Reader Comments -- Netscape Navigator 6.0 to Fail Standards Compliance

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Reader Comments -- Netscape Navigator 6.0 to Fail Standards Compliance
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November 6th, 2000 11:18 PM

Fortunately the Mozilla project is open source. Unfortunately Netscape appears to have a tight lock on the tree. Hosting all the development resources does a great service to the Mozilla community, but has the potential to cause what we all feared from day 1: de facto control of an Open Source project by a fat corporate bureaucracy. This appears to be happening now.

It will be a shame when we have to move the Mozilla project to a different
set of hosts and servers just because Netscape is fucking up Mozilla like they fucked up every other product they've ever touched. However, I want a working browser, and I want a standards-compliant browser. I'll be more than happy to pitch in to relocate all of Mozilla if Netscape continues with this bullshit.

Rick Bradley

November 6th, 2000 11:14 PM

If it doesn't conform, keep it in beta

James

November 6th, 2000 11:14 PM

All I can say is is that I've always used Netscape. But frankly, ever since v4.5, it's starting to become embarassing. Netscape keeps doing weird little things that make me want to go kick the developers ass instead of kicking M$'s ass. Makes me want to puke that I have to goto M$. Netscape, you should be disgusted with yourselves and just make the damn browser work right. Stnad up to those goddamn no-nothing marketer-types who just want to release a pretty product. What's the matter, got no b*lls for it? The marketing department overwhelm you?

T Ray

November 6th, 2000 11:13 PM

Let's stop this whining and give Netscape credit for building the most standards compliant browser in the world. It would be nice to wait until it's "perfect" but can Netscape afford to?

Flanagan, you really need a haircut.

Anonymous

November 6th, 2000 11:13 PM

I am a Sr. Engineer, working in the fields of Internet security and web applications deployment.

I strongly agree with the arguments holding Netscape to published ECMA and DOM standards. Considering that the majority of non-compliance bugs are patched in the Mozilla tree, the business decision not to integrate these is unacceptable to the Internet professional community.

I think that you'll agree that browser inferiority is a poor way to diferentiate a Netscape branded product from the Mozilla technologies.

Jeremiah Cornelius

November 6th, 2000 11:12 PM

Mozilla has the chance to be a really great browser. Please don't screw that up with marketing. You compete with other browsers by providing a better product, not by making sure that you have matching version numbers and early release dates.

Sean

November 6th, 2000 11:08 PM

While I certainly do think Netscape should fix all of the bugs before even CONSIDERING releasing any product, ever (at least to the best of their ability), why are we even bothering to ask them? Netscape is NOT mozilla... Mozilla can continue on it's own, Netscape can't control it anymore... I think Netscape has proven it is an evil company since it died (and especially since AOL took it over). Their only reason for making it open-source in the first place was not for the philosophy, but in a sad attempt to again take market share away from IE. Let's just forget all about Netscape. They are history. We can continue Mozilla development without them, and release a really good, bug-free browser.

Ryan Hayle

November 6th, 2000 11:04 PM

Please wait a few more weeks to bring out the final release. Open the trunk and fix the major outstanding bugs that have been pointed out here.

Alok Singh

November 6th, 2000 11:03 PM

I think you have one real chance to gain back users to netscape. If the browser has patches available (especially simple ones), then when people try the 'new' netscape and find it is buggy they may never try again... Think long and hard about this, another month is not going to lose you that much more market share, a buggy release will.

Damien

November 6th, 2000 11:03 PM

To be blunt, Netscape 6 is so delayed that a delay of several more months in exchange for fixing some more of these obvious and visible bugs is worth it.

As a professional web developer of 5 years based in Seattle, I can tell you that I would much rather have a delayed product then spend years coping with the imcompatibilities and bugs of a possibly widely deployed Netscape 6.

Given the realities of work, that "coping" would have to involve a message along the lines of "Download Internet Explorer 6.x for full site functionality." Please, don't make me do this.

Nick Silberstein

November 6th, 2000 11:02 PM

Please adhere to the standards and fix the problems that yourself say aren't worth fixing.

Jim Salter

November 6th, 2000 11:02 PM

Netscape, don't be stupid and release Navigator 6 with lacking standards
compliance and/or other bugs. If you do this you will never have a comeback.
You need to wait until you have a rock solid product to release or else
nobody will trust you anymore.

Steve Markoff

November 6th, 2000 11:01 PM

I work for one of the top 5 e-Integrators, and we are currently considering IGNORING support for Netscape 6 unless our customers explicitly and contractually request it (for a fee).

We have been following the code tree closely (even contributing on occassion), and we have determined that the QA time and bug work-arounds are not worth the effort, given that the number of users using Netscape 5 (well, the marketing folk call it 6) will not exceed the number using version 4 (see Jakob Nielson --> http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990418.html).

Given this fact (it may as well be one), throwing extra money and effort (more importantly to our customers -- TIME) to dance the Mozilla bug dance, will not be cost effective to our clients who would rather launch 3 weeks earlier than pay the penalty of the extra development and QA effort.

Eric Stevens

November 6th, 2000 11:00 PM

or maybe release it as 'AOL2000' or something; it might alienate fewer developers ;).

chump

November 6th, 2000 10:59 PM

Fix those damn bugs!

Gene McKenna

November 6th, 2000 10:58 PM

I AM BEGGING, THIS IS A REASONABLE CHANCE TO REGAIN SOME MARKET SHARE AND JUSTIFY THE TIME THAT WE SPEND WRITING CROSS-BROWSER DHTML. DONT POO THE BED AGAIN. THANKS

anonymous

November 6th, 2000 10:58 PM

Day in and day out I see broken HTML on my site (kuro5hin.org), coming from yet another unfixed Mozilla bug. These bugs are still in the current Mozilla snapshots, let alone the version of Mozilla that NS 6 is based on. I have little hope that this petition will change anyone's mind at Netscape, but history will show that we all knew NS 6 would be even more buggy than the 4.x series.

Is anyone going to start a petition to port IE to Linux? It's a sad, sad day when I'm reduced to begging Microsoft to give us a browser that works. If not that, then is there any open source developer who needs a project? The world cries out for a free browser...

Rusty Foster

November 6th, 2000 10:57 PM

Netscape, you made a promise of full standards compliance. Break it at your own peril. We will not support your stupidity in the browser war any longer. IE-5 works just fine so you have to keep your promise in order to pull us away from it.

Michael A. Long

November 6th, 2000 10:54 PM

imho the "we'll patch the problems after the initial release" approach isn't very realistic. NS6 (what happened to 5?) is highly anticipated by those who care (end users and and web developers who haven't given up and adopted ie) and who have often voluntarily given up useful functionality in the hopes that there would be a viable alternative to a ms-specific solution. If the initial release doesn't live up to expectations, aol/ns loses alot of supporters.

chump

November 6th, 2000 10:52 PM

It seems to me that the least stable application on my linux box
is Netscape. And judging from the article I better give up
hope for improvement.
As soon as Opera reaches production quality, I'll happily
move over to them, even if that means paying for it.
(it shows how desperate/fed up I am).

Willem

November 6th, 2000 10:52 PM

My company uses IE 5.0 for internal web apps because all the developers can code for it. Coding for external web apps becomes a hot potato toss because Netscape 4.x is such a nightmare.

Please don't make external web deployment even more difficult for us, because we may decide it's no longer worth the effort. And if N6 doesn't work for users, they may decide it's not worth the effort either.

Jack Ribble

November 6th, 2000 10:50 PM

There's little for me to add that hasn't been said before, but I should remind
people that there's still something else you can do:

VOTE FOR THE BUGS! If enough people voted for it, it _should_ show
up higher in the buglist.

Ang Chin Han

November 6th, 2000 10:49 PM

You are not going to overlive the browsers war this way ...

Anonymous

November 6th, 2000 10:47 PM

This matters. This matters a lot. This will break existing
websites, and it will further discourage developers from writing to the
mozilla platform -- if you expect to ever get any respect (see the evangelism
bugs), then you can't break existing sites, period. Furthermore, if you
ship as broken browser, what you break is going to be with us for years
-- this stuff doesn't go away, because once it's released, people will always
have to take it into account. This is our web that you're breaking,
both mine and yours, and it's worth the time.

Paul Saitta, Build host for mathml enabled nightlies

Paul Saitta

November 6th, 2000 10:45 PM

If it doesn't comply, I won't be using it. I hate IE, but I will go there if Netscape isn't up to scratch.

Caitlin Kelly

November 6th, 2000 10:44 PM

One "marketing requirement" seems to me to be immune from being labelled buggy!

Please label this a preview release!!! You will get attention, AND you will get more eyes to further improve the quality AND you will be able to fix the bugs.

Don't launch too early... you never get a 2nd chance to make a 1st impression right?

respectfully,

James Carter
Cincinnati, Ohio

James Carter

November 6th, 2000 10:43 PM

This is too bad. Bugs and non-compliance, as much as delay, can doom this effort insha`Allah.

Ali Taddia

November 6th, 2000 10:41 PM

I can't believe netscape could be this stupid. There must be a real community of dickheads coordinating netscape these days. I just can't understand how a company in their position, after all the standards wars we've been through, with mozilla so near working and everything else could be so stupid as to piss their last chance up against the wall like this. It's crazy. They need to go out and shoot their project management team.

Craig Turner

November 6th, 2000 10:41 PM

Craig Turner

November 6th, 2000 10:41 PM

Craig Turner

November 6th, 2000 10:40 PM

Stop the madness. Stop the practice of knowingly shipping flawed
products and fixing them later. How about a quality release with
no impending "service packs"? We expect better. I will boycott
all Netscape products if they do ship 6.0 early, and stick with the
latest release straight from Mozilla.

Arthur Corliss

November 6th, 2000 10:37 PM

Only a few comments have mentioned the little extensions and seemingly minor non-compliance of IE - Netscape if you blow this there will be a flood tide more and things will become what they always wanted - the MS-Web. Do the right thing, there is a lot more riding on this than the next quarterly report.

Jonathan Moran

November 6th, 2000 10:35 PM

mozilla rocks out really hard and it's a shame that you won't let it mature to where it needs to be before it can be released. imho don't release shit and then update it, wait on the release so when you finaly do it's quality. everyone likes quality esp RMS

patrick flaherty

November 6th, 2000 10:34 PM

For many years, I've used primarily Netscape browsers, but I have to see this as a bad sign... This should boil down to common sense -- if it's broke, fix it. The fixes are there, ready to be put in... why is NS refusing to include them in the code? It's just dumb... Sounds like administration and marketing are telling the coders how to do their job....

-- Pauley

Paul Skudlarek

November 6th, 2000 10:34 PM

A year ago I used Netscape. It was slow, crashed the poor old PPC I was using then at inconvenient times, and brought the system to its knees when it saw complex tables. Still, I used it because I loathed the standards-subversive influence of the "other browser". Today I use IE5 because it works more reliably and doesn't mangle my webpages.

I knew that Netscape had gone to ground and I was waiting for the day that Mozilla would bear fruit... and it seems that that day will never come. I don't want to have anything to do with a browser that can crash simply by not understanding a few characters of code, and I'm hardly going to have greater confidence in v6.1 if v6 is so sloppy. I find it ironic that I'm going to avoid using NN6 now for the same reasons that I avoided using IE then.

At this rate, NN6 is going to be the next IE2, and Netscape simply doesn't have the marketing clout to push a poor product like that.

Here's my name for the petition.

Kynnin Scott

November 6th, 2000 10:33 PM

Netscape, please don't fall into the trap that so many software companies fall into (including you, in the past). Especially given your rather precarious position in the market right now, I'd think it would be worth it to hold off on the release for a little while longer while you fix what would seem to be serious bugs affecting the browser's performance.

Mike Edwards

November 6th, 2000 10:33 PM

please do not screw this up. Just take the time, get the thing right. We all want to use your product, make it easy for us!

jmh

November 6th, 2000 10:33 PM

Please AOL, do not release Netscape 6 until it is done. I am *not* going to support another non-compliant browser like I did with 4.x.

If 6.0 does not work correctly, I'm coding to mozilla, IE and lynx (in that order).

David Waite

November 6th, 2000 10:29 PM

if netscape dont clean up their act then they're goin bye-bye. the mozillia will become extinct.

the dark one and his ie 6 will steamroll them into oblivion quicker than you can say dinosaur shishkabab.

m yeung

November 6th, 2000 10:27 PM

NETSCAPE! As a web developer for a top 10 site I know all about coding around Netscape 4.xx bugs, PLEASE do not release this until it's done. Having to code detects for 6.0 6.1 6.2 etc pages like we had to do with the 4.x releases would be horrid all over again!

eric draven

November 6th, 2000 10:27 PM

if netscape dont clean up their act then they're goin bye-bye. the mozillia will become extinct.

the dark ones and their ie 6 will steamroll them into oblivion quicker than you can say dinosaur shishkabab.

matthew yeung

November 6th, 2000 10:25 PM

Why rush now? You've already lost much too much name-value. Right now IE is the browser to use and netscape a distant second. We've been waiting for what seems like an enternity for NS 6 (since it was NS 5 even!), another month or two isn't going to hurt anything, releasing a non-compliant browser may be your death.

Damon McGraw

November 6th, 2000 10:20 PM

I wholeheartedly agree. People don't like having to code around the inconsistencies in 4.x and I'd really hate to see 6.0 be the same way.

Brad Moore

November 6th, 2000 10:18 PM

Please do not release Netscape 6.0 until it is ready and all of the known critical bugs like these are worked out. Just because MS is releasing new versions of their browser does not mean you have to rush out yours.

zack

November 6th, 2000 10:15 PM

If you have fixes which cause problems with 'code alignment in another part of the binary' then you have a serious problem, and it doesn't have anything to do with standards compliance. Come on, have we waited two years just so mozilla can turn into the worst-managed open source project in history? If the code is that much of a mess, then what did all that time get us? A refined rats nest?

