[OT] Firefox about to change name again... ?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Antoine
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Antoine

http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007396.html

B. Goodger, leading engineer of the firefox(r) project, is now paid
by google(r). Nothing is said about the hundreds of people
contributing to firefox (extensions developers, translators, ...)
who will probably go on working freely, whilst some of the
'firefox(r) team' will be paid.

I much more prefer non opensource freeware (which I consider as I
gift made by its developer) rather than pseudo-philantropic projects
which definitely aim at making (indirectly most of the time) a lot
of money.
 
Antoine said:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007396.html

B. Goodger, leading engineer of the firefox(r) project, is now paid
by google(r). Nothing is said about the hundreds of people
contributing to firefox (extensions developers, translators, ...)
who will probably go on working freely, whilst some of the
'firefox(r) team' will be paid.

I much more prefer non opensource freeware (which I consider as I
gift made by its developer) rather than pseudo-philantropic projects
which definitely aim at making (indirectly most of the time) a lot
of money.
Click to expand...
San Francisco, 25th January 2004 - The Mozilla Foundation (NASDAQ: MOZ) announced today that its ground-breaking Firefox browser would be renamed "FoxGoo" with immediate effect.
Click to expand...

Ever heard of sarcasm or irony?


regards from
 
A.Melon said:
I really can't see what the problem is. So what if he's now
being paid by Google - he's still going to be working on the
upcoming releases of Firefox. Most open-source developers are
paid by a variety of companies - if they didn't have any income,
they wouldn't be able to produce their software.
Click to expand...

The fact that B. Goodger is paid or not is not a problem at all in
itself. But as I wrote in another thread, it is not fair that one/a
few developer(s) get paid while the project has been that far thanks
to the _free_ work of volunteers. Firefox without extensions is not
that much better than Kmeleon of MyIE2 (with gecko support). The
another point I see is that B. Goodger's new employer isn't that
neutral in the internet field, is it ? Last, some monthes ago, there
were rumors google(r) and mozilla(r) working together : both denied
this information. Is that the way opensource projects can be trusted
?
There have always been paid employees at the mozilla.org - all
organisations need to employ some paid staff to run things & to
be there "on-call". Same with most charities - collectors &
volunteers may work for free, but they still require paid admin
& other staff.
Click to expand...

Nothing to add here. You are fully right.
Unfortunately, if Mozilla products were non-opensource, we
probably never would have got this far with Firefox. Open
source software relies on feedback & input & a variety of skills
to improve and give users what they want. Non-open source just
gives you only what the developer wants to give you, not what
you would like to have included in the product.
Click to expand...

Yes and no. I am using payware applications (for example my
firewall) whose authors are very receptive to user
comments/suggestions.
Don't be too paranoid Antoine - Ben's already commited to "I
will continue doing much the same work as I have described above
- with the new goal of successful 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 releases", so
it looks like Firefox won't be disappearing from view in the
foreseeable future.
Click to expand...

And google(r) 'buying' openoffice(r)/apache(r)/php(r)/python(r)
projects by employing their leading engineers wouldn't bother you
either ? :)
 
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007396.html

B. Goodger, leading engineer of the firefox(r) project, is now paid
by google(r). Nothing is said about the hundreds of people
contributing to firefox (extensions developers, translators, ...)
who will probably go on working freely, whilst some of the
'firefox(r) team' will be paid.

I much more prefer non opensource freeware (which I consider as I
gift made by its developer) rather than pseudo-philantropic projects
which definitely aim at making (indirectly most of the time) a lot
of money.
Click to expand...

I really can't see what the problem is. So what if he's now
being paid by Google - he's still going to be working on the
upcoming releases of Firefox. Most open-source developers are
paid by a variety of companies - if they didn't have any income,
they wouldn't be able to produce their software.

There have always been paid employees at the mozilla.org - all
organisations need to employ some paid staff to run things & to
be there "on-call". Same with most charities - collectors &
volunteers may work for free, but they still require paid admin
& other staff.

Unfortunately, if Mozilla products were non-opensource, we
probably never would have got this far with Firefox. Open
source software relies on feedback & input & a variety of skills
to improve and give users what they want. Non-open source just
gives you only what the developer wants to give you, not what
you would like to have included in the product.

Don't be too paranoid Antoine - Ben's already commited to "I
will continue doing much the same work as I have described above
- with the new goal of successful 1.1, 1.5 and 2.0 releases", so
it looks like Firefox won't be disappearing from view in the
foreseeable future.
 
The
another point I see is that B. Goodger's new employer isn't that
neutral in the internet field, is it ?
Click to expand...

As he said on the blog, he was getting paid before by the Mozilla org. So
he's been paid all along.

My worry is that he will now be a funnel employed by Google to get their
ideas and wishes implemented in Firefox. Google is trying to become a major
player, like AOL and Yahoo, and getting their foot in the door at Mozilla
could mean bad things in the future. How long will it be before we see
something similar to the "new" (AOL controlled) Netscape?

I think Firefox needs to find another (non biased) chief engineer.
 
My worry is that he will now be a funnel employed by Google to get their
ideas and wishes implemented in Firefox. Google is trying to become a major
player, like AOL and Yahoo, and getting their foot in the door at Mozilla
could mean bad things in the future. How long will it be before we see
something similar to the "new" (AOL controlled) Netscape?
Click to expand...

Newsgroups, email, browser...

A pattern does seem to be emerging.
 
