Readers Skeptical About Mozilla's Future

[Zombie9920]

Mozilla still doesn't have much of a chance of challenging the Microsoft browser monopoly, according to about two-thirds of readers responding to an InternetWeek Reader Question.

We asked: "AOL recently spun off the Mozilla browser, turning custodianship for the software over to an independent foundation. Will the independent Mozilla Foundation be better able to challenge the Microsoft monopoly than it was as an arm of AOL?"

The most popular answer: 43 percent of respondents said, "Who cares? Mozilla is irrelevant." Another 19 percent said no, the spinoff will not help Mozilla challenge the Microsoft monopoly. And 39 percent said it would.

Now here's the funny part: Despite all the people responding "who cares?" we received 1,163 responses to the Reader Question, more than triple the usual response rate. Apparently, you care a great deal about not caring about Mozilla.

"While the Mozilla team will now have the flexibility to adapt rapidly to the real world, it may well be too little too late," said Rick Moses, a manager of information systems at Americana Resources, Gaithersburg, Md. "AOL ownership did a lot of damage to Mozilla through their treatment of the browser as a piece of property rather than the killer app that it once was."


Full Story@InternetWeek

[Faust]

I used to actually care about what other people used, but now...  I dunno.  I mean it's their choice what they use.  They want to use crap products then fine, they can use crap products just provided that they don't expect me to fix their inherent problems.  (I have had requests from people asking me to "make my program like that (mozilla)" but not actually install mozilla or anything  :rolleyes: .  Provided I use Mozilla and not IE crap who cares what everyone else uses?

[Zombie9920]

quote:Originally posted by Faust:
I used to actually care about what other people used, but now...  I dunno.  I mean it's their choice what they use.  They want to use crap products then fine, they can use crap products just provided that they don't expect me to fix their inherent problems.  (I have had requests from people asking me to "make my program like that (mozilla)" but not actually install mozilla or anything         :rolleyes:        .  Provided I use Mozilla and not IE crap who cares what everyone else uses?

The IE users users who prefer IE over Mozilla say the same thing you are saying(only they are saying it about the other browser). I think it goes something like, "I don't give a fuck what he/she uses...I like IE because it is fast and  it is %100 compatible with all of the normal websites that normal businesses/corporations, etc. put up.(websites not made by anti-MS nobodies)." MS standards may not be W3C compliant, but it doesn't seem to matter much. More people choose to use MS standards over W3C standards. Who's to say W3C standards are the right standards? Saying that W3C defines internet standards is saying that the W3C group  wants to monopolize the internet(like MS pretty much already has done). 2 groups, 2 competing standards, 1 winner. The winner sure wasn't the W3C group.

BTW, the W3C group didn't bring the internet into nearly %90 of the households in America(and around %75-%80 of the housholds nationwide..even in poor countires). W3C didn't make internet affordable for everyone. MS made it happen, just like MS played a big role in making the x86 PC affordable. If I remember right, Netscape was the W3C compliant browser back in the day when the browser wars started. IE was given away(a browser should be free) while Netscape would charge as much as up to $50 for a CD with thier browser on it.

Who in the hell would pay money for a browser when there is a just as good if not better free alternative out there? Netscape then dropped thier price from $50 to $30 to $20 to $10. This is the whole reason why IE gained popularity so quick. By time Netscape started giving thier browser away for free IE already had the lionshare of the browser market on lock.

If it wasn't for MS the Internet may still be a luxury that only the rich and a few select businesses had. If that was the case we certainly wouldn't be in forums discussing stuff. Alot of us would be lucky to even have access to a stupid BBS system.

[ August 30, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

[Faust]

===============================
W3C is a consortium, thus a multilateral group effort with input from a large range of sources.
+++
Microsoft is a single company with ultimate decision resting not in the hands of the many but the hands of the few.  Thus their "standards" do not favour the greatest range of people.
===============================
W3C is a published standard.  Anyone can use it.
+++
Microsoft products such as front page are reknowned for making "IE only" pages.
===============================
W3C standards are standardized (really?    ), they are consistent.
+++
Microsoft "standards" are inconsistent.
===============================
W3C has one aim and one aim only - to standardize something.  As their primary focus, this standard will be a good one.
+++
Microsofts first and foremost aim as a business is to make money.  Standards are secondary to this, and suffer technologically as a result.
===============================
There are reasons why we have groups such as the ISO and W3C.  They are groups that decide how many wavelengths of some atom are in a metre, and how many vibrations of a molecule time a second.  If companies that are influenced by other factors decided to make "their own" standards for such things as spark plugs then we would be "locked in to" a car manufacturer just as Microsoft likes to try and lock us into .doc and their own html "standards."  Companies with ulterior motives creating their own "standards" is why we have over 7 incompatible DVD formats and so many incompatible memory sticks.

[bigsleep]

