Should Mozilla Put on its Platform Shoes?
When I posted my translation of Paul Rouget’s essay about challenges facing Mozilla as a platform for RIA (Rich Internet Applications), I promised that I would add some of my own comments on the matter. I agree with Paul unequivocally that Mozilla’s success as a platform independent of Firefox is essential. He is right that there is a window of opportunity to become a (and perhaps the) leading player in this space, and that it might be missed it is not grasped in time, as new entrants from Microsoft and Adobe start to present serious competition.
Where I differ from Paul is in his implicit assumption that the platform has been written off by Mozilla. “Why isn’t Mozilla investing seriously in its framework?” he asks, speculating that “the effort to design a complete framework is… too great when measured against its potential benefits.”
Like Paul I’m not privy to the discussions of the Mozilla inner circle, but I wonder nonetheless how many influential Mozillians would really subscribe to that last statement. Certainly the bulk of development effort appears to be focused on general platform issues rather than Firefox-specific code. A number of Mozilla employees (most notably Benjamin Smedberg) are spending a great deal of time working on “productizing” XULRunner. And the scope and scale of Devmo would hardly make sense if it were only meant to target Firefox extension developers.
Why then the perception that Mozilla is not taking its platform ambitions seriously enough? Clearly Firefox’s phenomenal success is a factor. The web browser market is a huge and hugely important one, and Firefox is a major contender. The RIA platform space may never really materialize, for all we know, and even if it does Mozilla’s role in it is a matter of conjecture at this point. So neglecting Firefox would clearly be an epic mistake, but this doesn’t rule out more significant investment in the platform as a product in its own right.
I think it’s closer to the truth to view the current situation as a transition period. It took a long time for Firefox to establish itself as Mozilla’s premier product, and it’s reasonable to expect the same to be true of the platform. I would expect the platform’s momentum to ramp up in a virtuous circle as it gains broader adoption, attracts more investment, improves correspondingly, gains broader adoption and so on. Certainly Paul is right that better development tools will make a massive difference. I haven’t talked to anyone at Mozilla about this, and so I may be way off base, but I think it’s only a matter of time until the platform grows up and becomes as or more important than Firefox to the Foundation’s long-term strategy.
9 Comments »
Trackback URL RSS feed for comments on this post.
Leave a comment
Line and paragraph breaks automatic, e-mail address never displayed, HTML allowed: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <code> <em> <i> <strike> <strong>
I seriously disagree with your statement. There is no significant effort in Mozilla as a platform for anything other than Firefox.
Just take a look at the recent discussions in the platform newsgroup about the future development work (Mozilla 2) and its repository.
It has been made totally clear, that MoCo only cares about Firefox and only needs XULRunner as a vehicle to better distribute Firefox. The statements from Brendan regarding the future of Thunderbird are a clear indicator for this direction.
From a business standpoint this position is totally understandable. Firefox is what pays the bills. But as you do, I see MoCo/MoFo (These aren’t different organizations essentially) totally missing the big picture here. They are sacrificing their long-term future for the short term success of Firefox.
Comment by sipaq — 4/23/2007 @ 6:25 pm
sipaq: Why is Firefox short-term? Heck, why is xulrunner/platform the “long-term future”?
I want one of those crystal balls.
Comment by Gijs — 4/23/2007 @ 7:20 pm
Making XUL the n° 1 option to develop intranet sites and other more elaborate web based applications (RIA) is a way to make Firefox a vital part on any computer in a corporate environment. It is quite hard to convince the IT department to get Firefox installed en masse, as it doesn’t bring much extra to an already installed IE brower. Promoting (remote) XUL as a platform would help a lot the installation and use of Firefox within larger companies.
I’m working for a software company with customers all over Europe. We’re looking for moving the old desktop installed GUI application to some web based alternative. A lot of the decision makers is suprised by the possibilites XUL offers. XUL has all the potential, has a lead of several years to new competitors like Apollo or Silverlight. But it’s a “no can do”, because it doesn’t run on MS Internet Explorer, and that’s what the market wants in the current situation. If there would be a commitment by Mozilla (and the community) to promote XUL as a platform, it would be a good start. More companies would start using it and the snowball might start rolling down the hill…
To make it short: promoting XUL might help to get the IT department Firefox roll out on all computers in the company.
Comment by jan831 — 4/23/2007 @ 9:42 pm
The issue isn’t XUL (although I think you’re right, it and XBL are great technologies that would be great if they were more widely adopted). The issue is MoFo/Co wants to build Mozilla 2 as a toolkit, and use FF alone to test it. It sounds great, but based on these past few years with Mozilla 1.8 and 1.9, it probably means that Gecko will be a fine platform to build Firefox on, and a difficult platform for anything else. Firefox will tap in to all sorts of unfrozen interfaces and use all the intricacies of how they don’t work exactly right to become a stronger browser. Meanwhile, the toolkit will probably never develop into anything strong enough to be usable by anyone else. Webapps will probably thrive while XULRunner probably becomes an experiment in nothing.
Comment by DigDug — 4/23/2007 @ 11:43 pm
Gijs,
Firefox had a window of opportunity, giving them over 10% worldwide market share. That window is closing fast now, with the IE7 release and the upcoming IE8 release. The list of reasons to switch is becoming much shorter now.
XULRunner on the other hand would give them a much bigger leverage, because you could easily install/deploy Mozilla apps on top of existing XULRunner installations.
If XULRunner was taking seriously and pushed to the broad market, it would build up trust in IT departments, making it far easier for them to decide later on to also install Firefox, Thunderbird or other Mozilla- or XULRunner-based applications.
Comment by sipaq — 4/24/2007 @ 9:55 am
Simple answer: ABSOLUTELY!
Comment by pd — 4/24/2007 @ 12:06 pm
I think you’re right Matt, Mozilla is not ignorant of it’s platform, thats why we have XULRunner in the state that its in right now. However, I think sipaq makes some good points.
I think that the value that Mozilla places on XULRunner is questionable. There is no clear communication on what the plan is for XULRunner.
Adobe has a lot of experience and history with getting software distributed (Flash Player/Adobe Reader). If Mozilla is to compete with that, they need to take advantage of their best means of distribution, Firefox. (Adobe is already announcing applications of their own that they will be shipping on Apollo)
Shipping Firefox 3 on XULRunner would be the best move. It would correspond roughly with the final release of Apollo, and would be able to take advantage of the momentum and spotlight.
What is standing in the way? Comments like this for one:
“We anticipate versionitis and under-use of any standard XULRunner shipped under Firefox 3. I’m not sure where that plan sits, but to me it looks like a malinvestment.” - Brendan Eich - http://www.webstandards.org/2007/03/12/which-is-better-for-the-web-single-vendor-homogeneity-or-ossweb-20-style-innovation/#comment-55912
But interestingly, he continues:
“Our platform wins have always been in service of particular apps”
So again, it seems like this discussion needs to be phrased in a way that puts the focus, either perceived or real, on the darling Firefox first, everything else second.
I have a couple ideas on how this could be done, or looked at, at am trying to get the time to write about it soon.
So what do others think, is Firefox 3 on XULRunner a good idea?
Firefox 3 on XULRunner!!
Comment by enefekt — 4/24/2007 @ 2:12 pm
Cant say.
Comment by Udolf — 10/9/2007 @ 12:03 pm
thank you nice sharing
Comment by cep program — 5/14/2008 @ 9:42 pm