Mozilla Leaves Out Linux For Initial Web App Support 403
darthcamaro writes "Guess What? Linux is not a primary platform for Mozilla. For Mozilla's upcoming Web Apps marketplace, Linux support is not part of the initial release. Some Mozilla developers simply are shrugging this off as Windows and Mac dominate the Mozilla user landscape today."
Fork it, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Unlike with Internet Explorer, if the Linux community feels strongly about this, they could always do their own fork. So stop bitching and start coding.
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That's right Fork it! And fork them!
I'll just use another browser!
Forking summa batches!
It mighta as well, too! The spiel checker hasn't worked on Linux in many many releases.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Insightful)
You most likely wouldn't even need to fork it, it's not like Mozilla is fundamentally opposed to the idea, they just can't justify the resources necessary for it at the moment. If you were to fully implement it with some decent code, I'm pretty sure Mozilla would be more than happy to integrate it.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:Fork it, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fork it, then (Score:4, Informative)
There are like 20 forks of Firefox for Linux already, I can't even keep track of them all: Iceweasel, Seamonkey, Icecat, Swiftfox, Flock, ...
There are even more based on WebKit.
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Iceweasel is really just a rebranding, technically it's a fork but the code is identical to Firefox.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Informative)
The "trademark issues" were that you can't patch Firefox and keep calling it Firefox. Thus people had to rename it for applying patches.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Informative)
The "trademark issues" were that you can't patch Firefox and keep calling it Firefox.
You can if you have permission e.g. Ubuntu patch their Firefox [launchpad.net], and yet it is still called Firefox. Debian also had permission, once upon a time. The dispute with Debian wasn't over source code patches, it was over the patch that removed the Firefox logo, because it was provided under a non-free license.
Yes and No (Score:5, Informative)
The wiki also states: Additionally, as Debian releases are frozen on a long-term basis, software in the frozen stable releases needs to be patched for any newly-discovered security issue. Under the revised guidelines, in order to use the Firefox name, approval from the Mozilla Corporation would have been required for all security patches, but the Debian project felt it could not put its security in the hands of an external corporation in that manner.[15]
Note that the fact that Debian renamed it does not constitute proof of validity of Mozilla's claims that people can't apply patches from Mozilla's codebase and still call it Firefox. That claim never got tested, since they already changed the name anyway.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Informative)
Seamonkey isn't a fork of Firefox, it's the other way around. Seamonkey is what remains of the old Mozilla suite. I'm surprised it's under active development.
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Re:Fork it, then (Score:4, Informative)
It's also one of the better lightweight HTML editors out there. Perfect for when someone without experience needs to edit a web page for content.
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In 2005, with the official suspension of the Mozilla Browser project, it was expected that the 30+ Mozilla devs would, naturally, just switch development to Firefox, the new child, which at the time only had 3 core developers.
The Mozilla devs, however, upon looking at the bastardized, sloppy, memory-leak-filled Firefox pre-2.0 codebase balked. They considered the Firefox devs to be rank amateurs and there was a move to change up the org structure of Firefox. That backfired when the Moz Consortium, encourage
Re:Fork it, then (Score:4, Insightful)
Forking is what causes forking confusion.
It makes newbies runaway from GNUlinux rather than try it, and even experienced people like me say, "I'm tired of 10 different variants of Mozilla browsers, and the desktop changing every release. I'm going back to Win or Mac OS for some multiyear stability."
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I approve highly of the use of your logical or in this case, but even though the compiler will get it right, it is best to include parenthesis for ease of readability and maintainability. Best Practice recommendation is: ((win) or (Mac OS for some multiyear stability));
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Insightful)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Paradox_of_Choice:_Why_More_Is_Less [wikipedia.org]
One of the reasons for this is percieved "Missed Opportunities". The idea that, yeah, maybe you picked Firefox, but you have a nagging feeling that you might have been happier with IceWeasel. This makes you enjoy FireFox less, through no fault of FireFox itself.
Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Interesting)
I suffer from some kind of mental problem where when presented with a choice, I break into a near frenzy of research on said choices. It can almost paralyze my choices as I try to discover the best choice. While I enjoy the research, sometimes I think I would be happier to just have one choice.
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Re:Fork it, then (Score:5, Insightful)
Like it or not, Ubuntu is the best hope for Linux in the real world. It is becoming big enough that software companies and consumers can focus on one Linux product. If Ubuntu is just the flavor of the day and fades like Red Hat etc, I will give up hope of Linux ever really "making it" to the desktop for the average user.
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Nonsense.
They all run the same kernel and libraries.
You can "install" an app on Linux just by decompressing a tarball. Windows style "installers" run on any version of Linux you want.
