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[News] Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost.ANN.lu
Posted on 18-Dec-2003 08:51 GMT by Bill Panagouleas43 comments
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A former Netscape Executive (wants to remain anonymous for now) just gave the AmiZilla project a $2000 boost. He is a long time Amiga user and still uses WinUAE and the Video Toaster Flyer a lot. He contacted me and wanted to match the $2000 I used to start the AmiZilla Project. www.amizilla.org
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 1 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Emeric SH on 18-Dec-2003 08:12 GMT
The bounty is pretty tempting...
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 2 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by freaks on 18-Dec-2003 08:20 GMT
booty is now 6200$ ! excellent :)


i know i'm lazy, i still didn't created a paypal account and donnated a bit for the amizilla project..
but then, i was thinking:
it would be nice if ressellers could team up with such projects, for now amizilla or even future projects like this one, with money to win, for couragous developpers..

- when i'll buy myself extra ram, or a new hdd at my usual amiga dealer, it would be nice if i could tell him, hey please, could you put 1 or 2$ too on that project? ( amizilla or whatever project..)

i found this system of projects sponsorised by ourselves, amigan and morphos users a good idea... it make us automomn . we aren't forced to wait for an hypothetic compagny to come and wait again for release of a commercial product. we could "do it ourselves" by motivating developpers this way..

this kind of system, would have been useful, way back in 1998-2002
when things for us were put in sleep mode..

what do you say?
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 3 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Ferry on 18-Dec-2003 08:22 GMT
Hi, Bill, these are very good news!!

What's the current state of the project? If possible, a monthly or bi-monthly progress report on Amizilla page would be nice, so we all know how it is doing.

Saluditos,

Ferrán.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 4 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Matt Parsons on 18-Dec-2003 08:52 GMT
That's nice :-)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 5 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 18-Dec-2003 09:18 GMT
In reply to Comment 2 (freaks):
I'd say that we had to experience this desperate situation before taking such desperate measures. Not that "bounty ports" would be a bad thing nor that I think this kind of thing would only be for desperate situations, I'm merely concluding that this idea, like so many other great ideas, was born out of the need for it.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 6 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Sven Luther on 18-Dec-2003 09:23 GMT
What about extending the bounty for projects like flash/realplayer/java support, and other such non strictly browser things that are needed for a good browsing experience nowaday.

Friendly,

Sven Luther
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 7 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Panagouleas on 18-Dec-2003 09:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 6 (Sven Luther):
Those are the next projects after the Mozilla port. Please see



http://www.discreetfx.com/AmiZillaFAQ.htm
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 8 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 18-Dec-2003 09:35 GMT
People who want to quit smoking can use the money they'd usually buy cigs for and put in the fund - then they won't have cigarettes and the money goes to a good cause ;)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 9 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 18-Dec-2003 09:50 GMT
Do I remember rightly that this bounty was extended to cover any fully featured, up to date browser for Amiga? - not just a port of Mozilla.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 10 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 18-Dec-2003 10:14 GMT
In reply to Comment 8 (Anonymous):
Donating money wouldn't make the addiction disappear. So, unless they donate all the money they have, they would still be buying ciggarettes. I recommend getting out of the habit first, which is not done over a day, I'm afraid.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 11 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by AmizillaCousin on 18-Dec-2003 11:39 GMT
In reply to Comment 3 (Ferry):
Summary of Amizilla mailing list for October:

1 off-topic post
1 post asking if the project is alive

Summary of Amizilla mailing list for November:

12 posts about someone "joining the team"
1 post introducing someone as a new member of the team
4 posts about compiler problems, no real conclusion

Summary of Amizilla mailing list for December:

1 post, from Bill P, announcing the extra $2000
=====

You can also check the href="http://amizilla.sourceforge.net/">Amizilla Sourceforge site</a> and the associated CVS repository. There was some activity back in July.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 12 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by spotUP on 18-Dec-2003 11:41 GMT
Status of the project... I have been checking out their mailinglist for a while, and the mailinglist is pretty much dead, and there are not much dev talk
on it.. :( :( :( Conclusion, if those working on the project aint communicating with each other I can hardly believe that they are making much progress...

