Firefox Is Heading Towards Trouble
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Neville Franks wrote: Stuff like this is why I have trouble putting my trust in most open source projects. Why? The key people who start a major development effort for a closed source application don't get burned out? The brain trust doesn't leave? Programmers fastituously document their code so other can pick up where they left off? Senior programmers don't move on to greener pastures when a product is released, rather than hanging around doing maintenance work? If I sound a bit irate, it's because I am. Saying you have trouble putting your trust in OS is a lot of BS, in my book, if the only reasons you can cite are things that happen in commercial development just as much. Been there, done that, in numerous closed source commercial endeavors. Seen it happen many times too. Granted, you did say "most" OS projects. ;P Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
One issue I see with OS software is that no one is accountable. With commercial software if the appropriate level of support, product quality etc. aren't there, the company would eventually either get there act together or close there doors. When this happens with OS software it just hangs around for ever like a bad smell. Various (but not all) OS projects I've looked at over the years have lousy documentation and poor support. I'm sure they start off with the best of intentions but they seem to run out of steam. Yes I know I have the source and I can do whatever I want, but I'm basically not interested in doing that. Mind you I have done a bit in the past and handed it back but at the end of the day it was a waste of time and effort. I'm not saying commercial products are the answer to our prayers, that's definitely not the case. There is probably more crap commercial software out there than OS. But there is a real motivation to make commercial apps a success and that is to put food on our table and that of our employees (if we have any which I don't). Generally that type of motivation doesn't exist in the OS world, so keeping it happening for the long haul is a lot more difficult IMO. My 2c worth. Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com and Surfulater www.surfulater.com "Save what you Surf"
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Biggest problem I have with firefox is it's HORRIBLE copy/paste ability.
Found on Bash.org [erno] hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
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John Cardinal wrote: Of course they do, and a commercial enterprise anticipates this, deals with it and moves on seamlessly. ROTF! In the companies I've worked for, developing commercial products, this has never been the case. "deals" and "moves on seamlessly"??? HAHAHAHA! John Cardinal wrote: with a real company, real budgets and real revenue and real beauracracy, real red tape, real idiots in management... Ah well. I think I'm overtired and punchy tonight. So, I'll be signing off. Have a good evening! Marc MyXaml Advanced Unit Testing YAPO
Hmmm..not sure what sort of places you've worked at, but any professional organization is going to have turnover, it's inevitable. Usually the "brain trust" are the most highly sought after and most likely to leave. It just comes with the territory and is part of doing business. Open source is not doing business, at best it could be called a charitable act, at worst extortion when it comes to projects that make money off support only.
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Poves my theory that all successfull OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygenpeterchen wrote: Poves my theory that all successfull OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors. I guess I'm being nitpicky, but you're saying, "Firefox is vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors. This proves my theory that all successful OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors." It proves your theory? I'm sure you can see the problem here. ----------------------------------------------------- Empires Of Steel[^]
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Biggest problem I have with firefox is it's HORRIBLE copy/paste ability.
Found on Bash.org [erno] hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
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Poves my theory that all successfull OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygenThe same applies to commercial applications, but you just don't hear about it. Speaking as one who was once instructed to leave out an enhancement to a software package, on the current release, because if it went on the next release the firm would make more money!
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
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The same applies to commercial applications, but you just don't hear about it. Speaking as one who was once instructed to leave out an enhancement to a software package, on the current release, because if it went on the next release the firm would make more money!
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
Ted Ferenc wrote: The same applies to commercial applications, but you just don't hear about it. Absolutely. However (a) this weakens a major perceived advantages of OpenSource - peer review - to "peer review possible". And (b) an commercially viable project has a better incentive to find a replacement.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen -
peterchen wrote: Poves my theory that all successfull OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors. I guess I'm being nitpicky, but you're saying, "Firefox is vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors. This proves my theory that all successful OpenSource projects are vitally dependent on a very small number of main contributors." It proves your theory? I'm sure you can see the problem here. ----------------------------------------------------- Empires Of Steel[^]
s/poves/confirms happy now? :rolleyes:
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen -
Biggest problem I have with firefox is it's HORRIBLE copy/paste ability.
Found on Bash.org [erno] hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
"Biggest problem I have with firefox is it's HORRIBLE copy/paste ability." I just copied and pasted your message and so far it seems ok... :-D I see dead pixels Yes, even I am blogging now!
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Ted Ferenc wrote: The same applies to commercial applications, but you just don't hear about it. Absolutely. However (a) this weakens a major perceived advantages of OpenSource - peer review - to "peer review possible". And (b) an commercially viable project has a better incentive to find a replacement.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygenTo me the main advantage of open source/freeware/shareware is that the program is written by people who want to write the code, commercial software tends to be written by the cheapest people tha management can find, who probably have no interest in what they are writing!