It doesn't matter if Ubuntu fades. It doesn't matter if Red Hat fades. Software made for either will run on any other Linux out there.
Linux is like an aisle full of soda that differs only in the shape, size, and mechanics of the containers.
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I thought so too...until they started pushing Unity. OTOH, Gnome3 isn't that much better.
There wasn't anything major wrong with Gnome2 or KDE3. Gnome3 and KDE4 are (still?) far inferior. So much so that when neither Gnome2 nor KDE3 are available (and supported) anywhere, I expect to switch to LXDE or some such. I've experimented with them already, and they may not be as good as Gnome2 or KDE3, they are, for my purposes, far superior to any of Gnome3, KDE4, or Unity. If I used a tablet my opinions might
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It should. You are abusing statistics.
It's like you're trying to claim that MacOS has greater market share than Windows when we all know that it doesn't really.
The market doesn't mind choice. Windows has thrived and marginalized Apple in that kind of environment for decades. Now Android is set to do the same to Apple again.
No need to fork, article is nonsense (Score:4, Informative)
Seriously, RTFM: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=744193 [mozilla.org]
Choices (Score:2)
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Does anybody still run Mozilla's Firefox on Linux? Every distro already switched to a fork ages ago.
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Or they can just switch to Chromium, which is also open-source and doesn't have all the problems that Firefox has been having lately. Of course, that will cause the Mozilla people to bitch and whine.
Useless anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
What's a "web app marketplace" and why would I need one anyway? There's plenty of useful software available to me in the repositories. There are plenty of websites I can browse with a regular browser. There are plenty of extensions I can use to customize my browsing experience.
Seriously, what does a "web app marketplace" have to offer that isn't already done better through one of the above resources?
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Ease of use for the lay-users.
People have gotten used to using "Apps" all over the place, and expect them to be all neatly collected in one area for them to browse.
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That's what repositories are for. Re-inventing the wheel to do that within every app is, well, retarded. Adobe on windows, anyone?
Grandparent is correct. This is rather useless on a platform such as linux that does software management the right way.
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Your point being? OP makes no referance for it being on Linux, just that it's "useless".
This is being rolled out on Macs and Windows.
An 87 year old grandmother is not going to know what all these new-fangled "repositories" are. Nor will she Google around and search a dozen sites for a plugin she is wanting.
She does know that her phone has an App store where she can get games and apps, and now here on her computer's browser is something also named App Marketplace, so that must be where she is supposed to go
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Then OP is an idiot for bitching about something that not even slated to be available on Linux.
And when that grandmother wants into Best Buy to buy a new computer, whats the sales person going to sell her on? Sure as hell wont be a Linux computer.
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Indeed. The article is essentially whining that Linux FF won't get the sparkly My Little Pony training wheels that the Windows and Mac variants will get.
Yeah. Color me confused. I suppose that there are still the Open Source populist advocates that argue that we need to have those training wheels available so that we can get some sweet sweet market share from those other platforms. I say, those platforms can keep their training wheels. I prefer to use my platform among other people who actually know how to
Re:Useless anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
"Seriously, what does a "web app marketplace" have to offer that isn't already done better through one of the above resources?"
A way for Mozilla foundation to have direct access to your wallet.
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But...but...they're non-profit! User-driven! Innovative! Exclamation marks! [mozilla.org] I mean...that's what they told me just now [mozilla.org]...so they can't really be influenced by any tech giants with mobile phone and tablet interests or anything [pcmag.com].
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"Non-profit" is not a synonym for "never needs revenue".
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Ding ding ding! Winner!
Re:Useless anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
Apps have a place, I guess, on phones and tablets. Keep that crap off of my machines that I actually use for productivity(laptop/desktop).
Re:Useless anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
App is merely the new name for software. It isn't even all that new; weren't we talking about "killer apps" twenty years ago? I, for one, welcome our new, shorter named, software.
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Actually, it's not too new a concept on OS X. The Apps you download from the Mac App Store are identical to the software you could download for OS X ever since it got started. That's because OS X has always bundled up applications into one folder, instead of scattering their files all over the place like windows does. That's why uninstalling an application in OS X consists of dragging it into the trashcan.
Basically, when the Mac App Store opened, it was another place to find Mac software, nothing more and n
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Seriously, what does a "web app marketplace" have to offer that isn't already done better through one of the above resources?
Monetize that, so you get to pay for noscript, adblock plus, etc. I'm thinking this is not going to turn out well.
For years I've been waiting for chrome to have addons as good as FF. Maybe being forced to pay will be the big push.
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Monetize that, so you get to pay for noscript, adblock plus, etc. I'm thinking this is not going to turn out well.
That's a little dramatic, isn't it? I mean, to really realize that, they'd have to lock down Firefox so that inly accepts AddOns from their store...and, yeah, we all disagree with them lately, but that's just too stupid.
