Microsoft invites Firefox development team to Redmond | The Coffeehouse

sbc
GW R/Me

http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/8/21/5065

Will 4 days be enough? Maybe if they manage to get the information they need.

As someone has stated in the comments, a possible downside (for some, but an upside for Microsoft), is that Vista API's would be used and thus require people to upgrade from XP.

Or is it just a PR stunt?

Sabot
My name is Dave Oliver. I'm a Technical Architect.

Nope it's not a PR stunt.

It's good business to work with competitors.

I like the idea that they are talking to other people.

In the UK, Microsoft UK HQ is on the same business park as Oracle UK HQ, both sets of employees catch the same free bus from the rail station.

It's business ... it's not personal. There is a difference.

Rowan
Look, no errors.

Gotta wonder how many people at MS use FF instead of IE, I wonder if Opera and Netscape have received similar invitations too.

Otherwise it sounds like a good thing, especially if it means the Firefox team will get some good tips and tricks for working with Vista. Obviously, MS gets to use this as a way to hype Vista for Firefox users, "Firefox works best on Vista, upgrade today!". Not that there's anything wrong with that.

mawcc
Make it so

I'm sure Charles will make a nice video of this.

sbc
GW R/Me

Rowan wrote:
Gotta wonder how many people at MS use FF instead of IE, I wonder if Opera and Netscape have received similar invitations too.

They are both proprietary (even though parts of Netscape are based on Firefox), so that is very unlikely to happen. Plus Netscape is a dying browser now (no major advantages over Firefox (which you can probably get through extensions anyway), plus it only works on Windows.

Another_Darren
... than you can shake a stick at

The developers of Firefox are developing a cross platform browser so they will not use Vista specific APIs. And if it's a PR stunt so what? Firefox still gets some help making it run great on Vista. I supect even if this did not happen there are some MS developers using Firefox that would have helped anyway Wink

Rossj

Don't some of the FF developers work for Google now? I forsee some chairs being broken.

sbc
GW R/Me

Rossj wrote:
Don't some of the FF developers work for Google now? I forsee some chairs being broken.

I know of two - Ben Goodger (lead programmer) and Darin Fisher (backend infrastructure). There is probably more though.

One of the biggest assets Firefox has is Brendan Eich - who invented LiveScript/JavaScript and is working on making JavaScript even better.

What I think would benefit everyone is if Microsoft implemented ECMA-357 (E4X) in a future IE (too late for IE 7). This would make working with XML in web pages so much easier. It could be a long time till that happens (as people move off older browser that don't support it/get syntax errors). XMLHttpRequest can only go so far, and this would make XML a first-class citizen.

eagle

Does AOL/Netscape have any link with Mozzila.org?

AndyC

It makes good business sense to do this. If Microsoft are to persuade the public that Vista is a safe, secure operating system they have got to reduce the potential avenues for malicious code to get into the system.

This, in effect, means that intenet facing apps have got to start providing a "protected mode" style interface and be easily updated from a user account which doesn't require full administrative privileges. Firefox fails miserably at both of those currently, but is still one of the most popular internet facing apps out there. Helping the Firefox team to play better with the OS will ultimately make Vista a better, more attactive product to consumers.

W3bbo
The Master of Baiters

sbc wrote:
I know of two - Ben Goodger (lead programmer) and Darin Fisher (backend infrastructure). There is probably more though.

How much of a "lead programmer" is he? Does he just work on Firefox, but also Gecko? Or does "Firefox" also include Gecko?

sbc
GW R/Me

W3bbo wrote:

sbc wrote:I know of two - Ben Goodger (lead programmer) and Darin Fisher (backend infrastructure). There is probably more though.

How much of a "lead programmer" is he? Does he just work on Firefox, but also Gecko? Or does "Firefox" also include Gecko?

Mostly UI related - but also worked on the extension system, software update and data migration (bookmarks, cookies etc). I think he has the final say on what is or is not implemented in Firefox. From: About Ben Goodger.

Cybermagellan
Live for nothing, or die for everything

eagle wrote:
Does AOL/Netscape have any link with Mozzila.org?

The majority of the devs (That are employees) came from AOL...

Asa Dotzler
Joe Hewitt (I work on a project he developed while here)

The workstation I'm sitting in is filled with Mozilla stickers I prefer not to scrape off...

I work with the guy who has the licence plate Mozilla here in Arizona (And has it in his workstation and still contributes code to it)

I work with the woman who used to be the Lead QA Engineer for Netscape

And then whatever code ported over....

rjdohnert
You will never know success until you know failure

The main advantage to Netscape 8 is that it can also render in the IE engine as well as gecko, so compatibility is not lost. Take away the IE rendering and all you have is Firefox with some eye candy. I did tell one of the Netscape guys about a year ago that they should release a Netscape 8 for Linux and Mac OS X, if for nothing else but exposure. As you can see, they havent budged

sbc wrote:

Rowan wrote:Gotta wonder how many people at MS use FF instead of IE, I wonder if Opera and Netscape have received similar invitations too.

They are both proprietary (even though parts of Netscape are based on Firefox), so that is very unlikely to happen. Plus Netscape is a dying browser now (no major advantages over Firefox (which you can probably get through extensions anyway), plus it only works on Windows.

Sven Groot
My name has 9 letters. Coincidence? I think not...

rjdohnert wrote:
The main advantage to Netscape 8 is that it can also render in the IE engine as well as gecko, so compatibility is not lost.