5 ms·

Should Mozilla Fork Firefox?

32 points by dreemteem 16y ago

nfnaaron 16y ago
skip everything but the last three paragraphs.
stcredzero 16y ago
Chrome targeted IE, but it turns out that Firefox is the weaker browser in terms of user "loyalty." Even though Firefox is a better browser, many of IE's users are there because they don't know the difference and don't care, hence they are immune to the attraction of features and design. More of Firefox's users do know the difference, however. It might be nice if there was one fewer rendering engine. Then again, if Microsoft keeps being its good old self, there may be some benefit from strength in numbers.
goodness 16y ago
Well, I would like to see Chrome-like private browsing in Firefox. I don't like the whole shutdown the browser to go in to private mode thing. I often use private browsing mode in Chrome to log in to the same site with multiple accounts. For example, when my wife to log in to GMail while I'm still logged in. Hopefully this is on their radar. I also like how every text box in Chrome is resizable. Not sure if those things really warrant a fork. I also in principle like Chrome's process per tab idea. But in practice, I've never actually found myself killing off an individual tab. Usually when I have browser problems, it's in Windows and it's an I/O issue that tends to make the whole OS unresponsive.
silkodyssey 16y ago
The competition between firefox and chrome is friendly competition. They're both opensource browsers that follow web standards so we aren't losing much by chrome gaining market share at the expense of firefox. If it were losing ground to internet explorer that would have been another issue though. As a result I don't really see the need for a fork of firefox. All they need to do is just focus of making a great browser. We're all fighting on the same side.
- vog 16y ago
  Chrome is only free software if you build it from source (http://code.google.com/intl/de/chromium/terms.html http://code.google.com/intl/de/chromium/terms.html). If you use their pre-built executable (as most people do), different terms apply (http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_text.html http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_text.html). Also, the license isn't everything. It is also important which entity controls the official version of a software. It makes a huge difference whether the decision process is designed for transparency, or whether you can only audit the produced code commits afterwards. So instead of forking Firefox, it might be a better idea to fork Chrome. That way, we'd have an independent version that's regularily checked (and fixed) by persons outside of Google. And we could also provide a free binary to which Google's strange terms doesn't apply. (It would be interesting to see how Google reacts on such a fork. Will they insist on their term and try to apply them to the sources, or will they keep Chrome being free software?)
  - Perceval 16y ago
    >a better idea to fork Chrome. ...an independent version that's regularily checked (and fixed) by persons outside of Google. We already have this. It's called SRWare Iron. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron
  - Jach 16y ago
    FYI, until recently if you compiled Firefox under Gentoo with +branding (now the message comes up with -bindist): You are enabling official branding. You may not redistribute this build to any users on your network or the internet. Doing so puts yourself into a legal problem with Mozilla Foundation You can disable it by emerging ${PN} _with_ the bindist USE-flag I don't know what those legal problems are (as far as I can tell, it's just the Firefox logo), but I think that's interesting.
tszming 16y ago
Mozilla should fork chrome.
sp332 16y ago
Firefox doesn't have feature creep. Memory and CPU usage is down, startup times are down, and the awesome bar is not bloated (it's nicer then Chrome's and just as fast). They've promoted lightweight Personas over full themes[0], and the new JetPack project aims to reduce the complexity of extensions[1]. Firefox 4.0 will continue the trend of faster, more user-friendly Firefox releases[2]. What are these people talking about? Also, there is already a "hothouse of new ideas" run "alongside the main branch of Firefox," it's called Mozilla Labs[3]. Personas has graduated from Labs into main Firefox already. [0]. http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ [1]. https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/ https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/ [2]. http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-and-empowering/ http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-a... [3]. https://mozillalabs.com/projects/ https://mozillalabs.com/projects/
- Perceval 16y ago
  Mozilla is also aware of all the standard criticism of the Firefox experience and more, and they have a number of projects working simultaneously to improve the browser, make it faster, and de-clutter the interface: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/ https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/
- mbrubeck 16y ago
  And just as important as the performance work (in my opinion) is the new theme work in Firefox 4: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups
  - stuaxo 16y ago
    Yes, anybody that has tried Firefox 3.7alpha beta can tell it is much faster, and this is even before Jaegermonkey is operational.
- pwhelan 16y ago
  I could see them forking to manage threads and processes differently. Tabs are managed by thread in Firefox whereas by process in Chrome. I prefer the look & feel of Firefox, which is why I use it, but when Firefox crashes (usually because of a plug-in) the whole thing goes down, not just that page. Not a trivial change, but certainly worth trying out imho. It would likely win back market share too.
zppx 16y ago
I'm a Mozilla user since before the Phoenix (later Firebird, later Firefox) came to existence, I began to use the Mozilla Suite (now SeaMonkey) since 2001, and I do remember how the small Phoenix team produced feature after feature in question of weeks compared to the much larger Mozilla Suite team, something that Mozilla lost after the 1.5 Firefox release, maybe this is the Microsoftification of the Mozilla Corporation, maybe this will come to happen to Chrome and the WebKit in the future, I just think Mozilla needs to divide development in subsystems with no set of desired features to be included in the next release, and them merge them when they are complete and stable, giving greater autonomy to developers of each subsystem, something like the Linux kernel and its various subsystems. For the tl;dr folks: Mozilla is just too centralized these days.
- Perceval 16y ago
  They are moving to a more 'agile' style development. The Lorentz release (originally 3.6.2 now 3.6.4) is supposed to be the first release in which new features are just shipped without waiting for a major point release. http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/3860226/Mozilla-Firefox-Gets-More-Agile-with-Lorentz.htm http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/3860226/Mozilla-Fi...
ianb 16y ago
I joined Mozilla just a couple months ago (and honestly I personally was using Chrome a lot before that -- I'm not on the browser team). From what I've seen talking to people I feel like what the author promotes is what's already been happening. The internal decision process for Firefox has been moving to the UI team, which has been identifying improvements they think are important or easy, and those improvements are getting priority. That's a clear user-centric decision process. As for forking Firefox, it's not something being done explicitly and it's not a clear team, but people are playing around with ideas along those lines and the culture is very open to that process. Jetpack actually has some basis in a split like that (then being brought back to the mainline). No fault to the author, these things are by no means obvious (and I myself can only claim to have a vague sense of what's going on)... but I feel more optimistic the more I know about how decisions and experimentation is done at Mozilla. Sometimes Firefox people come off as very defensive... which I find a little off-putting, but I think it's also a matter of avoiding panic. It would be really stupid to make a long bet on some radical redesign of Firefox, but if you embrace a self-sense of impending irrelevance you can make some really stupid mistakes.