Nick Bastin

November 6th, 2000 10:14 PM

Buggy browsers are the bane of the web user and and web developer's life. Please, please don't release a (more than neccessarily) buggy browser.

Whilst we are all clamouring for an alternative to the dreaded MS Internet Explorer, and clearly time is of the essence, quality is even more of the essence.

In my opinion extra features (email client, news reader, page composer, XML user interface library) have been overemphasized, to the cost of the entire web community. What is needed is a reliable, fast, standards compliant browser as quickly as possible.

Oliver Crow

November 6th, 2000 10:12 PM

I have been pushing to maintain Netscape 4 compatability in all of our web products but if the KNOWN/FIXED bugs of this severity make it into NS6 then we will almost certainly end this support practice.

So, MS, how's that Linux port of IE coming?

Rainer Mager

November 6th, 2000 10:12 PM

As a web developer I am on the verge of ditching support for Netscape althogether as we simply cannot afford the time it takes to 'force' Netscape to behave itself with common w3c accepted tags.

If Netscape truly want to once again be a contender in the browser market, they must concentrate not on 'rushing it out the door' but on creating a solid, fast, stable and compliant web browser.

The preview releases are, to put it mildly, a waste of time.

At present, it seems Netscape are more worried about marketing than product, if this continues, they will surely fail to capture back the browser market share they've lost.

matthew

November 6th, 2000 10:11 PM

Please!!! I don't want to have keep a windows partition around.

Russell Strong

November 6th, 2000 10:10 PM

Give Netscape developers a break.
In the final stage of development, nothing gets checked into the tree unless it would cause a recall of the project if released. This is because no such thing as a safe fix. I've code-reviewed fixes that 3 other guys thought were absolutely safe , and they blow up in our faces because it changed code allignment in another part of the binary.

None of the bugs listed would cause a product recall, therefore they should ship with them in 6.0, and fix them in 6.0.1.

Netscape has not shipped a new browser in 2 years. Let them ship, and give open source a chance to work. I would bet that within 6 months of the first release, mozilla will be the most stable and standard compilant browser ever shipped.

Aleks

aleks

November 6th, 2000 10:09 PM

I have been an avid computer user for almost 10 years now. In that time I have only really come up with one major complaint. More and more these days, it seems that software companies are rushing their products to market before they are really suitable for release. The end result is a loss of productivity, but mostly a huge headache for those of us who use these things every day.

Users must stand up for the right to better written software.

Would you buy a car from a car company, that after 2 months of owning the car, a 'fix' was FINALLY released for that nasty habit of the car stalling on the highway?

I think not.

Shouldnt they have fixed that ON THE DRAWING BOARD?

Yes.

Software companies: Get it together. You _OWE_ it to us.

Paul Knytl

November 6th, 2000 10:08 PM

I still support Netscape 4 in most of my web developement but I must admit it is a chore. The versions of Netscape 6 I have played with have been buggy and quite a disappointment.
Who'd have thunk that in the year 2000, Netscape would have already become a has been. I guess those that burn twice as bright burn half as long.

Netscape 6 - fix it and I'll support it.

Dan Cameron

November 6th, 2000 10:08 PM

Netscape engineers, please don't destroy the community of developers and users that still believe in you. We want Netscape 6 to be great, so we can proudly use it, so we can proudly say "It's an open source product".

As a web developer, it's very frustrating and time consuming to write code that works both in IE and NS. But if NS 6 is not standards compliant, then we'll probably end up only writing code for IE. Not to mention the fact that the whole open source community will be finger-pointed for bringing up a bad product after two years of development.

Just a little more wait will bring huge benefits to you and us.

Roberto Mello

November 6th, 2000 10:07 PM

Netscape 6 should have all the patches that Mozilla has, doing otherwise is just stupid.

Jeff Blaufuss

November 6th, 2000 10:05 PM

I'm amazed by the amount of work the Mozilla team has accomplished since throwing out the old code. However, the browser clearly needs a lot more work before a release can be considered.

itech

November 6th, 2000 10:04 PM

Compliance with standards is a must. Please consider David's requests seriously.

Tudor Hulubei

November 6th, 2000 10:02 PM

This is a make-or-break moment for Netscape/Mozilla. We've waited a long time, and most of us have switched to IE because Netscape 4 crashes frequently. One thing has kept me interested in Netscape as a platform:

** the promise of complete standards compliance **

Rushing to market will be the kiss of death for this project, and not because of end-users. Developers will make the choice.

The plain and simple truth is that:

** if I have to code workarounds between 6.0 and 6.01, I WON'T. **

I'm a business owner. We develop web applications. It saddens me that I might have to commit to a solid Microsoft position, but I just can't introduce another platform variation into our code-base. We've finally taken the 3.0 browsers off our radar (IE 3.0 being the chief Javascript complaint).

Netscape is wrong in releasing prematurely. I support any efforts to boycott or otherwise petition them to change their minds before it's too late.

Timothy Falconer
Immuexa Corporation

p.s. I'm also in favor of releasing Netscape 6 with Java 2 in the typical installation (again, another big mistake by Netscape marketing).

Timothy Falconer

November 6th, 2000 10:00 PM

Netscape is still in business? It's hard to tell. They're kinda like the French army. Everyone's beaten them including themselves.

Bill Haines

November 6th, 2000 10:00 PM

Please Netscape, I've been waiting for too long to go back to using your browser. I left because you don't support the standards. I don't want to have to stay with IE, but I will if you don't support the standards.

gilmae

November 6th, 2000 9:57 PM

Jeez, you'd think that Netscape would get their s**t together. NS6 is an important release, perhaps the most important in the companies history. Everybody who hasen't already jumped on the IE bandwagon is waiting to see how this turns out. If they drop the ball early, it seems that their window of opportunity is going to slam in their faces. NS6 _HAS_ to be good right out of the gate. No one is going to care much if it ships one month later than scheduled, however, if it ships buggy (i.e. crashes, doesn't render pages correctly (esp. is IE does), etc) then the defection will pretty much be complete. I don't think people will hang around for a 6.01.

Take the time to get it right, please. Many of us would like to see NS/Mozilla succeed and provide an alternative, don't make the most classic of software blunders by releasing an under-performing product just a little ahead of it's time.

Worried in Austin ...

concernedNerd

November 6th, 2000 9:56 PM

Please, let's not have another Netscape 4.x. I have been a web developer for a number of years. One of my greatest frustrations was trying to do everything "right" by reading the W3C docs and making sure that all code was HTML/CSS compliant. IE 4.x (at the time) followed about 85% - 90% of the code I threw at it, but Netscape 4.x was a total travesty. IE was okay in that it mostly only ignored some minor elements, but Netscape utterly destroyed what I threw at it. Netscape 4.x is better than, say, CSS enabled Opera 3.x or IE 3, but let's face it, we NEED a modern, 100% standards compliant browser. Whether it supports ALL of the snazzy new features is unimportant; supporting 100% of what the browser claims is paramount.

Netscape, please don't make us developers support yet another generation of buggy browsers. This puts a burden on us, which eventually reflects on the users. Several associates of mine have given up Netscape compatibility support completely, for reasons between mindshare and coding difficulty. The point is, releasing a known buggy browser increases this behavior. I realize deadlines are important, but trust the Mozilla bunch. They've developed a very functional piece of software and know it well. In fact, I write this message from it; I've found it useful enough to use it as my primary browser for the past several months. Heed their advice (and their patches). Thank you for listening.

Robert Kosinski

November 6th, 2000 9:55 PM

I was waiting patiently for netscape 6 to come out because, as a web-app developer, I'm tired of having write code that will work correctly on IE and Communicator. But now I think that I must think about that again. Maybe IE6 will be a better choice.

Vikash Madhow

November 6th, 2000 9:52 PM

Once again Microsoft prevails, and not because they did anything particularly well, but because their competitors have bungled worse than they have. Internet Explorer is simply the best broweser out there, and that, in my opinion, is a sad state of affairs. Netscape should, at the very least, make sure it complies with standards better than Microsoft does. If both of them ignore it, the standards might as well not exist.

Matthew Burns

November 6th, 2000 9:51 PM

I (and the web development team who work with me) are sick to death of the quirks in Netscape. We had hoped that the (long!) awaited 6.0 release would change all that - and now it seems we are bound for disappointment once again. I have to say, the name of Netscape is mud amongst web designers and developers these days, and unless they pull their act together very fast, that isn't going to change any time soon.

I'm anything but a fan of Microsoft - but IE (especially on the Mac) is one of the few things they've ever got really right. So at the same time I recommend to my clients (beg might be a better word) that they host their sites on UNIX rather than Windows NT/2000, I'm suggesting they use IE as their browser of choice.

Pull your finger out, Netscape.

Caspar Fairhall

November 6th, 2000 9:51 PM

What is the good of standards if their not implemented correctly or at all. Please pretty please fix the bugs and make NetScape a standard compliance browser. Thank you!

Carlos Benevides

November 6th, 2000 9:50 PM

AOL is a far more evil empire than M$.

Ric Faris

November 6th, 2000 9:46 PM

for the sake of the open standards, implement them correctly, plaese. don't give microsoft the chance to kick you out of the market, write a better browser!

christoph hebeisen

November 6th, 2000 9:44 PM

I agree. Mozilla rules --- Netscape sucks. Netscape, release a quality product ... you're capable of it, because Mozilla's capable of it.

Brad Fitzpatrick

November 6th, 2000 9:43 PM

Ever Since Netscape was bought by AOL, the browser is now the shitties I have ever seen. It is Bloated, full of Bugs, and has become less compliant to HTML Standards than Microsoft's IE. In my humble opinion, I say that everyone switch to IE since it IS the browser of Choice today. Atleast MS listens to the people of what they need and add new features, fix most bugs and offer marketing free browsers (not like Netscape's affiliation with the Net marketing company which I forgot the name... but can be found on slashdot, where they gather private information about clients).

Netscape users... I strongly suggest you to give Internet Explorer another shot... You will not be disapointed.. as for the *Nixes, I hope Microsoft will release IE for *nixes (other than Solaris) so that then we can finally have a unified browser environment.

X Of UT

November 6th, 2000 9:42 PM

Timely product release is nice but in the end it's only a convenience, especially when compared to the inconvenience of a browser that only manages partial compliance with published and accepted standards. Given the choice, I'd take getting it right over getting it on time.

Mishka Gorodnitzky

November 6th, 2000 9:42 PM

The only reason I'm still using Nav4.08 is to avoid all the silly shit that IE has introduced and all the jobs for bad html designers they have created. If there is one thing I hate its going to a page that has "script error" and then asks me if I'd like to debug it... I think that some body elses job. So if Netscape falls into this group I'll start using opera.

Russ

November 6th, 2000 9:42 PM

*Looks @ clock waiting for open source opera ported to Linux*

gunkaaa (AKA Guy Lowe)

November 6th, 2000 9:42 PM

If Netscape won't be compliant then I guess everyone will have to use IE. Netscape has no one to blame but themselves for this. They should fix the issues that keep developers from caring about Netscape.

Jason Jordan

November 6th, 2000 9:39 PM

Sold your souls to AOL ?
27 millions browsers is not enough to reverse the trend against M$.

Save the browser as a developpement platform. Comply.

eric desplanches

November 6th, 2000 9:39 PM

This is ill advised. Be late and create a solid product. We can wait a little longer for something good.

Gene Johannsen

November 6th, 2000 9:38 PM

I couldn't have said it better than David.

The Mozilla project represents more than the development of a new generation of browser. It represents in many minds what is both right and wrong with the Open Source development model.

The release team should consider the impacts both on adoption and on the perceived viability of their development model before any release. I, as well as many on the Mozilla team no doubt, would like to see this effort as a substantial achievement (as it already has been in many ways) for the development team and the ideals behind Open Source development.

And I doubt anyone in or out of the Open Source loop would like to start paying for their browsers, as I'm sure would eventually happen were Micro$oft to monopolize the browser market.

Collin Starkweather

November 6th, 2000 9:38 PM

As a web developer who's been downloading the nightly builds of Mozilla once every few weeks, I can say it's been getting much, much better... It's noticeably faster on my Celeron 500 on Win32, and they fixed the transparency support a few days ago! =)

However, I'm sure that everyone else is just as sick as I am of designing around little quirks in how the '2 major browsers' deal with things. With Netscape's market share as low as it is right now, they can't afford not to make everything compliant. I fear that way too many people are just going to spit out bad code with Frontpage or something similiar designed for IE only, and Netscape just plain isn't going to work. It might not be all Netscape's fault, but the consumers won't know the difference.

Netscape is going to look very bad if NS6 is shipped with known bugs that have had patches submitted. How can they explain not fixing bugs in the JavaScript support? Did these guys forget they created JavaScript? Remember the good ol' days when IE3 couldn't do image rollovers because they didn't implement the JavaScript IMAGE object properly? Netscape's 'PDT' is about to put them in the same boat... Don't follow Microsoft's business model... Make it work before you ship it.

Nick Stenz

November 6th, 2000 9:37 PM

Aaaaa Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

Bill Gates

November 6th, 2000 9:34 PM

In the name of all things scriptable, I implore you, Netscape, DON'T DO THIS!!!! Things are a mess as it is! So help me God, if you do this, I WILL CODE ONLY IN VBSCRIPT AND WRITE JAVASCRIPT NO MORE, FOREVER!

Peter

November 6th, 2000 9:33 PM

Netscape Sucks.

_rant_

November 6th, 2000 9:32 PM

I think a standards-compliant Netscape 6 is crucial for an at least more or less usable web. Do not let it get even worse than it already is !!

Andreas Mohr

November 6th, 2000 9:32 PM

I am anxious to see a new browser released but only because I am tired of being held back by the flaws of current browsers. Pushing out this corporate product does not solve any problems. Sure it is late, but the time it takes to fix these bugs will be well deserved.

