• Nat Torkington over at O’Reilly Radar want Mozilla to reverse its course on XULRunner. I’m confused. He seems to be implying that it should be dropped. shaver has already called him on it in the comments.
• What has happened to MozPad. The initial enthusiasm and burst of action has evaporated. I hold my hands up as guilty of letting the momentum drop … must follow up in the appropriate channels about this.
• If you missed my previous post about FOSDEM 2008, head on over to the Wiki to find out more. I’m wishing Gerv a speedy recovery in time.
• Is it just me, or are the prices at the Mozilla International Store outrageous?! € 68.06 for a messenger bag, which does not include shipping which appears to run and around another € 20 per kg. I’m sure the goods are good, but are they that good?
• Last night at a hair salon art studio(!) opening in Ljubljana, I was catching up with my friend Luka Frelih from Ljudmila. He is blown away by the speed of Firefox 3. So am I. Among the many interesting things he is working on, OpenStreetMap stood out.

Under the umbrella of mozpad.org and with the ultimate goal being to “make the platform better”, here is a proposal to get to grips with these patches and make the process easier for developers.

[Below copied from original proposal. Feedback welcome.]

Current Short Description

Compile a list of work on the platform being done by various third parties and Mozilla itself in order to identify areas of overlap and possible cooperation. Gather core changes that have already been implemented, merge them, file bugs and propose patches.

Why

There are a number of reasons for consumers of the platform to cooperate on technical issues, including:
  * Avoid duplication of work
  * Prompt debate on what should and should not be in the platform, i.e. identify niche fixes that are only valuable to a particular application vs. any application
  * Sharing of knowledge and code, in the spirit of the openness of the Mozilla project
  * Putting more weight behind patches in Bugzilla could speed up review/check-in process
  * And ultimately … TO MAKE THE PLATFORM BETTER

How

  – Identify vendors and individuals using XULRunner to develop their applications. Compile a list (such lists exist elsewhere, but are incomplete/outdated).
  – Contact these people (either individually or in a batch) soliciting feedback on this issue and whether they are willing to take part.
  – Possibly provide a forum such as a mailing list, or use existing channels such as the mozilla.dev.platform list. A semi-private forum might help reduce the noise and provide focus for the initial gathering of information.
  – Compile the list of core patches, and what features/bugs they are fixing.
  – Merge (idenitfy overlap) / File Bugs / Attach patches

TODO

  – Identify if the build systems and installers used for these applications is under the remit of this task. Each application has its own deployment needs, so moving towards a single build model on each platform might not be practical.

On the subject of Mozdev, after a lengthy selection process, we have hired new application developer to add more features to the site and provide more services to our ever loyal project owners. David has already introduced Doug Warner, and I have nothing to add except to thank the other board members (esp. David, Myk Melez and Eric Jung) for their tireless work in filling the position. So as we move forward, I invite you to review our current roadmap, and please let us know what other features you would like to see.

[If you are wondering about the post title, head on over to http://www.alliswell.com/ to discover one of David's other talents]