They could be communicating via private e-mails and such.. but..
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 13 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Ferry on 18-Dec-2003 12:03 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (AmizillaCousin):
Thanks for the info. Anyway, there's another possibility for such a low activity on lists: competition, and involved teams not wanting to let other teams to know how far or close to completion they are. At least, I hope so... ;¬)

Saluditos,

Ferrán
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 14 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 18-Dec-2003 12:05 GMT
In reply to Comment 11 (AmizillaCousin):
at least someone try to make a report, it was long time awaited
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 15 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by ece on 18-Dec-2003 12:52 GMT
This is good news! Eventually there´s going to be enough money for a skilled coder to pick it up and join some mates.

We must give it some time, it won´t happen over a night though.

Ps. I wonder if all the good coders in the eastern parts of Europe is aware of this?

6000$ isn´t much money for a guy in England, US, or Norway for this kind of project.
But it´s still a shitload of money for a Polish or Baltic guy.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 16 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by redrumloa on 18-Dec-2003 14:10 GMT
$6200? That's approaching a real nice sum of money! Aren't there some real competent coding teams out there in poorer countries who'd love to have a booty like this? I keep hearing about cheap India IT labor, and we know Petro sold a bunch of Amigas to India.. Any chance of any coding groups in India? ;-)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 17 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Zylesea on 18-Dec-2003 14:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 16 (redrumloa):
I think for India we would be in need to donate them an Amiga like system for development.
Well, UAE or Amithlon should make this job. I was sometimes thinking that e.g. India would be
a possibility to let create new SW for some little money. Programer work is cheap there, my brother used to let code some (Windows) application in India, it was only about some (~5) thousand Euros.
The app was not mozilla, but not trival anyway.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 18 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by MarkTime on 18-Dec-2003 14:41 GMT
rock on.

that's cool, so who is it, is it Marc Andreeson...woo hoo
naa, if it was Marc, it probably wouldn't be worth his time to write a check
for less than 20,000 and besides, he thinks browser innovation is dead.

Anyway, this is great, given enough bounty, I'm sure someone will do a port someday...can't wait.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 19 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Targhan on 18-Dec-2003 15:37 GMT
Wow! That bounty is turning into some real cash!
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 20 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by brotheris on 18-Dec-2003 16:25 GMT
Personaly I don't believe it'll come, but that is just my oppinion. I hope I am wrong.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 21 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Darth_X on 18-Dec-2003 17:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 5 (samface):
I'd say that we had to experience this desperate situation before taking such desperate measures. Not that "bounty ports" would be a bad thing nor that I think this kind of thing would only be for desperate situations, I'm merely concluding that this idea, like so many other great ideas, was born out of the need for it.

Is Samface offering to fund a complete port or am I reading into this? ;)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 22 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Joe "Floid" Kanowitz on 18-Dec-2003 18:01 GMT
In reply to Comment 9 (Don Cox):
Don Cox said,

> Do I remember rightly that this bounty was extended to cover any fully
> featured, up to date browser for Amiga? - not just a port of Mozilla.

Quoting from the site:

Peter Gordon said; "These funds should also be made available for the first person/team to get a browser with GOOD support for DHTML, XHTML, CSS, and a current version of Flash! That way we are giving the IBrowse, AWeb and Voyager teams an incentive." Should Peter's plan be put into action or should these funds stay reserved for Mozilla only? Make your voice heard send an e-mail to amizillafund AT discreetfx.com

So apparently it's been left up in the air. Obviously, tagging individual donations (especially as the whole site/fund-management project seems a little less than automated) for 'Gecko-only,' 'Full Moz,' or 'Any browser' would get a little fragmented... But it seems like any *open source* browser approaching the functionality of, say, Konqueror/Safari, would be A Hell of a Lot Better than what we have now, and a platform to potentially wedge all this wished-for Flash support into. (That requirement would seem to be a bit of a joykill for most developers... To support 'a current version of' Flash, you basically have to get Macromedia's blessing, or write an entire ABI wrapper to emulate a platform they *have* released Flash for...)

--

My suggestion: Pick a stance, any stance (full Moz, any open-source browser, any browser at all...), and stick with it. If people don't agree, there's no reason someone else can't come along to host a related bounty for the alternate perspective (GPL-only or commercialware-included), and presumably a team working on the ziggurat that is full Moz would gain the possibility of cashing in on both. :)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 23 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by John on 18-Dec-2003 21:01 GMT
Massive project and with $6200 up for grabs no serious programmer would do it for such a tiny sum of money and especially for a dead market, you might aswell face it, the junk Amiga browsers are here to stay.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 24 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by ikir on 18-Dec-2003 21:16 GMT
Nice news! Thanks to the donator :)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 25 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Aargh on 18-Dec-2003 21:30 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (John):
"...the junk Amiga browsers are here to stay."

