"Mozilla not fit for general use"

February 12, 2005 3:44 AM

Does the "Mozilla not fit for general use" FPP count as a self-link? It only calls out a single bug, which the author has commented on several times. For that matter, I don't think a layout bug is usually worthy of a FPP.
posted by grouse to Etiquette/Policy at 3:44 AM (35 comments total)

I thought the same thing. Perhaps it would be better as an Ask question: "I have a problem with Mozilla that prevents my office from using it. What would be the best way to get it resolved?"

And then on the inside more explanantion. However I'm not too sure the aim of the FPP is to resolve the problem or just vent off some steam.
posted by sebas at 3:52 AM on February 12, 2005

Nuh i dont think so, its a serious issue that effects a lot of people, its something that ive been thinking about for a while and wondering what the hell is going on, no one has a solution. No one is activly saying "Sure ill fix it!"
posted by leighm at 4:05 AM on February 12, 2005

It also reflects an interesting mind-set in the opensource community that you can just fix-it-yourself, which you cant. I think these issues need to be brought to light for everyone to read, its not fair that people should be bombarded with advertising that firefox/mozilla is so good, yet there are actually some serious problems that you cant use it a lot of home/office situations
posted by leighm at 4:07 AM on February 12, 2005

Whatever. That's not the question at hand. You seem to be a little unclear on the stated purpose of metafilter, leighm.

And I say that as someone who commented in that thread.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 4:12 AM on February 12, 2005

I think the main problem with the post is the manner in which it was framed. leighm is right that there are issues with Mozilla et. al. (and the open source community in general) that need to be discussed but I don't think he effectively made that point. By focusing on a relatively small bug that he has shown to have a personal interest in, it is easy to get the impression that he mostly just venting and not pointing out this mind-set that the open source community seems to have.
posted by panoptican at 4:13 AM on February 12, 2005

panoptican: That's exactly the impression I got.
posted by grouse at 4:20 AM on February 12, 2005

My purpose is to just direct some attention to atleast one bug that effects a lot of people, and that mozilla printing engine isnt as "robust" ? as others, i never mentioned IE!
Maybe this kind of talk, could help towards raising the attention to finding the people to get it fixed
posted by leighm at 4:26 AM on February 12, 2005

leighm: The bug is, as stated in the bug you linked to, and as I mentioned in your thread on MeFi, with the layouting engine. NOT with the printing engine.
posted by slater at 4:32 AM on February 12, 2005

But the layout effects printing? the problem is still the same
posted by leighm at 4:35 AM on February 12, 2005

Hi. This is not best of web.

And also, /. called.
posted by drpynchon at 4:40 AM on February 12, 2005

Did you see his weblog? It's a little obsessive, I think. Mozilla needs a restraining order.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:53 AM on February 12, 2005

This should never have been a FPP. If everyone were to post the one Mozilla bug that irks them the most, well, MeFi would end up being Bugzilla.
posted by digiboy at 4:54 AM on February 12, 2005

My purpose is to just direct some attention to atleast one bug that effects a lot of people

And you're being called out on using mefi as a forum to grind this axe. And what digiboy said.
posted by jperkins at 5:16 AM on February 12, 2005

the bug's easy to work around ... it's hardly worth this much fuss
posted by pyramid termite at 5:22 AM on February 12, 2005

Mozilla punched my mom in the face once. I will never forgive the open source community for that.
posted by Josh Zhixel at 5:26 AM on February 12, 2005

It also reflects an interesting mind-set in the opensource community that you can just fix-it-yourself, which you cant.

So what? What this means is that the people who are capable of fixing this bug don't find it enough of an annoyance to spend time and energy fixing it. If it's keeping businesses from adopting mozilla then that would imply that the businesses are actively trying to switch. That's great, the businesses have a handful of choices:

1. Use Internet Explorer. In this case you've made the decision that security is less of a concern than printing.
2. Lobby to get it fixed. You've done that. Whining on the wrong public forum is only trying to rub the developers nose in shit.
3. Get somebody inhouse to fix it. This will only work of course if you're working at a technical company or have a couple of geeks on staff but it's an option. You're using, or at least trying to use the browser which is supplied for free. Giving back to the community is good.
4. Pay somebody to fix the bug. There are places where you can pony up dollars to get Open Source bugs fixed. I doubt that you're talking about a lot of money.

posted by substrate at 5:27 AM on February 12, 2005

A bug complaint is not best of the web.