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
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There is some interesting reading here. Stuff like this is why I have trouble putting my trust in most open source projects. Mike Connor, a core Firefox developer, writes in his blog, "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think we're in trouble. Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews. And I'm on the verge of just walking away indefinitely, since it feels like I'm the only person who cares enough to make it an issue." If Firefox's reviewing developers, the key people of any open-source project, have burned out on the project, Firefox is in a lot of trouble. Forget about trying to get new and better versions out. They're not going to be able to keep up on security fixes and bugs. For example, it used to be that if you ran Firefox you never saw annoying pop-up ad windows. That was then. This is now. See: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1774091,00.asp[^] Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com and Surfulater www.surfulater.com "Save what you Surf"
ditto what other people have said. As far as gripes about FF? My only issues are: the memory leaks when you have several tabs open all day the *really* slow initial load time Cheers, Simon sig ::
"Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead.", Jackie Chan on career choices.
article :: animation mechanics in SVG blog:: brokenkeyboards
"Most of us are programmers, but a few use VB", Christian Graus -
ditto what other people have said. As far as gripes about FF? My only issues are: the memory leaks when you have several tabs open all day the *really* slow initial load time Cheers, Simon sig ::
"Don't try to be like Jackie. There is only one Jackie.... Study computers instead.", Jackie Chan on career choices.
article :: animation mechanics in SVG blog:: brokenkeyboards
"Most of us are programmers, but a few use VB", Christian GrausSimonS wrote: the memory leaks when you have several tabs open all day so true :sigh: Never forget: "Stay kul and happy" (I.A.)
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To me the main advantage of open source/freeware/shareware is that the program is written by people who want to write the code, commercial software tends to be written by the cheapest people tha management can find, who probably have no interest in what they are writing!
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
Interesting - but I wouldn't say commercial development means only galley slaves hungry for an escape. The CP crowd is a good example - many people here are passionate about their daytime job. Aslo, a good product requires more than just cool software - IMO it's hard to balance the fun stuff with the things that need to be done.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygen -
Interesting - but I wouldn't say commercial development means only galley slaves hungry for an escape. The CP crowd is a good example - many people here are passionate about their daytime job. Aslo, a good product requires more than just cool software - IMO it's hard to balance the fun stuff with the things that need to be done.
Pandoras Gift #44: Hope. The one that keeps you on suffering.
aber.. "Wie gesagt, der Scheiss is' Therapie"
boost your code || Fold With Us! || sighist | doxygenAh but we are the best of breed :-O, it's Crufts in the UK! In my experince very few software people hang out in places like this, most aren't that bothered about learning anything new just for the sake of it. A lot of people here hate their jobs but they are passionate about software. To a lot of people a software job is just a 9 - 5 job, nothing else, I am not criticising that approach, after all jobs to most people are just means to make some money.
"An education isn't how much you have committed to memory, or even how much you know. It's being able to differentiate between what you do know and what you don't." - Anatole France
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There is some interesting reading here. Stuff like this is why I have trouble putting my trust in most open source projects. Mike Connor, a core Firefox developer, writes in his blog, "In nearly three years, we haven't built up a community of hackers around Firefox, for a myriad of reasons, and now I think we're in trouble. Of the six people who can actually review in Firefox, four are AWOL, and one doesn't do a lot of reviews. And I'm on the verge of just walking away indefinitely, since it feels like I'm the only person who cares enough to make it an issue." If Firefox's reviewing developers, the key people of any open-source project, have burned out on the project, Firefox is in a lot of trouble. Forget about trying to get new and better versions out. They're not going to be able to keep up on security fixes and bugs. For example, it used to be that if you ran Firefox you never saw annoying pop-up ad windows. That was then. This is now. See: http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1774091,00.asp[^] Neville Franks, Author of ED for Windows www.getsoft.com and Surfulater www.surfulater.com "Save what you Surf"
Makes me wonder if there is a reason for this as maybe some other large company might be working on a version themselves and wants to knock this one down a peg or two... Yep, that is me, Mr. Conspiracy, but in today's world you have to be. Even more so when the big company is paying some of the workers. I personally love FF and use it all the time. For me it works and gets the job done, that is all I require. At least this browser is cross platform, IE is only Windows now. Rocky <>< All Kinds of Stuff[^]
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Screw ANSI C++ compliance then. I mean, who gives a crap if Boost or Loki compile correctly. I mean seriously, if you're going to excuse IE for doing a crappy job of sticking to the standard, then you've got to excuse VC 6 for not compiling standard C++ properly. But that didn't stop C++ devs from complaining every time we had to include specialized templates in our code, did it? I know that HTML is a markup language, and is therefore treated as "less of a language" than compiled languages, but saying that you should render incorrect markup is like saying that you should compile C++ without the semicolons at the end of the lines. And saying that IE does something better than the standard is just plain wrong. CSS 2? Transparent PNGs? The list goes on... Something tells me you're not a web developer.
