h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

[WARNING: Microsoft rant]

One of the most important components of Mozzilla, and the one that sets it above IE and the Micro$loth group is it's cross-platform capabilities and modular components.

The original intent of the internet/WWW was to allow everyone to communicate--regardless of platform. Someone on a giant mainframe in Zurich could commumicate with an isolated scientist doing independent research on a lowly PC in Newfoundland. Or whatever. This is the whole point: the platform is transparent, the INFORMATION and ability to communicate is primary.

Due to Micro$loth's efforts to make the whole world MS dependent by the release of propriatary software, this whole philosophy has been obscured/distorted. Other issues aside, this is what disturbs me the most about Mr Gates,et. al. All efforts by other members of the computer technology community to create things that get along with each other have been consistantly thwarted by Bill & Co. The ability to communicate has become secondary his creation of applications which work with OTHER MS applications but do NOT work with other software/platforms/code.

The JAVA lawsuit with Sun, which is still in court, as well as the whole Netscape/IE controversy are primary examples of how Mr. Gates wants everything to work together--as long as it is Micro$loth stuff.

The whole Mozzilla effort is refreshing, and reminiscent of the 'old days' of internet development when everyone was working to get the best ideas out there and make 'em work together. No rewriting of things so they only worked with one company's stuff. No strong-arming companies to go along with the system that just happens to be the richest and most powerful, regardless of whether or not it is the best code or capability. Not creating code and then saying anyone who wants to play has to conform.

But instead, a collaborative effort to create standards that address what the best interests of the whole community. And then try to meet them for all platforms.

The cross-platform capability and the breaking into modular components has the potential to be much more responsive to actual needs and new technology as they develop. Certainly far more than the code-bloat that affect current MS products.

I remember when I first used Netscape after having used the browser that AOL and other early internet companies were providing. It was easy, intuitive, and did things that the others were not able to. That is what made me like it. Because it WORKED BETTER.

I look forward to the Mozilla efforts, hoping that it will meet the challenge it has set for itself. And besides, I think the dragon's cute. [of course it's a dragon]

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PS Nice article.

Aw - cheers - good feedback is always great. I do think Mozilla is amazing, and I hope my passion comes out in the article.

You can always check out Mozilla's efforts as they go along - the M15 build which is just out is apparently very useable, and almost feature complete, though still a little slow and buggy (and it still has debug code hardwired in). Just check out http://www.mozilla.org .

Or you could download the Netscape 6 Preview Release (from http://www.netscape.com ), though from my experience it really isn't the fastest browser by a long shot... Should get better as the releases go on - if you get N6PR1 just keep saying 'It's not a final product' and you'll be fine!

I am not encouraging people to download NN6 'cause it is pretty buggy. I have had several people in a variety of places get very upset when their pages break and they have other problems, even though it is really an alpha--not even a beta version.

People dont seem to 'get it' when a company says 'preview' or 'beta'. I myself am waiting for NN6.1. I am still using 4.7 [macintosh] and IT'S buggy enough for me.

I will check out the Mozilla site, tho. Looking forward to it. I run iCab for Mac and am waiting for Opera's Mac version, as well as things on that 'other' platform. Am hoping that Mozilla is successful in meeting their goals.

As an HTML author I am looking for the time when browsers all fully support W3C. It's hard enough dealing with color and pixel size differences between Mac/windoze--let alone the tag inconsistancies from browser to browser and version to version. You cant get code to validate with W3C and still have stuff that works in both NN and IE, unless you only use the most basic tags. And dont get me started about MS Front Page...



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