As a programmer myself, several of these bugs seem to be trivial. The ones which are not trivial are still critical.

Brennan Stehling

November 6th, 2000 9:32 PM

Netscape,

How the fuck do you expect us to drive your e-car to the e-store when we can't even see past the e-windshield?

Get a clue:

Before you try to get people to shop online you need to render the webpage before the 'buy' button.

For fuck's sake give the IE team some work to do. All they do now is stick their thumb up their ass, enable print preview (IE v5.5), and after that, all thats left is to make their browser more HTML & CSS compliant (IE 5.5 SP1 anyone?)

IE3 was the underdog compared to NS3 at the time. You've done it before.

Fuck the store buttons and shitty default bookmarks -- Worry about more important things like standing up for the competition instead of letting them effortlessly wipe their ass on you.

-j

Jeremiah Sypult

November 6th, 2000 9:31 PM

As someone who has had to deal with browser incompatibilities for far too long, I hope that Netscape will reconsider and do the right thing. The last thing I need is to work around bugs in another browser.

Ian Ragsdale

November 6th, 2000 9:31 PM

Netscape, please hold back on this release. This is a very important release to Netscape and to the open-souce community. Netscape has been talked of badly due to the latest of the releast. Show the world the delay was worth it as you were able to produce a quality product. If you ignore these key standards compatibility issues, you're going to get more bad press. Think of this: "Netscape developes first completely standard compatible browser." It could happen, so make it so and delay the release to implement these important fixes.

Steve Wardell

November 6th, 2000 9:29 PM

While Netscape 6 needs to be released eventually, basic bugs with standards-compliance which already have patches should be applied before a release.

Justin Bradford

November 6th, 2000 9:29 PM

let's face the facts. everyone knows that netscape is going down. even netscape supporters know that it's a tough battle with ie being flogged by microsoft.

so why are we here? because a release with integrity will rise above the browser wars. we're all just spectators, waiting to see if netscape will really do it.

i don't like ie but i can get used to it. at least if we all have to use the same browser, we wont have to worry about standards compliance anymore. even if the standards have been dictated by microsoft.

david

November 6th, 2000 9:28 PM

Almost laughable, but instead very depressing. I *used* to be a Netscape user, back when they still had a chance against Microsoft's Internet Explorer. It became obvious then, and is even more obvious now, that my choice to finally move to IE was the right one. I just hope the uninstall for this new 6.0 incarnation works correctly, since there'll be one hell of a lot of people wanting to dump this turkey if they don't fix these problems before release!

Tim Gary

November 6th, 2000 9:26 PM

If Netscape wants to compete with IE, it will need to fix all these errors (and more). If not, it simply can't and won't compete with IE. Either way I don't care, but it seems to me that your business model relies on someone using your product, doesn't it?

Jason

November 6th, 2000 9:26 PM

Either pass the standards, or release it as *beta* software.

Dave Lugo

November 6th, 2000 9:23 PM

As a long-term Mozilla user (I've been tracking the nightly builds on and off since about M11), I have to say that the one and only thing Netscape 6 has going for it on the Windows platform is its standards-compliance. Release a NS6 which isn't standards compliant, and you're going to make a smaller dent in the browser war than Opera.

Please, Netscape, don't shoot yourself in the foot again

Charles Miller

Charles Miller

November 6th, 2000 9:23 PM

Please, Netscape, don't shoot yourself in the foot again

Charles Miller

Charles Miller

November 6th, 2000 9:23 PM

If its not standards compliant, then what basis do developers have to build on? Hunh Netscape?

Graham TerMarsch

November 6th, 2000 9:23 PM

Well I felt a little uncomfortable wading through all the PR hype about standards compliance (i.e. "NN6 is, IE5 is not"), but, I thought the wait would be worth it. However it appears that the hardwork of the developers will be lost.
Having gone through rushed releases and seen the anger on one's customers' faces when things don't work, I know from personal experience that rushing a product which is not ready is not worth one's trouble. It takes 10 successes to wipe out the memory of just one failure. Netscape is not even halfway to that success rate from the last failures. Is it willing to bear the cost of failure again? Can it survive?

Netscape has already lost the mindshare of most. Failure to do "Netscape 6" right the first time will sentence it to oblivion.

<p lang="ja"> <= test your browser :-)
仕方がないね。問題あるけど、IE5を使おう

Murray G

November 6th, 2000 9:18 PM

My company depends on the browser as a application environment. A buggy/nonstandard browser at this point is useless to us and to our customers. Our customers cannot use Netscape 6, nor will they at this point.

sean levin

November 6th, 2000 9:17 PM

What is the point of rushing out NS 6.0 just to get it out?? You're shooting yourselves in the foot. Mozilla is *almost* excellent. If you're only *almost* there, why not wait until you *are* there! An excellent product will sell itself.

Will Dormann

November 6th, 2000 9:17 PM

Amen.

Travis Whitton

November 6th, 2000 9:16 PM

Please do the right thing Netscape. We can wait a little longer.

Jack Daniels

November 6th, 2000 9:16 PM

Hello,

Netscape has been a hoax for several years. If you are really concerned, take the tree (it is GPL) and fix it. Release it. Heck you could even release it before Netscape and show them up.

Joshua Drake
Linux Documentation Project
WebMaster

Joshua Drake

November 6th, 2000 9:16 PM

make the right decisions for the right reasons. give the marketing department the backseat while the development team drives it to the highway.

michael

November 6th, 2000 9:13 PM

Netscape, you have been developing 6.0 for a couple years now, don't push a buggy browser, get rid of ALL of the bugs, then release 6.0 Final. Is another month going to kill you? PLEASE, Netscape, this is your last chance, do it right.

Dan Yeaw

November 6th, 2000 9:13 PM

Um, err.. can you guys get a clue?

make sure netscape works properly before you release it, make sure it conforms to standards..

Also, can you get rid of those stupid "shopping" etc tabs, or atleast make them optoinal!!

David

David Hammerton

November 6th, 2000 9:12 PM

When you're this far behind on the release date is another month really going to kill you? It seems like most people would prefer waiting another preview cycle to recieve something solid, stable, and STANDARD.
The world will be watching closly at this 6.0 release. Its success or failure could impact much more than Netscape perhaps even including the general acceptance of the open source movement.
IMHO, in the last year open source fanatics do not seem as excited about linking Netscape 6.0 with its ideas. It seems that this is partly due to bad judgement calls like this one.
Do us all a favor and wait until the browser is more than half baked.

Eric Hackathorn

November 6th, 2000 9:11 PM

All these years and you're still not going to get it right? What's the point?

Matthew Beauregard

November 6th, 2000 9:10 PM

I completely agree with David's point of view. I've been looking at the latest Netscape 6 PR3 release and wondering when is this going to look closer to a release product - it still appears very much in the early stages of a beta. It is becoming painfully apparent that this browser is being rushed out the door, and possibly why Netscape browsers have been buggy in the past.

Software engineering principles are important, but not taken to the extreme of refusing critical fixes. If it is too late to accept more RTM bugs in this phase, then it only makes sense to rename this phase and open the tree to more bug fixes and get it right.

Please Netscape, don't undercut the advantages of going open-source by turning a blind-eye to quality. If you do, you'll have sacrificed many of the advantages that open-source gave you in the first place. I think most people would gladly wait another 3 months to get the highest quality browser. The mozilla releases have stuck fairly close to their timeline IMO. At this point, the browser is so close to fulfilling it's promise, another few months focused on quality and speed would make the difference.

Jamie ffolliott

November 6th, 2000 9:10 PM

Netscape has been my prefreed browser for a while now.. even though it has a nasty habit of locking my computer when the e-mail server goes down..

Netscape used to be the better of the two big browsers, and I was hopeing it would be again with netscape 6, but if you not even supporting the current web standerts with your netscape 6 why bother..

why is it when ever big corperation get involved quality seems to take a nose dive?

Do it Right or don't do it at all!

Tannah

November 6th, 2000 9:10 PM

Eric Hackathorn

November 6th, 2000 9:07 PM

One of the great promises of Netscape 6 has always been its conformance to standards. This should NOT be lost.

Keep it in Beta

Robert Dawson

November 6th, 2000 9:05 PM

Do it right, do it quick, known bugs are unacceptable, no standards compliant are prohibited. These are the rules for a successfull web browser.

Jorge Vieyra

November 6th, 2000 9:04 PM

Agreed there has been a considerable delay in the release of Netscape 6. But we view this relase as a landmark..the browser that would humble IE's dominanace. The Netscape release 6.0 is very important not 6.1 or 6.2 . The dot 'oh' version should not be dissapointing in terms of standards compliance because this is the version that has a lot of eyes fixed on it, benchmarks will be done with respect to this release and compliance tests will be carried based on this release. We would love to have a stable and standards compliant 6.0 browser rather than a faster one. Linus has not pushed his 2.4 kernel earlier as he does not want to compromise stability and all the others have supported him. So do we for your case. We want a superior Netscape out there and there should be no compromise

Aravind Sadagopan

November 6th, 2000 9:04 PM

We will gain nothing in the quest for strong standards if such a important project can flaunt those standards.

David S. L. Robinson

November 6th, 2000 9:04 PM

One of the great promises of Netscape 6 was its conformance to standards. This should NOT be lost.

Keep it in Beta

Robert Dawson

November 6th, 2000 9:03 PM

One of the great promises of Netscape 6 was its conformance to standards. This should NOT be lost.

Keep it in Beta

Robert Dawson

November 6th, 2000 9:03 PM

I simply can't understand why Netscape engineers are willing to release a product with known, fixable bugs. I can understand a feature freeze, but bug fixes are still necessary to ensure Netscape 6 isn't panned as bugware by everyone and their mother. I don't know if it's arrogance, or just pressure from an impending release date, but if an important fix requires the release to be pushed back a week, push back the release date. End the cycle of companies releasing buggy products to be patched later just because it's possible. Set a standard for quality releases. Bugs will still exist, for sure, but if working fixes exist, it's nothing less than a slap to the face of the current and future users for these fixes to not be included because some "release date" had to be met.

It's been 2.5 years. We can wait a couple weeks, or even a couple months, longer for a working, standards-compliant, feature-filled browser.

Mark Bialkowski

November 6th, 2000 8:59 PM

The primary issue here is browser bugs, not a lack of support for standards... Mozilla is far more compliant with standards than IE.

Dylan Schiemann

November 6th, 2000 8:57 PM

Do it properly - or don't do it at all

Brian Grinter

November 6th, 2000 8:57 PM

I agree. Compliance is the thing I most look forward to in the project.

Mark Fellows

November 6th, 2000 8:57 PM

Standards over marketing. If Netscape puts out a non standard browser of which they already have patches to fix then they will kill their userbase. Netscape has taken so long to complete their next gen browser that they need something big to trump IE. Without standards they kill any reason for people to switch.

-Quinticent

Quinticent

November 6th, 2000 8:55 PM

Netscape: For the love of God, please comply to standards so that you won't loose more market share! Isn't an 80% market share loss enough already?

Cosmin

November 6th, 2000 8:53 PM

As much as I would like to be able to use Netscape 6.0 soon, one of my biggest reasons to switch is the compliance issue. If I wanted a non-compliant browser, I could get one now from Microsoft. Please don't disappoint your users now that you are so close to having a premium quality browser.

Nate Diller

November 6th, 2000 8:52 PM

Jason and zeldman,

My earlier comments were mostly directed to those who read this article and posted their frustrations here, but have not contributed to the project. A large number of the comments here fail to understand what level of support is in the current builds and what the situation is... they are reading that Mozilla isn't 100% compliant and screaming, without realizing that Mozilla is closer to compliance than any browser on the market.

I agree, PDT is pretty screwed up... someone has to be the bad guy and draw the line, and it certainly seems that the line was drawn in the unreasonable range. This doesn't change my belief that Netscape 6 is far superior to Netscape 4.x and should be released now as a replacement. If it isn't released very, very soon, sites are no longer going to be built for anything but IE, and won't even work in a fully compliant browser.

A month ago I started using Mozilla exclusively to see if it was up to snuff... it is not as stable as 5.5, but it is better than 4.x, which is why I feel they need to put 4.x out of its misery and replace it with 6.0...if they want to call it beta or trial or strongly note that people should upgrade next month or to turn on smartupdate or whatever, fine... but it needs to replace 4.x as the default download on their site.

They are ready to launch it at Comdex... I predicted this when they release pr1 at Internet World in May... their marketing is very obvious.

Dylan Schiemann

November 6th, 2000 8:50 PM

For too long, Netscape has failed to comply with the basic HTML and JavaScript standards. That is why Web developers are increasingly writing exclusively for IE. You will do yourselves a disservice if you rush another nonstandard release. Please reconsider. All things being equal, I would rather run and write for Netscape, but as it is, things are not equal. A premature release of Navigator 6.0 won't improve the situation.

David M. Anderson

November 6th, 2000 8:50 PM

As a web application developer, my ability to do my job depends upon the integrity and reliability of standards like DHTML, JavaScript, and DOM. When browsers don't comply with the standards, ASPs and web developers are forced to choose ONE browser to support for the sake of time and money. Microsoft wins. Everybody else loses.

Netscape, please stop the balkanization of the web!!! You're killing your most loyal supporters! Since the product is already very late to market, PLEASE for the love of God, do it RIGHT! You want to make a browser that is late AND broken?!?!?

Compliance with web standards has always been Mozilla's #1 selling point. Now you are going to flub it? It must be done right the first time.

Few people are giving Netscape a second chance. Nobody will give it a third.

Daniel Lagrange

November 6th, 2000 8:47 PM

If Netscape 6 isn't compliant, I'll be using the Mozilla version.