IE did not open up the Internet, Netscape did. Up until 1998 Netscape was the predominate browser. I'm not so sure about your prices - I paid $30 for Navigator Gold, and you could download Navigator for free anyway, most ISPs were giving it away on disk. Netscape was free to students. Why "should" any software be free, you don't think developers should get paid? And what makes you think IE is free - you really think the developers at MS are working for free? Mosaic was free and many didn't like Netscape (or frames or Javascript) and used that. I don't believe Spyglass was free, but I'm not sure (IE was based on that, Spyglass sued and MS paid them off).
BTW: Netscape ignored MS's request to make their browser, and refused to make a browser for AOL.
IE didn't become popular intil it was shiped with Windows - at first it was on a separate CD included with Win95 Update, the original Win95 didn't include IE at all. In 1997 new systems had IE4 installed (Win95c), and Win98 of course had it already embedded in (hey, that came out in 98 - go figure). Also we had AOL using IE for their engine.
Netscape at this time already had Javascript, Java and Layers - and they were working on Netscape 5, which was never released. The timeline speaks for itself.
What killed the Interent was MS's use of VBScript, J++ or JScript, MSJava and Frontpage and their intentional attack on Netscape. This mainly just confused webmasters.
No browser has ever been fully W3C complient. Even Mozilla doesn't yet support all the standards (many standards don't really apply to Mozilla anyway). Many of the standards were included because of IE support, MS has alot of influence over W3C. W3C never did accept some Netscape code like blink, layer, embed, spacer, multicol. So the argument against the W3C doesn't hold any water at all. Netscape 4 did fully support ECMA Script 1.3, but IE never did, so Javascript never has worked correctly in IE.
MS gets too much credit, the credit lies solely on IBM, they needed an OS and would have got it one way or another. IBM designed the PC that everyone duplicated, and were able to duplicate cheaply. It was destined to happen, one way or another. To say it's all because of MS is like saying we all drive cars solely because of Henry Ford.
Standards are there so that we don't all crash into each other on the highway.

--
"I think there is a world market for maybe five computers."
- Thomas Watson, Chairman of IBM, 1943.

[mobrien_12]

Zombie, this was your dumbest post ever.
You have had some good ones.  You have had some stupid ones.  This one takes the cake.

MS doesn't have web browser standards.  It has a proprietary implementation.  That's not a standard.

"Who's to say W3C standards are the right standards? "

That's ridiculous.  You CREATE INDEPENDENT STANDARDS BOARDS to get right standards!  You rely on companies to produce non-standards-compliant implementations to create proprietary lock-in.


"Saying that W3C defines internet standards is saying that the W3C group  wants to monopolize the internet(like MS pretty much already has done). "

Are you aware how stupid that statement is?  The W3C group doesn't monopolize ANYTHING. They set OPEN STANDARDS.  

I can't believe you said stuff this stupid. I just lost a lot of respect for you.

[gump420]

quote:Originally posted by Zombie9920:



The IE users users who prefer IE over Mozilla say the same thing you are saying(only they are saying it about the other browser). I think it goes something like, "I don't give a fuck what he/she uses...I like IE because it is fast and  it is %100 compatible with all of the normal websites that normal businesses/corporations, etc. put up.(websites not made by anti-MS nobodies)." MS standards may not be W3C compliant, but it doesn't seem to matter much. More people choose to use MS standards over W3C standards. Who's to say W3C standards are the right standards? Saying that W3C defines internet standards is saying that the W3C group  wants to monopolize the internet(like MS pretty much already has done). 2 groups, 2 competing standards, 1 winner. The winner sure wasn't the W3C group.

BTW, the W3C group didn't bring the internet into nearly %90 of the households in America(and around %75-%80 of the housholds nationwide..even in poor countires). W3C didn't make internet affordable for everyone. MS made it happen, just like MS played a big role in making the x86 PC affordable. If I remember right, Netscape was the W3C compliant browser back in the day when the browser wars started. IE was given away(a browser should be free) while Netscape would charge as much as up to $50 for a CD with thier browser on it.

Who in the hell would pay money for a browser when there is a just as good if not better free alternative out there? Netscape then dropped thier price from $50 to $30 to $20 to $10. This is the whole reason why IE gained popularity so quick. By time Netscape started giving thier browser away for free IE already had the lionshare of the browser market on lock.

If it wasn't for MS the Internet may still be a luxury that only the rich and a few select businesses had. If that was the case we certainly wouldn't be in forums discussing stuff. Alot of us would be lucky to even have access to a stupid BBS system.

[ August 30, 2003: Message edited by: Zombie9920 ]

Anybody have a clue they can lend to this guy?

[pasfr]

I have been using and testing  a lot of browsers

untill a week ago i used currently 5 browsers

-ie6 sp1 : only for spoofing, as there is nearly
  no alternative exept mayby theRefspoof for Mozilla ,
see http://refspoof.mozdev.org/installation.html

-Myie2, a good tabbed browser and IEclone

-Greenbrowser ,idem

-Opera 6.06, i prefer this over Opera7.xx

 -K_melion for the Mozilla clones this is really a small browser,has a loader,
 I tried Mozilla,Firebird,Phoenix,Beonix,Netscape
They are all good,but large executables,
In my eyes K-Meleon is the only Mozillaclone that can compete IE,IE clones and Opera
The core is small, so a lot of neccessary tools can be developed, this should be done directly
into the core instead of doing it by scripts

Now I use pratically only Sleipnir, a tabbed IE clone developped by a single man, a Japanner
This is the Cadillac under the browsers,got all the features of IE,IEclones,Opera,Mozilla
(not the rendering machine as it is a IE clone)
The IE cache can be disabled, so no longer junk onto your disk,this is the fasted browser ever if
the diskcache is off
Want to restart your browser where You left it,Sleipnir has it,it is always available,Opera has
it when bumped out or when coched in the settings
Just killed a few windows,no problem, Tou get it back
All directories in the Favorites can be parametered:
with, without  Java,Javascript,ActiveX,V Download,Images,Video,Sound
There are a lot of features not found elsewhere,
This is now my primary browser as I found a lot of features not found elsewhere
pasfr

[emh]

quote:Originally posted by Zombie9920:

Now here's the funny part: Despite all the people responding "who cares?" we received 1,163 responses to the Reader Question, more than triple the usual response rate. Apparently, you care a great deal about not caring about Mozilla.

This statement right here says a lot.  If they really didn't care, why would they be so vocal about it?