That's a bit unfair. The Amiga browsers might be limited, but they are quite useable and far from junk. Do you think badmouthing the efforts of the programmers is going to make the browsers better? Would you prefer no Amiga browsers at all?
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 26 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by ece on 19-Dec-2003 00:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 23 (John):
As I said earlier in this thread: 6200$ is still a shitload of money for an eastern Europe fellow. (atleast before they join EC and EU and boost up the exchange rates)

It equals payment for some years of labour...

Hard to say if it´s any skilled AOS coders left in those countries. There once was at least in Poland...

Ratings:
487 USD in Poland
354 USD in Tjeckia
307 USD in Hungary
273 USD in Slovakia
130 USD in Romania
39 USD in Ukraine

per month in 2001.
ex: 6200$ in Slovakia is equal to around 22 month of hard work...

Btw, that Petunia coder... Wasn´t he from Hungary? That would be a proof of skilled coders still left in east Europe ?!? well at least one =)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 27 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Dec-2003 02:24 GMT
Hate to break your salary claims but $6000 would get me going for 3 months at most and I am badly paid... in Hungary and IT sector. The money might be fine for a janitor, not an IT professional over here.
If I'd pay taxes for that money - as I should - that could easily be just a few weeks.
Don't know about the rest of the countries cited, maybe this is true there, but don't get your hopes very high...
If anyone professional is going to work on this it wouldn't be for the money no matter where he comes from until the booty reaches at least $50K, as this work will take quite some time to finish. And a professional programmer will not work on a hope of getting some money in the end, but strictly contractual with well laid out terms, milestone payments and so on.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 28 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by ece on 19-Dec-2003 02:55 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (Anonymous):
Oh man, hope I didn´t offend you!

Anyway, who´s talking about a professional team of coders ? I didn´t.
The chanses of getting a company to port mozilla for 6000$ in any country is as likely as getting opera ported for 6000$ = n/a, zero.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 29 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Dec-2003 03:20 GMT
In reply to Comment 28 (ece):
No, you actually made me laugh big time, so problem at all.
I just wanted to put some real numbers into there as someone who actually knows for sure.

Unfortunately as I pointed out this kind of money is weak even for one (professional IT) person, not a whole team pretty much anywhere in the world these days.
Just maybe not in say Russia, but if I say that I am making a wrong assumption that could be just as close to reality as yours (ie completely wrong). So let's just say I do not know about those countries.
And even in China and India you are likely to pay between $10-20k/year for an average guy, and the IT sector has the lowest wages there, that's why the US jobs are getting outsourced - in a very bad way imho, but that is a completely different topic and not for ann.

So as we both said until some miracle happens and the money goes quite a bit higher, pretty much anyone will do it for love, not money.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 30 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Chain|Q on 19-Dec-2003 04:02 GMT
In reply to Comment 22 (Joe "Floid" Kanowitz):
Peter Gordon said; "These funds should also be made available for the first person/team to get a browser with GOOD support for DHTML, XHTML, CSS, and a current version of Flash!

Flash... People, let's face it, good flash support will never come to Amiga, at least not in the foreseeable future. Macromedia will never do it, and 3rd party libs are simply useless or not good enough. There is not even good Flash support for PowerPC Linux, just because Macromedia only releases their closed-source libs for x86... Even the OS/2 version of Flash 7 is ready, but can't be released for months, (it was done by Innotek, a german company specialised for Win32->OS/2 portings) because Macromedia is refused to allow an official release based on their code.

This happens when such closed source sh*t becomes defacto standard... So in fact, when i'm saying Amiga doesn't support Flash, i think it's an advantage!

I think, according to the community's current possibilities, HTML4 and CSS2 support should be enough in an updated version of AWeb and/or IBrowse.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 31 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 19-Dec-2003 08:57 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Chain|Q):
"I think, according to the community's current possibilities, HTML4 and CSS2 support should be enough in an updated version of AWeb and/or IBrowse."

You will be completely locked out of some sites if you don't have a current version of Flash.

Also, from what I see, one of the most popular web activities is playing pool on a web site.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 32 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Treke on 19-Dec-2003 10:31 GMT
In reply to Comment 27 (Anonymous):
Have to agree ... same here in slovakia.

