What went wrong with Mozilla?

Jul 24, 2000, 07:07 (39 Talkback[s])
(Other stories by Monty Manley)

[ Thanks to Kelly McNeill for this link. ]

"If at some point in the future a seminar is ever given on how *not* to conduct a large-scale Open Source software project, Mozilla would make a dandy example. A long series of lamentable mistakes, most of them avoidable, have caused the Mozilla project to languish unfinished for more than a year beyond its projected release date."

"What happened?"

"Everything But The Kitchen Sink"

"Had Mozilla simply tasked itself with writing the best, standards-compliant browser on the market, all would have been well. Gecko, the rendering engine used by Mozilla, has been in fine working shape for nearly a year. But at some point, the Mozilla team fell prey to the idea that it had to be a *platform*; it had to provide its own GUI, scripting language, mail/news client, Java support, on and on and on. Furthermore, it was to be pervasively multiplatform -- it should build on Macs, PCs, Linux boxes, Solaris, whatever. And it had to do this in the face of a huge corporate restructuring and the defections of several key developers."

Complete Story

Related Stories:

• Duke of URL: Mozilla M16 [Review](Jul 22, 2000)
• Mozilla.org: The Mozilla Project and mozilla.org(Jul 11, 2000)
• LinuxPlanet: One Fat Gecko: Netscape 6(Jun 20, 2000)
• BetaNews: New Plans [for Mozilla] at AOL(May 31, 2000)
• NewZilla: The unofficial Netscape 6 and Mozilla FAQ for newbies.(May 16, 2000)
• BetaNews: Mozilla Team Responds(Apr 16, 2000)
• mozillaZine: "Reports of Mozilla's Failure Have Been Greatly Exaggerated"(Jan 30, 2000)
• Linux.com: The Ailing Lizard?(Jan 20, 2000)
• ZDNet.UK: Key developer leaves Mozilla(Jan 14, 2000)
• Dave Whitinger -- The Battle That Could Lose Us The War(Nov 05, 1999)