Antoine said:
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007366.html
http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/gerv/archives/007396.html

B. Goodger, leading engineer of the firefox(r) project, is now paid
by google(r). Nothing is said about the hundreds of people
contributing to firefox (extensions developers, translators, ...)
who will probably go on working freely, whilst some of the
'firefox(r) team' will be paid.

I much more prefer non opensource freeware (which I consider as I
gift made by its developer) rather than pseudo-philantropic projects
which definitely aim at making (indirectly most of the time) a lot
of money.
Click to expand...

Could his employment by google be anything to do with the rumoured Google
Browser they are working on?
 
GooDOS, GooDOWS, GooNIX
GooNEWS - usenet client
GooBoo - clone of the Ghost programs
GooWeb - the new Apache
GooGnu - don't really wanna go there
GooRoo - the AUS version
 
Antoine said:
The fact that B. Goodger is paid or not is not a problem at all in
itself. But as I wrote in another thread, it is not fair that one/a
few developer(s) get paid while the project has been that far thanks
to the _free_ work of volunteers.
Click to expand...

Yet you don't complain about Redhat who release Fedora to the community
to get free testing then implement the stuff that does work in their
$$$ Enterprise versions.
And google(r) 'buying' openoffice(r)/apache(r)/php(r)/python(r)
projects by employing their leading engineers wouldn't bother you
either ? :)
Click to expand...
How does employing a couple of engineers count as buying a project?
 
Conor said:
Yet you don't complain about Redhat who release Fedora to the
community to get free testing then implement the stuff that does
work in their $$$ Enterprise versions.
Click to expand...

You mention 'testing'. I mentionned 'developping'. These 2
contributions are not at the same level at all.
How does employing a couple of engineers count as buying a
project?
Click to expand...

I am sure you didn't miss the quotes surrounding the term 'buying'.
This said, employing a couple of engineers definitely counts when
those engineers lead the concerned project, which is the case.
 
Antoine said:
You mention 'testing'. I mentionned 'developping'. These 2
contributions are not at the same level at all.


I am sure you didn't miss the quotes surrounding the term 'buying'.
This said, employing a couple of engineers definitely counts when
those engineers lead the concerned project, which is the case.
Click to expand...

I'm with you Antoine. I think to myself "Why would any US corporation
invest money in anything". The obvious answer is return on their
investment. Google is not doing this to be a niceguy. It is their business
to make money and that is exactly what they are trying to do. Hold on to
your wallet. Google is no longer our friend.

Dave H.
 
DaveH said:
I'm with you Antoine. I think to myself "Why would any US corporation
invest money in anything". The obvious answer is return on their
investment. Google is not doing this to be a niceguy. It is their
business to make money and that is exactly what they are trying to do.
Hold on to your wallet. Google is no longer our friend.
Click to expand...

Not necessarily. Google make money on advertising. The more people use
their services the more money they can demand for advertising space. Bit
similar to advertising on TV, peak time television programs can demand more
money in advertising fees than off peak, because the viewing figures go up.
Now if google spend say 20million on acquiring a software or service and
their customer base increases 10 fold they can demand 10 times that amount
in advertising fees giving them a healthy 180million profit. Advertising
space is the easiest thing to sell if you have huge viewing figures.
 
GooDOS, GooDOWS, GooNIX
GooNEWS - usenet client
GooBoo - clone of the Ghost programs
GooWeb - the new Apache
GooGnu - don't really wanna go there
GooRoo - the AUS version
Click to expand...

Dang, thats starting to sound like Babya this and Babya that
 
Not necessarily. Google make money on advertising. The more people use
their services the more money they can demand for advertising space. Bit
similar to advertising on TV, peak time television programs can demand more
money in advertising fees than off peak, because the viewing figures go up.
Now if google spend say 20million on acquiring a software or service and
their customer base increases 10 fold they can demand 10 times that amount
in advertising fees giving them a healthy 180million profit. Advertising
space is the easiest thing to sell if you have huge viewing figures.
Click to expand...

Very true. But after a 10x increase in revenue, what do they do for
next year and the year after and the year after... When the revenue
starts to level off, investors get pissed. If they can't charge more
per ad next year, then they have to have more ads that are cheaper.
Soon the ads swamp the content. Just like TV.
 
Could his employment by google be anything to do with the rumoured Google
Browser they are working on?
Click to expand...

By all accounts, it has everything to do with it. Google has
registered the domain name www.gbrowser.com - what else does one need
to know?

If Google produces a browser based on FireFox, this is no real problem
for FireFox and may indeed be a blessing since some of the Google
changes might be usefully included in FireFox proper. Since FireFox
is a community project, the odds of Google "owning" it are pretty low,
and even if that should happen, the project will merely be forked by
anyone who doesn't like it. That's one of the "protections" built into
the OSS model - provided the specific project has enough of a
community around it.

The real player hit by a Google browser is of course Microsoft and IE.

If Google produces a FireFox-based browser that is not too screwed up,
it will mean millions more users will download FireFox and that can
only be bad for Microsoft and good for people who want Web pages based
on standards instead of broken IE-specific code.

And some people think Google will indeed produce a "browser-based OS"
beyond that. That was what Netscape thought about in the old days,
and it scared the willies out of Microsoft which is why they embedded
their browser in Windows. Personally I doubt that would be
particularly successful today, but with Google behind it, it could win
some adherents.

Anything that damages Microsoft is good for the industry. That company
has to be put out of business somehow.
 
Anything that damages Microsoft is good for the industry. That company
has to be put out of business somehow.
Click to expand...

One of the most ridiculous statements I have seen in a long time. Hate them
all you want, but if they go, we're screwed.
 
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