Brendan Dowling

November 6th, 2000 8:47 PM

I hate developing for netscape, and I hope they dont' comply so more people will move toward IE....

nicholas amaral

November 6th, 2000 8:47 PM

This is rather amusing now:
http://home.netscape.com/browsers/future/standards.html

Andrew

November 6th, 2000 8:46 PM

I was delighted when I first heard of the open-sourcing of the mozilla codebase, and overcome with respect and appreciation for the foresight of your company.
But to do this, and then reject the hard work of toiling developers, who are working at no cost to you, stands to not only alienate your developer base, but to damage your reputation in the marketplace; shipping an inferior product with known errors that could readily be fixed makes no sense. It confounds me.
I strongly agree with the notion that, if you are to release 6, release it as a beta, and immediately begin to roll in the fixes from the main mozilla tree.

David Brooks

November 6th, 2000 8:46 PM

You've delayed the release of Netscape 6.0 for so long that another few months won't matter at all. You've also delayed the release for so long that it better be perfect when it does come out. Spend the extra time to make it perfect.

Brad Behm

November 6th, 2000 8:46 PM

I feel so let down. All my development is released after being tested under Netscape. It was the only thing that held to the standards. So long as it worked there it would work everywhere. Now I am dreading what future developing will be like.
-Mr.Dildonics

mrdildonics

November 6th, 2000 8:45 PM

I agree wholeheartedly with your petition! Netscape needs to focus on the things that matter or it will just be a toy!
Bill Baker

Bill Baker

November 6th, 2000 8:43 PM

I'm pretty much a diehard at avoiding Microsoft products, which explains why I'm typing this on Netscape 4.72 on the Mac. But if you're going to release a buggy, non-compliant browser just to meet an arbitrary ship date, why should I continue holding against to the Internet Explorer flood? This is your last chance to get it right. Release a great, stable, competative browser and you're back in the game. On the other hand, if you screw this one up, the browser wars are officially over.

Lawrence Person

November 6th, 2000 8:43 PM

I have been doing web development almost since it all started -- my first browser was Netscape 2.0.

Over the years, I have become less and less a fan of Microsoft, but it's certainly not because Netscape had a better browser. I have (and continue to have) incredibly frustrating standard-compliance problems with Netscape's browsers.

Please, for once, do the right thing! By waiting and releasing a stable, standards-compliant browser, Netscape can:

Save Navigator from extinction -- Navigator will become extinct not because AOL fails to promote it (we all know how AOL markets), but because a critical mass of web developers (myself included) will abandon it as a target platform...
Ensure that your developer-base remains strong. Netscape has survived in large part simply because it was the only non-Microsoft browser. That "advantage" can only go so far - you can only produce an inferior product for so long...
Guarantee a stable development platform. Developers will only continue to use Navigator if it becomes easier, not more problematic, to code to.

For the good of the web, but more importantly to save your own hides, please heed Mr. Flanagan's advice!

Jonathan Cobb

November 6th, 2000 8:42 PM

Perhaps the lesson to be learned from the browser war with Microsoft would be the enemy's policy of "embrace and extend;" I see you're devoting a great deal of effort to the "extend" portion of the tactic (marketroid rubbish), but it is apparent that more attention needs to be paid the "embrace" constituent (implementing more of the fixes from the Mozilla team) before continuing.

In case there is any confusion as to the order: *embrace* now, *extend* later.

Aaron Benoy

November 6th, 2000 8:38 PM

I have spent a large amount of time over the course of the last year actively debugging the mozilla browser. I love the fact that we will soon have a next generation browser on Linux. However, having worked in Web Development I am already aware that Developer Sentiment is currently in many ways against Netscape for failing to comply with standards and causing support headaches. Please fix the problems, and don't make developers further hate Netscape for creating another special set of conditions that must be handled for Netscape 6.0. I realize that release cannot be interminably delayed but at least make it the standards compliant browser that developers have been holding their breath for. The result will be that many will ultimately thank Netscape rather than curse it.

We've waited this long, another month will hardly be noticed. Failure to meet the promised goals definately will be.

Igor Shaterin

Igor Shaterin

November 6th, 2000 8:36 PM

Senior Designer and 6-year web developer. Please don't continue to hobble the progress of the web for short-sighted, short-term marketing goals. Standards, please, standards!

Gavin Kistner

November 6th, 2000 8:36 PM

and I thought that netscape might be the saving grace of the browser wars. A major commercial product that everyone could use that would adhere to standards. Ahh well, I guess that I am going to stay with mozilla.

Chris Heady

November 6th, 2000 8:35 PM

C'mon guys! _Please_ don't suck. You know what - never mind.
Keep on being lame, and we'll find an alternative. Sound like
a good business model to you? Sounds good to me. The Internet
also interprets bullshit as damage, and routes around that,
too.

Martin Loeffler

November 6th, 2000 8:35 PM

All I want is a solid, open source, standards compatible browser. Right now, much as I love to hate microsoft, netscape blows chunks, and I would rather use IE if it was available for linux. DIRFT = Do It Right First Time. And BTW, give users an easy way to take that stupid shop button off the menu bar, like you can with IE.

Gary C

November 6th, 2000 8:35 PM

It's a shame that web development continues to be handicapped with standards issues such as these. These problems unnecessarily drive the cost of web content through the roof. It's bad enough that we have to develop multiple versions of sites to comfortably support WAP/WML, WebTv, AOL and etc. While some latitude can be allowed since these formats are heavily dependant (sans AOL) on the hardware platform and specifics, why are we still burdened with dealing with Netscape vs. IE HTML issues? I'm not a 100% Microsoft fan but at least the browser performs consistantly without continually crashing and other misc. issues. As both a web and application developer I certainly appreciate the ability to use the IE core inside of traditional apps and knowing how it will interpret HTML code with no surprises. Everyone preaches that Netscape is good to have around to keep progress moving forward in IE. So what? How much more progress do we actually need in a web browser? I for one would gladly give up fluffy new features in exchange for some standards that would allow a single version of a site to look, perform and function the same way on both Netscape and IE. IE may be far from perfect but at least it looks the same on a PC, Mac, PocketPC and soon Linux. That covers over 90% of the main stream market with consistant browser results. The death of the Netscape browser would be far less painful if all web developers were not unwillingly made to suffer through each final gasp for air. Let it die already.

Todd Mathews

November 6th, 2000 8:35 PM

Personally I'm getting tired of Netscape. I was true blue netscape, never even thought of using IE. But after time and time of crashing and incompatabilities ive slowly moved over to IE. I long for the days when Netscape was the premier browser, but the way things are going I just don't see it happening.

Come on, buck up, put out a quality product, take my loyalities back from IE.

ps. Meantime, sure would be nice if there was an IE for linux. <--- can't belive i just said that, but hey......

Steven Taylor

November 6th, 2000 8:35 PM

Now Netscape will truley be dead. I can't believe how brain dead and short sighted the Netscape team must be. What motivation will a user have to use Netscape 6? What motivation will designers have to target or even allow for Netscape 6?

How very very sad..... No really! It's depressing! I used to be a Netscape believer until I couldn't stand the crashes and lack of standards support any longer and switched to IE 5 for better or worse. At least the damn thing worked.

I guess the brain dead way Netscape incorporated AIM into their installer should have alerted me to their way of thinking.

Andrew

November 6th, 2000 8:33 PM

I, as well as much of the web development community, have waited for the new day to finally dawn, a day of a strong competitor to Microsoft, a day when users across the globe could see our content as intended, regardless of platform, and finally a day when the open standards were embraced. AOL/Time-Warner/Sun/Netscape, those of us who have developed for the last three years have seen an odd era, a lone browser, from a company many of us do not like, was the target environment for our content. Even though it played fast and loose with the standards, we still supported it because of its prevalance and its closer compliance with the standards. Do not pass up this opourtunity to release a better suite of internet tools, we have been patient for nearly three years, and can wait a little longer if you are giving the community what was promised when the source was released, the best browser ever.

John Darin Holloway

November 6th, 2000 8:26 PM

I cannot accept a browser that doesn't even support the baseline. I have waited four years for a real revision of Netscape, and I can wait longer. Give me a browser that is fully standards compliant and quit cutting corners - you will not win the game that way. I'm tired of IE being superior, but I want to code my sites to something that reaches the vast majority of my audience...give me a bone. If 6.0 is released without full standards compliance, I will shake my head and forget about Netscape forever...I don't want to do that.

Jason Carpenter

November 6th, 2000 8:26 PM

I've been an avid Netscape supporter for almost ten years, since a
time when Netscape Navigator was little more then a Mosaic hack and
Netscape the company was so high and mighty that they never would
have dreamed of embracing Linux or Open Source or many other of the
things they did while in their death bed. I've stood by them and
supported them and pretty much looked the other way through
countless screwups -- over engineering, under engineering, SSL
exploits, browser crashes, browser lockups, machine lockups, etc.
And you know, maybe its time to just give in and admit that this
dog ain't gonna hunt ever again and embrace IE. Mozilla the
software was supposed to be three things 1) small 2) fast and 3)
the most standard browser ever conceived -- and end the end it is
none of those things. Netscape, Mozilla, or whoever you are these
days, if you rush Navigator 6 to market then know that it will
probably be the last thing you do that anyone takes notice of.

Arnold

November 6th, 2000 8:25 PM

Netscape, via the Mozilla project, has made it very clear that it is capable of producing a high-quality, community developed web browsing platform. For Netscape to take this excellent codebase and then diminish its worth is a waste of the company's time. Not to say users won't get their hands on something better - be it Mozilla or Internet Explorer or Opera or NetPositive - but Netscape will quickly see a drop in market share, and those less savvy, especially on alternative platforms, will be stuck with a shoddy web client.

Benjamin Stiglitz

November 6th, 2000 8:25 PM

I've been trying to get Netscape (and other browsers) to comply
with the HTML 4 standard of content-type-controlled file upload
for almost four years now (bug 46135.)

I've even offered $1000 bribes to Netscape engineers to work on
the project on their own time. No luck yet, but I guess all of us
who care should keep trying. Thanks, David!

Cheers,
James

James Salsman

November 6th, 2000 8:23 PM

We've waited this long for a 6.0 release from Netscape...whats a little more time if the end product is better? The respect that Netscape once had is slowling slipping down the drain as bad choice after bad choice is made. The Mozilla organization has worked too hard on this project for their name to be tarnished by a worthless release from Netscape. Too bad Mozilla wasn't given full control of the release.

Derick Phillips

November 6th, 2000 8:21 PM

I very much admire the work the Mozilla/Netscape team has done to make this Open Source platform a reality. It has been remarkable effort.

Since April, I've been working with the sources every day on another Open Source Mozilla-based application that uses everything from XPCOM to JavaScript to XBL and CSS2. It *is* cool stuff.

The source tree is tightening up. One by one, bugs are getting eliminated. Netscape could be a great browser and a nice platform.

However, I must say I am really worried about this RTM plan. The browser is just becoming stable. Crashes are still common on Windows and especially on Unix. What's so frustrating is this is a solid body of code which just has some loose ends that need attention.

Standards compliance is one important facet of the overall maturity of Netscape 6. It's definitely getting there, but I believe it is damaging to release the work in its current form. Please [AOL] give it a couple more months to snap the last few things into place. Just not quite there...

Marcus Daniels

November 6th, 2000 8:20 PM

Simply stated if Netscape does not resolve the issue. I think it would be best to boycott the "Commercial" release and use mozilla. Its nice to see that at Netscape/AOL/Timewarner Marketing is making the developer decisions.

Eric Molitor

November 6th, 2000 8:20 PM

what strikes me as odd, is there are apperant fixes which netscape refuses to incorporate into the official release, before the branch is set to split. Does netscape have a splintering stratedgy?

while i'm certain netscape has every intention on fixing these bugs which make their browser non-standards compliant, i do question why they are going to do this after the branch has already split, do they not want mozilla and netscape to be compatible?

I for one would like to see netscape allow these fixes to be applied, as to not give open source a bad name, by releasing wine before it's time.

robert

November 6th, 2000 8:19 PM

Support the standards! Have a little foresight beyond the next financial quarter! DO THE RIGHT THING!

Scott Rainaldo

November 6th, 2000 8:18 PM

The need for a fully standards compliant browser is essential to the health of the internet in the next few years. Microsoft has shown with IE5 Mac that it is a feasible goal and that, when done properly, users and developers are both happy. What Microsoft has also shown, though, is that they are willing to abandon standards, as with IE5.5 Win. The rest of the industry will not be forgiving towards a buggy product that has been in developement for years when there is an alternative which works now, albeit for a limited target audience. I use Linux and thus have no way of using IE. I need Netscape 6 for myself. I develope web sites. Thus, I need Netscape 6 for my users. Please do the right thing. You are headed in the right direction supporting Mozilla. Don't stumble now.

Joshua Pearson

November 6th, 2000 8:17 PM

I have been developing websites in DHtml and Javascript for a while now. I didn't realize now non-standard complaint Netscape 6.0 and for that fact previous versions of Netscape 4.x were. With as little respect that I have for microsoft(c) and my love for open source projects I still make the decision to go with a program that more closely conforms to industry standards.
If Netscape continues to have a lack of support for DHtml and CSS standards people will stop using it and its market share will slip further to IE.

Timothy Powers

November 6th, 2000 8:16 PM

I have been developing websites in DHtml and Javascript for a while now. I didn't realize now non-standard complaint netscape 6.0 and for that fact previous versions of netscape 4.x were. With as little respect that I have for microsoft(c) and my love for open source projects I still make the decision to go with a program that more closely conforms to industry standards. If netscape continues to have a lack of support for DHtml and CSS standards people will stop using it and its market share will slip further to IE.

Timothy Powers

November 6th, 2000 8:15 PM

I think you should ask yourself an important question: What is more important to you? A browser that is full of marketing and features with a speedy release, or a browser that people will actually use and develop web pages for. You are falling behind IE and you must prove that you are still in the game.

Vince Smith

November 6th, 2000 8:14 PM

Isn't this ironic: I just came home from my favorite computer store, tonight, after buying a copy of David's excellent book on JavaScript.