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Seriously, what does a "web app marketplace" have to offer that isn't already done better through one of the above resources?
Agreed. I need a fucking web browser. Does it still do that? Great.
How about focusing on making it run faster?
Re:Useless anyway (Score:5, Funny)
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It's not for you, it's for the developers. Who can make cross-platform apps with less pain. Which means you will find some excellent software there. Take a look at Chrome's marketplace to get an idea.
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More importantly: Why would a "web app" marketplace be platform specific anyways?
Isn't the whole point of the web and the browser the fact that it is it's own platform detached from the underlying operating system?
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The thing that sets the Mozilla Web Apps ecosystem apart from others is that you can run your own marketplace. There can be dozens of competing marketplaces, each with different incentives, economics, target audiences, etc. Mozilla is building a Marketplace but the specs and the formats for receipts and the like are all open source and freely re-implementable.
Set up your own Markeplace and prove the centralized stores wrong.
Linux Abandoned (Score:2)
For more lucrative bet
As classic straight razor
For lame new Gilette
Burma Shave
Chrome / Chromium (Score:2)
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Runs pretty nicely in Linux. It's a good deal faster than FF anyway.
How is it with Flash compared to FF? I'm using FF right now, and the Linux box is mostly used for radio and TV streams, most of which use flash. Which stopped working Sunday when I updated to 12.04...
What? (Score:5, Insightful)
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*unless you want to count the possibility of h.264 encoding being relied on the OS.
Moderate parent up. (Score:2)
Subject says it all
Web apps == (Score:2, Interesting)
The whole point of web apps is to tie you to an online service, make your data less secure, and lose your privacy so that you become a marketing unit on their business plan.
And the 2nd point of web apps, or perhaps not a point but an effect nevertheless, is to try to make you forget what decent Human Interfaces on native apps used to look like, so that you don't mind using an in-browser GUI that is more primitive and less responsive than anything we had in the 80's, and badly designed to boot because webbie
Re:What? (Score:5, Insightful)
In other shocking news, different platforms requiring different implementations of this rather non-critical feature don't get the feature exactly simultaneously. And here I was hoping they'd have quantum entangled programmers whose coding is either both done or not done.
This isn't a story.
Meh... (Score:3, Insightful)
Chrome works better anyways, most guys I know that use linux are using Chrome and it's app store.
Mozilla has become a also ran lately, they need to get their focus back if they want to get back in the race.
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I use chromium and chrome at times, but does anyone actually use the app store?
As far as I can tell it is just a bunch of bookmarks. Totally pointless.
A matter of share: 85%, 12%, and 2.5% (Score:2)
Pretty obvious.
85+ for Windows
12% for Mac OS
2.5% for GNUlinux
Re:A matter of share: 85%, 12%, and 2.5% (Score:4, Interesting)
It would be interesting to see what % of Mozilla code is developed on each platform.
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I use Gentoo with clang (instead of GCC) and go OUT OF MY WAY to avoid the GPL ...
I *bet* that you didn't know until a day ago what Clang actually is!
pathetic (Score:5, Interesting)
"...shrugging this off as Windows and Mac dominate the Mozilla user landscape today."
And that is a big part of why Windows and Mac continue to dominate the landscape. The Linux versions of many apps tend to be second rate. Then the developers look at it and say "see, nobody really wanted it on that platform anyway."
That's a pretty sad statement for an open project to make.
Re:pathetic (Score:4, Insightful)
It's also a fictional summary designed to grab your attention rather than represent the truth.
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That was intended as a generalized reflection of the attitude, not a quote from anyone in particular. I can fake quotes if I wanted to but they'd be much more entertaining than that.
And? (Score:2)
I'm using Chrome on Linux and only rarely dust off FF.
The question is not if this was a good policy decision, the question is whether anyone will notice.
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As much as I dislike being left behind for the first version, pleople forget that the same happens on Google side, Google Talk plugin, Drive client, even the initial version of Chrome where Windows and Mac only, We are always left behind by Google, There is no Drive sync client for Linux yet (but it will come).
Bad move (Score:2)
So, how do you install an application on "Linux" (Score:2, Insightful)
So please tell me, how does one generically "install" an application on "Linux"?
It's silly to complain about Linux not being supported when Linux itself doesn't support the basic concept. It will probably be up to the distribution vendors like Ubuntu to customize this for their own desktop environment.
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Tell me the same for MacOS and Windows please?
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So please tell me, how does one generically "install" an application on "Linux"?
Well, first the user has typically "subscribed" to an "app store" called a software repository, this is typically already done for them at OS install, but you're free to add other "app stores" if you're an "advanced" user (read: average Linux user).