32 points by dreemteem 16y ago

skip everything but the last three paragraphs.

Chrome targeted IE, but it turns out that Firefox is the weaker browser in terms of user "loyalty." Even though Firefox is a better browser, many of IE's users are there because they don't know the difference and don't care, hence they are immune to the attraction of features and design. More of Firefox's users do know the difference, however. It might be nice if there was one fewer rendering engine. Then again, if Microsoft keeps being its good old self, there may be some benefit from strength in numbers.

goodness 16y ago

Well, I would like to see Chrome-like private browsing in Firefox. I don't like the whole shutdown the browser to go in to private mode thing. I often use private browsing mode in Chrome to log in to the same site with multiple accounts. For example, when my wife to log in to GMail while I'm still logged in. Hopefully this is on their radar. I also like how every text box in Chrome is resizable. Not sure if those things really warrant a fork. I also in principle like Chrome's process per tab idea. But in practice, I've never actually found myself killing off an individual tab. Usually when I have browser problems, it's in Windows and it's an I/O issue that tends to make the whole OS unresponsive.

silkodyssey 16y ago

The competition between firefox and chrome is friendly competition. They're both opensource browsers that follow web standards so we aren't losing much by chrome gaining market share at the expense of firefox. If it were losing ground to internet explorer that would have been another issue though. As a result I don't really see the need for a fork of firefox. All they need to do is just focus of making a great browser. We're all fighting on the same side.

vog 16y ago
Chrome is only free software if you build it from source (http://code.google.com/intl/de/chromium/terms.html http://code.google.com/intl/de/chromium/terms.html). If you use their pre-built executable (as most people do), different terms apply (http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_text.html http://www.google.com/chrome/intl/en/eula_text.html). Also, the license isn't everything. It is also important which entity controls the official version of a software. It makes a huge difference whether the decision process is designed for transparency, or whether you can only audit the produced code commits afterwards. So instead of forking Firefox, it might be a better idea to fork Chrome. That way, we'd have an independent version that's regularily checked (and fixed) by persons outside of Google. And we could also provide a free binary to which Google's strange terms doesn't apply. (It would be interesting to see how Google reacts on such a fork. Will they insist on their term and try to apply them to the sources, or will they keep Chrome being free software?)
- Perceval 16y ago
  >a better idea to fork Chrome. ...an independent version that's regularily checked (and fixed) by persons outside of Google. We already have this. It's called SRWare Iron. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SRWare_Iron
- Jach 16y ago
  FYI, until recently if you compiled Firefox under Gentoo with +branding (now the message comes up with -bindist): You are enabling official branding. You may not redistribute this build to any users on your network or the internet. Doing so puts yourself into a legal problem with Mozilla Foundation You can disable it by emerging ${PN} _with_ the bindist USE-flag I don't know what those legal problems are (as far as I can tell, it's just the Firefox logo), but I think that's interesting.

