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BarCampBlockMozilla

Page history last edited by PBworks 16 years, 7 months ago

This session is titled "Losing My Mofo Religion" led by Chris Messina

http://webkit.pbwiki.com

 

Open Web = XHTML / HTML / JS / CSS / PNG / GIF / JPG / XUL / SVG / Canvas

 

Webkit -- Is the open web browswer -- They're not supporting Flash at the moment -- They require plugins

 

Messina is disspointed by Mozilla's response to Silverlight & AIR

It concerns Messina for two reasons:

According to Mozilla thinks that:

"1.) Open Web always wins"

"2.) Firefox & XUL is best web dev in the world"

 

Few good tools for developing XUL apps (beyond an inefficient text edit) -- Not a good UI experice for developing -- Slower and clunkier

XULRunner -- have to download 50MB vs. Webkit app -- 50k

-- Comment from Philippe:

Where do you see that Xulrunner is 50MB?

Checkout : ftp://ftp.mozilla.org/pub/mozilla.org/xulrunner/releases/1.8.1.3/contrib/win32

The windows version is about 6MB.

 

XULRunner is seriously lacking -- led to video rant that got lots of press play / attn

Mozilla has no story about tools / platform to development, and not looking forward. Not looking to maintain 20% -- Not looking for richer and easier environment for the open web to flourish.

 

Mofo / Moco split -- essentially turning into Firefox, Inc.

It's now a product development company

They're giving up & jettisoning the Thunderbird -- Mozilla response -- Mail not a part of the Open Web so let's ditch it.

 

Messina has talked to Mitchell Baker and talked w/ Mike -- Has tried to engage w/ them and to make his concerns known through official channels

 

David -- works at Mozilla -- XULRunner is not related to the open web -- it's for using Mozilla technology to build Web Apps. More emphasis on building Web Apps rather than Desktop Apps

 

Firefox, Inc is a very good idea

IE8 is like 8 people -- and so it's a reversal of David and Golith.

 

We need a Firefox out there promoting open standards. Concerns lack of resources put into XULRunner b/c desktop apps aren't going away. They'll always be stuff to be gained by running apps natively.

 

Talking about apps that aim to load ONE Url -- MailPlaneApp, Pyro, PachRat, Hiker

 

MailPlaneApp.com -- Drag and drop files from desktop to compose window in Gmail, and it'll attach it automatically

 

Browswer doesn't support drag and drop. Why I can't drop a file on someone's pic on Facebook and have it sent to them. Treat it as a real person -- Flock tried to fix some of this stuff via MicroFormats

 

Flock, Songbird, Miro, Joost dissappointed w/ the development on XUL Runner

 

Messina says Asa Doltzer slipped and Mixing up destiny of Open Web with the destiny of Mozilla -- That's a mistake to think that if Mozilla goes away, then the Open Web will go away.

 

Push towards desktop

 

Citizen Agency consults web companies -- 99% of the projects are web projects. That's where things are going. But you still need to be in some sort of browser environment. Messina's contention is that Songbird/Joost/Flock/Miro are being undercut on the promise of the Open Web because AIR / Silverlight are more sexy and fun to develop on -- but it is in a non-view source web

 

Bad thinking: "I wrote the code, and I should be able to see who's able to see it or not" -- That's not how the web has evolved over the last 10 webs. It's like the neocons of the web -- Shutting the openness down

 

QUESTION: Is this the movement towards web-based standalone apps, because they use the web, then they should be as transparent as possible?

 

THe amount of closed and priprioty realm increases becomes pay-to-play

 

Transparency in the architecture of the web can lead to better stuff. Young folks don't care and they're just going to be building Facebook apps and snub the massive neural nets of the Open Web.

 

Talking about WebRunnerX now. -- http://wiki.mozilla.org/WebRunner -- Messina can't run it yet, which speaks of it's usefulness. HE's able to run X??? on windows because he can't compile all of the mozilla stuffs

 

No such thing as Greasemonkey for flash because it's a closed source

 

Talking CreamMonkey -- which is as cream as in coffee (laughs) -- Inject code into apps

 

Created app called FlickrKit -- It loads flickr.com -- Using Greasekit -- insert greasemonkey scripts into Flickr so that he use lightbox.js stuff.

 

ANother thing he created was an app to Login into wordpress blog, and then turn into CoCoa based menus because he was able to parse the HTML and create menus -- backended on a web server and the widget interaction was a lot more desktop like.

 

Let 1000 of these webapps bloom w/ these types of open view-source world

 

But now Firefox is the priority, and so now you're going to see AIR come into the rise b/c no resources are being put into XULRunner

 

Dave from Mozilla: -- usually doesn't speak for Mozilla -- Mozillas focus now is Web as Platform

 

Dave: Already have a broad mission at Mozilla -- others want to do stuff with their technology -- Mozilla can't do everything for these other companies.

 

Standalone UI versus

 

Original point... Hope and belief w/ Mozilla -- Read their manifesto -- It's wide reaching and very important for the future of the Open Web. Microsoft certainly isn't saying anything like that. AIR and Silverlight doesn't have that in their business plan -- they want to capture and lock people in. Messina is talking as a concerned citizen.

 

Mozilla is moving from a foundation in the gift economy -- spreading value around instead of trying to consolidate -- developers and designers would show up and do SpreadFirefox for 8 months for free. Now they have shareholders. Must have reveune and support hundreds of engineers. Major shift & crossing the chasm from a decentralized to a centralized one where tradeoffs. CounterPoint: "Shareholders" are not Fatcats on Wall street.

 

But they do have lots of money, and now there are other people who are pushing priorities rather than the developer community (or someone else?)

 

Mozilla is a full-time business now, and things have changed. They're more mature now, and much more focused. That's fine now. No more side projects like Thunderbird.

 

Mozilla needs to drop the flag about the future of the Open Web on the Internet -- Mozilla's future isn't mutually dependent on the Open Web, Asa shouldn't say that. WE are responsible for the open Web. NOT JUST MOZILLA. The power is in each of us that we promote and make sure that open standards and the open web survives and lives on. Mozilla now has their Firefox baby to work on, and so us barcampers -- other other devs -- need to pick up the responsibility.

 

Thunderbird is just one indicator -- it's more about to run a company that's focused 75% on Firefox, but 25% on Thunderbird. If we can't spend enough time on it, then relinquish control to the Open Web and let others take care of it.

 

Mitchell's blog post re: Thunderbird: 1.) Either things will stay the same 2.) Spin off the Same Foundation -- Thunderbird Foundation 3.) ??? Can't remember third one. Messina's beef was that the first thing wasn't really a genuine option -- it was disingenuous.

 

Dave making one last final point: Microsoft controlled what the Web platform was doing. They had control and future deciding what the platform was.

 

Another Moz rep: Firefox was a rogue project -- It was frowned upon from Netscape -- There was pushback due to the development model

 

Firefox team worked priority of UI, and ignored other modules (to great effect says Messina) -- The were making Gecko performance changes, and they were doing it w/o asking permission... Other wonky Firefox dev talk...

 

Messina wants open standard FML (Facebook Markup Language)

 

We're at the moment to make a huge contribution to human civilization w/ the Open Web, but we're hindered by propriety technology like AIR or Silverlight

 

Photographs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/tags/losingmymoforeligion