[Cheshire] I can't afford those plastic things to cover the electric sockets so I just draw bunny faces on the electric outlets to scare the kids away from them... [RLtim] Newsflash! Kids aren't afraid of bunnies. [Cheshire] Oh they will be... -Bash.org
From the perspective of web developers, you are right. On the other hand, why would the users of my programs care about standard compliance of my C++ compiler? They shouldn't even know which compiler I used to make my application. The same goes for browsers: I am not a web developer - why should I worry about w3c standards? For me, both IE and Firefox are just web browsers, and I use them to view web pages. The one which displays more web pages I visit wins. Period.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
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Steve McLenithan wrote: Biggest problem I have with firefox is it's HORRIBLE copy/paste ability. Could you elaborate? :confused:
"A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both."
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerMore often than not if I highlight the URL or other text it simply will not copy. I can hit Ctrl + C all I want and it won't go. I've tested it on three different systems and I get this same behavior in some form or another on all of them.
Found on Bash.org [erno] hm. I've lost a machine.. literally _lost_. it responds to ping, it works completely, I just can't figure out where in my apartment it is.
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From the perspective of web developers, you are right. On the other hand, why would the users of my programs care about standard compliance of my C++ compiler? They shouldn't even know which compiler I used to make my application. The same goes for browsers: I am not a web developer - why should I worry about w3c standards? For me, both IE and Firefox are just web browsers, and I use them to view web pages. The one which displays more web pages I visit wins. Period.
My programming blahblahblah blog. If you ever find anything useful here, please let me know to remove it.
Nemanja Trifunovic wrote: The same goes for browsers: I am not a web developer - why should I worry about w3c standards? For me, both IE and Firefox are just web browsers, and I use them to view web pages. The one which displays more web pages I visit wins. Period. BS. Don't forget about mobile devices, text-only UA and blind people... those benefit from web standards. Right now I HATE person who deceded that overlapped tags in HTML aro no big deal for browser... If illegal markup didn't render correctly, no one would produce illegal markup. Now, it slows things down :mad: Of course users don't care about browsers or web standarts. That's how it should be. BUT it seems like other side (browsers and web devs) often don't care, too. And that's plain wrong! David Never forget: "Stay kul and happy" (I.A.)
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Firefox isn't my browser either but development in the Open Source world is damn slow. Nevertheless, I am still reluctant to go back to Microsoft Internet Explorer especially after I came to know that there's a vulnerability in the browser that lets scammers to launch a phishing attack on your PC. Some even include a fake SSL signature padlock certificate to fool you and that too over the updated version of Windows, Service Pack 2.:wtf: Read it yourself. And, I thought Service Pack 2 was the most secure thing there is on this planet! We always are wrong about certain things that happen around us. The Open Source community around Firefox might have been dragging their development speeds, but who knows what might happen next? I still won't go back to Internet Explorer even if version 7.0 ends up with tabbed browsing and a promise of 50% more secure browsing.
The beginning of knowledge is the fear of God
Aaron Reginald wrote: Nevertheless, I am still reluctant to go back to Microsoft Internet Explorer especially after I came to know that there's a vulnerability in the browser that lets scammers to launch a phishing attack on your PC. Some even include a fake SSL signature padlock certificate to fool you and that too over the updated version of Windows, Service Pack 2. Patched in February[^]. There would have been less risk if the vulnerability hadn't been irresponsibly disclosed. Stability. What an interesting concept. -- Chris Maunder
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Screw ANSI C++ compliance then. I mean, who gives a crap if Boost or Loki compile correctly. I mean seriously, if you're going to excuse IE for doing a crappy job of sticking to the standard, then you've got to excuse VC 6 for not compiling standard C++ properly. But that didn't stop C++ devs from complaining every time we had to include specialized templates in our code, did it? I know that HTML is a markup language, and is therefore treated as "less of a language" than compiled languages, but saying that you should render incorrect markup is like saying that you should compile C++ without the semicolons at the end of the lines. And saying that IE does something better than the standard is just plain wrong. CSS 2? Transparent PNGs? The list goes on... Something tells me you're not a web developer.
[Cheshire] I can't afford those plastic things to cover the electric sockets so I just draw bunny faces on the electric outlets to scare the kids away from them... [RLtim] Newsflash! Kids aren't afraid of bunnies. [Cheshire] Oh they will be... -Bash.org
Hmm, I think you need to read more standards. As a producer, you should always stick to the standard. As a consumer you should always be as forgiving as you can. It isn't correct to compare HTML to C++. They are at two totally different levels of standard. Tim Smith I'm going to patent thought. I have yet to see any prior art.