Then I surfed over to Slashdot and found out that the language I'm trying to learn won't really work on the next version of Netscape, and I'll have to switch to Internet Exploiter.

I agree with what EVERYONE else has said: this is the end of Netscape's credibility.

Tim Fairbank

November 6th, 2000 8:14 PM

I would just like to say two things:

1. I agree that Netscape 6 should not be released until all of these standards are met, and met well with stability.

2. To the posts of 'Why does anyone use Netscape 4.x anyway, IE is much better?' Am I missing something? It is the ONLY real browser for Unix. Sure IE 4.0 was released for a few flavors, but it wasn't much good. I depend on Netscape and I would hope to see improvements in version 6. Although if it proves rushed, I can just use the mozilla releases; unfortunatly many home users won't have the option (or the time to kill downloading).

Nick Webb

November 6th, 2000 8:13 PM

As a web developer, Netscape 4 has long annoyed me with it's failure to comply with basic standards, so I'm certainly not going to go out of my way to support something even *worse*.

I've already switched to IE on Windows. I just wish it was available on Linux so I don't have to deal with the crashes and incompatibilities of NS4.

Andrew

November 6th, 2000 8:13 PM

Andrew

November 6th, 2000 8:12 PM

Netscape is going to lose one of the greatest benefits of an open-source development model -- that of speedy bug fixes if they don't redefine their priorities in terms of accepting 3rd party patches.

Alex Gottschalk

November 6th, 2000 8:11 PM

Browser users and developers of Web content aren't looking for a browser with some whiz-bang cutesy interface; they're looking for a stable, robust tool that adheres to today's WWW standards.

We do need a new Netscape; please consider rescheduling the release and taking another look at your product to make certain it's the right Netscape to release.

Joel Sona

November 6th, 2000 8:10 PM

Please support web compliance.
What may be the worst part of this whole deal is the bad reputation that Mozilla may get from Netscape rushing the release. Where Mozilla is becoming more compliant every day, Netscape 6 is slipping behind. Forget Netscape. Support Mozilla!

Jarrod Gray

November 6th, 2000 8:10 PM

Of the approximately 150,000 unique users my sites serve every month only approximately 8% are on Netscape browsers anymore.

I have continued to maintain hope that Netscape might see that percentage grow after a standards compliant browser is finally released.

I no longer spend much time concerning myself with the niceties of maintaining equivalencies between MSIE and NS. As it is, I now shunt pre 4.0 browsers into a very simple manilla version of my sites. If NS is unable to live up to their promises and they are unable to grow that 8% then in the future all NS browsers will be shunted into the pre 4.0 pages and I will spend even less time concerning myself with the NS browser.

christopher l. filkins

November 6th, 2000 8:10 PM

For Mozilla/Navigator to work as a free software project, Netscape's marketers and release engineers must put more faith in the judgement of the developers, both inside and outside Netscape. If developers feel they aren't trusted to help decide what makes the release, they will not contribute.

As Jamie Zawinski said before leaving Mozilla, open development helps you make better decisions. Listen to the community: standards compliance is the right decision.

Andrew Pimlott

November 6th, 2000 8:09 PM

The only real thing going for Netscape is standards-compliance. Without that, it has nothing. Galeon and Konqueror might see much greater adoption on Linux if Netscape drops the ball, and non-free (neither speech nor beer!) opera might even be the choice for most standards-compliant windows browser! Supposedly, Opera might emerge as a standards-compliant browser for embedded systems. I'm sure many (not the least of whom would be AOL) would rather see an open-source browser/rendering engine fill this role.

It seems that mastering CD-ROMS in this day and age is almost ridiculous anyways, no reason to rush to do so!

-Dan

Daniel Freedman

November 6th, 2000 8:08 PM

With all that heart-felt anguish; with much of which I whole-heartedly agree, I can't help but wonder if it is time for a fork? Anybody able to provide the infrastructure?

Christopher

November 6th, 2000 8:08 PM

I am extremely disappoint by the short-sightedness of AOL. To push for standard compliance for so long only to turn its head away from it because of trying to make some kind of an artificial deadline. I will only use Mozilla and IE6 thank you.

We all know that the value of the netscape portal is evoporating by the day, as will Netscape 6 if it is not standard compliant

Ming-Lun Tung

November 6th, 2000 8:08 PM

Releasing beta quality code to make dates is what gives software companies of today such a bad name for bugs and patches. I thought that having an open-source team working on Netscape 6 would mean that finally, the mozilla codebase would get both the reworking, and the testing it badly needed.

Unfortunately, by the sounds of the bugs cited here, that's not what has happened. It appears that major functional patches are being omitted in order to meet a "gold" date. This is the same ridiculous crap that drives for-profit products. It's a free product, you might as well make it a good one, and at the very least, include the functionality of the current revision.

A w e l l - t e s t e d p r o d u c t = a h a p p y u s e r

Ryan Matthews

November 6th, 2000 8:07 PM

Ship late or ship beta.

Trent

November 6th, 2000 8:06 PM

After all the time and effort put into this release of Netscape so far, it would be a sad thing indead to release and promote what is essentially an unfinished beta. Netscape, please, close just doesn't cut it...

Joshua Heyer

November 6th, 2000 8:05 PM

It is important to create and adhere to open standards so that everyone can
communicate to each other.

Michael Bowen

November 6th, 2000 8:05 PM

Please support web standards. Our jobs as web developers are hard enough already.

Luke Francl

November 6th, 2000 8:04 PM

Keep it in Beta. We need standards, not marketing.

August C. Bourre

November 6th, 2000 8:04 PM

As a web developer, I've been the only one in my whole company saying that Netscape 6.0 is going to be a good browser to code for. Everyone else gave up after the 4.xx series. I assumed you would learn from your mistakes and take the time to craft a good product this time out. If Netscape 6.0 comes out in a final release form with serious standards compliance issues, my whole company will remove Netscape from it's list of target browsers to develop sites for.

Adam Kintner

November 6th, 2000 8:03 PM

The biggest gripe I have with NS4.x is that it's too OLD to follow any of the current standards. Please don't make the biggest gripe I have with your new browser that you rushed it out too EARLY to support the current standards... The first release is too important to let these bugs slip.

Brent Blood

November 6th, 2000 8:03 PM

I don't know why they are even bothering to release Netscape 6 with all the bugs. I think that is such poor service to the public. They should definitely postpone the release date if it means that the finished product will be worth using. Otherwise, I think I'll just stick to what I'm using now.

Chelsea Rivera

November 6th, 2000 8:03 PM

netscape is rushing this release!

John McCutchan

November 6th, 2000 8:01 PM

Standards compliance is the only hope for what little sanity is left in the development community. By releasing a half-baked product you will effectively sabotage developers and stunt the growth of those learning to develop sites with standards-based code. Intentionally shipping a browser full of bugs is unwise and irresponsible. Please don't make the die-hard netscape users look like fools.

Keep it beta, and keep our respect.

suzi arnold

November 6th, 2000 8:00 PM

As a web application developer, I must protest any release of Netscape based on the Mozilla project that contains such critical bugs in standards compliance.

Make it compliant, or don't make it at all.

-JF

Jon Frisby

November 6th, 2000 8:00 PM

I thought 100% standards compliance was supposed to be the big selling point of Netscape's next browser, since lack of compliance is the greatest weakness of V4 when compared to IE.

Netscape has lost practially all browser market share to Microsoft. Why is anyone going to bother to download or install a different browser if it's well known to be LESS standards compliant? What has Netscape been wasting its time on for the last three years if they're just going to introduce another browser that has the exact same fundamental flaw of their previous product? What advantage does the user get? None. Netscape thinks they'll have the advantage by the revenue-generating bloat they're spending all their resources on, but if noone downloads V6, they're not going to make money from it anyway. It just doesn't make any sense.

Please, Netscape, pretty pretty please, HOOK US IN with a 100% standards compliant web application platform, and then later make your profits on the bloatware addons.

Jeff Messner

November 6th, 2000 7:58 PM

If Netscape 6.0 does not have full standards compliance, it really won't be much of an improvement from the line of 4.0 browsers, will it? I agree with the points made in the article; I don't see why Netscape should settle for less than perfect standards compliance.

Isaac Feitler

November 6th, 2000 7:57 PM

Netscape has had a history of being behind the times when it comes to web standards.

Come on! Take advantage of the Mozilla project. Regain from IE... I want to browse the web the way it's support to look under Linux...

Blah, I don't feel like saying anything. Netscape are deaf.

Michael Ahlers

November 6th, 2000 7:56 PM

I have done a lot of work on Mozilla, but I stopped most of my work about a week ago because I was so fed up with Netscape PDT. I do Open Source work for love, not money, and I can't stand having patches rejected because some fuckup marketdroid didn't approve my CVS commit.

PDT: you are lame.

Jeffrey Baker

November 6th, 2000 7:53 PM

I am already using Opera 95% of the time and it appears there is no reason to get Netscape at all (or at least until the bugs are fixed).

Aside from that, do YOURSELF a favor and fix the bugs, delay the release, but ship a GOOD browser.

Never give up, never surrender!

K.D.

November 6th, 2000 7:51 PM

Consider briefly the number of JavaScript scripts that check for the browser name, then platform, then version number. Consider the number that will simply check for "version > 4" for CSS2 and DOM features. This won't work, and will sadly be marked with "&& browser != netscape".

Michael T. Babcock

November 6th, 2000 7:51 PM

You have the fixes and you're not implementing them? Look, Netscape needs to, at every stage, release Mozilla+, not Mozilla-. The only features that should be under Netscape, as compared to Mozilla, management are those that add the silly commercial dohinguses. There are still a few of us out here who use Netscape as our primary target for Web design - but do you want to see us putting "You are using Netscape 6.0 - please upgrade to Mozilla x.x or above to see this site to best advantage, or use IE 6.x or above" on our sites?!

Whit Blauvelt

November 6th, 2000 7:50 PM

With a less than 20% market share, what's the point of releasing NS 6 with those bugs.

Kam Cheung

November 6th, 2000 7:50 PM

Releasing NS 6 with known compliance deviations will only cause those features of the appropriate standard to be effectively voided. After all, what sane developer would use a feature that is known not to work on a major browser? They will just learn to do without if they care about their clients at all. Consequently, the features that you do not support will attrify and die away.

Jim Patterson

November 6th, 2000 7:49 PM

I've been using Mozilla since the M13 release. I would also say that I've been using it primarily since M16. It's grown into a very powerful browser, but I do not know why a major company would essentially ruin their already tarnished reputation by releasing the savior of standards compliancy with major compliancy issues. Most of the posts on this board are not really from people who are going to miss out on updates and such, but the average user doesn't stay on top of the software industry. What I'm saying is...there needs to be a browser that people are going to be willing to go out and DL because it is so much better than the browser that is already on their system...and frankly...with these bugs...NS6 isn't there.

Mark Drago

November 6th, 2000 7:49 PM

Please, support the standards and use the bug fixes from the open source community. Do not let Microsoft deal the death blow in the browser war.

Follow the credo that id software laid down when it comes to releasing new software: "when it's done."

Jared Klett

November 6th, 2000 7:49 PM

Mark Drago

November 6th, 2000 7:46 PM

With Mozilla 18-3 loading in less than a second and interfaces popping up faster than you can say Internet Explorer I think it's a case of derivative products failing to live up to the glory of their ancestors.

Port Konqueror to Windows, scrap Netscape for Mozilla. Let's move on. I can only expect 1E6's standards support is temporary until the gates close behind us after entering the castle.

Rares Marian

November 6th, 2000 7:46 PM

Releasing a close-to-perfect standards-compliant browser would be fine. (No software is perfect.) But releasing a browser with seriously buggy, incomplete standards support will not serve Netscape, will not serve developers, and will not serve the cause of web standards.

I understand some folks think the WaSP's July editorial meant "release Nav6 whether it's ready or not." I'm sorry our comments were misunderstood. We hoped to induce Netscape to stop "upgrading" Nav4 (because it sent the message that that browser was still viable) and to focus all its energies on delivering a standards-compliant browser while key parts of the market were still receptive to it.

At the time, some of us believed that the browser's delay was due to the expenditure of energy on the larger Mozilla platform, as well as on tangential items like skins, add-ons, etc. We may have been wrong about that. We hoped to persuade Netscape to focus exclusively on the browser, which we felt was desperately needed in the marketplace. (A standards-compliant browser still is desperately needed.) If we had not subsequently lost control of our domain and mailing lists for over three months, we might have been able to foster discussion and clarification on these points.

In any case, what matters is not what we said or how it was perceived; what matters is that a lot of great work has been done, and the browser's developers deserve the right to release the best possible product, rather than one that is seriously compromised.

zeldman

November 6th, 2000 7:45 PM

As a BSD user, I'm basically stuck using Netscape. 4.75 isnt all that bad a browser, for 1996 or whenever it was made. Please, for the love of all that is holy and sacred in the world. SUPPORT THE STANDARDS!!!!!! If you fail to do this, you're not gonna be popular with the Linux/Unix/BSD community!

Jordan Block

November 6th, 2000 7:44 PM

You'll only make things worse if you release NS6 before it's compliant. The tech websites won't be full of 'Try the great new Netscape v6 browser'. they'll be full of 'Netscape v6 still not compliant'. It'll just be one big Netscape roast. FINISH IT FIRST!

Sean Capstick

November 6th, 2000 7:43 PM

Basically... I add a 'ditto' to the other comments made. Netscape/AOL's only hope of success outside of the AOL user population is to make this browser 100% standards compliant. Known showstopper bugs should be resolved BEFORE the release.. regardless of slipping a ship date!

John

November 6th, 2000 7:43 PM

(Since this forum is "most recent first", you're going to need to
scroll down to see the comment I am replying to.)