@ece:
Your numbers are not valid for year 2003 (at least not here in capital city).
If you want an experienced programmer, you have to pay him MUCH better the 273 USD per month. And if the experienced programmer can do this port in 3-4 months and he wants to take the risk that someone GRABS the bounty after 2 or 3 months of his hard work, THEN it is MAYBE feasible to take the challenge for that bounty.
Given the size of the project and the 3-4 man-months, it seems , it is not possible.
The bounty is simply wery small, even for former-east european countries, to take it for full-time.

re

Treke
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 33 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Chain|Q on 19-Dec-2003 11:00 GMT
In reply to Comment 31 (Don Cox):
"You will be completely locked out of some sites if you don't have a current version of Flash."

I know, but since i'm already locked out, at least it doesn't gets worse. :/

And because the reasons i described above, Flash support is _NOT_ a reachable target for Amiga browsers in the near future. HTML4 and CSS2 is. So i only recommended something reachable, what we should look for and do it for, instead of dreaming about something unreachable (again see the reasons above, before saying i'm wrong).
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 34 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by John on 19-Dec-2003 11:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 25 (Aargh):
Amiga browsers are just utter rubbish compared the rest of the computing world, i admire anyone (STILL) developing Amiga software but when something is rubbish it is better for people to say it is rubbish than lie to make developers happy.

Again my comments was on the browsers not personal attacks against developers which you trying to make out.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 35 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by priest on 19-Dec-2003 12:13 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (John):
Windows browsers are rubbish!

Well, that had to be said.

(Amiga browsers might be egually rubbish, but on different things. They do have one KILLER feature, though, they run on Amigas.)
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 36 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by samface on 19-Dec-2003 14:29 GMT
In reply to Comment 30 (Chain|Q):
AFAIK, Amiga Inc has a license for porting Macromedia's Shockwave/Flash player. Even though it means Amiga Inc. will have to do it themselves, I wouldn't say "never".
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 37 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Dec-2003 14:53 GMT
In reply to Comment 36 (samface):
McEwen was either lying or he was really talking about a *possibility* of *someone* porting the open source Flash v4-compatible player. Just a misunderstanding, unintentional or not.

IIRC he once said something vague along the lines of "Flash? We've got that." Your conclusion that ainc would have a license from Macromedia is amusing.

Nobody has a license from Macromedia to port their proprietary/commercial code to anything, at least not a pissant company like ainc without any commercially viable product.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 38 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Dec-2003 16:51 GMT
In reply to Comment 37 (Anonymous):
AFAIK that's how the IBrowse team is going to add Flash support into IBrowse 2.4, by using the source code provided by Macromedia to A.inc..
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 39 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 19-Dec-2003 17:43 GMT
In reply to Comment 38 (Anonymous):
No.

I've seen some people on eg. ANN wonder why IB can't use that alleged license/sourcecode of ainc's. I've also seen people speculate wildly on a Flash plugin for IB because of McEwen's (or was it Moss'?) nonsense. Maybe this is what's confusing you?

If ainc has been "provided" with any Macromedia sourcecode, it's because they've downloaded the free v4 player source. The usual kind of ainc "partnership".
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 40 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Don Cox on 19-Dec-2003 17:49 GMT
In reply to Comment 34 (John):
"Amiga browsers are just utter rubbish compared the rest of the computing world"

The parts of IBrowse that work are IMO excellent. Other parts, especially CSS, are just not there at all. If they can be completed to the same standard, we will have a good browser.

As it is, IBrowse is a pleasure to use on most sites, and a pain on sites based on Flash or CSS or Java applets.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 41 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Bill Panagouleas on 20-Dec-2003 03:11 GMT
He changed his mind about donating $2000, now instead he wanted to match the original booty amount before his bid ($4205.61). Now because of his revised donation the booty is over $8400.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 42 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by Anonymous on 20-Dec-2003 13:04 GMT
Of all the hundreds of sites I have seen I have never found any good or even reasonably good ones that use Flash, Java, ActiveX, etc. They're a waste of bandwidth.
Former Netscape Executive gives Amizilla a boost. : Comment 43 of 43ANN.lu
Posted by JoannaK on 20-Dec-2003 21:06 GMT
In reply to Comment 42 (Anonymous):
Only good use for Flash that I have seen are those various Animation sites that use Flash... Beoynd that .. those features are quite useless..
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