Interviewed by CNN on 21/12/2009 03:32, Rufus told the world: > > And I guess that's what I don't get...volunteers are generally more > dedicated and principled than paid hacks. Or at least the ones I've > encountered have been...so I'm not into coddling them.
They are, but since they aren't getting paid, they can't give as many hours to the project -- they have day jobs. A paid programmer can give 8 hours/day, at least 200 days a year. A volunteer can give MAYBE 2 hours/day. If he's really dedicated and enthusiastic. Some paid programmer started out as volunteers, and are as enthusiastic as any volunteer, by the way. All those programmer man-month add up. > So I really don't get why they've knuckled under and merely imported TB > and FF code instead of maintaining their own, based on that code...this > is all open source, right? So where did the best of the good stuff go, > just because the paid hacks got paid to drop it? Open = independent, I > thought? Seamonkey simply does not have nearly as much manpower available as Firefox -- and, as KaiRo pointed out, the Seamonkey volunteers lack expertise in some areas that would be essential to splitting out entirely. The source code to what you call "the good stuff" is still available -- but it's not compatible with the new core in its present form. If someone with the necessary expertise, willingness and available time will step up and adapt it to the new core, it can be revived. So far nobody volunteered. > Branch out or die...let SM become it's own project, or we might as well > all just use FF and TB. Otherwise we won't be getting anything more > than FF and TB linked together in one app. That's not much reason to > choose. Again, it's a matter of manpower. SM *was* going somewhat independently from Firefox for the last few years, on the 1.1 branch -- and what was the result? The rendering engine was looking more and more dated every day, ditto for the Javascript engine and other core stuff. It lacked several modern security enhancements, it lacked a decent extensions manager, it lacked a decent upgrade mechanism. Moving to the Firefox toolkit gave us all of those in a fell swoop. And let's not forget the extensions ecosystem. Which, frankly, was dying on Seamonkey. Lots of extensions weren't available for SM, or had reduced functionality -- because it was a lot more work for extensions developers to support SM. That trend is reverting now: more and more extensions are being brought to SM. My take on the move? It's like the old saying, to give one step backwards to leap two forwards. Yes, some stuff didn't get moved/recreated immediately -- the forms manager seems to be the most visible complaint. However, the move will release developers from doing stuff that was just duplicating efforts from the FF/TB guys, so they can now concentrate on doing new stuff. You have a boat. It has a wooden hull, it's old and leaky. You have three guys to work on the boat. They spend all the time plugging leaks. Then someone offers you a brand-new, fiberglass hull. You move your engine, bunks, head, kitchen etc. to the new hull. Only, a couple bunks didn't fit the new hull (despite it being actually a little bigger), so you had to do without them for the time being. Sure, right now you have less bunks -- but your three guys have a lot of free time now, so they can not only build new bunks but even to figure out how to fit a freaking home theater in the boat. -- MCBastos This message has been protected with the 2ROT13 algorithm. Unauthorized use will be prosecuted under the DMCA. -=-=- ... BOFH excuse #308: CD-ROM server needs recalibration * TagZilla 0.0661 * http://tagzilla.mozdev.org on Seamonkey 2.0 _______________________________________________ support-seamonkey mailing list support-seamonkey@lists.mozilla.org https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/support-seamonkey
