open and you can see what fixes happen first. And CTho9305 has mentioned several times where things have been fixed in Seamonkey that were ignored or delayed in FF.

 

[n0cmonkey]

I won't be switching to Firefox.

 

[jadinolf]

I just put Firefox/Thunderbird on one computer today but I'll stick with Mozilla Suite as long as I can.

I felt that Mozilla's demise was inevitable.

 

[bersl2]

Somebody's been out to get the Mozilla foundation in the past 48 hours. At least, it really seems like it.

article

 

[Nothinman]

I felt that Mozilla's demise was inevitable.

There is no demise.

 

[kamper]

I guess this is a bit sad, but in the long run it's probably good for everyone involved. Mozilla (the organization) will be able to concentrate on a single product and as long as Mozilla (the suite) carries it's momentum I think the browser field will have a stronger overall showing in the open source department.

I'll be really interested to see where both sets of products go in the next year or two.

 

[Schadenfroh]

Just continue it by sticking FireFox 1.01(?) with thunderbird 1.0, integrate them a tad and slap a new theme on it, then release it as Mozilla 2.0.

 

[CTho9305]

Schandenfroh - that's not the point. I don't like Firefox - that's why I'm interested in keeping the suite around. It's not just integration. For me, the suite apps are just better products. I think most of the others who are interested in saving the suite feel the same way. Some people (probably low millions) like Mozilla (note that ALL netscape 7 and lower users should really be counted here), and some people like Firefox. They're different products.

franguinho - why use FooBar2000 when you can use Winamp? (I've heard FooBar2000 is by a former Winamp dev - it's newer, and some people say it's better).

 

[stndn]

Schandenfroh:

from reply number 65:
Firefox 1.0 was supposed to be Mozilla 2.0, but they developed and marketed it as a completely new product.

But then again, bundling FF+TB+NVU+others do not necessarily make the bundle similar or close in any way to the current Mozilla Suite (Seamonkey)

Like some of the "minorities", i couldn't get used to firefox and thunderbird to have them replace seamonkey. I have to admit, i lack the programming skill or QA time to contribute anything to the suite (or anything else for that matter). However, i would like to see the new group (whoever that may be) continue the development and keep Seamonkey alive.

But then again, Seamonkey is not dead. It is simply being transitioned into an open source project outside Mozilla Foundation. I guess this misunderstanding has to be cleared up. I, for one, was guilty of this misunderstanding when i first read about the news and all the associated comments, which, sadly, has turned into two sides of arguments over the whole Seamonkey versus Firefox/Thunderbird

Demanding the users to move from Seamonkey to Firefox+Thunderbird is not always a viable solution.
First, there's a notion of "i'm used to this, why switch?", much as the argument from user switching from MSIE to firefox.
Then, there are a few, more useful things that are available in Seamonkey which are not available in FF/TB. Sure, extensions can get around these limitations to some extent. But why should i install extensions if i can have them from the get-go with Seamonkey?
And then there's the stability issue, which i've read about (FF crashed, bookmarks deleted, etc), which i have no firsthand experience of during the time i used firefox.

There are other things on this transition mess that made me sad. And i have to admit, i get carried away by emotions while typing up this response. And i've been like this since i read the news about 24 hours ago ...

And yes, i've tried FF/TB for more than 24 hours.. I still can't get used to it. Or rather, unconsciously refuse to get used to it...
Guess i'm just a fanboy, huh? -(

 

[ndee]

OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

 

[Mem]

It`s very sad indeed,I love Mozilla and have been using it for years, I don`t like Firefox,looks like I`ll go with Opera.

 

[CTho9305]

Originally posted by: ndee
OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

They're not HUGE differences. They're MANY annoyances. Well, ok, one huge difference is code review policy - Mozilla's frontend code is reviewed more thoroughly. Yes, this slows development, but in general, it doesn't need as rapid development since it's a more mature product.

A few annoyances (and yes they're small - but there are people who don't like Mozilla/Firefox because of the image placeholder box that's shown while the page loads):
1. they swapped ctrl+enter and alt+enter on the url bar (this REALLY sucks when you switch between the two browsers a lot)
2. the preferences window is COMPLETELY different
3. the preferences window doesn't have NEARLY as many options
4. there are a bunch of default options that were changed (small buttons, no button text)
5. the search box is a waste of space
6. they messed with the throbber
7. they got rid of the new tab button

 

[BespinReactorShaft]

:thumbsup:

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: ndee
OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

They're not HUGE differences. They're MANY annoyances. Well, ok, one huge difference is code review policy - Mozilla's frontend code is reviewed more thoroughly. Yes, this slows development, but in general, it doesn't need as rapid development since it's a more mature product.