This most definately IS a management issue. Lots of the bugs there are
FIXED. The open source community did their job. But now the management
won't take the fixes. The open source response to that is to fork
the project, which we have tried to do a little of..there's a different
mentality on the trunk compared to the branch. However, Netscape has
all the name recognition, and what they release is going to reflect
on the mozilla project as a whole.

And if you have to deal with screwed up management, you are less willing
(and inclined) to work on the project at all. Recently, the PDT was
going to refuse to fix a spelling error in a contributor's name. This
caused a big uprising, and eventually they changed the code so it now
navigates to the Mozilla.org contributor page. So instead of taking
the simple text fix that they claimed was too much risk, they made
a code change.

Also, Netscape has not communicated well to the outside contributors
about their deadlines. There was suddenly a "front-end" freeze on
9/13 (or was it 9/16), and many of us didn't know about it until 3
days (or less) away from the deadline (and only from picking up hints
about it), so we worked like HELL to fix all of the front-end bugs
we could think of, and then the day of the deadline, the build
turned red, and then everyone was forced to check in EVERYTHING
they had in an hour and a half (which broke the build again). As a result,
some of the hard-fought front end changes never made it in. And after
nsbeta3, it would be SO hard for an outside contributor to get a change
into the branch, with a PDT that basically didn't want to take ANY changes,
that it wasn't worth the effort to become totally frustrated. The first we found out about the CD build was when the PDT just started rtm-'ing EVERYTHING, come hell or high water. We basically don't get told anything.

So what do you suggest that outside contributors do? I tried helping
getting bugs through triage and getting reviews and super reviews,
and getting starved bugs off the rtm radar, and all I got was
complaints about me "spamming" everyone. I created an [InLimbo-OOH]
tag to denote bugs that were in "canidate limbo", and according
to the PDT, I just "confused" everybody. (Umm, it isn't apparant
what that tag means when I added it to all the bugs that had
"This bug is in canidate limbo" as their latest comment?). Lately,
almost any negative comment, no matter how specific or constructive
is being seen as "whining". None of our feedback seems to be
getting through. Some of OUR CODE, OUR LIFEBLOOD is in the product.
We thought we would be appreciated more than this.

We realize the potential of Mozilla, and that's why we DON'T want
Netscape to release a horribly buggy version of it as a release version.
People are STUPID when it comes to understanding development processes.
We still have people on Slashdot thinking that Mozilla is exactly like
it was when M6 or M7 was released. Normal people don't understand "potential"
in software. They see what they have in front of them, and that's it. If they
saw it and it sucked in version 6.0, they don't have the concept that it might suck less in version 6.1, since they're used to Microsoft, who NEVER fixes their bugs, or introduces new bugs when they fix the old ones.

Jason Eager

November 6th, 2000 7:43 PM

I'm tossing my name into the hat of users that are requesting that Netscape fix these major problem in version 6.0 before releasing it. Don't get me wrong. I'm a die-hard Netscape user. I've used it forever. Just because I and many others are die-hard Netscape loyalists, doesn't mean you can post abuse that loyalty and post sub-par software. Fix the bugs. It's not a bad thing to delay the release if you are doing legitimate work to make the browser a better product. Don't force Microsoft quality software on your loyal users.

Justin Shore

November 6th, 2000 7:42 PM

Please, Netscape, consider the impact that releasing a non-production release of your browser will have on your good will with clients and developers. Already, many customers are balking at using Netscape 4.7, so if you ship a browser that provides less compliance to standards, you will lose even more support from your customers.

Greg Boehnlein

November 6th, 2000 7:41 PM

I would prefer to use the Netscape browser for many reasons, mostly those related to support of the W3C standards, support for alternative operating systems, and system security.

I have found that I cannot trust Microsoft to follow any of the W3C standards, and I would like to see a well-known browser follow the rules. I do not like to see pages that fail to be viewable in specific browsers, and the W3C standards form a basis from which browsers should build. I have traditionally found NS to be closer to the official standards, if a little behind.

I use Linux in addition to Windows, so I have Netscape installed in both. It is sad that I do not want to install NS 6 PR3 on Linux because NS 4.75 works better...

It seems that Microsoft is often posting fixes to a security of some sort in IE (often Java). While I am happy that they are posting, I wish that they did not need to do so (I have also seen the lists of security holes they did not feel the need to fix). I have always trusted NS to be more secure, but I cannot use a defunct browser, no matter how secure.

Joe Ratterman

November 6th, 2000 7:41 PM

Please, make Netscape 6 the first fully standards compliant browser, like you promised. Please, do what you said you would.

Kent Perrier

November 6th, 2000 7:41 PM

As someone, who actually had a chance to work on the project I have to express my dismay at AOL's halfharted funding for Mozilla.org, the Netscape's unwillingness to take a more hands-off approach and PDT's pitiful micromanagement, which is putting a strangling hold not only on external, but also on internal contributions.

I'd advise anyone to join the Mozilla project as a contibutor, but also *demand* that the the corporate entities providing funding for it, release the project fully into the public domain. (They already prepared ground for it by GPLing Mozilla)

Juraj Betak

November 6th, 2000 7:38 PM

serious software companies don't even consider Netscape support anymore because they have fallen so helplessly behind in performance, quality and standards support.

Netscape's only hope is to announce their new browser with a huge "100% standards compliant" banner. i think this is the nail in the coffin. they haven't been able to ship for how long now? i guess with free help, you get what you pay for...

ian ward

November 6th, 2000 7:37 PM

When a company cares more about shipping a product then fixing the bugs and meeting standards, that is when the products fail. That is the reason I've stayed away from IE in the past whenever possible ... now might I have to avoid NS as well?

S.W.

Steven Wilcoxon

November 6th, 2000 7:37 PM

I gotta agree. RTM is *NOT* ready for prime-time. There will be a major backlash. Think long-term, Netscape. It's not a matter of time any more, the "race" aspect of this is over.

It's all about coming in strong with a quality product...and RTM is not ready!

W

Waldo ?

November 6th, 2000 7:37 PM

As a web developer specializing in web apps and a dyed-in-the-wool linux
user, I've been eagerly looking forward to a Mozilla release. Standards-compliant and cross platform, it looked like a silver bullet, but as it stands,
Netscape 6 is looking more and more like a previous Netscape product, with permanent bugs causing instability, and rendering and scripting errors.

When we build websites, we target two platforms: DOM/CSS capable browsers, and table/form capable browsers. Right now, it's looking like Netscape 6 may get classified as the latter.

Aaron Hope

November 6th, 2000 7:37 PM

Having spent serious time developing in the Netscape DOM and IE DOM with JavaScript, I can attest that there is nothing more insulting to users and developers than not adhering to clearly specified standards that enable dynamic, exciting, and stable web-content. As an avid user of Mac, Linux, and Windows, I appreciate Netscape's cross platform capabilities and platform reliability. I would hate to see Netscape shoot itself in the foot just because MicroSoft is doing point-releases more quickly than Netscape. Building a weaker product will only make things worse. -Will

Will Koffel

November 6th, 2000 7:36 PM

Just how gullible do they think we are? :)

Jamie Manley

November 6th, 2000 7:36 PM

Since IE has already taken the lion's share of the browser turf, I have already stopped making any effort to get sites to look the same in NS 4.x and IE 5.x. If NS 6.x also fails to make the grade, then there's no reason to bother with it, either. Once lusers download NS 6 and see that their pages are being rendered incorrectly in it, they'll give up on it, too.

T Davis

November 6th, 2000 7:35 PM

Netscape: your browser is close to becoming irrelevant, and waiting another month or two will not make much difference. You need a solid hit.

If you release a bug-ridden browser, word will get around: users will heed the common wisdom and not adopt; site authors will ignore it, waiting for the upgrade.

Navigator may not get a second chance. If this is the intent of your upper management, they will force this release out anyway.

Were I in your position with this product, I'd go over the head of my boss to insist on a proper level of quality (and no weaseling about what that means).

Your alternative? Do you really want to go looking for your next job ashamed of having worked on the "infamous Netscape 6"? And it will obviously be a race for the exits as the more alert people look to land good jobs before it's too late.

Larry West

November 6th, 2000 7:35 PM

Why rush out the browser now? It has been forever in the making, what would hurt to delay a few days or weeks? Oh well this is a pretty big test of whether I will continue using Netscape.

Jason Thomas

November 6th, 2000 7:35 PM

If Netscape can't be bothered to stick to their promise to release a standards compliant browser, then I can't be bothered to keep wasting half my time writing code around their stupid inconsistencies. It's that simple. And when people start seeing

'This page best viewed in IE, because Netscape is DUMB'

it probably won't help Netscape at all.

Brian Reischl

November 6th, 2000 7:33 PM

PDT: Let me put it simply. If market share is your concern, how much do you think you're going to lose with a browser whose standards support is this inadequate?

Brian Teague

November 6th, 2000 7:32 PM

AOL, if you're going to be the one to save Netscape (via buy-out) try to do it some justice. That is the responsibility that comes with your action. You owe that to the community.

I long ago came to the realization that companies should NOT control multiple aspects of business. Either make the browser, or make the content, but doing both leads to the temptations of cookie tricks, SHOP buttons, snoopware, and other evils.

And you better not hard code the startup page as you did in AOL 6!

Other cases include:

Edison making the cameras AND the film, and only renting either.
Real Networks making the servers and the clients AND making
money from content.
Microsoft making the browser AND the MSN network (remember how evil
AOL thought THAT was? that's how we feel now!)
Car dealerships selling/leasing AND repairing cars

My guess is that Opera and Konqueror (KDE2) are going to be the only fully standards-compliant browsers for no other reason than they're not distracted by shop buttons, ads, keyword searches and other tripe associated with content.

http://linuxtampa.com

Timothy Jones

November 6th, 2000 7:31 PM

Yet another disappointing browser in a long line of disappointing browsers released by Netscape. It's unbelievable that Netscape would even think about releasing another noncompliant browser after the joke that Netscape 4.x has become.

I've been dealing with authoring HTML around Netscape idiocies on my website for long enough, and thought they'd finally have made a good browser. Yet again, buggy crap. What are these people thinking?

Internet Explorer 5.0 for Macintosh is nearly 100% compliant. Netscape should either try to catch up ...or just give up.

Jeremy J. Olson (J'raxis 270145)

November 6th, 2000 7:31 PM

This is pathetic. I will not recommend, or use, NS until it is standards compliant.

Nick Main

November 6th, 2000 7:30 PM

I'm amazed that, after all this time, after all this effort, Netscape is willing to stumble at the finish line. We're so close to having the Net's first truly standards-compliant browser. It sure would be cool if we could get all the way there.

David Hand

November 6th, 2000 7:29 PM

The possibility of keeping any marketshare via a quick release is already long, long gone; the majority of Netscape users have already migrated over to IE. If Netscape 6 wants to compete, it not only needs to support non-windows platforms and gain the AOL audience, but it alse needs a "selling point" that can convince users to switch. Since the beginning, this selling point has supposedly been the benefits that we're supposed to see from the open-source development. It needs every last ounce of performance and standards compliance it can get, and without these, there's no chance of ever regaining marketable competitor status. Implement everything and do it right this time, and there should be no need to worry about later versions and competition; otherwise, there won't be any chance of ever regaining a foothold in the market.

Scott Noveck

November 6th, 2000 7:28 PM

This will be another addition to a long list of mistakes Netscape has made if they do not take this suggestion and run with it.

Eric Murphy

November 6th, 2000 7:27 PM

Standards compliance is the ONLY salvation for Netscape's wayward browser and if bugs such as there are tolerable to the product development managers then they haven't a chance - Web developers will make or break this release and no one will commit to a platform considered incomplete from inception.

Roger Howard

November 6th, 2000 7:26 PM

Come on Netscape what are you thinking. As a web developer I am disgusted that you wont bother to comply to standards. I spend most of my time trying to make things look the same in Netscape as they do in IE and it is a pain in the butt.

I do hope that you get your act together and start to figure out that making your customers happy is more important then making a few bucks on ads or something.

~Josh

Josh Knowles

November 6th, 2000 7:26 PM

I'm not going to waste time and bandwidth typing the same thing everyone else is saying. I'll just echo their sentiments.

Do the right thing, Netscape. You owe us.

Keith Gaddis

November 6th, 2000 7:23 PM

Originally, as I understood it, Mozilla was to be the best, and only, fully standard-compliant web browser in existence.

They also decided that not only was Mozilla to be a web browser, but also a viable platform which developers could code for.

I think both of those goals are admirable, and attainable. I am not going to complain that they havn't added feature x to the browser, nor am I going to complain that they spent time implementing featyre y, which I don't use.

What I am going to complain about, though, is that they're dropping the ball. Mozilla is *not* totally standards-compliant. In fact, I have troubles displaying even rudimentary pages.

As it stands, Internet Explorer is a better browser. It's faster, it's leaner, it's meaner, and it's more popular. Unless AOL/Netscape put EVERY effort into releasing a quality browser, it's going to sink like a rock. AOL has resources coming out of its wazoo - they were talking about BUYING Time-Warner. If they can't stand to wait another six months to produce a quality product that will succeed, we're all done for.

David B. Harris

November 6th, 2000 7:22 PM

I have been running Netscape on my Linux workstation for ages.. and always longed for a stable version

Please reconsider your decision to release Netscape 6 in its current state. As a web developer.. I NEED standards compliance.. otherwise my code will only work in one browser.. your opponent's.

Thank You,

Chris Carlson

November 6th, 2000 7:22 PM

As a dedicated Netscape user and professional web developer, I will be most disappointed if Netscape releases 6.0 without proper standards support.

James Howard

November 6th, 2000 7:20 PM

Releasing a browser that won't let me view web pages as they are meant to be viewed will never convince me to abandon the browser I currently use (IE 5.0). I used netscape for many years. My first version was Netscape 1.22, then up on to 2, then to 3. 3.04 was the last version I ever used as my primary browser, since by that time you code was bloated and messy and you had pretty much as crappy a browser as IE. Get a not-crappy browser. Get compliant. Then release.

