Saving Seamonkey?
Asa seems to have made abundantly clear what’s going on with Seamonkey in some comments on his blog. The initial reaction seems to be a lot of flailing, and not much action, same as has been happening since the oh-so-controversial roadmap update that called for replacing the Suite with standalone apps, which even predates the Mozilla Foundation. Astute readers will note that since November 20th, the roadmap has stated that 1.7 will be Seamonkey’s last stable branch. Considering that 1.4 was supposed to be the last stable branch, that seems a considerable reprieve and a lot of time gained to rally the troops, as it were, to create a framework and a platform for maintaining the Mozilla Suite through future releases, even without core organizational focus. Yet this hasn’t happened. Two years on, there still isn’t any significant groundswell of support for maintaining the monolithic beast.
How do people who do care change that? I believe its time for Seamonkey to follow the lead of the aviary apps:
- Get a small group of committed hackers (probably 8-10 given the size of the app).
- Decide where things should be going, and what the ultimate goals are for the project.
- Choose an app czar to lead the project, and create a roadmap.
- Establish Seamonkey as an app project in parallel with the standalone apps.
- Build a QA team that’s deep enough to manage and properly test potential releases.
There’s still passion out there for the Suite, but it needs to be harnessed and channelled into more than just flaming and complaints. No one gets on a bus if they don’t know where its going and it doesn’t have a driver. So who’s going to drive the bus?
Edit: The answer to the last question isn’t me, sorry. I remain absolutely committed to the Firefox platform and goals, but I’m pointing out what I feel is the best/only way forward for those who want to keep Seamonkey alive and kicking.
hi
excellent suggestion . can you ask mozillazine also to make it visible ? i have seen a lot many posts there with much less stuff .
Hi,
I would like to keep the suite going. I’ve done small bits on the address book & mailnews and whilst thunderbird is good, it would be even better if we brought RSS etc back into the main app.
Whilst I can’t guarentee much time, I’d try and support wherever possible.
I think the suite has its’ place as an important app for the testing and creation of new standards test-beds such as CSS3 support and so on, but work does need to be done to keep it under control. IMO the interface should be reorganised to make it simpler but not stripping everything out (ala firefox) but instead re-organising it into a much more friendly power-user app. (Why does it take so many clicks to clear cache in the suite…?)
I’m fifteen, and have been using Mozilla Suite since it’s 1.5 alpha releases (which is long considering my age). Recently made the change to the Firefox/Thunderbird combo, but feel these apps lacking in some sense. They lack the maturity of the Suite, I’d hate to see the Mozilla Suite die and would also be willing to contribute to an effort to advance the Suite. We just need a place to…well sign-up.
Don’t forget https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=255807 – “Migrate Seamonkey UI from XPFE to New Toolkit”. The bug’s CC list should name some interested people who could help (even if it’s only QA-wise). And of course, once that bug is resolved, maintaining the suite will be a lot easier.
I’d love to be involved…but I doubt I could contribute much,
as I’m not a code junkie.
I will, however…post this addy a couple places I hang that
has several bright people…
This is basicly a me too comment
I would love to keep the suite alive, but cannot promise much time. I know c++ and some ui design (hopefully enough to clean up the interface).
I’m very interested in this, but it may be too much for me to chew. I’m not even qualified as a module peer.
Things I’d like to see:
* Stabilizing SVG and getting it on in default builds
* Ditto for XForms
* A process of picking the right features from Aviary to adopt in Seamonkey, including super-reviews
* More attention paid to the fringe projects everybody loves (DOM Inspector, Venkman, Chatzilla) but nobody hacks (and I’m really guilty of this, I have many things I want to do for Inspector, but my drive isn’t there)
* Evaluating extensions other projects have that we might want to adopt a particular revision of (JSLib comes to mind) for stabilization and general use by Mozilla
Actually, the idea is to make Tbird Mailnews and just add the integration parts on top of it. Same for Composer once NVU lands.
It looks like according to current roadmaps Mozilla 1.9 is to be the last.
I’m sorry to say it, but I really couldn’t care less about the suite.
I too would very much like to see active development, and ongoing releases, take place with the Mozilla Suite. I find the Suite is much more complete as it is, and it’s browser opens up faster, and renders webpages just as quickly as it’s FF child.
As to it’s overall size, Windows, English, 11.0MB – which includes Browser, Mail & Newsgroups program, Webpage Composer, and IRC Chat – it weighs in lighter than Firefox (4.7 MB), Thunderbird (5.8 MB), Nvu (6.6 MB) when tallied together – 17.1 MB.
I only wish I could program, then I would gladly become a C/C++ hacker and do my best in helping the Suite continue forward.
