|
|
|
|
|
History And Development Of Mozilla FirefoxThe Mozilla Firefox project began as an experimental branch of the Mozilla project by Dave Hyatt and Blake Ross. Going through chaotic name changes and development issues, Firefox 1.0 was eventually released on November 9, 2004. Firefox was originally developed to combat software bloat in the Mozilla Suite, and was eventually targeted to replace the Suite. Early beginnings: A pared-down browser Hyatt and Ross perceived the Mozilla browser project as being overly compromised by the commercial requirements of Netscape's sponsorship, as well as developer-driven feature creep. The pared-down Phoenix browser (as it was then called) was created to combat the perceived software bloat of the Mozilla Suite (codenamed and internally referred to as Seamonkey), which integrated features such as IRC, mail and news, and WYSIWYG HTML editing in one suite of software. The current lead developer of Firefox is Ben Goodger. Mozilla Firefox retains the cross-platform nature of the original Mozilla browser, using the XUL user interface language. Use of XUL makes it possible to extend the browser's capabilities through the use of themes (skins) and extensions. However, the development and installation processes of these add-ons raised security concerns, and with the release of Firefox 0.9, the Mozilla Foundation opened a Mozilla Update website containing "approved" themes and extensions. Use of XUL also sets Firefox apart from other projects based on Mozilla's Gecko layout engine, such as Galeon, Epiphany, K-Meleon, Camino, and most other browsers, which use interfaces native to their respective platforms (Galeon and Epiphany use GTK; K-Meleon uses Windows' MFC; and Camino uses Mac OS X's Cocoa). Many of these projects were started before Firefox, and probably served as inspiration. The first sign of a Firefox-like project was Raptor, a small application sample (presumably to demonstrate how to embed Gecko in another application) shipped with early milestone builds of Mozilla. Featuring only "back", "forward", and "stop" buttons and a URL field (no cache, no stored history, etc.), it was minimalistic and thus a lot lighter than Mozilla itself. Eventually, Raptor stopped shipping with Mozilla's binary builds. Firefox was intended to replace the Mozilla Suite for end users. Although the Mozilla Foundation had intended to make the Mozilla Suite obsolete and to replace it with Firefox, the Foundation continues to maintain the suite because it is used by many corporate users, and is bundled with other software. In an attempt to combat software bloat, the developers of the Mozilla Suite have stripped out several features and much of the interface. Further, many Mozilla Suite features (such as the IRC client) are now available as optional Firefox extensions. The official discussion forum for Mozilla Firefox is hosted by MozillaZine, a community site for Mozilla-related topics. MozillaZine is run by a group of individuals otherwise unaffiliated with the Mozilla Foundation. On February 5, 2004 the business and IT consulting company AMS categorized Mozilla Firefox (then Firebird) as a "Tier 1" (meaning "Best of Breed") open source product (Keating, 2004). This meant that AMS considered Firebird to be virtually risk-free and technically strong. Naming The project which became Firefox started as an experimental branch of the Mozilla Suite called m/b (or mozilla/browser). When sufficiently developed, binaries for public testing appeared in September 2002 under the name Phoenix. The Phoenix name was retained until April 14, 2003 when it was changed due to trademark issues with the BIOS manufacturer, Phoenix Technologies (who produce a BIOS-based browser). The new name, Firebird, was met with mixed reactions, particularly as some free database software carried the same name. In late April, following an apparent name change to Firebird browser for a few hours, the Mozilla Foundation issued an official statement which stated that the browser should always be referred to as Mozilla Firebird (as opposed to just Firebird) in order to avoid confusion with the Firebird database server. However, continuing pressure from the FLOSS community forced another change, and on February 9, 2004 (following consideration of a name change to Mozilla Browser) Mozilla Firebird was renamed Mozilla Firefox (or Firefox for short). The name, "Firefox", was chosen for its similarity to "Firebird", but also for its uniqueness in the computing industry. To ensure that no further name changes would be necessary, the Mozilla Foundation began the process of registering Firefox as a trademark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office in December 2003. http://tarr.uspto.gov/servlet/tarr?regser=serial&entry=78344043 However, the trademark process led to a further delay of several months in the release of Firefox 0.8 when the foundation realized that, in the UK, Firefox had already been registered as a trademark for browsers by the Charlton Group http://webdb4.patent.gov.uk/tm/number?detailsrequested=C&trademark=2007607; this was eventually resolved when the foundation was given a license to use Charlton's European trademark. The repeated renaming of the program prompted the development of the tongue-in-cheek extension "Firesomething" http://www.cosmicat.com/extensions/firesomething/, which allowed users to change the name of the browser. One feature randomly renamed the browser on startup, giving it such satirical soubriquets as "Firegiraffe" or "Moonbadger". Branding and visual identity right One of the most visible enhancements is the new visual identity of Firefox and Thunderbird. It is often argued that, as free software is typically only designed by programmers rather than graphic designers or usability gurus, it frequently suffers from poor icon and GUI design, and a lack of a strong visual identity. The early Firebird and Phoenix releases of Firefox were considered to have had reasonable visual designs, but were not up to the same standard as many professionally released software packages. In October 2003, professional interface designer, Steven Garrity, wrote a web page review of everything he considered to be wrong with Mozilla's visual identity. http://actsofvolition.com/steven/mozillabranding/ The page received a great