Then the user searches for an app, and is presented results from EVERY app store they've registered (or "advanced mode": select only specific app stores to search in). The chose app is then automatically downloaded, configured and installed from the "App Store
Biting the hand that feeds you. (Score:3)
Firefox is bloated - Use Chromium (Score:3)
I sort of understand why Mozilla have done this - they're only talking about the "App marketplace" not development of the browser itself - they are trying to raise funds for Firefox development by selling apps. (I assume).
That's how I understand it, then again I stopped using Firefox last year and switched to Chromium - the open-source version of Chrome - they are also forks of Chromium designed to remove all sorts of tracking code too.
Most people I know have switched away from Firefox and are using Chrome or Chromium instead.
The best thing about Chrome/Chromium is they are part of the "webkit family" which means wider support and consistent HTML5 adherence.
Firefox is feeling a bit dated anyway - All I can say is "Good Luck with that" Mozilla!
I don't develop with Mozilla. (Score:3)
I still use it as a browser, but it's not part of my dev ide. I use Chrome.
Linux Web Apps Development - How to Help Out (Score:5, Informative)
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Runs like shit on my 1/2 gigabyte PC. Starts out okay but after about half-an-hour, Chromium spawns 5+ processes that hog memory. It's insane.
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Firefox runs like crap on my 16KB calculator. Can't even get internet access!
Re:Turnabout is fair play (Score:5, Interesting)
Isn't it a shame however that because more and more people get more and more powerful machines, that the developers code more sloppily because "the machines can take it"?
Re:Turnabout is fair play (Score:4, Informative)
Isn't it a shame however that because more and more people get more and more powerful machines, that the developers code more sloppily because "the machines can take it"?
If you want to run software from 20 years ago, go ahead. What you call "sloppy" I call "defense in depth". For example, chrome spawns a process for the renderer in each tab, so that a buffer overflow in webkit doesn't allow malware to do anything to your file system. It uses more RAM. This is a good tradeoff, because RAM is dirt cheep and cleaning up malware is expensive. Don't like it? Buy a VAX.
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>>>This is slashdot, how do you have only 512MB?!?!?!
This is slashdot, you're a well paid developer. How do you have less than 100K in the bank?
Touche'
Re:Turnabout is fair play (Score:5, Insightful)
I still have a hard time stomaching Chrome. Even looking past the fact that they don't have NoScripts, I'm very reluctant to turn yet another part of my life over to a huge corporation with a checked past when it comes to privacy issues. Mozilla may be largely in Google's pocket too, but at least they maintain some semblance of independence. I trust them a lot more than Google itself.
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Try ScriptNo for Chrome/Chromium. Not quite as comprehensive as NoScript, but has a better user interface, IMHO.
https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/oiigbmnaadbkfbmpbfijlflahbdbdgdf [google.com]
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You should try Comodo Dragon or Srware Iron. Both have 0 privacy problems and are direct forks of Chromium.
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I hear ya... I resisted the switch from Firefox to Chrome for a long time. I love Mozilla. They singlehandedly saved the fri
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It makes me very sad to say it, but I've moved on from Firefox, (an
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Maybe he meant adblock? Not much percentage in an advertising company allowing adverts to be blocked.
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Why?
http://www.youtube.com/html5 [youtube.com]
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Updates to the browser are provided in a .DEB file, easy to install
At least in Ubuntu you get Firefox updates automatically. Clearly easier than getting .deb files.
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Mozilla is a community project with only a part of the actual contributors being paid devs. They are indeed paid to work on stuff where the open source community is less interested in, like Windows integration. So yes, this is probably indeed what is happening, but you make it sound like it's a bad thing, by calling it a "fuck you" whereas its more of an "I know you can do it better anyway".
That said, I suspect this one is due to technical reasons, like there being much more desktop environment fragmentatio
Why bother to RTFM: indignation over FUD is fun! (Score:2)
I don't think anyone's bothered to read the bugzilla case. Possibly including the idiot @ internetnews.com - seriously, I don't understand how you could possibly come to those conclusions based on that bugzilla case [mozilla.org].
Re:... Has anyone actually bothered to RTFM (#7441 (Score:5, Informative)
Seriously, what the fuck is going on here? The comment about supported platform is from more than a month ago, the rest of the responses are about resolving it.
Yeah, but this is also an insult (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is the premeire open source desktop. Mozilla is the premiere open source web browser. Many OSS people use both and have supported both. This kinda of decision is a slap in the face to the years of time invested on both sides. Indeed Mozilla has become more like a company than an open source project.
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Came here to say exactly that, it's a shame I don't have any mod points. Mozilla no longer cares about freedom, and open source software, but rather about market share and userbase. This is also quite obvious with the h.264 debate they decided needs to be re-thought.