Then again, I'm glad it was posted because it led to the distinct pleasure of seeing grouse posting in metatalk.
posted by CunningLinguist at 5:31 AM on February 12, 2005

You know, I used this username for years before anyone thought of it meaning anything other than a bird.
posted by grouse at 5:44 AM on February 12, 2005

Thumbs down to the post. This post reminds me of a school district MIS guy who pulled all the Macs in the district because "no one uses macs anymore." Then he swore that Frontpage was the only good software to design a website.
posted by drezdn at 6:17 AM on February 12, 2005

This is a rotten post. This person appears to be trying to use MeFi as a bully pulpit to harrass the developers of Mozilla/Gecko to look at this problem.

If that isn't an abise of MeFi then I honestly don't know what is. I mean what next, "I bought a printer from Shop X and now it doesn't work. Shop X sucks!"
posted by dodgygeezer at 6:58 AM on February 12, 2005

I thought it was a great post. Passionate and interesting.
posted by Mean Mr. Bucket at 7:04 AM on February 12, 2005

WhinerFilter.
posted by tommasz at 7:13 AM on February 12, 2005

There's a major bug in leighm's tact engine
posted by Mick at 7:21 AM on February 12, 2005

CL, I was thinking the same thing.
posted by caddis at 7:23 AM on February 12, 2005

I thought it was a great post. Passionate and interesting.

Because you've suffered from the same bug, per your comment in the thread. Remember it's a logical error to argue from the specific to the general; your suffering doesn't inherently make the bug a good post. Bits and pieces of what would be a good post are found in the thread and this one, but they were extrapolated from the post by people other than the poster.
posted by yerfatma at 7:32 AM on February 12, 2005

First of all, the post just plain sucked. It's bad enough that we have political AgendaFilter so much here, but tech AgendaFilter takes the cake. That post is so bad I wish it could be deleted twice.

Second, it's a bug in a piece of open source software. Yeah, it sucks that it affects you, but you can't force developers working for free to do what you want. They have their own priorities. As everyone else says, if you're so hot on it, find the means to fix it yourself.

Third, this is a printing bug most commonly from sites created in PageSpinner? Meanwhile, IE exploits continually pop up that allow people to execute malicious code on users' computers. Your sense of "fit for use" is way out of whack.
posted by mkultra at 8:02 AM on February 12, 2005

grouse has it.
posted by ontic at 8:08 AM on February 12, 2005

I think there was a good idea for a post in there somewhere behind the obsessiveness about the one bug. There could've been a good discussion about open source, disinterest in fixing what a perceieved to be minor bugs, and difficulties in getting offices and less computer-inclined people to switch browsers. But, this post failed to make that discussion.

What makes a good post is also in how you're able to create discussion on it. If you are labeled a troll or a whiner by more than a few people in your thread, then there was a problem with how the post was worded or the tone. You have to tailor it to your audience and that's why this failed.

The post should go, sure. But I assume you're kidding about banning, trharlan.
posted by Arch Stanton at 8:21 AM on February 12, 2005

Hell, no! Ban'em all!
posted by graventy at 8:42 AM on February 12, 2005

Well it's gone.

This person just joined the other day and has only posted on this one ax grinding topic, so no great loss to him/her or us if banned.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:08 AM on February 12, 2005

Erm, the other month. I'm also still writing 04 on my checks.
posted by CunningLinguist at 9:09 AM on February 12, 2005

mozilla turned me into a newt !
posted by sgt.serenity at 10:05 AM on February 12, 2005

I'm guessing you got better.
posted by DaShiv at 5:22 PM on February 12, 2005

Wow, that's so funny. I can tell you that he cares much, much more than the ESPN guys do, and, with the proper medication, firefox would probably work just fine.
posted by milovoo at 12:47 PM on February 13, 2005

Did you see his weblog? It's a little obsessive, I think. Mozilla needs a restraining order.
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:53 AM PST on February 12

Click on "Hire Me." I think there's a sense of humor lurking in there somewhere. Let's get a search party together and see what we can do!
posted by nequalsone at 9:10 AM on February 16, 2005