deal of attention and was even slashdotted. Most of the criticisms leveled at the article were along the lines of "Where is the patch?", an open source way of saying "If you don't like it, fix it yourself." Shortly afterwards, Garrity was invited by the Mozilla Foundation to head up the new visual identity team. The release of Firefox 0.8 in February 2004 saw the introduction of the new branding efforts, including new icons designed by Jon Hicks, who had previously worked on Camino. http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk The animal shown in the logo is a stylized fox, although "firefox" is considered to be a common name for the red panda. Despite its name, the red panda is more closely related to the raccoon family then the panda family. The panda, according to Hicks, "didn't really conjure up the right imagery", besides not being widely known. http://www.hicksdesign.co.uk/journal/377/branding_firefoxindex.php Also, the logo was chosen for the purpose of making an impression, while still not "shouting" with overdone artwork. The logo had to stand out in the user's mind, be easy for others to remember, and stand out while not causing too much distraction when among other icons. Many designs were worked on until the current version was chosen. It is to be the final logo for the product, unless something unexpected happens. The Firefox icon is a trademark used to designate the official Mozilla build of the Firefox software. Although the core software is open source, the artwork (along with the quality feedback agent http://www.mozilla.org/quality/qfa.html and parts of the installer) is not freely licensed. For this reason, Debian and other software distributors who distribute patched or modified versions of Firefox are disallowed from using the icon. Debian's mozilla-firefox package uses a globe icon without the fox. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2004/02/msg01877.html Release history | colspan="3"|Key: | | tyle="white-space:nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;" width="33%" align="center"|Old Version | style="white-space:nowrap;background-color:#40CC40;" width="34%" align="center"|Current Version | style="white-space:nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;" width="33%" align="center"|Future Version | | Version | Codename | Release date | Significant changes | | owspan=5 valign=top|Phoenix | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.1 | Pescadero | style="white-space: nowrap;"| September 23, 2002 | First release. Customizable toolbar; quicksearch. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.2 | Santa Cruz | October 1, 2002 | Sidebar; Extension management. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.3 | Lucia | October 14, 2002 | Image blocking; Pop-up blocking whitelist; Tabbed browsing. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.4 | Oceano | October 19, 2002 | Themes; Pop-up blocking improvements; Toolbar customization. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.5 | Naples | December 7, 2002 | Multiple homepages; Sidebar and accessibility improvements; History | | owspan=4 valign=top| Mozilla Firebird | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.6 | Glendale | May 17, 2003 | New Default Theme (Qute); Bookmark and privacy improvements; Smooth scrolling; Automatic image resizing. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.6.1 | | July 28, 2003 | Bugfix release. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.7 | Indio | October 15, 2003 | Automatic scrolling; Password manager; Preferences panel improvements. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.7.1 | Three Kings | October 26, 2003 | Bugfix release (Mac OS X only). | | owspan=18 valign=top| Mozilla Firefox | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.8 | Royal Oak | February 9, 2004 | Windows installer; Offline working; Bookmarks and download manager improvements; Rebranded with new logo. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.9 | One Tree Hill | June 15, 2004 | New Default Theme (Winstripe); Comprehensive data migration; New extension/theme manager; Reduced download size; New help system; Linux installer; Mail Icon (Windows only). | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.9.1 | | June 28, 2004 | Bugfix release; updated default theme. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.9.2 | | July 8, 2004 | Vulnerability patch (Windows only). | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.9.3 | | August 4, 2004 | Vulnerability patch (All platforms). | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.10 (1.0 PR) | Greenlane | September 14, 2004 | ("Preview Release") Bugs with higher complexity/risk, localization impact. Added RSS/Atom feed support, find toolbar, plugin finder. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 0.10.1 | | October 1, 2004 | Vulnerability patch (All platforms). | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 1.0 RC-1 | Mission Bay | October 27, 2004 | First release candidate. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 1.0 RC-2 | Whangamata | November 3, 2004 | Second release candidate. | | tyle="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 1.0 | Phoenix | November 9, 2004 | Official Version 1.0 release. | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FF8080;"| 1.0.1 | Rose & Crown | February 24, 2005 | Stability and security improvements. | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#40CC40;"| 1.0.2 | March 23, 2005 | Stability and security improvements. | | lign="center" colspan="4"| Upcoming releases | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 1.0.3 | | April 2005 | Installer improvement (?) | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 1.1 Developer Preview | ??? | ??? 2005 | Non-Feature Complete Preview ("Alpha" in Old-Lingo). | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 1.1 Preview Release | ??? | ??? 2005 | Feature Complete ("Beta" in Old-Lingo). | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 1.1 | Deer Park | ??? 2005 | - Resync with the Mozilla development trunk (provides all the performance, stability and feature work from the trunk)
- Better Preferences (and other dialog types) on OS X and other platforms / Ongoing HIG compliance work for Aqua, GNOME, etc.
