[ music | Peter Gabriel – Shock the Monkey ]

Whoa. Pardon me while I have a cup of awesome. This press release from Qualcomm is incredible. I used to use Eudora years ago, and loved it, but switched over to MozMail for the integration in the Suite. When Firefox and Thunderbird hit the shelf, I moved over, and they work great together. But this bit about Eudora now being based on TB is awesome, because we’ll get Gecko goodness with Eudora’s feature set. I just hope they keep or improve on TB’s spam filtering. This is something I’ll be keeping an eye on.

[ music | The Ramones – I Wanna Be Sedated ]

Back from the dead. Register.com was actually very helpful. Kudos to them. Still in hibernation though, for now… We’ll see…

[ music | Depeche Mode – I Want It All ]

It’s very simple. Debian currently values their name and logo, and you can’t use it willy nilly without their permission. Same goes for Mozilla and their Firefox trademark. Now, so far Debian has been using the Firefox trademark with permission from Mozilla. It was a lax permission, and the rules of that permission have changed. The rules did not change to be mean, or to be arbitrary, but due to the fact that the law states trademark holders must defend their trademarks or lose them. Adobe asks you not to call photo editing “Photoshopping”; Google asks you not to say “Googled” when you went to a search engine; Xerox barely managed to hold on to their name due to aggressive marketing, which is why you probably get documents photocopied instead of xeroxed. Mozilla must do the same, and the problem that Debian is running into is they want to heavily edit the codebase to the Mozilla foundation’s flagship browser, essentially creating their own product, and yet still call it “Firefox”. You can’t have it both ways.

There is a branding “switch” built into the Firefox codebase. Turn it on, and the the official logos and names are used. Turn it off, and you can build your own branded browser automatically with almost no extra effort. Debian broke this switch (knowingly, this wasn’t an accident, it was broken because they “needed” to make various other edits) and wound up hardcoding the Mozilla trademarks into the Debian browser. Rather than doing what other vendors do, rebranding it, Debian is pitching a fit because Mozilla is saying, “Look, we need to fix this situation. Stop using the trademarks, or start following these updated rules.” Had Debian not broken the branding switch, this would be incredibly easy for Debian to fix, just flip the switch and call the browser Iceweasel or Doodyhead or BigDaddy or whatever they want to call it. But they broke the switch, and painted themselves into a corner, and want to blame Mozilla.

Stop whining. We had to change the name from Phoenix because of Phoenix BIOS’s products. We changed the name from Firebird because of the Firebird project. We changed the Mac based browser Camino from the former name of Chimera. Those were all legit requests. When Firebird was picked, it was a logical choice, but poorly researched. The fiasco after that and the response by both the Firebird project and Mozilla were incredibly poor, but it was resolved in the only logical fashion. As of now, Debian is being asked the same thing. Please follow the rules we have for our name or change the name of your product. The code itself is as free as it always was. The issue is not about code, it’s about protected names, identities that users attach to one product and organization.

Otherwise, I’m going to launch a line of manure-based fertilizer called Debian, with the slogan, “We’re so full of shit, it’s like getting ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag!” and of course, I’ll slap the official Debian logo on the bag. After all, valuable and trusted legally-protected identities want to be free!

[ music | Johnny Cash – Cry Cry Cry ]

I don’t know exactly what’s up with it at the moment. Looks like Grok forgot to renew it. I’ve fired off an email, and hopefully will get ahold of him or his wife ASAP…

[ music | Nine Inch Nails – Terrible Lie ]

This kind of stuff burns me up. It’s like no one every checks anything.

“… putting an end to Mozilla’s development of a 12-year browser line that went back to the original Netscape.”

Last I checked, the vast majority of whatever was left of “the original Netscape” died with Communicator and the abortive 5.0 code dump. Once the changeover to Gecko and Necko took place, the bulk of the original code was gone. So Mozilla didn’t kill a 12 year old codebase, Netscape killed a 4-5 year old codebase. Netscapes 6 and 7 were based on the Mozilla suite, and Netscape 8 was a hybrid of Firefox and the IE core.

Further:

“The end of the Mozilla suite puts a bookmark on the longest-running browser family, one that traces its genealogy to 1994, when Netscape Navigator was first released in beta (under the name Mosaic), through 1996-97’s Netscape Communicator suite, and into the 1998 decision to take Netscape open-source.”

Again, no. If anything, Mozilla.org is continuing the legacy of what was started by that brash young startup Netscape oh so long ago. Today’s Firefox can trace it’s lineage back to the original Netscape browser just as directly as Mozilla Suite can, since Firefox is still built on top of the Gecko core at the heart of the Suite, Netscapes 6, 7, and 8, Thunderbird, Seamonkey, and others. Mozilla.org is the continuing generations of Netscape. If anything, today’s Mozilla Corp. is more “Netscape” than Netscape is now (a brand for AOL’s low cost dialup Internet service) or has been since 1998. They’re driving forward development of a cutting edge application, blazing a path that Microsoft once again is following, trying to catch up to the true innovators.

It makes for flashy copy, but it’s just wrong. Posting about the latest +0.0.1 and +0.0.0.1 releases isn’t sexy, but it’s more respectable than just making things up.