Laurence
Just remember that every standalone app has it’s own gecko inside. If we could make GRE ready so standalone apps could be distributed without it – it would rock too.
Giving the sheer size of the suite and the tasks that you list this app czar should be a mozilla.org stuff member to work fulltime on this. It would be even better if she/he would work at MV so that decisions can be influenced and not only whining after others decided.
I agree with bernd.
Statistically projects without upper managment support (in this case that would be MoFo), have about a 1% success rate.
It just doesn’t happen.
IMHO we should do a feature freeze on it at this point. And use it as a testing vehicle. Allowing it to be used for a few purposes:
1. Testing new Gecko
2. Testing prototype features (without effecting Firefox Chrome)
Land your new feature for in SeaMonkey first…. and if it’s really all the rage, then it goes to Firefox/Tbird/Composer.
+1 new feature
+1 size (try 7-zip)
+1 optimize Seamonkey UI
etc.
People, who don’t want to see new features, can use Netscape 7.2…
I’ve been using the Suite for years and still love it. I’ve tried Firefox several times since it first became Firebird but just don’t like it. The UI in the Suite does need some work though and I’d like to see new features too, especially the updates mechanism from Firefox.
I’m willing and able to help with QA if someone can get a plan off the ground.
@bernd:
You want a mozilla.org staff member to be the app czar.. what makes you believe that any one of them is interested? Alternatively if you’re suggesting that a paid mozilla foundation employee maintain the suite, then its just a waste of money.
The short answer is – MoFo has decided not to maintain the suite. If people are “really” interested in maintaining it, they need to step up instead of whining what MoFo should be doing.
Bug 255807 as linked to in an above comment seems like a good pure-technical way to start to attack this problem. By leveraging the toolkit used by aviary, it should reduce the code delta between the two sets of products. Once the delta has been minimized, then a bunch of other questions can be asked (as far as actively hacking UI or adding new features). Just porting navigator to the suite sounds like it will have a decent set of questions to be answered.
It sounds like Christian Biesinger has some plan of attack on this and people can rally around him to move forward.
I would like to help, but I’m not a coder.
However, I can help by promoting the suite (as I do now) and do beta-testing
.
I think the suite has a bright future as long as people use it. And to me, the suit better suits my internet needs than Firefox/Thunderbird. And I’m far from being the only one thinking this way. But we don’t need thoughts, we need actions!
While I don’t use many of the applications in other suites, ie MS Office, Word Perfect Office, etc., I DO use all the applications in Mozilla. Keep the suite going! I’m now using 1.8b. Sometimes integration of software is good ofttimes it’s bad. Mozilla is GOOD!
I’ve been a fan of the Suite (All-in-one) since Navigator 3.0.1a gold Days. I tried IE/OE and didn’t like it. THe suite just suits my style of working. I cut my my teeth on Mac OS9 and lower which didn’t play well with more than one appliaction open. So the Suite was perfect. Now that on I am on OSX, the Suite is still my preferred method of working. The day the Suite is Discontinued is the Day I start looking for alternatives (Opera?), and I will no longer update any Mozilla products!
I am a dedicated Mozilla Suite user. Moved from Netscape which I first started using in about 1995. I have FF and TB but only use them for testing and/or support of other users. If development and support of the Suite ends I’ll keep using it until it doesn’t work anymore. I simply don’t like the separate apps either in concept or execution.
I am very displeased in the push for seprate browsers and email programs[trying to emulate IE and Outlook]. When they quit developing the suite I will go to OPERA or something else. The suite was a great improvement from IE.
Where would Netscape fit into this? Would it now take the place of the suite? What about a new working group taking the code and moving forward with a suite of their own?
I prefer the browser in Mozilla, Firefox looks like something for children, very pretty.
I have used Firefox for web browsing and still use Firefox for some things. However, there are some niggles, such as the tab menu had “New Tab” as the top entry, not “Delete Tab” which I use most often.
There ae other reasons for me prefering the Mozilla Suite – please complete Mozilla 1.8 Final, and keep on develoiping the Mozilla Suite.
Mozilla has many advantages over FF+TB. The principle ones are:
tight integration between browser and mail. Some people don’t like it, but others need it.
all is included. FF+TB
I do not understand the problem from the technical point of view. Many people use Mozilla and report its bugs. It’s possible to backport any changes from FF and TB to Mozilla and it won’t take much efforts.
My employer requires Outlook/Exchange so I use Firefox there. At home I use the suite. I like both and will continue to use the suite. When the suite is no longer supported than I’ll look for another integrated suite. I don’t do browsing at home without also doing email. I’m sad to see that I have ended up at discussion threads like this.
If there is an suite effort that a casual computer user can contribute to than I’ll be helping.
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