tszming 16y ago

Mozilla should fork chrome.

sp332 16y ago

Firefox doesn't have feature creep. Memory and CPU usage is down, startup times are down, and the awesome bar is not bloated (it's nicer then Chrome's and just as fast). They've promoted lightweight Personas over full themes[0], and the new JetPack project aims to reduce the complexity of extensions[1]. Firefox 4.0 will continue the trend of faster, more user-friendly Firefox releases[2]. What are these people talking about? Also, there is already a "hothouse of new ideas" run "alongside the main branch of Firefox," it's called Mozilla Labs[3]. Personas has graduated from Labs into main Firefox already. [0]. http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ http://www.getpersonas.com/en-US/ [1]. https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/ https://jetpack.mozillalabs.com/ [2]. http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-and-empowering/ http://beltzner.ca/mike/2010/05/10/firefox-4-fast-powerful-a... [3]. https://mozillalabs.com/projects/ https://mozillalabs.com/projects/

Perceval 16y ago
Mozilla is also aware of all the standard criticism of the Firefox experience and more, and they have a number of projects working simultaneously to improve the browser, make it faster, and de-clutter the interface: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/ https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/Projects/
mbrubeck 16y ago
And just as important as the performance work (in my opinion) is the new theme work in Firefox 4: https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups https://wiki.mozilla.org/Firefox/4.0_Windows_Theme_Mockups
- stuaxo 16y ago
  Yes, anybody that has tried Firefox 3.7alpha beta can tell it is much faster, and this is even before Jaegermonkey is operational.
pwhelan 16y ago
I could see them forking to manage threads and processes differently. Tabs are managed by thread in Firefox whereas by process in Chrome. I prefer the look & feel of Firefox, which is why I use it, but when Firefox crashes (usually because of a plug-in) the whole thing goes down, not just that page. Not a trivial change, but certainly worth trying out imho. It would likely win back market share too.

zppx 16y ago

I'm a Mozilla user since before the Phoenix (later Firebird, later Firefox) came to existence, I began to use the Mozilla Suite (now SeaMonkey) since 2001, and I do remember how the small Phoenix team produced feature after feature in question of weeks compared to the much larger Mozilla Suite team, something that Mozilla lost after the 1.5 Firefox release, maybe this is the Microsoftification of the Mozilla Corporation, maybe this will come to happen to Chrome and the WebKit in the future, I just think Mozilla needs to divide development in subsystems with no set of desired features to be included in the next release, and them merge them when they are complete and stable, giving greater autonomy to developers of each subsystem, something like the Linux kernel and its various subsystems. For the tl;dr folks: Mozilla is just too centralized these days.

Perceval 16y ago
They are moving to a more 'agile' style development. The Lorentz release (originally 3.6.2 now 3.6.4) is supposed to be the first release in which new features are just shipped without waiting for a major point release. http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/3860226/Mozilla-Firefox-Gets-More-Agile-with-Lorentz.htm http://www.developer.com/open/article.php/3860226/Mozilla-Fi...

ianb 16y ago

I joined Mozilla just a couple months ago (and honestly I personally was using Chrome a lot before that -- I'm not on the browser team). From what I've seen talking to people I feel like what the author promotes is what's already been happening. The internal decision process for Firefox has been moving to the UI team, which has been identifying improvements they think are important or easy, and those improvements are getting priority. That's a clear user-centric decision process. As for forking Firefox, it's not something being done explicitly and it's not a clear team, but people are playing around with ideas along those lines and the culture is very open to that process. Jetpack actually has some basis in a split like that (then being brought back to the mainline). No fault to the author, these things are by no means obvious (and I myself can only claim to have a vague sense of what's going on)... but I feel more optimistic the more I know about how decisions and experimentation is done at Mozilla. Sometimes Firefox people come off as very defensive... which I find a little off-putting, but I think it's also a matter of avoiding panic. It would be really stupid to make a long bet on some radical redesign of Firefox, but if you embrace a self-sense of impending irrelevance you can make some really stupid mistakes.