- Safari and other Mac profile migrators
- Macintosh Default browser/Shell integration work
- Various other Firefox bugfixes
Source: http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007240.html | | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 1.5 | "The Ocho" http://blakeross.com/index.php?p=24 | ??? 2005 | First major half of Firefox 2.0 development. - Accessibility improvements
- Support for wide-scale corporate/institutional deployment
| | align=top| Mozilla Firefox 2 | style="white-space: nowrap;background-color:#FFFF80;"| 2.0 | ??? | ??? 2005 | Second major half of 2.0 development. | Three Kings, Royal Oak, One Tree Hill, Mission Bay, and Greenlane are all suburbs in Auckland, New Zealand; Whangamata is a small seaside town in the Coromandel Peninsula in New Zealand. The codenames were chosen from these suburb names by Ben Goodger, who grew up in Auckland. The other codenames included in the Firefox roadmap are derived from an actual roadmap of a journey through California to Phoenix, Arizona. http://www.mozilla.org/projects/firefox/roadmap.html According to Ben Goodger, "Deer Park is not Deer Park, Victoria, but just a symbolic name. I was riding LIRR a few weeks ago and saw the name go by and I thought it sounded nice". Therefore, this is likely a reference to Deer Park, New York, a CDP on Long Island. Future development According to the roadmap, future Firefox development will be split over three milestones: version 1.1, version 1.5 and version 2.0. Development for these releases will take place on the Mozilla trunk, with a release coming off a branch http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/asa/archives/007168.html. Likely goals for Firefox http://wiki.mozilla.org/index.php/Firefox:2.0_PRD include: - New "Places" interface for Bookmark and History
- Tabbed Browsing improvements
- Specific options per-site
- Extension system enhancements
- Find Toolbar, Software Update, Search enhancements
- Accessibility compliance
- Download resuming, detection of signed exes
The next planned release is Firefox 1.1, which is targeted for June 2005. It is likely to implement a new Mac-like option interface with a "Sanitize" action to allow a person to clear their privacy related information without manually clicking the "Clear All" button. A user can clear all privacy related settings simply by exiting the browser or using a keyboard shortcut, depending on their settings. http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007150.html http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/ben/archives/007377.html Delicious delicacies Early Firefox releases featured an options menu that described cookies in the following way: "Cookies are delicious delicacies." The phrase was representative of the programmers' quirky sense of humor, and a general reflection of the open source movement's unconventional approach. The phrase became something of a cult legend, and was even featured in an O'Reilly computer book. However, in a reflection of the growing acceptance and use of the Firefox browser in mainstream Internet use the text now reads, "Cookies are pieces of information stored by web pages on your computer. They are used to remember login information and other data." The revision was regarded as more likely to be helpful for the less technically oriented computer users who were now using Firefox, representing Mozilla's desire to appeal to mainstream users. The original text was inserted by Blake Ross, one of the lead developers of Firefox, because, he says, "describing something so complicated in such a small space was quite frankly the last thing I wanted to worry about after rewriting the cookie manager." http://blakeross.com/index.php?p=24 It was replaced by Mike Connor. After this happened, the following remarks were made by Blake Ross over IRC: - <blake2> congratulations mconnor
- <blake2> you just destroyed a legend!
On August 22, 2004, version 0.1 of the Delicious Delicacies extension was released by Jesse Ruderman. This extension restores the old description of cookies. As of December 8, 2004, this extension is in version 0.4.2. http://www.squarefree.com/extensions/delicious-delicacies/ External links
|
 |
|
| Copyright 2005-2009 OnPedia.com. All Rights Reserved |
|
|