[ music | U2 – Mofo ]

Sometimes we overlook the little things. I switched from the Mozilla Suite to Firefox shortly after 1.0 came out, and after a short time getting used to it, loved it. Now, after two patches for 1.5, it’s just better than ever. And I’m looking at folks workinghard on FF2 and even planning and implementing groundwork for FF3, I stopped to think, “these folks really are serious. It’s not just an aimless passtime like it was in the first 8 years.” And they’re doing a pretty damn good job of it too. And in all the accolades Firefox has won, the devs haven’t really taken time to pat themselves on the back, they just keep working harder. I also just read this piece from Joel Sposky, and this passage jumped out and smacked me with it’s incredibly elegance, how it took the truth and boiled it down to the essence of the point about outsourcing.

“Here’s something Pradeep Singh taught me today: if only 20% of your staff is programmers, and you can save 50% on salary by outsourcing programmers to India, well, how much of a competitive advantage are you really going to get out of that 10% savings?”

That perfectly sums up why outsourcing internal development is not a solution in and of itself. And I thought about Firefox. Here you have a core group of devs working hard on a product, and producing magic, and you have some supporting players taking care of marketing FF, and support, and keeping the lights on and bills paid, and it’s working wonderfully. It’s working so well that they are making enough money to pay the devs and staff without even charging for the product. Everyone is benefiting, too. But before that, there were devs working for years on the core code without much recognition or accolades, they just kept working. And now with all the recognition and accolades, they’re still working hard. so I thought, let’s take a minute and just say Thank You. Thanks to everyone at MoFo and MoCo, thanks for Firefox, and Thunderbird, and everything else. We appreciate it.

[ music | Beastie Boys – Sabotage ]

I didn’t want to say anything until the personal courrier came, and he’s just left. I have in my hands a signed contract and my initial pay. I am now working for Miscrosoft as the head of their Community Conversion department. I’m helping Bill implement his “Closing Open Source” project, starting with Mozilla! Over the next few months, I’ll be contacting every single code contributor to Mozilla informing them we would like to purchase the copyright to their code. If they choose not to sell, I’ll share some of the data gathered by our Internal Intelligence department and attempt to blackmail them. If that fails, we’ll simply sue them into nonexistence. Simultaneously, we’ll be suing MoFo directly for what looks to be a giant stack of patent violations as well! The pile of violated patents I have here is in the four and a half foot tall range, so I think we’ll be able to bleed MoFo dry just in legal fees.

I’d like to thank Bill for this opportunity to help destroy what so many wonderful people have helped create over the years. Once the Berlin Wall fell, I was afraid the days of wholesale evil were behind us, but it’s alive and well in Microsoft. And remember, it’s all just business! Take care!

[ music | Queen – Don’t Stop Me Now ]

Now that Mozilla.org is kicking off its “Extend Firefox” competition, Jesse suggested I offer my services to extension authors lacking artistic skills for designing icons and logos. For him I’ve designed the logos and iconsets for Thumbs and HIGH, as well as graphical work for dozens of websites. This is a commercial thing, as much as I’d love to be able to donate time, I haven’t much time these days free to donate. But, all fees would be negotiable, and reasonable, and a portion of payments would even be donated back to the Mozilla Foundation. You’ll have a non-exclusive, world-wide, perpetual license to do with as you please, as long as I still receive original credits. Extend away!

[ music | Simon and Garfunkel – Keep The Customer Satisfied ]

As you may be able to see to the right, I’m officially taking on small ads. After some negotiations with a few people, I think I’ve found a decent size/cost starting point.

These ads will run in the right column of both the main index and also individual item pages. This means that both direct views of the site, and click-throughs from syndicated feeds to individual items will benefit the advertiser.

* The size, position, and placement of these ads are negotiable if you have other ideas. I’m very flexible. The only rules are the ad must not be Java-based, really annoying Flash ads, advertising illegal content, blatantly false, or incredibly offensive. I determine if the ad falls under these terms, but we hammer this out before payment, and you’ll really have to try hard to offend me. The good karma you’ll buy is priceless. Contact me for details.

[ music | Queen – Play The Game ]

Opera’s browser is now ad and cost free. This is an interesting development. They’re still selling premium support, but MoFo does that too, that’s fairly common. Under the header “Why we’re going free” they don’t actually say why. Under the header “What makes Opera’s web browser unique” they don’t list one unique feature. “Opera includes pop-up blocking, tabbed browsing, integrated searches, and advanced functions like Opera’s groundbreaking E-mail program, RSS Newsfeeds and IRC chat.” Netscape had an integrated email client a decade ago. I’d hardly call that groundbreaking. Mozilla and Firefox has everything else as well. So, nothing unique by any definition of the word.

Now, this is interesting because now the main non-technological difference between Firefox and Opera is the availability of the source code. Neither has ads, neither has a license fee, both have excellent rendering ability and standards compliance, both have features IE lacks, and both have rabidly fanatical communities around the products. Also this is interesting because from the consumer’s standpoint, the browsers can compete on a level playing field. Firefox always had the advantage of being both cost free and ad free, while Opera users had to chose to either pay, or live with ads. Now it’s a head to head competition on features and usability, to be judged by marketshare alone. Opera has put their money where their mouth is, literally. Let the competition begin.