Posted on WebDesign-L on 11/07/00

> David Flanagan has a piece on the O'Reilly network calling on readers
> to sign his petition urging Netscape not to release a buggy,
> non-standards-compliant browser:
> 
> http://www.oreilly.com/news/flanagan_1100.html

It's unfortunate that we're starting to see a separation of ranks between
Netscape 6 and Mozilla. Netscape/AOL benefits greatly from the Mozilla
Project: source code, bug fixes, standards-compliancy, and good will.
Unfortunately, the pressures of releasing a software product (Netscape 6)
has forced Netscape/AOL to make some very hard business decisions. If they
had not put a freeze on the code at some point (and branched Netscape 6) and
continued to wait for Mozilla to stablize so that a commercial browser could
be extracted from it, then they would be far worse off today than they are.
In fact, given the slow and haphazard pace of development with the Mozilla
Project, it's probably safe to assume that Netscape wouldn't have a 6.0
browser product at all. It's important to realize that the open source
software (OSS) development methodology if dramatically different from the
software development methodology of commercial software. With OSS,
everything is out in the open. The hundreds and thousands of bugs, mistakes,
errors are all available to anyone who wants to see them. Like in the
commercial software development process, there are nightly builds, however
with OSS those nightly builds are available to everyone, not just the
Quality Assurance and Testing teams. The rationale for such is that the more
people who use the software, the more bugs that will be found and fixed.
Eric Raymond's "More eyes, less bugs" philosophy.

However, what's troubling some pundits is that Netscape/AOL plans to release
a browser that doesn't contain bug fixes that were implemented in Mozilla
_after_ Netscape 6 was forked from the development tree. While it would be
nice for the Netscape engineers to implement these same bug fixes, it would
probably mean a delay in the release of Netscape 6. And since Netscape 6 is
a commercial software product, it has launch dates, deadlines, and other
requirements to meet. Just because Netscape 6 is _based on_ the Mozilla
codebase doesn't mean that Netscape/AOL can blow off their release schedule.

It's also important to note that while Netscape 6 and Mozilla share a common
codebase, they are not the same thing, nor will they ever be. There are
technologies and services available in Netscape 6 that are not in Mozilla,
and vice versa. The most visible example of this is Netscape/AOL's addition
of things like the AOL IM chat client and other company-branded services.

http://www.oreillynet.com/lpt/a/337

I've been part of the Mozilla Project since February of this year, and have
contributed a fair amount of my knowledge and expertise. I'm currently
co-authoring a book for O'Reilly about building applications using the
Mozilla technologies, specifically treating Mozilla as a platform rather
than as just a browser. If this concept of "Mozilla as a platform" takes
off, and developers start building robust web applications on top of
Mozilla, then Netscape/AOL could benefit tremendously, as it would be a
trivial task to make your web apps run in Netscape 6 as well as the browser
component of Mozilla. The comparison of "Mozilla as a Platform" to the
Microsoft .NET initiative is not lost on web application developers. If you
are a developer responsible for making technology decisions regarding your
web application development, would you rather develop for a platform like
Microsoft .NET where you are forced into using one company's single-OS
(Windows) proprietary technology, or would you like to develop on top of a
platform that is 100% open source, has no development fees, hidden costs,
and is inherently cross-platform and runs on just about every operating
system made today?

--
Cameron Barrett
CollabNet - Transforming the Software Economy
http://www.collab.net (work)
http://www.camworld.com (play)