A few annoyances (and yes they're small - but there are people who don't like Mozilla/Firefox because of the image placeholder box that's shown while the page loads):
1. they swapped ctrl+enter and alt+enter on the url bar (this REALLY sucks when you switch between the two browsers a lot)
2. the preferences window is COMPLETELY different
3. the preferences window doesn't have NEARLY as many options
4. there are a bunch of default options that were changed (small buttons, no button text)
5. the search box is a waste of space
6. they messed with the throbber
7. they got rid of the new tab button

You pegged the differences. I'll use Mozilla as long as I can.

 

[Crappopotamus]

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: ndee
OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

They're not HUGE differences. They're MANY annoyances. Well, ok, one huge difference is code review policy - Mozilla's frontend code is reviewed more thoroughly. Yes, this slows development, but in general, it doesn't need as rapid development since it's a more mature product.

A few annoyances (and yes they're small - but there are people who don't like Mozilla/Firefox because of the image placeholder box that's shown while the page loads):
1. they swapped ctrl+enter and alt+enter on the url bar (this REALLY sucks when you switch between the two browsers a lot)
2. the preferences window is COMPLETELY different
3. the preferences window doesn't have NEARLY as many options
4. there are a bunch of default options that were changed (small buttons, no button text)
5. the search box is a waste of space
6. they messed with the throbber
7. they got rid of the new tab button

ya missed one that i really miss

 

[jadinolf]

Originally posted by: Crappopotamus

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: ndee
OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

They're not HUGE differences. They're MANY annoyances. Well, ok, one huge difference is code review policy - Mozilla's frontend code is reviewed more thoroughly. Yes, this slows development, but in general, it doesn't need as rapid development since it's a more mature product.

A few annoyances (and yes they're small - but there are people who don't like Mozilla/Firefox because of the image placeholder box that's shown while the page loads):
1. they swapped ctrl+enter and alt+enter on the url bar (this REALLY sucks when you switch between the two browsers a lot)
2. the preferences window is COMPLETELY different
3. the preferences window doesn't have NEARLY as many options
4. there are a bunch of default options that were changed (small buttons, no button text)
5. the search box is a waste of space
6. they messed with the throbber
7. they got rid of the new tab button

ya missed one that i really miss

Good one!

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: stndn
But then again, Seamonkey is not dead. It is simply being transitioned into an open source project outside Mozilla Foundation.

That just seems kind of wierd, but perhaps it's like this country - the pilgrims came to this country to escape the religious persecution by the English, and then they started controlling things here, so further offshoots happened, in order for those that wanted to escape the religious prosecution of the Pilgrims, to exist peacefully. That's the beauty of open-source projects though, I guess. If you don't agree with the direction the project is taking, you can always fork it, rather than being burned at the stake for copyright-related heresies.

Originally posted by: stndn
Demanding the users to move from Seamonkey to Firefox+Thunderbird is not always a viable solution.

That seems to be exactly what the Foundation is trying to push for though.

 

[igowerf]

Originally posted by: jadinolf

Originally posted by: CTho9305

Originally posted by: ndee
OK guys, what are those HUGE differences between Firefox+Thunderbird and the Mozilla suite? I think they're (nearly) identical.

They're not HUGE differences. They're MANY annoyances. Well, ok, one huge difference is code review policy - Mozilla's frontend code is reviewed more thoroughly. Yes, this slows development, but in general, it doesn't need as rapid development since it's a more mature product.

A few annoyances (and yes they're small - but there are people who don't like Mozilla/Firefox because of the image placeholder box that's shown while the page loads):
1. they swapped ctrl+enter and alt+enter on the url bar (this REALLY sucks when you switch between the two browsers a lot)
2. the preferences window is COMPLETELY different
3. the preferences window doesn't have NEARLY as many options
4. there are a bunch of default options that were changed (small buttons, no button text)
5. the search box is a waste of space
6. they messed with the throbber
7. they got rid of the new tab button

You pegged the differences. I'll use Mozilla as long as I can.

I'd use Mozilla if I could only move all of the various bars (navigation, location, etc) into a single row.