Michal Bryc

November 6th, 2000 7:19 PM

But the world needs a decent browser!

You're this close, and you're giving up?

beth skwarecki

November 6th, 2000 7:19 PM

But the world needs a decent browser!
You're this close, and you're giving up?

beth skwarecki

November 6th, 2000 7:18 PM

Just wanted to add my name to the petition. Why are they called web standards, if they're not standard?

dan webb

November 6th, 2000 7:15 PM

Guys, the one thing Mozilla had going for it was STANDARDS. If you dont have
that then you dont have squat in comparison to Internet Exploder.

Personally if Netscape 6 is fully standards compliant, Ill use it, if I have to suffer with non standards compliance Im just going to use IE. Or better yet, maybe just switch to Opera.

--John C

John Cavanaugh

November 6th, 2000 7:14 PM

I was a hardcore Netscape user until release 4 came out. I could never understand their need to breakaway from W3C's standards.
Netscape if you want to seriously recapture the market you would have to do better than using the justice system for this.
Microsoft didn't really have to do a thing ... you practically gave your share away.

Huong Chia Hiang

November 6th, 2000 7:12 PM

I think all browsers need to be standard compliant and i belive that netscape will get there being based off of an opensource browser!

Ben Kuryk

November 6th, 2000 7:06 PM

Not supporting standards is a typical AOL practice. I expected this from am AOL owned entity. I can no longer use another perfectly good browser for it does not display pages as standards intend. I don't need another skrewed up platform to develop weird fake java and the like for.

This is hell.

Thomas Shanks

November 6th, 2000 7:06 PM

Thomas Shanks

November 6th, 2000 7:06 PM

Thomas Shanks

November 6th, 2000 6:19 PM

It seems to me that Netscape is not getting credit for the job they have done. Their current builds are more compliant by far than IE in HTML, DOM, XML, CSS, and JavaScript.

Netscape began its quest to build a "standards-compliant" browser after much criticism from the WebStandards Organization. Netscape agreed and made this the main focus of building Mozilla. This past July, the WebStandard Organization criticized Netscape for their delays and asked them to take 4.x off the market and to just get a browser released, even with its bugs. Apparently Netscape listened, which is why they are just trying to get a version out there.

Having written a decent amount of client-side code using and testing Mozilla's support, my opinion is that it is such a huge improvement over Netscape 4.x and IE 5.x that I'd rather work around the few existing bugs (and yes, there are relatively few compared to the limitations in IE and the huge number of new features supported in Netscape) than have anyone else download another version of 4.x. There has to eventually be a cut-off date, and while this may not be the best one, we need to have people begin using Netscape 6 now or else IE will have all of the market share when all of these bugs are fixed in six months. There are a lot of fixes waiting, but there will always be a lot of fixes waiting... there has to be a deadline.

The main problem here comes from the lack of sufficient support and assistance from the development community. If you really care about having a browser to compete with IE, then you need to help in whatever way possible. You need to be asking yourselves what you can do to help the project. This is open-source ... if you want it to kick butt, you need to help. I've been actively writing bug reports and testcases and participating in discussions on the newsgroups for a year and a half. Bugs that were important to my projects have mostly been fixed because I brought up those issues many months ago. I recognize many of the names on the petition as active participants... unfortunately, I don't recognize enough of them. Where have you been the past year? Why do you choose to spend more time yelling at Netscape at the time of release then actually following hte progress of the project and helping, even if only a few minutes a week, writing testcases, testing your code, etc.? The project is delayed and buggy because there is not enough help outside of Netscape, not because Netscape is screwed up. Yes, their marketing is probably a little overzealous, but this browser needs to ship to as many people as possible. The latest nightly builds are very stable (I've left it open for several days withouth crashes or memory leaks), and very powerful. This is an extremely feature-rich browser that supports a wealth of new features. It supports virtually all of html 4.0, xhtml 1.0, xml 1.0, dom level 0,1, 2 (except Traversal and parts of Range), CSS 1, most of 2, parts of 3, minimal SVG, xml extras such as loading and saving files, get and post requests from generated xml files, and JavaScript 1.5, as well as their xul project, which is revolutionary. Yes there are bugs, but the power that is there is huge.

Let's stop picking on Netscape. Let's help Mozilla as much as we can. Educate your friends and family... help them upgrade their browsers to 6.1 if they don't know how... or turn on SmartUpdate. If you care about having a great browser, do what you can to help build it.

Dylan Schiemann

November 6th, 2000 4:33 PM

Netscape! Please mark currently RTM as Netscape 6 PreFinal... We want a good, relieble browser, not a beta released as final release.

We'll wait another month.

Eugene Savitsky

November 6th, 2000 4:25 PM

Netscape has already bet the farm on the notion that standards compliance is more important than time-to-market. If they stay the course, they'll either turn out right, or turn out wrong. I think they'll turn out right, but the point is at least this path gives them some opportunity to get back into the game.

Meanwhile, if they flinch, if they blink, if they don't stay the course and try to split the difference, they end up with neither: a browser that is hopelessly out of the "time to market" race and disappointing from a standards compliance standpoint as well. In other words, pushing out a buggy 6.0 closes off what I see as the last shot at a future for Netscape.

This should be a no-brainer, Nescape. Make sure the one that goes on CD out to all the end-users is so good that if their next upgrade comes only with their next computer, web developers aren't cursing it as another albatross like 4.x to code around.

Jim Hebert

November 6th, 2000 4:17 PM

The new layout engine already IS available. It's called
"Mozilla Nightly Builds". The people who want to run the
new code CAN run the new code.

However, by marking the current code "Netscape 6.0", you
are saying that ANYONE should be able to run the new
code. And that is false.

Jason Eager

November 6th, 2000 4:08 PM

I suggest that before lambasting Netscape over NS6's lack of standards compliance, to be fair you should also do a similar analysis of IE's bug database.

Oh, you can't? Well then, I guess Netscape were suckers for generously giving you access to the entire Mozilla development process.

And BTW, the choice is between "ship buggy NS6.0 now, and ship much better NS6.1 in six months" and "ship nothing now, and ship much better NS6.1 in six months". Given that NS6.0's standards support is WAY better than NS4's (and better than IE's, but I know you all don't care about that because you're already committed to work around IE's bugs), doesn't it make sense to make it available to people?

If you don't feel that it's worthwhile to support NS6.0 in your Web sites, then don't. Just ignore it and wait until Netscape/Mozilla produces something that's worth supporting.

Robert O'Callahan

November 6th, 2000 3:44 PM

I agree with all that has been said. As I continue to develop for the web, I am increasingly dismayed with Navigator's sad performance. What is even more frustrating are all of the lofty promises that Netscape has made in referring to their new browser, and yet, with even the most cursory inspection, most of these claims are shown, by personal experience, to be false.

Please, take a step back, take the long-term perspective, and build a better mouse trap before trying to sell it.

Jim Richins

November 6th, 2000 3:42 PM

I don't know about you guys, but I still have to see the Java plugin in action...

I agree, I am ready to wait instead of puting with another buggy browser that will need some extra-varied workarounds, my web pages are already too much of spaguetti code, I can't take it any more.

Please, Netscape, make sure we, web developers, stop calling you Netscrap ...

Amaury Jacquot

November 6th, 2000 3:27 PM

As well as compliance problems PR3 is still very buggy. On NT, where I just use it as a browser, it crashes once or twice a day, on Win98 make that once or twice an hour; thankfully it doesn't seem to corrupt the mail database.

These reliability bugs have to be fixed otherwise the average punter is going to drop Netscape 6 within half an hour of using it. If those bugs have to be fixed might as well get the already fixed complience patches as well.

If Netscape 6 is not compliant then the wait and frustration have all being for naught, it won't grab the attention of the developers who'll see it as yet another buggy implementation that they will have to figure out workarounds for in their HTML. And it won't gain any kudos in the press for being "almost standards compliant".

Paul Gittings

November 6th, 2000 3:21 PM

Hey Netscape,

Why don't you try to produce a product that interprets the standards more completely than IE? Why not do it right the first time? If a good percentage of the population didn't have an inherent dislike for Microsoft, your sad excuse of a company/product would be long dead and forgotten.

Does anyone at Netscape even care about the standards and the overwhelming frustration experienced by web developers who embrace the capabilties of W3C only to find out that Netscape doesn't support them?

I hope the product gets released across all markets, including with AOL. Users will become so frustrated that they'll finally switch to something else and then us developers can stop worrying about writing half-ass code to make sure it looks okay in Netscape.

Tod Meinke

November 6th, 2000 3:09 PM

I posted on one of the bugs that David wrote about. I understand Netscape's need to ship a product. They have come under a HUGE amount of criticism in recent years because of the 4.x legacy. There was a lite at the end of the Tunnel in mozilla. And mozilla still may be the solution. However, no one is going to use Mozilla.

People are going to use 6.0. And David is again right, that will be the browser the critics and users evaluate. And they will speak their mind. NO ONE WILL CARE WHAT A PATCH HAS TO OFFER. Developers will be STUCK developing for 6.0 LONG AFTER 6.01 is released.

David's list of bugs are but a glimpse of the problems in the browser which will shock you. I'm already branching my code three times: mozilla, netscape 4.x, and IE. That will not go away until 7.0 is released, because as developers we can't develop for minor patches/bug fixes. It's just too hard.

There are severe performance issues which need to be tracked down. Severe regressions also. However, if nothing else, why is Netscape so unwilling to fix major issues which mozilla (read: Netscape) engineers already have patches for?

Please Netscape, delay the release and allow these fixes into the tree.

Bug 40828 is my nemesis. It is a shining example of what RTM needs to have fixed. That functionality you could even perform in Netscape 4.x. DOM support was added, yet it breaks HTML 3.2 cellpadding? Now we're going backwards instead of forwards.

Thanks PDT.

rob

November 6th, 2000 3:06 PM

I honestly had no idea Netscape was planning on releasing a "finished" version of NN6 any time soon. I'm currently running Mozilla M18/MacOS and while certain aspects are extremely impressive - it has a long way to go before its release quality.

I would almost go so far as to say early-beta quality.

So, the idea that they've closed many parts of the tree to bug fixes is simply ludicrous. If this is truly the case (and I have no reason to doubt the article) then I share another poster's opinion that this is triumph of process over results.

As a web-developer I have one thing to say - I will not code for a new broken browser. There are enough existing ones. If NN6 is not significantly better than Explorer it is doomed to irrelevancy. Hey - life's tough and Explorer has a large lead by this point. NN6 has to be that much better to gain any mindshare.

David Weingart

November 6th, 2000 3:05 PM

On the other side of the coin, the Web Standards Project were clamouring not very long ago at all for Netscape 6 to be released ASAP. And www.richinstyle.com already has Gecko as the most standards-compliant CSS engine by a fair distance.

I'm sure a lot of the patches will go into version 6.01. We will get there.

Gervase Markham

November 6th, 2000 3:00 PM

NETSCAPE -- Allow your developers to seal the cracks in the struggle for compliance before release. If we have waited this long, we can wait until the 'BETA' is stripped away from your releases. I and many other developers have stuck by your product. Please don't take us for granted.

NorthEast Front-End Developer

November 6th, 2000 2:54 PM

You guys have already made my life hell. Please learn your lesson and adopt open standards.

I would think that the only way you can make a comeback in the browser war is by making one that is equivalent to IE from a developer's perspective. Nobody I know of is dying to develop for the new Netscape. We're just hoping that you dont screw it up so that it's a headace for people trying to make quality DHTML user experiences that work on both major browsers.

What's the big rush to ship? Netscape has such a bad reputation in the developer community, I'd be surprised that a specific release date is more important than standards compliance.

Adam Platti

November 6th, 2000 2:53 PM

Maybe this gets somewhat repetitive. But even though everyone expects Netscape 6 to ship soon, shipping soon with so many bugs is a nonsense! I'd rather wait a month or 2 more and hear no longer "Netscape 6 is crap like Netscape 4.x" than to have it shipped in such a desastrous shape.

Ricky

November 6th, 2000 2:45 PM

The old adage, "There is never enough time to do it right the first time, but there is always time to do it over" seems appropriate. Netscape will spend more time fixing the product after it is released than they would by doing the job right the first time.

Launching a defective product and presumably fixing it afterwards, will put two or more flavors of the Netscape product (6.0, 6.01, 4.7x) in general circulation, and web developers will have to deal with all three if they want to support Netscape browsers. This is no way for Netscape to treat it supporters.

John

November 6th, 2000 2:40 PM

Gary: (and everyone else who cares about LiveConnect),

Bug# 53849 has been marked rtm++, which means that LiveConnect
will work in Netscape 6.

Jason Eager

November 6th, 2000 2:27 PM

Netscape 6, despite having the glitz and glamour of being "skinned", has its internal problems. Just as I previously read, even a misspelling of a word in a dialog box is construed as a bug, I feel that Netscape's browser should be meticulously proofed before publishing. Speaking from a "perfectionist" point of view, sloppy code is understood as the amount a company cares about its product as well as how much its willing to back that product. After seeing many releases of Navigator and Communicator, I feel the world is overdue for a quality browser. Internet Explorer is rapidly gaining ground because Netscape has fallen so far behind over the years.

- - Josh Lomas

November 6th, 2000 2:22 PM

Please don't do this to us again Netscape. It's bad enough that you've eliminated backward compatibility of the 4.0 DOM.
Releasing another buggy browser could be the breaking point for developers that have stuck with you this far. Make it work solid�. We can wait.

Mark Kuhn

November 6th, 2000 2:14 PM

Hey, we *need* a new Netscape but it *must* be the right Netscape.
Releasing a buggy browser will push us towards using IE as a corporate standard
and that we'll be stuck with it. Forever.

Don't do. You can't claim to release on schedule if it doesn't work - or do
you want to see my 10 byte Oracle clone?

Steve.

Steve Burton

November 6th, 2000 2:13 PM

The PDT's tendancy to lock out outside input is astounding :-( The more people try to give feedback, the more determined they are to ignore the feedback.
At least now we can understand how 4.x arrived in such a state. Process over quality. Some of this has rubbed off on the developers to a point where anybody giving negative feedback is "whining".

It's really sad. The developers are GOOD, but the organization is SICK (and misdirected, and sometimes just plain stupid)! That's probably why
a lot of developers have left Netscape.
And that's also why a lot of outside contributors are waiting until AFTER rtm to continue contributing patches to the Trunk ("mozilla").

I already posted my own message about this on netscape.public.mozilla.seamonkey.

My frustration about all of this became so much that I
Filed a bug on myself to try to calm down about all of these issues, so I didn't piss people off enough that they wouldn't listen to me at all anymore. But it is very hard to watch something that you love get completely trashed by an idiotic process. So I probably have pissed off many people.

Please, Netscape, you obviously have NO idea how bad your reputation is with the people that count. You opened up your development process to the public in an effort to make your product better. Now it's time to take that idea seriously, and listen to your outside contributors. Releasing Netscape 6 RTM in a horribly buggy state WILL NOT HELP YOU. It will KILL your reputation.

At LEAST take the fixes that are already in hand. The users will find it rather hard to understand why you DIDN'T take a fix in hand for a bug that is now blocking what they need to do.

Jason Eager

November 6th, 2000 2:11 PM

Much as I would love to agree with you on this, and much as I have
pushed the same viewpoint in the past, I really can't. Don't get me
wrong, I think that Netscape 6.00 is going to suck and I will definitely
not be using it (I'll stick with M18 and later Moz0.9). In fact to some
extent I pity the people who will be.

But consider the alternative. The abomination that is Netscape 4.x has
been the scourge of web developers everywhere for far too long already.
There are major websites that I simply can't read because of it's
inability to gracefully handle a missing </table> tag. And as a website
developer, I'm completely fed up with having to write all my code twice
and knowing that what I come up with is *still* horrible, nonstandard
code because standards-compliant code simply won't work on Netscape 4.x.

I certainly hope that Netscape will be quick with 6.01, 6.02, 6.1,
6.5... releases and will promote them to hell and back. I hope that
reviewers won't be too harsh - or at least will note that this is a
product that was released too early, rather than one that shouldn't have
been released at all. I hope that this won't push people away from
Netscape, and I hope most of all that AOL don't pull funding from the
project just as it's getting good.

But I just can't stand the thought of another 3 months with 4.x as the
second most popular browser on the internet. Buggy standards support is
SO much better than the standards-destroying ugly mess that is 4.x. Let
it die now. Please.

PS Ironically, M18 crashed trying to post an earlier version of this... but I still find it more stable than 4.x ever was.

Stuart Ballard

November 6th, 2000 2:09 PM

Once again, the conflict of getting out a product quickly versus the desire to catch all the bugs rears its head. As a user of the Linux preview version of Netscape Navigator 6, I can tell you that I have run into many frustrating bugs in the latest edition.

I believe that Netscape's desire to rush to market is ill conceived. Although "rush" for a product that's been in development for what two years now might be a misnomer. Netscape must accept that it no longer has the "clout" that it once had in the browser arena and that its primary focus should therefore be on quality. The thing that makes most users angry is when a software company does not care about the quality of the product, but shoves it down the throat of users anyway. It sometimes works if you have a virtual monopoly in a certain area, but that is certainly not the case for Netscape. If Netscape does not feel that browsers represent a "profitable" area anymore, then that's fair. But in that case they should fully open Mozilla and let the open source community go at it.

Arthur Barlow

November 6th, 2000 2:03 PM

It's a darn shame that I have been forced to use IE as my standard now instead of NN which was my designing standard not too long ago. Navigator's handling of Cascading Style Sheets (CSS)--or should I say lack of handling--is my No.1 beef; a close second is Navigator's tendency to mess up tables which look find in IE and Opera. Plugin support isn't that good anymore as well.

Considering the way the AOL people design their software, I highly doubt that the Netscape situation will get any better. But I'm gonna' keep my fingers crossed.

Pande Wapenyi

November 6th, 2000 1:57 PM

Hi
I am in line with not to release it untill all bugs of concern fixed.

Alex Mesfin

November 6th, 2000 1:56 PM

I am a principal engineer in charge of getting our new HTML version of Developer 2000/Oracle*Forms working under Netscape 6. It already functions quite well under MSIE 5. Because of the lack of DOM functionality in Netscape 4, we have had to wait for Netscape 6, which purports to support most of DOM level 2. Another feature, present in Netscape 4, that is critical to our product is liveconnect -- being able to communicate both ways between JavaScript and Java.
Oracle products have long held to a tradition of open standards and being able to run on all major platforms. Along these lines, we hope to be able to run on the Netscape 6 browser. At this point, without the liveconnect functionality, we will not be able to progress any further in our NS 6 implementation.

I too would not like to see MSIE further subverting open standards. However, Netscape choosing not to provide a fully functional, production product in their initial release of Netscape 6 will most certainly help further Microsoft's destruction of open standards.

I strongly favor Netscape labeling this version Beta, re-examining and re-scheduling the production release to a time when they can provide the functionality we are all asking for. And they should do it ASAP.

Gary Kind

November 6th, 2000 1:54 PM

fuck a buggy browser ...been there, done that, downloaded the *update*

so, don't release until it's ready -- and rocks!!!

zillazilla

November 6th, 2000 1:52 PM

It's Nutscrape dimwit, not Netscrape. ;)

Seriously, I've put up with this Netscape inability crap for the last 6 years. Give all us developers/designers a damned break and impress us once by doing something right instead of half-assed.

Ben Prater

November 6th, 2000 1:52 PM

Netscape needs to learn that the key to a good release is not how fast they can get their browser out, but how well it supports standards. You would think that they had learned this by now. The holy grail of the web is a fully standards compliant browser. This is the superweapon in the browser wars. Once they have a browser that supports the standards, then and only then would it be appropriate to develop proprietary features. If they want to survive to 9.x or beyond, they better heed this petition.

Samuel Cormier

November 6th, 2000 1:49 PM

Don't do it, or I will never stop calling it Netscrape!

Anonymous Hero

November 6th, 2000 1:43 PM

Bug #40828 alone will break my code. I have a web application that currently requires IE, and bugs like this prevent us from allowing our users to use Netscape. I understand Netscape's desire to get it out the door but in our case, if it doesn't work right we can't use it.

dennis

November 6th, 2000 1:42 PM

Why is Netscape so determined to get it released sooner rather than later (and better)? The browser is already late. I'd wait an extra year if Netscape would put out a solid, complient product. If they want us to be loyal to them, then they need to be loyal to us.

Mark Ross

November 6th, 2000 1:42 PM

I remember back in 1994 or so when my mother first got her computer and an Internet account. I remember downloading Netscape for her (2.0?) and explaining all the browsing stuff to her. Netscape enjoyed over 80% market share then. I was proud to evangelize for Netscape. With the release of NN4 we saw what horrific things a marketing department with too much influence can do to a good product. NN4 has been an utter failure and continues to be the scurge of Web developers everywhere. Now, instead of evangelizing Netscape because of its superiority, I find myself defending Netscape only as the only viable alternative to Microsoft's attempt to subvert standards. I find myself telling people to hold on for Netscape 6 to see a *real* browser. Then Netscape back tracks on its promise to deliver a standards compliant browser and begins the process of locking out fixes for very important bugs.

Please Netscape wait. I know you won't, and you'll wonder why the Web community ridicules your product, but at least we can say we tried to tell you.

Jerry Baker

November 6th, 2000 1:41 PM

I'm in on the petition.

Jonathan Turner

November 6th, 2000 1:37 PM

The release of anything other than a rock-solid
standards-compliant product will be a near-final death-blow to a Netscape-branded browser.

Don't they get it ???

(I know, I know, that's a rhetorical question, they don't, but maybe they can wake up in time ....)

Stan Krute

November 6th, 2000 1:34 PM

First of all, I just want to say that Netscape 6.0 is really shitty. After downloading and trying out the beta version of Netscape 6.0 I decided not to go back with netscape. they try to incorporate the "cute" look of AOL into their browser and it just isn't working. people like the old browser where they have a lot more option to choose from rather that being stuck with the preset functions that netscape puts in there and there isn;t a easy way to get around it. all inall, I think they should really think about what they're doing

Peter

November 6th, 2000 1:23 PM

I'm sure Netscape is feeling the pressure to release something soon. However, may I point out that people regard the latest release as the current version. Once something else is released, the 4.7x versions will be regarded as out-of-date. People will then download NS 6 -- which has big performance deficiencies on anything but the absolutely fastest machines, plus the bugs that David mentions -- and promptly write off Netscape as a viable option in the browser world. Currently, I would think that Netscape would want to have the 4.7x versions continue to represent them rather than NS6 as currently planned.

-- Shane

Shane Iseminger

November 6th, 2000 1:02 PM

I downloaded Netscape 6 so I could have both browsers available to see how my pages displayed on both of the major ones. To my dismay, what appeared as I planned on IE 5.5 looked horrible on NS6. So I downloaded 4.7 and while the pages weren't perfect they looked a whole lot better than 6.0. Shouldn't the newest version be the best?? I'm extremely disappointed with NS6 and know I won't be using it unless they fix it up a lot. Also, there seem to be some problems with Composer... I had some trouble trying to get it to do some of the things I wanted. Maybe that's due to user error, but I'm pretty sure I was using it right and it just wasn't cooperating.

Michael

November 6th, 2000 1:01 PM

I agree with David's comments. Reconsideration of the release would be
advisable. I also worry that releasing such a buggy version of the browser
will drive some developers to build sites that are not just "best viewed with"
Internet Explorer--but rather "only viewed with". These standards are out
there to help prevent just such an outcome--please embrace them!

Marc Loy

November 6th, 2000 12:49 PM

(I wrote the following before reading your petition, so please consider
it's redundancy as an endorsement of your views)

Personally, the way I see it, things would be more appropriately named
if they called 6.0 "public preview" or something like that. I think
there is going to be a lot of broken stuff in it, and 53849 is just one
of them.

(See also 56430, where an example of where the reverse situation,
Javascript access to Java, fails whenever CODEBASE is set on the java
applet).

I may not have the weight of oracle behing my product, but I do have a
coupld of thousand users who won't be able to use Netscape 6 because
it's incompatible with NS4 and IE, etc.

It might turn out to be a perfectly suitable browser for "everyday
browsing", but from what I've seen, anyone that needs any kind of
advanced functionality will just need to wait for 6.1 or whatever.

Steve Kann

November 6th, 2000 12:37 PM

I, too, am alarmed at the number and severity of bugs that remain in Netscape 6, and these are not just problems with support for W3C standards. I consider even Netscape 6 Preview Release 3 too buggy to be usable, although I beta test most programs that I can. Many bugs that are currently being marked [rtm-] need to be fixed before this browser is widely used. I agree that the version currently referred to as RTM should be considered a beta version, and that Netscape should not be "released to manufacturing" until the major standards-conformance and most other major functionality bugs are fixed. I urge anyone who feels the same to go to http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/ and vote to have the worst bugs fixed.

Steve Chapel

November 6th, 2000 12:36 PM

Netscape has more than a few problems, and these go way back to the first releases of v4.

I definitely think they should fix ALL of the known bugs affecting standards compliance. The most frustrating thing about programming for web technologies are the various "takes" on standards. "I don't like that, so I'll do it my way...." Netscape has been one of the most frustrating technologies to program for (the virtual machine SUCKS!). I sincerely hope they will take this recommendation seriously.

P.S.

It's funny that they think it's a smart marketing decision to release the software quickly rather than to provide better software. I think they're in for more trouble in the long run if they don't do it right the first time. The worst thing you can do as a software provider is piss off the people writing the software for your platform/product. You would think people had learned this lesson by now....

Matt Dubord

November 6th, 2000 12:17 PM

The web is built on standards. Professional developers have already suffered mightily as a result of the lack of standards compliance in previous browsers. When will the pain end? Incidentally, I think this release should be called 5.0, whenever it happens.

Jim McNulty

November 6th, 2000 12:08 PM

I agree very strongly with David. Adherence to standards is the one trump card that will keep Netscape a viable alternative to Microsoft on the browser front. Now, I'm not saying that because I have anything against Microsoft, but because independent implementations of standards are a key element of what has made the Internet a success. It should be Netscape's highest priority to fix standards-related bugs. This will be good for Netscape and good for the internet.

Tim O'Reilly

November 6th, 2000 11:56 AM

The Netscape 4.x series has been so buggy that I haven't bothered touching them. They crash constantly and don't render HTML like they're supposed to.

Netscape 6.0 was supposed to be the cure.

C'mon Netscape, learn from your mistakes. Do it right the first time and save the patches.

Andrew

November 6th, 2000 11:47 AM

I agree whole-heartedly with David's comments. Please reconsider putting
this product out until these bugs are fixed.

Robert Eckstein

November 6th, 2000 11:15 AM

As an open source Web developer I strongly agree with David Flanagan. Netscape, this is your last best chance to remain viable to the community. We want you to succeed, but developers like me can only hang on for so long. Please, take David's advice and fix the bugs!

Steve Able

November 6th, 2000 10:34 AM

After writing this article, I've realized that one of the big reasons for
Netscape's rush to release Navigator 6.0 without bug fixes is that they
need to send the code out to be burned onto CDs. Given the buggy state of
6.0, the fact that it will be aggresively distributed to end-users through CDs
is even more dismaying, since it will undoubted reduce the distribution of
6.01 and later bug-fix releases!

Once again, a plea to Netscape: please be considerate of your developer
community and don't release a final version of Netscape until it has better standards support.

David Flanagan

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